The Great Derangement: A Conversation with Tim Urban (Episode
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- čas přidán 6. 04. 2023
- Sam Harris speaks with Tim Urban about his new book, “What’s Our Problem: A Self-Help Book for Societies.” They discuss Tim’s unusual career, the finitude of life, existential risk, exponential technological change, political tribalism, the corruption of the media, how one thinks vs what one thinks, trust in institutions, the firing of James Bennet at the New York Times, digital mobs, the mechanics of cancellation, Alex Jones, election integrity, and other topics.
Tim Urban is a writer, illustrator, and co-founder of the blog Wait But Why, best known for its long-form articles on a wide range of topics, many of which have gone viral. His TED Talk “Inside the mind of a master procrastinator” is the third most viewed talk of all time.
Website: waitbutwhy.com
Twitter: @waitbutwhy
April 7, 2023
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I’m a subscriber and have listened to the entire interview. I think it’s one of my favourites. I’m 64 years old and have lived in six countries on four continents, have two university degrees and have worked in news media and education for 40 years. There are EXTREMELY few people I’ve encountered who can stay this focused and proceed so logically for so long, it’s seriously impressive. If Sam Harris is not an American (and, indeed, western) treasure then he is damn close.
The whole interview is 1 hour 40 minutes long. If you think that qualifies as a rant I pity you. Sam gets under your skin so deeply you even feel the need to attack someone who compliments his work. I say what I say to demonstrate that I have been exposed to many people in many circumstances, unlike say a farmer or a sculptor etc. I hope your hatred consumes you so much that you have a heart attack and then settle down. Goof ;)
@Doc Holiday the first part of his comment is relevant because of the second part of his comment, and he's talking about Harris' career not this one podcast. Why be such a negative prick?
@Doc Holiday why are you so angry about it? Do you always reply to comments if you don't understand why the commenter posted them or this one made you particularly angry?
Sam should really look up Moldbug's theory about nonsense as structural principle. The more obvious the lie to pretend to believe the more you show loyalty to the group that have coalesced around that narrative. Explains a major part of the madness we see today. Read, also, "Calling a deer a Horse", an old Chinese tale about the phenomenon.
This really helps put a name on, and round out conceptually this methodology by where every assertion from the far left is a gullibility test that must be passed with a lie, and your moral worth as a person is hinging on your willingness to do this. Each one being successively more abhorrent and nonsensical than the last. And now we see routine calls for violence for people not willing to pass the 33rd Chamber of Death. Like hey, sorry man, I just cant bring myself to say biological sex doesnt exist.
There are four lights.
Sam told me to tell you "no thanks kid"
@@assumedlad Dang it!
“Obvious” is subjective, and is a bias that is preventing you from the simpler explanation that people just believe in things you think are outright false-in most cases. Some people actually do pretend for group loyality’s sake, but it’s hardly substantial enough to ever violate a principle of charity. Do you agree?
@@petesake1181 I agree that is a part, but one that comes along more after the beginning of the Foundation Myth of the group. The newer members are more prone to accept the Noble Lie as truth, versus the founders who likely knew it was bullshit. Get them while they are young and all that.
Just finished Tim’s new book. A lovely nuanced frame work to view polarization in the world.
The way you type has this insufferable pseudointellectual pretentiousness about it.
Do you recommend the ebook or is audio alright?
Tim Urban was a great guest!
+1 Sam Harris!
🥑
Sam Harris and Tim Urban, what an amazing duet! Thank tou guys for shining so much light into our world!
Spoken like a true sports fan
very illuminating discussion. I thoroughly enjoyed it
Thanks, Sam.
Truly fascinating conversation.
Sam Harris really has calm voice
"Amusing ourselves to death" is a book on the topic of how entertainment conquered other industries. Tim points to a sitcom and modern politics, but the same process went on in other previously "serious" pursuits. They sell better when they're spiced up with entertainment, so as "fast food versions" of themselves. Boring gets outcompeted and any attention is only given to what is fun.
DC operates on a loose WWE type script. That's why trump is better at playing his role than most DC insiders.
