Episode 150: Paul Bloom Insisted That We Talk About Sex Robots

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist, David Pizarro, having

[00:00:06] [SPEAKER_00]: an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics.

[00:00:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and

[00:00:14] [SPEAKER_00]: knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_07]: Here's to the drink habits, the only one I got that don't get me in trouble.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_07]: Look, wait in!

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_09]: Anybody can have a good man.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_11]: Just a very bad wizard.

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:17] [SPEAKER_06]: Dave, it's our 150th episode.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_06]: We have to do something special.

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_06]: Who would be the perfect guest for us to have for this milestone?

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean Sam Harris, obviously.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_01]: But in the absence.

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_04]: But instead, you get me, Jordan Peterson.

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome Jordan.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Finally.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_04]: My lobster claws reach out to you gentlemen and congratulations.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_04]: This is by the way Paul Bloom from Yale University.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you for having me back.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: We only had one pick.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Tamler and I knew as soon as we realized that we wanted a guest, there was only one answer.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_06]: As soon as Laurie Santos said no.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Brooks and Suzanne Regan.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Did I get it right?

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Professor of Psychology at Yale University.

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm really happy to be back.

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_04]: And hey, happy anniversary gentlemen.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_04]: This is a great event.

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_04]: It's been a great podcast.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_06]: You used to say it was your favorite thing on the internet.

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_06]: That's what you used to say.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, he's honest.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, I sort of my views were shifting and then I listened to your porn philosophical example language.

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_04]: And that honestly was the best thing on the internet.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_06]: So today we have in celebration a tightly structured episode.

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_06]: No, it's actually the opposite.

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_06]: So one of the things that was an early inspiration for this show was PTI, right?

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_06]: To some extent.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Part of the interruption, the sports show on ESPN.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes, where they just go run down a bunch of different topics and talk about them for a fairly short time.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_06]: And we've been getting a lot of requests for a bunch of topics.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_06]: And so we thought we'd just go through these topics with Paul and get Paul's always entertaining and insightful and non empathetic take on these topics.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_04]: And this promises to be fun.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_04]: We have some ideas of the topics.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_04]: Some will be surprises.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_04]: It's just, you know.

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And for all of those waiting with bated breath, I think we're going to avoid Star Trek transporters and the prestige.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But I can't promise that.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, so let's start off with a topic that a bunch of listeners and our Reddit or subreddit have requested that we talk about and they're talking about it themselves.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_06]: It was the hoax.

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_06]: That series of articles that were by former guest, I don't know if I call him friend of the podcast, but former guest James Lindsay and Peter Bogosian.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_01]: That's right.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And Helen Pluckrose.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes, right.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_06]: They published under her name, right?

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_06]: A bunch of, they got a bunch of papers published and several in peer review journals including Hypatia.

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_06]: I think they did it in risk.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_06]: There was a lot of criticism, including ours of their earlier hoax, which was published in what appeared to be a predatory journal that would publish pretty much anything.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_06]: So this time they sent it to more reputable, although not particularly reputable journals.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_06]: I guess Hypatia is the only one I had heard of.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_04]: It includes Journal of Poetic Therapy and Fat Studies.

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_04]: J.P.T., yeah.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_04]: But Hypatia is a prestigious journal.

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_04]: It was the focus of quite a lot of controversy with Rebecca Tuvel's article comparing transgender and transracial conceptions.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_04]: In a case where I think a lot of people, including me, felt Hypatia acted disgracefully by failing to support an author who was under siege.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_04]: But now they themselves are having yet another crisis.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_06]: So you tweeted something somewhat sympathetic to this new hoax.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_06]: I saw Paul.

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_06]: I actually don't totally know what Dave thinks about this except that he didn't really want to talk about it.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_06]: So give us your opinion about it. Does it expose certain things that need to be exposed? Is it clever?

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_04]: So my view is on the hoax changed somewhat.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_04]: What I said in my tweet ultimately, and I had a back and forth with some people was this would not happen, I think,

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_04]: with a journal like Journal of Philosophy or Mind, or one of several really high quality philosophy journals or theoretical journals.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_04]: So it does say something about the journals that there could be hoax in this way.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_04]: On the other hand, there have been critiques of the hoax which I have found pretty convincing.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_04]: There was one by somebody at Slate. Do you guys remember who that was?

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Daniel Inburn, who used to be in charge of the explainer.

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Which I thought was very good. And actually, Brian Earp from Yale has posted some good stuff on that too.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_04]: And these people pointed out among other things that there was no control group. They didn't try to hoax other journals.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_04]: And that I've heard people say that the articles they published, at least the one in Hypatia, weren't that bad.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_04]: Now, maybe it says something about a journal that a bunch of people who come from another area could kind of toss something together gets published.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_04]: But, and again, I don't think you could do that with a high quality journal which would demand some expertise.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, I'm not sure if it shows everything that the hoaxers think it shows.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. And, you know, just to add to a little bit to the detail, they wrote 21 fake papers.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_01]: They took what, like eight or ten months sort of writing up these papers.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And seven were published, I believe it's seven in peer review journals.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And so as you say, there's, for one, most of these papers were rejected.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And what does that mean? Are those journals high quality?

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Is scholarship in those journals sort of meet the standards that even though they are, you know, in this kind of domain of whatever we want to call it, this brand of humanities.

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Does it say anything about the quality of the field that most papers got rejected?

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. And again, there's no control group.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that strikes me as you, Paula and Engber point out, like some of these are actually not, you know, the dog rape paper where they actually make up data would be kind of an interesting paper to write.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you can, you pepper it with language that sounds absurd, but it's, they faked data.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Right.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that I find not that distressing is if you fake data and use the language of a field, you can get a paper published.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Now let's not forget Diedrich Staupel who faked data and use the language of our field and did it disingenuously in the sense that he was trying to actually pass it off as real scientific, right?

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Like a real scientific contribution.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_05]: Is that disingenuous compared to what they were doing?

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's a different, so yeah, it's a different kind of motivation. I don't know what, you know, I was thinking if I were Diedrich Staupel and I got caught, I would say, haha, I've been hoaxing the field.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I have exposed this underbelly of the field of social psychology.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that this said much more than the conceptual penis hoax.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they put a lot of work into writing up papers that had the language of a field in some cases.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_01]: The literature.

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Almost making.

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_01]: They use the literature.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Like they went to great lengths to make points that other people have made.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I just would like to know what if you did this in another field?

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I think some fields would be more robust as Paul says.

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Like some maybe some analytic philosophy.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I think at the end of the day that the fields that they're mocking don't require hoaxes.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you read the actual papers and there is very little to distinguish the hoax papers from the real papers.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And so if you want to criticize all you have to do is point your finger at the papers that have been published.

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what it's saying.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And the final thing is like this doesn't go, you know, they might be right or wrong about the quality of these articles.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_01]: But it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that they do this with such delight and that they've spent this much time to try to take down people.

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_06]: That's exactly my first reaction.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_06]: Like you would have to have a much higher opinion of, you know, your average journal than I do to be surprised that you could publish some things that you didn't mean.

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_06]: You know by doing due diligence and like, I mean that doesn't that part doesn't surprise me at all.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_06]: What does surprise me is that someone would devote years of their lives trying to expose something about a field that they think has no value.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean this is what I said this to James Lindsay and I say it again here.

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_06]: Like if you don't think it has value then why are you, have you spent the last five years obsessing over it?

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_06]: Why wouldn't you work on like we're given a limited amount of time on this earth.

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Why wouldn't you work on something that you do think has value rather than trying to expose this little field somewhere that's not doing anything through some elaborate hope.

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah the delight that they take in it, that sort of smug kind of we got you is just, I mean a lot of it speaks to what's bad about the way people are interacting these days.

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_06]: But that's part of it, the way that people on the left responded to it as if it didn't say even a single thing about the quality of some of these journals.

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_06]: And as one of the writers who wrote about it said everyone is playing their assigned roles.

