Very Bad Wizards

13 Aug 2026

Tamler and David discuss books 5 & 6 of The Odyssey, where we follow Odysseus as he finally leaves Calypso's Island and returns to the realm of the human. We also finally pick a name for the podcast.

6 Aug 2026

Welcome to The Lotus Eaters! This is part 2 of our 12 part series on Homer's Odyssey that will be released every Thursday. The series was supported by our Patreon community, but we are now making it

6 Aug 2026

Welcome to The Lotus Eaters! This is part 1 of our 12 part series on Homer's Odyssey that will be released every Thursday. The series was supported by our Patreon community, but we are now making it

4 Aug 2026

Dropping this a week early - after completing a 12-part series on Homer's Odyssey for our beloved Patreon supporters, we now dive into Christopher Nolan's version of this epic tale. We're mixed on

28 Jul 2026

First it was a book, then it was a groundbreaking movie… that's right it's Solaris. After having discussed the Stanislaw Lem novel in the previous episode, David and Tamler try to make contact with

14 Jul 2026

David and Tamler tackle the first half of the VBW Madness topic tournament winner, Stanislaw Lem's science fiction masterpiece, Solaris, about a mysterious ocean planet that resists all attempts to

30 Jun 2026

The great Robert Wright returns to the podcast to talk about his new book The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning. We debate the magnitude of AI's potential impact, the

16 Jun 2026

What are the legitimate ways to inquire about the nature of the universe? We have science, metaphysics, phenomenological inquiry, but what about mystical and meditative practices? David and Tamler

26 May 2026

David and Tamler do another tier ranking--this time on philosophical thought experiments, so as not to further alienate our chemistry-adjacent listeners. We hit most of the big ones: Pascal's wager,

12 May 2026

David and Tamler talk about Jorge Luis Borges' disorienting short story "The Other." A 70-year-old Borges sits on a bench by the Charles River and who should he encounter but himself as a

28 Apr 2026

In another Back 2 Basics episode, David and Tamler talk about Plato's "Crito," a dialogue that takes place two days before Socrates' death by hemlock. His friend Crito wants him to escape, but

14 Apr 2026

David and Tamler return to the strange world of Nikolai Gogol and discuss his absurdist masterpiece "The Overcoat," a story that both calls for and steadfastly resists interpretation. But first we

31 Mar 2026

David and Tamler return to the work of Richard Shweder and colleagues, focusing this time on his foundational paper "The "Big Three" of Morality (Autonomy, Community, Divinity) and the "Big Three"

17 Mar 2026

David and Tamler cross the border into Denis Villeneuve's taut and propulsive thriller Sicario, the story of an FBI agent who gets pulled into a task force drawn from the shadiest elements of the US

24 Feb 2026

David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga

10 Feb 2026

Are you a college student or about to be one? Do you have friends or family in college? This is the most important episode of your life. David and Tamler do something a little different this

27 Jan 2026

David and Tamler return to Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and Profane and discuss the chapter "Sacred Time and Myths." How does viewing time as circular give us a periodic window into the sacred? What

13 Jan 2026

David and Tamler consecrate their podcast with a discussion of "The Sacred and the Profane" by Mircea Eliade. We focus on the first chapter on sacred spaces, where the divine breaks through (or

23 Dec 2025

David and Tamler dive into Plato's Euthyphro, part of our intermittent Back 2 Basics series. A young cocksure priest, confident in his holiness, bumps into Socrates on his way to court to prosecute

9 Dec 2025

David and Tamler return to William James' monumental "Principles of Psychology", this time wading through his famous chapter "The Stream of Thought." We talk about his rejection of empiricist

25 Nov 2025

David and Tamler begin their long journey home to Homer's Odyssey, the tale of king Odysseus' 10 year journey home after the Trojan war (maybe the greatest story ever told). We dive into the first

11 Nov 2025

David and Tamler return to one of their favorites, Frans Kafka, this time on his beautiful and distressing short story "The Hunger Artist," a story that brims with metaphorical possibilities but

28 Oct 2025

David and Tamler transfer their libidinal energy to Freud's 1917 article "Mourning and Melancholia," in which he tries to understand what's going on with depression, attempts to distinguish it from

14 Oct 2025

David and Tamler share some brief thoughts about Paul Thomas Anderson's latest masterpiece One Battle After Another before going deep on his most underrated movie Inherent Vice. We explore the many

30 Sep 2025

What is the psychology of shame? Is the experience of shame a human universal? How can we investigate the nature of shame across cultures? David and Tamler dive into Richard Shweder's "Towards a