Fantastic discussion and quite humbling. I'm an attorney or zealot in more ways than I'd like to admit.
I think at the end, they were basically saying that everyone is skeptical about everything...reminds of Socrates: " I am the wisest person because I know nothing "
Excellent discussion.
Excelente Sam
Very revelatory thinking here. This is a real great tool to add to the "bullsh*t detector arsenal".
51:05 " If you're in one of these environments, and we all have been there,
" you'll notice that one of the main activities is just talking about how right and good we are
" and how wrong and bad the people who disagree with us are
" that'll just take up a whole dinner, a whole three hour dinner will just be that." It's AWESOME how RIGHT You Are ! B-)
Love you Sam✌🏻☮️
Correct. I will one day expand on this topic because tribalism is not just a set of behaviors relating to human beings but also a language that pretty much all living creatures are using. This is the primordial language that existed way before the first human spoken language was invented.
Well I hope you do . I think there's a there um ... there 😉
Started reading his book 🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤
Fantastic listen!
Thx Sam
All of the meaning-making that a human mind produces is only of two concerns based on what's happening: What is the impact on the probability of one's survival, a/o what is the impact on the probability of one's quality of life. But since the human mind can justify anything, and there are parts of our own brain that are not our friend, the higher 'rungs' of understanding and maturity are only available to those who honestly pursue them (dig into Know Thyself) and care to do the work. But it's random who can or will do that and who cannot or will not. Not everyone has the 'free will' or cognitive means to climb Mount Enlightenment.
Your life must be blessed and enchanted
Never any mention of the coming catastrophe caused by drastically altering the planet’s atmosphere…as usual. Climate is at least as important as nuclear war risk or AI. Yet people rarely talk about it.
And along with AGW there's the monstrous problem of ocean acidification that is almost never mentioned.
The music that fades in at the end of every single podcast is the smoking gun of the issue that Sam Harris himself laments, which is that there is a relentless attempt to keep our attention. If I subscribed to this podcast I would basically be paying money to keep myself addicted to these sorts of topics. What Sam Harris seems to not want to acknowledge is that his living depends on the very set of algorithms that he is complaining about which is to serve up ever more podcasts either from Sam Harris himself or other similar talkers. I have great respect for Sam but everyone who operates in this sphere is in fact contributing to the problem. The only reason I keep listening is because i also learn a fair amount, but it is not clear to me whether overall it's a good thing or bad thing.
It is free to subscribe to the podcast.
He's not asking much, or he would have to do something else for living.
Get over yourself. This is an ad for his podcast. You don't like it you can go away and click not interested and this kind of stuff goes away from your youtube feed.
@@mikerood7193 $8.33/month is different from free.
lol, I think you hit a nerve with some people. Good insight.
We must be careful what we wish for and very cautious what we follow. Maybe the media is the message and we are all just being trained, intentionally or otherwise, to just be media consumers period. I haven't listened to Sam in years - sounds like it's still the same basic topic(s).
I loved the idea of a more two-dimensional look at peoples leanings & the thought behind it. The science lab versus the echo chamber. Looking at the comments below it appears not a large number of posters commented on this. That's a little disappointing. I was hoping to find others that might consider this interesting.
"The Great Derangament" is a title of an amazing book on climate change and culture by Amitav Ghosh. I wonder if it gets mentioned in this podcast (haven't listened to it yet). Sam should really talk to someone like Ghosh, because his circle of guests is surprisingly narrow (although it might seem otherwise)
I was thinking something similar. I don't often hear Sam and some of his guests include climate change in their discussions on the multitude of issues (AI,pandemics, polarised politics, social media etc) rapidly impacting societies. I'm not sure why? I guess environmental sciences is not Sam's area of interest. However, in addition to the impact on the biosphere, climate change is already impacting factor in human migration, regional wars, food security etc that will affect all world societies.
Nothing was not happening when humans were hunting and gathering. Humans lived rich and diverse lives about which we have little knowledge. Significance in life and reality should not be defined by how powerful and destructive human technology can become.
Wow. Brilliant episode.
@@brian5001 not positive what you're getting at?
