Very Bad Wizards

Is life meaningless? Are humans just glorified dung beetles, pushing around our piles of poop with no greater purpose? What would it take for life to actually be meaningful? In this episode, Tamler and David discuss Thomas Nagel’s essay on the sense of meaninglessness and absurdity that can so easily creep into human existence (with a special emphasis on the work of Camus and the philosophy of Rick and Morty). But first we tackle even more important questions about the human condition such as, why is it easier to detect the size of a hole with your tongue than with your little finger? And which moral "dilemmas" are actually moral no-brainers? (In the process, we even solve the problem of free speech on campus. You’re welcome.) Support Very Bad Wizards Links: The Extent of Skin Bending Rather Than Action Possibilities Explains Why Holes Feel Larger With the Tongue Than With the Finger. - PubMed - NCBI Pure joy: a colorblind man sees color for the first time Dan Harmon Reveals the Meaning of Life in RICK AND M

What do we mean when we say someone is angry? Can we identify anger (or any other emotion) via facial expressions, physiological changes, or neural markers? Is anger simply a feeling, something that happens to us, or does it involve a judgment? How much control do we have over our emotions, and can we be responsible for them? We talk about the work of Lisa Feldman Barrett and Bob Solomon. Plus, Tamler engages in conceptual analysis on Star Trek transporter beliefs (yes you read that right) and David is too stunned to argue. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Yale’s Paul Bloom to receive $1 million Klaus Jacobs Prize | YaleNews Solomon, R. C. (1973). Emotions and choice. The Review of Metaphysics, 20-41. What Emotions Are (and Aren’t) - The New York Times Are Emotions Natural Kinds? Perspectives on Psychological Science - Lisa Feldman Barrett, 2006

Do you think of your life as a story? Does your life have a narrative structure or form? Do you identify with your past selves and your future selves? If not, can you live a good life, a moral life, an authentic life? Can you feel guilt, regret, and resentment? Plus, speaking of stories, we talk about a new study suggesting that books with anthropomorphic animals can't teach moral lessons to kids. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Larsen, N. E., Lee, K., & Ganea, P. A. (2017). Do storybooks with anthropomorphized animal characters promote prosocial behaviors in young children?. Developmental Science. Children's books with humans have greater moral impact than animals, study finds | Books | The Guardian Strawson, G. (2004). Against narrativity. Ratio, 17(4), 428-452. Strawson, G. (2007). Episodic ethics. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 60, 85-115. Parfit, D. (1995). The unimportance of identity. I am Not a Story

It’s Part 2 of the Patreon listener selected episode! David and Tamler continue their discussion on intelligence from our last episode by tackling the radioactive topic of group differences and IQ. Are there reliable differences in IQ across races? Given that IQ is strongly heritable, and that racial categories are based (in part) on biological differences, does it follow that group differences in IQ are due to biological differences across racial groups? (Could only a politically motivated science-denier conclude otherwise?) David argues that biological explanations for racial differences in IQ are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of genetics and race. It’s a complex argument, so if you start listening, please finish! (Oh and @VBW_No_Context on Twitter, take a vacation, you’ve earned it!). Plus, more on neuroscientific explanations, and Tamler relates his experience of Hurricane Harvey. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Race & IQ: Debate Serves No Purpose | National Review Returning to the race and

David and Tamler do their best to talk frankly about intelligence and IQ research. (It's our Patreon listener-selected topic! We probably would never have chosen this one on our own...). Is intelligence a meaningful, definable concept? Can we reliably test for it? How much of the variability in IQ across individuals is due to heritable factors? Are people with higher IQ happier, wealthier, or healthier than people with lower IQ? And why is this topic so controversial anyhow? Plus in the intro segment Tamler and David discuss why you probably don't need fMRI to know what your dog wants, and why cognitive neuroscience seems to confuse otherwise intelligent folks. (Note: This is Part 1 of our discussion on intelligence. In Part 2 will delve into the slightly more controversial topics of IQ, race, and gender). Support Very Bad Wizards Links: What Does Your Dog Really Want? - Scientific American Blog Network A Very Bad Wizard: Morality behind the curtain by Tamler Sommers [amazon.com affiliate link] — David does

