Reality Check: A Conversation with David Wallace-Wells (Episode
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
- Sam Harris begins by remembering his friendship with Dan Dennett. He then speaks with David Wallace-Wells about the shattering of our information landscape. They discuss the false picture of reality produced during Covid, the success of the vaccines, how various countries fared during the pandemic, our preparation for a future pandemic, how we normalize danger and death, the current global consensus on climate change, the amount of warming we can expect, the consequence of a 2-degree Celsius warming, the effects of air pollution, global vs local considerations, Greta Thunberg and climate catastrophism, growth vs degrowth, market forces, carbon taxes, the consequences of political stagnation, the US national debt, the best way to attack the candidacy of Donald Trump, and other topics.
David Wallace-Wells is a best-selling science writer and essayist who focuses on climate change, technology, and the future of the planet and how we live on it. David has been a National Fellow with the New America Foundation, a columnist and deputy editor of the New York Magazine, and was previously at The Paris Review. Currently, David is a writer for The New York Times and a columnist for the New York Times Magazine. He is the author of "The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming."
Twitter: @dwallacewells
May 1, 2024
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Thanks for your remembrance of Dan.
Strange to see philosophers you’ve read your whole life become dead philosophers. Dan was a real one 🍺
Someday we'll lose Sam, too. Life is fleeting
@@dj_laundry_listnot if we lose you first 😅😅
@@Sylar-451 Yup, my blood is going to make Sam immortal because he's a vampire
@@dj_laundry_list there's people out there who believe this stuff, mad world
dan dennet? that's the only horseman I didn't read
Three cheers for Dan Dennett🙌🇬🇧
RIP Mr Dennett. May your legacy echo into eternity
Had no idea Dan died. Recently listened to his discussion with Jordan Peterson. Rest in peace.
Same ✌️
But atheism has no RIP.
eww Kermit the Fraud? Fuck that guy
The discussion about Sweden was missing an important detail. The correct performance measure is net excess deaths, not COVID deaths, since the latter is biased by leaving out all deaths caused by the response. With correct measure, Sweden was in the top 3 best outcomes in Europe, depending on which timeframe is used.
For the Sweden case, where Sweden had higher mortality before vaccines and lower mortality after vaccines, is there any explanation for this? My first assumption would be that Swedes had built up natural immunity through widespread infections. This has the profile of higher mortality early in the pandemic and lower mortality later in the pandemic.
There's no deaths caused by the response. Australia locked down everyone and had the lowest excess deaths of any country for two years.
Contrary to popular (flawed) opinion, Sweden implemented a much more conservative response to the pandemic than many other Western countries. It should go without saying that when a population takes on board recommendations to stay home, wear masks, and other sensible precautions, the level of death and disease will be reduced. Sweden is such a case, and to a significant degree, their limited success was in part cultural. That said though, even though Sweden is held up by MAGA types as proof that covid restrictions were unnecessary, they're wrong. Sweden did poorly when compared to countries that did lock down. The Swedish approach would never have worked in my country (Australia) anyway. People here are typically too individualistic, not giving a toss, hence tougher enforcement was necessary. We saw that play out when mask wearing became a recommendation instead of being mandatory... 90% stopped wearing them immediately. I still wear masks in indoor crowds because I like being well. Since I began wearing masks in crowds, my occurrences of serious respiratory illnesses and lung infections has reduced from six or more annually to only one or two.
@@toby9999 My view is the opposite. The "necessity" of mandates is contradicted by their inferior performance. They are predicated on force rather than reason, which leads to a vicious cycle of mistrust in the first case vs a higher level of trust in the second. Swedish health authorities maintained trust by acting right - other authorities lost trust by acting poorly. I see it as a general win for enlightenment liberalism and a loss for more authoritarian philosophies.
The Sweden argument is massively oversold. In Sweden it was almost entirely contained within one region - the wider Stockholm area. Economic activity fell by a quarter in Sweden. The wider ecomony contracting by 9% - much worse than its “Locked Down” neighbours. Travel into and out of the Stockholm region well by 90%. There was a 70% drop in people of the streets generally.
Sweden was about average for excess deaths during the pandemic. The Economist and other organisations were tracking global excess death numbers throughout the pandemic. Eastern European countries - countries which had the ability to be reasonably analytical, but didn't enforce strong country-wide lockdowns, and have the economic capacity to support workers, had the worst excess deaths in global comparisons. See Russia, Bulgaria etc. The countries who locked down quickly, faired best - for excess death and the economy.
I literally became a respiratory therapist 2 months before COVID hit. To see people dying not believing that it even existed was mind boggling. 36 people died at my hospital from COVID. 34 were unvaccinated. The two who were vaccinated had diabetes. Watching these people dying alone still gives me nightmares and I'm an Army veteran with two deployments to Iraq and one to Afghanistan. I'm telling you if COVID was a dry run for a super deadly contagion we're truly screwed.
What an amazing guest speaker David Wallace-Wells was for me. His knowledge of the issue of Climate Change was salient. And the discourse between Sam and himself was very dynamic. Episodes like this satisfy me as a paid member of this podcast. One point I might raise in particular is the sociological relevance of being Biopolitical regarding anything political.
You smell like a robot
How can you be sure his knowledge is factual? Because he writes for NYT? Because you like his politics? Curious if you have heard arguments that challenge his…?
@@cryptocred5754 Fair enough, perhaps not salient. Nevertheless, Green [Washed] Capitalism was never brought up, and it's basically Neo-Capitalism or Neo-Politics. Not exactly salient ether and predominantly leading sustainable development internationally.
@user-zt6uu5tw9j are you real or a bot?
@@cryptocred5754 Well, the A.G. of California is currently pursuing litigation against Exxon Mobile for its role in Greenwashing campaigns over the years. So there is that.
It Seems David did not have the same experience most parents and small business owners endured. My Children not being allowed to go to school made a huge impact on my family and business.
100% agree. Maybe where he was at the time provided him with a lot of choices to make independently. Some of us were really constricted by our government locally and had to endure that.
