Making Sense - Sam Harris - #477 — More From Sam： Iran's Unraveling, The Gaza Information War, AI-Generated Music, and More

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00:00:25.400 Welcome back to another episode of More From Sam.

00:00:28.160 Once again, we are taping this live in front of subscribers.

00:00:31.220 We've taken questions in advance and have invited everyone in the live recording to

00:00:35.080 submit follow-ups in real time.

00:00:36.700 Hopefully, you guys are ready to be doing that today.

00:00:39.280 Before we get on to our first topic, you finished up some tour dates in Toronto, DC, New York,

00:00:43.380 Dallas, and Austin this past week, and we're done now, or are we?

00:00:47.680 Yeah, I think we are.

00:00:49.500 I'll know.

00:00:50.340 We recorded two dates.

00:00:51.460 We recorded New York and Austin, and yeah, we'll see what that recording looks like and

00:00:57.120 see uh what we intend to do with it but yeah it feels like we're done with this talk we're done

00:01:02.660 with this talk but i don't know about touring in general i feel like you had uh more fun than i

00:01:06.900 mean for life no i don't think i'm done for life but touring this talk i mean this talk i've we've

00:01:11.540 been touring for uh was it 10 months 11 11 months something like that yeah and it's evolved month

00:01:17.760 by month and then you know maybe by you know 10 or so and uh yeah i think i'm i'm done repeating

00:01:24.260 myself on this particular set of topics but the good news is we might do something else in the

00:01:29.100 future and we'll let everybody know when yeah we have that figured out we won't be shy about that

00:01:33.920 yeah no need to list all the celebrities and public figures that came out to see you but i

00:01:37.500 did think it was adorable watching you fangirl over one in particular the comic jordan jensen

00:01:41.680 yeah oh my god that was great yeah that was hilarious yeah well she's if you haven't

00:01:47.080 discovered her jordan jensen is just a massive talent and um she has a netflix special but the

00:01:53.400 thing that really got me into her was just seeing her crowd work clips on youtube i mean she's just

00:01:58.200 so good in that zone so yeah she came out to um the beacon in new york and yeah i mean i was you

00:02:06.360 know i don't tend to get starstruck but you know i fangirled on uh her to a degree that just i think

00:02:12.680 probably astonished her uh her mom was there too so it was kind of adorable it was great i'll add

00:02:17.080 that neil brennan came out to the show as well because i think everyone should listen to his uh

00:02:20.200 the podcast episode he did with you. Yeah, he's a very funny man too. You should see his

00:02:24.200 specials on Netflix. Yeah, he just seemed to turn the right dials and get great stuff out of you in

00:02:29.640 ways that others haven't, including me. So if anyone wants to really hear more from you,

00:02:34.900 that's a great episode to do it. And just a reminder, the community, our new community,

00:02:40.280 your new community has been in private beta for a couple of weeks now. We've gradually been

00:02:44.440 inviting members in every day. And it's been a place with lots of engagement, including plenty

00:02:48.880 of disagreement with others and you, but it's been very respectful and enjoyable. We even have a few

00:02:53.820 Trumpers in there now, and everyone's been cordial for the most part. We've only had to toss a couple

00:02:59.340 people thus far, but it's been very clear that many in the community have also been wanting

00:03:04.060 something like this to exist for quite some time. And I just want to add a little housekeeping on

00:03:09.720 this, that anyone who's subscribed to the podcast before June 1st will have free access to community

00:03:14.360 for as long as they maintain an active subscription after june 1st or thereabouts you will need a

00:03:20.220 separate subscription to join community so if you want to check it out and engage with some fellow

00:03:24.500 bright mindful people you can subscribe at samharris.org and get access to community for free

00:03:30.240 now i think we should also add that we that this is totally web-based now but there's an app coming

00:03:35.940 i don't know when that's coming next month or but yeah so soon i think i think people are frustrated

00:03:41.220 that it's not app-based, but that's, that will be remedied. I've actually seen some people say

00:03:45.320 the opposite, say that they kind of like having to sit down and get their thoughts together so

00:03:49.980 that they're not just on the fly ripping comments, uh, without. Yeah, it actually might be, yeah,

00:03:55.500 it might, it might degrade the quality of the conversation once we get an app. We'll see.

