Making Sense - Sam Harris - #27 — Ask Me Anything 3

In this episode, I answer a question from a reader about whether I think Douglas Murray is a bigot, and how we should treat far-right bigots in the context of Islamism. I also discuss the term "racist" and "bigotry" in relation to Islamism, and the role of women in that context, and why they should be treated with the same care as men in such matters. And I answer some more questions from you, the listeners. Links From This Episode: Making Sense All Previous Podcast Episodes Free Training From The Nation Leave Us a Review On Apple Podcasts Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel Learn more about our sponsorships and become a supporter of Making Sense by becoming a patron of the podcast. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. Please consider becoming a supporter by becoming one! You'll get access to our premium memberships, unlimited ad-free listening, unlimited access to all our premium features, and access to the podcast's most popular shows, including "Making Sense". and "The Making Sense Podcasts". Thanks to our sponsor, VaynerMedia, for sponsoring the podcast and supporting the podcast with a discount code: MINDING MESINGLES. I'll be happy to hear the first part of this conversation on the next full-length episode of the Making Sense podcast, coming soon! I'm looking forward to the second part of the full episode on the full of this podcast, which will be available on the making sense podcast! I hope you enjoy what you're listening to it! of the show! . - Sam Harris, Sam Harris Make Sense? -- I'm making sense of it all! -- Thank you, Sam, I'll talk to you, too, Sarah, Sarah Sarah, and I'll see you soon. -- Thank you! -- Sarah, Amy, Sarah's Answer Me Anything? -- Please write in the next one, by: Sarah, -- My thoughts on what you think of it? , and I'm listening to this podcast? Sarah's answer to this, and Sarah's thoughts on it, and you'll be helping me decide what you like it, too? -- I'll let me know what you would like to hear it out in the comments section?

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.

00:00:08.820 This is Sam Harris.

00:00:10.880 Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber

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00:00:46.900 Okay, well this is going to be an Ask Me Anything podcast.

00:00:50.020 I had an interview with Mariam Namazi that got postponed.

00:00:53.840 That will happen, probably in a few weeks.

00:00:56.900 And I'm looking forward to that.

00:00:59.320 And so I've got your questions here coming in from Twitter and email.

00:01:04.920 Actually, the first one is on something related to Mariam Namazi.

00:01:09.140 I'll just deal with that only to postpone it, really.

00:01:12.740 But many of you asked what I thought about the, quote, open letter to Sam Harris that

00:01:18.300 Ina at Nice Mangoes wrote, alleging that Douglas Murray is a bigot.

00:01:23.400 And Mariam actually circulated that on Twitter.

00:01:27.660 That's how I noticed it.

00:01:29.060 So Ina, who's this blogger who many of you probably know, wrote an open letter to Ben

00:01:33.760 Affleck after my collision with him.

00:01:36.280 She's an ex-Muslim who has made some very nice noises on this topic. 0.92

00:01:42.000 But she attacks Douglas in this letter as a bigot and claims that his views about immigration

00:01:48.860 and the refugee crisis are bigoted.

00:01:51.960 I don't know if there's anything else she believes that constitutes a sign of his bigotry.

00:01:56.780 And a few other people like Atticus Amber, another person I notice on Twitter, have raised a more

00:02:04.320 general concern about taking care not to provide far-right bigots cover in how we talk about

00:02:11.280 Islam and Islamism.

00:02:12.920 And this was also the subject of Ina's letter to me.

00:02:16.720 I definitely share the general concern that we not provide cover for bigots.

00:02:21.180 But I really reject this claim about Douglas.

00:02:24.100 I don't think Douglas is a bigot.

00:02:26.200 I don't think anything he said in my discussion with him on my podcast suggests that he is.

00:02:32.740 I really think his heart and mind are in the right place.

00:02:35.960 That doesn't mean you necessarily agree with his views about immigration.

00:02:39.600 But I think I'll, let me just table this now because I will get into this in depth when

00:02:44.460 I speak with Mariam Namazi because she substantially shares Ina's views, as far as I can tell.

00:02:50.080 In that case, a retweet, I think, did equal an endorsement.

00:02:53.360 And there's a lot to talk about with Mariam, specifically on the topic of immigration in

00:02:57.420 Europe, because she is for open borders, which is not a position I share.

00:03:02.720 And in that context, I'll be happy to defend Douglas, who I think is just genuinely afraid

00:03:08.460 about the destruction of European culture.

