Very Bad Wizards

There was me, that is Tamler, and my droog, that is David, and we sat in our living rooms on Skype trying to make up our rassoodocks what Stanley Kubrick's a Clockwork Orange was really about? Free will? We didn't think so. Punishment? Yeah but what about punishment? And what about the old ultraviolence - can it still shock us in the modern age? Then suddenly we viddied that thinking was for the gloopy ones and that the oomny just, like, press record and start the podcast. Slooshy well, my brothers, slooshy well. This episode is brought to you by our beloved Patreon supporters and www.givewell.org. Sponsored By: GiveWell Support Very Bad Wizards Links: A Clockwork Orange (film) - Wikipedia COTO - Re-interpreting Alex's Violence in A Clockwork Orange A Clockwork Orange | Film Review | Slant Magazine

What better way to celebrate our 150th episode than to bring back our favorite guest – Paul Bloom! We riff on a series of topics: the new “grievance studies” hoax, sex robot brothels, perverse desires, and perverse beliefs. Then we get a little navel gazey (OK maybe more than a little) and talk about podcasting as a form of media and discussion, good teaching, and what we’ve learned about our listeners and ourselves. (Note: the audio may sound a little echoey towards the end because of how far we’ve crawled up our own asses.) This was a fun one, enjoy! Special Guest: Paul Bloom. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Proposed 'sex robot brothel' blocked by Houston city council ‘Sokal Squared’: Is Huge Publishing Hoax ‘Hilarious and Delightful’ or an Ugly Example of Dishonesty and Bad Faith? - The Chronicle of Higher Education The Jem'Hadar - Wikipedia

Is living forever a good thing? Could we maintain our values and personal attachments throughout eternity? Would we be motivated to accomplish anything? Can we make sense of a human life that doesn't have a fixed endpoint? We try to alleviate David's paralyzing fear of death by examining two articles - one on how immortality is worse than we think, and the other providing evidence that dying might be better than we think. Plus,we examine some famous thought experiments - if they were porn. And a special bonus: after the outro music, Eliza Sommers joins her Dad at to give her theory about Twin Peaks: The Return (contains spoilers). Special Guest: Eliza Sommers. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Intuition pump - Wikipedia Very Bad Wizards Episode 52: Thought Experiments (Huh!) What Are They Good For? (Part 2) Frankfurt cases - Wikipedia Gettier problem - Wikipedia Russell's paradox - Wikipedia Veil of ignorance - Wikipedia Buridan's ass - Wikipedia There’s a big problem with immortality: it goes on and on | Aeon

Tamler wades into a Twitter controversy about Serena Williams - could this be his fast-track pass into the IDW? And since we're talking about that, why not throw in a discussion of Louis CK's surprise set at the Comedy Cellar? In the second segment, we step outside of last week's social media culture wars to discuss "But I Could Be Wrong," a paper by philosopher George Sher from Rice University. What happens once we realize that our moral convictions are often not better justified than the convictions of people who disagree with us? Does that mean it's no longer rational to act on them? And is the problem deeper for moral beliefs than it is for empirical or aesthetic beliefs? Support Very Bad Wizards Links: US Open 2018: Serena Williams’ fight with umpire Carlos Ramos, explained - Vox Tamler tweets Sher, G. (2001). But I could be wrong. Social Philosophy and Policy, 18(2), 64-78. A Crying Shame: The 2018 US Open Will Only be Remembered for Serena by Cindy Shmerler (tennis.com) Martina Navratilova: What Seren

Oxford philosophy professor Will MacAskill joins us to talk about effective altruism, moral uncertainty, and why you shouldn’t eat your grandmother (even if consequentialism is true). How should we act when we’re not sure which moral theory is the right one? Can we formulate a guide for behavior, modeled on decision theory, that maximizes expected moral value? How do we assign credences to ethical (as opposed to empirical) claims? Why has effective altruism become so popular, so fast, yet at the same time seem off-putting to many people? Plus, Tamler faces a dilemma when narrating his audiobook, and Dave is the Louis CK of his own backyard. 0:00 - 25:41 Tamler's dilemma and Guilty Confessions. 25:41 -31:15 Break, contact info, updates, thanks to our listeners and supporters. 31:16 -1:43:19 Wil MacAskill interview. Special Guest: William MacAskill. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: William MacAskill homepage The Most Efficient Way to Save a Life - The Atlantic Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help

