Shows / Very Bad Wizards
Very Bad Wizards
Very Bad Wizards is a podcast featuring a philosopher (Tamler Sommers) and a psychologist (David Pizarro), who share a love for ethics, pop culture, and cognitive science, and who have a marked inability to distinguish sacred from profane. Each podcast includes discussions of moral philosophy, recent work on moral psychology and neuroscience, and the overlap between the two.
Episodes
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 180: Chekhov's Schrödinger's Dagger (Kurosawa's "Rashomon")
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 179: Talking Shit
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 178: Borges' Obsession-Obsession ("The Zahir")
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 177: Pure Linguistic Chauvinism
Tamler learns something new about menstruation. David weighs in on the democratic debates and the impeachment hearings. Then we map the various social and…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 176: Split-Brains and the (Dis)Unity of Consciousness
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 175: At Least We Didn't Talk About Zombies (Nagel's "What is it Like to be a Bat?")
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 174: More Chiang for Your Buck ("Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom" Pt. 2)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 173: Talking to Your (Alternate) Self [Ted Chiang's "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom"]
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 172: Are You Free (to like the Chappelle special)?
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 171: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Theodicy? (The Book of Job)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 170: Social Psychology Gets an Asch-Kicking
Is social psychology just a kid dressing up in grown-up science clothes? Are the methods in social psychology--hypothesis-driven experiments and…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 169: A Bug's Life (Kafka's "The Metamorphosis")
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 168: The Big Lebowski vs Pulp Fiction (Pt. 2)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 167: The Big Lebowski vs Pulp Fiction (Pt. 1)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 166: Total Recall (Ted Chiang's "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling")
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 165: Life With No Head (With Sam Harris)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 164: Choosing to Believe
David and Tamler argue about William James' classic essay "The Will to Believe." What's more important - avoiding falsehood or discovering truth? When (if…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 163: Should I Stay or Should I Go? (Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas")
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 162: Parents Just Don't Understand (with Paul Bloom)
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?…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 161: Reach-Around Knowledge and Bottom Performers (The Dunning-Kruger Effect)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 160: Everything is Meaningless: The Book of Ecclesiastes
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 159: You Have the Right to Go to Prison
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 158: False Dichotomies and Oral Reciprocity
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 157: Notes From Underground (Pt. 2)
David and Tamler continue their discussion of Dostoevsky's funny, sad, philosophical novella Notes From Underground. We focus on part 2 this time - three…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 156: Notes From Underground (Pt. 1)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 155: Alfred Hitchcock's Money Shot
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 154: Metaphysical Vertigo (Borges's "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius")
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 153: Progress in Psychology: A Reply to BootyBootyFartFart
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 152: Ruthlessness, Public and Private
Tamler and David continue their Nagel-gazing by discussing another essay from Mortal Questions: "Ruthlessness in Public Life." Why do we treat the immorality…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 151: Viddy Well, My Listeners (Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange")
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 150: Paul Bloom Insisted That We Talk About Sex Robots
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"…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 149: Death, Immortality, and Porn (Intuition) Pumps
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 148: Am I Wrong?
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 147: Effective Altruism and Moral Uncertainty (with The One True Scotsman, Will MacAskill)
Oxford philosophy professor Will MacAskill joins us to talk about effective altruism, moral uncertainty, and why you shouldn't eat your grandmother (even if…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 146: Sore Losers (Does Sports Make Us Unhappy?)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 145: Lost in Borges' Garden
David and Tamler go deep into Borges' labyrinth to discuss the fascinating, multi-dimensional story "The Garden of Forking Paths." What is the underlying…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 144: Borges' Babylon
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 143: The Psychology of Personality
David and Tamler tackle the topic selected by their Patreon supporters - the psychology of personality. What are the different dimensions of personality that…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 142: Suicide (with Matthew Nock)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 141: Implicit Bias
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 140: Milgram's Mice
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 139: Honor, Identity, and Headbutts
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 138: Memory, Pain, and Relationships (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
Award-winning screenwriter and medieval philosophy scholar Yoel Inbar joins us for a deep dive on the Charlie Kaufman/Michel GondREY masterpiece Eternal…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 137: Are Buddhists Afraid to Die? (with Shaun Nichols)
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……
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 136: The Good Life (with Laurie Santos)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 135: Utilitarianism and Moral Identity
David and Tamler take a break from complaining about psychological studies that measure utilitarianism to complain about the moral theory itself. We talk about…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 134: Digital Outrage (with Molly Crockett)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 133: Death and Dreams
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 132: Emotional Willpower (with David DeSteno)
What's the best way to build self-control, patience, productivity, and delayed marshmallow eating? For decades psychologists and economists have told us to…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 131: I Have No Genitals and I Must Scream
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 130: Dehumanization and Disintegration (with Paul Bloom)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 129: Dystopias
David and Tamler assert their autonomy as individuals by discussing their favorite dystopian works of art. Rebelling against a repressive regime, they refuse…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 128: Fragmented Values and Sex Panics (with Christina Hoff Sommers)
David and Tamler keep their Nagel streak alive, discussing the essay "The Fragmention of Value" from his collection "Mortal Questions." How should we address…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 127: Moral Luck
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 126: The Absurd
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 125: Can You Feel It?
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 124: Dr. Strawson or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Episodic Life
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 123: What Chilling Effect? (Intelligence Pt. 2)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 122: Nothing but a "G" Thing (Intelligence Pt. 1)
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…
- Very Bad Wizards
Episode 121: The Beauty of Illusion - David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive"
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…