A VBW exclusive report! For years David and Tamler have been a little dismissive of fears about cancel culture in academia but now the SJWs have come for one of our own! We welcome back Yoel Inbar to talk about his experience applying for a position at UCLA psychology only to have his candidacy pulled at the last minute because of remarks he made on his podcast (!) about diversity statements. What does this mean for freedom of expression in academia? Should we advise our students and younger faculty to watch what they say when it comes to politically charged topics? Are they really going to start combing through podcast episodes now – is nothing sacred? Plus another case of fraud in psychology comes to light courtesy of the Data Colada guys. Data Colada post about Gino fraud Sponsored by: 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 Rocket Money: Stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions, and manage your expenses the easy way, by going to RocketMoney.com/vbw. Promo Code: VBW

David and Tamler dive into the first two parts of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil which contain some of Nietzsche’s best drive-bys on philosophers like Plato, Descartes, the Stoics, Kant, and Hegel along with beliefs in free will, hard determinism, Christianity, morality, conceptual analysis, objectivity, and the value of truth. We argue about Nietzsche’s metaphilosophy and the implications of thinking that all philosophy amounts to a personal confession by the author. Plus – have David’s prayers been answered? Does quantum theory entail that our consciousness outlives the death of our physical bodies? A blog post about a somewhat recent book says yes! Sponsored By: 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 NordVPN: Keep your internet connection safe, and enjoy streaming services when you travel abroad with NordVPN! NordVPN is the best VPN if you’re looking for peace of mind when you use public Wi-Fi, access personal and work accounts on the road, or want to keep your browsing history to yourself. Exclusive! Grab the NordVPN deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/VBW Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Promo Code: VBW

What’s the meaning of a work of art? Does the text mean just what the author intends it to mean? Does it matter what Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark thinks about the end of 2001? Or is the artist’s interpretation just one interpretation among many once the text is out in the world? We explore the question of authorial intent, and brace yourselves - this is just about as postmodern as David gets. Plus – do we have what it takes to get an invite to the thought criminals club?  Links The Party is Canceled [newyorker.com] Was I Wrong About The Irishman? by Thomas Flight [youtube.com] Authorial Intent [wikipedia.org] Sponsored By: 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 NordVPN: Keep your internet connection safe, and enjoy streaming services when you travel abroad with NordVPN! NordVPN is the best VPN if you’re looking for peace of mind when you use public Wi-Fi, access personal and work accounts on the road, or want to keep your browsing history to yourself. Exclusive! Grab the NordVPN deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/VBW Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Promo Code: VBW

David and Tamler take the first excursion into the work of Haruki Murakami and talk about his short story “Sleep.” A thirty-year-old woman, the wife of a dentist and mother of a young boy, has a terrifying dream and when she wakes up, she no longer needs to sleep. This isn’t insomnia, it’s something else – she has never felt so alive, strong, and awake. She can swim laps for an hour in the afternoon and read Anna Karenina with perfect concentration until dawn. What is this condition? Is it real? What does it tell us about her past, her sense of self, her alienation from friends, family, and her role? This is a banger of a story folks, check it out. Plus - if you had to say one word or sentence to distinguish yourself from an AI, what would you say? Sponsored By: 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 Aura Frames: From phone to frame, enjoy all your memories with ease with Aura digital frames. Use code "VBW" at checkout for %30 off of their best-selling frames. Offer is good until May 14! (Just in time for Mother's Day shopping). Promo Code: VBW NordVPN: Keep your internet connection safe, and enjoy streaming services when you travel abroad with NordVPN! NordVPN is the best VPN if you’re looking for peace of mind when you use public Wi-Fi, access personal and work accounts on the road, or want to keep your browsing history to yourself. Exclusive! Grab the NordVPN deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/VBW Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Promo Code: VBW Support Very Bad Wizards Links: One word Turing test The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami

The great Paul Bloom returns to the show to explore the many mysteries of Todd Field’s 2022 film “Tár.” Is it a ghost story? A movie about cancel culture and abuse of power? Guilt? Professional disappointment? The anxiety of getting old, losing touch with youth and reality? Reminds me of my freshman year at Smith… Plus – Paul gets into trouble on Twitter for saying he’s mildly pro-trigger warnings in certain cases. But is he ignoring the science??? Special Guest: Paul Bloom. Sponsored By: 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 Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Paul Bloom on Twitter: "I agree with this decision-nobody should force profs to use trigger warnings. But I'm mildly pro-TW and have used them in the past. It's often basic decency to warn people--and this includes students--before exposing them to shocking material. https://t.co/ap8gxHgsp8" / Twitter Tár - Wikipedia

