Very Bad Wizards

Episode 231: Ideal Critics (Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste")

22 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Many of us think that art is subjective, but at the same time it seems like some artistic judgments are better than others. Do you think Crash deserve...

Episode 230: Be Happy (Lars von Trier's "Melancholia")

08 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler sink deeper and deeper into Melancholia, Lars von Trier's harrowing and stunningly beautiful depiction of depression, anxiety, and a ...

Episode 229: Skin Deep?

25 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We think racism is wrong but what about "lookism" – a bias that favors attractive people over unattractive ones? If it's wrong to judge people by th...

Episode 228: Forever Jung

11 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler confront their shadows and dive into Carl Jung's theory of the collective unconscious. What are the central differences between Jung ...

Episode 227: A Terrible Master (David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water").

21 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler dive into David Foster Wallace's celebrated and surprisingly earnest Kenyon College commencement speech "This is Water". How can we e...

Episode 226: Unraveling Time Traveling (with Barry Lam and Christina Hoff Sommers)

07 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

First, it's the return of the annual drunken Thanksgiving segment! Tamler and based wicked stepmom Christina Hoff Sommers fight about JFK, systematic ...

Episode 225: Forbidden Modules

16 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler talk about the often rancorous debate among cognitive scientists and evolutionary psychologists over whether the mind is modular -- c...

Episode 224: Hurts So Good (With Paul Bloom)

02 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

VBW favorite Paul Bloom joins us to talk about the pleasures of suffering, flow states, Sisyphus, meaning, and dating questions. Check out his new boo...

Episode 223: The Hopeless Dream of Being (Bergman's "Persona")

19 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler dive into Ingmar Bergman's 1966 masterpiece Persona, a film about two (?) women, Elisabet, a famous stage actress who has stopped spe...

Episode 222: Choosing Sartre for All Mankind

05 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler don black turtlenecks and light up a couple of Gauloises to talk about Jean Paul Sartre's classic essay "Existentialism is a Humanism...

Episode 221: Granite Cocks vs Robot Overlords

21 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler wind their way through the long-requested "Meditations on Moloch" by Scott Alexander, a comprehensive account of the coordination pro...

Episode 220: On Your Marx

07 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In honor of Labor Day, David and Tamler dive into two works by Karl Marx - "The Communist Manifesto" and "Estranged Labor." What is Marx's theory of ...

Episode 219: Multiplied by Mirrors

17 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It's a Borges bonanza! David and Tamler dive into two stories: "Emma Zunz" and "Borges and I." The first seems like a straightforward daughter revenge...

Episode 218: ...But You Can't Hide (Michael Haneke's "Caché")

03 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler go deep on Michael Haneke's unnerving psychological thriller Caché. An upper middle class French intellectual couple receives myster...

Episode 217: Dropping Paradigms (Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions")

20 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler hit the books and cram for their beloved Patreon listener-selected episode – this time on Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientifi...

Episode 216: Oral Judgments

06 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We've promised you for years that we would do an episode on apologies and never got to it until today. So we both want to say from the bottom of our h...

Episode 215: Touch My Pink Monkey

22 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler argue about the philosopher L.A. Paul's ideas on "transformative experiences" – big life decisions that will change you and your va...

Episode 214: You Shouldn't Feel Bad (Except You Should)

08 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tamler welcomes social psychologist David Pizarro of Cornell University to the podcast to talk about his recent article (along with Raj Anderson, Shau...

Episode 213: What Is It Like To Be a Robot Fish Man? (with Ted Chiang)

25 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We've done deep dives on three of his stories, and now THE MAN HIMSELF, multi-award winning science fiction author Ted Chiang, joins us to explore the...

Episode 212: Follow Your Nose (with Yoel Inbar)

11 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Canada's leading Russian literature scholar Yoel Inbar joins us to try to make sense of Gogol's 1836 short story "The Nose." A nose goes missing from ...

Episode 211: To Live and Die in Kurosawa's "Ikiru"

20 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

"Sometimes I think of my death," Akira Kurosawa said, "I think of ceasing to be...and it is from these thoughts that Ikiru came." David and Tamler exp...

