Video summary
In this segment of his podcast, Sam Harris addresses Andrew Tate's significant influence on young men, acknowledging him as a prime example of someone who has become radioactive due to obvious issues despite not having met him personally or conducted an exhaustive investigation into his specific crimes. Harris observes that there is currently a profound thirst for wisdom among the youth, which makes them susceptible to consuming content from various sources regardless of how toxic, divisive, or confusing those ideas may be. While he recognizes why young men are addicted to Tate's rhetoric and view him as a life guru, Harris argues it would not be ideal if Tate were considered the voice of an entire generation; instead, society needs a more compassionate and less self-inflated standard for masculinity and success than what Tate offers. He notes that while figures like Jordan Peterson have moved away from directly addressing young men to focus on other issues such as climate change or transgender rights, this shift has created a vacuum where people inevitably seek answers elsewhere, often finding them in the fluent but potentially misleading delivery of individuals who sound authoritative regardless of their actual truthfulness. Harris critiques the phenomenon where rhetorical fluency serves as a deceptive proxy for insight, allowing charismatic figures to declare their own selfishness with such confidence that it becomes a superpower rather than a liability. He draws parallels between Andrew Tate and Donald Trump, suggesting that both men possess an unapologetic shamelessness regarding their self-interest which resonates deeply with certain audiences who feel judged by others but not by these leaders themselves. Harris illustrates this dynamic through the example of Bill Gates, whom he contrasts as someone unable to get laid yet planning to microchip people via vaccines, highlighting how ethical gravity often centers on figures like Tate and Trump rather than philanthropists or scientists. He argues that while one might extract actionable advice from such men regarding fitness or cleaning rooms, their underlying ethics are fundamentally flawed; for instance, Tate's admission of sleeping with a rival's girlfriend is presented as evidence of someone who cannot be ethically wise on any level, yet his ability to string together compelling sentences masks this reality. The conversation then shifts to Harris's philosophical disagreement with Jordan Peterson regarding the status of objective empirical truth versus storytelling and myth in human life. While Peterson views stories about our place in the world as essential for societal cohesion, even if they involve a layer of wishful thinking or delusion, Harris seeks to distinguish between harmless imagination and ancient confusion that lacks core truths requiring no story at all. This divergence is exemplified by their differing approaches to religious texts; while Peterson has defended certain aspects of faith narratives, Harris aligns with Richard Dawkins in criticizing the Old Testament God as a moral instruction derived from human authors rather than divine origin. Harris emphasizes that since scriptures like those found in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were cobbled together by humans over centuries—with some texts discarded or added later—the process bears striking similarities to modern constructs like Scientology or Joseph Smith's Book of Mormon. Ultimately, the discussion concludes with a strong assertion that one does not need to believe in any religious text on insufficient evidence to extract all available wisdom from world literature and conversations with both living people and historical figures. Harris points out that if we admit these sacred texts were written by humans, the conversation about religion changes fundamentally, revealing them as human endeavors rather than divine revelations. He suggests that while there are pearls of real wisdom within books like the Bible or even in controversial movements like Scientology, relying on claims of divine origin for specific canonical texts is unnecessary and often misleading given how much we now know about their composition. The episode ends with a sponsorship message for BetterHelp, offering professional therapy services as an alternative source of guidance for those facing happiness issues or obstacles to achieving goals, reinforcing the theme that structured, trained support can provide clarity where self-help gurus may fail.
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Andrew takes a perfect example of
somebody who he's radioactive for
obvious reasons I haven't met him I
haven't done an especially Deep dive on
what he's guilty of or you know I mean
he's obviously he's
he's got issues but um
I just feel like we're at a moment now
where
there is such a a thirst for wisdom
that you know it's okay it can come from
so many different places and those
places can be more or less contaminated
with Concepts that are more or less
toxic more or less divisive more or less
confusing and
yeah I mean I've what you know
I've watched enough of his stuff to see
why young men are getting addicted to
his content and thinking that he's their
their life Guru and I've also watched
enough to think that it's not
um
it's not ideal that he's the voice of a
generation right like we need a a um
a more compassionate less
self-infatuated
standard for manliness and and success
than whether he's he's putting out if I
was to I've got Jordan uh coming on the
show again at some point later this year
and it's something that I think I'll
speak to him about that he's on to big
things with this Arc which is kind of
his competitor I think to the wef that
he's doing later this year yeah I
haven't I haven't followed that yeah no
um but I do think that Jordan's relative
abandonment of the conversation directly
to young men uh to move on to other
things whether it be climate change or
the trans issue or pick your poison
about whatever he's got interested in
recently uh I think that that has left a
vacuum and you can't expect young you
can't expect anybody to go through life
without insights coming from somewhere
and whether that Insight is for young
men or young women or old men or old
women whether it's Andrew Tate or you
know Whoopi Goldberg or whoever happens
to have the hot take of the week and and
trend insufficiently highly on Twitter
uh
people are going to look for someone
they're going to look for answers and in
a world where we are
chronically mismatched our evolved
