Generosity, Cynicism, and the Future of Doing Good: A Conversation with Chris Anderson(Episode  

So his defense of himself/TED with regard to TED's abysmal treatment of Coleman Hughes boils down to the fact Coleman's talk is "deeply upsetting" to some on the left and made some of his staff "uncomfortable". This is literally feelings trumping careful, reasoned discourse at TED.

Sounds like Coleman was correct in his perception of his TED Talk being suppressed because of woke staffers. Anderson just presents this information somewhat cheerfully, but doesn't actually undermine anything.

Man, this guy still really doesn't understand how bad TED failed, with regard to the Coleman Hughes situation. Some people are so far behind in the race they think that they're leading...

So glad Sam asked about Coleman's awful treatment by TED. Pretty bad response.

Oye. The Coleman Hughes controversy did not get better by this. He not only doubled down. But semi-agreed with his staff for deliberately suppressing the talk. Wow

The fact that this guy is pretending to hold centrist values like he has no responsibility that his organisation has drifted so far to the radical left that coleman is someone they can hardly offer a platform to is rather aggravating

Coleman Hughes isn’t controversial, he isn’t right wing, Chris’s response is actually non-factual. Absolutely atrocious. What a spineless man.

The world is full of good people. If you can't find one, be one.

Thank you for holding his feet to the fire there Sam.

Thank you Sam. I can’t put a price in the help you have provided me with your literature and conversations.

"TED is non-partisan", right after explaining himself catering to complaining leftists. Here's my question, if enough right wing people complained about a lot of the horse shit videos TED produces would he cater the same way he did to those leftists? We all know the answer to that.

In response to Coleman, he says the problem here is tribalism. He fails to see that his tribe treated Coleman differently than any other person who went on TED because Coleman is not part of his tribe. He fails to acknowledge any wrongdoing there. How can I trust his opinion on generosity or the future of doing good when he only knows cynicism.

I had a friend trapped in bitterness after an experience with a homeless person to whom he had given money and perceived that he was not rewarded with sufficient gratitude. I asked him to examine the motive for his actions. I suggested that he reframe the experience and understand that he had done the right thing in the moment when he saw another person in need and chose to act with compassion. When he accepted that he is only responsible for his actions and that his were admirable, he was able to let go of his cynicism and embrace his own generous nature.

Liked the guest but his stance is indicative of the confusion in our public debate. If the issue with colour blindness is its effectiveness - let’s discuss how to measure what “effective” means and how to be effective. We should not avoid talking about issues because they are complicated. That is a confusing and confused position.

Thanks Sam for another great discussion and also to Chris Anderson - I think TED is a great venture and although their are plenty of TED talks (especially TEDx) that I take issue with, that is OK. The viewpoint of others is always worth hearing, regardless of what feelings it evokes in you. I have learned that when something makes me angry, to ask myself why and critically evaluate why that is because it is true what they say - what you dislike about other ppl is often a mirror for what you dislike about yourself, which is an awesome to challenge yourself and your own beliefs systems and where they come from. Never stop growing; never stop learning, nothing in this ecosystem is anymore valuable than anything else. Everyone has a story and I truly believe that everyone has something to teach me, if they will trust me enough to share their story

Mr. Harris, the reason no one has ever made those comments about buying a book is that you are buying a physical item that you now own when you buy a book. You get to keep it, read it over and over and share it with loved ones without having to pay more and more money to do so. A podcast is a radio show, or a tv show and it is dependent on the availability of electricity, to charge the phone, laptop or tablet, which we all also have to pay for and the internet, which we all are already paying for too. Sort of like the TV show M. A. S.H., which so many of us tuned in to watch almost religiously, but none of us actually gave any money directly to the studio or the cast and crew...we were paying with our time and attention, not our wallets. As far as I am concerned, the platforms you broadcast on should be the ones paying you because of the amount of attention the people watching or listening are giving to that platform. For example, youtube should be paying you because of the ratings your show has and the ads that run. The viewer is already giving your show the attention and not the millions of other shows that are on at the same time and they are already paying for the access to the internet and electricity on top of that. A book is a one time purchase with no hidden or extra fees. Hope that helps you to understand why people react differently to podcasts. If I buy your book you will make money off of me once....if I pay for your podcast you will get money each time I watch an episode....we, the consumer, are not all ignorant to this fact and many of us disagree with the ethics of making money repeatedly off of one person watching the same episode several times vs the consumer paying you royalties once for a book they can read ten thousand times for free afterwards.