Episode 210: The Priming of the American Mind (with Jesse Singal)

06 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Journalist, podcaster, and rapper Jesse Singal joins us to talk about his new book The Quick Fix, positive psychology (scam?), cancel culture in the m...

Episode 209: Basic Instincts (with Paul Bloom)

23 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

VBW favorite Paul Bloom joins us to talk about William James' account of instinct and its parallels to the nativism/empiricism debates in developmenta...

Episode 208: Dream Theater

09 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve always had nothing but praise for neuroscientists and their work, and today is no exception. We talk about a fantastically rich and ambit...

Episode 207: Sometimes a Paper Tray is Just a Paper Tray

23 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler wander through the maze of Room 237, the great documentary by Rodney Ascher about five people and their views about what Stanley Kubr...

Episode 206: Angel Chasing (Ted Chiang's "Hell is the Absence of God")

09 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler return to the TCU (Ted Chiang Universe) to talk about his short story "Hell is the Absence of God." How would we behave if we had une...

Episode 205: Making Your Nervous System Your Ally (William James on "Habit")

26 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Ever wonder why you're still listening to VBW all of these years? Or why you check your phone 50 times a day? Or why you put on your pants the same wa...

Episode 204: Happy Freedom Day! (with Lauren Anderson)

12 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The legendary Houston Ballet dancer Lauren Anderson joins us to talk about the Atlanta Episode "Juneteenth" (Season 1, Episode 9), a hilarious explora...

Episode 203: Gorgias, Tell Me Something I Don't Know (with Agnes Callard)

22 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Philosopher Agnes Callard joins us to talk about Plato and his dialogue the Gorgias. Why did Plato write dialogues – are they the best way of presen...

Episode 202: Not as It Ought to Be (H.P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space")

08 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A phosphorescence casts a pale sickly glow on David and Tamler as talk only in verbs and pronouns about H.P. Lovecraft's 1927 story "The Colour Out of...

Episode 201: Very Bad Lizard People

24 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler dive deep into the psychology and epistemology of conspiracy theories. What makes people so prone to believe in complex malevolent pl...

Episode 200: Our 200th Episode Spectactular

03 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler celebrate their 200th episode with bourbon and a return to their potty humor roots. First we talk about holes, zoom dicks, and the el...

Episode 199: When Philosophy Goes Sideways

20 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler check out some recent work in metaphysics and applied ethics. Does playing a Nina Simone song sideways show that Einstein was wrong a...

Episode 198: Is Mental Illness a Myth? (Thomas Szasz's "The Myth of Mental Illness")

06 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler explore Thomas Szasz's provocative and still relevant 1961 book "The Myth of Mental Illness," the topic selected by our beloved Patre...

Episode 197: The Long Slow Death That Is Life

22 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The psychologist Yoel Inbar has always tried to imbue his work with a sort of interiority, and now he joins us for a deep dive into Charlie Kaufman's ...

Episode 196: The Loneliest Paper in Philosophy

08 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

She's beautiful, smart, funny, and head over heels in love with you. There's only one problem – she's from a possible world, not the actual one. Wh...

Episode 195: Jesus on Trial (Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov")

25 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler dive into the most celebrated and philosophically rich scenes in Dostoevsky's masterpiece "The Brothers Karamazov." Alyosha gets in t...

Episode 194: God Has No Mother (with Chris Matheson)

11 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler welcome special guest Chris Matheson - co-writer of the "Bill and Ted" movies and author of "The Story of God" and "The Buddha's Stor...

Episode 193: Free Wanting (Frankfurt's "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person")

21 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler want to go old school and discuss a classic Frankfurt paper on free will. But do they want to want that? Are they free to want what t...

Episode 192: Postmodern Wet Dreams (Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote")

07 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler dive into "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote," a very funny Borges story that also raises deep questions about authorship, reading...

Episode 191: All the Rage

23 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A lotta anger out there right now, but does it do more harm than good? Is anger counterproductive, an obstacle to progress? And even when it is, can a...

