Making Sense - Sam Harris - #419 — ＂More From Sam＂： Elon vs. Trump, Religion, Jordan Peterson, & Rapid Fire Questions

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're

00:00:11.740 hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed, and we'll only be hearing

00:00:15.720 the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense

00:00:20.060 Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore

00:00:26.240 it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're

00:00:30.200 doing here, please consider becoming one.

00:00:36.360 Hey Sam, thanks for coming in so quickly. We recorded an episode yesterday that was about

00:00:40.640 to come out, and we discussed Trump and Musk, and in light of today's events, we decided

00:00:45.520 to jump back in here. So thanks for jumping in so quickly.

00:00:48.180 Yeah, a few things have happened. So I guess we're going to record an addendum now and then

00:00:51.800 tack that on to the back of the episode that was destined to arrive today.

00:00:57.060 Exactly.

00:00:57.860 Yeah.

00:01:02.780 Okay, we're back. Hey Sam, how are you?

00:01:05.140 Hey, good to see you.

00:01:06.600 Good to see you too. Okay, we have a lot to get to today, but-

00:01:09.920 What's happening?

00:01:10.640 Well, just a quick housekeeping before we do. I need to clarify some things.

00:01:14.080 Many of, this isn't for you, this is for the audience. Many in the audience have already

00:01:17.140 picked up on this, but again, just to clarify, the goal of this series is more from Sam on

00:01:21.680 current events more often. My job here is to draw more energy out of Sam to surface his

00:01:27.320 ideas in a format that's a little looser than the podcast. So the tone will be more casual.

00:01:32.780 If the pacing is faster, that's all intentional. I'll sometimes play devil's advocate and even

00:01:38.800 exaggerate positions, whatever it takes to keep things moving. None of this is about me,

00:01:43.180 so don't get caught up on what you think my positions actually are.

00:01:46.100 This is your response to some hate mail?

00:01:48.320 Oh, well, this is just to clarify. I think a lot of people, most people got it,

00:01:52.440 but some people were confused. And one of the reasons why we didn't bring on another academic

00:01:58.660 or intellectual is that they would show up with their own agenda, and that's not what we wanted

00:02:02.080 here. We wanted to really push you around. And so this will feel different from the polished

00:02:07.280 conversations and essays that the audience is used to. Again, that's intentional. And this series

00:02:11.820 is not meant to be a replacement for anything. So all those wanting more science podcasts,

00:02:16.100 those are still happening. It's simply in addition to what we're already doing or what you're already

00:02:20.260 doing, Sam. And lastly, it's a work in progress. So who knows where this still may go? I hope that

00:02:25.340 helps. Well, it is a thankless job. So thank you for it. Well, thank you for making the time for this,

00:02:30.700 because I do think that many in the audience do enjoy hearing more from you. And so we're going to

00:02:35.900 do more of these as long as that is the case. All right. Yesterday, Elon Musk tweeted,

00:02:40.100 I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional

00:02:45.060 spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it. You know you did wrong. 0.92

00:02:50.460 You know it. Any thoughts there, Sam? The first thing I notice is the phrase anymore,

00:02:54.940 right? So like just how long has he been putting up with this stupidity and incompetence 1.00

00:02:58.420 that he can now no longer stand? I mean, he obviously he's been shilling for this administration 1.00

00:03:04.140 to a degree that would be impossible to exaggerate. On his own account, he loves Donald Trump more than

00:03:09.580 any, as much as any straight man can love another man. We'll see how long that lasts.

00:03:14.220 And Trump was right about everything too.

00:03:15.760 Yeah. Trump was right about everything. He has shown nothing but contempt for anyone who would

00:03:21.740 take the opposite side of that debate to any degree. I mean, I don't know what to,

00:03:27.000 how to interpret his utterances at this point. The man seems so dysregulated. I mean,

00:03:33.040 having watched that press conference last week, or at least long sections of it,

00:03:37.620 something's obviously not right with him psychologically.