Yes. His recollection of what actually happened seems to differ from my own.
I literally have photographs of the main motorways - empty. Shopping centres - empty. Playgrounds - closed off with hazard tape. Police parked at the entrance to our village, checking anyone coming in or out.
My daughter shares custody of our grandkids. She didn't see her pre-teen kids for a full month as they weren't in her bubble.
For months on end, my wife and I used to go to the supermarket once a week. This was our opportunity to legally get out of the house. When we got there, I used to go for a jog, as only one of us was allowed in. Masked.
There was nothing voluntary about this at all.
These things actually happened.
Now we know from the science that it was a huge overreaction to the virus.
Of course not, he's to rich to notice that.
@@miked2075 However, if it is that is the context one is taking. Governance at a level no higher than the municipality is actually more functionally interdependent than at any other level of government. That said, it's biopolitical...
Having lived in an RV and traveling at that time wearing a mask to shop for essentials was only a problem in Red States , sneers and snickers, but the empty shelves was the biggest problem.
What a fantastic discussion, you’ve made my day… again.
“Thank goodness” for Daniel Dennett.
When I heard the news, I thought the same thing-"Thank goodness."
In all seriousness, “thank goodness?”
What are you suggesting we thank?
Was Dawkins incorrect in his assertion that there is no such thing as “goodness ?“
"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."
- Richard Dawkins
Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking was a blast of a read...
I can think of at least one national leader/government that really did well from the virus. Tsai IngWen in Taiwan. Really she wasn't seen to have done a lot herself but hand the reins to Chen ShiZhong, the health minister who was pretty much a national hero because of what happened. Or perhaps didn't happen. We had no lockdown for 99% of the population. Not even one day. We had up to 6% economic growth in a year during the time which would be almost certainly the highest in the developed world. Basically Taiwan was the first country in the world to act and closed the borders to most foreign travellers entering while citizens had to do serious quarantine and managed to keep it out for 3 years while life pretty much continued almost normally.
Rip to Dennett. I came here because I needed to hear sometime who knew Dennett speak about his death
But, in all seriousness, what is meant by RIP on atheism. Would an atheist want us to wish them ROP after they have died?
@@samdg1234 uh... Yes? R.i.p. is a colloquial expression of sorrow at the death of a person or pet. Not everything has to maintain it's religious context. Dennett himself said that he celebrates Christmas and sings religious Christmas carols and he loves it
I would like to hear a discussion on the vaccine mandates and the policy of banning people from various activities and events due to their vaccine status. As soon as it became clear that the transmissibility of Covid was largely independent of vaccine status, that should never have happened. And that’s from someone who got the vaccine.
Shouldn't have happened before either but oh well
however, guest is not wrong, that did not happen nearly as often as people think they remember it
@emerraldx Dealing with memories is difficult. I'm personally vaccinated but I do remember how awful everyone was to the anti-vaxxers or even vaccine skeptics. There should be some accountability for it rather than pretending it wasnt that bad.
It became a real us vs them climate and it was absolutely hostile towards people questioning the legitimacy of vaccines. The idea it wasnt that bad is just patently false. We had passports for it, icon's, badges, Job and travel restrictions, even dating apps had a vaccine status. And anyone that questioned the vaccines or floated the lab leak hypothesis got lumped in a derogatory label that did make them second class citizens. It really was that bad.
I remember being horrified by the ethics of it and how everyone acted. Not a single person listened to the concerns of the skeptics, they were simply labelled and dismissed and becuase of that dismissal and hostility there is an alarmingly large community of vaccine skeptics.
I thought all that ended years ago. I guess some people cannot let go. Move on you'll feel much better
You can not use only transmissibility as your measure to determine if mandates were fair. Obciously the vaccine reduced the changes you are going to get infected and it reduced the seriousness if you get it. Therefore it is obviously more safe for people that took the vaccine than those that did not to gather. Now it can still be contested if it was fair or needed but with these things I certainly can understand that you would like to try play it safe. Also we have vaccine mandates for other ones as well. Luckily usually with these it works when enough people are vaccinated so we do not have limit those that are not. Were this not the case we would have to weight it differently as it was with covid.
"We all see ourselves as intellectuals?" "We" "All" David W-W needs to expand his friend circle a bit.
The US vs UK comparison for covid outcomes is especially interesting. Thank you.
The argument on covid mandates is analogous to the environmental argument: we don't need to acknowledge the destitute people who will be affected NOW; we're only focusing on the wealthy people, present and future.
I really wish this episode was posted in it’s entirety for free. It’s very important.
If you can't afford it, you can just e-mail support to request a free annual subscription.
He tells you say the beginning of every episode that you can get a scholarship.
Mostly a good conversation. My critique is that David overstates how good the COVID response chapter of humanity played out and he understates how bad the economic response was. He has a profoundly limited understanding of Economics. We haven't felt the consequences of printing all that money yet. It will hit us very hard soon enough. He has a serious case of "Expertise Creep".
pretty sure we've been feeling it since 2020 but all you super human producers in your ivory towers haven't noticed yet.
@@ConnorMedia the impacts of all the QE?
Unfortunately that's just the beginning...
@@bhriscannan2080What will be the consequences?
I didn’t know that Daniel Dennet passed away. He helped me break the spell I was under, I’m forever grateful to him. Better to have heard it from his co-horseman than anyone else.
Disappointed that Sam didn’t push back on some of the things this guy said about Covid. He’s out of touch with the small business owners and other workers who were harmed by our COVID response, people who had children who couldn’t go to school, etc. He’s living in his bubble where Covid policies didn’t affect him and the people around him
Did you expect different of Sam? Why?
The pandemic wasn't the [direct] issue of the macrocosm like the masses prefer to identify it as. It is a direct proponent of an imbalance associated with the microcosm. And just because [the field of] Virology is taking preventive measures to guard against future Pandemics doesn't mean society isn't continuing to exacerbate an imbalance associated with the microcosm, such as introducing genetically modified mosquitos in malarian-infested areas to rapidly breed out [female] vector-born carriers.
When we communicate that we are striving to save humanity, the tone becomes more important.