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_06]: That's how I felt you know like the right wing was celebrating it, triumphing it and that cadre of like Sam Harris and Steven Pinker and my stepmother and you know they're all like this is great you know.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_06]: And then the left you know they're attacking Lindsay and Pluck Rose and they're defending the quality of the papers which was I guess the one kind of irony of the whole thing.

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_06]: But I just don't understand the mindset of somebody that would do that like that just seems non-virtuous.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_04]: So just a couple points very quickly, one is I agree and in fact they've also they acted in bad faith in a lot of this.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_04]: They quoted reviews of papers that got rejected that simply said kind things about the papers and then went aha.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_04]: But as a review and some of the reviewers when I said yeah, I begin my reviews by saying something nice about the papers we are supposed to do right.

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_04]: That's just basic civility.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Sucker.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah exactly.

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_04]: And I actually think I think the journals are being too quick to say oh it's this right wing hoax we don't need to be concerned about.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_04]: I think the fact that some of these papers got into be a matter of some concern for the journals and like you say everybody's playing their assigned role.

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_04]: But most of all what I want to do is I want to assign blame to why they did all this and the blame clearly lies with the two of you.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_04]: Because you because I listen to the podcast everybody should go back and listen to how Dave and Hamler treated James Lindsay and his hoax, his initial hoax and plainly that was so traumatizing that he left and he's going through the entire time.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_04]: So he could he could show you guys that he can make it work.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_04]: So when Blame gets handed out I just got to mention you two.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_01]: You know I will accept causal responsibility.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Not moral responsibility.

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_01]: But proudly in the sense that you know we are we are two very humble gentlemen as you all know.

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_01]: In this case I think we were one of the early ones to to point out sort of that the hoax didn't say what it said.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_01]: We weren't the first.

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah but but I'm not I don't regret having James Lindsay on and I and if it motivated him to do this then then so be it.

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_06]: One of my colleagues said their next hoax should be publishing a paper they believe in in a good journal.

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_05]: That's one that we haven't we haven't seen.

[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_04]: I view James James Lindsay as like a train and he's on a troll is on a track and then he comes to you guys divergent and instead of plunging into one journal he plunges into seven.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_04]: I got to work this out.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_06]: What do you think drives them to do this like it's just a mindset that I can't get into like what like why would you like 80% of fields are ridiculous like and journals are completely ridiculous like why would you want to expose pick one of them and try to do this high publicity stunt.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_04]: So I mean in their defense I was talking to a friend of mine who's conservative and he didn't say I could quote him so I won't say who it is but he said to me the problem is with with academics like me that there's a lot of really bad stuff being done at universities and people like me don't do anything about it.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_04]: We just we just roll our eyes and let that stuff go forward and his view is that a lot of the stuff in journals like the grievance studies is that kind of bad stuff.

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_04]: I actually have a view that some of it is some of it isn't but in any case you could say that that if it turns out this stuff is intellectually corrosive and really bad.

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_04]: It's a good thing to try to call attention to it and reveal its flaws and make people do better work.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_04]: This is the best spin I could think of the Hoaxers they're like people trying to rid the Academy of creationists or white supremacists to say look at how bad this stuff is.

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah but you know sometimes all you have to do is point out how bad something is right so when I was young and I went and saw Richard Dawkins give a talk on creationism and this you know this was even before he was that cantankerous

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_01]: but he simply used creationist literature and pointed that out and this is a case where you know what I it's akin to maybe is a critique of the art world where you can expose the sort of weird emperor has no close acceptance of shit art by creating shit art

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_01]: and in some ways maybe exit through the gift shop is the kind of thing that maybe they were going for where at least one reading of that documentary is that they created a person hyped that person and had him have very, very mediocre art shown in a high visibility venue

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_01]: and everybody just bought it.

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know the disanalogy there I think that's like what they want to see themselves at is that these journals are not high powered journals these people who are publishing in them aren't like the toast of the LA modern art scene and so like it's punching down and it seems like now I know that.

[00:18:08] [SPEAKER_04]: No that's a good point of feeling a punching down does seem right I mean why pick on you know journal of poetic therapy or.

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_04]: If you could pull this hoax off on science or nature well that becomes a lot more interesting.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Exactly yes.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Right, right, right, right.

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think the answer is you know why why do they do this is they're very motivated to to vocally disagree with some of the views that people in these fields have and those views themselves are substantive.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_01]: You know the views about say gender equality they may not be right but they are views that you could argue about I think like you could actually write a paper saying I think this field is wrong in the way that they treat gender studies and and make and maybe

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Tamela is kind of what you're saying you could make a positive claim about this the spirit with which they did this was and we talked to James about this the spirit of mockery and you know I'm not sure where I land on whether mockery is useful or not.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_01]: But this this left a bad taste in my mouth.

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_06]: This didn't change minds also it's like no like this is this made everybody just feel more strongly about what they already believed.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Right nobody was surprised by this right in the way that you might be surprised about the art world being exposed.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah, but that's probably just because we don't know the art world that well you know like let's move on.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes sex robots should we go onto that one.

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_06]: That was so there was a.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Why do I have an opinion.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_06]: Paul I because I'm torn about this so I need to know like you're going to decide it both for yourself and for me.

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_06]: So there was a the reason we got a lot of listeners tweeting at us about this emailing us is because Houston was the intended site for the first American sex robot brothel.

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_06]: That's what they called it really it was a place where you could go and test out your sex robot rent a little room with them pay by the hour I don't know how it worked.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_06]: It was going to work.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_06]: And then if you decided that you liked that sex robot you could buy the sex robot.

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_06]: I did a tiny bit of research into this because I know Dave was saying in what sense are they robots they look like dolls.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah that's what I wanted.

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_01]: That's this is the interesting question to me which we'll get to in a second.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Well there's there's some that are just dolls but some of them are warm and some of them make noise have sounds.

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_04]: It's still a warm doll for string in the back.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_06]: Right.

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_06]: I can't tell you anymore about my research stalled at that point.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_06]: I just went out like I do kind of impulse purchase but.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_06]: But but so they were going to open this in Houston and the mayor was against it.

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_06]: I great mayors of us Sylvester Turner said no this is not the kind of business we want in Houston and then the city council met in a kind of a murder some sort of emergency session to pass a law that would make whatever they wanted to do illegal at least for now.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_06]: They've blocked it.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if they've but they were moratorium moratorium.

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_06]: And what they were saying was look I don't care what people do in their own homes but we don't want people going to have sex in a shop with a doll like that's not a good look for Houston.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_06]: We're not Sin City.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_06]: You know this isn't.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_06]: They actually said that.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like the mayor said Sin City which which is an interesting turn of phrase for what what arguably is masturbation.

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_06]: But masturbation like on public grounds right like so that's the thing that that that the council said that they were against is look go crazy with your sex robot or whatever you want.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_06]: You know that's more in your house but you don't get to come into a public place and.

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_06]: That.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_06]: And I don't know like I saw I took it that their their reaction so there was a petition that said this will lead to sex more sex trafficking and more prostitution and that's bullshit right there's no study that suggests that.

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_06]: Having sex with a robot doll or a doll is going to make you more likely to to engage in sex trafficking or less likely this is not.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Well let's turn it to let's turn it over to Paul because actually Paula you hit you are on record with Sam Harrison and New York Times column about Westworld arguing something like.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_01]: It's wrong to be sadistic to human like machines right.

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_04]: So I gotta say first based on Tamler's description.

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm I have enough of a libertarian instinct to think that it's none of the city's damn business whether people somebody sets up a business where men go and masturbate in little rooms next to dolls or.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Very next.

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Or women or women or women.

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_04]: I guess I actually thought I was at a mental image of being men but of course could be women too.

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_04]: Don't they have to have better things to do than worry about this.

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_04]: So Sam and I wrote something about about Westworld as a starting point it was actually based on when I went on this podcast because you guys were no longer having me on and I was podcast we talked about Westworld.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_04]: And and then we turned this into an article and what we argued is that in a case where there's real robots like indistinguishable from people.

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_04]: There are considerable moral hazards and one moral hazard is that they might be conscious and if you're conscious you should not harm them enslave them torture them rape them and so on for obvious reasons it's just it's as bad as if it were a human.