Not an intellectually interesting guest.

Almost half hour so far... The guest just asserts without evidence that colorblindness doesn't "work" (without defining what that means either). Not a serious person.

Link to the Coleman Hughes talk please?

I consider myself a Classical Liberal, though not particularly Libertarian, even though the two are related. I think Sam should have a conversation with one of these ppl who worships Ayn Rand, I don't entirely understand them. Top pick, definitely Stephen Hicks.

Ghislaine Maxwell will save the oceans with her Ted talks.

Great place to end this part of the podcast!

Speaking of Coleman, does anyone know where he's been? He hasn't updated his podcast in over a month.

Great podcast sam. Some of his podcast are still great. 10/10

great episode!

imagine if we became cynical about truth just because some random people lied about something.

Anderson's position on the Hughes debacle is "TED is so wonderful and brave for allowing this guy to say what MLK used to say. How dare Hughes demand an equal treatment to other presenters?" This Anderson guy has no shame.

I find the "rah rah" attitude in some of these comments dispiriting. The one concrete claim of Coleman against TED was that they failed to promote him on their podcast. Chris said (1) that he wasn't aware at the time that this happened and (2) that he has since rectified the problem. This seems like a reasonable response to me. Let's see what the 2024 lineup for TED looks like, as Chris suggests. Let's try to adopt some generosity of spirit.

You can’t “do” good… you can only “be” good. You can do nice things for people but that’s not what it means to be good.

Not the most interesting guest in my opinion

Making the universe a better place for the consciousnesses that will exist is very important, bit I think people need to understand why they should care... And Generic Subjective Continuity provides us with one of the best reasons that could even possibly convince malignant narcissists to be good to others. (Sam discussed GSC in his "The Paradox of Death" episode).

That cliffhanger though.

One could not be more wrong than to believe in determinism and altruism.

False claim: The Coleman Hughes Ted Talk did NOT get 800,000 views on YT. It's less than HALF of that

Sammy babay! Keep it going brother 🌞👍

sounds like a slippery guy with the content of his answers and to hear him speak his voice is very similar to Tony Blair

Can you please do your podcast with video. its so much more engaging

people scamming people, or making nonsense statements are not really trying to do good are they?

It's nice they point out that a proper conception of selfishness does not entail a lack of concern for others' well-being, but they act as if they are hot on the trail of some fresh insight. Harris needs to get over his Ayn Rand allergy and have the guts to properly credit her for sorting out this issue 60 years ago.

Word

I think what Sam says here about it being a huge loss of opportunity for miniority groups of any kind, to wind up spending most of their time talking about issues related to that, when often they have so much else to give. NOW, I UNDERSTAND that this is a utopian worldview and not how things really are. And I totally get why people who are disadvantaged whether socioeconomically, racially, because of disability or sexual identity, when given an audience as big as TED offers, will WANT to talk about those issues preferentially to other things, because we simply just are still so far from anything like an inclusive, non-judgemental and fair society and furthermore, justice system, that we do NEED to keep talking about it. F**k, in Australia, this problem is 10x worse than in the US (at least based on my own observations, and watching a lot of documentary/reading a lot of books by credible writers) - racism in Australia is still 100% accepted; normalised and justified. Hell, we just had a referendum which was about two things, one of which was RECOGNITION OF FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE IN THE CONSTITUTION and the vote went 40:60 Yes:No. Now, 40% isn't bad. But FFS colonisation rendered Aborignal culture, philosophy, art, medicine ENDANGERED. Luckily not extinct. Momentum is growing but I have a number of Aboriginal friends and they all say the same thing - they don't like going into stores because they will be tailed by store security. There is a lack of trust, often fear, manytimes disgust expressed towards ordinary Aboriginal Australians just going about their lives doing nothing wrong by us British ex-pats, immigrants from Europe & more recent immigrants from other parts of the world. But grass roots change is about, as Sam says, being "colour blind". People are just people. We are all just trying to make our way in this messed up world and I personally could care less about race, religion, neurodiversity, age, gender identity or sexual preference. I think there is little hope left for my generation (Gen X) and definitely not for our parents. But Gen Y and younger need to shift their perspective, drop the stereotypes, stop pidgeonholing & judging people and let everyone give you a chance to show you who they are before you decide whether or not you care to get to know them.