00:03:58.820 We'll see. Anyway, how are you feeling about Iran? Are we going to get a good deal over there or

00:04:03.700 what? Uh, well, I guess we're having this conversation on Memorial day. You know,

00:04:09.480 we should always stipulate that we have no idea what's going to happen 15 minutes from now because

00:04:14.200 we're being ruled by maniacs. It certainly seems at this point that we almost have the worst of

00:04:21.480 all worlds. I guess the worst possible scenario is that we hurl all of our military resources

00:04:29.300 into this war and still fail, right? So like a boots on the ground quagmire, I guess that's the

00:04:35.680 worst case scenario. So we're, that doesn't appear to be in the cards, but we seem to have found the

00:04:40.640 second worst scenario, which is Trump and his, uh, uh, incompetent friends, Pete Hegseth, uh,

00:04:47.980 in particular have bragged and boasted and bluffed and then blinked and then blinked and then blinked

00:04:53.940 again. All our bluffs were called. They've showcased American weakness and incompetence

00:04:59.600 to a degree that I think no one could have rationally feared. I mean, even to the point

00:05:05.100 where i'd be like like the last bit of optimism i think anyone had here was that the military

00:05:09.700 itself is still the sort of military that befits a superpower but it you know in the clear light

00:05:16.820 of day even that seems not to be true i mean maybe we're not a paper tiger but we're we're

00:05:22.460 something close we just don't have the we've almost run out of armaments apparently we're not

00:05:28.280 very good at mind sweeping or defending drones or i mean like we're not we don't appear to be

00:05:33.140 cutting edge in the ways that we needed to be for this. And, um, we just seem to have blown

00:05:38.300 through our stockpiles of armaments, right? So we're, we're rationing arms in addition to

00:05:43.080 everything else we're doing. So it's a, it's terrible. It's a terrible outcome because Iran

00:05:48.260 seemed for what all that we've done to degrade their capacity and their regime. And, you know, 1.00

00:05:53.460 we've killed a lot of people. Apparently they're more powerful than they were at the beginning of

00:05:57.320 this war. We've taught them and taught the world that they can hold the 20% of the energy economy

00:06:04.120 globally hostage and we can't do anything about it. I mean, Trump is just, you know,

00:06:09.760 he's a corrupt weakling and he's made our country look like that. I mean, that's really the net 1.00

00:06:18.460 result so far. Now, again, 15 minutes from now, we could start bombing everything and the regime

00:06:23.240 could collapse and we could see democracy emerge in the streets. I mean, you know, I guess that's

00:06:28.200 not a outside the realm of possibility is probably below a 1% possibility at this point, or even a

00:06:34.200 one-tenth of 1% possibility. But I mean, I've always held out hope that despite our incompetence

00:06:40.400 and despite Trump and Hegseth's insane bellicosity and stupidity and our, you know, having made every 0.99

00:06:48.380 effort to alienate all of our allies, et cetera, that we might still produce something that was 1.00

00:06:53.780 better than the status quo here. But that doesn't seem to have happened.

00:06:57.620 So are you saying that boots on the ground now is your worst case scenario? Because I think in

00:07:01.580 the past you had said that allowing them to- A failed attempt in that. If we had put more

00:07:06.160 resources in and still failed, that would be the worst case scenario. So to lose the war

00:07:11.680 with boots on the ground would be worse than the war where we seem to be in the process of losing.

00:07:15.940 And it's interesting to consider what it actually means to lose or win a war of this sort. Obviously, we haven't had many Americans die, although I think the destruction of our bases and planes and all that has been somewhat concealed from us.

00:07:33.840 I mean, I think the Iranians did more damage to us and our allies than has been made clear. 0.61

00:07:40.680 There's been a lot of lying, I think, as you might expect from the Trump administration.

00:07:44.720 But, you know, we haven't, it's weird to think of this as a defeat, you know, if you're just

00:07:49.200 looking at numbers of dead and the material destruction, but the optics here really matter.

00:07:55.040 I mean, we have revealed to all of our enemies that we're only willing to sacrifice, you

00:08:02.680 the stock market ticker for a few short minutes before we're going to get very nervous and pivot.