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_04]: So but then more somewhat more more subsequently more interestingly we argue that if you can't tell the difference even if it's not conscious there are real moral risks to taking somebody who see it was indistinguishable from a person and assaulting them.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_04]: And and I say that with some hesitancy because I'm not one of these people who think that video games violent video games violent simulations have bad effects.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_04]: I think the evidence is that they have no long lasting bad effects at all they don't make us being shooting people in a video game does not make you shoot people in the real world.

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_04]: But my thought is if you if you could have somebody and they they interact with a robot that's that it just seems to be a person the only reason they don't know it's a person is because somebody told them and they torture the robot they kill the robot they rape the robot.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_04]: It just my strong intuition is that this would have serious effects for how they deal with people.

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_04]: So in some way you know Sam and I make it.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Can't exactly.

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_04]: It's the con point of view which is con says roughly you know if there's nothing wrong in its own sake of harming animals but it will affect how you treat people.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah so why are people assuming that you're going to torture the sex.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_06]: Just have sex with it like like the if it's programmed to just give loving consensual sex like what yeah so is the idea that people will just naturally go to to the rape place because they know it's a robot or.

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_04]: So in article Sam and I wrote we just talked about the case of being cruel to robots.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_04]: We didn't make any claims about what proportion people would be cruel to robots.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_04]: I guess though they'll take your idea of you know go for example of it suppose you create a robot that's much smarter than your average person.

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_04]: And and much more perceptive and and and verbal and contemplative and so on.

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_04]: You program within that robot an abiding desire to have sex with any paying customer.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_04]: It's not obvious that that's consent.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Imagine if you were genetically engineered person with that abiding.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_04]: Is that we so so to a poll we're assuming it's not conscious right like if you assume that it's not if you assume it's not conscious then then consent doesn't matter at all.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_06]: It doesn't. Oh I see. Yeah it would be the inaction of consent so right because I thought what you were talking about the torture that it's still wrong was under the assumption that it's not conscious.

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_06]: So right fact that it's not consensual isn't really an issue.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_04]: No no I think that that's right if you had to have hyper if you had to have realistic robots and they're not conscious.

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_04]: I think there's reasons to say you could have consensual as it were sex with them but you cannot assault them.

[00:27:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And Paul and I like I think we had a back and forth on Twitter just a little bit because I was saying if you're going to have robot slaves wouldn't it be much better to program them to enjoy the work.

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Like if you can do that if you can actually program a hyper realistic robot that will do all of the you know widget making or whatever wouldn't it be great to have them derive happiness.

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_04]: But if you're in deriving happiness if they're enjoying things then they're conscious and then and then they are slaves they are they you cannot you should not be in a position to force them to do things.

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah well I mean it turns on whether programming is forcing it so so you know presumably we all have some degree of programming in the sense that our brains are computer like then that they process information and they do all that stuff and there's no.

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_01]: You know we're conscious but all of the things we do are for what you might call reasons or what you might call causes and so long as I feel like I freely agentically chose an option it you know and I derive pleasure from it.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I really don't care whether the universe programed into me.

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_04]: So let me ask you the question I asked Tamara then see how these conscious robots and you're saying you could program in the desire to enjoy being subservient is that different for you than if you genetically engineered people from equivalent desire.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_01]: No I mean you know not to get all nerdy but there is a the Star Trek series deep space knife.

[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I knew it was a long way this wasn't.

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_04]: You know we talked about this yesterday we knew we were coming.

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_06]: You know this is about like sex dolls in Houston and all of a sudden we're on deep space nine.

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_01]: First of all first of all I like how how Tamler centric you made this as if our listeners cared that it was Houston they did care that we talk about robots and consent all this stuff like a lot before like one person pointed out that it was in Houston and you're like because it's Houston.

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_06]: A bunch of people pointed out that it was a subreddit feed that says given that this is Houston.

[00:29:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah no they're right that you might care more because it's Houston but but I think we would be talking about it anyway.

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I could be there.

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_01]: There could be fucking a doll right now.

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I think you'd be masturbating into the doll but we'll get to that but I think so there's a PC that's a good point is.

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah I think there's actual analysis.

[00:30:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah there's a species that's been programmed to want to fight for the honor of the kingdom right and that's all they're programmed to do.

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_01]: They in fact if you prevent them from dying in in sort of honorable battle they are very very upset and it is clear from this science fiction story that the the species that engineered them genetically made them desire this.

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I I struggle to see why it is a bad thing to genetically engineer something that feels the same agency upon deciding right no nothing compulsory nothing undesired.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_01]: They they feel what we feel when they calculate what they want to do.

[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_01]: So they say you know chocolate vanilla chocolate vanilla I really really like chocolate.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_01]: What does it matter if they were programmed like at the end of the day not to pull Sam Harris aren't we all this.

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_04]: You know you're right subjectively it's the same so subjectively I'm torn by desires for say you know food when I'm hungry and drink when I'm thirsty and I didn't choose those and they seem in all sorts of desires and so on.

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_04]: But I think somebody's richer has a richer life if they haven't been given the additional desire to be enslaved then if they have.

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So you know what would be really wrong is programming the the sex robots to not want it yet being unable so so I don't remember if we mentioned this before but what seems really fucked up is if you say body a sex robot and really we're talking about sex done.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So you know we're talking about the cells that might have you know some basic things programmed into its speed you know it's like Alexa with a body and you had sex with it and you programmed it to say no stop please no.

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_01]: That that seems like I can't shake the intuition that that's fucked up right that's fucked up because what does it say about you exactly that yeah no that's where I think the action is so so I so like I.

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_01]: My intuition is pretty strong that that is that you are a bad person and that's in essence what Westworld is doing by you know creating human like creatures that don't want to die yeah.

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_06]: But so if we can go back to the sex robot brothel thing in Houston isn't that just what Houston is saying that we don't want on our land to have a business that's going to corrupt the character of our citizens and we have a right to do that as a city.

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So it turns on I think whether or not these things you know like like Paul and Sam argued in their article the hyper realistic nature of these things is what I think might corrupt your character because in reality these are like really just dolls that have some some very very basic you know responsiveness and that's what I think is ludicrous to prevent people from doing that and so.

[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I think good thought experiments are what really what constitutes a robot like if you.

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Tamler and I had to back up no no it was you well and I were saying like if you you masturbate with your room but.

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_06]: You know I hate my room but like I would have angry sex.

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't like angry like that's not a thing that kills me at all but that's how it would be with the room but that's how we just end up yeah.

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_04]: Does Houston have strip clubs.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes I imagine it does like we're like very well regarded ones NBA players look forward to coming to the rock it sounds like one of your pantheon extras where you discussed that the strip but but I guess I guess my point is in what world is you know is lap our lap dances fine yeah but but somebody masturbating into a plastic doll.

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_04]: That that you know such as it really is I guess the status quo bias.

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_06]: It is and I think or a status bias like the people who go to the Houston strip clubs are really rich and the people who would go to this robot it's seedy and kind of pathetic it brings back the sort of going into a video store and buying porn

[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_06]: or going into one of those movie theaters in the 70s in New York and jerking off in the theater it's like that's the thing I think that they don't want there they don't mind like high class call girls in the city or high class like strip clubs.

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah actually what is the legal status of those like if you you know some some adult video stores for instance used to have these little booths where you could go watch a video this was obviously before the widespread availability of.

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Internet porn but they would have these little rooms that you would go into in San Francisco I remember when I was in college there was one of these in but you would go you would go in and you would.

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_06]: Watch videos and really there was what I felt bad for was the guy who has to mop up at the end of the day like is very very clear that this was going on yeah that's the thing that they don't want in the same way that when they cleaned up time square I don't think it was an ethics thing as much as this isn't what we want.

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_06]: The middle of New York to be known for.

[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Right you know what like all of a sudden that robot sex district.

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Where everybody's going how far away do you think we are in time till we get to a point where people purchase sex dolls sex robot dolls that are you know more than those sort of comical plastic blow up things but but you know to some extent indistinguishable from a person.

