Very Bad Wizards

In this podcast we examine a recent argument for the view that chess is not, in fact, a game. We discuss the Grasshopper's claim that all games must have a prelusory goal, as well as Skepticus' object...

1 Nov 20221h 23min

We welcome Sam Harris back to the show for a deep dive into Stanley Kubrick's confounding 1968 masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey." How long is the Dawn of Man? What does the second monolith do exactl...

18 Okt 20222h 34min

We dive into David Foster Wallace's sprawling 1993 essay "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction." How do TV and new forms of media keep their hold on us when we know at some level that they're ...

4 Okt 20221h 46min

David and Tamler take their first real look at pragmatism via Richard Rorty's "Solidarity or Objectivity." Can we discover facts about the world as it "really is," independent of our own culturally in...

20 Sep 20221h 31min

David and Tamler return to Borges land to get lost in the infinite, this time with his legendary and tragic character Funes the memorious. What would it be like to have perfect memory, to have full ac...

6 Sep 20221h 51min

David and Tamler continue their discussion of Leo Tolstoy's 'Confession.' When we left him last time, the famous author had bottomed out just years after writing two of the greatest novels ever writte...

16 Aug 20221h 32min

We have a sneak peek for our listeners--the first episode our new Patreon bonus series on David Milch's brilliant (but short-lived) series "Deadwood." In this inaugural edition of "The Ambulators" (we...

9 Aug 20221h 30min

David and Tamler find themselves unable to attach rational meaning to a single act in their entire lives. Let's say we publish more articles and books. What then? What about our kids? They're going of...

2 Aug 20221h 33min