The message should be, Save humanity. It should not be save our planet.
The argument for covid restrictions having not come to pass is poor. Those restrictions were obscene and it wasn’t “relatively small”. The reason why the restrictions failed wasn’t be sure the government chose to stop restrictions, it was because the restrictions pushed the general populace to civil disobedience
These restrictions also destroyed many small businesses throughout the US.
@@christopherru100 it’s absolute nonsense and we see this type of downplaying mostly coming from folks who don’t want to take any responsibility for the destruction they caused so they try to gaslight us all into thinking “it wasn’t that bad”. Tens of thousands of people were fired or disciplined by their employers for refusing the shot, families were divided. Cities imposed nonsensical restrictions and demanded databases for folks who were or were not compliant. Not to mention that none of this would have been so bad if the government was just honest and upfront about the reality that they weren’t sure about actual effects. People would have respected the government taking an approach like Japan or the Scandinavians took. Instead they lied and threatened us about the severity of the virus as well as the vaccine and now they’re shocked about the general public having little to no faith or trust in gov institutes
@@christopherru100yup. Further consolidated the wealth disparity to the upteenth degree.
@@ilirsvenfrancous9011 that's right. Almost everyone I know was either mandated to take the vaccine or at least heavily incentivized. Whichever of those two cases it may have been was arbitrary because the salient effect of each was the same: money. Almost all of the people making arguments for these leftist ideas are too rich to know how the world actually works for the best majority of us. They're checked out; they've lost the plot.
Hear, Hear!!
DWW is doing some serious spin here. He completely brushes off how much school closures upends life entirely, which is 100% a government mandate. And then he also glances past the chilling effect that government actions have whether or not they're actively incarcerating people.
It was a fucking lockdown. Seriously disappointed Sam didn't push back more on these points.
Same as any other self-admitted far left liberal. You won't get them to think critically, don't bother trying
Neoliberal, neoconservative doesn’t matter anymore because they have morphed into the same party of war and hegemony. They see the future and they are scared.
School closures don't upend life when the Pandemic is the cause of upending life already. Second, living one day for truth is better than a lifetime without it. 'Politics isn't where life happens...' Everything, then, is Biopolitical.
Not to mention the gene therapy ( mRNA vaccination) mandated & now statistically demonstrating it's profound negative impact on our wellbeing
@@user-zt6uu5tw9jstaying home for 2 weeks after a positive covid test is not upending life.
Permanently losing income because the only possible place your school age child can be is in your primary residence is exponentially more upending. And that's before taking into account the impact of robbing them developmentally of education and interactions.
We definitely should have done a better job with kids.
UnHerd's recent Covid postmortem was rly good imo, albeit more UK-centered.
It's a privilege to get a inside perspective in the the development of this relationship. I met them exacly on the 4 horseman video.
Unfortunately it saddens me to look at my life as a failure of sorts. There is still time, but is running out fast.
Thanks Dan. ✌🌼
David's point about people exaggerating the pandemic because of fear is not true, at least not for me. That fear is also only based on David's own experience.
Read four of Daniel Denne 32:37 tts books ,including breaking the spell, what a mind, great reads and the Dialogue with Caruso I think, very useful.
I think the public is entitled to know what's on Sam's private email server. Hopefully it's unencrypted
Important conversation about COVID
I heard a few days ago an insight that hit me hard about climate change. The earth will recover, and the mammals will not. That is a very important distinction.
I find listening to Sam very therapeutic. Recently, I had a debate with some friends who have a background in biology about the effectiveness of the COVID vaccine. They brought up some obscure studies that claimed mRNA vaccines were dangerous. While I don't dispute that there is still much unknown about these vaccines, I believe that they were the best option available. It's concerning that someone with a background in biology cannot see this point, especially if they prioritize listening to the Joe Rogan podcast over their education.
I respectfully disagree on several points. There is definitely a gray area of risk to reward which can be discussed with any therapy, but there are many instances of clear transgressing the line or complete lack of rigor in calculation regarding Covid. For example - people who had recently recovered from Covid were told to get vaccinated (it produces “super immunity”) while data showed inoculation directly after recovery had a much increased adverse reaction rate while increased immune response was minor - want to say less than 5% increase from simply natural immunity. There was no possible way for informed consent, particularly regarding myocarditis, which data (not obscure data - Oxford university largest study on the subject) shows myocarditis rates were 10x more likely from Moderna vs natural infection for men under 40. Several studies showed heart damage rates from inoculation over 2% of people who took it. A child study showed there were more hospitalizations from vaccine reactions vs Covid.
I can find links if you’re interested.
Its not so say vaccines shouldn’t have been available, but that the push to vaccinate everybody did hurt many people, and by the time this information was known, it was shielded from discussion instead of debated so as to keep a narrative of “safe and effective” (regarding safe - the comparison to other vaccines adverse reaction rate is astronomical - 1 in 800 - multiple times higher than other vaccines which had been pulled due to safety risk).
Not to mention the complete lack of discussion on diet, exercise and vitamin D showing benefit to Covid response. If it was about giving people good options, and you have a very reasonable concern of having the best options available, these would have been promoted early on.
@@patrickhassing120 Thank you for your comment. Vaccine development typically takes a long time - often 5 to 10 years. Extensive research goes into ensuring safety and effectiveness. In the case of COVID-19, however, the urgency of the pandemic demanded a faster approach. The virus was new and largely unstudied, leaving scientists with limited data. This meant the usual thorough safety studies, while conducted, weren't as comprehensive as what's typically done. While the ideal scenario would have been a longer development timeline, the situation simply didn't allow for that luxury. It was a rapid judgment call based on the best available information at the time.
Majority of the scientists or doctors do not want to cause harm. Given the unprecedented situation, they made the best choices possible with the knowledge they had. This is similar to the initial confusion around masks. In a perfect world, extensive studies would provide definitive answers before recommendations are made. But sometimes, "better safe than sorry" is the most responsible approach, and masks were such a case.