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_06]: So so this funny because I was interviewed on the local NPR about this and they asked me that to like how far do you how far until until something like this is just it's not a big deal.

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah open one of these things up and they're better.

[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_06]: And I was thinking somewhere between 10 and 20 years.

[00:36:47] [SPEAKER_04]: That sounds right it'll come with self self driving cars in your self driving car and I'll take you there.

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean I think it will get I think we'll get there before we get real sort of real AI like strong as they used to call it.

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_06]: We need a futurist like you know hopefully because of it like I don't want to be like enslaved by some like AI master before I can have sex with like awesome.

[00:37:15] [SPEAKER_01]: You'll you'll be the you'll be the worker in the brothel.

[00:37:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Should we worry that when real AI comes on the scene it'll get really pissed off at us for everything we've done.

[00:37:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I think so that's why I try to be in anything digital I try to be very kind to robots and I for one welcome are in Soviet Russia robot fucks you.

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Who says you need to plan ahead to have a good conversation.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_06]: Is there any way we can merge the hoax like maybe like you could design a sex robot that would get accepted in the sex robot brothel that actually you designed it.

[00:38:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I was thinking that I was I was thinking that the designer be like haha I fooled you guys to jerking off into a doll by calling it a robot.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_06]: That's problem so should we very quickly talk about whether it's masturbating sex sex with one of these rudimentary robot.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I've always had a problem with the classic sort of John height scenarios that attempt to point to sort of moral dumbfounding one of one of the examples that he uses is that you have sex into a dead chicken.

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Or you have sex with the carcass of a dead chicken and I always thought the calling it sex was a weird thing.

[00:38:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is clearly jerking off.

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean a flesh light isn't sex.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_04]: I wouldn't strike to argue with a bunch of people and I did not convince anybody that pornographic actors in pornographic films are not actually having sex.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_04]: They're just acting as if they're having sex.

[00:39:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh that's.

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_04]: And this is in fact why laws on prostitution under one rule don't block the creation of pornographic films because you know these people are paid.

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_04]: They're not paid to have sex.

[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_04]: They're paid to act after having sex.

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh that's super interesting.

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty deep isn't it.

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean talk about letter of the law.

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_06]: But now wait a minute this sounds like something that is really a family resemblance kind of thing.

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_06]: It may well be.

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_01]: You know necessary and sufficient conditions for calling something sex.

[00:39:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So one of the questions that you might ask is what's cheating.

[00:39:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I take it that most people would say that masturbating to pornography is not cheating.

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_01]: It might be some sort of breach of trust but it's not infidelity.

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_04]: Russ doubted.

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name right.

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Russ doubted who writes from New York Times.

[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_04]: A conservative wrote an article once that was widely mocked and I thought it was actually very interesting where he argued pornography was cheating.

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh yeah.

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_04]: It was you know plainly it's a certain sort of cheating less intense than with a person but but it still it has the major important features of cheating.

[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_04]: He argued.

[00:40:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah my intuition is that it is not cheating.

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_01]: It might be an infraction if two people say let's watch porn together for instance it's not a threesome.

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_01]: As much as you would love it.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_01]: You can't that doesn't that doesn't count.

[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_04]: That's a great style of argument.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_04]: I like that.

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_01]: It gets more interesting when you have a live person on the other line like in these these chess right.

[00:40:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes and there it's like I find I struggle with my intuition because if you had a pre recorded version of somebody on the other end doing all and saying all those same things it would feel like much less cheating than somebody who is out of the world.

[00:40:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And then actually responding to you contingently over even though they're paid.

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_04]: That's right.

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah that's right.

[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_01]: There's something about the interaction with another human being that makes it feel like it moves from not not cheating maybe some other infraction to actually infidelity.

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_04]: And certainly if you if it wasn't paid but it was a relationship but for sure the two people never had any physical contact they engaged in sex over the phone or the FaceTime.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_04]: It definitely would count as some sort of cheating.

[00:41:28] [SPEAKER_04]: People would be right to be pissed.

[00:41:30] [SPEAKER_06]: I have the intuition that being with a prostitute though is much less obviously cheating than being with like another woman another woman that you're not paying.

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_04]: Because there's an intuition of almost objectification or a commercial transaction.

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah exactly somewhere between watching porn and actually having an affair.

[00:41:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah I mean I think that many people would say like you're already strongly on the side of cheating at that point.

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And now now that we've all you know now that we agree that this is all some sort of infidelity that it would be worse to have an actual to actually interact with somebody and convince them to have sex with you seems indicative of some sort of emotional relationship in a way that paid sex does not.

[00:42:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And so it feels more like a breach in the same way that having an intimate emotional relationship with somebody with no physical contact might be a breach.

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_04]: That seems right.

[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_06]: But pornography just to be clear pornography is not cheating right.

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_06]: No you're good.

[00:42:36] [SPEAKER_06]: You're okay.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It is what your partner says it is.

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_06]: Ross I'm sorry.

[00:42:42] [SPEAKER_06]: So does that mean Ross doubt that nobody knows how to pronounce his name.

[00:42:48] [SPEAKER_06]: But is he sort of cast at least saying that he's never watched porn.

[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_06]: Like does he not know what's out there.

[00:42:56] [SPEAKER_04]: No I read article a long time ago I didn't I didn't prepare for this podcast by reading it.

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_04]: It didn't know we'd end up here but but he just talked about he just you know raised the view the same questions were asking now if it's if you're you know if you're talking to somebody on the phone if you're what are the boundaries and

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think he just made the point that that to say oh unless it's sort of actual intro course with another person it's fine seems doesn't seem psychologically or morally realistic.

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah I mean we have the intuition that dreaming about having sex with another person is not cheating.

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes but that's because it's involuntary.

[00:43:39] [SPEAKER_01]: It might be involuntary in the local sense.

[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh I see.

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But you might actually spend your days fantasizing about somebody enough that they make it into your dream.

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_04]: Well if you do it with the intention of getting them in your dream then it's not only it's not only infidelity it's a form of sexual harassment.

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Dreams are nature's robot brothels.

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_06]: I want to say by the way that whatever his porn viewing habits are I really like Ross doubt that he's one of the few columnist just on either side that I read.

[00:44:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Religiously to so to speak.

[00:44:17] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes so to speak.

[00:44:18] [SPEAKER_06]: You know this actually seems like a good bridge to perverse desires which you are interested in Paul.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_04]: I've just been thinking about it over the last little while in part because I had a conversation in Kentucky with a philosopher Brian Keely and he told me about the views.

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_05]: He's awesome.

[00:44:43] [SPEAKER_04]: He's telling me to use a Paul fire event.

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_04]: I may not be the radical philosopher of science.

[00:44:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Am I pronouncing his name right fire happened.

[00:44:50] [SPEAKER_06]: He's not yeah fire a band or something.

[00:44:53] [SPEAKER_04]: Anyway he apparently is at one point and this may not be true but it's an interesting idea said he felt that it's very important for people to retain their freedom.

[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_04]: And even if you get like really good arguments for a position it could be the expression of freedom to reject that position.

[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_04]: And you know so there's 100 arguments in favor of that global warming exists but I'm going to assert my freedom and say the hell with you it doesn't.

[00:45:24] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to vote for Trump.

[00:45:26] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to smoke that cigarette.

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_04]: And if you think about specific examples it's kind of crazy.

[00:45:32] [SPEAKER_04]: You know you should you should try to you should try to believe stuff which is true assert your freedom and act so that in ways which are which are rational.

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_04]: But I've liked the idea that often psychologists often describe perverse actions as kind of a glitch in the system like you say to yourself.

[00:45:50] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm really not going to.

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_04]: It's like the white bear studies of Dan Wagner where you try to focus on if you told not to think of white bears you'll think of them if you're told not to think of racial stereotypes they'll come to mind.

[00:46:02] [SPEAKER_04]: And so psychologists like Wagner think of perverse actions as sort of a glitch in the system where things that you don't what you want not to do spill out.

[00:46:10] [SPEAKER_04]: But I've gotten really interested in you call existential perversity where you say to yourself.

[00:46:16] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't want to.