Guest Yoel Inbar joins David and Tamler to break down David Lynch’s dreamy masterpiece Mulholland Drive. (FULL SPOILERS – watch before you listen!) What’s real and what’s illusion? What happens when our illusions unravel? How do expectations affect our experience? How can artists use our expectations to manipulate our emotions? Come for the questions, stay for the answers – or at least for more questions. Special Guest: Yoel Inbar. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Mulholland Drive (2001) - IMDb Everything you were afraid to ask about “Mulholland Drive” - Salon.com Film Crit Hulk Smash: HULK VS. THE GENIUS OF MULHOLLAND DRIVE | Birth.Movies.Death. David Lynch Signature Cup Organic Coffee | Organic Coffee | JavaDistribution.com Urban Dictionary: fuck tab

Special guest Robert Wright joins the podcast to discuss his latest book "Why Buddhism is True." What is the Buddhist conception of not-self? When we become aware that the boundaries between us and the world are fluid, what is the “we” that arrives at this insight? Can daily meditation make you less of a dick? How does evolutionary psychology bear on these questions? Plus, Dave horrifies Tamler with his new hipster habit. Special Guest: Robert Wright. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: One-Hand Clapping Kōan [wikipedia.org] Robert Wright (journalist) - Wikipedia Robert Wright's Website Pre-order "Why Buddhism Is True" by Robert Wright [amazon.com affiliate link] Break music: Try Harder by peez | Free Listening on SoundCloud

What happens when we discover why we believe the things we believe? What if we discover that our values are the product of our cultural tradition, or personal experience, or natural selection? Should we be more skeptical of our values once we learn their history? Plus, data on Google porn searches reveal that you're all a bunch of sick fucks. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Proof that Americans are lying about their sexual desires - Vox Doris, J. M. (2009). Genealogy and Evidence: Prinz on the History of Morals. Kahane, G. (2011). Evolutionary debunking arguments. Noûs, 45(1), 103-125. The Splintered Mind: Tamler Sommers Break Music: Everything Is Wrong by peez

David and Tamler try to put the topic of campus politics to bed once and for all – with limited success. First, we get into a big fight about the prevalence and danger of political correctness in American universities. We junked that recording, and tried to distill our best points into a new one. (Trust us – it was for the best.) We also narrow down all the topic recommendations from our beloved Patreon supporters to five finalists. In the second segment, James Lindsay (co-author of the "Conceptual Penis" hoax) joins us to talk about why he thinks the hoax was more successful in exposing gender studies than some of their critics (including us) have suggested. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: James Lindsay (@GodDoesnt) | Twitter James Lindsay's Website (God Doesn't; We Do) Skeptic » Reading Room » The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct: A Sokal-Style Hoax on Gender Studies Alan Sokal: Some Thoughts on “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct” Hoax Break Music: Dusted by peez [soundcloud.com]

David and Tamler break down a recent classic in the philosophy of mind: "The Extended Mind" by Andy Clark and David Chalmers. What is boundary of your mind? Is it contained with your body, or does it extend to the external environment--to your laptop, notebook, smartphone and more? Is this a purely terminological question, or one with practical and moral significance? And what is the role of intuition in providing an answer? Plus, Dave shares an email alerting him to the psychological trauma of male circumcision along with an exciting all-natural method for restoring the foreskin (that was stolen from us as infants). Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Gay man, who suffered from depression over his circumcision, kills himself Circumcision’s Psychological Damage | Psychology Today Foreskin restoration for circumcised males — "Non-surgical foreskin restoration was reinvented in the late 1970s by a movement of circumcised men, mostly from the United States, who were upset at having been mutilated against their will

David and Tamler break down the latest small-stakes academic controversy--yes the one about conceptual penises. Does the recent "Sokal-like" hoax expose the ideological extremism of gender studies? Or does it show that certain portions of the "skeptic" community are susceptible to the same biases as their opponents? In the main segment they discuss the problems with measuring pain, pleasure, and happiness. When your doctor asks you to rate your pain between 1 and 10 and you say a 7, does your '7' reflect the same subjective experience as another person's '7'? (That depends--have you experienced childbirth?) How can we get more accurate readings of pain and pleasure across different people with different experiences? Most importantly, which number gets you the Vicodin? Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Skeptic » Reading Room » The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct: A Sokal-Style Hoax on Gender Studies Sokal affair - Wikipedia Why the "Conceptual Penis" Hoax is Just a Big Cock Up. - Bleeding Heart Libertari