Is being a sports fan irrational? Does it lead to more suffering than happiness? David and Tamler discuss a recent study that suggests the answer is "yes." But does the study really capture the benefits of being fans? More generally, does science have the tools to truly measure the costs and benefits of rooting for your favorite teams? Plus, we talk about The Nation apologizing for publishing a poem written in Black English Vernacular, and introduce a dramatic new segment: "Guilty Confessions." Support Very Bad Wizards Links: A Poem in The Nation Spurs a Backlash and an Apology - The New York Times British economists prove it: Sports destroy happiness - The Washington Post Dolton, P., & MacKerron, G. (2018). Is football a matter of life and death - or is it more important than that? mappiness, the happiness mapping app

David and Tamler go deep into Borges’ labyrinth to discuss the fascinating, multi-dimensional story “The Garden of Forking Paths.” What is the underlying reality of this story? What demands does Borges make of his readers? What is Borges telling us about time, freedom, war, and art? Is the story itself a maze for readers to wander and lose their way? We don’t have all the answers, but it was one of our favorite discussions in a long time. Plus, we give some brief non-spoiler opinions about Boots Riley’s movie "Sorry to Bother You," but a spoiler-filled Patreon episode is coming soon. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Sorry to Bother You (2018) - IMDb Boots Riley - Wikipedia DJ Pam The Funkstress Scratch Routine Lakeith Stanfield - Wikipedia The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges (full text PDF) [mycourse.es] The Garden of Forking Paths - Wikipedia Collected Fictions: Jorge Luis Borges (translated by Andrew Hurley) [amazon.com affiliate link] "A Labyrinth of Symbols: Exploring 'The Garden of Forking P

David and Tamler try to wrap their heads around Jorge Luis Borges' “The Library of Babel†– a short story about a universe/library that contains every possible book with every possible combination of characters. How many books would this library contain? Would some of the books justify our lives (if we could find them)? Can we know whether a book is deeply meaningful or deeply misleading? Why are the librarians so alone and so consumed with anguish? Wouldn’t we all just end up just looking for the porn books? Plus, we talk about the ethics of doing research on data drawn from the Ashley Madison leak. Life is short, listen to this episode. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: I. Y. Yunioshi - Wikipedia Eddie Murphy: White Like Me (SNL) Scarlett Johansson Withdraws from Controversial Role as a Trans Man Following Backlash Neuroskeptic on Twitter: ""Democrats were least likely to use Ashley Madison, Libertarians were most likely, and Republicans, Greens, and unaffiliated voters were in between." https://t.co/

David and Tamler tackle the topic selected by their Patreon supporters - the psychology of personality. What are the different dimensions of personality that distinguish one person from another? How many dimensions are there - do the Big Five capture all of them? Do we share some of these differences with other species? Why don't personality psychologists include moral character traits? Plus - are you curious about your partner's true political commitments? No problem, just install a periscope in your toilet. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Testing Inter-hemispheric Social Priming Theory in a Sample of Professional Politicians-A Brief Report https://t.co/SnozmgFgRJ"" rel="nofollow">Gary Lewis on Twitter: "I submitted a hoax manuscript to a predatory journal. The finding? Politicians from the right wipe their ass with their left hand (and vice versa) - big breakthrough! Manuscript accepted w/o review. I then haggled the OA fee down to $0 - so here it is -> https://t.co/SnozmgFgRJ" Break Music: Thief's Theme (

In what has to be the most somber VBW to date, David and Tamler welcome Harvard psychologist Matthew Nock to the podcast to talk about suicide and other forms of self-harm. Matt tells us what we know – and what we don’t know - about the causes of suicide and the ways to prevent it. In the first segment we talk about the recent exposé of Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment. Were the guards told to be brutal? Were the prisoners never aware that could have left the study at any time? What is Tamler going to do about the Zimbardo interview in A Very Bad Wizard the book? Is David going to continue teaching it in his intro psych course? And does Yoel Inbar need to preregister his beers? Special Guest: Matthew Nock. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Stanford Prison Experiment: why famous psychology studies are now being torn apart  - Vox The Lifespan of a Lie – Trust Issues – Medium Reicher, S., & Haslam, S. A. (2006). Rethinking the psychology of tyranny: The BBC prison study. British journal of social psychol

