Sam Harris is an American neuroscientist, author and philosopher. His book The End of Faith (2004) appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for 33 weeks. This was followed by The Moral Landscape, published in 2010, Lying in 2011, and Free Will in 2012. Harris is co-founder and the CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values. He appears frequently on television and radio (including Real Time With Bill Maher, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report) to talk about the conflict between religion and science. His latest book, Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion (Bantam Press), is out on 29 January.
Podcast: Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
I love this podcast. Carlin is not a professional historian, but he could well be the most engaging history professor on Earth. His series on the first world war is simply a masterpiece – made all the more impressive by the informal, meandering way he leads the listener from poignancy to horror and back again. We appear to be entering a new golden age of audio, and Carlin is doing some of the best work in this medium.
Technology: The Tesla Model S
This electric car is that rare thing – a piece of technology that is both utterly desirable and good for the planet. Elon Musk has built the nicest automobile in history and singlehandedly created a new market for electric cars. When you consider the environmental and geopolitical consequences of our remaining dependent on oil – from rising sea levels to our funding both sides of the “war on terror” – it is amazing to see a solution arising out of brilliant and sexy engineering.
Sport: Brazilian jiujitsu
My midlife crisis has taken the form of training in a variety of martial arts. By far the most addictive and conducive to injury (in my case) has been Brazilian jiujitsu. As I wrote in an article entitled The Pleasures of Drowning: “The experience of grappling with an expert is akin to falling into deep water without knowing how to swim. You will make a furious effort to stay afloat – and you will fail. Once you learn how to swim, however, it becomes difficult to see what the problem is – why can’t a drowning man just relax and tread water? The same inscrutable difference between lethal ignorance and lifesaving knowledge can be found on the mat: to train in BJJ is to continually drown – or, rather, to be drowned, in sudden and ingenious ways – and to be taught, again and again, how to swim.”
Book: Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
I’ve only recently begun to pay attention to the progress being made in artificial intelligence. The field is advancing faster than most people realise, and we seem to be headed for a precipice of sorts. Reading Bostrom’s book, you come away feeling that there may be no way to build machines that possess true “general intelligence” – that is, the ability to learn new concepts and apply them in unfamiliar contexts – without destroying ourselves in the process. You also get the sense that we will inevitably build such machines, unless we destroy ourselves some other way. So listen to Dan Carlin’s podcast while you still can!
Comedy: Bill Burr and Jim Gaffigan
I have no idea how famous Bill Burr and Jim Gaffigan (left) are outside the United States, but here they are emerging as two of the funniest voices in comedy. Each has one-hour specials available on Netflix. Burr’s humour is very dark and edgy, while Gaffigan never says a cross word. Both are absolutely hilarious.
Art: Adolfo Wildt (1868-1931)
I had never heard of sculptor Adolfo Wildt before I stumbled upon a book of photographs representing his work. He seems to have specialised in creating extremely smooth marble sculptures depicting people in negative states of mind, from smugness to agony. Even his happy faces convey some form of menace. This is how I look when I discover that I’ve run out of coffee, beer, or chocolate. It is also the expression I will be wearing when the machines take over.