00:08:10.960 And again, Trump, his messaging about this has been the worst case scenario because it's been

00:08:15.380 pure bluster and bluff and all of our bluffs got called. It is just the weakest possible

00:08:22.480 presentation of our role in the world. Ending the war at the time of our choosing and the way we

00:08:30.340 would do it, whatever Hegseth said. That does not seem to be the case. Yeah, and complete surrender,

00:08:34.860 unconditional surrender was the standard initially. And I mean, if anyone has surrendered,

00:08:40.380 we have surrendered. And so just think of the conversation I had with Ben Shapiro a few weeks

00:08:46.160 ago, or whatever that was, a month ago or so. He was quite confident even then that Trump was never

00:08:53.580 going to settle for an outcome that would be worse than the JCPOA deal that he's endlessly

00:09:01.660 derided. Never step away from Israel's, you know, our joint interests with Israel. I mean, he's just

00:09:06.920 this staunch defender of Western civilization and, you know, basic, you know, sanity in the Middle 0.66

00:09:14.640 least. And, um, you know, I've always, I, again, I've, I have been very hawkish on jihadism in 0.96

00:09:22.060 general and the jihadist regime in, in Iran in particular in recent months. But I've always said

00:09:29.080 that this war could well be a disaster given kind of the unprincipled nature and the, and the just

00:09:35.280 obvious incompetence of our administration. I mean, we, again, I'll just remind people we,

00:09:41.120 we put a game show host in charge of the world's only superpower. We put a Fox and Friends host

00:09:48.400 in charge of our military. What did we expect was going to happen? So that has always been

00:09:55.020 the fear. Again, given the fact that the Iranian people seem poised to revolt and take some 1.00

00:10:02.480 considerable risk, though we came quite late to their defense after some tens of thousands were

00:10:08.260 killed by the regime. I mean, there was always this hope that we were going to kind of uncork

00:10:13.620 a new world in Iran, given that the population is so tired of theocracy. But that certainly 0.84

00:10:20.960 doesn't seem to be happening. I mean, it might happen six months from now after we leave the

00:10:24.480 place. I mean, that's totally possible. But again, it looks bad. So this is coming in from one of

00:10:29.240 the subscribers. What would you consider to be a victory now? Regime change. Well, I mean,

00:10:34.320 there's no, this is what I've, I think I've been very clear about from the beginning.

00:10:38.360 There's no end to this shorter regime change that we could consider a victory. Of course,

00:10:44.120 we're going to lie about considering even this humiliating outcome, a victory, but no,

00:10:49.840 I mean, regime change was the only thing to hope for. And it had to have been the real purpose of

00:10:56.860 this whole exercise or whatever we're going to say about it. Now, regime change is the only thing

00:11:02.020 that guarantees that iran could not be a um a nuclear armed enemy in the future i mean that's

00:11:09.860 just not they're going to whatever they say they're going to sprint toward a bomb and there's

00:11:13.960 going to be no enforcement of anything we have less power than we had in the beginning i mean

00:11:18.160 it's again it's somewhat paradoxical that we got here this way because we somehow got less power

00:11:22.920 by creating a lot of uh you know harm to our enemy in this case but our enemy is is stronger

00:11:31.060 in some very specific ways and we are weaker in some very specific ways and and crucially all of

00:11:37.600 this has been advertised to everyone right so i mean no one thinks we would defend taiwan now i

00:11:43.460 mean you couldn't possibly think that so did you see where robert kagan said that giving iran

00:11:48.040 control the strait is more power than they would have had they been able to build a nuclear weapon

00:11:52.840 you saw that clip no i didn't see that but i i read his piece in the atlantic and i mean kagan

00:11:57.400 is somewhat obviously he he's uh extremely well informed he has taken the darkest view of not just

00:12:06.160 this misadventure but really just the erosion of american power under trump that i'm aware of him

00:12:12.380 he's really been a cassandra here and that doesn't mean he's wrong i i think he's you could

00:12:17.820 discount what he says by 50 and still be very depressed at where we are in the world i want

00:12:24.900 to move on to uh for those who haven't been following this next story the the trumps sued

00:12:29.220 the irs and and the judge said uh something in the effect of uh hey wait a minute don't you

00:12:34.620 oversee the irs which of course makes the case not adversarial so the trumps dropped their lawsuit

00:12:40.680 and settled out of court a deal that includes settled with themselves yeah correct yeah that's

00:12:46.360 right a deal that includes barring the irs from ever going after the trumps for anything that

00:12:49.940 they may have done in the past uh forever in all caps yeah yeah you just as a clue to who wrote the

00:12:55.800 actual uh judgment right i mean it's just the fact that it's written like one of his truth social

00:13:02.040 posts is this just again all of this is mortifying to us as a country it's like just half of america

00:13:09.100 doesn't appear to care about how the rest of the world views us but i mean beyond our military

00:13:14.760 power, which again now is in question in a way that should astonish everyone. Our soft power is

00:13:19.920 the thing that Trump has just set on fire, right? I mean, we just are not in a role of anything like

00:13:26.760 leadership now because we stand for nothing. I mean, we have the most corrupt administration

00:13:33.240 anyone has ever seen. It's a kleptocracy and he has just been trading away, you know, our policies

00:13:41.560 and institutional power and reputation abroad

00:13:44.920 as though it was his personal property

00:13:46.960 just to exact tribute from whatever former friends

00:13:50.380 or foes can be forced to pay that tribute.