The COVID-19 vaccines weren't perfect, but they were the best option available to curb the pandemic's devastating effects. While some may experience side effects, studies overwhelmingly show the benefits far outweigh the risks. Countless lives have been saved thanks to these vaccines. You mentioned reading about potential negative side effects. It's important to have open communication about these issues. While such studies exist, the number of people affected is negligible compared to the millions whose lives the vaccines protected.
I did read papers from journals of varying tiers that talked about the covid vaccines being effective and saving lives. Vaccines have a long and proven track record of saving lives. It's true that some may experience side effects (VARIABLES), but these are weighed against the overwhelming benefits. Wanna reiterate that in the case of COVID-19, the limited time frame necessitated a measured approach based on the best available knowledge at that time. While future research may uncover more about the long-term effects, the immediate need was to combat a deadly virus.
While diet, exercise, and Vitamin D have beneficial effects, they are not a cure-all or panacea and don't provide the immediate protection against a specific infection that a vaccine offers.
Isnt it nice people on youtube comments can disagree respectfully?
Regarding the testing time - this was a clear reason for the high counts of adverse effects. While I agree this situation allotted for a quick rollout, what was uncalled for was the pressure put on people to take the vaccine. All federal workers. Many office jobs. Austria made it federally mandated. Most countries had rules making it all but illegal. Many cities made it such you couldn’t enter into restaurants or buildings. The issue isn’t if somebody wants to take the vaccine - it was the overt pressure on people to take a vaccine which had known side effects.
Regarding “to the best of our knowledge”, Pfizer data released show they knew and withheld information on heart damage from early on. They actually had a girl in testing who had such a bad reaction she was put into a wheelchair for months. Her reaction wasn’t included in the study, but instead her involvement completely removed and this didn’t come to light until much later. The public was consciously not given information out of fear of vaccine hesitancy - this was never done to the best of our knowledge. I can provide references.
Regarding the negligible adverse reaction count of injuries due to vaccines I have to differ here. Again I can share studies on the subject. Did you know death rates were elevated some 15% in many western countries through 2022 and 2023? This is after the Covid death surges. It has been shown these additional deaths came from a rise in heart disease and alarming increases were found in healthy young adults. There is also information showing correlation between this increase and the rate of vaccination within countries (would be near impossible to do causation studies so correlation is all we have). On a personal note one of my best friends was hospitalized for myocarditis post vaccine - he was 30 and in good shape. He couldn’t get life insurance after due to this. He still feels the impact in certain activities. The impact on health and death count is and will remain unknown due to a lack of study.
And final point - while I agree vitamin D and diet would not have stopped the pandemic, if your argument is to use the best knowledge available, why did the CDC, the Trump administration, Biden administration, NIH, or any authority spokesperson never make mention of their help? There were times it was suppressed!! That could have saved many lives and we knew this early on, but I didn’t hear it once! I agree a panacea of solutions should be offered - so why were these not mentioned? This is why so many people, myself included, lost complete trust in our governing bodies.
@@patrickhassing120 Would you mind sharing some of the studies you are talking about? I would really like to read them. I have found trying to find Covid related data, aside from what seem to be a few studies based very similiar/same data sets, to be somewhat of a quagmire.
and by obscure you mean utterly proven and blatatnly obvious
or its just nothing out of the ordinary for western countries to have random, never before seen 5-15% spikes in deaths after 2021... even after virtually 0% spike in 2020...
The minimization of COVID lockdowns blows me away. Talk to any teacher. COVID wrecked education. Kids are down bad because of the lockdowns. The decrement in education is something we'll be paying for decades down the line. The book "Fear of a Microbial Planet" has a great chapter about this aptly named "Harming Children for the Appearance of Safety."
RIP Dan Dennett. Top philosopher extraordinaire. One of the 4 horsemen of Atheists. You are missed big man. Your reason lives on.
An awful lot of critical omissions in the arguments in this one. Other jurisdictions generally had more severe and longer lockdowns/restrictions than the US (e.g. in Canada: Quebec had curfews, Ontario lost 135 school days, the Canadian protests were sparked by vaccine mandates on truckers that were baldly nonsensical by the time they were being imposed, etc.). So dismissing the unpopularity of leaders in other jurisdictions as just general pandemic ire is pretty disingenuous. But most importantly, David correctly mentions that we knew the population fatality rate and age skew of the virus even in the earliest days, yet fails to link the distrust that developed after six months to the fact that institutions chose not to communicate those facts throughout that time. They instead strongly implied if not outright told the public that everyone was at significant risk of death. To what extent that was a deliberate tactic or just bias/groupthink is debatable, but it was a failure that fully set the stage for the collapse of public trust that followed. Six months was just how long it took a critical mass of the population to put two and two together. And then things did spiral badly in some segments of the population... but the spark was that failure to communicate accurately and honestly about the nature of the threat in the first year.
Yes what about the fear that was felt without necessity?
The Four Horseman thing is how I discovered Sam Harris. And even though there are things I've disagree with, I keep coming back.
Dan Dennett. A big mind Big enough to make his knowing its strength, very much forgivable.
A heartfelt remembrance ...
I wonder how many people listening to this have 'selective memory' and misremember things like covid lockdowns, vaccine mandates, China not actually handling things that well and less-than-transparent communication of risk factors.
I mean, I really think that I remember closed schools and beaches, don't I?
No one said beaches and schools were not closed; he said it in THIS podcast. Did you pay attention or just not listen? Neither option is making you look to good buddy lmao!!!
@@WigganNuG his synopsis about how we were given suggestions but ultimately had the freedom to make our minds is not in line with reality. In many places in the country we were straddled with strict mandates. It’s not for me to decide whether or not the mandates were necessary. I don’t have the expertise or education. But the mandates were there.
@@miked2075 It is for you to decide whether sweeping governmental overreach is necessary. That is your duty as a citizen in a democracy. Don't outsource your basic rights and responsibilities to the elite expert class prone to as much corruption and miscalculation as anyone. Sam is completely blind to this and it's sad so many people follow his lead.