@@brian5001
That really depends on how 'success' is defined.
@@brian5001
Like I said it depends on how you define it.
So far, it appears you have a set definition and arent willing to go beyond it.
However for the average person can help the planet/environment ( which it appears is a concern of yours , and I qgree it is important) by not having children and not riding in airplanes.
So for all the people who have accomplished that they have by
your ideals ( as per comment)
they has been successful.
@@brian5001 Balance. For any living creature to exist they must impart some impact on their surroundings. Humans, like some other animals who are considered an "invasive species", are at a severe imbalance, but not all humans, and the potential for making the shift to a carbon neutral world certainly isn't impossible. You may walk around touting pessimism and antinatilism all day, but that really isn't doing anything to help the issue. If you're so passionate towards this subject, perhaps you should make it your life focus. You may find you have more of a positive impact than you had predicted possible.
@@brian5001
You're pointing weapons at yourself ?
And,
you think I'm the worst thing ?
Sounds like youve got issues far beyond making useless comments.
I miss not hearing the full episodes but it just can't afford it. At least I still get the app.
You can ask for a free sub on the website.
@@cubeh8331 Naw people want to complain every episode instead. The point is to point out the product costs money, not that you can ask for it for free. These people are sad.
"The perpetual vanity of the present."
Using a book with each page being a fixed number of years provides a misleading sense of change. A better analogy might be a fixed number of lives lived per page. If you did this tend evenly spaced intervals in terms of lives lived would look something like this:
200000 BCE
Language, religion, art
10000 BCE Farming
2000 BCE Archaic Kings
500 BCE Bureaucracy/Axial Religion
200 CE
800 CE
1250 CE Universities
1500 CE Proto capitalist
1750 CE Industrial Revolution
1870 CE Democracy, Industrial takeoff
1957 CE Democratic takeoff
Today
The reason for this approach is that human evolution has been driven largely by cultural evolution in which the population evolves, not individuals, at a rate proportional to the number of people. So in other words, all of the cultural evolutionary change since 1957 is roughly similar to that over the first 190 millennia of humanity, or the amount from the beginning of agriculture to the height of Bronze Age civilization. This gives a sense of accelerating change. The more recent period is probably even faster as the evolution rate is more likely proportional to world GDP, which grows even faster that population.
This evolutionary change also involves political and moral evolution which I added to the time line.
Interesting comment. +1
The idea of telling ourselves the truth because the truth shall set us free is scary and hurts, but is it true? I wonder if lying to ourselves that we will see each other after death in Heaven is a more effective strategy than not?
Self deception exists because of how powerful of a coping mechanism it can be.
@@Suzume-Shimmer like alcohol and drugs
😅😅😅
😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
Because you empowered people with very little life experience , instead of telling them to stfu .
There is an error in the description. It says April 7, 2013.
I guess Sam doesn't (have anyone) read his comments. 😅
Tim should take a look at some of Jennifer Bileks takes.
45:25 all memes are chemistry
So true, We might as well face it , we are addicted to Television.
I’ve been on Tim’s email list for a couple years. I thought maybe he was blogging about writing a book, without actually writing a book.
Gets married. Has a kid. Still no book. Keeps rededicating himself to the task. A story about writing a book, where the writing is the story.
As someone who has lived with their parents way longer than usual i can say to everyone you should value that small amount of time later in life. Visit your parents as little as possible, your life will improve
Wait what? Haha
ignore parents
acquire currency
We don't need humans to release a "heinous pathogen". Mother nature herself does a great job in that respect!
I wish I could finish this episode without lying about my income
One day Sam will rediscover the wisdom of opening these conversations up to everybody
You don't have to. If your income does not allow you to make this investment, simply get it for free. If you can easily pay for it, you pay full price. If you think it's not worth it, don't get it. What's your complaint?
@@philippeichert I give money to lots of content creators. Usually $1-5 on Patreon - even Tim who takes multi-year breaks! $15/month for Sam's podcast is way too high.
Sam's voice is important and I want to support - maybe $1/podcast like I used to - but that isn't an option.
