Very Bad Wizards

David and Tamler dive into the book of Ecclesiastes, an absurdist classic that is somehow also a book of the Bible. Is everything meaningless, vain, and a chasing after the wind? Are humans just the same as animals? Are wise people no better off than fools? Will God judge us after we die, rewarding the good people and punishing the shit-heels? What if there is no afterlife and this is all we get? How should we deal with our pointless, unjust existence? Plus we return to our opening-segment bible— Aeon—and talk about an argument for replacing jealousy with...wait for it…compersion.Support Very Bad WizardsLinks: Love without jealousy: consider the benefits of compersion | Aeon Essays Break Music: Back From Salina | SoundCloud Just to say thanks to the wizards : VeryBadWizards Ecclesiastes - Wikipedia Ecclesiastes 1 NIV - Everything Is Meaningless - The words - Bible Gateway

Poor and black defendants have more legal rights than ever, but that didn't stop mass incarceration. Why is that? We talk about a paper by Paul Butler called "Poor People Lose: Gideon and the Critique of Rights." Plus, we answer the question that’s on everyone’s mind: how to live as an anti-natalist. And Tamler is appalled to discover David's anti-natalist leanings.Sponsored By: Eero Promo Code: VERYBADWIZARDSSupport Very Bad WizardsLinks: How to Live As an Antinatalist: 11 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow Suing your parents for being born has philosophical support — Quartz Indian man to sue parents for giving birth to him - BBC News Butler, P. D. (2012). Poor people lose: Gideon and the critique of rights. Yale LJ, 122, 2176. Butler, P. (2010). Let's get free: a hip-hop theory of justice. The New Press. Chicago Gideon v. Wainwright - Wikipedia

David and Tamler talk about the invasion of dual process theories in psychology. Why do we love theories that divide complex phenomena into just two categories? Is there any evidence to back up these theories? Are we distorting our understanding of the mind and morality? And what we can do to get out of this mess? Plus, Liam Neeson, moral pet peeves, and oral ethics.Sponsored By: Mack Weldon Promo Code: VERYBADWIZARDSSupport Very Bad WizardsLinks: Melnikoff, D. E., & Bargh, J. A. (2018). The mythical number two. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22, 280-293. The Annals of the TERF-Wars | Jane Clare Jones Feldman Barrett's theory of constructed emotion - Wikipedia Dual process theory - Wikipedia

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! Support Very Bad WizardsLinks: Notes from Underground - Wikipedia Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky [amazon.com affiliate link]

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. Sponsored By: Eero Promo Code: VERYBADWIZARDS CuriosityStream Promo Code: VBW Support Very Bad WizardsLinks: 'Traditional Masculinity' Can Be Harmful, Psychologists Find - The Atlantic APA ‘Masculinity’ Guidelines Face a Title IX Challenge at Harvard University, for Discriminating Against Men in Psychology Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (trans. by Constance Garnett) [amazon.com affiliate link] Notes from Underground - Wikipedia

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. Support Very Bad WizardsLinks: Relax (Short film by Matthew Herbertz) Bob Einstein on "The Ringer" podcast Vertigo (film) - Wikipedia Vertigo | Scanners | Roger Ebert

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.) This episode is brought to you by GiveWell and the generous support of our listeners. Sponsored By:GiveWellSupport Very Bad WizardsLinks: Is a hole a real thing, or just a place where something isn’t? | Aeon Ideas The Simpsons - Nature's Biggest Holes - YouTube Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius - Wikipedia Neoplatonism and Gnosticism - Wikipedia

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.Sponsored By: Audible Promo Code: VERYBADWIZARDS GiveWell Support Very Bad WizardsLinks: 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

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. Sponsored By:GiveWellSupport Very Bad WizardsLinks: Here Comes ‘The Journal of Controversial Ideas.’ Cue the Outcry. - The Chronicle of Higher Education Nagel, T. (2012). Mortal questions. Cambridge University Press. [Amazon affiliate link]

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. Sponsored By:GiveWellSupport Very Bad WizardsLinks: A Clockwork Orange (film) - Wikipedia COTO - Re-interpreting Alex's Violence in A Clockwork Orange A Clockwork Orange | Film Review | Slant Magazine

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.Support Very Bad WizardsLinks: Proposed 'sex robot brothel' blocked by Houston city council ‘Sokal Squared’: Is Huge Publishing Hoax ‘Hilarious and Delightful’ or an Ugly Example of Dishonesty and Bad Faith? - The Chronicle of Higher Education The Jem'Hadar - Wikipedia

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.Support Very Bad WizardsLinks: Intuition pump - Wikipedia Very Bad Wizards Episode 52: Thought Experiments (Huh!) What Are They Good For? (Part 2) Frankfurt cases - Wikipedia Gettier problem - Wikipedia Russell's paradox - Wikipedia Veil of ignorance - Wikipedia Buridan's ass - Wikipedia There’s a big problem with immortality: it goes on and on | Aeon Essays Goranson, A., Ritter, R. S., Waytz, A., Norton, M. I., & Gray, K. (2017). Dying Is Unexpectedly Positive. Psychological Science, 28(7), 988-999. Williams, B. (1973). The Makropulos case: reflections on the tedium of immortality (pp. pp-82).

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? Support Very Bad WizardsLinks: US Open 2018: Serena Williams’ fight with umpire Carlos Ramos, explained - Vox Tamler tweets Sher, G. (2001). But I could be wrong. Social Philosophy and Policy, 18(2), 64-78. A Crying Shame: The 2018 US Open Will Only be Remembered for Serena by Cindy Shmerler (tennis.com) Martina Navratilova: What Serena Got Wrong (NY Times)

Oxford philosophy professor Will MacAskill joins us to talk about effective altruism, moral uncertainty, and why you shouldn’t eat your grandmother (even if consequentialism is true). How should we act when we’re not sure which moral theory is the right one? Can we formulate a guide for behavior, modeled on decision theory, that maximizes expected moral value? How do we assign credences to ethical (as opposed to empirical) claims? Why has effective altruism become so popular, so fast, yet at the same time seem off-putting to many people? Plus, Tamler faces a dilemma when narrating his audiobook, and Dave is the Louis CK of his own backyard. 0:00 - 25:41 Tamler's dilemma and Guilty Confessions. 25:41 -31:15 Break, contact info, updates, thanks to our listeners and supporters. 31:16 -1:43:19 Wil MacAskill interview. Special Guest: William MacAskill.Support Very Bad WizardsLinks: William MacAskill homepage The Most Efficient Way to Save a Life - The Atlantic Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Help Others, Do Work that Matters, and Make Smarter Choices about Giving Back [amazon.com affiliate link] Moral uncertainty - Effective Altruism Concepts 80,000 Hours: How to make a difference with your career Giving What We Can

Is being a sports fan irrational? Does it lead to more suffering than happiness? David and Tamler discuss a recent study that suggests the answer is "yes." But does the study really capture the benefits of being fans? More generally, does science have the tools to truly measure the costs and benefits of rooting for your favorite teams? Plus, we talk about The Nation apologizing for publishing a poem written in Black English Vernacular, and introduce a dramatic new segment: "Guilty Confessions." Support Very Bad WizardsLinks: A Poem in The Nation Spurs a Backlash and an Apology - The New York Times British economists prove it: Sports destroy happiness - The Washington Post Dolton, P., & MacKerron, G. (2018). Is football a matter of life and death - or is it more important than that? mappiness, the happiness mapping app