00:03:11.520 And one doesn't need to be a bigot in order to worry about that.

00:03:14.900 So to be continued on that topic.

00:03:17.440 Question number two, how should we differentiate labels used for clarity and labels used in

00:03:23.740 a way that encourages tribalism?

00:03:26.000 This comes from Maggie, whose Twitter handle is a simple hedonist.

00:03:30.080 And this is related to another question I got about the term regressive leftist.

00:03:34.500 Actually, several people worried that this is being applied almost at random to people who

00:03:40.320 we don't like and in a very tribal way.

00:03:43.540 You know, I think labels have to be used carefully and accurately.

00:03:48.880 And I do think people are using regressive leftist in a way that doesn't totally track its intended

00:03:56.260 meaning.

00:03:56.640 I would reserve it for any so-called liberal who is either explicitly or tacitly taking the

00:04:06.080 side of highly illiberal people, very likely in the Muslim community, based on political

00:04:13.460 correctness or a misplaced concern about racism.

00:04:18.560 So the classic case of this, you see with people like Glenn Greenwald, who just reflexively,

00:04:25.920 it seems, aligns with theocrats, protecting them from criticism and labeling anyone who

00:04:32.860 would criticize their worldview as a bigot or a racist.

00:04:36.420 So it's on that specific point where you have people who should be committed and in fact

00:04:43.100 are committed in every other mode of life to free speech and gay rights and the rights

00:04:48.420 of women, but who can't follow those commitments to their logical conclusion in the presence of 1.00

00:04:55.260 usually Muslim intolerance.

00:04:58.360 And the reason for that is simple. 0.96

00:05:00.300 There's this underlying software routine they're running on their brains, which one, privileges

00:05:05.480 a concern about bigotry and racism over everything else.

00:05:10.280 And two, in the foreign policy domain, they more or less blame everything that's wrong with

00:05:15.880 the world on the West and on colonialism and on US foreign policy in particular.

00:05:20.720 And so you have those two commitments aligning to make any moral clarity on the question

00:05:28.400 of, let's say, how women are treated in Muslim societies really difficult to attain. 0.96

00:05:34.380 So that's where I would say we should reserve the use of regressive left or regressive leftist.

00:05:40.200 The person who is, in fact, a liberal, except where liberalism really is needed at this moment,

00:05:47.300 to protect the most vulnerable people in the most intolerant communities on earth.

00:05:53.920 Okay, next question.

00:05:56.580 What about the idea of free won't as opposed to free will?

00:06:00.440 This comes from Matthew Hentrich.

00:06:03.340 Free won't is this idea that I believe Michael Shermer used in his recent book, The Moral Arc,

00:06:08.400 but it comes from Benjamin Labet, and I'm sorry, I never know whether he pronounced his name

00:06:14.720 Benjamin LeBay or Benjamin Labet.

00:06:17.260 He's no longer alive to consult, and I only ever see it written.

00:06:23.860 But I'm going to go with Labet.

00:06:26.700 Benjamin Labet, who famously gave us some early neurophysiological results on the topic of free

00:06:32.300 will using EEG, and who showed that you could predict a person's motor response some hundreds

00:06:40.680 of milliseconds, you know, up to half a second before they were consciously aware of having

00:06:46.540 intended to do something.

00:06:48.940 He then came forward with this idea of free won't, that though free will was difficult

00:06:54.840 to justify in light of these results.

00:06:58.260 He thought that we have veto power and could cancel an action at the last minute, and that

00:07:04.560 this offered some freedom.

00:07:06.620 And I believe he published this first in the Journal of Consciousness Studies.

00:07:10.300 I would have to look, but I recall reading a paper from him on this topic.

00:07:14.080 This never made any sense at all to me, because whatever the neurological precursors are of the

00:07:21.400 veto, those too are being kindled and made effective by processes which no one is conscious of.

00:07:29.340 Now, I don't think Labet ever did an experiment looking for the timing difference there between

00:07:35.040 when one is conscious of one's veto and when it's actually kindled, but surely there's a time

00:07:42.220 difference there.

00:07:43.340 And again, even if there weren't, this is often a misunderstanding about my argument against

00:07:48.060 free will, it's not just that there's a time difference.

00:07:51.700 It's not just that there is a period where neurophysiologically we can detect an intention

00:07:57.020 or a motor plan, and then this only becomes conscious some hundreds of milliseconds later.

