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Making Sense
- Conversations on Consciousness, Morality, and the Future of Humanity
- Narrated by: Sam Harris, David Chalmers, David Deutsch, Anil Seth, Thomas Metzinger, Timothy Snyder, Glenn C. Loury, Robert Sapolsky, Daniel Kahneman, Nick Bostrom, David Krakauer, Max Tegmark
- Length: 22 hrs and 26 mins
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Waking Up
- A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion
- Written by: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Sam Harris
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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From multiple New York Times best-selling author, neuroscientist, and "new atheist" Sam Harris, Waking Up is for the 30 percent of Americans who follow no religion, but who suspect that Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history could not have all been epileptics, schizophrenics, or frauds.
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life changing
- By srwatson on 2018-06-26
Written by: Sam Harris
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Free Will
- Written by: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Sam Harris
- Length: 1 hr and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion.
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expected more
- By Bill on 2023-01-21
Written by: Sam Harris
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The End of Faith
- Written by: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Brian Emerson
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is an impassioned plea for reason in a world divided by faith. This important and timely work delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in today's world. Harris offers a vivid historical tour of mankind's willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are used to justify harmful behavior and sometimes heinous crimes.
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Audiobook narration is so bad that I can’t even listen
- By Gunnar Nelson on 2021-04-12
Written by: Sam Harris
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The Moral Landscape
- How Science Can Determine Human Values
- Written by: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Sam Harris
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In this explosive new book, Sam Harris tears down the wall between scientific facts and human values, arguing that most people are simply mistaken about the relationship between morality and the rest of human knowledge. Harris urges us to think about morality in terms of human and animal well-being, viewing the experiences of conscious creatures as peaks and valleys on a "moral landscape".
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A worthy ambition, but...
- By ThoughtfulListener on 2019-08-28
Written by: Sam Harris
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Letter to a Christian Nation
- Written by: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Jordan Bridges
- Length: 1 hr and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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"Forty-four percent of the American population is convinced that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next 50 years," writes Sam Harris. "Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government actually believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this...should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency."
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I expected more from him.
- By Igortskii on 2019-02-14
Written by: Sam Harris
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The Four Horsemen
- The Conversation That Sparked an Atheist Revolution
- Written by: Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and others
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, Sam Harris, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2007, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett filmed a landmark discussion about modern atheism. The video went viral. Now, the transcript of their conversation is illuminated by new essays from three of the original participants and an introduction by Stephen Fry.
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Just watch it on YouTube.
- By James Cooper on 2019-06-22
Written by: Christopher Hitchens, and others
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Waking Up
- A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion
- Written by: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Sam Harris
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From multiple New York Times best-selling author, neuroscientist, and "new atheist" Sam Harris, Waking Up is for the 30 percent of Americans who follow no religion, but who suspect that Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history could not have all been epileptics, schizophrenics, or frauds.
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life changing
- By srwatson on 2018-06-26
Written by: Sam Harris
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Free Will
- Written by: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Sam Harris
- Length: 1 hr and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion.
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expected more
- By Bill on 2023-01-21
Written by: Sam Harris
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The End of Faith
- Written by: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Brian Emerson
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Here is an impassioned plea for reason in a world divided by faith. This important and timely work delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in today's world. Harris offers a vivid historical tour of mankind's willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are used to justify harmful behavior and sometimes heinous crimes.
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Audiobook narration is so bad that I can’t even listen
- By Gunnar Nelson on 2021-04-12
Written by: Sam Harris
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The Moral Landscape
- How Science Can Determine Human Values
- Written by: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Sam Harris
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
In this explosive new book, Sam Harris tears down the wall between scientific facts and human values, arguing that most people are simply mistaken about the relationship between morality and the rest of human knowledge. Harris urges us to think about morality in terms of human and animal well-being, viewing the experiences of conscious creatures as peaks and valleys on a "moral landscape".
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A worthy ambition, but...
- By ThoughtfulListener on 2019-08-28
Written by: Sam Harris
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Letter to a Christian Nation
- Written by: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Jordan Bridges
- Length: 1 hr and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
"Forty-four percent of the American population is convinced that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next 50 years," writes Sam Harris. "Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government actually believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this...should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency."
