Very Bad Wizards

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Episode 157: Notes From Underground (Pt. 2) Feb 05, 2019

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David and Tamler continue their discussion of Dostoevsky's funny, sad, philosophical novella Notes From Underground. We focus on part 2 this time - three stories from the Underground Man's past - and explore what the stories tell us about his existentialist rants in part 1. Is he consumed with guilt over his treatment of Liza? Is he ashamed of his social awkwardness, low status, and self-destructive behavior? Or is he a narcissistic proto-incel suffering from an especially acute case of spotlight effect? (As usual, the answer is probably some combination of all these and more.) Plus, we select the finalists for our Patreon-listener selected episode. Thanks to everyone for their support!

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Episode 156: Notes From Underground (Pt. 1) Jan 22, 2019

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We're sick men. We're spiteful men. We're unpleasant men. We think our livers are diseased (especially Tamler's). So we talk about Dostoevsky's wild, complex, stream of consciousness masterpiece Notes From Underground. For this episode we focus on part 1 of the novella, and the philosophy behind it. Is the underground man an existentialist hero affirming his freedom in the face of a deterministic hyper-rationalist worldview? Or is he a lonely man consumed with guilt and self-loathing, constructing a pretentious post-hoc rationalization of his character and behavior? Plus, the American Psychological Association just issued guidelines for how to treat men who embrace traditional masculine ideologies. Is the backlash justified?

This episode is brought to you by Eero, Curiosity Stream, and the generosity of listeners like you.

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Episode 155: Alfred Hitchcock's Money Shot Jan 08, 2019

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David and Tamler dive deep into Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 hallucinatory classic, Vertigo. Why does this movie seem to gain stature among critics and academics every year? Is this a really a exploration of Hitchcock's own obsessions and sexual repression? Is it a story about filmmaking and celebrity? Or is it just a twisty noir thriller about a man who has no job and can't kiss to save his life? Plus, some thoughts about bad reviews on Rate My Professor and why it's hard to get feedback about job performance in academia.

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Episode 154: Metaphysical Vertigo (Borges's "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius") Dec 18, 2018

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In the famous words of the idealist philosopher George Berkeley, "To exist is to be perceived." Our ideas and perceptions are the fundamental objects in the universe; there is no real world beyond them. Hume wrote (I think) that Berkeley's arguments don't admit of the slightest refutation, and they don't inspire the slightest conviction. On Earth, that may be true. On Tlön, it's false – the people there are "congenital idealists." Their language, philosophy, literature, and religion presuppose idealism. It's their common sense. And their philosophy starts to encroach on their reality. But what happens when we read and hear about Tlön – can their idealism invade our "real" world? Will we start to lose our metaphysical bearings? David and Tamler talk about Borges's invasive, unsettling story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." Please listen so we can exist!

(And speaking of things that may or may not exist, we also discuss the metaphysics of holes.)

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Episode 153: Progress in Psychology: A Reply to BootyBootyFartFart Dec 04, 2018

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David dies for science's sins and addresses the failed replication of one of his studies (conducted with three former VBW guests) by the Many Labs Project. But first, the guys try to gauge their intuitions about the phenomenal experience of their molecule-for-molecule mirror reflection duplicate in a universe with a non-orientable topology. Could this spell doom for e-categoricalism? Plus, the annual Thanksgiving tradition: IDW star and Factual Feminist Christina Hoff Sommers and Tamler argue over drinks about standpoint epistemology, political correctness, and lingerie.

This episode is brought to you by Audible, Givewell, and the generosity of our supporters.

Special Guest: Christina Hoff Sommers.

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2018 Sanders Philosophy of Mind Prize Winner - Daily Nous — Experiencing Left and Right in a Non-Orientable World
Experiencing Left and Right in a Non-Orientable World by Jonathan Simon
Very Bad Wizards is on Reddit — Join in on all the repugnant discussions on our Reddit community.
Large scale replication project finds that one of Dave's and colleagues' most cited findings (association between disgust sensitivity and homophobia) is not real. : VeryBadWizards
OSF | Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation in Replicability Across Sample and Setting

Episode 152: Ruthlessness, Public and Private Nov 20, 2018

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Tamler and David continue their Nagel-gazing by discussing another essay from Mortal Questions: "Ruthlessness in Public Life." Why do we treat the immorality of politicians, military leaders, and others in power differently than the immorality of individuals? Why does it seem less aversive to shake the hand of someone responsible for the death of thousands of civilians through military action than it does to shake the hand of a serial killer who has merely killed dozens? Are the rules we use to judge the moral atrocities of public officials different from the ones we use to judge private atrocities? Do they have the same basic foundations? Plus, we satisfy our listeners bloodlust by arguing about the new "Journal of Controversial Ideas" (because it would be cowardly not to).

This episode is brought to you by Givewell.org, and by the private morality of our generous supporters.

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Episode 151: Viddy Well, My Listeners (Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange") Nov 06, 2018

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There was me, that is Tamler, and my droog, that is David, and we sat in our living rooms on Skype trying to make up our rassoodocks what Stanley Kubrick's a Clockwork Orange was really about? Free will? We didn't think so. Punishment? Yeah but what about punishment? And what about the old ultraviolence - can it still shock us in the modern age? Then suddenly we viddied that thinking was for the gloopy ones and that the oomny just, like, press record and start the podcast. Slooshy well, my brothers, slooshy well.

This episode is brought to you by our beloved Patreon supporters and www.givewell.org.

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Episode 150: Paul Bloom Insisted That We Talk About Sex Robots Oct 23, 2018

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What better way to celebrate our 150th episode than to bring back our favorite guest – Paul Bloom! We riff on a series of topics: the new "grievance studies" hoax, sex robot brothels, perverse desires, and perverse beliefs. Then we get a little navel gazey (OK maybe more than a little) and talk about podcasting as a form of media and discussion, good teaching, and what we've learned about our listeners and ourselves. (Note: the audio may sound a little echoey towards the end because of how far we've crawled up our own asses.) This was a fun one, enjoy!

Special Guest: Paul Bloom.

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Episode 149: Death, Immortality, and Porn (Intuition) Pumps Oct 02, 2018

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Is living forever a good thing? Could we maintain our values and personal attachments throughout eternity? Would we be motivated to accomplish anything? Can we make sense of a human life that doesn't have a fixed endpoint? We try to alleviate David's paralyzing fear of death by examining two articles - one on how immortality is worse than we think, and the other providing evidence that dying might be better than we think. Plus,we examine some famous thought experiments - if they were porn. And a special bonus: after the outro music, Eliza Sommers joins her Dad at to give her theory about Twin Peaks: The Return (contains spoilers).

Special Guest: Eliza Sommers.

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Episode 148: Am I Wrong? Sep 19, 2018

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Tamler wades into a Twitter controversy about Serena Williams - could this be his fast-track pass into the IDW? And since we're talking about that, why not throw in a discussion of Louis CK's surprise set at the Comedy Cellar? In the second segment, we step outside of last week's social media culture wars to discuss "But I Could Be Wrong," a paper by philosopher George Sher from Rice University. What happens once we realize that our moral convictions are often not better justified than the convictions of people who disagree with us? Does that mean it's no longer rational to act on them? And is the problem deeper for moral beliefs than it is for empirical or aesthetic beliefs?

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