00:08:02.940 Even if we were conscious at the first instant of this plan arising in the brain, or of the veto

00:08:10.240 arising in the brain, its mirror rising in that moment is also inscrutable.

00:08:15.360 It's also compatible with a total lack of free will.

00:08:19.360 The time lag is slightly more inconvenient for anyone who wants to argue for free will,

00:08:23.780 because what it demonstrates is that there is a period where you still think you're free

00:08:29.740 to make up your mind, where you still think you are making up your mind, where you still

00:08:33.740 think you have not decided what you will do, and yet what you will do is, in a very real

00:08:39.260 sense, determined by the state of your brain at that moment.

00:08:43.080 And this must be true, to some degree, with any veto of a motor plan.

00:08:49.620 But again, I think in a deep sense, the illusoriness of free will is not dependent on any gap there

00:08:58.000 between the arising of the intention and its conscious execution.

00:09:04.480 So I hope that was clear.

00:09:06.440 I don't think free won't gives you any more freedom than the more common notion of free will.

00:09:12.920 But of course, it's also a fact about the human mind.

00:09:16.120 We veto various intentions from time to time.

00:09:20.000 We intend to do something.

00:09:21.060 We're about to reach for it.

00:09:22.740 We're about to say something.

00:09:24.620 And then we think better of it.

00:09:26.120 And we cancel that plan.

00:09:27.560 But again, the moments where you do that, just pay attention.

00:09:30.940 That is inscrutable.

00:09:32.500 You can't actually account for why you do it in that moment or why it's effective in

00:09:38.180 that moment, why you do it precisely at the moment you do do it.

00:09:41.900 I mean, it's all being pushed forward into consciousness by processes of which you are not

00:09:47.780 conscious and which you did not bring into being.

00:09:50.580 I think there's another question about free will coming up, and perhaps I'll go over that

00:09:54.980 ground again for anyone who's mystified.

00:09:59.520 Many of you are asking me, why on earth am I voting or planning to vote for Hillary Clinton

00:10:06.880 over Bernie Sanders?

00:10:09.420 Well, it's not for any deep conviction about Clinton's integrity or honesty.

00:10:15.300 I share the common perception of her as a political opportunist. 0.96

00:10:19.900 I think she really wants to be president. 0.99

00:10:23.520 I don't doubt that she also wants to live in a nice world and help people. 0.96

00:10:26.860 But if you get one thing from the Clintons, it is their desire to be in power and on the

00:10:33.380 top of the mountain.

00:10:34.440 And there is a basic insincerity there.

00:10:37.500 There's an endless appetite for political calculation in place of obvious candor.

00:10:45.420 And it is definitely grating.

00:10:48.880 And it doesn't inspire trust.

00:10:51.200 If you ever heard her trying not to admit that she had changed her mind about gay marriage 0.88

00:10:56.920 in an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, I think this happened about two years ago,

00:11:02.060 you'll see everything that's wrong with her approach to communicating the workings of her

00:11:07.540 own mind.

00:11:08.000 It is the most excruciating five minutes of radio I can remember hearing, where she's

00:11:13.120 becoming more and more defensive, more and more irate that Terry would suggest that she

00:11:18.680 had changed her mind on this topic, whereas she had actually changed her mind on the topic.

00:11:23.420 It's just unbelievable.

00:11:25.200 But she's changed her mind to the right position on that topic.

00:11:30.480 And I think she's, you know, despite the fact that she will say that ISIS has nothing to

00:11:35.600 do with Islam and that Islam is a religion of peace, and she will sound like a fairly delusional 0.61

00:11:40.660 person when talking about the conflict in the Middle East, I'm reasonably confident that

00:11:46.360 she understands what is actually going on there and that she's one of the grownups who will

00:11:51.460 be able to respond to crises there in an intelligent way.

00:11:55.920 I imagine she will continue Obama's policies to some significant degree.

00:12:00.740 I can't claim to know that about Bernie Sanders.

00:12:03.740 I don't think he has thought about foreign policy very much.

00:12:07.500 He certainly hasn't said much about it.

00:12:09.140 The little he has said makes me worry that he's been somewhat infected by Noam Chomsky's

00:12:16.280 worldview, which I think is the moral black hole swallowing everything on the left side

00:12:21.440 of the political spectrum.