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I expected more from him.
- By Igortskii on 2019-02-14
Written by: Sam Harris
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The Four Horsemen
- The Conversation That Sparked an Atheist Revolution
- Written by: Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and others
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, Sam Harris, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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In 2007, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett filmed a landmark discussion about modern atheism. The video went viral. Now, the transcript of their conversation is illuminated by new essays from three of the original participants and an introduction by Stephen Fry.
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Just watch it on YouTube.
- By James Cooper on 2019-06-22
Written by: Christopher Hitchens, and others
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Helgoland
- Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution
- Written by: Carlo Rovelli, Erica Segre - translator, Simon Carnell - translator
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the world's most renowned theoretical physicists, Carlo Rovelli has entranced millions of readers with his singular perspective on the cosmos. In Helgoland, he examines the enduring enigma of quantum theory. The quantum world Rovelli describes is as beautiful as it is unnerving. Helgoland is a treeless island in the North Sea where the 23-year-old Werner Heisenberg made the crucial breakthrough for the creation of quantum mechanics, setting off a century of scientific revolution.
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An interesting presentation, but missed my expectations
- By Andrew on 2023-09-08
Written by: Carlo Rovelli, and others
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Islam and the Future of Tolerance
- A Dialogue
- Written by: Maajid Nawaz, Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz
- Length: 3 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In this short book, Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz invite you to join an urgently needed conversation: Is Islam a religion of peace or war? Is it amenable to reform? Why do so many Muslims seem drawn to extremism? What do words like Islamism, jihadism, and fundamentalism mean in today's world? Remarkable for the breadth and depth of its analysis, this dialogue between a famous atheist and a former radical is all the more startling for its decorum. Harris and Nawaz have produced something genuinely new: they engage one of the most polarizing issues of our time - fearlessly and fully - and actually make progress.
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Must read for all Muslims
- By Amazon Customer on 2021-02-11
Written by: Maajid Nawaz, and others
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Lying
- Written by: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Sam Harris
- Length: 1 hr and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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As it was in Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and Othello, so it is in life. Most forms of private vice and public evil are kindled and sustained by lies. Acts of adultery and other personal betrayals, financial fraud, government corruption - even murder and genocide - generally require an additional moral defect: a willingness to lie. In Lying, bestselling author and neuroscientist Sam Harris argues that we can radically simplify our lives and improve society by merely telling the truth in situations where others often lie.
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Sam does an amazing job of explaining lies.
- By Doug Chumley on 2019-06-21
Written by: Sam Harris
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The Stuff of Thought
- Language as a Window into Human Nature
- Written by: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Dean Olsher
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Abridged
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In The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker marries two of the subjects he knows best: language and human nature. The result is a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. What does swearing reveal about our emotions? Why does innuendo disclose something about relationships? Pinker reveals how our use of prepositions and tenses taps into peculiarly human concepts of space and time, and how our nouns and verbs speak to our notions of matter.
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It’s not in Steven Pinkers written words
- By Lory Nixon on 2019-05-05
Written by: Steven Pinker
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The Attention Merchants
- The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
- Written by: Tim Wu
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In nearly every moment of our waking lives, we face a barrage of advertising enticements, branding efforts, sponsored social media, commercials, and other efforts to harvest our attention. Over the last century, few times or spaces have remained uncultivated by the "attention merchants", contributing to the distracted, unfocused tenor of our times. Tim Wu argues that this is not simply the byproduct of recent inventions, but the end result of more than a century's growth and expansion in the industries that feed on human attention.
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important reading
- By A on 2018-10-09
Written by: Tim Wu
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How to Have Impossible Conversations
- A Very Practical Guide
- Written by: Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay
- Narrated by: Peter Boghossian
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In How to Have Impossible Conversations, Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay guide you through the straightforward, practical, conversational techniques necessary for every successful conversation—whether the issue is climate change, religious faith, gender identity, race, poverty, immigration, or gun control. Boghossian and Lindsay teach the subtle art of instilling doubts and opening minds.
