Very Bad Wizards

Episode 224: Hurts So Good (With Paul Bloom)

November 2nd, 2021  |  1 hr 42 mins

nft, pain, paul bloom, pleasure, the sweet spot

VBW favorite Paul Bloom joins us to talk about the pleasures of suffering, flow states, Sisyphus, meaning, and dating questions. Check out his new book "The Sweet Spot" which comes out today! Plus what are NFTs and why does every hate them?

Episode 193: Free Wanting (Frankfurt's "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person")

July 21st, 2020  |  1 hr 28 mins

frankfurt, free will, fuck, pain

David and Tamler want to go old school and discuss a classic Frankfurt paper on free will. But do they want to want that?

Are they free to want
what they want to want?
Are they free to will what they want to will
or to have the will they want?

And if that’s not Dr. Seuss enough for you, shouting “FUCK” increases pain tolerance but what about shouting “TWIZPIPE”?

Episode 116: Pain, Pleasure, and Peer-Reviewed Penises

May 31st, 2017  |  1 hr 16 mins

conceptual penises, happiness, pain, pleasure, sokal hoax, taste

David and Tamler break down the latest small-stakes academic controversy--yes the one about conceptual penises. Does the recent "Sokal-like" hoax expose the ideological extremism of gender studies? Or does it show that certain portions of the "skeptic" community are susceptible to the same biases as their opponents? In the main segment they discuss the problems with measuring pain, pleasure, and happiness. When your doctor asks you to rate your pain between 1 and 10 and you say a 7, does your '7' reflect the same subjective experience as another person's '7'? (That depends--have you experienced childbirth?) How can we get more accurate readings of pain and pleasure across different people with different experiences? Most importantly, which number gets you the Vicodin?