Choosing a Different Default Setting

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Being well-adjusted involves consciously choosing a different default setting from the inherent egocentric one we tend to operate on without awareness. The speaker emphasizes the importance of becoming aware of this default setting and making a conscious choice to change it, likening it to adjusting the settings on a phone to discover new features. While the speaker avoids framing this as a matter of virtue, the listener interprets it as a significant virtue that should at least be a conscious choice, even if not yet debated as a virtue. The speaker aims to illuminate the need for conscious choice in behavior rather than operating on autopilot in a self-centered mode without realizing it.

David and Tamler dive into David Foster Wallace’s celebrated and surprisingly earnest Kenyon College commencement speech “This is Water”. How can we escape the prison and prism of our (literally) self-centered perspective? Can we choose to adjust our natural default settings, take a break from our running inner monologue, and pay attention to what’s in front of us right now? Is DFW appealing to Buddhist ideas or something more general that you can be found across all spiritual traditions?

Plus we ask the AI ethics program “Ask Delphi” some tough moral questions (spoiler alert: "just the tip" is "rude"), and almost get into a big fight about the potential of AI ethical robots (but we’re saving that argument for a future episode).