David and Tamler tackle the topic of implicit bias and the controversy surrounding the implicit association test (IAT). What is implicit bias anyway? Does it have to be linked to behavior in order to truly count as a "bias"? Has the IAT been overhyped as a reflection of individual or group prejudice? And why is the debate on this topic so depressing? Plus, some deep thoughts on the intellectual dark web, how to join it, and what the analogy is supposed to reflect. Sponsored By: RXBAR Promo Code: badwizards Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Opinion | Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web - The New York Times Psychology’s Racism-Measuring Tool Isn’t Up to the Job -- Science of Us Implicit-association test - Wikipedia Take the Implicit Associations Test (IAT) Greenwald, A. G., Poehlman, T. A., Uhlmann, E. L., & Banaji, M. R. (2009). Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(1), 17. Oswald, F. L

Honor shmonor, David and Tamler return to their repugnant roots for this one. First, we pay an overdue homage to the great anonymous blogger and twitter-redeemer Neuroskeptic. We pick a few of our favorite pithy tweets and crazy science article links from his @neuro_skeptic twitter account. Topics include: How much would you pay for porn? Should we be stereotyping zoophiles? Animal or fist - how to distinguish? And what do the left and right brain actually do? In part 2, we discuss an experiment that aims to finally answer the question: do our judgments in sacrificial dilemmas (like the trolley problem) -actually- predict our behavior? Plus, we find out live (on tape) if David is a Laurel or a Yanni - or is he a Samantha? Thanks to our sponsor www.awaytravel.com. Sponsored By: Away Promo Code: BADWIZARDS Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Neuroskeptic - Wikipedia Neuroskeptic (@Neuro_Skeptic) | Twitter Neuroskeptic's Blog for Discover Magazine @Neuro_skeptic: "If one post sums me up" Two Psychologists Four Be

It took two tries (the first one led to a big non-productive fight), but David and Tamler end up with a good discussion of honor and its connection to identity, pride, and personal relationships. Why have we rejected honor in favor of dignity? What are the costs and benefits of doing that? How do people "find themselves" in an industrialized anonymous society? What should you do when someone insults your sister and you're playing in the final of the World Cup? The seminal paper by Peter Berger "On the Obsolescence of the Culture of Honor" (along with Tamler's new book) was the launching point for the discussion (links to both in show notes). This episode is brought to you by Simple Contacts. Sponsored By: Simple Contacts Promo Code: WIZARDS Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Why Honor Matters by Tamler Sommers [amazon affiliate link] Berger, P. (1970). On the Obsolescence of the Concept of Honor. European Journal of Sociology/Archives Européennes de Sociologie/Europäisches Archiv für Soziologie, 11(2), 339-34

Award-winning screenwriter and medieval philosophy scholar Yoel Inbar joins us for a deep dive on the Charlie Kaufman/Michel GondREY masterpiece Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. When relationships go bad is it better to believe they never happened? What is the nature of memory, how is it constructed, and is it possible to zap them out existence with an Apple IIe? Will Tamler have a more optimistic take on the ending of the movie than David? (Hint: yes) Also--only two more weeks to preorder Why Honor Matters and get your free bonus episode! Upload your receipt here Special Guest: Yoel Inbar. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Yoel Inbar Michel Gondry - IMDb Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) - IMDb Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Movie Review (2004) | Roger Ebert The Science of Sleep (2006) - IMDb Be Kind Rewind (2008) - IMDb Jay Electronica - Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge) (Full 15-minute version) - YouTube

Why are we always attracted to people who mock us, resist our advances, and play hard to get? Maybe because it’s extra satisfying when you finally get them to… appear on your podcast. In our first live episode (recorded in San Antonio), the philosopher Shaun Nichols joins us to discuss his recent article “Death and the Self”. You might think that Buddhist conceptions of the self as illusory would reduce their fear of death (after all, if there’s no real self, why worry about it ceasing to exist?). But the evidence collected by Shaun and colleagues suggests exactly the opposite. Why would that be? Plus, David and Tamler choose six finalists for the Patreon listener selected episode (did Jordan Peterson make the list?), and we announce a special bonus for people who pre-order Tamler’s forthcoming book "Why Honor Matters." Special Guest: Shaun Nichols. Sponsored By: RXBAR Promo Code: badwizards Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Why Honor Matters by Tamler Sommers Nichols, S., Strohminger, N., Rai, A., & Gar

