Very Bad Wizards

David and Tamler begin by talking about the question on everyone's mind right now – are we obligated to be pansexual? Then, since many of us have more free time on our hands these days, we thought it might be a good idea to revisit Bertrand Russell's essay (published in Harper's Magazine) "In Praise of Idleness." How did workaholism become the norm? Why do we see working insanely long hours as a virtue, a moral duty rather than a necessity? Would more leisure make us more fulfilled and creative or just bored? We also discuss Daniel Markovits' book "The Meritocracy Trap" - when life is a non-stop hyper-competitive grind from preschool to retirement even among the elites, is anyone happy?

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Links:

• Is Pansexuality Obligatory? – The Electric Agora
• In Praise of Idleness, by Bertrand Russell | Harper's Magazine
• "The Meritocracy Trap," explained - Vox
• The Meritocracy Trap by Daniel Markovits [Amazon affiliate link]

Here's something that might help with the Coronavirus blues: we're releasing our latest Patreon bonus episode for everyone. In this (unedited) episode, Tamler and David talk about their Top 5 Deadwood characters. If you've seen the show, let us know if you agree or disagree, or if we should go fuck ourselves. And if you haven't watched it yet, you might have some time on your hands for the next month or two - there's almost no better way to spend it than watching Deadwood. Enjoy!

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David and Tamler start off talking about the infamous Richard Dawkins eugenics tweet. What does it mean for eugenics to "work"? And given the sensitive nature and horrific history of eugenics, is it wrong to raise the topic even if you're just focused on the science? Hey we're just asking questions, man…

Then, huge baseball fan that he is, David insists that we talk about the massive Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal and cheating in sports more generally. When is bending the rules just part of the game ("if you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'") - and when is it really wrong? Why does the use of technology make cheating seem more dishonorable? Why weren't the Astros players punished since they were the driving force behind the scandal? And why are apologies so hard on twitter?

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Links:

• Richard Dawkins slammed for saying 'of course' eugenics would work - Washington Times
• MercatorNet: Twitter piles on Richard Dawkins over eugenics tweet
• Astros cheating scandal had to result in historic punishment - Sports Illustrated
• Sign-stealing [wikipedia.org]
• How Much Of The Astros' Legacy Is Now In Doubt? | FiveThirtyEight
• Does José Altuve's Bad Tattoo Explain His ALCS Home Run Celebration? - The Ringer
• The Astros' Apology Tour Is Off to a Comically Disastrous Start - The Ringer

VBW favorite Paul Bloom takes a short break from his Sam Harris duties to help us break down the Coen Brothers' ode to uncertainty, A Serious Man. Does inaction have consequences? Can you understand the cat but not the math? Why are there Hebrew letters carved into the back of a goy's teeth? Dybbuk or no Dybbuk? Why does God make us feel the questions if he's not gonna give us any answers?

Plus, Paul defends the psych establishment against critiques from the podcast peons at Two Psychologists Four Beers and Very Bad Wizards.

Special Guest: Paul Bloom.

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Links:

• A Serious Man - Wikipedia
• Gods And Victims | The New Yorker
• A Serious Man Song "Dem Milners Trern"- Sidor Belarsky (with lyrics translation)
• Break Music: ▶ Guilty Remnant by peez

Podcasting legend Yoel Inbar (from Two Psychologists Four Beers) joins us to break down Tal Yarkoni's "The Generalizability Crisis," the paper that launched a thousand Twitter wars. Psychologists make verbal claims about the world, then conduct studies to test these claims - but are the studies actually providing evidence for those claims? Do psychological experiments generalize beyond the the strict confinments of the lab? Are psychologists even using the right statistical models to be able to claim that they do? Does this debate boil down to fundamental differences in the philosophy of science - induction, Popper, and hypothetico-deductive models and so forth? Will David and Tamler ever be able to talk about a psych study again without getting into a fight?

Plus ahead of tonight's New Hampshire primary, expert political analysis about what went down in Iowa.

Special Guest: Yoel Inbar.

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• BetterHelp: You deserve to be happy. BetterHelp online counseling is there for you. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment. Our listeners get 10% off the first month by visiting Betterhelp.com/vbw. Promo Code: VBW
• Prolific: Prolific is giving away $50 to VBW listeners who want to give online sampling a go! Whether you're a social scientist doing research, part of a marketing group, or even a high school student interested in doing a social science project, prolific can offer you fast, reliable, quality data to answer your research questions. Promo Code: verybadwizards
• GiveWell: Givewell searches for the charities that save or improve lives the most per dollar. Consider a donation this holiday season--your dollar goes a lot further than you might think! Promo Code: verybadwizards

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Links:

• Yoel Inbar
• Two Psychologists Four Beers (Podcast)
• The app that broke the Iowa Caucuses was sent out through beta testing platforms - The Verge
• Yarkoni, T. (2019). The generalizability crisis.
• The 20% Statistician: Review of "The Generalizability Crisis" by Tal Yarkoni [Daniël Lakens' Blog]
• Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D. A., Gilovich, T., & Ariely, D. (2013). Moral masochism: On the connection between guilt and self-punishment. Emotion, 13(1), 14.
• Mook, D. G. (1983). In defense of external invalidity. American psychologist, 38(4), 379.

Our whole lives we've been frauds. We're not exaggerating. Pretty much all we've ever done is try to create a certain impression of us in other people. Mostly to be liked or admired. This episode is a perfect example, Tamler pretending to be a cinephile (check out his four favorite pieces of 2019 "pop culture" in the first segment), David trying to connect with the people (Baby Yoda, Keanu Reeves etc.) – and of course what could be more fraudulent than a deep dive into a David Foster Wallace story, rhapsodizing over the endless sentences, the logical paradoxes, the seven-layer bean-dip of metacommentary (Jesus Christ I'm surprised there aren't like eight footnotes in this episode description), and meanwhile the Partially Examined Life dudes refresh their overcast feeds and wonder through the tiny keyhole of themselves how David and Tamler have sunk so low that they'd ramble on about "Good Old Neon" like a couple of first year Comp-Lit grad students trying to impress that girl who works at the Cajun bakery.

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Links:

• What is Baby Yoda? | TechRadar
• High Life (2018 film) - Wikipedia
• Watchmen (TV series) - Wikipedia
• Keanu Reeves Is Too Good for This World | The New Yorker
• Midsommar (film) - Wikipedia
• Homecoming (TV series) - Wikipedia
• 'Joker' is first R-rated movie to make $1 billion at global box office - Business Insider
• Under the Silver Lake - Wikipedia
• Kanye West's 'Jesus Is King' Divides the Christian Community | Time
• How Often Do Women Talk in Quentin Tarantino Films? | Time
• David Foster Wallace - Wikipedia
• Good Old Neon (PDF) - Stephen Miller
• The Real Question | Fiction Writers Review

Eleventh Century Japan. A samurai and his wife are walking through the forest and come across a bandit. The bandit attacks the samurai and has sex with/rapes his wife. A woodcutter finds the samurai, stabbed to death. Who killed the samurai and with what? What role did his wife play in his death? Kurosawa gives us four perspectives, told in flashbacks within flashbacks. Who's telling the truth? Is anyone? Can we ever know what really happened? A simple story on the surface becomes a meditation on epistemological despair.

Plus, your lizard brain is out to get you and you only have 90 seconds to stop it!

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• Prolific: Prolific is giving away $50 to VBW listeners who want to give online sampling a go! Whether you're a social scientist doing research, part of a marketing group, or even a high school student interested in doing a social science project, prolific can offer you fast, reliable, quality data to answer your research questions. Promo Code: verybadwizards
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Links:

• When Your Lizard Brain Burns You Out And Short-Circuits Your Career
• Triune brain - Wikipedia
• Cesario, J., Johnson, D. J., & Eisthen, H. (2019). Your Brain Is Not an Onion with a Tiny Reptile Inside.
• David talks Watchmen on the Pretty Much Pop Podcast
• Tamler Sommers Talks Honor on Stoa Podcast
• Rashomon - Wikipedia
• Rashomon (1950) | The Criterion Collection
• Rashomon | The Current | The Criterion Collection
• Rashomon Analysis - Rashomon's Problem with Truth | Topic
• Every Frame A Painting: The Bad Sleep Well (1960) - The Geometry of a Scene - YouTube
• Akira Kurosawa - Composing Movement