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Excellent toolkit for polarized times
- By Amazon Customer on 2020-02-26
Written by: Peter Boghossian, and others
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A Human History of Emotion
- How the Way We Feel Built the World We Know
- Written by: Richard Firth-Godbehere
- Narrated by: Richard Firth-Godbehere
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In A Human History of Emotion, Richard Firth-Godbehere takes listeners on a fascinating and wide ranging tour of the central and often under-appreciated role emotions have played in human societies around the world and throughout history — from Ancient Greece to Gambia, Japan, the Ottoman Empire, the United States, and beyond.
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changed how i saw the world
- By Anonymous User on 2022-11-09
Written by: Richard Firth-Godbehere
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More
- A History of the World Economy from the Iron Age to the Information Age
- Written by: Philip Coggan
- Narrated by: Philip Coggan, Kris Dyer
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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From the development of international trade fairs in the 12th century to the innovations made in China, India, and the Arab world, it turns out that historical economies were much more sophisticated that we might imagine, tied together by webs of credit and financial instruments much like our modern economy.
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Philip Coggan is the Yuval NoahHarari of economics
- By Ame Lee on 2021-01-08
Written by: Philip Coggan
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On Grand Strategy
- Written by: John Lewis Gaddis
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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For over 20 years, a select group of Yale undergraduates has been admitted into the year-long "Grand Strategy" seminar team-taught by John Lewis Gaddis and Paul Kennedy. Its purpose: to provide a grounding in strategic decision-making in the face of crisis to prepare future American leaders for important work. Now, John Lewis Gaddis has transposed the experience of that course into a wonderfully succinct, lucid and inspirational book, a view from the commanding heights of statesmanship across the landscape of world history from the ancient Greeks to Lincoln, and beyond.
Written by: John Lewis Gaddis
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On Having No Head
- Written by: Douglas Edison Harding
- Narrated by: Richard Lang
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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'Reason and imagination and all mental chatter died down... I forgot my name, my humanness, my thingness, all that could be called me or mine. Past and future dropped away... Lighter than air, clearer than glass, altogether released from myself, I was nowhere around.' Thus Douglas Harding describes his first experience of headlessness, or no self. First published in 1961, this is a classic work which conveys the experience that mystics of all times have tried to put words to.
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Too poetic
- By Gustavo Faria on 2023-06-30
Written by: Douglas Edison Harding
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The Milky Way
- An Autobiography of Our Galaxy
- Written by: Moiya McTier
- Narrated by: Moiya McTier
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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After a few billion years of bearing witness to life on Earth, of watching 100 billion humans go about their day-to-day lives, of feeling unbelievably lonely, and of hearing its own story told by others, the Milky Way would like a chance to speak for itself. All 100 billion stars and 50 undecillion tons of gas of it. It all began some 13 billion years ago, when clouds of gas scattered through the universe's primordial plasma just could not keep their metaphorical hands off each other. They succumbed to their gravitational attraction, and the galaxy we know as the Milky Way was born.
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expansive!
- By Anonymous User on 2022-11-01
Written by: Moiya McTier
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Smarter Tomorrow
- How 15 Minutes of Neurohacking a Day Can Help You Work Better, Think Faster, and Get More Done
- Written by: Elizabeth R. Ricker
- Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar, Elizabeth R. Ricker, Lindsey-Loon Ricker
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Join a quest for the Holy Grail within each of us: the optimized brain. In Smarter Tomorrow, Ricker shares the spoils of her decade long adventure. After countless expert interviews, poring through hundreds of research studies from around the world, and testing dozens of tools on herself—including nicotine, video games, meditation, and even a little-known beverage from the Pacific islands—she explains how some experiments failed hilariously, while others transformed her cognition.
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Eye opening
- By M. Howard on 2022-03-06
Written by: Elizabeth R. Ricker
Publisher's Summary
From the bestselling author of Waking Up and The End of Faith, a collection of the best conversations from his wildly popular, often controversial podcast, Making Sense.
“Civilization rests on a series of successful conversations.” —Sam Harris
Sam Harris—neuroscientist, philosopher, and bestselling author—has been exploring some of the most important questions about the human mind, society, and current events on his podcast, Making Sense. With over one million downloads per episode, these discussions have clearly hit a nerve, frequently walking a tightrope where either host or guest—and sometimes both—lose their footing, but always in search of a greater understanding of the world in which we live. For Harris, honest conversation, no matter how difficult or controversial, represents the only path to moral and intellectual progress.