00:03:41.820 Right. Well, he had apparently a phone call with Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday, and he said that

00:03:47.800 Elon Musk seemed to understand the virtues of the legislation, and he was very disappointed and

00:03:53.000 surprised to hear him come out, I guess, a couple of days later.

00:03:56.000 Yeah. So I think Elon is capable of surprising a lot of people, it seems. He's one person,

00:04:00.880 one moment, another person, the next. I certainly have experienced that surprise over a longer time

00:04:07.700 course. Does it not concern you that he couldn't make a real dent in reducing the debt? I mean,

00:04:11.840 it looks like Trump's new bill could add $2.4 billion to the debt. And I mean, Elon, for all the

00:04:18.220 stuff you say about him, he's obviously quite gifted in some areas. And the fact that he just took a

00:04:25.740 wrecking ball and still ended up, I mean, just in some accounts, adding more to the debt.

00:04:32.200 Yeah. I mean, we're going to find out more about what Doge actually accomplished. I think at this

00:04:38.400 point, it's pretty easy to see that the main thing it accomplished was chaos and the reduction of morale

00:04:46.640 among otherwise well-intentioned and competent people in our government,

00:04:51.640 and colossal brand damage for Elon and his companies. And that's the main effect. Yes,

00:04:57.700 he found some waste and abuse, presumably. But I think that the lesson that people are drawing now

00:05:03.740 is that there's not nearly as much fraud or waste or abuse to be found in government spending as

00:05:08.900 many of us would expect. Elon claimed he was going to find $2 trillion. Then he knocked that down to

00:05:15.220 $1 trillion. He claims to have found something like $150 or $170 billion. I think estimates are that

00:05:21.460 it's much less than that. And that perversely, all of this chaos may have in fact added cost to the

00:05:28.240 government. I mean, it's been a disaster and it should be viewed as a disaster. I mean, I'm sure

00:05:34.220 right of center, they still imagined great things were accomplished because of the level of lying,

00:05:40.020 frankly, that Elon and Trump perpetrated. I mean, they stood before the country and said that millions

00:05:46.200 of people are receiving Social Security checks and they're 150 years old or otherwise dead.

00:05:52.180 That's just not true, right? They lied about that. Trump said it, I think, in his State of the Union,

00:05:56.860 lying about that. I'm sure Elon is still lying about that. And that sits atop a long list of lies.

00:06:03.820 It's just the truth of the matter, per Matt Iglesias' Substack article this morning,

00:06:10.320 is that Social Security just had some weird practice of keeping lots of void accounts still

00:06:17.960 on the books for some data-keeping, bureaucratic principle that I don't understand. But no one was

00:06:24.480 getting these checks and everyone knew over there that no one was getting these checks. And the Doge

00:06:29.700 team just didn't know how to interpret what they saw there. And they quite recklessly announced to

00:06:34.520 the world that millions of people were getting paid. And that's just... Everything you hear about

00:06:39.840 what they were up to suggests a level of callousness and contempt and recklessness that is... Those moods

00:06:50.800 were their guiding principle. And again, it remains to be seen whether the real goal was efficiency and

00:06:57.320 not just the demoralization of the so-called deep state, right? I mean, certainly that has been

00:07:03.060 announced by people like Russell Vogt that the goal is to have everyone working for the government

00:07:08.820 get up in the morning and feel nothing but depression and terror or something. That's not

00:07:13.440 the verbatim quote, but pretty close. Just to be afraid to come into work because of how fucking 0.98

00:07:17.860 awful their lives are. Do we really want an approach to government that maximizes for that attitude? 0.99

00:07:24.320 You know, given this fallout, both of these men are two of the most powerful people in the world 0.93

00:07:27.940 and they have massive platforms and they're petulant and they're babies and they're bullies. 0.82

00:07:32.140 How do you feel about what could happen between the two of them?

00:07:36.360 I hope they collide appropriately and we get to see in the scattering of controversy their true

00:07:44.460 characters at this point. I mean, I just think our society has to, our culture politically and

00:07:49.840 elsewhere has to lose its patience with failures of integrity and dishonesty. Above all, we should want

00:07:57.260 competence and integrity from the people who purport to be guiding our society towards some end, right?

