本期节目深入解读了Sam Harris，涵盖了他在佛学、意识和自由言论等方面的观点。Sam Harris谈论了退出推特对他生活的改变，并深入探讨了佛教、意识和活在当下等精神主题。他认为自由言论绝对主义存在问题，并批判了反应式阴谋论。节目还探讨了Sam Harris对宗教的解读以及他对觉醒文化的反应，并提出了他对这些议题的独特见解。

🤔 Sam Harris谈论了退出推特对他生活的积极影响，认为这让他能够更好地掌控自己的思想和生活，不再受社交媒体的干扰。他强调了专注于当下、保持清醒意识的重要性，并认为这能够帮助人们更好地面对生活中的挑战。

🧘 Sam Harris深入探讨了佛教和意识之间的关系，他认为佛教的核心是通过冥想和觉知来理解自身和世界，这与他提倡的活在当下、保持清醒意识的理念相呼应。他认为通过这种方式，人们能够摆脱自我执着，获得更深刻的幸福感。

🗣️ Sam Harris对自由言论绝对主义持批判态度，认为这种观点会导致对仇恨言论和虚假信息的泛滥，最终损害社会和谐。他认为，需要在言论自由和社会责任之间找到平衡，以确保言论自由不会被滥用。

🤨 本节目还探讨了Sam Harris对宗教的解读以及他对觉醒文化的反应，认为他可能存在一些盲点和偏见。节目中还提到了Sam Harris在某些观点上可能存在过度简化和偏执的倾向。

🎯 本节目旨在通过对Sam Harris的深入解读，帮助观众更好地理解他的思想和观点，并引发观众对佛学、意识、自由言论等议题的思考。

Sam Harris is the subject today and a man who needs no introduction. Although he's come up and he's come on, we've never actually (technically) decoded him. There is no Gurometer score! A glaring omission and one that needs correcting. It would have been easy for us to cherry-pick Sam being extremely good on conspiracy theories, or extremely controversial on politics, but we felt that neither would be fair. So we opted for a general and broad-ranging recent interview he did with Chris Williamson. Love him or loathe him, it's a representative piece of Sam Harris content, and therefore good material for us.

Sam talks about leaving Twitter, and how transformative that was for his life, then gets into his favourite topic: Buddhism, consciousness, and living in the moment. That's the kind of spiritual kumbaya topics that Sam reports causing him little pain online but Chris and Matt- the soulless physicalists and p-zombies that they are- seek to destroy even that refuge. On the other hand, they find themselves determined by the very forces of the universe to nod their meat puppet heads in furious agreement as Sam discusses the problems with free speech absolutism and reactionary conspiracism.

That's just a taste of what's to come in this extra-ordinarily long episode to finish off the year. What's the DTG take? You'll have to listen to find out all the details, but we do think there is some selective interpretation of religions at hand and some gut reactions to wokeness that leads to some significant blindspots.

So is Sam Harris an enlightened genius, a neo-conservative warmonger, a manipulative secular guru? Or is he, in the immortal words of Gag Halfrunt, Zaphod Beeblebrox's head specialist, "just zis guy, you know?".

Sam was DTG's white whale of 2023, but we'll let you be the judge as to whether or not we harpooned him, or whether he's swimming off contentedly, unscathed, into the open ocean.

Links

Sam Harris - Take Back Control Of Your Mind (4K) | Modern Wisdom 661DTG Special Episode: Sam Harris & Meditation is all you needDTG Special: Interview with Sam Harris on Gurus, Tribalism & the Culture WarDTG Special Episode: Interview with Evan Thompson on Buddhist ExceptionalismDTG Interview with Worobey, Andersen & Holmes: The Lab LeakMaking Sense 311: Did SARS-CoV-2 Escape from a Lab? A Conversation with Matt Ridley and Alina Chan