00:12:23.280 So I don't actually know whether we can trust Sanders to be wise on what I consider the most

00:12:31.120 crucial question of foreign policy, which is our fight against global jihadism.

00:12:36.240 And there are many other questions where I would expect Hillary to be far more seasoned

00:12:41.320 and smarter, frankly, on foreign policy, whether it's with Russia or China or any other hard

00:12:48.580 case.

00:12:48.980 I agree that the influence of money in politics and wealth inequality, these are huge issues

00:12:54.920 that we have to get our hands around.

00:12:57.320 I suspect that the difference between Clinton and Sanders on those topics is not so much a

00:13:03.900 matter of what they want to accomplish.

00:13:06.300 But I think Sanders is making promises he can't possibly keep there.

00:13:12.120 I mean, he's clearly an idealist, and his idealism will be smashed if he was ever in office having

00:13:19.300 to deal with Congress.

00:13:20.700 So I think these are empty promises, albeit revolutionary ones, that he's making on those

00:13:26.440 topics.

00:13:27.180 But most important, far more important than anything I have just said, is the fact that

00:13:32.660 I think Sanders cannot get elected in the general election.

00:13:36.340 Now, I know this will raise the ire of all of his fans who are aware of national polls,

00:13:42.140 where he's beating Ted Cruz, for instance, and Hillary isn't. 0.99

00:13:45.640 But Sanders has not been hammered for the better part of a year by the Republicans, because he's

00:13:52.060 not been a plausible candidate until now.

00:13:54.280 If he were the Democratic nominee, a billion-dollar apparatus on the Republican side would do nothing

00:14:01.260 but emphasize his identity as a socialist, right?

00:14:05.680 There is no way this country is electing somebody who has to nuance the term socialism in a general

00:14:13.860 election.

00:14:14.900 It's worse than being an atheist at this moment.

00:14:18.680 It's not the only strike against him, but I think it's a devastating one.

00:14:23.260 So I think nominating Sanders would be to virtually guarantee a Republican victory in a year where

00:14:30.440 the Republican candidates are both less sane and less competent than usual.

00:14:36.760 There's just no reason for the Democrats to lose this election.

00:14:40.100 And I think it would be terrible if they did.

00:14:43.520 I think the prospect of having Cruz or Trump as president is an extraordinarily scary one for

00:14:52.100 different reasons in each case.

00:14:53.380 But I think the only grown-up in sight here is Clinton.

00:14:57.600 And that doesn't mean I don't have great reservations about her.

00:15:02.020 But I think she's smart and competent and knows how to compromise so as to get some things done 0.99

00:15:10.380 in government.

00:15:11.940 And I certainly can't say that about Sanders across the board.

00:15:15.980 So take that as a tepid endorsement of necessity for Clinton.

00:15:20.840 But that's why I've said what I've said about Hillary versus Bernie.

00:15:26.680 Next question.

00:15:27.900 There were several questions about Noam Chomsky's interview with Mehdi Hassan on Al Jazeera,

00:15:33.920 where Chomsky actually greenwalled me to some degree, which is amusing.

00:15:39.260 He claimed that I'm someone who specializes in hysterical, slanderous charges against people

00:15:44.500 he doesn't like.

00:15:46.740 I'd love to know where I'm guilty of that.

00:15:48.920 If I've ever said anything inaccurate that is slanderous against the people I don't like,

00:15:54.260 I wish he would point it out.

00:15:56.160 In our email exchange, he hurled this charge at me.

00:15:59.320 But the substance of his charge amounted to a pedantic and evasive distinction without a

00:16:04.780 difference.

00:16:05.220 I had said that he never had considered the intentions of the United States versus those

00:16:10.100 of her enemies.

00:16:11.240 And he insisted that he had considered them.

00:16:14.020 And it was a baseless slander for me to suggest otherwise.

00:16:17.220 But he totally disregarded the significance of intention, discounted it, said you can't possibly

00:16:24.220 know intentions because people lie about them.

00:16:27.000 And at one point even inverted their significance, suggesting that non-intending harm made one somehow

00:16:34.300 more culpable for evil than intending it.

00:16:37.420 It struck me as a fairly crazy view, but I was eager to talk about it.

00:16:41.360 And in the end, I couldn't figure out what his specific view was, apart from the fact that

00:16:45.860 it was absolutely clear that it was different from mine in precisely the way that I said it

00:16:50.640 was.