00:08:04.600 And insofar as people are revealed to be liars and crooks and double dealers and just fatally 0.86

00:08:11.920 compromised by their own conflicts of interest, you know, just avaricious lunatics of the sort that we 0.97

00:08:18.480 see in Trump and company, you know, his rapacious family that's just grifting on everything that can 0.94

00:08:25.760 be put within arm's reach. We should lose our patience for this. I mean, this is disgusting,

00:08:30.320 right? It's like we have to feel a capacity for moral revulsion over this sort of stuff. This is

00:08:36.200 not normal. This is not much less good. And how we get to the point where we all just vomit in

00:08:43.820 unison. I don't know, but I mean, we, we have to get there. Yeah. Well, I mean, is it possible that

00:08:48.660 we needed a Trump or a Musk type or both of them in Doge to begin to pop the hood? No, to realize

00:08:56.000 how bad Trump and Musk and Doge are? No, no, no, no, no. To realize, to start taking the debt

00:09:01.280 seriously. I mean, do you really think if Kamala Harris was elected, we'd be doing that? Do you think

00:09:04.980 there'd be an abundance movement without Trump? I mean, is there some credit that goes there?

00:09:09.100 I mean, it's an interesting question, but I mean, you're basically you're saying that any kind of

00:09:16.020 pendulum swing back to sanity can be credited to just how bad things have gotten. Well, okay. But

00:09:22.020 like, do we have to rush toward the cliff in order to finally be, you know, to be safe? I mean, no,

00:09:27.480 I think. No, I'm saying we were rushing toward the cliff. No one was addressing. We're still rushing

00:09:32.020 toward the cliff. I mean, we, we, we still haven't figured out an appropriate response to the debt.

00:09:37.220 Okay. But the last administration wasn't focused on, on that.

00:09:41.100 No. And then nor is this one apparently, right? It's adding trillions.

00:09:44.520 Well, this one is at least pretending to.

00:09:46.300 No, but it's not even pretending to at this point. That's why Elon can't stand it anymore.

00:09:49.900 You know, anymore is probably means the last 30 seconds, but he can't stand it anymore.

00:09:53.820 This is an abomination, this bill on his account.

00:09:56.420 Okay. I'm going to shift gears. Thank you for that. I know you're going on Jordan Peterson's

00:10:00.060 podcast soon. So I don't want to talk about him for a moment. He's been credited for bringing

00:10:03.660 so many people back to Christianity 2.0, more of the, I guess, live and let live Christians versus 1.00

00:10:09.080 the 1980s or I guess the 1480s for that matter. I think there are a number of reasons why Jordan

00:10:13.560 has been so effective here. And I want to come back to him in a moment, but coinciding with his

00:10:17.120 efforts is a massive loneliness epidemic. And it's very real. Given your concerns with religion and

00:10:23.020 the current inability for any other organizations to recapitulate the communal experience in quite the

00:10:27.580 same way religion has been able to, do you feel differently now about people finding their way

00:10:31.960 back to faith, you know, until AI, as you said, maybe could, you know, dream up something that

00:10:36.920 solves all of these concerns. Isn't religion a better alternative for some people?

00:10:41.560 Well, I don't know. I mean, it might be, I mean, it's, if you caveat it that way, I think I can

00:10:47.740 probably say, yes, it might be a better alternative for some people, but, you know, prison is a good

00:10:52.680 alternative for some people. I mean, it's just, is it the best alternative for any person? I doubt

00:10:59.720 it. Right. I mean, just, you know, Christianity, if we could edit the homophobia out of Christianity,

00:11:05.940 if we could edit the expectation that. But they have, I mean, a lot of new, that's what I'm saying,

00:11:11.000 2.0. Well, no, no, but like really edit it so that it made absolutely no sense to be homophobic.

00:11:15.320 Like there's no recourse to the teachings that could get you homophobia. Okay. But there are a lot of

00:11:19.400 people that are looking away that these days and just don't pay attention to that. They're just

00:11:24.120 ignoring that. So I think there is a new version of it. And people who are looking for purpose and

00:11:27.660 community, after what so many people have seen social media do, it's just ripped society apart.