@@ricksflicks- unfortunately it wasn’t for me to decide to keep my kids out of school for a year. I wish I had some input in that decision making process. I commented because my mind was blown that Sam’s guest thinks I had all this freedom of choice. I didn’t.
2 of the 4 Horsemen passed. my respect for the loss of your friends
From what i remember, you are friends with Rogan . It would be interesting if you had him on the podcast and confront his handling of misinformation which is far beyond covid.
On the topic of covid, many questions remains unanswered, causing people to not trust institutions. The questions must be answered and data must be provided. On the topic of climate change, having climate activists with low iq is way more harmful. For instance, Where are the nuclear power plants of Germany? If people really cared, we'd have nuclear power plants powering electricity grid as well as house heating. If you think it's not safe, look at number of deaths from coal vs nuclear.
34:58 to 35:36 - How we know about the COVID deaths.
Starting with Joe and going down is the very definition of setting the bar low…😂 Well played Sam!
As of 2024 I would say it has degraded the US's ability to respond better next time. Only next time with a higher contagion rate and a higher mortality rate. BUT it would also depend on how long away the next pandemic is on the time line. 5 years into the future half the US and world would end up dead. The other half would wish they were but they'd be alive. If the next pandemic is 50-150 years into the future, I'm hoping we aren't as divided or as tribal of a species as we are now. Time is everything.
Huge supporter of Sam and his podcast, however, I feel that his guests take on the Covid epidemic was really one dimensional and biased. I personally know many people who went through tremendous hardship, lost their businesses, the whole entertainment industry across the country was ravaged by the lockdowns. I was a DJ/Musician so have many relationships with people in that industry, almost every bar and entertainment venue that was run by individuals and that didn’t have some major investor / financial banking did not survive the pandemic. It completely change the night life landscape in my city and I’m sure that was replicated in cities across the country. I’m not arguing that lockdowns weren’t needed but there was a huge cost to people in this country beyond just the immediate health crisis.
No one disagrees with this; Neither does Sam. However if nightlife had continued on as usual, it would have caused so many unneeded deaths. This holds up as still true to this day. Its a shitty thing that happened. We just have to move on and we will recover.
@@WigganNuG I think the reference was to the "it wasn't as bad as we remember" bit. The guy is a journalist, actually smutty opinion columns got more eyes than usual during the pandemic because people were stuck at home and all entertainment outside the house was shut down, so I am sure he coped.
how full of yourself do you have to be to put this out as a podcast on podstanistan.
@@WigganNuG totally. I’ll just reiterate and maybe clarify a bit on my position- I was for the lockdowns. It was necessary and I was opposed to people gathering in that period for events and social functions. I’m also fortunate that I don’t live paycheck to paycheck in addition to being part of the laptop workforce that can work from anywhere and the lockdown didn’t interrupt my income streams. I’m super lucky and grateful for that. Like the other commenter said I was just pushing back on the guests own biased and one dimensional remembering of how bad it was. When I think back from my own bias yeah it wasn’t the bad… but outside my perspective I just know a lot of people that were really financially devastated by this, really struggled to make ends meet- losing jobs. Just for anyone who was near the edge they were pushed off the cliff… so yeah, I’m just saying your perspective and station in life really effects how you went through the crisis.
Sam won't lie so bending the truth will do just fine and won't hurt his Ego.
Sams got a lot of integrity, which I admire and respect him for.
But boy, does he know a lot of people who useless people.
Really bad take in regards of Sweden's covid numbers, "10 times as many died in Sweden as compared to Norway",..852 deaths in Sweden per 100,000, Norway 780 deaths per 100,000, numbers to be seen in context with Sweden having a very low mortality in 2019, as to say many old and sick people were expected to die in 2020 regardless
That sounded impossible to believe. This guy is concerned about misinformation but he’s a fucking peddler of misinformation
@@miked2075100%
@@miked2075 He's really just a moron.
@@miked2075
I have detailed knowledge on two or three of the various assertions made. David is either flat out making stuff up on those specific assertions or he is deluded.
I went on to view most of his other (unchallenged…) assertions through a ‘Gell-Mann amnesia’ lens. How many were actually correct, I don’t know.
(Why the wonder why that there is so much mis-trust and cynicism).
I think you misunderstood him. Your claim seems to be about the final tally. If you listen to it he clearly says 10 times worse in the year of 2020, then it evens out throughout the rest of the pandemic. This seems to be correct as far as I can see, e.g. “477 COVID-19 deaths (Norway) and 9737 (Sweden) in 2020” (Zahl et al., 2024).
That works out to be approx. 8.6 (Norway) vs 94.9 (Sweden) deaths per 100,000. By these numbers, that would mean more than 11 times as many died in Sweden as compared to Norway in 2020, meaning that he might’ve actually been conservative in this claim.
Sam was in Richistan during the Covid lockdowns.
If we "accept" that we overreacted in our Covid response and decide to proceed more cautiously next time, what happens if the next pandemic disease is far more virulent? If you yourself decide to be super cautious, that can be easily undone by your neighbors recklessly becoming super-spreaders. "Better safe that sorry".
SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS SAM
It’s curious to me that Sam never seems to speak with anyone who was actually harmed by the Covid vaccine despite admitting that some people were. I was put on disability for 9 months following my Moderna shot. As a liberal healthy 33 year old man, I was pretty surprised. I was gaslit by doctors, ostracized by friends, all because 2 days after my 1 shot of Moderna I had debilitating levels of dizziness and heart complications. I almost lost my job and had to make up a fake condition because doctors refused to sign off on Moderna MRNA causing me harm…
So for me, I am not buying the numbers on people harmed by this vaccine. To this day, nobody but my close family will acknowledge what I went through. I’m sure there are thousands of others just like me.
Thousands? Ok and how many vaccines were given out?
@@rdgpromotions6087Your lack of sympathy and gaslighting is disgusting. If you had the ability you would be ashamed.
@@rdgpromotions6087 hey when your family members are promised safety and health and are then handed loss of prosperity and possible death instead, don’t forget to smile bud.