i'm not sure i like this guy. he talks like a politician with lots of slippery language and endless speeches about the great things he wants to achieve. i'm still not satisfied about how they treated coleman hughes. all he did was reassert what happened rather than justify it. he went on to say that he doesn't think colour blindness works, but didn't explain how and even so, why would that mean that coleman hughes shouldn't talk about it without these extra conditions being thrown in that wouldn't have happened with other topics? i didn't hear a justification for what they did as it seems that if he did give the real reason, then he'd be contradicting his stance on how he wants the industry to run, which i think he was aware of. i'm not sure if it's his own bias or pressure from other people however. i still can't believe "colour blindness" is controversial. it seems quite sinister to me. i can't help, but think it's because there are certain people of races out there whom have their special "victim status privileges" and they're aware that colour blindness would mean giving that special treatment/justice up. then again, now i might be being cynical, which is ironic considering the topic lol.

I still don't get what's so deeply unsettling about Coleman Hughes talk. might be that I am too stupid, but maybe it's because I am not from the US and Americans don't see how deep they have dug these stupid trenches

You’ll notice some personal remarks, in here, indicate this was taken from a texted conversation I had in a group. Just ignore those personal remarks. This is a great conversation. Sam is talking to the man who owns TED Talks. It gets tedious when they’re discussing the people who were at the base of Effective Altruism and DEI - but it gets more interesting when they start talking about Coleman Hughes and what Wokeism and Anderson did to him-which I completely disagree with-and there is much talk about color blindness, population groups and - you know - what stubborn people call ‘race‘. It’s another conversation that’s great for those who care about what’s going on in the world-maybe more so, in the American World. It’s very much like many of our conversations, Bob - very much like what you were just talking about, when mentioning the way things might be, or should be or could be. Here’s a question for you fellas: My logic on this is: As long as one is going to take a superficial feature of a human “group” and describe them by it - there is no way that superficial taste cannot be attached to that superficial feature, and it doesn’t matter if the people using that descriptor don’t see anything wrong with the “group” described by that superficial feature; what I mean is, even one who claims not to have anything intrinsically against that “group” - must submit to the notion that that group is different in a substantial way (by attributing the “group” to that superficial feature), simply by calling them out according to that feature-defining them by it; and of course the worst among us in contributing to any prejudice derived or connected to this superficial feature-are those who submit to it and name themselves in this way, turning the name into a badge of honor-or a pejorative. For example; Imagine calling Kangaroos, “tailers”, simply because they have evolved and still have tails. Who does this? Well people have a use for those tales. So what’s the obvious problem? Well - the obvious problem is the kangaroos are so much more than the sum of the use of their tails. Now, if we were taxonomists studying different mammalian groups-this would only be typical use of a time-honored and useful practice, as it is in real animal taxonomy. Animals in different sub-species are often named after the feature which is most obviously different from those of their brother and sister subspecies. But you might say to me - ‘why wouldn’t you call them something that relates to their pouches or even their muscular, and human arms? Well, that’s the point. For people(s) who have no use in describing themselves by the variations in their skin tone, there would be no reason to name and put them in different groups according to the color of their skin (and of course, it goes without saying, that people assigned to different skin-tone groups have different tones in contrast with one another in the same group; you know what I mean, here: no two people are black in the same way, nor white, etc. - and many are disparately complected and within and disagreeing with one another over it: ‘I’m brown, and he’s black; I’m witer than you; she’s blacker than me.’) It’s all so stupid - unless you’re a colorist, a taxonomist - or “racist‘ (one I define as deluded into thinking races exist among Homo sapiens and that a superficial feature could describe those “distinct” races-of which neither is true); it’s language dealing in the