00:11:33.140 And it's also just made people feel so alone or it's at least contributed, I believe in a big way.

00:11:39.580 Why not encourage people as Jordan has to find faith? And I'm sure there's other reasons there as

00:11:44.800 well, but for purpose and community. I mean, I don't necessarily understand the Catholicism part.

00:11:50.700 It feels very ritualistic. I would imagine people would look for something a little bit more

00:11:54.980 lightweight for their connectivity, but I kind of get why people are doing it. You know, as somebody

00:11:59.740 who was a former practicing Jew, as I've said this before, I really miss community and there's just

00:12:05.580 nothing that's replaced that for me. Yeah. Well, I mean, I do think that's a void and we need to fill it,

00:12:14.240 but the question is, can we fill it with something better and more reasonable and

00:12:18.440 not intrinsically divisive, not intellectually embarrassing, doesn't require any lies to

00:12:25.060 oneself or to one's children? But I think this new brand of Christianity has minimized those 1.00

00:12:29.680 sort of self-lies. But it hasn't really. I mean, listen, it takes me 15 seconds to drill down in

00:12:35.600 a conversation with any Christian to get to the crazy part, right? Well, I mean, you're still going to 1.00

00:12:40.160 hell, but I mean, there's still some benefit. Yeah, exactly. I mean, if there is no

00:12:44.100 crazy part, then it really isn't fulfilling. That's the thing, right? If there's no chewy

00:12:48.800 center of superstition and otherworldliness and expectation of redemption after death,

00:12:54.980 there has to be some magic in there. Otherwise, we're just talking about, you know, who's going

00:13:00.340 to bring the egg salad for the picnic, right? I mean, it's like, can we figure out some other way

00:13:05.900 to picnic? It's not just a tailgate. I mean, you're tailgating for God here. You're tailgating for

00:13:10.800 eternity. And that's what makes it especially meaningful, right? And Jordan doesn't disavow

00:13:16.380 that. I mean, I don't know what I'm going to talk about with Jordan. It's been a very long time

00:13:18.960 since we've spoken, and I haven't really followed all of his kind of the vagaries of his...

00:13:24.000 Well, but did you see that clip of him going... Well, we're going to talk about that too in a

00:13:27.720 second. Did you see that clip going around with him on the Jubilee podcast episode where...

00:13:32.280 I saw that it exists. I actually didn't watch... I think I saw... Maybe I caught part of a clip,

00:13:38.440 but I just decided to not pollute my brain with it in advance of my conversation with him. I just...

00:13:43.220 I mean, I could see that there was some kind of consensus forming online that he had not acquitted

00:13:47.860 himself well in those conversations. And... But do you not want to talk to him about that? I think

00:13:52.400 it'd be very interesting to talk to him about it because he seemed very evasive there.

00:13:56.280 I didn't... Well, I just didn't want to prejudice my... Like, I can't imagine he wants to talk to me

00:14:01.220 about it, right? And I don't know what I can say to him. I mean, I... Listen, I know how Jordan

00:14:07.040 debates atheists because I've debated him. It would be unsurprising to me that if he stuck 20 atheists 0.99

00:14:12.500 in a room with him, it wouldn't go very well. It's not like anyone on his side has good answers to

00:14:18.620 the questions atheists pose. There are no good answers, right? I mean, the atheists... Religious people 1.00

00:14:23.640 are slow to recognize it, but they're standing on a... Just a mountain of non-sequiturs. And they

00:14:29.620 recognize it in other people's faith, right? I mean, no Christian is convinced by the reasoning of... 0.61

00:14:34.400 If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at

00:14:39.000 samharris.org. Once you do, you'll get access to all full-length episodes of the Making Sense

00:14:44.280 podcast. The Making Sense podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on listener support. And you can

00:14:50.700 subscribe now at samharris.org.

Making Sense - Sam Harris - June 06, 2025

#419 — ＂More From Sam＂： Elon vs. Trump, Religion, Jordan Peterson, & Rapid Fire Questions

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript