Episode 227: A Terrible Master (David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water").
Very Bad Wizards21 Des 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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Episoder(335)

Episode 47: Schooled By Our Listeners

Episode 47: Schooled By Our Listeners

Tamler and David leech off of their listeners and dedicate an episode to their favorite comments, questions, and criticisms from the past few weeks (but not before Tamler goes on a rant about bicycle ...

22 Mai 20141h 2min

Episode 46: The Real Josh Knobe

Episode 46: The Real Josh Knobe

May I have your attention please? Will the real Josh Knobe please stand up? Will the real... [you know what, screw this--we're just dating ourselves.] X-phi phenom Josh Knobe rejoins the podcast to ta...

5 Mai 20141h 4min

Episode 45: Rounded Brains and Balanced "Play Diets"

Episode 45: Rounded Brains and Balanced "Play Diets"

A British tabloid article about kids, brains, and spatial skills somehow provokes the biggest argument ever on the podcast. Dave and Tamler get into it about gender, toys, properly rounded brains, and...

21 Apr 20141h 8min

Episode 44: Killer Robots

Episode 44: Killer Robots

David and Tamler argue about the use of autonomous robots and drones in warfare.  Could it lead to less suffering during wars and afterwards? Would nations be motivated to design robots that behave et...

5 Apr 20141h 8min

Episode 43: The Nature of Nudges

Episode 43: The Nature of Nudges

Dave and Tamler talk about a recent study that seems to support the view that "justice is what the judge had for breakfast" (or at least how long ago the parole board had breakfast), and that makes Ta...

17 Mar 201450min

Episode 42: Reason, Responsibility, and Roombas (With Paul Bloom)

Episode 42: Reason, Responsibility, and Roombas (With Paul Bloom)

Can a fully determined creature deliberate? How big a role does conscious reasoning play in moral judgment and everyday life? Are we responsible for our thoughts and actions? Paul Bloom rejoins us aga...

3 Mar 20141h 7min

Episode 41: Moral Dilemmas at the Movies

Episode 41: Moral Dilemmas at the Movies

Dave keeps trying to explain to Tamler that we're not a movie podcast, but somehow they're doing another podcast about movies. This time they each list their top 5 movies featuring moral dilemmas. Als...

19 Feb 20141h 37min

Episode 40: How Many Moralities Are There? Pt. 2 (with Jesse Graham)

Episode 40: How Many Moralities Are There? Pt. 2 (with Jesse Graham)

Jesse Graham joins us for part 2 of our discussion on the nature of morality, and his recent paper on Moral Foundations Theory. He highlights the key components of MFT, defends himself against our acc...

3 Feb 20141h 19min

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