What is the State for?
A full audio recording of the Scoundrels session on, “What is the State for?”
Why Do We Hold On to Zombie Ideas?
We talked about why we hold onto disproven ideas. Jim said capitalism is the zombie idea we can't let go of. Jane said zombie ideas come from hope and wait underground to be useful again. Maybe we don't want to feel stupid. We talked about a fake disease called bixonomania, General McChrystal throwing away his portrait of Robert E Lee painting, and being surrounded by a world we can't comprehend so we use heuristics to survive. Also: cognito hazards and Seth wondering what it means to be wise in a post-truth, post-trust society.
Is There a Hierarchy to Morality?
Can you be moral toward your neighbor if you don't love yourself? Should everyone have water, or is that unfair? Tonia wants us to get better at identifying where we depart. A Korean student knows that you are your relationships, without them you cease to exist. We're killers who sometimes bless our kills. Maybe finding common ground is just imperial posturing. Maybe it's the most interesting work in philosophy.
What Exactly is Death?
What exactly is death? The question seems obvious but gets slippery fast. We explored death as the cessation of change, the end of Pete-ing and Seth-ing, a cultural decision about which indicators matter. We talked about consciousness decomposing and why we keep picking disruptive versions of death in our culture. Jan's mother-in-law apologized in a warehouse dream. Pete wondered if you can die if you're not self-aware. Max held onto his grandpa calling him a good kid. And Luka wants to start a cemetery with fruit trees instead of gravestones.
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.