David and Tamler wrap up the decade with an episode on trash-talking that morphs into a debate over the value of experimental inquiry. Participants in a lab put more effort into a slider task after they're insulted by a confederate. Do experiments like these tell us anything about trash-talking in general? Can it explain the effect of Mike Tyson telling Lenox Lewis he'd eat his children, or of Larry Bird looking around the locker room before the 3-point contest saying he was trying to figure out who'd finish second? Can it tell us how football players should talk to their opponents? Does it give us a more modest but still valuable insight that we can apply to the real world? This is our first real fight (or disagreement) in a while.

Plus, some mixed feelings about Mr. Robot Season 4 Episode 11 and some tentative predictions (recorded before the finale which aired by the time this episode is released). Happy holidays!

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• GiveWell: This holiday season, open your heart to those in need, and consider donating through Givewell.org. Givewell.org is an organization that cares about finding the most effective charities in the world, so that you can make each charitable dollar work as hard as possible. And for our listeners who are first time donors, Givewell.org will match your donation (up to $1,000). Promo Code: Verybadwizards
• 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 Very Bad Wizards

Links:

• Yip, J. A., Schweitzer, M. E., & Nurmohamed, S. (2018). Trash-talking: Competitive incivility motivates rivalry, performance, and unethical behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 144, 125-144.
• Kniffin, K. M., & Palacio, D. (2018). Trash-talking and trolling. Human Nature, 29(3), 353-369.

David and Tamler happen across Jorge Luis Borges' "The Zahir" and now they can't stop thinking about it. What is the 'Zahir' – this object that can take many forms and that consumes the people who find it? What does it represent? Is it the fanaticism of being in love? The ever-present threat (and temptation) of idealism? A subtle critique of Christian theology? Is the Zahir a microcosm of everything? Why is Borges so obsessed with obsession?

Plus, it's the annual drunken end-of-the night Thanksgiving 'debate' between Tamler and IDW stepmother extraordinaire Christina Hoff Sommers. Topics raised and then quickly dropped include Bernie for President, Melinda Gates, critic reviews of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and more. Stay tuned for the end when Christina finds her "notes". (And for special cameos from David Sommers and Eliza).

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
• GiveWell: This holiday season, open your heart to those in need, and consider donating through Givewell.org. Givewell.org is an organization that cares about finding the most effective charities in the world, so that you can make each charitable dollar work as hard as possible. And for our listeners who are first time donors, Givewell.org will match your donation (up to $1,000). Promo Code: Verybadwizards

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Links:

• The Zahir - Jorge Luis Borges (Full Text PDF)
• El Zahir - Sufi theme in Jorge Luis Borges's writing | Technology of the Heart
• The Most Famous Coin in Borges

Tamler learns something new about menstruation. David weighs in on the democratic debates and the impeachment hearings. Then we map the various social and political factions onto the factions in our respective fields. Who are establishment neoliberals of philosophy, and who are the white feminists? What about the IDWs of psychology – and the Chads and Stacys?

Finally we get serious and break down the article by Alan Fiske in Psychological Review called "The Lexical Fallacy in Emotion Research." Does language affect how we understand the emotional landscape? Do the words we happen to use deceive us into thinking we have "carved nature at its joints"? What is a natural kind anyway when it comes to emotions?

Plus, after the outro, a quick unedited Mr. Robot discussion of the revelation in season 4, episode 7.

