Very Bad Wizards

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. Sponsored By: 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! Support Very Bad Wizards 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. Sponsored By: 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! Support Very Bad Wizards 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

Guest Jesus Quintana is a prominent character from the movie 'The Big Lebowski'. Topics discussed include masculinity, trolling, the art of trolling, 'The Big Lebowski', Julianne Moore's character, John Goodman's performance, character analysis of Walter and the Dude, the significance of the rug and the opening scene, masculinity in 'The Big Lebowski', and rewatching Pulp Fiction vs The Big Lebowski.

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? Support Very Bad Wizards 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.