[00:46:18] [SPEAKER_04]: I feel constrained to do that which is rational and smart and I'm going to rebel.

[00:46:23] [SPEAKER_04]: And so I think that this has to do with the terrible twos with adolescent rebellion midlife crisis.

[00:46:29] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think in small doses it could be fine and interesting.

[00:46:34] [SPEAKER_06]: So this is the underground man right like the whole note from underground is a guy explicitly doing this explicitly going against right.

[00:46:44] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think that's really interesting.

[00:46:46] [SPEAKER_06]: And he even says to write that it's I'm doing this to assert my freedom because it's at a time where that deterministic world is gaining you know prominence.

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_06]: And so he so he does these perverse things you know at least this is what he says.

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes.

[00:47:06] [SPEAKER_06]: But I agree though that this is that there is something good about it and then it speaks to a certain need or deficit that we have.

[00:47:16] [SPEAKER_06]: So I read your like a draft of something you wrote about this and it speaks to something that's lacking in our lives when we act that's that that accounts in least in part for the appeal of some of doing some of these things that are clearly bad for us.

[00:47:32] [SPEAKER_06]: Like and I think that is that we feel like our lives are too regimented that there's no adventure like it's like that there's no that there's not enough unknown.

[00:47:42] [SPEAKER_06]: There's not enough freedom.

[00:47:44] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah I mean freedom I guess and so like these desires are our way of lashing out against that sometimes.

[00:47:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah I mean if I always do what makes sense what's right if I believe was rational and do what makes sense what use of my what uses my consciousness.

[00:47:59] [SPEAKER_04]: I could just you know.

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_05]: You're just an algorithm you're just running out the algorithm.

[00:48:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I unfortunately didn't have time to read what you said.

[00:48:07] [SPEAKER_04]: You had plenty of time.

[00:48:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't that long.

[00:48:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I literally went from meeting to meeting to meeting straight to recording so I didn't even see the email like I'm in the dark but with so without reading let me engage with this in a way that's that maybe disagrees with you guys.

[00:48:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that that epistemology which is you know one of the domains that that you were using as example.

[00:48:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I've pondered this before like rationality dictates that you acquire a certain set of beliefs often right so so you want to believe what's true and the method by which you acquire these beliefs.

[00:48:47] [SPEAKER_01]: You hope it's a reliable one and if you don't pay attention to those and come with the wrong answer it's you know it's you are you're just wrong.

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and and I think that there is an interesting difference between epistemology and just say action in other domains where epistemology it doesn't upset me that I have zero freedom.

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER_01]: That is it is constrained in a way that I would want it to be constrained.

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't feel I don't feel like my freedom is being impinged upon by the constraints that rationality gives me.

[00:49:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Now if it were like you know boiling down to things like what do I want to do today with my free time of course right like I want like you know fuck your constraints.

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_01]: But I just don't feel like it's you're just being stupid to flip you know to throw your middle finger at something that is logical.

[00:49:52] [SPEAKER_06]: But I think the big parts of Paul's examples aren't I'm going to believe something I don't think is true it's more that I'm going to do something that's bad for me right.

[00:50:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah but I'm also thinking about the belief case and just on the fly.

[00:50:09] [SPEAKER_04]: I think consider acts of faith religious faith often I think people see cases where there really isn't an answer and I think they take some pleasure in fixing on a belief that is unsupported and I think that's a different case then you know I refuse to believe that I refuse to believe in climate change or whatever.

[00:50:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Right where I sort of doggedly turn away from the facts but instead of case where there just aren't enough guiding facts and so you take advantage of freedom to believe and you kind of settle on something right.

[00:50:45] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm tepid about this because it isn't really the way I go but I trying to get some sympathy for that way of thinking.

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah I mean in some sense the Kierkegaard right leap of faith is that I mean I wonder having been raised in a religion that is concerned with defending faith rationally you know it's not often that you run into somebody who just is willing to admit that there is no rational basis for the belief but rather they try to you know try to give you sort of whatever arguments that are internal to the belief.

[00:51:23] [SPEAKER_01]: But I feel like in the absence of reason to believe one thing or another it is it's not perverse like if it truly is that you have that you have no ability to distinguish a false claim from a true claim then sure like by all means you know pick your pick pick whatever you want but what else could you do.

[00:51:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Well you could not believe at all you could just keep you could not take any leap.

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah yeah yeah no I think I guess you're right I mean.

[00:51:54] [SPEAKER_04]: That's right because it isn't faith that's there's it's perfectly rational if you don't have any reason to believe not to believe even if there's no reason you know even if there's no evidence to the contrary of a belief just plucking one or a random and say I'm going to believe in this and you know because there's no reason against it seems to be a mildly perverse act.

[00:52:13] [SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't rise at a full perversity of you know sitting in the voting booth as a committed Democrat and liberal and then just saying what to help vote for Trump.

[00:52:23] [SPEAKER_04]: God damn I could nothing's going to stop me.

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_06]: That's the thing that I think is like the belief one is less convincing to me although I like it as a way of trying to justify certain faith based beliefs but it's the actions that I think are the most important.

[00:52:43] [SPEAKER_06]: I think is the.

[00:52:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah like you like to ride your bicycle without a helmet on.

[00:52:49] [SPEAKER_06]: No but that kind of thing.

[00:52:51] [SPEAKER_06]: That's actually rational and right.

[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_04]: But if Tamler believed it was more dangerous.

[00:52:56] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not I don't for it to be to be perverse you have to believe that riding without a helmet is more dangerous and the pleasure you get isn't worth it really but then doing it anyway.

[00:53:09] [SPEAKER_06]: Well no I just have to be against this Syrian refugee ban.

[00:53:14] [SPEAKER_06]: What what.

[00:53:15] [SPEAKER_06]: I think if you wear a helmet you are logically committed to supporting the Syrian refugee ban because you're that concerned about safety that you think that you have to like in all cases just optimize the chances that you won't die by like the tiniest most negligible amount.

[00:53:38] [SPEAKER_06]: So that's I'm against this year.

[00:53:41] [SPEAKER_06]: I think we should accept more Syrian refugees so I will wear a helmet.

[00:53:45] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean I won't wear a helmet.

[00:53:47] [SPEAKER_06]: You're a formidable debater.

[00:53:49] [SPEAKER_01]: He's giving us an example of Tev like flouting rationality as we see.

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_06]: No but like I.

[00:53:56] [SPEAKER_06]: So the part that's in that I thought was interesting is that this idea of rat being controlled rationally is not that we actually feel bound by the laws of reason in a strict sense but that we feel entrapped by always doing what's good for like what's good for us or what's sensible.

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah smart and there is something just inherently intrinsically appealing about just going against that for just like I don't give a fuck just for the hell of it kind of there's which we wouldn't have if we lived different kinds of lives like then like being sensible would seem kind of awesome and sexy.

[00:54:40] [SPEAKER_04]: There's a wonderful book which I talk about in my piece by it's written by Gretchen Rubin and I forget what the collaboration photographer whose last name is Hoy and and it's called profane waste.

[00:54:52] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's a series of photographs of people destroying stuff for no reason at all setting fire setting fire and money pouring champagne down the bathtub.

[00:55:02] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's kind of exhilarating to look at these photographs and it's like I mean in some way I give you an example of Banksy you know having his picture shredded upon sale but I'm not sure that counts as a real perverse act because everybody made a lot of money off of it.

[00:55:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah exactly but it seems perverse in a sort of meta sense.

[00:55:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes exactly look at my perverse act now pay me.

[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah there's a great example from this philosopher Sussman he has an article for badness sake that also got me thinking about this and he talks about these beautiful icicles you see and sometimes it's just so much fun to smash them.

[00:55:47] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a reason there's a Shiva the destroyer God where it might be actually some some deep delight in bringing chaos to order.

[00:55:57] [SPEAKER_04]: You think we can move this part to the front to put the porn stuff.

[00:56:01] [SPEAKER_04]: The sex robot stuff at the end.

[00:56:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So OK can we take a break.

[00:56:06] [SPEAKER_01]: My bladder wants me to take a break.