The Making Sense audiobook includes talks with Daniel Kahneman, Timothy Snyder, Nick Bostrom, and Glen Loury, on topics that range from the nature of consciousness and free will, to politics and extremism, to living ethically. Together they shine a light on what it means to “make sense” in the modern world.
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What listeners say about Making Sense
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Dad, fitness enthusiast, digital media guy
- 2022-07-13
Great Guests from the Podcast
Some great content and guests from the podcast. For regular podcast listeners, I don't think there's really anything new here, but it's nice to have it all in one place I guess.
I'm not the biggest Sam Harris fan, I agree with him on many points, and disagree on some, however I find that he very much has a "I'm right" attitude in most of the things I've encountered. It was refreshing to hear some of the guests quite directly contradict him or outright tell him he's wrong about something and not get a lot of pushback. Overall the dialogue between Sam and guests is very respectful and helpful for learning.
Sam Harris is a brilliant man and so are all of the guests featured in this compilation. Worth a listen to challenge your thinking.
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- Amazon Customer
- 2020-12-21
Audiobook review (just a podcast collection)
Has no business charging almost $40 for a compilation of a free podcast. The podcast itself is great but this is not in any way, an audiobook.
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56 people found this helpful
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- Leifred
- 2020-09-07
Great Conversations!
Although I'd listened to all of these episodes (sometimes more than once) before, it was great to hear the episodes Sam felt were most compelling bundled up in what turned out to be a excellent tour of the most interesting topics out there. Thanks for putting this together!
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17 people found this helpful
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- Gloria Park
- 2020-09-06
The world’s brilliant people in conversation
Try as I might, the world’s most brilliant people don’t always want to hang out with me and talk about technology, society, the nature of consciousness, and the future of humanity. This collection was nearly as awesome as that.
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15 people found this helpful
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- Michael Chime
- 2021-07-12
Bad
This is just a podcast. I was very disappointed in this. Dont get it if you want a book
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13 people found this helpful
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- Damian Atwood
- 2021-06-23
This is one of the most boring books I listened to
Wanna hear some guys talk about nothing for 20 hours? this is the book for you!
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10 people found this helpful
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- Justin Marino
- 2020-12-15
Great content, awful audio quality
What a shame that some of Sam’s great conversations were recorded with such poor sound quality. The audio quality is so bad I had trouble getting through it at some points. The content itself is very interesting and though provoking.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Adam Reinhardt
- 2021-05-31
A great collection of his conversations
I found Sam Harris through a podcast he was on and found his back ground and thoughts different, interesting and worth learning more about. This book collected conversations with several folks I respected and some I did not know so I wanted to learn more. This expanded my thoughts on the hard problem, AI, Zombies, the Matrix, race relations and more. A worthy listen that I would recommend.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Bonnie
- 2020-08-28
this book is soulfood
This limited but potent compilation of Sam's podcasts is truly brilliant. It left me feeling hopeful, and believe me that is no small feat. I have been listening to Sam for a few years now, and this collection of some of the best discussions in the world about the mergence of humanity, tech, and consciousness (yes, I just made that claim) gave me a way to make sense not only existential angst, but of human goodness as well. Now it's my job to actively marinate myself in what I learned from the book and apply it to my doings in the world. Thanks to you, Sam, for making this book...and to all of its marvelous contributors.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Geoffrey B. Little
- 2020-10-12
A Best Of
It’s not hard to figure out what you’re getting here. If you like Harris’ free podcast - this is the best of it. I so enjoy learning about consciousness. It is perhaps the ultimate topic. Harris comes out swinging with the first interview with David Chalmers and the concepts evolve from there.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Curt
- 2020-09-14
Lapidarian aphoristic
Referring to The Road to Tyranny: A Conversation with Timothy Snyder, I think you jumped the complement shark when you said, “First of all, your writing is so wonderful and so lapidarian aphoristic...” Nevertheless Sam, it made my day.
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1 person found this helpful