Sponsored By:

• GiveWell: This holiday season, open your heart to those in need, and consider donating through Givewell.org. Givewell.org is an organization that cares about finding the most effective charities in the world, so that you can make each charitable dollar work as hard as possible. And for our listeners who are first time donors, Givewell.org will match your donation (up to $1,000). Promo Code: Verybadwizards

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Links:

• Fiske, A. P. (2019). The lexical fallacy in emotion research: Mistaking vernacular words for psychological entities. Psychological review.
• UCLA Anthropology
• Natural Kinds (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• "Mr. Robot" 407 Proxy Authentication Required (TV Episode 2019) - IMDb

David and Tamler discuss famous 'split brain' experiments pioneered by Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga. What happens when you cut off the main line of communication between the left and right hemispheres of our brain? Why under certain conditions do the the left and right brains seem like they have different abilities and desires? What does this tell us about the 'self'? Do we have two consciousnesses, but only that can speak? Does the left brain bully the right brain? Are we all just a bundle of different consciousnesses with their own agendas? Thanks to our Patreon supporters for suggesting and voting for this fascinating topic!

Plus, physicists may be able to determine whether we're living in a computer simulation – but is it too dangerous to try to find out?

Sponsored By:

• GiveWell: This holiday season, open your heart to those in need, and consider donating through Givewell.org. Givewell.org is an organization that cares about finding the most effective charities in the world, so that you can make each charitable dollar work as hard as possible. And for our listeners who are first time donors, Givewell.org will match your donation (up to $1,000). Promo Code: Verybadwizards
• Outlier.Org: Enrich your mind and earn college credits with one of the new courses from Outlier.Org. From the co-founders of MasterClass, Outlier.Org brings you beautifully crafted and filmed courses taught by some of the top professors in the world. Spaces are limited, so sign up today for classes beginning in January 2020.

Support Very Bad Wizards

Links:

• Opinion | Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let's Not Find Out - The New York Times
• Physicists find we're not living in a computer simulation | Cosmos
• Nagel, T. (1971). Brain bisection and the unity of consciousness. /Synthese/, /22/(3), 396-413.
• CGP Grey video - You Are Two
• Split brains - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Gazzaniga, M. S. (1995). Principles of human brain organization derived from split-brain studies. /Neuron/, /14/(2), 217-228.
• Split brain: divided perception but undivided consciousness | Brain | Oxford Academic
• Interaction in isolation: 50 years of insights from split-brain research | Brain | Oxford Academic
• Dennett, D. C. (2014). The self as the center of narrative gravity. In /Self and consciousness/ (pp. 111-123). Psychology Press.

We try (with varying success) to wrap our heads around Thomas Nagel's classic article "What is it Like to be a Bat?" Does science have the tools to give us a theory of consciousness or is that project doomed from the outset? Why do reductionist or functionalist explanations seem so unsatisfying? Is the problem that consciousness is subjective, or is it something about the nature of conscious experience itself? Is this ultimately an epistemological or metaphysical question? What are we talking about? Do we even know anymore?

Plus, the return of Mr. Robot! We talk about the big new mystery at the heart of the new season.

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Links:

• Mr. Robot - Season 4 - IMDb
• Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review, 83, 435-450. [pdf]
• What Is it Like to Be a Bat? - Wikipedia
• Mortal Questions by Thomas Nagel

Is character destiny, or can fluky decisions or tiny shifts in weather patterns fundamentally change who we are? Does the existence or non-existence of alternate universes have any bearing on freedom and responsibility? David and Tamler conclude their discussion of Ted Chiang's "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom" along with another very short piece by Chiang called "What's Expected of Us" that was first published in Nature.

Plus, do you have low likability in the workplace? It could be because you're too moral and therefore not that funny. But don't worry, we have a solution that'll help you increase your humor production and likability with no reduction in morality. All you have to do is listen!

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Links:

• Richard Brody Reviews "Joker" | New Yorker
• Batman: The Killing Joke - Wikipedia
• Falling Down (1993) - IMDb
• People with high moral standards 'less likely' to be funny | The Independent
• Yam, K. C., Barnes, C. M., Leavitt, K., Uhlmann, E. L., & Wei, W. (2016). Why So Serious? Experimental and Field Evidence that Morality and a Sense of Humor are Psychologically Incompatible. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
• Aquino, K., & Reed, I. I. (2002). The self-importance of moral identity. Journal of personality and social psychology, 83(6), 1423.
• Exhalation by Ted Chiang [amazon.com affiliate link]
• What's Expected of Us by Ted Chiang | Nature

David and Tamler dive back into the Ted Chiang well and explore the fascinating world described in "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom." What if you could interact with alternate versions of yourself - versions that made different choices, had different jobs, or different partners? Would you get jealous of your other selves if they were more successful? Would you want them to be unhappy so you could feel better about your own choices and path? If your alternate self was in a good relationship with a woman, would you try to track down the version of that woman in this world? If you made an immoral choice but your other self made the moral one, what does that say about your character? And what does it say about free will and responsibility?