[00:56:08] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm kind of worried about the sex robot thing.

[00:56:11] [SPEAKER_04]: And then but the perverse discussion is such a high level dust I ask you care to guard Shiva the destroyer.

[00:56:18] [SPEAKER_04]: He seems so smart.

[00:56:20] [SPEAKER_04]: There's this great story.

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_04]: This is going to be a much high level of this Oxford Don who's on this row boat sunbathing in a nude and all of a sudden this troop of students comes by and he takes his hat and he puts it on his face.

[00:56:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Because you think he would cover up his groin.

[00:56:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah that's smart.

[00:56:42] [SPEAKER_04]: That's smart.

[00:56:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Well say just for that.

[00:56:48] [SPEAKER_06]: Second I didn't know you were telling a joke.

[00:56:51] [SPEAKER_06]: No it's not.

[00:56:52] [SPEAKER_06]: It's a parable.

[00:56:54] [SPEAKER_06]: Humorous.

[00:56:58] [SPEAKER_04]: It's a message for our times.

[00:57:02] [SPEAKER_04]: It's a metaphor to call the arms.

[00:57:05] [SPEAKER_04]: It's a shit suit.

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_04]: It's a shit suit.

[00:58:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards.

[00:58:19] [SPEAKER_01]: At this point we'd like to thank everybody for all your support people who write us people who support us.

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[00:59:30] [SPEAKER_06]: For our last topic or maybe our last topic given that the Red Sox game is ever ever yeah after this episode.

[00:59:39] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know I thought it would be we did we've started this over six years ago.

[00:59:43] [SPEAKER_06]: This is our hundred and fiftieth episode and podcasts themselves have undergone quite a transformation also in academia.

[00:59:52] [SPEAKER_06]: I think what we were doing when we started this was regarded with mockery by a lot of people especially Sean Nichols but who still mocks it actually.

[01:00:04] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah and now I think podcasts have become more respected and also I think somewhat beloved by a lot of people.

[01:00:14] [SPEAKER_06]: It was more of a niche thing.

[01:00:17] [SPEAKER_06]: You were one of the few people I knew who were really into podcasts when I was trying to think about this idea you know of doing this.

[01:00:27] [SPEAKER_06]: I thought we'd talk about what's what makes what makes podcasts a good way of discussing ideas in the media in a way that doesn't seem as poisoned by this kind of toxic polarization

[01:00:44] [SPEAKER_06]: that we see in a lot of other venues there does seem like something about podcasts that allow people to really wrestle with things in a more in a more complex and nuanced way.

[01:00:56] [SPEAKER_04]: So well let me ask you guys just as a way to get into that you've been doing this for a while and like you say the landscape has changed but also you have changed so you know this is such an NPR question.

[01:01:10] [SPEAKER_04]: But what have you learned? What have you learned over the last I'm sorry.

[01:01:16] [SPEAKER_04]: I just feel like so awful say that but I'm actually curious like if you go to your past selves you listen to you know what do you do now that's better.

[01:01:26] [SPEAKER_04]: That is a good question.

[01:01:28] [SPEAKER_06]: See that that I don't know because we don't go to our past episodes.

[01:01:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah in some sense this has been over six years such a I don't know.

[01:01:44] [SPEAKER_01]: You know Tamela and I sometimes refer to it as our own therapy right where where one of the reasons we've been consistent in putting out episodes every other week or at least mostly every other week is that that it gives us some some

[01:02:00] [SPEAKER_01]: respite some some I don't know stimulation that we might not get from from our regular academic life and in doing that it's really hard for me to to say in what way I've changed because when you grow slow you know if we have grown at all like we

[01:02:30] [SPEAKER_01]: we're not as repugnant as we used to be according to some people.

[01:02:33] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah I'm not sure I you know I see a U shaped curve where you started off real foul and repugnant and anarchy and then and then you had your sort of middle period where you got worried maybe a bit of pushback maybe just age got to you and then all of a sudden for the last few episodes you really been getting back into your own you know

[01:02:56] [SPEAKER_06]: maybe it's the freedom of finally old age and so what I've learned I feel like is more or less about what we're good at or how we've improved but like I've learned a lot about the medium I feel like and also about our listeners and and

[01:03:26] [SPEAKER_06]: generous I mean you know our supporters are so generous and the people who interact with us and even when they disagree with us. I don't know like it's so rare that we get people trashing us or taking cheap shots at us.

[01:03:40] [SPEAKER_06]: It's almost always when they disagree with us in exactly the way you would hope that someone would disagree with you and I just think that's something and I don't know what it is but it's something that podcasts allow you to do that it doesn't seem like other media right now is is very good at.

[01:04:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I let me and I like just to add to that like I absolutely agree that that what we've learned in part because self reflection is hard is is that and it's in stark contrast to the way that people describe the polarization of

[01:04:17] [SPEAKER_01]: sort of public discourse where not only do people who disagree with us do so respectfully like like literally 99% of the time where they'll engage with us in the way that that you you would want human beings to engage with each other.

[01:04:33] [SPEAKER_01]: But we've seen I think in both Facebook discussion and in the Reddit discussions.

[01:04:40] [SPEAKER_01]: People who you know we have listeners who go from from like what what somebody might describe as is you know pretty far right to pretty far left and to see those people sometimes talking to each other in ways that are actually respectful.

[01:04:56] [SPEAKER_01]: It actually blows my mind and it gives me you know and we've said this before it actually it actually gives me some hope for for just humanity.

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh my God I regret my question so much.

[01:05:09] [SPEAKER_04]: You're both doing this.

[01:05:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Humanity just this current moment that we're in I think you can get really trapped in how people like throw tantrums on Twitter and think that that represents how people are really interacting and it just isn't like.

[01:05:27] [SPEAKER_04]: I think in some way to speak it speaks to what your kind of podcast is there's probably an official taxonomy but there's some podcasts like this American life and we call it a podcast.

[01:05:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Some shows you listen to in the car which are all curated and planned out but what you have as a conversation and you listen to two people who are likable and smarter having a conversation and you know it unless there's something really wrong with you.

[01:05:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe you'll turn it off if you're bored but if you listen to it you'll treat them as people and you'll connect them as people.

[01:05:58] [SPEAKER_04]: It's not some sort of show you're watching that you might have all sorts of views about you become part of the conversation and the podcast I like most are either conversations like this or interviews but I like that I like two or three people talking.

[01:06:12] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[01:06:13] [SPEAKER_06]: And if they're if they're you know we have a lot of people who say I feel like you guys are my friends you know even though I don't know you and I feel that way about podcasters that I listen to because there's that sort of informal atmosphere that there's a kind of warmth to it.

[01:06:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Something that I think people are drawn to I know I'm drawn to it like if I'm traveling and feeling lonely I'll put on a podcast and then I feel not lonely anymore even though I'm still by myself listening to my phone.

[01:06:43] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[01:06:43] [SPEAKER_01]: You know I am. I think that that the medium itself is really interesting. I mean it's it's allowed it's allowed for this kind of conversational lengthy discussion where you know the one thing that I have noticed and I noticed early on is that when say I'm talking to Tamler.

[01:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: You know we're looking at each other on Skype and it really feels like I'm just talking to Tamler there is you know we've we've all been on radio and maybe even on TV and the way in which you are aware of the audience really really influences the kind of thing you say and how you say it.

[01:07:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And with this you know after like a few minutes you just forget that this might be published to other people and you talk in an intimate that you know intimate not not in the way that Tamler would like but in an intimate fashion.

[01:07:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Forgetting and and I think that there is something like I have this theory that maybe complete bullshit but it is that because podcasts are so often consumed privately often with headphones on through your phone that there is something that adds to that feeling of knowing somebody

[01:07:58] [SPEAKER_01]: because you're in some ways doing what you would do when you're talking to someone else like you are you know there it's pumping right into your ear much the same way that a phone conversation would be pumped into your ear.

[01:08:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a low level reason why we actually come to really like and feel like we know other pocket because I certainly have that feeling for other podcasters.

[01:08:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean it to hear almost literally in people's heads.