Episode 190: We Pod. We Pod-Cast. We Podcast. (Frankfurt's "On Bullshit")

09 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler talk about police violence, the protests, and Harry Frankfurt's journal article turned bestseller "On Bullshit." Plus we dive into a ...

Episode 189: The Anality of Evil (Freud's "Civilization and its Discontents")

26 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler dive into Sigmund Freud's world of unconscious drives, death instincts, and thwarted incestuous urges in his classic text "Civilizati...

Episode 188: Conceptual Mummies (Nietzsche's "Twilight of the Idols")

12 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Socrates was ugly and tired of life, so he made a tyrant of reason. Philosophers are mummies who hate the body and the senses. Reason is a tricky old ...

Episode 187: More Zither

21 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

With a global pandemic and a collapsing economy upon us, it's time to ask ourselves some tough questions. Sex robots or platonic love robots - what a...

Episode 186: The One with Peter Singer

07 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The legendary Peter Singer joins us to talk about effective altruism, AI, animal welfare, esoteric morality, future Tuesday indifference, and more. I ...

Episode 185: The Devil's Playground

24 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 mo...

Bonus Episode: Top 5 Deadwood Characters

17 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Here's something that might help with the Coronavirus blues: we're releasing our latest Patreon bonus episode for everyone. In this (unedited) episode...

Episode 184: Tainted Glove

10 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler start off talking about the infamous Richard Dawkins eugenics tweet. What does it mean for eugenics to "work"? And given the sensitiv...

Episode 183: Accept the Mystery (with Paul Bloom)

25 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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. Doe...

Episode 182: The Paper That Launched a Thousand Twitter Wars (With Yoel Inbar)

11 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Podcasting legend Yoel Inbar (from Two Psychologists Four Beers) joins us to break down Tal Yarkoni's "The Generalizability Crisis," the paper that la...

Episode 181: The Fraudulence Paradox (David Foster Wallace's "Good Old Neon")

28 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Episode 180: Chekhov's Schrödinger's Dagger (Kurosawa's "Rashomon")

14 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 wit...

Episode 179: Talking Shit

24 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Episode 178: Borges' Obsession-Obsession ("The Zahir")

10 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Episode 177: Pure Linguistic Chauvinism

26 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Tamler learns something new about menstruation. David weighs in on the democratic debates and the impeachment hearings. Then we map the various social...

Episode 176: Split-Brains and the (Dis)Unity of Consciousness

12 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler discuss famous 'split brain' experiments pioneered by Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga. What happens when you cut off the main line...

Episode 175: At Least We Didn't Talk About Zombies (Nagel's "What is it Like to be a Bat?")

29 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 gi...

Episode 174: More Chiang for Your Buck ("Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom" Pt. 2)

15 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Is character destiny, or can fluky decisions or tiny shifts in weather patterns fundamentally change who we are? Does the existence or non-existence o...

Episode 173: Talking to Your (Alternate) Self [Ted Chiang's "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom"]

01 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Episode 172: Are You Free (to like the Chappelle special)?

17 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler start out with a discussion of the new Chappelle special and the negative reaction from many critics. Is Chappelle trolling his audie...

Episode 171: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Theodicy? (The Book of Job)

27 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Episode 170: Social Psychology Gets an Asch-Kicking

13 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Is social psychology just a kid dressing up in grown-up science clothes? Are the methods in social psychology--hypothesis-driven experiments and model...

Episode 169: A Bug's Life (Kafka's "The Metamorphosis")

30 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler try to control their emotions (with varying success) as they go deep into Franz Kafka's masterful novella "The Metamorphosis." What k...

Episode 168: The Big Lebowski vs Pulp Fiction (Pt. 2)

16 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 fuc...

Episode 167: The Big Lebowski vs Pulp Fiction (Pt. 1)

03 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 v...

Episode 166: Total Recall (Ted Chiang's "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling")

18 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Memory is highly selective and often inaccurate. But what if we had an easily searchable video record of all our experiences and interactions? How wou...

Episode 165: Life With No Head (With Sam Harris)

04 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 r...

