Discrete as I wanna be.
Thom wanted to know: is there such a thing as freewill? Jan's nephew thinks God only cares when you're sad, broken, or dead. Bob's riding hard for complexity. Don won't spoil a 100-year-old book. And I confessed I find determinism comforting—because we're still the vessels through which it all flows, still experiencing choice even if it's not "free."
Sportsball is an Ethical Circus
Had sick kid, aging is stupid, and I missed Scoundrels. This week you get the raw recording instead of my usual reflection. The whole mess of wrestling with sports and if they have to be ethical - like at their heart are they possible without ethics? Is it cheating if everyone's doing it? What's the difference between fair and ethical? Listen and tell me what you think of this experiment.
Three Philosophers Walk Into a Bar:
Fifteen years ago, a host named Jessica Levity told us comedy is "an instrument of inquiry and insurrection." Last night we asked: what's the relationship between philosophy and comedy? Analyzing the question might be ruining the joke. But we did it anyway.
Orwell, Huxley, and the Influencer Industrial Complex
Are we living in 1984 or Brave New World? Jane keeps buying back her own books. John used to trust Eisenhower like Santa Claus. We spent the night trying to figure out if there's a healthy balance between openness and restriction of information—or if the spectrum itself is the problem
Spiderthink was supposed to be cooler
If a lion could speak, would we understand? If spiders gained intelligence, would they think like us? Can we imagine what it was like to be a medieval serf? We spent the night exploring whether our imagination has limits—or if the limits have us.
Are You in Your Gollum Stage?
"I've got three words for you, Seth: Star Trek." Bob thought maybe everything that makes us human is longing itself. Richard called it a persistent delusion we should let go of. Tonia said she's grown to view it as a precious sign of vitality. The room was laughing through a lot of this, the kind of playful engagement that comes when people are genuinely wrestling with ideas together.