bullshit of a subdivision that doesn’t exist among humans. No one is saying here - and I’m being facetious in describing myself - that we can’t describe different groups, but ‘races’ and ‘colors’ are the wrong descriptors and cause pejorative language and false distinctions socially and politically. We just need different names. Someone is going to bring up how these classifications are helpful to police officers and doctors. Fine; just called them something accurate. The science shows that we are not divided into races. That should be the end of the argument and the end of it forever. Someone is going to say but this group or that group likes the descriptor. Doesn’t matter. It’s causing harm - and, again, it’s inaccurate. This inaccuracy falsely educates people and maintains false barriers. And every time we open our mouths and we use these inaccurate terms or we set them down in text-we are contributing to the false education and the divide between us. There are still others - as you will hear given voice two in this discussion between Sam Harris and Chris Anderson - who will say that color blindness doesn’t work. Well that’s because people wanted to work with certain names on top of each category involved. Again! I’m just saying change the fucking names. Because the names are wrong. Words matter - because they inform cognition which informs behavior. As I’ve told most of you in private conversation - I am completely confident that the day is going to come when the word ‘race‘ is in the trash bin of linguistic history, where it belongs - with the N-word. Why not(?)- as Christopher Hitchens used to say - “bring it on.” And I mean now. I simply can’t accept the arguments that ‘people aren’t ready for that’-just as Sam was not ready for Anderson’s explanation about what was done to Coleman Hugh’s at TED-to satisfy the woke and defy MLK…. Here’s a question for you fellas: How can we get beyond prejudice when people insist on using the word ‘race‘? My logic on this is: As long as one going to take a superficial feature of a human group and describe them by it - there is no way that superficial taste cannot be attached to that superficial feature, and it doesn’t matter if the people using that descriptor don’t see anything wrong with the group of its superficial feature; what I mean is, even one who claims not to have anything intrinsically against that group - must submit to the notion that that group is different in a substantial way (by attributing the group to that superficial feature), simply by calling them out according to that feature-defining them by it; and of course the worst among us in contributing to any prejudice derived or connected to this superficial feature-are those who submit to it and name themselves in this way turning the name into a badge of honor-or a pejorative. For example; Imagine calling Kangaroos, “tailers”, just because they have tails. Who do this? Well people have a use for those towels. So what’s the obvious problem? Well - the obvious problem is the kangaroos are so much more than the sum of the use of their tails. Now if we were taxonomist studying different mammalian groups-This would be the time honored and useful practice as it is in real animal taxonomy. Animals in different sub species are often named after the feature which is most obviously different from those of their brother and sister subspecies. But you might say to me - why wouldn’t you call them something that relates to their pouches or even their muscular, and human leg arms? Well that’s the point. For people(s) who have no use in describing themselves by the variations in their skin tone, there would be no reason to name out them in different groups according to the color of their skin (and of course, it goes without saying, that people assigned different skin - tone groups have different tones in contrast with one another in the same group; you know what I mean, here: no two people are black in the same way, nor white, etc. - and many are disparately complected and whine up disagreeing with one another over it: ‘I’m brown, and he’s black; I’m wider than you; she’s blacker than me.’) It’s also stupid unless you’re a colorist, a taxonomist - or ‘ racist ‘ - Language Stickley dealing in the bullshit of a subdivision that doesn’t exist among humans. No one is saying here - and I’m being facetious in describing myself - that we can’t describe different groups, but ‘races’ and ‘colors’ are the wrong descriptors and cause pejorative language and false distinctions socially and politically. We just need differentul to

Yeah.. this guy lost me in literally a couple of minutes. Watched 80% of the video and it got boring. He was "concerned" for some muslims in the audience, hence he opposed Sam's points and then doubling down with his staff about suppressing Colrman.. No thanks. Another wokester apologist.