Episode 164: Choosing to Believe

14 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler argue about William James' classic essay "The Will to Believe." What's more important - avoiding falsehood or discovering truth? When...

Episode 163: Should I Stay or Should I Go? (Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas")

01 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 live...

Episode 162: Parents Just Don't Understand (with Paul Bloom)

16 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 del...

Episode 161: Reach-Around Knowledge and Bottom Performers (The Dunning-Kruger Effect)

02 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 top...

Episode 160: Everything is Meaningless: The Book of Ecclesiastes

19 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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, a...

Episode 159: You Have the Right to Go to Prison

05 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Episode 158: False Dichotomies and Oral Reciprocity

19 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 c...

Episode 157: Notes From Underground (Pt. 2)

05 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler continue their discussion of Dostoevsky's funny, sad, philosophical novella Notes From Underground. We focus on part 2 this time - th...

Episode 156: Notes From Underground (Pt. 1)

22 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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, ...

Episode 155: Alfred Hitchcock's Money Shot

08 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler dive deep into Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 hallucinatory classic, Vertigo. Why does this movie seem to gain stature among critics and aca...

Episode 154: Metaphysical Vertigo (Borges's "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius")

18 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In the famous words of the idealist philosopher George Berkeley, "To exist is to be perceived." Our ideas and perceptions are the fundamental objects ...

Episode 153: Progress in Psychology: A Reply to BootyBootyFartFart

04 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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 Pro...

Episode 152: Ruthlessness, Public and Private

20 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Tamler and David continue their Nagel-gazing by discussing another essay from Mortal Questions: "Ruthlessness in Public Life." Why do we treat the imm...

Episode 151: Viddy Well, My Listeners (Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange")

06 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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 Kubr...

Episode 150: Paul Bloom Insisted That We Talk About Sex Robots

23 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Episode 149: Death, Immortality, and Porn (Intuition) Pumps

02 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Is living forever a good thing? Could we maintain our values and personal attachments throughout eternity? Would we be motivated to accomplish anythin...

Episode 148: Am I Wrong?

19 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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, wh...

Episode 147: Effective Altruism and Moral Uncertainty (with The One True Scotsman, Will MacAskill)

04 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Oxford philosophy professor Will MacAskill joins us to talk about effective altruism, moral uncertainty, and why you shouldn't eat your grandmother (e...

Episode 146: Sore Losers (Does Sports Make Us Unhappy?)

21 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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 "...

Episode 145: Lost in Borges' Garden

07 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler go deep into Borges' labyrinth to discuss the fascinating, multi-dimensional story "The Garden of Forking Paths." What is the underly...

Episode 144: Borges' Babylon

24 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Episode 143: The Psychology of Personality

10 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler tackle the topic selected by their Patreon supporters - the psychology of personality. What are the different dimensions of personali...

Episode 142: Suicide (with Matthew Nock)

26 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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 oth...

Episode 141: Implicit Bias

05 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler tackle the topic of implicit bias and the controversy surrounding the implicit association test (IAT). What is implicit bias anyway? ...

Episode 140: Milgram's Mice

22 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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 twitt...

Episode 139: Honor, Identity, and Headbutts

12 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Episode 138: Memory, Pain, and Relationships (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

24 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Award-winning screenwriter and medieval philosophy scholar Yoel Inbar joins us for a deep dive on the Charlie Kaufman/Michel GondREY masterpiece Etern...

Episode 137: Are Buddhists Afraid to Die? (with Shaun Nichols)

10 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Episode 136: The Good Life (with Laurie Santos)

27 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

From Very Bad Wizards to Megyn Kelly Today back to Very Bad Wizards, Laurie Santos has traveled the typical trajectory of the celebrity academic. Laur...

Episode 135: Utilitarianism and Moral Identity

13 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

David and Tamler take a break from complaining about psychological studies that measure utilitarianism to complain about the moral theory itself. We t...

Episode 134: Digital Outrage (with Molly Crockett)

27 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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 p...

Episode 133: Death and Dreams

06 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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 lo...