David and Tamler talk about William James’ chapter on mysticism from his book "Varieties of Religious Experience." What defines a mystical experience? Why do they defy expression and yet feel like a state of knowledge, a glimpse into the window of some undiscovered aspect of reality? Is Tamler right that David has a little mystic inside of him just waiting to burst forth from his breast? Plus – another edition of VBW does conceptual analysis and we’re sticking with ‘c’ words – this time the definitive theory of ‘creepy.’ Sponsored By: 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 Support Very Bad Wizards Links: The Varieties of Religious Experience - Wikipedia The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by William James [Project Gutenberg Free e-book]

David and Tamler deliver a PODCAST episode, one of many that comes from the INTERNET, that you’ll probably listen to through Air Pods or some other kind of WIRELESS HEADPHONES as you go about your day. (Incidentally, the topic of the episode is Marshall McLuhan on how new forms of media profoundly shape our experience and identity, but in a way that makes us focus on the content of the specific medium and not the medium itself.) Plus, can algorithms help to optimize our well-being, and Steven Pinker transforms his ideas into a new asset class of NFTs. Sponsored By: 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 Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Best-Selling Author & Harvard Professor Steven Pinker Will Transform His Ideas into NFTs | Blockster I Asked an Algorithm to Optimize My Life. Here's What Happened | WIRED The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan Marshall McLuhan - Wikipedia Marshall McLuhan Interview from Playboy (1969)

Here’s an episode with something for both of us – a healthy serving of Kantian rationalism for David with a dollop of Marxist criminology for Tamler. We discuss and then argue about Jeffrie Murphy’s 1971 paper “Marxism and Retribution.” For Murphy, utilitarianism is non-starter as a theory of punishment because it can’t justify the right of the state to inflict suffering on criminals. Retributivism respects the autonomy of individuals so it can justify punishment in principle – but not in practice, at least not in a capitalist system. So it ends up offering a transcendental sanction of the status quo. We debate the merits of Murphy’s attack on Rawls and social contract theory under capitalism, along with the Marxist analysis of the roots of criminal behavior. Plus – the headline says it all: Blame The Brain, Not Bolsonaro, For Brazil’s Riots. Sponsored By: 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 ReThinking with Adam Grant Support Very Bad Wizards Links: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Insurrections | Essay Murphy, J. G. (1973). Marxism and retribution. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 217-243. Psych (with Paul Bloom and David Pizarro)

David and Tamler get lost in the world of Susanna Clarke’s "Piranesi," a hauntingly beautiful and thrilling novel with echoes of Borges, Plato, C.S. Lewis, and even Parfit. The first part of our conversation is spoiler-free so you can listen to that section if you haven’t read it yet. (But seriously read this book! We both read it in a few days.) Plus, watch out ladies - Sydney the Bing chatbot is coming to steal your man. Sponsored By: 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 Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Why a Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled - The New York Times Kevin Roose’s Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot: Full Transcript - The New York Times From Bing to Sydney – Stratechery by Ben Thompson Piranesi by Susanna Clarke [amazon.com affiliate link] Piranesi (novel) - Wikipedia The meditative empathy of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi - Vox — Carla Baricz’s reading of Piranesi through the Romantics, at Ploughshares Piranesi’s Disenchanted World Susanna Clarke’s Fantasy World of Interiors | The New Yorker

Tamler’s earlier self committed to doing an episode on Parfit, and David holds his current self to that promise, which shows how unconvinced David was by Parfit’s skepticism about personal identity. Or something like that. We argue about the value of Parfit’s sci-fi thought experiments and the implications of believing there’s no clear sense of “me.” Plus, we talk about a recent article on aphantasia – the inability to conjure images in your mind – and the question that pops into everyone’s head when they hear about this condition. Sponsored By: 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 Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Aphantasia - Wikipedia Can't See Pictures in Your Mind? You're Not Alone. - The New York Times The Vividness Of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (the “aphantasia Test”) Break Music | Backslide by peez How To Be Good | The New Yorker (Profile on Derek Parfit by Larissa MacFarquar) Parfit, D. (1971) Personal Identity, The Philosophical Review, 80, 3-27.