[01:08:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[01:08:22] [SPEAKER_06]: But then there's also this though so as recline is a podcast that I listened to these that's an interview podcast and I feel like on his podcast there is so much really interesting wrestling with the position that he's supposed to believe and really entertaining objections serious objections to its views and he has guests who are

[01:08:51] [SPEAKER_06]: from various sides of the spectrum but even when he has someone on who agrees with him he's still they're both sort of pressing themselves and challenging themselves in a way that I definitely don't see on Vox like the website that he started which it just feels like it's pressing

[01:09:12] [SPEAKER_06]: and pounding a specific point of view without that same nuance.

[01:09:17] [SPEAKER_06]: You know I think it's not just that he's in my ear because I don't particularly like his voice but it's that there is something about this conversation structure that just allows for that in a way that media doesn't seem to right now or print media blog you know internet print internet media doesn't seem to it's like the I don't know if it's a payment thing.

[01:09:42] [SPEAKER_04]: It's a money thing but there's something.

[01:09:45] [SPEAKER_04]: And you know we complain a lot about the intellectual tone of the times and it's all you know hateful and terrible but but there's something we all have now which we didn't have 10 years ago, which is what you're talking about which is at any point you could go and listen to two or three intelligent people talk about interesting things often from different perspectives.

[01:10:07] [SPEAKER_04]: And you know you choose your podcast right.

[01:10:09] [SPEAKER_04]: It could just be you know accelerating this is genuinely no they didn't you know this wasn't always around.

[01:10:17] [SPEAKER_01]: You know the the other thing that I've really learned about our audience is that I think when Tamela and I started this we thought that our audience would largely be people who are in graduate school and in one of our fields like philosophy or psychology.

[01:10:35] [SPEAKER_01]: What I've learned over the years is whenever we say something like that.

[01:10:39] [SPEAKER_01]: We actually hear from people like the size of our audience has grown tremendously such that there is no possible way that they're all graduate students, but we also hear from people from all walks of life who actually have a real deep interest in the topics that we cover, even if they don't have any formal education in this.

[01:10:59] [SPEAKER_01]: That's that's that's fun in some ways.

[01:11:01] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like Paul you and I teach intro psych when we are able to talk in sort of normal language and get somebody excited about a topic that would not have been otherwise.

[01:11:12] [SPEAKER_01]: This is kind of like that writ large where we are getting people to think about get your cases.

[01:11:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and in that way what we're what we're what we're talking about podcasts and teaching can blur together so it always surprises me that of all the things I've done you know books and articles and so on.

[01:11:31] [SPEAKER_04]: It's possible intro psych courses courses had the most impact.

[01:11:36] [SPEAKER_04]: It came out on YouTube and on the Yale Open Yale and a lot of people watched it and where we're actually making a sequel.

[01:11:42] [SPEAKER_04]: This is the first announcement of it.

[01:11:43] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know when it's going to come out because we've been finishing touches, but on Coursera it will be intro psych and revised and expanded intro psych and I guess I wanted you know you both teach is to some extent the skills you get from from this sort of dialogue in pod in this podcast transferable to teaching ours entirely different.

[01:12:05] [SPEAKER_06]: That's a good question.

[01:12:06] [SPEAKER_06]: I think that when I feel like I'm teaching at my best it is where I'm show I'm showing positive excitement about a topic and that excitement and enthusiasm is infectious students and so they become excited about something they wouldn't have otherwise been.

[01:12:28] [SPEAKER_06]: And I do think that's our best podcast is when like the Borges episodes that we did recently or the you know my form of teaching that I love is when I'm like exploring this thing with the students like we're on the same team trying to get to the bottom of it.

[01:12:46] [SPEAKER_06]: And the thing that I'm doing is modeling a way of approaching it not telling them what to think or even telling them you know or even knowing myself what I think about it with Plato or something like that.

[01:13:01] [SPEAKER_06]: Like we're going into this like kind of as a team and that's how I feel like with these podcasts sometimes especially my favorite ones is that's the goal there is modeling a way of of talking about something but not modeling a desk you know a view or even knowing myself what my view is.

[01:13:24] [SPEAKER_04]: It's nice way to put it.

[01:13:26] [SPEAKER_01]: You know I agree with everything Tamla said said but but there's another sense in which I find it's really different from teaching which is that and maybe this is by the end of teaching intro psych which is your role is that of the expert and you are trying to make ideas palpable to to the students by doing it in an entertaining fashion and I think

[01:13:50] [SPEAKER_01]: but the the difference between teaching and even I think in a seminar where I have some expertise even though I'm trying to model thinking for them and and and as Tamla says treat him as as intellectual equals and struggle through ideas.

[01:14:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm still the expert.

[01:14:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And while I might jokingly say that I'm always the expert of this podcast.

[01:14:09] [SPEAKER_01]: The real difference is that I think what one of the things I'm most proud of is that.

[01:14:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Tamla and I approach these topics as real equals and if there's anything we model that I'm very proud of is that of vehement disagreement without bitterness or anger at least not in the episodes we publish that that it is fine to do that it is fine to disagree it and argue.

[01:14:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And even have heated arguments in a way that doesn't take away from the respect we have from each other.

[01:14:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And this you know this is gets back to the thing that we started with but I am proud of of that aspect and it feels really different to me.

[01:14:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah there's a kind of podcast that I don't like like the Pod Save America style of podcast where it is more just like everybody agrees with each other and they're just finding ways to to and I actually I'm just.

[01:15:09] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm thinking of it back when it was keeping at 1600 I don't think I've listened a single second of Pod Save America maybe they've changed.

[01:15:17] [SPEAKER_04]: No I listened to one last week and they haven't changed.

[01:15:20] [SPEAKER_04]: They have it's two it's people who have views which I largely agree with but cheering each other on and I find it impossible to listen to.

[01:15:29] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah that's how I that's how I felt about them back when you know like they were doing the Trump Hillary election and.

[01:15:37] [SPEAKER_06]: But there is there's a reason why they're so successful.

[01:15:42] [SPEAKER_06]: So like that I think that does appeal to some people it's the op it doesn't appeal to me at all like that's exactly what I think podcasts are good at avoiding.

[01:15:53] [SPEAKER_04]: There's a sweet spot which I think you guys nicely exemplify where you're not like cheering each other on you honestly got disagreement sometimes serious ones but you agree on enough to make it a productive conversation.

[01:16:04] [SPEAKER_04]: You know the reality is you stick to people have very different views often often they simply.

[01:16:10] [SPEAKER_04]: Over political or social sexual matters it's impossible for now to have a good conversation.

[01:16:15] [SPEAKER_04]: You need a mediator to make it a public debate or something but you know you're not going to get I don't know the next to so is Sam Harris to have a wonderful podcast together.

[01:16:26] [SPEAKER_04]: And so so so you but you need to there's a certain degree of disagreement I think which is necessary to make it interesting.

[01:16:34] [SPEAKER_06]: I think we agree more now than we used to it feels like our disagreements are rarer than they used to be.

[01:16:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah yeah I think so but I think part of it is that we've settled on knowing like I've settled on knowing what you like how for instance you view the role of say intuitions as primary and moral judgments and how you're a pluralist like I know that that it won't be so fruitful to.

[01:17:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Get into arguments about those things in the way that we did in earlier episodes because we kind of know already.

[01:17:11] [SPEAKER_01]: That I'm so art.

[01:17:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah you know if we're looking back at that you have that you have the intuition that you're right and therefore if we're looking at you must be right but if we're looking back I remember the worst fight you guys got into like that made it onto the podcast in my memory and it was something to do with child raising and sex differences.

[01:17:27] [SPEAKER_04]: And I was listening to it and it was like a mummy and daddy are fighting moment.

[01:17:32] [SPEAKER_04]: I felt mortified it was really it was it did fear onto the very unpleasant I kept waiting for it to be over and you guys were yelling and you know that was very it's very emotional curated right or not or no not that one no different one that we were that we just played excerpts of.

[01:17:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah no that one was a real all out fight and in some ways I'm glad that that is part of our corpus.