I'm sorry you had such a severe reaction. Unfortunately, there are risks with any medical procedure. Thousands of people who were vaccinated for smallpox back in the 18th Century died from the vaccine. But by wiping out the disease untold millions were saved. When you or someone you know has a bad experience with a medical procedure, it's only natural to think bad experiences are more widespread than the actual data shows. For example, passenger plane travel is extremely safe, but try telling that to someone who had a loved one die in a crash.
@@keiththompson713 I was told by the people who made the vaccine and the news media that it was completely safe with no risk of harm… so no, the narrative of this being a “medical procedure with risks” was not applicable at that time. I was not going in for foot surgery; I was getting a vaccine shot. Not to mention not a single doctor at that time knew about myocarditis related to the vaccine or even believed the vaccine could cause vascular related symptoms.
Please do a podcast with B.R. Myers!
though dennett didn't believe in gods he himself as a thinker and writer was if not a god among men (or humans) still a Bright and fearless light showing the path ahead for many of us⚛😀
12:40 the conversation starts...if anyone wants to zoom to it.
You’re a saint
It’s highly concerning and unfortunate that Sam won’t debate any scientist who discusses with evidence such as the Harvard epidemiologist the negatives of the vaccines and pandemic management. Substackistan vs Samistan. Please, debate outside your echo chamber Sir Sam!!!!
Why debate the fringe? They already lost. They are the only ones left who even care about covid
I do agree... I absolutely adore Sam. I agree with almost everything he says but he does seem to have a blindspot around the vaccine. I feel I have vaccine complications but, in honesty, I may not have recognized this fact if it had not happened to me personally. That said, there is SO much wrong with the handling of the pandemic that SO wish Sam would take it on and explore the negative side.
Florida baby 🎉
My 2-year-old daughter was forced -- yes, literally FORCED -- by county bureaucrats to wear a mask until **April 2022**, so please, tell me again how Fauci saying something in May of 2020 means we didn't really have an overbearing COVID response. DWW insists because there were no federal laws we can just ignore the actual behavior of local governments and people.
This was an incredibly frustrating podcast, but COVID remains SH's blindspot on so many important things.
Covid is not a blindspot for Sam.
Sam is a liar.
Lots of good points in here. Guest seems to be forgetting that people were given the choice to vaccinate or lose their jobs. Not quite orweilliean(sp), but also not really libertarian like he says.
I just can’t deal with DWs voice and style of talking. Will consider the transcript version of this.
Everyone that listens or sees something on CZcams come in with their own biases it’s very easy to choose a side immediately and if your not willing to listen to the other side or multiple sides with some level of empathy then your bound to live in ignorance
That all depends on where 'the other side' is getting their information, it is not an equal playing field across the board. If their sources regularly, flagrantly enable or distribute misinformation/disinformation then you are better off without it clouding your reason.
I thought I had just Joined, it is true I paid the reduced price of $69.99, but if this will not allow me to access all content, then i’d be happy to supply the additional $30.01, could you pls advise how to achieve this if, in fact, that is required. thank you so much, for all you do.
RIP Dennett
If the Public Health and Government Officials simply said “get the \/@c*in* to protect yourself”, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion. What was said was “get the \/@c*in*, because if you don’t…then you are directly endangering the lives of others.” Of course it wasn’t said as explicitly as that, but all the public messaging insinuated that. That is social engineering…but have no fear, because according to Sam’s book “The Moral Landscape”, it’s the aggregate reduction in human suffering that matters, so a little bit of machiavellianism sprinkled on top doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
You understand that it is Public Health’s job to engineer the safety of the whole above the individual and that the logistics of doing their work can get kind of gnarley but is as intended. The point about the US experiencing the pandemic as a libertarian instead of as a collective cohesive society hits home hard.
Your comments about health policies... not really.
@@emerraldx I was told by relatives and friends that I was being irresponsible for not getting the \/@c*in*. My response was “The Public Officials are claiming the \/@c*in* works, and yet they are simultaneously telling you that I am a threat to you. Do you see how that doesn’t make any logical sense?” At work, I was forced to wear a mask for a year longer than my colleagues simply because I wasn’t v@c*i*@ted. I already contracted “the Cerveza sickness”, which means my body built the same antibodies as the people who were \/ax*d, and yet I was still told I had to wear a mask. Does that make any sense to you? The part that people don’t understand, is that good people were treated like criminals, simply for not participating in a completely novel treatment. Most \/@c*in*s work by introducing a weakened form of the v*r*s into the body to stimulate an immune response. The “Cerveza Sickness \/@c*in*” was an mRNA \/@c*in*, meaning it works by delivering genetic instructions to the cells in the body; instructing them to produce a protein that triggers an immune response. While mRNA technology has been studied for years, the Cerveza Sickness \/@c*in* was the first mRNA \/@c*in*s to be authorized for widespread use in humans, and yet people were outright maligned for mere skepticism.
@@emerraldx I was told by relatives and friends that I was being irresponsible for not getting the \/@c*in*. My response was “The Public Officials are claiming the \/@c*in* works, and yet they are simultaneously telling you that I am a threat to you. Do you see how that doesn’t make any logical sense? At work, I was forced to wear a mask for a year longer than my colleagues simply because I wasn’t v@c*i*@ted. I already contracted “the Cerveza sickness”, which means my body built the same antibodies as the people who were \/ax*d, and yet I was still told I had to wear a mask. Does that make any sense to you? The part that people don’t understand, is that good people were treated like criminals, simply for not participating in a completely novel treatment. Most \/@c*in*s work by introducing a weakened form of the v*r*s into the body to stimulate an immune response. The “Cerveza Sickness \/@c*in*” was an mRNA \/@c*in*, meaning it works by delivering genetic instructions to the cells in the body; instructing them to produce a protein that triggers an immune response. While mRNA technology has been studied for years, the Cerveza Sickness \/@c*in* was the first mRNA \/@c*in*s to be authorized for widespread use in humans, and yet people were outright maligned for mere skepticism.
@@toby9999 What does that even mean?
RIP Dan!
