Very Bad Wizards

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

David and Tamler break down two episodes (with full spoilers) from the new season of Charlie Brooker's bleaker-than-bleak Netflix series Black Mirror. First up, "The USS Callister," a Star Trek parody that becomes a meditation on fandom, humiliation, and cowardly revenge. Next we talk about "Black Museum" - could it be the final episode of Black Mirror? Should it be? After four seasons of indicting humanity, has Charlie Brooker turned his critical lens on himself? Plus, you thought it was bad for children to tell lies, but it turns out that it's good! This episode is brought to you by RXBAR. Visit www.rxbar.com/wizards, and enter promo code "BADWIZARDS" at checkout for 25% off your first purchase. Sponsored By: RXBAR Promo Code: badwizards Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Is Your Child Lying to You? That’s Good - The New York Times "Black Mirror" USS Callister (TV Episode 2017) - IMDb "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison "Black Mirror" Black Museum (TV Episode 2017) - IMDb ▶ Bruised by pee

In this Very Special Boxing Day edition of the podcast, Tamler and David welcome back honorary Third Wizard Paul Bloom to discuss his latest article in the New Yorker about dehumanization and cruelty. Is it really the case that we dehumanize in order to harm others? Or does most violence actually require us to view others as fundamentally human, agentic, and capable of true suffering? But first, we discuss the stages of Star Trek transporter cognition, whether Paul and David are closet-dualists, and whether the process of choosing a Dalai Lama suffers from p-hacking concerns. (And between segments we give our brief, spoiler-free thoughts on Season 3 of Mr. Robot). Happy Chanukah, Kwanzaa, New Year, and Merry Christmas to all! Special Guest: Paul Bloom. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Join the Very Bad Wizards discussion on Reddit Paul Bloom | Department of Psychology The Root of All Cruelty? | The New Yorker Klaus J. Jacobs Awards - Jacobs Foundation War Child Our enemies are human: that’s why we want to kil

David and Tamler assert their autonomy as individuals by discussing their favorite dystopian works of art. Rebelling against a repressive regime, they refuse to sacrifice their privacy, uniqueness, and reproductive freedom. Through sheer force of will - the human spirit - they triumph over the pressures to ... wait what? You want me to take that pill? Okay, can't hurt. Aaahhhhh. So happy... So content... Must keep order. When the individual feels, the community reels. I am you, and you are I. I am you, and you are I. Plus, a real-life trolley problem! (Or is it?) Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Very Bad Wizards subreddit — Contribute to our Reddit discussions! Letters of Note: 1984 v. Brave New World Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut [wordfight.org] The Lobster (2015) - IMDb Gattaca (1997) - IMDb Never Let Me Go (novel) - Wikipedia Children of Men (2006) - IMDb The Trial (1962) - IMDb The Trial - Wikipedia It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone) - Wikipedia Snowpiercer (2013) - IMDb Idiocracy (2006) - IMDb A C

David and Tamler keep their Nagel streak alive, discussing the essay "The Fragmention of Value" from his collection "Mortal Questions." How should we address our fragmented moral landscape, with multiple sources of value that can't be reduced or systematically ordered? Does this make all of our moral decisions arbitrary? Plus, we talk about Louis CK and in a Thanksgiving tradition special guest Christina Hoff Sommers rejoins the podcast in a moderately drunken debate with Tamler about a possible sex panic. Special Guest: Christina Hoff Sommers. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Christina Hoff Sommers - Wikipedia We’re at risk of turning #metoo into rush to blame all men - NY Daily News Nagel, T. (2012). Mortal questions. Cambridge University Press. [amazon.com affiliate link] Documentary Film Finding Vivian Maier | Vivian Maier Photographer

David and Tamler dip back into the Thomas Nagel well, and discuss the problem of "moral luck." Why do we blame drunk drivers who hit someone more than drunk drivers who make it home OK? Why do we judge people for things that are beyond their control (when we have strong intuitions that uncontrollable acts don't deserve blame)? Does moral luck ultimately swallow all of our behavior? Can we truly embrace the view that "actions are events and people are things" or are we stuck with another unsolvable clash of competing perspectives (just like the problem of absurdity)? Plus, Dave exposes himself on the Partially Examined Life, Tamler self-censors, and somehow we discuss Hollywood harassment and stand-up comedy without mentioning Louis CK. (But only because we recorded this episode about five hours before the NY Times story broke.) Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Nagel, T. (2012). Mortal questions. Cambridge University Press. [amazon.com affiliate link] Nagel, T. Moral Luck. Moral Luck (Stanford Encyclopedia of