[01:17:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes I don't want to repeat that kind of performance but I'm glad it's out there because we genuinely were like yelling at each other and it says something about our listeners that some people actually email us that it was so uncomfortable and some people say that they love it.

[01:18:11] [SPEAKER_01]: It's their fate.

[01:18:12] [SPEAKER_04]: No I very much did that uncomfortable by the way this makes me realize you could take all your 150 episodes God knows how many hours put them into an AI and maybe you guys be superfluous you could just have a data trunk and then to have versions of you.

[01:18:27] [SPEAKER_04]: It's the worst black mirror episode.

[01:18:30] [SPEAKER_01]: It is.

[01:18:31] [SPEAKER_01]: It's exactly like a black mirror episode it's exactly like that one what's the name of it where we're right back husband.

[01:18:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Where we're like we have enough data.

[01:18:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Now part of the question is is the kind of data we've generated.

[01:18:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Is it genuine enough that it's getting at our true selves.

[01:18:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah I think it is that's the thing I think I think it might be.

[01:18:53] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it might be there is there's that from my writing and I really do try to write in my voice and I try to write as like who I am but it still is different than like I take great comfort in the fact that if I die tomorrow my family can listen to these podcasts and get a

[01:19:13] [SPEAKER_06]: memory of like a legitimate memory it's like a photo album of who I am if they ever want to do that you know like I do feel like this is this is just who I am like I'm not putting on a pose here for better or for worse.

[01:19:27] [SPEAKER_04]: Given the range of things you guys have talked about and the personal nature of some of them yeah yeah those episodes are each one of you.

[01:19:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think that this could have lasted if we were acting I mean so in some sense when we go on on the radio for instance.

[01:19:46] [SPEAKER_01]: You are playing the role of the expert professor on something and I've never felt like you know this goes back to the just I'm having a discussion with Tamler.

[01:19:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I really do feel like this is my true self and if it because just because I wouldn't have the fucking patients to act this long yeah like I just it would it would be miserable like this is me this is me.

[01:20:06] [SPEAKER_01]: This really is me like if you meet me like I will talk like this you know.

[01:20:11] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah I know both of you off podcast you are exactly as you seem for better or worse you know people know exactly what you're like.

[01:20:20] [SPEAKER_06]: I met a listener in Michigan and he's a very cool guy and we just I don't know we had drinks and had some food and we were talking and then like it was probably two and a half hours and at the end he was like I gotta tell you this is so serene.

[01:20:36] [SPEAKER_06]: I feel like I'm on the pot because I think it really was like I was just talking to him the same way I talked today.

[01:20:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Paul do you think that that this is it have your views changed about say the value of doing something like this like now that you've been on a lot of podcasts.

[01:21:01] [SPEAKER_04]: A lot of people want to start podcast is this is a good use of the time as yeah as a professor so so a while ago Robert Wright sort of gave me and some other Yale professors.

[01:21:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Laurie Santos and Josh Knob and a student then student Jonathan Phillips a sort of chance to interview whoever he wanted to on his site and we did that a while and then we kind of ran out of steam.

[01:21:29] [SPEAKER_04]: And I realize now I was probably doing it wrong.

[01:21:32] [SPEAKER_04]: I could imagine this being you know an enormous amount of fun and actually a very valuable use of time but I wouldn't want I'd want to have something like the two of you have.

[01:21:41] [SPEAKER_04]: I would want to have a sort of thing with somebody else who just kind of we just talk about stuff interviews can be great but I think this is better.

[01:22:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:22:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And then they do just we brought on somebody to have a conversation because often we talk about something that may not actually be their work or central to their work and those are the most fun guests to me.

[01:22:22] [SPEAKER_06]: And this is what you've always been right like that's the thing yeah Paul has always been not an interview even when we're talking about some PC wrote in the New York or Atlantic or whatever it's like you've always been we're having a conversation and other guests haven't been like that including guests that we think.

[01:22:41] [SPEAKER_06]: I thought would be really good for the podcast but then all of a sudden it just becomes an interview.

[01:22:46] [SPEAKER_04]: So I have to I have to tell you a story based on my blogging his thing which is that I had somebody on who somebody I liked a lot respect a lot and very famous and I think we have an hour slot.

[01:22:57] [SPEAKER_04]: So ahead of time I make up some questions to get us going so we have a conversation like what are you talking about but the person I'm talking has been interviewed thousands of times and so I would say oh so I have a thought and then he would very well.

[01:23:11] [SPEAKER_04]: I would read the sink leaf and very clearly answer it and then it will and I moved to my question number two and he was like I was you know like NPR where.

[01:23:19] [SPEAKER_04]: And then it was like a minute and I had asked all my questions and then I'm there full of flop sweat and anxiety saying you know so like you know I don't know you've got any brothers and sisters what are you like.

[01:23:35] [SPEAKER_04]: And it was terrible favorite color it was terrible.

[01:23:37] [SPEAKER_04]: And so, yeah, I like the fact

[01:23:41] [SPEAKER_04]: that this is not an interview set up.

[01:23:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like I wanna say really quickly,

[01:23:48] [SPEAKER_01]: part of, you know, Paul's has, as Thimo said,

[01:23:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I think are, you know, best and perhaps most popular guests.

[01:23:58] [SPEAKER_01]: But I learned a lot about teaching

[01:24:01] [SPEAKER_01]: but also about arguing from Paul.

[01:24:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And Paul's style, it really was Paul's style of talking

[01:24:08] [SPEAKER_01]: and being sort of excited about ideas

[01:24:11] [SPEAKER_01]: and not being afraid to disagree and challenge me,

[01:24:13] [SPEAKER_01]: including in my teaching style,

[01:24:15] [SPEAKER_01]: like T.A. Paul for your intro course.

[01:24:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And maybe your cause of sweet,

[01:24:19] [SPEAKER_01]: but is there anybody that influenced your style?

[01:24:22] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, a lot of people.

[01:24:24] [SPEAKER_04]: I guess three in particular,

[01:24:25] [SPEAKER_04]: my undergraduate advisor, John McNamara

[01:24:28] [SPEAKER_04]: got me into this business.

[01:24:29] [SPEAKER_04]: And in some way, I think the sort of style

[01:24:31] [SPEAKER_04]: of work I do is influenced by him.

[01:24:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Susan Carey is my main advisor,

[01:24:36] [SPEAKER_04]: more than anybody influenced how I deal with graduate students.

[01:24:41] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, so which is more one on one, I keep a small shot.

[01:24:45] [SPEAKER_01]: So she was abusive?

[01:24:46] [SPEAKER_01]: She was abusive.

[01:24:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, abuse of violent, unpredictable.

[01:24:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Sexually harassed you.

[01:24:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Exactly though.

[01:24:52] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm just passing on, passing on the cycle of violence

[01:24:55] [SPEAKER_04]: and pain.

[01:24:56] [SPEAKER_05]: The cycle of violence.

[01:24:58] [SPEAKER_04]: And then definitely Steve Pinker.

[01:25:01] [SPEAKER_04]: A lot of my writing and my talks

[01:25:06] [SPEAKER_04]: and my public presentation is a sort of

[01:25:08] [SPEAKER_04]: actually very conscious attempt to do what he does.

[01:25:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, thanks Paul for coming on this.

[01:25:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't imagine a more festive

[01:25:16] [SPEAKER_01]: 150th episode as rambling as I might be.

[01:25:19] [SPEAKER_01]: A more masturbatory.

[01:25:22] [SPEAKER_01]: It's self-congratulatory.

[01:25:23] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a noble game.

[01:25:24] [SPEAKER_01]: No, we've been interacting with each other, Tamler.

[01:25:27] [SPEAKER_04]: That's true.

[01:25:28] [SPEAKER_04]: But thanks for having me on, guys.

[01:25:30] [SPEAKER_04]: This is, I'm honored to be part of your 130th.

[01:25:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Congratulations.

[01:25:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Thanks Paul.

[01:25:36] [SPEAKER_04]: Thanks Paul.

[01:25:37] [SPEAKER_07]: The man has fallen.

[01:26:17] [SPEAKER_11]: Man, just a very bad wizard.