Oh no : (
Rest in peace Dan : (
I seriously doubt over 50% of podcast audiences you speak of believe that Covid was just no big deal or believe all of those insane details. Certainly these people are out there, but these are also the types that get your goat. It never ceases to amaze me how little you or your guests are willing to put almost any blame on institutions or people in positions of influence for why people dont trust them or why these crazy narratives can take hold and persist.
Well said. I agree
I am confused, is your point that most people don't think what he said, or that people who think what he described are correct, your comment seems to morph from the beginning compared to the end.
@@paulrussell1207 For example, the idea of a lab leak was described as some sort of far right conspiracy theory. Or, right at the beginning, when Pelosi et al were going out hugging Chinese people to prove how antiracist they were.
This guy is tripping , entertaining to hear his views.
1:05 he distinguished himself as if philosopher by taking science serious
51:50 would have been…..perfect
How this guy comes across is as someone telling you what you remember didn't happen that way and he is here to set the record straight. Can you see how that would be received by most reasonable people?
You keep calling him David, but I'm pretty sure that's Seth Green.
It would be great to have some form of the four horseman, but discussions about the lunacy of Trumpistan, and wokeistan.
How about Sam Harris, Douglas Murray, Coleman Hughes and Michael Shermer. Or some group like that?
I like this idea and would eagerly listen. Maybe a different group, but would love this.
We could call them The Four Horsemen Who Seem To Not Be Bothered By 30,000 Civilians Being Killed In A One-sided Slaughter.
@@mrdavemoApart from that’s not true. It would be like saying....
We could call anti Israel protesters. Groups that don’t care about militant t@rrorists committing acts of such evil and barbarity they could have come from hell, they don’t care they would commit genocide against Israel at the drop of hat. That think Israel should just let itself be destroyed.
Your argument is silly.
@@mrdavemoDon’t be silly.
"Seem to not be bothered"@@mrdavemo
I enjoy the podcast a lot, despise the Big EGO think going on there.
As a rogan listener myself, i disagree with a lot of what he says and i do feel that the characterisation of essentially the whole rogan audience being full antivaxers and fully against covid regulations and stuff is not accurate, i consider myself really moderate on those issues and i am often annoyed at rogan for saying silly things about it, but i still enjoy a lot of the episodes and i like listening to viewpoints i dont agree with. Those people who think stuff like that definitely exist and probably make up a big chunk of the audience, but i would be very surprised if its anything close to 70% or more of the people listening
I listen to Joe Rogan, but I would never make medical decisions based on his comments. Why do people assume that just because you listen to someone they're automatically going to influence you? I wouldn't jump off a cliff just because someone told me to do so.
it must be tough when your Ego can't accept the reality of not being seen as an intellectual no more.
He is a dark-aggrandizing train wreck.
The biggest thing these two are missing about our covid response. Is they ignore how enthusiastically and arbitrarily those in charge were about enforcing various lockdowns and mandates.
Thankfully, they were mostly unsuccessful but not because they didn't try.
Since covid, its become normal for businesses to be completely cashless.
Could be a coincidence of timing, i guess.
Super. Another guy who has become further left in the last 10 years (aka 8 since trump). They never see their own biases.
"mostly bewildered mexicans" lmao
Incredible after 4 years the guest says "The covid death rate is something like 1%" and Sam didn't correct him. The actual infection fatality rate (IFR) is less than 0.3% according to every major study you can find. Talk about misinformation. Overstating the IFR is exactly what caused the overreaction to begin with. It's the most important data point and our statisticians and health professionals completely failed to identify it, while overstating it 3-15x. We should have figured it out by mid-March 20' via population sampling. I could have done it as a project in my stats 101 class. A true fail!
I can tell by your comment that you haven't done a youtube search for "covid debunk" and listen to actual science experts sharing their thoughts on the issue.
Your dark web psuedo information is cliche at this point. You probably expect a refutation in a CZcams comment section.
@@Cheesesteakfreak You tell me, what is the covid infection fatality rate? Every meta study you'll find shows it's highly stratified by age, with the total overall IFR of under .3%.
@@ChadAdrian-gs2yw Those studies are dark web and a meme...
@@DUDEBroHeyAny study you can find shows less than .3%! Here’s one from Fauci’s own NIH www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9613797/ That’s the sound of your ego shattering. Btw. I’m vaccinated, they work, but not as promised.
@@DUDEBroHeydark web? Name one single study showing an IFR over .3%. You can’t. He pulled 1% straight from hus march 2020 rear end.
The Covid part was truly astonishing! Rarely have I heard more BS while cooking dinner. This is way beyond selective memory.This is outright embarrassing.
I thought the same thing. It was on the brink of parody! Wallace-Wells was just employing some absolutely textbook projection, gas-lighting, rationalization, and self-deception.
This is how those who pushed hysteria and tyranny are going to try slowly weaselling their way out of reality and accountability that comes with it!
Thanks for saving me an hour out of my life ;) Still no acknowledgment in the popular sphere of what was done to us on a global scale
I thought the same. He was basically like its all in your head that government restrictions were bad and you're misremembering what actually happened. Very arrogant and condescending overall.
The "totally bewildering inversion of reality, believed with religious zeal" that Harris mentions in this conversation seems to have flourished in this sub-thread right here.
The vocal fry on this guest. Ehhhhhhhhh…
I liked the discussion, but I was disappointed to hear your guest talk about energy (in regards to climate) and the alternatives to fossil fuels (solar/wind) and not once mention nuclear as an option, or the reasons why it was taken off of the table. Nor did he touch on the shortcomings of wind and solar. Nor did he -- when talking about the subsidies in Europe for fossil fuels after the Russian/Ukraine war -- acknowledge any responsibility of poor decision making on the part of the EU (mainly Germany) in putting all of their green-energy chickens in one basket (Russia).
I would love to hear you interview someone like Michael Shellenberger to give a different view of the climate situation. He is by no means fringe, but gives a different and insightful perspective and pulls no punches. And he is vetted by Michael Shermer.
Oh, and Greta Thumberg is a tool and not much more that a over-indulged, spoiled rich girl. Didn't like her from the get-go and much less so now that she has sided with the Free-Palestine clowns.