00:16:51.400 He believes that considering intentions in cases like this is a sign of moral confusion.

00:16:57.640 Whereas I believe, in certain cases, it is the only difference between good and evil, because

00:17:04.800 good people can create immense harm by accident.

00:17:08.580 And evil people can sometimes do conventionally good things, seemingly good things, in an effort

00:17:14.880 to do some larger harm, right?

00:17:17.960 If they're manipulating people.

00:17:19.440 Or they can also just do good things by accident, right?

00:17:23.080 If a man kicks a puppy in the street, and unbeknownst to him, he actually kicks it out of

00:17:31.020 the way of a passing car and saves its life inadvertently, the effects of that isolated

00:17:37.020 action are good.

00:17:38.780 But we wouldn't call him a good person.

00:17:40.780 He was kicking puppies for the fun of it.

00:17:43.000 This is moral philosophy 101.

00:17:45.380 Chomsky can't seem to get his head around it.

00:17:47.660 And in this interview with Mehdi Hassan, when asked to rank the respective evils in the

00:17:52.120 world, he comes right out and says that the U.S. and Britain are off the charts and the

00:17:58.180 most evil regimes in how they've behaved on the world stage.

00:18:02.380 Now, I think that is a frankly crazy point of view.

00:18:06.500 It's a point of view you can only arrive at by totally disregarding the intentions of our

00:18:12.980 governments, the kind of world we want to build, what we would do if we had even more

00:18:17.980 power, and the intentions of our enemies.

00:18:20.820 In this case, it was the Islamic State that was being talked about.

00:18:24.040 So I don't want to go over this ground again.

00:18:27.840 I think you guys know how I think intention functions here.

00:18:31.940 Intention is the only guide to what someone's going to do next, right?

00:18:36.260 It's the only guide to what they will do if they have the power to do it.

00:18:39.840 That's why intentions are morally important.

00:18:42.860 That's why there's a huge difference between the person who injures you by accident and

00:18:47.120 feels sorry over it, and the person who injured you intentionally and wants to do you further

00:18:52.820 harm in the future.

00:18:54.540 The injury could be the same.

00:18:56.240 The only difference, and it's an enormous one, is the intention behind the action.

00:19:01.460 So Chomsky seems to simply count the bodies, and this is just a crazy thing to do.

00:19:09.880 Just think of World War II.

00:19:11.780 Someone might have suggested this analogy to me on Twitter or by email, and I think it's

00:19:16.040 a good one.

00:19:16.740 If you're just going by body count, right?

00:19:19.940 Well, more Germans died than Americans in World War II, right?

00:19:24.960 So you look at what we did, and you look at what the Germans did, and with respect to the 0.71

00:19:30.380 conflict between the U.S. and the Third Reich, well, the U.S. looks worse.

00:19:37.860 We killed more Germans, right? 1.00

00:19:40.060 I guess we're morally worse than the Nazis there. 0.86

00:19:43.300 Does that make any sense to anyone?

00:19:45.260 The importance of intention is obvious because our intentions were revealed once we won that

00:19:51.980 war.

00:19:52.420 What did we do to Germany?

00:19:53.420 We rebuilt Germany.

00:19:54.960 It would have been fairly different if we had conquered Germany only to then go in and 1.00

00:20:00.540 rape all the women, enslave all the children, and kill all the men, right? 0.99

00:20:06.320 That's a rather big difference, and you would have seen that difference had we intended to 1.00

00:20:11.880 behave that way.

00:20:12.960 Chomsky ignores all this, and it's just mind-boggling to me that anyone considers his views on this

00:20:20.620 topic, morally sane, much less important to consider.

00:20:25.600 Now, is that a slanderous charge against him?

00:20:28.860 I don't think so.

00:20:30.280 I listened to the whole interview with Mehdi Hassan.

00:20:33.580 He said many other things that were less crazy than that, and he said a fair amount that was

00:20:39.580 just as crazy.

00:20:40.300 He claims to be even more concerned about jihadism than I am, but he purports to be drilling down

00:20:46.520 to its root cause, which, as was obvious from the context, he believes is U.S. foreign policy.

00:20:53.240 We created global jihadism, according to Chomsky.

00:20:56.220 Okay, well, good luck with that.

00:20:59.300 My analysis of the roots of jihadism can fully absorb the reality of blowback, the fact that

00:21:06.200 we funded al-Qaeda against the Soviets.