00:13:53.380 And it's, I don't even have a theory of mind

00:13:55.980 about a fellow American who understands

00:13:59.760 what's happened here and doesn't care about it.

00:14:02.720 I mean, it's just, this is the greatest act

00:14:04.380 of vandalism in our lifetime.

00:14:07.000 I think you've said that a hundred times

00:14:08.420 in this podcast now.

00:14:09.380 I just can't understand how people don't see what's at stake here or seeing it don't care

00:14:17.720 about it it's just like where does this I mean maybe on some level this is kind of like the

00:14:23.040 fall of empire right but this is the intentional you know self-defenestration of the world's only

00:14:29.340 superpower and um it is just bizarre that we can't even keep the details in view because there are so

00:14:37.360 many of them, right? I mean, it's just, I mean, just this deal alone, the slush fund that he's

00:14:42.600 stolen from our, our tax dollars are nearly $2 billion with all that we can't pay for are going

00:14:50.620 to go to, to the, a slush fund, which at his discretion, he can appoint all the people

00:14:55.480 overseeing this fund will pay his loyalist goons, you know, from January six riders onward. I mean,

00:15:03.480 this is we're a banana republic this is so far from normal and if this were the one thing he did

00:15:09.440 again this is just there are only so many moves you can make here so to try to illuminate the

00:15:14.840 grotesque novelty of all of this but just imagine obama or or any other normal president doing any

00:15:21.640 one of these things and it's unthinkable and the reaction from the other side would have been

00:15:26.520 it just would have been a tsunami of resistance and yet we're just we're we seem incapable of

00:15:32.200 but marshalling the appropriate response because on some level there's just so much to respond to.

00:15:37.400 Well, making that deal with oneself really is tennis without the net. So that's very hard for

00:15:42.860 anyone to miss there. I know this is a couple of weeks old now or 10 days or whatever it was,

00:15:47.620 but many people would like to get your reaction on the Nicholas Kristoff piece in the New York

00:15:51.300 Times. Oh, that's a very complicated reaction. You know, you know, who's, who did this at length,

00:15:57.260 who I think I basically agree with everything he said. And maybe he might've said more in the

00:16:01.000 meantime, but Noam Dorman over on his podcast. I love that guy. I mean, Noam is just very,

00:16:06.780 very smart. And he spent a lot of time on this. And I think, you know, he has my proxy on all of

00:16:14.140 it. I mean, I'll briefly summarize what he said, but it's, I mean, just a few points to keep in

00:16:19.000 mind. One is we should expect the mistreatment of prisoners at some level in every prison system.

00:16:27.980 we should really expect it in a time of war we should really expect it when the prisoners are

00:16:33.260 don't stand a chance of being innocent people whose rights everyone should really worry about

00:16:40.140 but they're committed terrorists who are you know eager to die for their cause right i mean just

00:16:46.380 imagine what it's like to be incarcerating these people and um imagine what it's like to be a

00:16:51.800 prison guard in the presence of these people who uh you i mean there's again there's no pretense

00:16:57.020 of innocence here, right? These are committed jihadists who raped and murdered and burned 0.99

00:17:02.160 families alive on October 7th. And now it's your job to keep them from biting you or throwing their 0.99

00:17:09.040 shit at you. I mean, just think of the most awful job in the world, and this is probably it. And 1.00

00:17:13.180 also the most morally taxing one, right? So the idea that there's going to be some level of abuse

00:17:18.980 in a circumstance like this, I mean, that just, that is guaranteed. We would have, it would be

00:17:23.580 a miracle if it didn't happen. So we should, of course, assume that reports of it happening

00:17:29.180 are plausible, right? So like when I hear reports of this awful stuff happening that shouldn't

00:17:35.140 happen, my default setting is, oh yeah, it probably happened, right? And I add to that

00:17:41.420 the humiliation associated with some of these acts, right? You know, sexual abuse and, you know,

00:17:46.560 rape by dogs being the most extreme allegation, right? So what would it take for a Muslim man 0.99

00:17:53.060 to allege that that had been done to him, right?

