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 7: Psychopaths and Utilitarians Pt. 2 (Now with more poo poo)

Episode 7: Psychopaths and Utilitarians Pt. 2 (Now with more poo poo)

After a clip from The Third Man, Dave and Tamler continue their discussion from Episode 6 on Ted Bundy, utilitarians, and trolley problems. They also talk about Tamler's TED talk envy, inappropriate a...

4 Nov 20121h 7min

Episode 6: Trolleys, Utilitarians, and Psychopaths (Part 1)

Episode 6: Trolleys, Utilitarians, and Psychopaths (Part 1)

Tamler contemplates ending it all because he can't get 'Call Me Maybe' out of his head, and Dave doesn't try to talk him out of it. This is followed by a discussion about drones, psychopaths, Canadian...

20 Okt 20121h 1min

Episode 5: Revenge, Pt. 2: The Revenge

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Dave and Tamler continue their discussion about their favorite topic. They talk about the evolutionary origins of retributive behavior, cross-cultural differences in revenge norms, and the proportion...

8 Okt 20121h 5min

Episode 4: Revenge, Pt. 1

Episode 4: Revenge, Pt. 1

Dave allows Tamler to rant about Sam Harris's strawman attacks on moral relativism before launching into discussion about revenge, justice, True Grit, and Michael Dukakis. Though they differ on many i...

20 Sep 201251min

Episode 3: "We believe in nothing!" (Cultural diversity, relativism, and moral truth)

Episode 3: "We believe in nothing!" (Cultural diversity, relativism, and moral truth)

Tamler and Dave discuss recent work in philosophy and psychology about the differences in moral values and practices across cultures. We talk about the implications of moral diversity: does it mean t...

8 Sep 20121h 1min

Episode 2: The "Dangerous Truth" about Free Will (Free Will and Morality, Pt. 2)

Episode 2: The "Dangerous Truth" about Free Will (Free Will and Morality, Pt. 2)

Tamler and David discuss whether giving up our belief in free will makes us more likely to abandon our moral standards. Links "You Can't Handle the Truth!" Jesse Bering "Scientists say free will pro...

1 Sep 20121h 13min

Episode 1: Brains, Robots, and Free Will (Free Will and Morality Pt. 1)

Episode 1: Brains, Robots, and Free Will (Free Will and Morality Pt. 1)

Dave and Tamler start out talking about the new wave of skepticism about free will and moral responsibility in the popular press from people like Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne. Neuroscience figures hea...

30 Aug 20121h 10min

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