00:21:08.840 Did we create the doctrine of jihad?

00:21:10.860 Have we created a belief in martyrdom and paradise?

00:21:13.740 Are we responsible for the fact that tomorrow morning, some bright guy in London or Antwerp

00:21:20.900 or Paris or Brooklyn is going to wake up and decide to fight for ISIS?

00:21:26.460 No.

00:21:27.480 The real answer to the riddle of jihadism is both simpler and more complicated than what

00:21:33.040 Chomsky is alleging, and his emphasis is just all wrong and reliably wrong on this topic,

00:21:40.460 as is the emphasis of everyone influenced by him.

00:21:44.500 It seems to me no question that Chomsky is the godfather of the regressive left. 1.00

00:21:49.540 If responsibility for this moral confusion and political masochism can be laid on anyone's

00:21:56.240 head, it's Chomsky's.

00:21:58.060 And that's why I would have loved to have had a real conversation with him on this topic,

00:22:03.760 because if he's misunderstood, well, then I would like to cease to misunderstand him.

00:22:09.620 But unfortunately, I think he's understood all too well, and it's time people stopped listening

00:22:16.280 to him.

00:22:17.760 Next question.

00:22:18.660 What was the most unexpected and or remarkable audience reaction during your recent tour of

00:22:24.080 Australia with Majid?

00:22:25.900 And this came from someone named GoodLifeDecoder on Twitter.

00:22:30.820 Most unexpected or remarkable audience reaction?

00:22:34.640 Well, first let me say I loved meeting you all in Australia, those of you I met.

00:22:38.760 I feel like I need to apologize for a couple of things.

00:22:42.820 One is my jet lag.

00:22:44.180 I was just hammered by jet lag there.

00:22:46.800 And though I attempted to rally, I don't think I was fooling anyone.

00:22:51.120 It's just, it is what it is.

00:22:53.360 But I was pretty tired at each of those events.

00:22:58.460 And some of you noticed that Majid and I had a good laugh in the one of the book signing

00:23:04.820 lines.

00:23:05.280 I think no less than five people came up to me and Majid was sitting right next to me.

00:23:11.180 We're both signing books.

00:23:12.280 No less than five people came up and said, man, you look exhausted.

00:23:15.160 And one person came up and said, just don't die, right?

00:23:20.100 So Majid, for the rest of the trip, Majid kept turning to me and saying, man, you look

00:23:25.760 exhausted.

00:23:26.940 So that and my having said that I'm not a fan of hip hop got me trolled endlessly by Majid

00:23:34.260 and the other organizers of that trip.

00:23:37.040 Anyway, just despite jet lag, we had a great time.

00:23:40.100 And Majid was the highlight of those events.

00:23:43.200 A few other things to know about that.

00:23:45.340 One is that every single Muslim group invited to those events declined.

00:23:51.780 And quite memorably, the Australian Muslim Students Association, I don't know how big

00:23:58.920 that is.

00:23:59.400 I might have that name slightly wrong.

00:24:02.240 But some Islamic student group in Australia declared that Majid was not welcome in Australia.

00:24:09.280 And to see Majid's shunning by the Muslim community there was fairly sobering, given how reasonable 1.00

00:24:19.220 and intelligent Majid is.

00:24:23.380 But the most surprising audience reaction, actually, one person came up at the book signing

00:24:28.240 from Pakistan and said to me, not to Majid, which was surprising, that I really should never

00:24:35.800 doubt that my message is being heard, even among religious conservatives in Pakistan.

00:24:42.300 He had been a devout Muslim.

00:24:45.160 And my YouTube videos, apparently, really got through to him.

00:24:50.260 And he was now a non-believer and quite happy to be out of the closet.

00:24:54.900 And I think he was living in Australia now.

00:24:56.560 But he watched my YouTube videos in Pakistan.

00:25:00.460 That seems like an especially heavy lift for me.

00:25:04.480 And I must say that when I put out books and videos and podcasts, I'm rarely thinking that

00:25:10.980 someone in a truly conservative context in a place like Pakistan is being successfully

00:25:17.500 reached by them.

00:25:18.660 I know there are atheists and closeted secularists in countries like Pakistan who listen to this

00:25:25.300 podcast and watch YouTube videos because I hear from these people.

00:25:28.980 But I rarely picture actually reaching someone who is devout and changing their mind in that

00:25:34.380 context.

