Very Bad Wizards

David and Tamler dive back into the Bible, this time to the perplexing and poetic Book of Job. What does this book have to say about the theodicy, the problem of evil? Why does Job (and his children) have to suffer so much just so God can prove a point to Satan? Are the speeches of Job's friends meant to be convincing? Does Job capitulate in the end? Does God contradict himself in the last chapter? What’s the deal with Elihu? So many questions, not as many answers – maybe that's why it's such a classic. Plus, "transhumanism" – dystopian wet dream or perfect moral system of the future based on logic, reason, and code? (Always code). Sponsored By: Simple Habit: Try out Simple Habit--the meditation app that can make your life better in as little as 5-minutes per day. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Environmentalists are Wrong: Nature Isn’t Sacred and We Should Replace It - Transhumanist Wager Transhumanism - Wikipedia The Book of Job (New International Version) Book of Job - Wikipedia Who really wrote the Boo

Is social psychology just a kid dressing up in grown-up science clothes? Are the methods in social psychology--hypothesis-driven experiments and model-building--appropriate for the state of the field? Or do these methods lead to a narrowing of vision, stifled creativity, and a lack of informed curiosity about the social world> David and Tamler discuss the strong methodological critique of psychology from two of its leading practitioners - Paul Rozin and Solomon Asch. Plus, food porn, real estate porn, outrage porn, and David's personal favorite - power washing porn. Sponsored By: Simple Habit: Try out Simple Habit--the meditation app that can make your life better in as little as 5-minutes per day. Prolific: Just for listeners of Very Bad Wizards-get $100 added on to your account when you start an account and top it off at $250 or more! Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Power Washing Porn Opinion | Why We Call Things ‘Porn’ - The New York Times Pizarro, D.A., & Baumeister, R. (2013) Superhero comics as m

David and Tamler try to control their emotions (with varying success) as they go deep into Franz Kafka's masterful novella "The Metamorphosis." What kind of a story is this? A Marxist or religious allegory? A work of weird fiction? A family drama? A dark comedy? Why does a story about a man who turns into a giant insect get under our skins so much? Plus a study that links insomnia to our fear of death. What a cheerful summer episode! (Actually we're fairly proud of this one... As always we suggest reading the text before you listen or soon after). This episode brought to you by Prolific.co, and by the support of our listeners. Sponsored By: Prolific: Just for listeners of Very Bad Wizards-get $100 added on to your account when you start an account and top it off at $250 or more! Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Life is short, stay awake: Death anxiety and bedtime procrastination. - PubMed - NCBI 2nd Annual BEworks Summit for Behavioural Science in Business The Metamorphosis - Wikipedia On Translating Kafka’

It's Part 2 of the Lebowski vs. Pulp Fiction showdown. This time we focus on the Dude, Walter, Donny, and most importantly Jesus Quintana. (Nobody fucks with the Jesus). What's the ethos of this stoner masterpiece? Is it a nihilstic movie? A deconstruction of masculinity? A cannabis infused Daoist parable? And is it fair to compare these two classics from the 90s? Fair? Who's the fucking nihilist you bunch of crybabies! Plus - trolling. What is it? Why do people do it? Can works of art troll their audience? And is there such a thing as a benign troll? Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Internet troll - Wikipedia Ken M Is The Most Epic Troll On The Internet Wrestling’s new villain named himself ‘Progressive Liberal.’ Hillary’s on his shirt. - The Washington Post The Big Lebowski - Wikipedia ‘Big Lebowski’ Sequel Renamed ‘The Jesus Rolls,’ Plans 2020 Release | IndieWire