David and Tamler go ambulance chasing for scandals in their own fields. Inspired by a tweet from Jay Van Bavel, they argue about which of their disciplines--philosophy or psychology--is more completely and irredeemably fucked. Is the recent controversy at the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia diagnostic of larger problems in philosophy? Can the replication crisis ever be solved? Can philosophy return to studying the big questions? What can psychologists actually discover about the human mind? Warning: this episode features a more respectful and mature dialogue than some VBW listeners may be comfortable with. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Jay Van Bavel on Twitter: "Psychologists: "our field is a hot mess" Philosophers: "hold my beer" https://t.co/mX344fBBfV" EP. 86 SAM HARRIS Part #1 by #WeThePeople LIVE | Free Listening on SoundCloud Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog: Issues in the Profession This Is What a Modern-Day Witch Hunt Looks Like The real damage done by the flare-up over a philosopher's journal

Somehow, after 113 episodes David and Tamler have never done a top 5 movie episode about revenge (so unbelievable that we had to double-check). That changes today. Among the things we learned: good revenge movies are harder to find than we thought, revenge (at least, movie revenge) is messy, and David knows at least one movie that Tamler has never heard of. Plus, should Jews be celebrating the killing of Egyptian first borns? Or atoning for it? (Or perhaps just pouring out a little more wine at Passover?) Support Very Bad Wizards Links: The price of freedom | OUPblog Progressive Family Unable to Finish Game of 'Guess Who?' David's #5: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) - IMDb Tamler's #5: High Plains Drifter (1973) [IMDb.com] David's #4: Tombstone (1993) [IMDb.com] Gunfight at the O.K. Corral - Wikipedia Earp Vendetta Ride - Wikipedia Tamler's #4: The Limey (1999) [IMDb.com] David's #3: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) [IMDb.com] David's #2: Carlito's Way (1993) [IMDb.com] Tamler's #2: Blue Ruin

David and Tamler break down what may be the best argument that it's rational to believe in God: Pascal's Wager. (No, we're not just trolling our Sam Harris listeners.) Does the expected value of believing in God outweigh the probability that you're wrong? How does belief work--can you just turn it on and off? What if you believe in the wrong God? This leads to a wide-ranging discussion on decision theory, instrumental rationality, artificial intelligence, transformative experiences, and whether David should drop acid. Your brain AND your future self will love this episode! Support Very Bad Wizards Links: 2017 BP MS 150: Mr. Tamler Sommers - National MS Society Prose&Cons - YouTube Why people are so bad at thinking about the future. On Intertemporal Selfishness: How the Perceived Instability of Identity Underlies Impatient Consumption | Journal of Consumer Research | Oxford Academic "Homer's Soul" by Paul Bloom and David Pizarro Pascal's Wager - Wikipedia Pascal's mugging - Wikipedia Transformative Experi

For four years Tamler has been bitching about Gettier cases without even explaining what they are or why he hates them. That ends today. David and Tamler talk about the famous paper that challenged the (widespread? non-existent?) notion that knowledge is, and only is, justified true belief. We talk about the so-called skeptics about knowledge that Gettier inspired, then discuss the real skepticism that Descartes examined with his evil demon thought experiment. Plus, you know how you're in a monogamous relationship because of science? Well, turns out that science may be flawed.... Support Very Bad Wizards Links: The idea of monogamy as a relationship ideal is based on flawed science — Quartz A Former Student Says UC Berkeley’s Star Philosophy Professor Groped Her And Watched Porn At Work - BuzzFeed News About - The Casual Sex Project The Woman With an Alternative Theory of Hookups -- The Cut Clark, R. D., & Hatfield, E. (1989). Gender differences in receptivity to sexual offers. Journal of Psychology &