So many questions, such an interesting story - turns out we need to dedicate another segment next time to conclude the discussion. Hope you enjoy it! If you haven't bought Exhalation (Ted Chiang's new collection) We can't recommend it highly enough. This is the last story in that collection.

Plus – we select the topic finalists for our beloved Patreon listener-selected episode. Will Denial of Death make the cut again?

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Support Very Bad Wizards

Links:

• Ted Chiang's "Exhalation" [amazon.com affiliate link]
• Eddy Nahmias, Close calls and the confident agent: Free will, deliberation, and alternative possibilities - PhilPapers

David and Tamler start out with a discussion of the new Chappelle special and the negative reaction from many critics. Is Chappelle trolling his audience? Has he lost touch with the powerless people he used to champion? Or have critics missed his larger point, and failed to approach the new special as an art form? Then they address the latest development in the literature around Benjamin Libet's famous study that, according to some people, proved that free will doesn't exist. How did that study get so much attention in the first place? Tamler proposes a Marxist analysis. Plus, David teaches Tamler how to pronounce Bereitschaftspotential antisemitically.

This episode is sponsored by Simple Habit.

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Links:

• Does Free Will Exist? Neuroscience Can't Disprove It Yet. - The Atlantic
• Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action by Benjamin Libet
• Neuroscience of free will - Wikipedia
• Break Music: Cold Stares by peez | SoundCloud

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).

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• Simple Habit: Try out Simple Habit--the meditation app that can make your life better in as little as 5-minutes per day.

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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 Book of Job? - Jewish World - Haaretz - Israel News | Haaretz.com
• Satan - Wikipedia
• Morriston, W. (1996). God's answer to Job. Religious studies, 32(3), 339-356.
• Misery | The New Yorker

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.

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• 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!

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Links:

• Power Washing Porn
• Opinion | Why We Call Things 'Porn' - The New York Times
• Pizarro, D.A., & Baumeister, R. (2013) Superhero comics as moral pornography. In R. Rosenberg (Ed.) Our Superheroes, Ourselves. Oxford University Press.
• Rozin, P. (2001). Social psychology and science: Some lessons from Solomon Asch. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(1), 2-14.
• 2nd Annual BEworks Summit for Behavioural Science in Business — Enter "Very Bad Wizards" at checkout if you're looking to attend!

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.

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• 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!

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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's "The Metamorphosis" | The New Yorker
• Franz Kafka - Wikipedia

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 Very Bad Wizards

Links:

• Pulp Fiction Deleted Scene: Elvis vs The Beatles
• Pulp Fiction - Wikipedia
• The Big Lebowski - Wikipedia
• Gabriel Vinas (@gabrielvinasart) Instagram photos, videos, stories and highlights | Insgain

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 - Correcting Bias, Heuristics, and Decision-Making
• Break music: ▶ Lazarus Lives by peez
• Waking Up with Sam Harris (app)
• Sam Harris | Home of the Making Sense Podcast
• On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious: Douglas E. Harding: 9781878019196: Amazon.com: Books

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?

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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 affiliate link]
• Do Parents Matter? Judith Rich Harris and child development (by Malcolm Gladwell)
• Children Don't Do Things Halfway | Edge.org
• Judith Rich Harris & Jerome Kagan: The Nature of Nurture: Parents or Peers? Slate dialogue, Oct. 28 - Nov. 21, 1998

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
• APA 'Masculinity' Guidelines Face a Title IX Challenge at Harvard University, for Discriminating Against Men in Psychology
• Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (trans. by Constance Garnett) [amazon.com affiliate link]
• Notes from Underground - Wikipedia

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 of our listeners.

