Person
Every book Tristan Harris recommended on podcasts
Across 5 podcasts. Every show Tristan Harris appears on, in one place — not just one.
Tristan Harris’s most recommended books
- The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
- The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin
- Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
- Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild
- Alone Together by Sherry Turkle
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley
- Cultural Materialism by Marvin Harris
- Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor
- Reclaiming Conversation by Sherry Turkle
Tristan Harris is an American technology ethicist. He is the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. Throughout various podcast appearances, Tristan Harris discussed and recommended several prominent books to examine technology, history, and human behavior. He frequently recommended Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation, highlighting it during discussions about how social media and business models focused on maximizing attention have created a loneliness crisis, increased anxiety and depression among youth, and broken shared reality. He also pointed to Jonathan Haidt's website as a valuable resource for parents navigating these challenges. In conversations on The Joe Rogan Experience, Harris brought up Adam Hochschild's Bury the Chains to draw historical parallels regarding collective movements and society abandoning harmful economic models like slavery. Additionally, he referenced Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death to read passages predicting modern technological distractions and information overload. On The Tucker Carlson Show, Harris discussed Jef Raskin's The Humane Interface to illustrate how technology should respect human needs and frailties, and on The Megyn Kelly Show, he referenced Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens to illustrate a metaphor concerning artificial intelligence and historical power dynamics.
Books recommended by Tristan Harris
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The Anxious Generation
The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt is a prominent non-fiction book examining the severe mental health crises and loneliness epidemic among youth caused by smartphones and social media.
Discussed“As you said, we have the most anxious and depressed generation of our lifetimes. Jonathan Height's book, The Anxious Generation.”
Where to get it
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The Humane Interface
The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin is a classic text on human-computer interaction that explores how technology can be designed to respect human needs and vulnerabilities.
Discussed“And his his dad wrote a book called The Humane Interface where the whole point was about making tech. If you remember before the Macintosh, you had um you know these kind of green screen command line computers that were like hard to use.”
Where to get it
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Amusing Ourselves to Death
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman is a seminal media ecology critique arguing that television and modern visual media degrade public discourse by reducing serious thought to mere entertainment.
Recommended“it's from the book have you read amusing ourselves death by neil postman”
Where to get it
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Bury the Chains
Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild is a powerful historical account detailing the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and the dedicated activists who fought to end the trade.
Recommended“there's a great book by um adam hokeshield called bury the chains which is about the british abolition of slavery in which he talks about how for the british empire”
Where to get it
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Alone Together
Alone Together by Sherry Turkle is a compelling examination of how digital technology and modern robotics increasingly substitute for genuine human connection and alter our social relationships.
Discussed“and cheri turkel um you know who's been working at mit wrote the book reclaiming conversation and alone together”
Where to get it
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Brave New World
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a chilling dystopian masterpiece that envisions a technologically advanced future society sustained by pharmacological distraction, engineered conformity, and the systematic eradication of deep human emotion and critical thought.
Discussed“but we had forgotten that alongside orwell's dark vision there was another slightly older slightly less well-known equally chilling vision of aldous huxley's brave new world contrary to common belief even among the educated huxley and orwell did not prophecy the same thing orwell warns that we will become overwhelmed overcome by an externally imposed oppression”
Where to get it
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Brave New World Revisited
Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley is a nonfiction essay collection in which the author evaluates whether contemporary society is hurtling closer to the dystopian nightmare he previously forecasted in his famous novel.
Discussed“as huxley remarked in brave new world revisited the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions”
Where to get it
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Cultural Materialism
Cultural Materialism by Marvin Harris is an anthropological study that examines how infrastructural conditions, including technology and environmental constraints, shape the development of human culture and social institutions.
Discussed“there's a thinker named um Marvin Harris wrote a book called Cultural Materialism.”
Where to get it
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Don't Shoot the Dog
Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor is a widely acclaimed guide to behavioral training and positive reinforcement that originally drew from the author's expertise as an aquatic mammal trainer.
Discussed“when i was at that lab i mentioned at stanford called the persuasive technology lab um we read a book one of the books we read we read lots of books on psychology and persuasion and cults and all these things one of the books we read was from dog trainers the book was called don't shoot the dog”
Where to get it
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Reclaiming Conversation
Reclaiming Conversation by Sherry Turkle is a nonfiction book exploring how digital devices, social media, and texting diminish human empathy and undermine the capacity for deep personal connection.
Discussed“and cheri turkel um you know who's been working at mit wrote the book reclaiming conversation and alone together”
Where to get it
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Sapiens
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari is a sweeping exploration of how Homo sapiens evolved, dominated the planet, and constructed complex imaginary orders like religion, money, and nations.
Discussed“It's like what Yuval Harari, the author of Sapiens, who wrote that book Sapiens. He has this great metaphor of how I guess in the post-Roman period...”
Where to get it
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Superintelligence
Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom is a foundational book exploring the future of artificial intelligence and the existential risks posed by the creation of superintelligent systems.
Discussed“I mean, Bostrom wrote about this early early days. And what people are most worried about in AI is you take the same system”
Where to get it
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Thinking, Fast and Slow
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman explores the dual systems of the human mind that drive how people think, make choices, and commit cognitive errors.
Discussed“i talked to daniel kahneman who wrote the he's like the founder of behavioral economics he wrote the book thinking fast and slow if you know that one”
Where to get it
Appearances
Other mentions (4: passing, ad reads, own books)
“Yuval Harare the author of sapiens is a friend of mine he's gay and he jokes that you know his partner”
“and i think some people hear that and they think that sounds like a conspiracy theory like technology knows us better than we know ourselves but um yuval harari the author of sapiens is a friend of mine”
“as i understand it from natasha um i think her book is called addiction by design uh is when you start losing like if you start losing money”
“there are several who actually said that it convinced them not to commit suicide to have this relationship with this chatbot so it's her it's her it's the movie exactly”