Very Bad Wizards

David and Tamler lead off with a breakdown of the new commercial for “friend (not imaginary)” a new AI necklace that takes hikes with you, interrupts your favorite shows, and will be there for your first kiss. Then we talk about a new paper co-authored b...

Cornell philosopher David Shoemaker joins us for a long winding journey up to the Overlook Hotel, a DEEP dive on Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining . We tackle all the big questions - is the hotel truly haunted? What if anything does it symbolize? Why are the...

David and Tamler continue their discussion of Plato’s allegory of the cave. We talk about the connections with mystical traditions including Gnosticism, Sufism, and Buddhist paths to awakening. We also dig deeper into what Socrates calls ‘dialectic’ – wh...

Over the years we’ve referred repeatedly to Plato’s cave, Platonic forms, and phrases like “copies of copies” without ever really explaining what we mean by these things. So as part of a new mini-series we’re going dive deeper into Plato’s famous images ...

David and Tamler conclude their discussion of Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death . We talk about Becker’s philosophy of science (does he have one?), his sweeping explanations for strongman leaders, neuroses, mental illness, sexual fetishes, and the refr...