Very Bad Wizards

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 talks about effective altruism and moral uncertainty. Topics include decision theory for maximizing expected moral value, assigning credences to ethical claims, and the popularity of effective altruism. Plus, humorous anecdotes, dilemmas, and the complexity of narrating an audiobook.

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

Dive into Borges' enigmatic story 'The Garden of Forking Paths' with deep reflections on time, freedom, war, and art. Explore the maze of interpretations and complex themes intertwined in the narrative. Bonus discussion on Boots Riley's 'Sorry to Bother You' movie and the artistic richness of Borges and Lynch's works.

David and Tamler delve into Borges' 'The Library of Babel,' exploring the infinite universe of books predicting lives and meaningful answers. They discuss the ethics of Ashley Madison leak research and the loneliness of librarians. Discover the philosophical implications of distinguishing truths from lies within the vast library collection.

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.