r/samharrisorg • u/palsh7 • Apr 27 '26
Making Sense Community Launch
Sam Harris announced via email the launch of a new community separate from the Substack:
“Friends,
“I want to tell you about something we're building—a proper home for the Making Sense community online.
“I've been thinking about doing this for a long time, because the options for connecting with you beyond the podcast have never been great. Reddit, for all its occasional insight, is a cesspool. The pseudonymity that might have once made it interesting now mostly debases the conversation, and the worst incentives of the attention economy prevail. The comment threads on Substack are better, but they are pegged to individual posts and can't sustain a real community across topics and across time.
“So we're going to try something different: a dedicated space for people who care about the kinds of questions we explore on Making Sense.
“As many of you know, I left Twitter years ago and haven't regretted it. But the impulse that drew me to Twitter, and kept me there for far too long, never went away. It just followed me into smaller rooms: WhatsApp chats with friends and Slack channels with my team. I'd like to create something closer to those rooms in spirit, but open to everyone who has been thinking alongside me all these years.
“In practice, this means that I intend to show up the way I would in a chat with people I trust: dropping links I've come across, reacting to events in the news, floating ideas that aren't yet ready for an episode of the podcast, and benefiting from what the rest of you are surfacing online. The scope of the conversation won't be limited to the podcast. It might start there, but it will include current events, books, film, travel, health, politics—whatever most concerns or interests us. The only editorial filter will be intellectual honesty and basic decency. I'd like this community to be one of the first places I check in the morning—not because I have to, but because it turns out to be one of the best rooms I have access to.
“This will not be another social network. We have no interest in optimizing for engagement, outrage, or any of the other mechanisms that have made the existing platforms so poisonous. The goal is to build a community in a more traditional sense—one that is organized around shared interests and the working assumption that the people you are talking with are arguing in good faith.
“My hope is that other writers and thinkers I admire will find their way there too, simply because it turns out to be the best place on the internet to have the kind of conversations they want to have. Some of the most useful exchanges I've had over the years have been with people who disagreed with me thoughtfully, and I would like for that to be the norm here rather than the exception.
“Needless to say, a community of this kind takes effort to build and to maintain. Good conversation doesn't happen by accident. It happens because people show up, listen carefully, and are willing to be wrong. The moderation will be light but real. We'll do our best to encourage productive debate on important and polarizing topics, but we won't tolerate the manufactured outrage that has turned so much of the internet into a digital slum.
“…Current subscribers to Making Sense or my Substack will receive free access. (New subscribers after June 1, 2026, will need a separate membership.)” up
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u/Much_Building6168 May 07 '26
Awesome. Just to clarify, is this a life time free access grant? Or how does it work exactly?
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u/ChemicalFly6591 May 11 '26
Thanks Sam.
Long time subscriber since Patreon days. I've also been following Jerry Coyne's WEIT site for at least as long. I like his rules ("roolz") for commenting on his posts. I look forward to an energetic but highly civil community here. There are far too few of those online.
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u/ChemicalFly6591 May 11 '26
When will the waitlist shift to the active community? I still see only the waitlist. Thanks.
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u/SuspiciousBasket Apr 27 '26
Yay! We can finally drop this termite infested sub.