From Very Bad Wizards to Megyn Kelly Today back to Very Bad Wizards, Laurie Santos has traveled the typical trajectory of the celebrity academic. Laurie joins us to talk about her cult status after creating the most popular course in Yale University history: Psychology and the Good Life. Why are we so bad at predicting what will make us happy? What makes it so hard to do the things we know are good for us? Why are young people more stressed, anxious, and overworked than they used to be? And how can we nudge ourselves into living better lives? Plus we take a test for determining the virtues that come easiest to us and the ones that come.. harder. This episode is sponsored by Audible and Casper. Special Guest: Laurie Santos. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Laurie Santos | Comparative Cognition Laboratory Yale’s Most Popular Class Ever: Happiness - The New York Times Psychology and The Good Life 2018 Course Syllabus Matt Killingsworth: Want to be happier? Stay in the moment | TED Talk Character Strength Survey

David and Tamler take a break from complaining about psychological studies that measure utilitarianism to complain about the moral theory itself. We talk about one of the most famous critiques of utilitarian theories from Bernard Williams. Does utilitarianism annihilate our integrity--our unity--as people? Would trying to maximize well-being fracture our identities, and swallow up our projects, motivations, and moral convictions--the same convictions that make utilitarianism seem appealing in the first place? Is it ultimately self-defeating as a moral theory? Plus, we talk about the adventures of Tamler's based step-mom Christina Hoff Sommers' at Lewis and Clark law school. Will David stay woke? Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Protesters try to shut down Christina Hoff Sommers at Lewis & Clark Law School - YouTube Statement on the Christina Hoff Sommers Event at the Law School - Newsroom - Lewis & Clark We’re All Fascists Now - The New York Times "The Usual Suspects" final scene *spoilers* Bernard Wi

It's been 5 years since Molly Crockett has been guest on VBW. During that time she's completed a post-doc at University College, London and become a professor at Yale University. And we're...well, we're still doing the podcast. Today Molly joins us to talk about moral outrage in the age of social media. Has the outrage changed now that we express so much of it online? Does it contribute to polarization and social division, or give a voice to the less powerful? How can we harness the benefits of online outrage while minimizing the costs? Plus, Dave and Tamler perform an exorcism on the unholy offspring of evolutionary psychology and trolleyology. Special Guest: Molly Crockett. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Brown, M., & Sacco, D. F. (2017). Is pulling the lever sexy? Deontology as a downstream cue to long-term mate quality. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 0265407517749331. Crockett, M. J. (2017). Moral outrage in the digital age. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(11), 769.

David and Tamler talk about the nature of death. Is being dead a bad thing? If so, what makes it bad? How can anything be bad for a subject that no longer exists? We didn't have a problem with oblivion for the thirteen billion years before we were born, why fear it now? Plus, a discussion about the "it was all a dream" trope in TV and film. Why is it so infuriating in some works but not others? Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Tommy Westphall - Wikipedia 20 Years Ago: 'Newhart' ends with a shock | EW.com Dallas (1978 TV series) (season 9) - Wikipedia It's Just a Cartoon, How can SpongeBob and friends go to the beach if... Nagel, T. (1970). Death. Noûs, 73-80.

What's the best way to build self-control, patience, productivity, and delayed marshmallow eating? For decades psychologists and economists have told us to develop traits like willpower and grit. But psychologist David DeSteno describes a better, easier, and more effective path--the emotions. We talk to David about his new (not-self-help) book "Emotional Success," which argues that the emotions of gratitude, pride, and compassion can help us fulfill long-term goals and (as a special bonus) make us happier and better people. Plus, David and Tamler take a quiz that measures how utilitarian they are, and you won't believe the results!!! (Actually, you will.) This episode is sponsored by Casper. Visit www.casper.com and enter offer code BADWIZARDS to get $50 toward select purchases. Special Guest: Dave DeSteno. Sponsored By: Casper Promo Code: BADWIZARDS Support Very Bad Wizards Links: How Utilitarian Are You? The Oxford Utilitarianism Scale | Practical Ethics Everett, J. A., Pizarro, D. A., Crockett, M. J. (2