Sponsored By:

• GiveWell

Support Very Bad Wizards

Links:

• Is a hole a real thing, or just a place where something isn't? | Aeon Ideas
• The Simpsons - Nature's Biggest Holes - YouTube
• Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius - Wikipedia
• Neoplatonism and Gnosticism - Wikipedia

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 in on all the repugnant discussions on our Reddit community.
• Large scale replication project finds that one of Dave's and colleagues' most cited findings (association between disgust sensitivity and homophobia) is not real. : VeryBadWizards
• OSF | Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation in Replicability Across Sample and Setting

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 Chronicle of Higher Education
• Nagel, T. (2012). Mortal questions. Cambridge University Press. [Amazon affiliate link]

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 Essays
• Goranson, A., Ritter, R. S., Waytz, A., Norton, M. I., & Gray, K. (2017). Dying Is Unexpectedly Positive. Psychological Science, 28(7), 988-999.
• Williams, B. (1973). The Makropulos case: reflections on the tedium of immortality (pp. pp-82).

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 Serena Got Wrong (NY Times)

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 You Help Others, Do Work that Matters, and Make Smarter Choices about Giving Back [amazon.com affiliate link]
• Moral uncertainty - Effective Altruism Concepts
• 80,000 Hours: How to make a difference with your career
• Giving What We Can

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 Paths'" by Ethan Weed

David and Tamler try to wrap their heads around Jorge Luis Borges' “The Library of Babel†â€" 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/2cOeWlfTJu This one'll be controversial. For one thing, based on leaked data!… https://t.co/fQZRDZEuVa"
• The Ethics of Research on Leaked Data: Ashley Madison - Neuroskeptic
• Break Music: Nas Is Like (peez remix)
• The Library of Babel - Wikipedia
• The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel by William Goldbloom Bloch [amazon.com affiliate link]
• The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges

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 (peez remix)
• Personality psychology - Wikipedia
• Personality and Social Dynamics Lab | Sanjay Srivastava
• Simine Vazire
• The Black Goat – A podcast about doing science
• Big Five personality traits - Wikipedia — Myers–Briggs Type Indicator
• The Big Five Personality Traits & what they mean for your Political Views. | elephant journal
• HEXACO model of personality structure - Wikipedia
• Myers–Briggs Type Indicator - Wikipedia

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 psychology, 45(1), 1-40.
• Episode 176: Situationism in Psych: Milgram & Stanford Prison Experiments (Part One) | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog
• Matthew K. Nock, Ph.D., Director | Nock Lab
• Cha, C. B., Franz, P. J., M. Guzmán, E., Glenn, C. R., Kleiman, E. M., & Nock, M. K. (2018). Annual Research Review: Suicide among youth–epidemiology,(potential) etiology, and treatment. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 59(4), 460-482.

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., Mitchell, G., Blanton, H., Jaccard, J., & Tetlock, P. E. (2013). Predicting ethnic and racial discrimination: A meta-analysis of IAT criterion studies. Journal of personality and social psychology, 105(2), 171.
• Nock, M. K., & Banaji, M. R. (2007). Prediction of suicide ideation and attempts among adolescents using a brief performance-based test. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 75(5), 707.
• Uhlmann, E. L., Pizarro, D. A., & Bloom, P. (2008). Varieties of social cognition. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 38(3), 293-322. — This is a paper in which Eric Uhlmann, Paul Bloom and one of your humble hosts try to tackle the ways in which the word 'unconscious' is used (and abused) in the literature on social cognition.

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 Beers — New podcast hosted by VBW regular Yoel Inbar and Michael Inzlicht.
• Tatter (podcast) — New podcast, hosted by social psychologist Michael Sargent, with interviews and discussions on politics and policy.
• The Political Theory Review by Jeffrey Church on Apple Podcasts
• Bostyn, D. H., Sevenhant, S., & Roets, A. (2018). Of Mice, Men, and Trolleys: Hypothetical Judgment Versus Real-Life Behavior in Trolley-Style Moral Dilemmas. Psychological Science, 0956797617752640.

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), 339-347.
• Materazzi finally admits what he said to Zidane in the World Cup Final | For The Win

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., & Garfield, J. (2018). Death and the self. Cognitive science.
• Shaun Nichols | University Center for Human Values