Episode 227: A Terrible Master (David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water").
Very Bad Wizards21 Joulu 2021

Episode 227: A Terrible Master (David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water").

David and Tamler dive into David Foster Wallace's celebrated and surprisingly earnest Kenyon College commencement speech "This is Water". How can we escape the prison and prism of our (literally) self-centered perspective? Can we choose to adjust our natural default settings, take a break from our running inner monologue, and pay attention to what's in front of us right now? Is DFW appealing to Buddhist ideas or something more general that you can be found across all spiritual traditions?

Plus we ask the AI ethics program "Ask Delphi" some tough moral questions (spoiler alert: "just the tip" is "rude"), and almost get into a big fight about the potential of AI ethical robots (but we're saving that argument for a future episode).

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Episode 95: The Repugnance of Repugnance

Episode 95: The Repugnance of Repugnance

We all remember the famous iTunes review calling David and Tamler "repugnant." (And the T-shirt/mugs are coming soon, we promise!) But what did the reviewer mean by that? Was he calling us "immoral"? ...

2 Elo 20161h 28min

Episode 94: Buttery Friendships

Episode 94: Buttery Friendships

Dave and Tamler don't agree about much, but one thing they do share is an affinity for character-based approaches to ethics. Using Tamler's interview with Georgetown Philosopher Nancy Sherman as their...

19 Heinä 20161h 36min

Episode 93: Avalanches, Blame, and Cowardice (With Yoel Inbar)

Episode 93: Avalanches, Blame, and Cowardice (With Yoel Inbar)

Scandinavian film scholar Yoel Inbar joins the podcast for a deep dive on the Swedish film Force Majeure, a darkly funny meditation on what our instinctive behavior in a moment of panic can reveal abo...

5 Heinä 20161h 39min

Episode 92: Jonathan Edwards' Basement

Episode 92: Jonathan Edwards' Basement

David and Tamler continue their intermittent "classic paper series" with an episode on Jonathan Bennett's "The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn" (published in 1974—before the reason vs. emotion debate w...

21 Kesä 20161h 8min

Episode 91: Rage Against the Machines

Episode 91: Rage Against the Machines

Inspired by a recent ProPublica report on racial bias in an algorithm used to predict future criminal behavior, David and Tamler talk about the use of analytic methods in criminal sentencing, sports, ...

7 Kesä 20161h 24min

Episode 90: Of Mice and Morals

Episode 90: Of Mice and Morals

David and Tamler have their first real fight in a while over an article defending "social mixing"--distributing babies randomly across families such that no infant is genetically related to the parent...

25 Touko 20161h 20min

Episode 89: Shame on You (with Jennifer Jacquet)

Episode 89: Shame on You (with Jennifer Jacquet)

David and Tamler welcome author and environmental science professor Jennifer Jacquet to the podcast to discuss the pros and cons of shame. What's the difference between shame and guilt? Is shaming eff...

10 Touko 20161h 37min

Episode 88: A Doobie for Elijah

Episode 88: A Doobie for Elijah

David and Tamler celebrate Passover with a high-spirited episode on guns, revenge, liberals, being offended, the fear of death, and whether kids have a right to be loved. Thanks to all you listeners f...

26 Huhti 20161h 20min

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