#110 — The Change Artist

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: Sam Harris and AJ Jacobs discuss Jacobs’s immersive journalism style and the personal experiments behind his books: reading the entire Britannica, following the Bible literally, and optimizing health. The conversation explores religion’s social functions, the dangers of selective literalism and supernatural belief, gossip and compassion, and how evidence-based health advice is often drowned out by quackery.

Main Topics: Immersion journalism as method (Priority: 5/5): Jacobs explains his writing approach: fully inhabiting an idea or lifestyle, then reporting what he learned through long-form self-experimentation. Reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Priority: 4/5): Jacobs recounts reading Britannica A-to-Z over 1.5 years, how it changed his outlook on human progress, and how little he retained despite the effort. Literal Bible experiment and religion (Priority: 5/5): He describes following biblical rules literally to satirize fundamentalism and to understand religion’s appeal, concluding that belonging and behavior matter more than supernatural belief. Gossip, honesty, and social ethics (Priority: 4/5): The conversation examines gossip’s corrosive effects, its reputational function, and the value of only saying things one would say to someone’s face. Polyamory and compersion (Priority: 3/5): Jacobs discusses ethical non-monogamy, the concept of compersion, and the psychological challenge of extending sympathetic joy to a partner’s sexual life with others. Health optimization and anti-quackery (Priority: 5/5): Jacobs summarizes his year-plus experiment with health advice, emphasizing simple, evidence-backed habits and his distrust of marketing-driven health claims. Diet, evidence, and lab-grown meat (Priority: 4/5): They discuss low-carb vs. plant-based debates, the limits of nutrition certainty, and the promise of cultured meat to reduce animal suffering.

Key Arguments: Immersion journalism works because behaving like the subject can change cognition, not just gather information. Reading the Britannica revealed the sweep of history and made the present seem far better than the supposedly “good old days.” Literalism exposes fundamentalism’s selective reading: people claim to take the Bible literally while actually cherry-picking. Religion’s value lies mainly in belonging and behavior, not supernatural claims. Supernatural belief can justify harmful actions, so secular substitutes for community may be preferable. Gossip should be constrained by a standard of speaking only what one would say to someone’s face; some gossip is socially useful, but much of it is cruelty. The best health advice is mostly simple: move more, eat less, eat real food, don’t smoke, and sleep enough. Nutrition debates often lack consensus; the best guide is weighing meta-studies and expert convergence rather than outlier claims. Cultured meat could dramatically reduce suffering by decoupling meat consumption from animal exploitation. Compersion is an interesting ideal, but jealousy and monogamy make it difficult to live by consistently.

Data Points: Britannica project duration: Over 1.5 years - Time Jacobs spent reading Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z Britannica length: 33,000 pages - Approximate scale of the encyclopedia he read Retention from Britannica: Less than 1% - Jacobs estimates how much he retained from the project Bible project duration: 12 months (8 months Old Testament, 4 months New Testament) - Time spent following biblical rules literally Health project duration: 2 years - Jacobs says the year-long health experiment took longer because he was so out of shape Population reference: 7.5 billion - Jacobs mentions the world family tree could eventually include all people on Earth Bacterial-to-human cell ratio: About 10:1 - Used in a discussion of human bodies and the continuity with nature Gossip reduction: About 30% less - Jacobs says avoiding gossip made him gossip less overall Bible literalism groups: At least a dozen - He says he spoke with many different sects and religious groups Exercise of visiting the hospital: Repeated behavioral experiment - Jacobs used forced compassionate acts as part of changing his behavior Diet consensus: 80% of reputable scientists - He describes using a Rotten Tomatoes-like approach to find the majority view on diet

Pivotal Quotes: "surgery without anesthesia" — AJ Jacobs: A phrase from his Britannica reading that still reminds him how bad earlier eras were "It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting." — AJ Jacobs: Used to explain how behavior can reshape mindset in his religious and ethical experiments "The good of religion can be outweighed by the bad because these supernatural beliefs can justify just the most horrible behavior." — Sam Harris: Harris’s critique of religion’s moral costs despite its social benefits

Implications: The conversation suggests that behavior-driven self-experiments can change outlook, but also that cultural authority often exceeds evidence. For listeners, it highlights skepticism toward dogma, a pragmatic ethic of speech and health, and the promise of secular community and lab-grown meat.