How does this trading stuff work? I'm really interested but I just don't know how it go about it. I heard people really make it huge trading

I replayed the part about the TED controversy to see if I was missing something just to be fair. But Chris said a whole bunch of sweet nothings. He was too mealy-mouthed

Love Sam but his hatred and mischaracterization of trump is such a blindspot and a bias in his thinking. Strange to see someone usually so precise speaking in sweeping generalities that reek of bitterness. Trump has been and likely shall remain misunderstood

Too much phycobabal re Colman Hughes. Just admit you were wrong in the way he was treated. A truly great thinker.

The one thing that is alwaus interesting about Sam is one episode he will talk about peace, generosity, the space for all beings to experience joy and happiness. And the next he will have a hate mongering far right supoorter on that he considers a great friend and loves his message. Lol. Free thinker. I guess so

Sam didn’t do a good job in sticking up for Coleman, this podcast could have made a difference - Sam seemed weak

Given the SBF debacle, I’d like to hear Sam’s thoughts on e/acc before he doubles down on altruism. I find Beff Jezos’ arguments convincing and I want Sam’s take.

The exact moment where they begin to discuss the paywall model of the podcast, and how it shouldn’t be a barrier to the podcast, ….part one ends….

Not a great guest unfortunately. He had zero interesting insights and his overly emotive conversational style felt jarring on this podcast.

Sam still making podcasts?

there usually is quite mixed bag of motives/emotions attached to generosity/altruism and it may not be the best approach to demand absolute purity(not saying, that intentions doesn´t matter!); i mean, in extreme its like saying, that you are either saint or worthless piece of selfish garbage... ...regarding coleman; i agree, that postponing his speech + not boosting it with usuall ted support is double standard (sam is also kinda needling chris by touching theme of public image vs integrity of teds founding intentions)...its dissapointing...same as lack of appreciation for undertaking such as ted; just reading colemans substack about his speech surprized me; every ted speech is preceded with profound and lenghty consultation + fact checking by ted staff; its not some careless "ok, we invite someone and see where it goes" bussiness; that said, i am taking this outcry as fair criticism, while looking forward to teds future guest list...btw (and i am aware of tribalism trap) is there some similar "rightish" platform?

Offering a platform to someone who "caught your eye" is exactly at the core of the problem - who caught your eye is affected by a myriad things not least of which have to do with race and gender. In Sam's case it's not that he doesn't see all people relatively equal which I wholeheartedly believe but the people that he comes to notice have passed multiple other potentially more prejudiced loopholes. The other thing is the motivation behind acts of generosity. I don't think people are even aware of their own motives oftentimes. Our perceptions of ourselves are often distorted - some are biased towards the negative side, some are the opposite. Also you have to remember that throwing money at a cause doesn't always end up doing good, and good intentions don't justify bad outcomes. If your money/time/effort ends up profiting, say, Hamas terrorists you have de facto supported their terrorist activities. With giving there's a responsibility to follow through and some people might be deterred by that.

I recently watched the movie "Amadeus" with our current societal lens.... He (Wolfgang) comes across as a complete idiot.... It may be very annoyed realizing that

8 minutes it took Sam to bring up Trump ...ffs go meditate and get over him

The argument that it's absolutely ok for people to give even though their motive is self serving is so flawed. If you are encouraging people to do that so that it encourages others to then the illumination it once gave will become totally obsolete and people won't bother giving. Think about what we all put on our CVs in order to get an interview for a job, we'd embellish everything so that it would make us look amazing, except once everyone started doing it it totally lost its lustre. In addition to that, the motive of giving to virtue signal is basically so that their status in society can go up, which in itself contributes to inequality. If someone knows that virtue signalling is going to increase their chances of promotion then someone else has to lose out. I'm surprised at how blinkered this interviewee is. I'm afraid to say that most people who run these podcasts, including Sam Harris himself, are just virtue signalling about how they want to make the world a better place, yet neglecting to realise that they do so from a position of privilege.

Wow what a shocker TED is woke.

Sam Harris says that he was against the Iraq war, or as he puts it *he always thought that Iraq war was a bad idea* (Let's not misinterpret the most misunderstood intellectual in America). We never heard "that" from him until recently, and also his good friend Christopher Hitchens was the biggest cheerleader for the Iraq war, we never heard Sam Harris debate Christopher Hitchens on that topic.