24:15 Sam really nails the mind of a Joe Rogan listener
lol sure
@@wasdwasdedsf I mean he's more right than wrong. A large portion of the audience seems to have the disposition that 'if it (some information, analysis, point of asserted fact, etc) came from a traditional media source, it is a priori false and maliciously misleading'. It's informational contrarianism. Does old media get things wrong? Yeah, absolutely. Does alternative media get things wrong, in aggregate, at least as much if not more? Also yes.
But there seems to be a belief that there is a pernicious conspiracy that every thing coming out of old/mainstream media is inherently part of an attempt to castrate, control, and brainwash the masses, like a real-world 'ministry of truth' out of orwell's 1984.
So the solution seems to be to believe literally anything else contrary to whatever is put out by those sources, without anything really resembling earnest critical thought.
The solution to this is really just individualistic critical thought and analysis, looking at many sources, digging into whatever relevant discipline is saying about it, etc.
I enjoy listening to the podcast, but in a fairly unserious way. A ton of what is said on it by ita guests or its host is complete bullshit, but so is what is said in my garage amongst my friends, but both are still entertaining. I take what the dudes in my garage say over beers as seriously as I take, for example (just as its a recent guest), what Graham Hancock says on JRE.
But it seems a lot of people take it far more seriously, which is odd to me.
Funnily enough, it was on Joe Rogan that I first heard Harris spout his crap
RFK is too conspiratorial. But yeah dude, I can NOT deal with the New York Times anymore.
After hearing Sam's last podcast "Facts & Values: Clarifying the Moral Landscape (Episode #364)," I thought, "Great podcast. Finally, Sam is back!" But then he releases this garbage. He and his young guest strawman their opponents. I had to fast forward past the Daniel Dennett section. Dennett was an overrated philosopher. I wouldn't even call him a philosopher. He was a popular book writer, a pedestrian thinker, and in my experience with him, a nasty curmudgeon. Sam, you are at your best when you are dealing with philosophical issues to which you've given serious thought. I admire your mind, your common sense, your clarity when dealing with complex concepts. I admire your candor, your willing to take risks, and your moral consistency. I admire your persistence in argument when you believe you are right, and your willingness to revise your views when you believe they are wrong. However, when it comes to your knowledge of world affairs, current events, history, and media, I'm sorry to say this, but you come across as a gullible ignoramus.
👏
Sam does come across as a gullible ignoramus. He is not a gullible ignoramus. What does that tell you?
@@user-gy1pu3gq3d Are you suggesting that he has a political agenda, or that I'm an ignoramus?
@@jaysonnolastname1260 I think your description was correct. Sam comes across as a gullible ignoramus. My addition to your point is that he is not a gullible ignoramus.
My claim is that he is driven by something other than the truth, but what that is that drives him is a mystery to me.
@@user-gy1pu3gq3d Basically, establishment thinking. Harris will never understand Covid or the risks of the mRNA vaccines that were rushed and then shockingly mandated.
50:00 America IS a country of "small l" libertarians, the only such country, ever. This is a good thing. I appreciate Sam's willingness to do a Covid postmortem, but I'm not convinced the economy should be shut down unless we have a SERIOUS mortality rate, (if we'd been competent enough to do early contact-tracing, I'm sure most Americans would have accepted this,) and I don't think this conversation addresses the misrepresented cost-benefit analysis for any healthy, non-elderly person to take a vaccine with some possible side effects. (I'm not a medical professional, but it's my understanding that there are some reasonable concerns along these lines).
I'd love to hear this guy (the guest) chat with Bret and Heather on The Dark Horse podcast.
Is Bret Weinstein really worth talking to at this point?
Me too. Unfortunately Sam now only talks to people with whom he mostly agrees with.
@@marcevan1141 sam is a laughing stock nobody takes serious anymore
stop trolling as if its the oposit, we all can see it. youve lost
that will never happen now, Bret has lost the plot sadly 😔
@@emerraldx That's putting it mildly
And then there were two ...
Pretty sure small business owners would disagree but whatever
When he said he is a neoliberal I am gone. Too bad.
Reality check: I (Sam) will invite a quest I already agree with to discuss (to have a monologue) about issues I feel people are confused about. By inviting someone over it is not I, Sam Harris, preaching the truth here, but rather a well informed and rationale middleman who you can place your trust in. And yes, we wont say it out loud, but we believe lying has a place when confusion and irrationality is rampant.
10/10 comment. My very thoughts.
This is one of the more ridiculous discussions I've heard. Talk about gaslighting. I was threatened with losing my job if I didn't take multiple covid shots, which in hindsight I didn't need. I got covid from my vaccinated friends anyway. I couldn't travel for work or to see my family or go into many establishments without vaccination cards, and none of us had any idea if the way we socialize would be altered forever. This went on well into 2021 and was incredibly disturbing. The way the 2 of you gloss over this is impressive or maybe just ignorant. Schools were closed, businesses closed without any idea if they would ever reopen (many didn't), Grandparents died without being able to see their grandchildren.
There are MANY people, probably many listening to this, who wanted more of that. There are people who wanted to wear masks forever, and a large number of people wanted people to be forcibly vaccinated. The only reason we don't have "syringes put into our arms every 6 months" is because normal people pushed back against the so-called experts. We have people in power that WOULD require all of that if they could, and the only thing stopping it are the (thankfully) normal people out there, who you still seem seem to think need experts to decide their news and views for them.
Thank you. I wouldn't have had the patience to lay all of that out, but I'm glad someone did.
@@archstanton3430 haha. I almost kept going
Preach
If Sweden behaved like us without the laws. Doesn't that mean the laws were unnecessary?
Wouldn't it be better to choose the course of action that preserves our principles and the ability to call ourselves liberal democracies? Bad interview from a normally brilliant SH.
Davis Wallace Wells needs to do some more research...
Sam Harris top fan 😂
Sam is a World Champion Pseudo intellectual.
Sammy The Pseudo Harris.
@@CP-nl2zb Nope.