There are only two kinds of people in the world, Pulp Fiction people and Big Lebowski people. Now Pulp Fiction people can like Big Lebowski and vice versa, but nobody likes them both equally. Somewhere you have to make a choice. And that choice tells you who you are. In the first episode of this two-parter, David and Tamler make that choice – and then go deep into the themes, performances, and philosophy of Tarantino’s iconic 90s classic Pulp Fiction. What’s the meaning of a foot massage? What counts as a miracle? Is failing to disregard your own feces a sufficient condition for a filthy animal? We have a lots to talk about, and time is short. So pretty please, with sugar on top, listen to the fucking episode. This episode is sponsored by Blinkist and by all of our supporters. Sponsored By: Blinkist: Fit reading into your life. Key takeaways from the world’s best nonfiction books in text and audio. Visit blinkist.com/verybadwizards for a special offer for our listeners. Promo Code: verybadwizards Support Ve

Memory is highly selective and often inaccurate. But what if we had an easily searchable video record of all our experiences and interactions? How would that affect our relationships? What would it reveal about our characters and our sense of who we are? Is there a kind of truth that can’t be determined by perfect objectivity? David and Tamler dive deep into Ted Chiang’s amazingly rich and poignant short story “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” which explores how new technologies shape individual and group identities. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Meryl Streep: 'We hurt our boys by calling something "toxic masculinity"' | Film | The Guardian Deadwood: EB Farnum At Work Exhalation by Ted Chiang [amazon.com affiliate link]

Sam Harris returns to the podcast to talk about meditation and his new Waking Up meditation app. What are the goals of mindfulness practice - stress reduction and greater focus, or something much deeper? Can it cure David's existential dread? Tamler's fear of his daughter going away to college? Can sustained practice erode the illusion of self? Is that even something we'd want to do? What if it diminishes our attachment to people we love? And what is the self anyway? Is Sam a defender of panpsychism? So many questions... Plus, the ethics of creating talking elephants by curing them of their autism through bonding and possibly mounting. (Seriously.) Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Rossler, O. E., Theis, C., Heiter, J., Fleischer, W., & Student, A. (2015). Is it ethical to heal a young white elephant from his physiological autism?. Progress in biophysics and molecular biology, 119(3), 539-543. Scientists Predict A Talking Elephant, Szilamandee - Neuroskeptic The Social Exchange Podcast | David Pizarro - Co

David and Tamler argue about William James' classic essay "The Will to Believe." What's more important - avoiding falsehood or discovering truth? When (if ever) is it rational to believe anything without enough evidence? What about beliefs that we can't be agnostic about? Are there hypotheses that we have to believe in order for them to come true? Does James successfully demonstrate that faith can be rational? Plus, a philosopher at Apple who's not allowed to talk to the media - what are they hiding? And why are academics constantly telling students that academia is a nightmare? Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Apple won't let its in-house philosopher talk to the press — Quartz The Will to Believe - Wikipedia The Will to Believe (Full Text PDF) Evidentialism - Wikipedia

David and Tamler are pulled into Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." Omelas is a truly happy city, except for one child who lives in abominable misery. Is that too high a moral cost? Why do some people walk away from the city? Why does no one help the child? Why does Le Guin make us create the city with her? Plus, we talk about our listener meetup in Vancouver, and a new edition of [dramatic music] GUILTY CONFESSIONS. Note: if this episode strikes you as too puritanical, then please add an orgy. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - YouTube The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas - Wikipedia The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (Full Text) The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin [amazon.com affiliate link]

As parents we like to think we have an impact on our children - their future, their happiness, the kinds of people they turn out to be. But are we deluded? Dave and Tamler are joined by empathy's kryponite, the great Paul Bloom, to talk about Judith Rich Harris's view that parents matter a lot less than you might think (while genes and peer groups matter a lot more than you might think) . Plus, what the connection between art and morality? Should we support "cancel culture"? Is it wrong to play Michael Jackson's P.Y.T. (spell it out) on the radio? What about the Jackson 5? And what about art that is itself immoral? You're not gonna believe this but Louis CK gets mentioned. Thanks to our beloved Patreon supporters for suggesting and voting for this topic! Special Guest: Paul Bloom. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: 'Too big to cancel': can we still listen to Michael Jackson? | Music | The Guardian The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do, Revised and Updated: Judith Rich Harris [amazon affi