@@philippeichert are you being dense on purpose?
Has anybody ever heard Sam laugh?
You can hear him laugh on some of the stuff with his wife and with Ricky Gervais.
Yeah, actually I have.
On Bill Maher's podcast about a month or so ago he laughed a bit
Yes. I think he was reading Douglas Murray bits to Douglas Murray. Also, when his “interviewing” his wife.
Yes
‘Touchballs69 wants to know why you suck?’-Lex Friedman 😅
I went to go sign up for his content and found out he’s charging more monthly than I pay for Netflix. You’re good Sam but you’re not that good.
26:20 deep breath
Persuasion is the weakest source of power. Inducements, authority, and coercion end to be more effective.
When the working class have a voice
Sadly in Murica it isn’t a fkn thing
No mention of working class in Murica ….. they start with middle class??…😅
What about the fkn poor !?????
The poor have such little buying power that they aren't considered as a viable demographic except to pretend to have sympathy, despite the poor outnumbering every other class.
I enjoy what we're doing here
Brave of you to make this title Sam. Look inward dude
Sam please do ads, I want to watch the full episode. I won't subscribe.
it's free to subscribe. only asks for email
@@MrSidney9 The Newsletter only needs an email, subscription is 14.99 a month.
@@SnowBalling Is that in Australian dollars? Right now it's $99.99 a year USD which is $8.33 a month.
I get what he means about having a sudden wake up moment with politics I had a similar experience
For me it was 2014 when a scientist got cancelled for wearing a shirt with sci-fi babes on it.
Are we getting to the point of 'futueshock'? Information overload?
Imagine Sam on mushrooms
43:17
49:10
Not sure what’s so interesting about this guy- mars bars, vertical axis, biased beliefs- big deal
Ask Sam, I think Tim’s showing a lot of Taoist guidance for looking at things in a practical and natural (sense of) manner which definitely is not against the grain. The whole world needs more of a common sense approach to our lives as is practical in all cultures and societies.😊
The Trumper drive bys are getting increasingly sad and desperate.
Totally, it's every video. These loser have nothing better to do.
@35:29 what sort of centrist has a knee jerk reaction? I think he should have given a specific example here or Sam should have challenged him, if only to illustrate his point further.
Anytime I listen to Sam Harris CZcams upgrades their algorithm
Like clockwork
The clock on the app
Strange…
"the clock on the app"???
This is the difference between feeding your family and being able to look at the world and blog in the side..,,.,
I'm still blaming the Christians!
32:55 ssnickering satisfies U.S.
Keith Urban?
Crazy to listen to this basically describe Sam re: Covid at about the 40 min mark but he doesn’t recognize that at all.
6:30 is my favourite time of the days hands down
Personally I think noon and midnight are hands to the heavens the best.
Three forms of persuasion: rational persuasion; manipulation persuasion; indoctrination.
It is fascinating to listen to a self describes atheist but they should like a religious fundamentalist. I am here for it!
21:42 Sam, consider all the unfossilised memes that have not been reproduced over the last 4 billion years?
What has technology done for us? We have gone from working 3- 4 hours per day, most of us work 3 times that much now. Technology has brought ruin. Just a little more technology and everything will be great. We only ask if we can- not if we should.
Epilogue: civilization
Just think of all the needless attachment syndrome studies that could be avoided if we had a spiritual civilization like the one the westernizing chinese tried to destroy in Tibet
But you do see adults engaging in simplistic equivalents of Political Disneyland in other aspects of their lives. See: religion.
I wish he’d have asked him about Nicole Kidman
Go read one of your gossip magazines.
@Bloo Kolla please control your extra chromosome and log off to spare us all from your nonsense.
What about her please?
Tim Urban. Handsome and successful country music star. Married to Nicole Kidman-and Sam never even brought her up!
Sam could you make sense of the Dalai Lama wanting to make out with a boy? Thanks
Here is a flaw..... You forget to take into account population size..... Of coarse ALL development is MODERN, because we have the MAN HOURS.....
Had there been millions or billions of people in the past, who KNOWS what might have been achieved.