psychology and the world that we find
ourselves in has never really been
further apart
people are going to find answers and and
sometimes
fluency is a really brilliant proxy for
truthfulness or insight and if you can
say things with a sufficiently
uh well-rounded compelling delivery
regardless of who you are yeah whether
it be Whoopi Goldberg or anybody else
people will say that sounds that sounds
true it sounds fluent not sure if it's
true yeah except the thing that
surprises me is that
it should be more obvious than it is to
more people
that someone's an [ __ ] right it's
like that like it doesn't matter how
fluent you are you're you're only just
declaring your assholery in in more
concise form right
um and
so it's kind of a trumpian moment like
Trump is obviously an [ __ ] he's
obviously a selfish person but nobody
none of his fans care right he's like
he's not a compassionate person he's he
can't even pretend to care about people
really right he's but his
his shamelessness around his selfishness
has become a kind of superpower for a
certain audience because he's he's
conveying the message
I will never I will never judge you
because I'm incapable of judging myself
right like I'm not I I'm not holding
myself to any kind of standard apart
from the gratification of my own desires
so you know I'm I'm in some sense I have
a real Integrity because I know I'm
selfish all those people who are
pretending not to be selfish or
pretending to be ethical and
compassionate to care about you know the
sub-Saharan Africa and the you know the
education and developing countries I
mean someone like Bill Gates right you
know Bill Gates is somebody who can't
get laid and he's just going to
microchip you with the next vaccine
right like that that's this is going to
be a great uh quote to export from this
podcast
um
uh you're welcome Twitter
um
that's so that's the that's the center
of narrative and ethical gravity for
these guys right I don't include Jordan
there but like Andrew Tate Trump there's
like a I've got a [ __ ] Bugatti and
you know you want one and I've got no
apologies right I've got no [ __ ] to
give uh I know you want to be like me
you know and if you don't if you're not
good enough to be like me I'll sleep
with your girlfriend right like that's
that's the that's not an ethically wise
person on any [ __ ] level even if he
can even if he can string together a few
sentences that seem actionable and
useful to get you to clean your room and
get in shape and and meet a girl right
um we should be asking more of our
elders than that right and and so and so
where I part ways with Jordan again I do
not put Jordan
um in the same category but he is
he has a very different view of the
the kind of the status of objective
empirical truth in relation to the
stories we tell about
uh ourselves and our place in the world
and
um
what makes life worth living what what
allow what will allow for a society to
really cohere around shared values and
he thinks that there's a a layer of
storytelling and you know what I would
what I would call myth and fiction
really in a way that is
kind of somewhat derogatory right it's
not to say that I'm I don't see the
power in it but it's just what I want to
do is be able to distinguish between
the
layer of wishful thinking and a layer of
delusion and a layer of uh ancient
confusion that is still has good
standing among millions of people and
probably some symbolic truth or
figurative truth in there too and and a
kind of harmless harmless uses of the
imagination that it could be a nobling
and fun and empowering right
um and kind of core truths that don't
require a story to be a nobling did you
see that Jordan got into it with Richard
Dawkins on well you wouldn't have done
you're you're off Twitter so I will no
I'll uh be the Weathervane to update you
on whatever's happening in Twitter's
conditions at the moment uh
Richard's a clip of Richard one
semi-viral of him criticizing the Old
Testament God right and then I think
Jordan basically called him out Anytime
Anyplace anywhere it wasn't far off that
I think that the actual tweet was about
saying that it was a I think damaging
science and and and doing a disservice
to
maybe Dawkins himself and and some other
stuff yeah well so I mean that's
I mean I agree with Richard yeah with
respect to the
what I think of the the Old Testament
God and the the moral instruction we can
or can't take from him I mean I just
think that's I just don't think that the
the Bible is the wisest book we have
even though there are there are Pearls
of real wisdom there which I I
understand that people love
um
it's a book it was clearly written by
human beings right so like the
fundamental the the breach point is not
he is is Upstream of many of the things
people might want to debate there's just
this basic claim we've got millions upon
millions of books
were they all written by people or not
right and the moment you admit that they
were all written by people okay we're
having a very different conversation
about the status of religion certainly
the religion of any of the religions of
Abraham right I mean these are these are
claimed at bottom Judaism Christianity
and Islam are claims about the divine
origin of of a specific book or certain
texts
um and some of these texts were
canonical for centuries and then got
thrown out you know within within
Christianity and then some got added
later
um so the the process of cobbling
together these these scriptures was all
too human we know way too much about it
if you if we knew more about it it would
look much more like Joseph Smith in the
Book of Mormon and the and it would look
like a you know the South Park episode
that Mormonism in fact looks like right
and you drag it further into the present
and it looks like Scientology right and
then you're like you're just staring at
L Ron Hubbard's driver's license and it
says okay this goofy guy with bad teeth
sold all these people honest on a story
about the stars that was just obviously
[ __ ] and should have it should have
been obvious to them now again that's
not to say that there isn't real wisdom
in in all of these streams of
information even
Scientology but
you just
the basic claim and I think Richard
would agree with this is that you don't
have to believe anything on insufficient
evidence to extract
all the wisdom that is to be found in
the world's literature and in the
conversations conversations with people
in the present and conversations with
the dead by reading their their books in
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