The Waking Up Podcast Guest Suggestion Thread
Can someone recommend a historian (or a philosopher of history) who could discuss how modern day historians view the question of “What is history?” (post the book of that title written by EH Carr); and how a historian’s job may be changing in the 21 C. I’d love to hear an interview about this.
Justin Simien - Creator of ‘Dear White People’
There are not enough people on the podcast who can intelligibly talk about identity politics and the young far left both of which Sam always dismisses with very little justification. Justin Simien is a film maker and not an activist, I don’t know even know how he feels about the typical identity politics issues but he is capable of having an interesting conversation and might just be undogmatic enough to be a good pairing with Sam.
Tanya Luhrmann
Author of “When God Talks Back”. She spent around four years studying the experience of communicating with God.
Ted Talk
Anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann’s research on the Evangelical relationship with God has lead to astonishing discoveries about those who say they hear God speak to them, literally. For some, this intimate relationship with God includes putting out an extra cup of coffee for Him. Luhrmann explores how rational, sensible people of faith experience the presence of an invisible being and sustain that belief in an environment of skepticism.
Tanya Marie Luhrmann is the Watkins University Professor in the Stanford Anthropology Department. Luhrmann’s work focuses on the way that objects without material presence come to seem real to people, and the way that ideas about the mind affect mental experience. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and received a John Guggenheim Fellowship award in 2007. When God Talks Back was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. It also was awarded the 2014 Grawemeyer Award for the best book in religion, from the University of Louisville and the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Sam has been sharing posts about Ta-Nehisi Coates lately, causing me to wonder whether there is a fruitful conversation to be had between the two of them. (I say this with only the most superficial of knowledge regarding Coates as an intellectual. I’ve been meaning to pick up a copy of “Between The World And Me”).
Ricky Gervais
Jim Jefferies
Just for a laugh!
Raheem Kassam on his book, No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You.
An Ex-Muslim Atheist covers muslim immigration in the west and writes a comprehensive investigation of No Go Zones in Europe and America.
Kurt Anderson author of Fantasyland How America went Haywire https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/
Guys, are you aware of fact, that US is not the only country in the world? Just Europe is two times bigger when it comes to population. You should start to think more globally, at least in “science”, education and thinking… I like the podcast very much, it has global potential so some global guest would be good.
Guests:
1. Lubos Motl
2. Lubos Motl
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X. Christof Koch (ok, he is from Kansas…)
I would like to hear a conversation between Ben Shapiro and Sam. On topics I would suggest abortion, transgenders, capitalism vs sosialism, the evidence for a god, climate change… Enough to choose from.
How about a discussion with Jane Mayer, the author of Dark Money - The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right.
From Wikipedia:
Jane Meredith Mayer[2] (born 1955)[3][4] is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1995.[1] In recent years, she has written for that publication on money in politics, government prosecution of whistleblowers, the United States Predator drone program, Donald Trump’s ghostwriter[5], and President Trump’s financial backer, Robert Mercer.[6] In 2016, Mayer’s book Dark Money, in which she investigated the history of the right-wing billionaire network centered around the Koch brothers, was published to critical acclaim.
Another suggestion would be Chrystia Freeland. From Wikipedia:
Freeland is the author of Sale of the Century, a 2000 book about Russia’s journey from communism to capitalism[4] and Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else in 2012.[5][6] Plutocrats was a New York Times bestseller, and the winner of the 2013 Lionel Gelber Prize for non-fiction reporting on foreign affairs.[7]
1. Stefan Molyneux (mass immigration, cultural/social issues)
2. Howard Bloom (discuss any of his books)
3. Colin Flaherty (discuss any of his books)
4. Dan Roodt (discuss the current situation in South Africa)
5. Ricky Gervais (cultural/social issues)
Robert Wright! He has a great new book out, ‘Why Buddhism Is True’. Really it’s a combination of evolutionary psychology and secular buddhism. I think Sam and Robert could have a great discussion.
If Sam really wants to do justice to the climate change topic, he needs to interview at least a single credible skeptic so that he can deal with steelmen instead of strawmen.
There are two ways to go. Straight to the scientists:
Richard Lindzen - Not incredibly engaging to say the least, but methodical and has complete mastery of the most important aspects of the topic
Judith Curry - Well-spoken and informed and can really speak to the cultural aspects of the issue within the scientific community
Roy Spencer and/or John Christy - responsible for the satellite temperature record - both very well spoken and deeply knowledgable
Freeman Dyson - if he’s still on his feet - could be an awesome conversation on the state of science generally in addition to a critique of climate action
William Happer - Not a climate scientist but can speak to the feedbacks and models (the heart of the science) and is very engaging
Or, you can go with a more generalized public figure/author who comes at this topic from another angle - like a mirror image of Romm. (If you are thinking “but Romm represents the 97% scientific consensus” think again - see my video below).
Alex Epstein - author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. I’d give my eyeteeth to hear that interview.
Matt Ridley - brilliant and engaging. No way that’s not an amazing podcast. Running out of eyeteeth fast here…
Bjorn Lomborg - would focus on the parts of the conversation that are so often overlooked or taken for granted
Patrick Moore - colorful guy - a founder of Greenpeace and tells a great story. May not be rock solid on the science, but does provide some great perspective.
I know I sound like I’m promoting an anti-climate agenda here, but I’m really not (see the video).
I’m simply promoting real honest engagement. I’m actually trying to apply what I’ve learned from Sam Harris here.
Isn’t this the greatest issue of our time? Isn’t this life or death on a massive scale? That’s what Romm told us. I could live with Sam Harris ignoring this topic altogether, honestly, if he’s more interested in other things. But to cover it with just this Romm podcast and move on is just unacceptable. It was a drive-by podcast, with Sam at the wheel and Romm spraying rhetoric at a neighborhood of strawmen. You’ve really just got to do better than that.
I am stealing this suggestion from Twitter mostly because I am surprised that I haven’t thought of it before:
David Simon, the creator of “The Wire”, “Generation Kill”, “The Deuce”, et al. Endlessly brilliant man (even if “We Need A Hero” had soap opera tendencies).
I know I sound like I’m promoting an anti-climate agenda here, but I’m really not (see the video).
I’m simply promoting real honest engagement. I’m actually trying to apply what I’ve learned from Sam Harris here.
But you have clearly stated that you believe that not pushing the cheapest fossil fuels to the world is basically supporting mass murder. Which, coming from the other way, can be restated as supporting clean energy is mass murder.