The less we know, the more we know it. David and Tamler talk about the notorious Dunning-Kruger effect, which makes us overconfident in beliefs on topics we're ignorant about and under-confident when we're experts. Plus, we break down an evolutionary psychology article on why poor men and hungry men prefer women with big breasts. Trust us, it's a really bad study. We're sure about it. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Resource Security Impacts Men’s Female Breast Size Preferences Peez on Freakonomics Radio Live: “Would You Eat a Piece of Chocolate Shaped Like Dog Poop?” Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia We Are All Confident Idiots - Pacific Standard Dunning, D. (2011). The Dunning–Kruger effect: On being ignorant of one's own ignorance. In Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 44, pp. 247-296). Academic Press.

David and Tamler dive into the book of Ecclesiastes, an absurdist classic that is somehow also a book of the Bible. Is everything meaningless, vain, and a chasing after the wind? Are humans just the same as animals? Are wise people no better off than fools? Will God judge us after we die, rewarding the good people and punishing the shit-heels? What if there is no afterlife and this is all we get? How should we deal with our pointless, unjust existence? Plus we return to our opening-segment bible— Aeon—and talk about an argument for replacing jealousy with...wait for it…compersion. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Love without jealousy: consider the benefits of compersion | Aeon Essays Break Music: Back From Salina | SoundCloud Just to say thanks to the wizards : VeryBadWizards Ecclesiastes - Wikipedia Ecclesiastes 1 NIV - Everything Is Meaningless - The words - Bible Gateway

Poor and black defendants have more legal rights than ever, but that didn't stop mass incarceration. Why is that? We talk about a paper by Paul Butler called "Poor People Lose: Gideon and the Critique of Rights." Plus, we answer the question that’s on everyone’s mind: how to live as an anti-natalist. And Tamler is appalled to discover David's anti-natalist leanings. Sponsored By: Eero Promo Code: VERYBADWIZARDS Support Very Bad Wizards Links: How to Live As an Antinatalist: 11 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow Suing your parents for being born has philosophical support — Quartz Indian man to sue parents for giving birth to him - BBC News Butler, P. D. (2012). Poor people lose: Gideon and the critique of rights. Yale LJ, 122, 2176. Butler, P. (2010). Let's get free: a hip-hop theory of justice. The New Press. Chicago Gideon v. Wainwright - Wikipedia

David and Tamler talk about the invasion of dual process theories in psychology. Why do we love theories that divide complex phenomena into just two categories? Is there any evidence to back up these theories? Are we distorting our understanding of the mind and morality? And what we can do to get out of this mess? Plus, Liam Neeson, moral pet peeves, and oral ethics. Sponsored By: Mack Weldon Promo Code: VERYBADWIZARDS Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Melnikoff, D. E., & Bargh, J. A. (2018). The mythical number two. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22, 280-293. The Annals of the TERF-Wars | Jane Clare Jones Feldman Barrett's theory of constructed emotion - Wikipedia Dual process theory - Wikipedia

David and Tamler continue their discussion of Dostoevsky's funny, sad, philosophical novella Notes From Underground. We focus on part 2 this time - three stories from the Underground Man's past - and explore what the stories tell us about his existentialist rants in part 1. Is he consumed with guilt over his treatment of Liza? Is he ashamed of his social awkwardness, low status, and self-destructive behavior? Or is he a narcissistic proto-incel suffering from an especially acute case of spotlight effect? (As usual, the answer is probably some combination of all these and more.) Plus, we select the finalists for our Patreon-listener selected episode. Thanks to everyone for their support! Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Notes from Underground - Wikipedia Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky [amazon.com affiliate link]