00:17:56.940 You know, the incentives are not in the direction of lying.

00:18:00.900 You know, so again, it all seems on his face plausible to me. 1.00

00:18:04.680 That said, Nicholas Kristof is obviously a useful idiot, right? 0.99

00:18:09.220 Who did not do the work of a proper journalist in reporting the story. 0.99

00:18:14.280 And many people have gone kind of deep on that and analyzed it and, you know, shown the

00:18:20.460 distance between what he did and what a properly reported story on this front would look like.

00:18:25.480 So I'm not going to connect all those dots here, but he's just, I've known him to be a useful 0.99

00:18:29.460 idiot for decades, right? He's on this specific topic, you know, just how to fight the war on 0.97

00:18:34.020 terror, you know, what is jihadism, you know, whether Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a feminist icon or

00:18:39.460 an Islamophobe. He gets all of this wrong all the time, right? So he's just somebody who's easily

00:18:44.860 manipulated by Islamists and their apologists. And part of my, you know, people remember my 0.95

00:18:49.840 collision with Ben Affleck on, on real time. Well, what you couldn't see out of frame is that

00:18:54.200 basically I was focusing much of my attention on Nicholas Kristof, because he was the one on that

00:18:59.560 panel who really should have known which end was up and he doesn't. And it's quite, I mean,

00:19:03.500 it's quite shameful really, given that his, he purports to be so focused on the rights of women

00:19:07.700 throughout the developing world, right? I mean, it's just, there's no more egregious violator

00:19:11.420 of the rights of women throughout the developing world than Islam and its extremities. So the, 1.00

00:19:17.120 The first line of defense that many people took here, I think even Haviv Retigur took

00:19:21.900 this line, which I don't happen to agree with.

00:19:24.520 And this is a point that Noam also made on his podcast, which is these charges are absurd

00:19:29.600 on their face because obviously you couldn't train a dog to rape a person.

00:19:33.440 I just, that does not ring true to me. 0.70

00:19:36.960 I think you can train a dog to play the piano and do much else that is complicated.

00:19:41.420 So I mean, the idea, I mean, there've been reports of dog rape from other regimes, you

00:19:46.160 Egypt and others for many, many years. So who knows what actually happened here? Again, so I'm

00:19:51.760 not dismissing even the worst allegations here as being obviously untrue. And Nicholas Kristof

00:19:57.860 was totally irresponsible and willingly produced a blood libel here. So I think you need to be able

00:20:06.580 to hold those two things in your head. And again, as many people pointed out, this was released on

00:20:12.060 a day where this very, very searching report on Hamas's crimes on October 7th came out,

00:20:18.120 300 pages of detail there. And, you know, the detail is as awful as you could fear.

00:20:24.240 And that seemed, you know, I think the New York Times has said that that's just an accident.

00:20:28.120 I don't think anyone should believe them at this point. The paper has shown itself to be

00:20:31.780 ideologically bamboozled on this front. So just ending this, I don't know what's true

00:20:38.040 in Kristoff's allegations. All of that, if true, all of it should be prosecuted. It's all awful.

00:20:44.440 It's all illegal. It's all also understandable that it would happen at some rate, given the

00:20:49.560 nature of the situation. And it'd be a miracle if nothing like that ever happened in analogous

00:20:54.060 situations. So yeah, it's all a mess. And yet we have to keep our eye on the real issue, which is

00:21:01.360 Hamas would do this again and again and again until the end of the world. Israel is a society

00:21:08.600 that will prosecute its rapists and torturers and et cetera at a rate analogous to America or 0.88

00:21:18.040 any other Western society. It's not to say there's no corruption. It's not to say there are no evil

00:21:22.400 people. It's not to say that someone's not going to try to hide facts until they can no longer be

00:21:26.440 hidden. That's all true, but there's a difference between us and our enemies, and the difference is

00:21:31.000 the most important difference morally to keep in view in our lifetime.

00:21:36.040 Why do you think people like Nicholas Kristof continue to get it wrong with regard to women's

00:21:41.360 rights when it comes to Islam? What would he say to that?

Making Sense - Sam Harris - May 26, 2026

#477 — More From Sam： Iran's Unraveling, The Gaza Information War, AI-Generated Music, and More

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