00:25:34.800 So that was fantastic to hear.

00:25:36.960 And I don't recall your name, but it was great to meet you.

00:25:39.680 So yeah, I think that was the moment of most gratifying surprise from the trip.

00:25:45.440 But it was great to travel with Majid, and I really enjoyed Australia and hope to go back

00:25:51.660 in the not-too-distant future.

00:25:54.000 One other thing I should say about Australia is that while many people seem to love the

00:25:58.260 events, I did hear some complaints about the format, that these were on-stage interviews.

00:26:04.140 So I didn't give a proper talk.

00:26:06.120 I just came on stage and was interviewed by different people in the different cities.

00:26:10.580 And there's a strength to that format, but there's also an obvious weakness.

00:26:17.480 The weakness is I don't prepare anything beforehand.

00:26:20.380 I don't know what questions I'm going to be asked.

00:26:22.360 I haven't prepared a lecture.

00:26:24.420 I certainly haven't prepared slides.

00:26:26.500 So it's just a conversation.

00:26:27.800 And so I am at the mercy of whatever I get asked.

00:26:31.760 And it's all extemporaneous.

00:26:34.860 And I can wind up saying many things that you have all heard before, depending on what

00:26:39.320 gets asked.

00:26:40.060 And so that's a—I think some of you are not a fan of that format.

00:26:44.580 I didn't dictate that format for the Australia tour.

00:26:47.580 In fact, Think Inc. only does events in that format.

00:26:50.820 They want conversations between some interviewer and the person they're touring.

00:26:55.680 And Neil deGrasse Tyson and Cornel West and other people who preceded me in that speaker

00:27:01.680 series engage the same format.

00:27:04.180 You know, I go both ways on that.

00:27:06.960 Sometimes onstage interviews really work.

00:27:09.820 Sometimes they don't.

00:27:10.960 But it's a—I acknowledge there is a difference there.

00:27:13.620 And you are not getting my most polished treatments of specific topics that are foremost on my

00:27:21.720 mind at that moment.

00:27:22.700 You're getting my answer to whatever gets asked in the moment, which is precisely what

00:27:27.960 you're getting in this podcast.

00:27:29.900 So take it or leave it.

00:27:31.560 Next question, which misrepresentation of your views are you most tired of defending?

00:27:37.800 This is from Amir Pars.

00:27:39.660 I think it would have to be the nuclear first strike that I allegedly want to execute on 0.98

00:27:46.040 the entire Muslim world. 0.89

00:27:47.700 Yeah, that's the most depressing because I saw it spread and I was aware of doing nothing

00:27:53.720 about it.

00:27:54.200 I just didn't see the point of answering this charge. 1.00

00:27:57.320 It was so stupid. 1.00

00:27:59.380 And really it was engineered by one person. 1.00

00:28:02.800 Chris Hedges just went on his book tour and shouted this from the rooftops and it stuck.

00:28:09.580 So yeah, that's the most boring one, I believe.

00:28:12.540 What does agency mean in the context of free will?

00:28:17.320 Is the difference between involuntary and voluntary action only an indication of future

00:28:22.400 behavior?

00:28:23.420 And this is from Oliver Lyons Hartman.

00:28:26.640 This is a good question.

00:28:28.600 My disavowal of free will is not a denial of there being a difference between voluntary and

00:28:36.160 involuntary action.

00:28:37.180 Clearly there's a difference between what you intentionally do and what you do by reflex

00:28:43.240 or unconsciously.

00:28:45.880 And there are many different ways to see this difference.

00:28:48.600 One is that voluntary action is something you can cease to do voluntarily or in response

00:28:55.220 to some disincentive.

00:28:56.540 If someone says, listen, I'm going to fine you $100 if you park in that space again, well

00:29:01.780 then you can decide not to park in that space again if you helplessly park your car there

00:29:06.640 again.

00:29:07.180 If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at

00:29:13.160 samharris.org.

00:29:14.500 Once you do, you'll get access to all full-length episodes of the Making Sense podcast, along

00:29:19.080 with other subscriber-only content, including bonus episodes and AMAs and the conversations

00:29:24.580 I've been having on the Waking Up app.

00:29:26.700 The Making Sense podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on listener support.

00:29:31.260 And you can subscribe now at samharris.org.

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Making Sense - Sam Harris - February 13, 2016

#27 — Ask Me Anything 3

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