We’re sick men. We’re spiteful men. We’re unpleasant men. We think our livers are diseased (especially Tamler’s). So we talk about Dostoevsky’s wild, complex, stream of consciousness masterpiece Notes From Underground. For this episode we focus on part 1 of the novella, and the philosophy behind it. Is the underground man an existentialist hero affirming his freedom in the face of a deterministic hyper-rationalist worldview? Or is he a lonely man consumed with guilt and self-loathing, constructing a pretentious post-hoc rationalization of his character and behavior? Plus, the American Psychological Association just issued guidelines for how to treat men who embrace traditional masculine ideologies. Is the backlash justified? This episode is brought to you by Eero, Curiosity Stream, and the generosity of listeners like you. Sponsored By: Eero Promo Code: VERYBADWIZARDS CuriosityStream Promo Code: VBW Support Very Bad Wizards Links: 'Traditional Masculinity' Can Be Harmful, Psychologists Find - The Atlantic

David and Tamler dive deep into Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 hallucinatory classic, Vertigo. Why does this movie seem to gain stature among critics and academics every year? Is this a really a exploration of Hitchcock's own obsessions and sexual repression? Is it a story about filmmaking and celebrity? Or is it just a twisty noir thriller about a man who has no job and can't kiss to save his life? Plus, some thoughts about bad reviews on Rate My Professor and why it's hard to get feedback about job performance in academia. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Relax (Short film by Matthew Herbertz) Bob Einstein on "The Ringer" podcast Vertigo (film) - Wikipedia Vertigo | Scanners | Roger Ebert

In the famous words of the idealist philosopher George Berkeley, “To exist is to be perceived.” Our ideas and perceptions are the fundamental objects in the universe; there is no real world beyond them. Hume wrote (I think) that Berkeley’s arguments don’t admit of the slightest refutation, and they don’t inspire the slightest conviction. On Earth, that may be true. On Tlön, it’s false – the people there are “congenital idealists.” Their language, philosophy, literature, and religion presuppose idealism. It’s their common sense. And their philosophy starts to encroach on their reality. But what happens when we read and hear about Tlön – can their idealism invade our “real” world? Will we start to lose our metaphysical bearings? David and Tamler talk about Borges’s invasive, unsettling story “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.” Please listen so we can exist! (And speaking of things that may or may not exist, we also discuss the metaphysics of holes.) This episode is brought to you by GiveWell and the generous support

David dies for science’s sins and addresses the failed replication of one of his studies (conducted with three former VBW guests) by the Many Labs Project. But first, the guys try to gauge their intuitions about the phenomenal experience of their molecule-for-molecule mirror reflection duplicate in a universe with a non-orientable topology. Could this spell doom for e-categoricalism? Plus, the annual Thanksgiving tradition: IDW star and Factual Feminist Christina Hoff Sommers and Tamler argue over drinks about standpoint epistemology, political correctness, and lingerie. This episode is brought to you by Audible, Givewell, and the generosity of our supporters. Special Guest: Christina Hoff Sommers. Sponsored By: Audible Promo Code: VERYBADWIZARDS GiveWell Support Very Bad Wizards Links: 2018 Sanders Philosophy of Mind Prize Winner - Daily Nous — Experiencing Left and Right in a Non-Orientable World Experiencing Left and Right in a Non-Orientable World by Jonathan Simon Very Bad Wizards is on Reddit — Join

Tamler and David continue their Nagel-gazing by discussing another essay from Mortal Questions: "Ruthlessness in Public Life." Why do we treat the immorality of politicians, military leaders, and others in power differently than the immorality of individuals? Why does it seem less aversive to shake the hand of someone responsible for the death of thousands of civilians through military action than it does to shake the hand of a serial killer who has merely killed dozens? Are the rules we use to judge the moral atrocities of public officials different from the ones we use to judge private atrocities? Do they have the same basic foundations? Plus, we satisfy our listeners bloodlust by arguing about the new "Journal of Controversial Ideas" (because it would be cowardly not to). This episode is brought to you by Givewell.org, and by the private morality of our generous supporters. Sponsored By: GiveWell Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Here Comes ‘The Journal of Controversial Ideas.’ Cue the Outcry. - The Chron