Repeated distracting 'you know', 'you know' .....
The title ironic given it’s Sam Harris’ podcast 😂
Me sitting here still living at home at 25. Can't wait to move out.
I finally found a place to move out to at 28, only to get injured and hospitalised a day before
@@matttzzz2 I haven't moved out because there is an abusive partner that plays out every time, something like this.
Mom : you need to find a place and move out.
Me: ok I found a place that look nice and I can afford
Mom: you can't move there that's a bad part of town
Me: how about this other place.
Mom: you can't move there you won't take care of it.
I don't think there is a place they would say yes to, and I can't just rent an apartment because my dad hates rent and bought into the whole "buy land they aren't making more of it" bs. Meanwhile he owns a home in a small town that had a bank, a restaurant, a store and now 30 years later has none of those things.
The same kind of thing plays out while looking for a new car too. I'm just screwed I guess.
@@petyrbaelish1216 why are you doing everything they say? Are you not an adult? Are you going to be paying for rent?
@@petyrbaelish1216
You 25 ? or 14...
Live your life, not your parents.
@@cmhardin37 like I said abusive cycle that I'm leaving a lot of context out of. They might even be able to take my bank account because their names are also on it, so I don't want to piss them off too much.
multi planatary species ?
If a zealot says "the sky is blue", their zealotry is warranted and appropriate. Tim has some good points, but it's ridiculous to say some both sidesism garbage when only one side is banning books, taking away basic American rights, and trying to gaslight the nation into a false reality. I guess I'm a zealot to him because I can't believe how otherwise intelligent people can't seem to appropriately rank the relative dangers currently present in American society and which political movement is responsible for them.
So I think if you have doubts then you may want to consider yourself a zealot or to possibly have some traits. I want to convey my sincerity when I say by reading your comment that I don’t know which political party you are backing.
If you thought removing a few books from elementary school libraries was scary, you won’t believe what tech companies have been up to.
@@BassGoThump I'm reasonably certain they're talking about "the right", mainly because of "only one side is banning books".
take a shot for every false-equivalency fallacy if you want liver failure. ☺
The one side you fear so much literally owns nothing. All the zealots are on the Left because they own all the institutions including the military and the Left is global.
Are the gospels legends?
Another point is that on that view you would have to regard the accounts of the Man as being legends. Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are clumsy, they don’t work up to things properly. Most of the life of Jesus is totally unknown to us, as is the life of anyone else who lived at that time, and no people building up a legend would allow that to be so. Apart from bits of the Platonic dialogues, there are no conversations that I know of in ancient literature like the Fourth Gospel. There is nothing, even in modern literature, until about a hundred years ago when the realistic novel came into existence. In the story of the woman taken in adultery we are told Christ bent down and scribbled in the dust with His finger. Nothing comes of this. No one has ever based any doctrine on it. And the art of inventing little irrelevant details to make an imaginary scene more convincing is a purely modern art. Surely the only explanation of this passage is that the thing really happened? The author put it in simply because he had seen it.
C.S. Lewis, "What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?" (1950)
Wire like neuronal structures that conduct electricity via ions/neurotransmitters in the CNS/PNS possess no attribute of thinking/life and yet that has “randomly” led to life. Consciousness/thinking is an innate idea that is distinct from carbon skeleton and yet the materialist scientist believes that chemistry turned into biology via “god of randomness”/” magic”/miracle of randomness”. Consciousness can only stem from consciousness itself (Allah-(one/indivisible/loving)
I still don't get why intellectual people like Lex and Sam are even bothering speaking to someone like Tim who has said he's happy he's not friends with anyone who's an activist and considers all activism bad with no context, no clarification and no reasoning. He's such an empty persona and I really don't get his appeal. I'm not looking to get into an argument or debate but can someone who considers themselves partial to Tim or a fan or something explain what the appeal is and what they see in him?
So you’re telling people (Sam and lex) they should have nothing to do with said person (Tim) because said person has nothing to do with some other people? Ain’t you doing that exact thing?
