#477 — More From Sam: Iran's Unraveling, The Gaza Information War, AI-Generated Music, and More

0:01Jaron Lanier:You're listening to Making Sense with Sam Harris. This is the free version of the podcast, so you'll only hear the first part of today's conversation. If you want the full episode and every episode, you can subscribe at samharris.org. There are no ads on this show. It runs entirely on subscriber support. If you enjoy what we're doing here and find it valuable, please consider subscribing today. Welcome back to another episode of More from Sam. Once again, we are taping this live in front of subscribers. We've taken questions in advance and have invited everyone in the live recording to submit follow-ups in real time.

0:36Jaron Lanier:Hopefully you guys are ready to be doing that today. Before we get on to our first topic, you finished up some tour dates in Toronto, DC, New York, Dallas, and Austin this past week, and we're done now, or are we?

0:47Sam Harris:Yeah, I think we are. I'll know, we recorded two days. We recorded New York and Austin, and yeah, it'll just, you know, we'll see what that recording looks like and see what we intend to do with it. But yeah, it feels like we're done with this talk. We're done with this talk, but I don't know about touring in general. I feel like you had more fun than you. I mean, for life? No, I don't think I'm done for life. But touring this talk, I mean, this talk, we've been touring for, was it 10 months, 11 months, something like that?

1:15Jaron Lanier:Yeah.

1:16Sam Harris:And it's evolved month by month and then maybe by 10 % or so. And yeah, I think I'm done repeating myself on this particular set of topics.

1:27Jaron Lanier:But the good news is we might do something else in the future and we'll let everybody know when we have that figured out. We won't be shy about that. Yeah. No need to list all the celebrities and public figures that came out to see you, but I did think it was adorable watching you fangirl over one in particular, the comic Jordan Jensen. Yeah.

1:42Sam Harris:Oh my gosh. That was great. Yeah. That was hilarious. Yeah. Well, she's, if you haven't discovered her, Jordan Jensen is just a massive talent and she has a Netflix special, but the thing that really got me into her was just seeing her crowd work clips on YouTube. I mean, she's just so good in that zone. So yeah, she came out to the Beacon in New York. And yeah, I mean, I was, you know, I don't tend to get starstruck, but, you know, I fangirled on her to a degree that just, I think, probably astonished her. Her mom was there too, so it was kind of adorable.

2:16Jaron Lanier:It was great. I'll add that Neil Brennan came out to the show as well, because I think everyone should listen to the podcast episode he did with you.

2:21Sam Harris:Yeah, he's a very funny man too. You should see his specials on Netflix.

2:26Jaron Lanier:Yeah, he just seemed to turn the right dials and get great stuff out of you in ways that others haven't, including me. So if anyone wants to really hear more from you, that's a great episode to do it. And just a reminder, the community, our new community, your new community has been in private beta for a couple of weeks now. We've gradually been inviting members in every day. And it's been a place with lots of engagement, including plenty of disagreement with others and you, but it's been very respectful and enjoyable. We even have a few Trumpers in there now, and everyone's been cordial for the most part.

2:57Jaron Lanier:We've only had to toss a couple people thus far, but it's been very clear that many in the community have also been wanting something like this to exist for quite some time. And I just want to add a little housekeeping on this, that anyone who's subscribed to the podcast before June 1st will have free access to community for as long as they maintain an active subscription. After June 1st or thereabouts, you will need a separate subscription to join community. So if you want to check it out and engage with some fellow bright, mindful people, you can subscribe at samharris.org and get access to community for free now.

3:30Sam Harris:I think we should also add that this is totally web-based now, but there's an app coming. I don't know when that's coming, next month or, but yeah. So I think people are frustrated that it's not app-based, but that will be remedied.

3:44Jaron Lanier:I've actually seen some people say the opposite, say that they kind of like having to sit down and get their thoughts together so that they're not just on the fly ripping comments without. Yeah, it actually might be.

3:55Sam Harris:Yeah, it might degrade the quality of the conversation once we get a nap. We'll see. We'll see. Anyway, how are you feeling about Iran? Are we going to get a good deal over there or what? Well, we're having this conversation on Memorial Day. You know, we should always stipulate that we have no idea what's going to happen 15 minutes from now because we're being ruled by maniacs. It certainly seems at this point that we almost have the worst of all worlds. I guess the worst possible scenario is that we hurl all of our military resources into this war and still fail, right? So like a boots on the ground quagmire, I guess that's the worst case scenario.

4:36Sam Harris:So that doesn't appear to be in the cards. But we seem to have found the second worst scenario, which is Trump and his incompetent friends, Pete Hegseth in particular, have bragged and boasted and bluffed and then blinked and then blinked and then blinked again. All our bluffs were called. They've showcased American weakness and incompetence to a degree that I think no one could have rationally feared. I mean, even to the point where I'd be like, like the last bit of optimism I think anyone had here was that the military itself is still the sort of military that befits a superpower. But it, you know, in the clear light of day, even that seems not to be true.