In Part 2 of our episode with film scholar Yoel Inbar (AOS: Quebecois New Wave Cinema), we break down the philosophy and psychology of the movie Arrival. [Note: Massive spoilers, see the movie first!] Does our language shape our perception of reality? Would you have a child that you knew had a short time to live? What color is 'fuschia'? Why does right-wing radio make you want to dynamite alien spacecrafts? For Part 1 of this episode, see https://verybadwizards.fireside.fm/110 Special Guest: Yoel Inbar. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: yoel inbar :: home Arrival (2016) - IMDb Casasanto, D. (2008). Who's afraid of the big bad Whorf? Crosslinguistic differences in temporal language and thought. Language learning, 58(s1), 63-79. Chicago Break Music (soundcloud.com/peezismyname) Linguistic relativity - Wikipedia Inscrutability of reference - Wikipedia Sex-related differences in the color lexicon

Any time the topic is campus politics there's a good chance we'll have to record more than once. True to form, David and Tamler yelled at each other for most of the first attempt to discuss the Middlebury College incident while special guest Yoel Inbar wept quietly in the corner. We did a little better the second time but the whole recording session took so long that we have to release it in two parts. In part one we talk about the most popular porn search terms by U.S. State and then wade into the Charles Murray protest at Middlebury. In part two (coming next week) we do a deep dive on the movie Arrival (so if you haven't seen it yet you have one more week!) Special Guest: Yoel Inbar. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: yoel inbar :: home The United States Top Searches – Pornhub Insights A Violent Attack on Free Speech at Middlebury - The Atlantic Understanding the Angry Mob at Middlebury That Gave Me a Concussion - The New York Times The Bell Curve - Wikipedia Coming Apart (book) - Wikipedia

David and Tamler return to their repugnant roots to talk about Cornell's refusal to hire conservative faculty, Milo getting disinvited from CPAC, and a case in Canada involving child sex dolls and a bottle of lube. Then they launch into a discussion of moral pluralism. Do competing values ultimately reduce to a single set of moral principles? What defines and justifies the boundaries of pluralism? What should you do when your Amish friend is getting bullied? Plus, more lube. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Cornell University Students Vote Against Intellectual Diversity, on Grounds It Would Harm Diversity - Hit & Run : Reason.com Child sex doll trial opens Pandora's box of questions about child porn - Newfoundland & Labrador - CBC News The 96 hours that brought down Milo Yiannopoulos - The Washington Post Age of Consent - by Jesse Bering - The Stranger Very Bad Wizards (@verybadwizards) • Instagram photos and videos Overcast (Podcast client for iOS) — In addition to being my favorite podcast client, O

Inspired by a recent article, David and Tamler try to figure out what's behind our aversion to moral hypocrisy. Why do we have such low opinions of people who don't practice what they preach? Shouldn't we be happy that they promote the views we agree with? Plus we respond to an email about how to come up with ideas for research. (Hint: ask Paul Bloom). Note: this episode was recorded before the greatest comeback and sporting event in human history. (Editor's Note: I'm sure Donald Trump is as happy as Tamler is about the Superbowl. Just sayin'.) Support Very Bad Wizards Links: The Real Problem With Hypocrisy - The New York Times — new research Why Do We Hate Hypocrites? Evidence for a Theory of False Signaling by Jillian J. Jordan, Roseanna Sommers, Paul Bloom, David G. Rand :: SSRN Thrill of the chaste: The truth about Gandhi's sex life | The Independent — 'Gandhi would have women in his bed, engaging in his "experiments" which seem to have been, from a reading of his letters, an exercise in strip-tease or o

The philosopher and pride of Bakersfield, CA Manuel Vargas joins us to talk about culpability under conditions of oppression. How should we treat wrongdoers when their actions and character are shaped in part by their oppressive circumstances? Is it disrespectful not to blame oppressed people for their bad behavior? Can being oppressed make you more culpable in some circumstances? And what's the point of holding people culpable anyway? Plus, the differences between "Hispanic" and "Latino/Latina/Latinx" and an exciting announcement: VBW merch! Special Guest: Manuel Vargas. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Our new VBW shirts are here! Very Bad Wizards | Teespring — Shirts, hoodies, mugs, and stickers! This time there are two slightly different designs, and a few colors to choose from! Nelson Walkom (listener/musician/artist who suggested the VBW "repugnant" t-shirt design) Manuel Vargas, that's who! Latino - Wikipedia Bakersfield, California - Wikipedia Situationism (psychology) - Wikipedia Action theory (philo