I'd never heard of Tim Urban before this discussion, but I was very impressed with the ideas he expressed in this conversation. Based only on this, I would be quite surprised if he truly "considers all activism bad with no context, no clarification and no reasoning", but I am open to examining the evidence. Would you please provide the source that supports your view?
Tik has good analogies
That's what all this pearl clutching about protests and "cancel culture" is, they just want activism to disappear and take agency away from people. The fact that these opinions are often held by capitalists friends with billionaires like Tim Urban is with Musk and others should make you think twice about their intentions.
Activism has become a racket. Grievance hustling is all it is. They are focused on amplifying problems. Not fixing them.
Already heard the whole thing ;-)
I love it (and agree), I very much want to be like Sam Harris, and not Ben Aflick.👍👍
Sam - I watched you as a young fella at the (Melbourne) Global Atheist Convention in 2012. Your books on religion and meditation have had a profound impact on me.
You seem less concerned with hard truths these days and your audience seems less engaged. Is it because you are protecting an established career, or just getting older and more comfortable with the political establishment? You seem unwilling to address legitimate concerns about lockdowns, pharmaceutical companies, and anything Trump 'rednecks' might find important in life.
Genuine question, from not a fan of either major party.
Your question is really just an assertion that Sam is “less concerned with hard truths”. Have you listened to every podcast Sam has made on these topics in full? What truth do you think Sam isn’t concerned with? What truths are YOU ignoring?
and I can share your experiences of Sam yet draw the opposite conclusions 🤔
You know he doesn't read this, right?
@@UniversityOfScience "What truth do you think Sam isn’t concerned with?"
he doesnt seem particularly conerned that he played defense for a marxist, authoritarian theft of our system and all of the structures, or an illegitimately installed old folks home patient destroying the country at a pace never before seen, over thebest president in modern history
I can't understand anything this guy is trying to say.
Mostly because he makes no sense and he’s just a narcissistic sociopath.
sam harris don't criticize capitalism challenge streak : 315
Seven minutes in a im still hearing about this fellow’s solo trip to Easter Island. Sorry, I don’t have the time; I work for a living.
The final episode will be the one where Sam finally makes sense. Then the show will be over, it's purpose fulfilled!
Not understanding something doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense, especially in your case
Why announce that you have an intellectual deficit like that?
42:48 proerscion, or w/e
My Friday night just got pimped ❤
Why? A violent middle/Old aged man gets you hard? I personally think such war mongers are bedt dealt with if we hold their families responsible, non violently of course. Since Sam started masturbating to zelensky it killed it for me😮😢
31:15 Ted talk recalled?
Sam, for a materialist scientist, why is your mediation app FULL of religious teachings? It is a contradiction I cannot unravel.
59:17 all r wotds
Sounds like a coping session.
Derangement, indeed.
Political discourse should be robust, some people may suffer psychological injury in the process.
Sam would for sure. Trump broke that MF’s brain and scattered it to the wind.
Looks like we have another triggered snowflake TJW with Ramon MAGA Lopez
TJW = Trump Justice Warrior
(Beta male Trump Justice Warrior living in daddies basement using mommies laptop defending his Orange Führer)
Sadly working class and middle class has been misinterpreted
One comment is enough, weirdo
24:28 x1000, Magnify
Not a very astronumeric number; 10^3.
Summary: A lot of shit is going down, which portends for an apocalyptic future. Just saved you an hour and a half.
Your comment=
- 24/7 Trump, Fox Propaganda network or any Republican=
THeY aRe cOmInG fOr yOu....your guns....your churches....your kids....your jobs....your soul....your church....your food....
Literally stoking fear, grievances, fake outrage based on lies or projecting= The RINOs of the Cult of Diaper Don
I hope Sam did listen VERY crefully to what Tim said between Min. 38 and 45. And I hope Sam realizes that Tim was very much talking about him. With a bit of self-reflexion, meditation and pride-swallowing - who knows, maybe not all is lost with Sam. This is the season of hope after all.
Wow, i had no idea. We could all learn a lot from you. How did you become so objective?
@@TheAlibabatree we didnt vote for an illegitimate, sen il vegetable destroying the country
You are a scholar and a saviour