5:19Sam Harris:I mean, maybe we're not a paper tiger, but we're, we're something close and we just don't have the, we've almost run out of armaments. Apparently we're not very good at mind sweeping or defending drones or, I mean, like we're not, we don't appear to be cutting edge in the ways that we needed to be for this. And we just seem to have blown through our stockpiles of armaments, right? So we're rationing arms in addition to everything else we're doing. So it's terrible. It's a terrible outcome because Iran seemed, for all that we've done to degrade their capacity and their regime, and we've killed a lot of people apparently, they're more powerful than they were at the beginning of this war.

5:57Sam Harris:We've taught them and taught the world that they can hold the 20 % of the energy economy globally hostage and we can't do anything about it. I mean, Trump is just, you know, he's a corrupt weakling and he's made our country look like that. I mean, that's really the net result so far. Now, again, 15 minutes from now, we could start bombing everything and the regime could collapse and we could see democracy emerge in the streets. I mean, I guess that's not a outside the realm of possibility is probably below a 1 % possibility at this point, or even a one 10th of 1 % possibility. But I mean, I've always held out hope that despite our incompetence and despite Trump and Hegseth's insane bellicosity and stupidity and our, you know, having made every effort to alienate all of our allies, et cetera, that we might still produce something that was better than the status quo here.

6:55Sam Harris:But that doesn't seem to have happened.

6:57Jaron Lanier:So are you saying that boots on the ground now is your worst case scenario? Because I think in the past you had said that allowing them to -

7:04Sam Harris:A failed attempt in that. Like if we had put more resources in and still failed, that would be the worst case scenario. Right. So like to lose the war with boots on the ground would be worse than the war where we seem to be in the process of losing. And it's interesting to consider what it actually means to lose or win a war of this sort. Obviously, we haven't had many Americans die, although I think the destruction of our bases and planes and all that has been somewhat concealed from us. I think the Iranians did more damage to us and our allies than has been made clear. There's been a lot of lying, I think, as you might expect from the Trump administration.

7:44Sam Harris:But, you know, we haven't, it's weird to think of this as a defeat, you know, if you're just looking at numbers of dead and the material destruction. But the optics here really matter. I mean, we have revealed to all of our enemies that we're only willing to sacrifice, you the stock market ticker for a few short minutes before we're going to get very nervous and pivot. And again, Trump, his messaging about this has been the worst case scenario because it's been pure bluster and bluff and all of our bluffs got called. It is just the weakest possible presentation of our role in the world.

8:27Jaron Lanier:Ending the war at the time of our choosing and the way we would do it, whatever Hegseth said. That does not seem to be the case.

8:33Sam Harris:Yeah, and complete surrender, unconditional surrender was the standard initially. And I mean, if anyone has surrendered, we have surrendered. And so just think of the conversation I had with Ben Shapiro a few weeks ago, or whatever that was, a month ago or so. He was quite confident even then that Trump was never going to settle for an outcome that would be worse than the JCPOA deal that he's endlessly derided. Never step away from Israel's, you know, our joint interests with Israel. He's just this staunch defender of Western civilization and, you know, basic, you know, sanity in the Middle East.

9:15Sam Harris:And, you know, I've always, again, I have been very hawkish on jihadism in general and the jihadist regime in Iran in particular in recent months. But I've always said that this war could well be a disaster given kind of the unprincipled nature and the just obvious incompetence of our administration. Again, I'll just remind people, we put a game show host in charge of the world's only superpower. We put a Fox and Friends host in charge of our military. What did we expect was going to happen, right? So that has always been the fear. Again, given the fact that the Iranian people seem poised to revolt and take some considerable risk, though we came quite late to their defense after some tens of thousands were killed by the regime, I mean, there was always this hope that we were going to kind of uncork a new world in Iran, given that the population is so tired of theocracy, but that certainly doesn't seem to be happening.

10:21Sam Harris:I mean, it might happen six months from now after we leave the place. I mean, that's totally possible, but again, it looks bad.

10:27Jaron Lanier:So this is coming in from one of the subscribers. What would you consider to be a victory now?

10:33Sam Harris:Regime change. Well, I mean, there's no, this is what I think I've been very clear about from the beginning. There's no end to this shorter regime change that we could consider a victory. Of course, we're going to lie about considering even this humiliating outcome a victory. But no, I mean, regime change was the only thing to hope for. And it had to have been the real purpose of this whole exercise. Whatever we're going to say about it now, regime change is the only thing that guarantees that Iran could not be a nuclear armed enemy in the future. I mean, that's just not, they're going to, whatever they say, they're going to sprint toward a bomb and there's going to be no enforcement of anything.