Fake it till you make it. It’s worked great for me! 😇

I remember the interview Sam Harris did with bankman freid, listening to him waffling on about how much his company gives to charity to make himself feel good and indicate he was helping society, when at literally the same time he was commuting fraud and ripping off customers. All this altruistis giving nonsense is a total waste of time.

Sam Harris. What a sad story of a fall from grace, interviewing uninteresting nobodies

Oh my word. Chris. Chris. Chris. You did the TED Talk brand no favors today. Ick. Your take on the controversy that TED TALK CREATED around Coleman Hughes is laughable. Just apologize. Your muzzling of him was gross and anti-spreading of worthy ideas. What I learned from it is, TED Talk doesn't want the open exchange of new ideas. It wants to be an echo chamber - and its product now is malignant virtue-signaling. So disappointed by this Mr. Anderson and this conversation. BUT, I'm glad it exists in the ether - and see how it has a place, unlike Ted Talk "uncomfortable" with the ideas of a black man talking about color-blindness.

Call whatever name you want. People will believe you. Image is image.

First, you have to define good Then we can continue ( maybe)

Tx

"Ted is non-partisan". Yes, and I have some land to sell you in Florida

Hi Sam can you do a talk on abundance mindset, manifesting reality

bubble and bubbler

At’ aboy, Go get’m Sam!

O don't understand how the idea of colourblindness triggers the "woke left". I mean colourblindness is like directly from a Lennon song, everyone is equal, we live in harmony, how. much worker can an idea get? this is the motherlode of wokeness

Sam that is a very rare L from you,you do the same to elon as the people you are critisicing

My good is the opposite of what Hamas considers to be good, in other words , good and bad are subjective..

If book would cost 60$ people would be asking the same questions dont u think

I got booted off my subscription. Weird

Anderson should grow a spine. Pathetic. The guy even SOUNDS like Tony Blair!

Noncesense

Which part of this podcast on “generosity” and “doing good” do they talk about the justified reasons of slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza? You know, the reasons for leveling a city to root out some bad apples? Sam the moral philosopher seems to have no moral qualms about it.

The world has always been mean, it hasn't just become. Your fear has helped the bad guys turn our country into a big brother (corporate) surveillance state. It's only going to get worse but not for the reasons you're suggesting. Money Money Money. WOKE cannot become the new religion

Hunter Biden’s laptop

Chris should have Sam Hyde back on Ted!

Halfway through watching this interview, and with knowledge of the wealth of great content to be had now, I do not feel compelled to ever watch another TED talk. The heavily woke filtered philosopher/ standup-comedian format does not interest me. TED can melt into the obscure DemocracyNow! or Richard Wolff or Young Turks corner of the web.

8:00 Hey, Sam. How are you feeling today? After Trump practically winning the primaries. I hope your meditation is still working to lower your stress levels! Buhahahahaha!

For Sam its all about having a good BM... business model or bowe movement seems the same to me

The absolute obsession with altruism is not healthy. Obviously "color blindness" does not work if your goal is equality. Any group is going to contain a statistical difference. That is fine. The goal itself is wrong. You both need to think more about Ayn Rand's deeper insights. The goal in life is happiness aka self interest. Generosity can be part of this. Read Ayn Rand the virtue of selfishness.

Generosity.. happiness and love is all good when you fkn feel it Sam Harris and the Hollywood elite will always have the fkn pleasure

How nice to lose a million a day, you and your guest are out of touch. Wildly.

Free Palestine ❤

I used to look forward to these but not now. Sam's failure to call out Israel's atrocities or show any understanding to the Palestinian just cause, has exposed Sam in my view as disingenuous.

LOL TDS SAM IS GONE

Can you not be a coward and invite Norman Finkelstein to debate what's happening in Gaza and the atrocities that the Israeli government continue committing

8 minutes in and the TDS rears its head. Sam calls Trump selfish but Forbes write that Trump “probably” donated his entire salary back. That doesn’t seem like the act of a selfish person to me.