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 87: Lucky You (with Robert Frank)

Episode 87: Lucky You (with Robert Frank)

We hit the jackpot with this one! Economist Robert Frank (you may remember him from such episodes as The Greatest Books Ever Written) joins David and Tamler to talk about his new book Success and Luck...

12 Huhti 20161h 19min

Episode 86: Guns, Shame, and the Meaning of Punishment

Episode 86: Guns, Shame, and the Meaning of Punishment

We know that criminal punishment has consequences, both good and bad, and that many people think that offenders deserve it. But what does punishment mean? What is society trying to express in the way ...

22 Maalis 20161h 14min

Episode 85: A Zoo with Only One Animal (with Paul Bloom)

Episode 85: A Zoo with Only One Animal (with Paul Bloom)

Philosophers can be funny and funny movies can be philosophical. David and Tamler welcome frequent VBW guest and arch-enemy of empathy Paul Bloom to discuss their five favorite comic films with philos...

12 Maalis 20161h 9min

Episode 84: Lifting the Veil

Episode 84: Lifting the Veil

David and Tamler talk about the perils of trying to step outside of your own perspective in ethics, science, and politics. What do Rawls' "original position" thought experiment, Pascal's Wager, and Mo...

23 Helmi 20161h 33min

Episode 83: Ego Trip

Episode 83: Ego Trip

David and Tamler continue their series of breaking down a classic essay/article in their fields. For this installment, David assigns Tamler Anthony Greenwald's fascinating 1980 review article "The Tot...

9 Helmi 20161h 1min

Episode 82: Totalitarian Slide-Rulers

Episode 82: Totalitarian Slide-Rulers

David and Tamler take a break from their main jobs as TV critics to talk about a masterpiece in political philosophy: "Two Concepts of Liberty" by Isaiah Berlin. While they both celebrate the style an...

26 Tammi 20161h 5min

Episode 81: Domo Arigato, Mr. Robot (With Yoel Inbar)

Episode 81: Domo Arigato, Mr. Robot (With Yoel Inbar)

Hello, listener. Hello, listener? That's lame. Maybe I should give you a name, but that's a slippery slope. You're only in my head. Or maybe we're in your head. Are you listening to this with headphon...

12 Tammi 20161h 47min

Episode 80: The Coddling of the Wizard Mind (with Vlad Chituc and Christina Hoff Sommers)

Episode 80: The Coddling of the Wizard Mind (with Vlad Chituc and Christina Hoff Sommers)

It's our last episode on campus protests and political correctness for a while, we promise! But it's a fun one.  David and Tamler welcome two guests on the opposite side of the debate spectrum. Recent...

21 Joulu 20151h 40min

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