11:15Sam Harris:We have less power than we had in the beginning. I mean, it's, again, it's somewhat paradoxical that we got here this way because we somehow got less power by creating a lot of, you know, harm to our enemy in this case. But our enemy is, is stronger in some very specific ways and we are weaker in some very specific ways. And crucially, all of this has been advertised to everyone, right? So, I mean, no one thinks we would defend Taiwan now. I mean, you couldn't possibly think that.

11:45Jaron Lanier:So did you see where Robert Kagan said that giving Iran control of the strait is more power than they would have had they been able to build a nuclear weapon?

11:52Sam Harris:You saw that clip? No, I didn't see that, but I read his piece in The Atlantic. And I mean, Kagan is somewhat, obviously, he's extremely well-informed. he has taken the darkest view of not just this misadventure, but really just the erosion of American power under Trump that I'm aware of. I mean, he's really been a Cassandra here, and that doesn't mean he's wrong. I think you could discount what he says by 50 % and still be very depressed at where we are in the world.

12:24Jaron Lanier:I want to move on to, for those who haven't been following this next story, the Trumps sued the IRS and the judge said something to the effect of, hey, wait a minute, don't you oversee the IRS? Which of course makes the case not adversarial. So the Trumps dropped their lawsuit and settled out of court, a deal that includes - Settled with themselves. Yeah. Correct.

12:45Sam Harris:Yeah.

12:46Jaron Lanier:That's right. A deal that includes barring the IRS from ever going after the Trumps for anything that they may have done in the past.

12:51Sam Harris:Forever in all caps. Yeah. Yeah. Just as a clue to who wrote the actual judgment, right? I mean, it's just the fact that it's written like one of his truth social posts is just, again, all of this is mortifying to us as a country. It's like just half of America doesn't appear to care about how the rest of the world views us. But I mean, beyond our military power, which again, now is in question in a way that should astonish everyone, our soft power is the thing that Trump has just set on fire, We just are not in a role of anything like leadership now because we stand for nothing. I mean, we have the most corrupt administration anyone has ever seen.

13:34Sam Harris:It's a kleptocracy. And he has just been trading away our policies and institutional power and reputation abroad as though it was his personal property just to exact tribute from whatever former friends or foes can be forced to pay that tribute. And it's, I don't even have a theory of mind about, you know, a fellow American who understands what's happened here and doesn't care about it. I mean, it's just, this is the greatest act of vandalism in our lifetime. I think you've said that a hundred times in this podcast now. You have to keep saying it again and again. I just can't understand how people don't see what's at stake here, or seeing it don't care about it.

14:18Sam Harris:I mean, it's just like, where does this, I mean, maybe on some level, this is kind of like the fall of empire, right? But this is the intentional, you know, self-defenestration of the world's only superpower. And, um, it is just bizarre that we can't even keep the details in view because there are so many of them, right? I mean, it's just, I mean, just this deal alone, the slush fund that he's stolen from our tax dollars, nearly$2 billion with all that we can't pay for, are going to go to a slush fund, which at his discretion, he can appoint all the people overseeing this fund, will pay his loyalist goons from January 6th, rioters onward.

15:02Sam Harris:I mean, we're a banana republic. This is so far from normal. And if this were the one thing he did. Again, there are only so many moves you can make here to try to illuminate the grotesque novelty of all of this. But just imagine Obama or any other normal president doing any one of these things, and it's unthinkable. And the reaction from the other side would have been, it just would have been a tsunami of resistance. And yet we're just, we seem incapable of marshalling the appropriate response because on some level there's just so much to respond to.

15:36Jaron Lanier:well making that deal with oneself really is tennis without the net so that's um very hard for anyone to miss there i know this is a couple weeks old now or 10 days or whatever it was but many people would like to get your reaction on the nicholas christoph piece in the new york times

15:51Sam Harris:oh that's a very complicated reaction you know you know who's who did this at length who i think i basically agree with everything he said and maybe he might have said more in the meantime but Noam Dorman over on his podcast. I love that guy. I mean, Noam is just very, very smart. And he spent a lot of time on this. And I think he has my proxy on all of it. I'll briefly summarize what he said. But it's, I mean, just a few points to keep in mind. One is we should expect the mistreatment of prisoners at some level in every prison system. We should really expect it in a time of war, we should really expect it when the prisoners are, don't stand a chance of being innocent people whose rights everyone should really worry about, but they're committed terrorists who are, you know, eager to die for their cause, right?

16:46Sam Harris:I mean, just imagine what it's like to be incarcerating these people and imagine what it's like to be a prison guard in the presence of these people who, I mean, again, there's no pretense of innocence here, right? These are committed jihadists who raped and murdered and burned families alive on October 7th, and now it's your job to keep them from biting you or throwing their shit at you. I mean, just think of the most awful job in the world, and this is probably it, and also the most morally taxing one, right? So the idea that there's going to be some level of abuse in a circumstance like this, I mean, that just, that is guaranteed.