How Not To Ruin The Dinner Party: A Conversation with Sam Harris

Sam Harris is a giant in the world of podcasting. His podcast, Making Sense, which began in 2013 under the name Waking Up, averages more than a million downloads per episode. He is also a philosopher and neuroscientist, a meditation expert, the author of several bestselling books, and a prominent voice in both the “new atheist movement” and in “heterodox” intellectual circles, which has led him to have public debates and disagreements with other high profile thinkers. Meghan and Sam cover lots of ground in this long conversation, including the perils of confusing messaging around vaccines, the cowardice of institutional leadership in the face of social media mobs, and why the debate format can be, as Sam puts it, “a commercial for the limitations of conversation.” Most of all, they talk about what Meghan calls the question of “how not to ruin the dinner party,” which can happen when people who think too much about all of this stuff (like they do) engage in intellectual nitpicking and ruin everyone’s fun. Guest Bio Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, and author of five New York Times best sellers, include The End of Faith, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, and Waking Up. Sam hosts the popular Making Sense podcast and is also the creator of the Waking Up app, which offers a modern, rational approach to the practice of meditation and an ongoing exploration of what it means to live a good life. Sam has practiced meditation for over 30 years and has studied with many Tibetan, Indian, Burmese, and Western meditation teachers, both in the United States and abroad. He holds a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.