16 Sep 2025

David and Tamler go big game hunting and explore their first Hemingway short story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." We dig into his characteristic themes of courage, cowardice, shifting

2 Sep 2025

David and Tamler tackle the topic chosen by our beloved Patreon supporters in the first VBW madness tournament – Schopenhauer. We discuss his essays "On the Sufferings of the World" and "The Vanity

12 Aug 2025

David and Tamler go long on McDonagh's 2008 masterpiece "In Bruges." We talk about the terrific performances and all the weighty themes - sin, guilt, redemption, honor, language, and very

29 Jul 2025

David and Tamler try to wrap their heads around the metaphysics of past and future via the Borges essay(s) "A New Refutation of Time." What does it mean to be a time skeptic or a time realist for

15 Jul 2025

David and Tamler return to David Hume's somewhat slippery brand of skepticism, this time focusing Chapter 12 of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Plus speaking of things to be skeptical

1 Jul 2025

David and Tamler screw their courage to the sticking place and talk about their first Shakespeare play – The Tragedy of Macbeth. Plus we select 16 topics for our first VBW topic tournament

10 Jun 2025

David and Tamler try to wrap their heads around the predictive processing theory of the mind and brain function and talk about a paper that applies the framework to meditation practices. But first a

27 May 2025

David and Tamler heed the call to journey into the realm of Joseph Campbell. What are the unifying elements shared by myths and religions across time and culture? Does myth give us a portal into the

20 May 2025

We kick off our Bonus "Noir Summer" series with Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly" (1956). While the rest of the bonus series will be for Patreon subscribers only, the first is free to all.

6 May 2025

David and Tamler return to their happy place and talk about two pieces by JL Borges – the story "Shakespeare's Memory" and the [essay/story/poem/literary sketch??] "Everything and Nothing."

22 Apr 2025

David and Tamler talk about two famous puzzles that for different reasons have bedeviled the rationalist community – The Monty Hall Problem and Newcomb's "paradox." Why is it so hard for people to

8 Apr 2025

David and Tamler welcome Barry Lam back to the show. In the first segment we violate one of our own rules by talking about his new book "Fewer Rules, Better People", a full frontal attack on David's

25 Mar 2025

VBW favorite Paul Bloom joins us to break down the Severance season finale and season 2 in general. We all agree that it's a much-needed return to form and debate some of the choices and questions

11 Mar 2025

What has four thumbs and can effortlessly glide from the a priori to the a posteriori in a single episode? These guys. In the first segment we tackle a brand new paper called "Being Exalted: an A

25 Feb 2025

Everyone knows Tamler hates numbers but he's not the only one who worries about them. We talk about the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen's excellent paper "Value Capture" which examines how the

11 Feb 2025

What makes something weird? What makes something eerie? David and Tamler wander into Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie to learn more about these concepts. How does weird art expand our

28 Jan 2025

It's Back 2 Basics: Psychology edition! Do coins look bigger to poor people? Do hills look steeper to people wearing heavy backpacks? What's the difference between perception and attention, or

14 Jan 2025

David and Tamler celebrate their 300th episode with a deep dive into the movie that inspired the podcast's title. Why is "The Wizard of Oz" the most influential American movie of all time? How does

24 Dec 2024

David and Tamler wrap up the new year talking about intellectual virtues and Rachel Fraser's excellent essay "Against Humility." What is intellectual humility exactly and do we need it for knowledge

10 Dec 2024

Why do we punish people? How did our punishment practices evolve and what is their primary function? David and Tamler talk about a new paper that examines punitive justice in three small-scale

26 Nov 2024

David and Tamler face off with the Misfit in Flannery O'Connor's classic short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find." We sort through the biblical allusions, dark comedy, nihilism, and the possibility

12 Nov 2024

David and Tamler share a few brief thoughts on the election and then raise some questions about Tucker Carlson being attacked by a demon as he slept in the woods with his wife and four dogs (still

29 Oct 2024

David and Tamler hop into their Scooby Van and drive into Tobe Hooper's mad and macabre horror classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  How does this endlessly imitated movie still have the power to

8 Oct 2024

CD Broad called induction "the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy." As a matter of habit, we're all confident that the sun will rise tomorrow morning and that we can predict where the

24 Sep 2024

David and Tamler crawl up a riverbank, kiss the mud, and dream a discussion of Borges' "The Circular Ruins." We sort through various interpretations and allusions, the story as a metaphor for