Conner Habib, seeks to untangle the good from the bad in order to find what makes us human.

photo by: Skeptiko

[Clip 00:00:00 – 00:00:20]

That’s a clip from the movie I, Robot. It covers territory that’s pretty well-worn at this point. Will consciousness rise up in the robots and take over the world? But I think there’s a deeper and more relevant and certainly more immediate question that comes to mind with what it means to being human, and it’s explored quite beautifully by today’s guest, Conner Habib. 

Conner Habib: [00:00:47] I now use the question rather than what is consciousness, that is important to me, but I think what is the human being is my question that I try to unfurl everything from.

I can’t just do this bullshit thing, which people do all the time, which I find completely objectionable, which is, well, you just take the good and you leave the bad, just move on with the good stuff, because that doesn’t address the foundational thing that you bring up all the time. What I need to do is find out how the good and the bad are entangled and liberate that philosophy from itself.

 

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Alex Tsakiris: [00:01:20] Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. I’m your host Alex Tsakiris, and today we welcome Conner Habib back to Skeptiko. 

Conner is the creator of host of Against Everyone with Conner Habib, a fantastically named interview, podcast, video series that explores sexuality, spirituality, science. Oh, and just a whole bunch of other stuff that is always interesting, especially when Conner does it.

He has a new book in the works, or it might even be out, we’ll have to hear about that. It’s titled Hawk Mountain. And he recently pinged me about Why Evil Matters. So we’re going to have to see why he wanted to poke the bear there.

Conner, welcome back to Skeptiko, thanks so much for joining me.

Conner Habib: [00:02:11] Hey Alex, it’s really nice to talk with you again. Hi. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:02:15] So what is going on? What’s going on with Against Everyone and what’s going on with the new book and what’s going on in Ireland?

Conner Habib: [00:02:22] Yeah, so, since we last talked Against Everyone has pretty much taken off, it’s going really great. And I’ve just sort of been getting deeper and deeper into the conversations and letting myself go a little bit more because the whole point was I wanted big talk, not small talk. And so just letting myself get deeper into topics with thinkers who I respect and kind of abandoning… Also, I’m moving away from LA. I moved out of that, sort of current, you always have to be visible and successful. I kind of moved out of that when I moved to Ireland. I was like, I’m just going to do what I care about, and then surprise, surprise, of course the show blows up after that. Right? 

So there’s that. The novel I wrote, which is called Hawk Mountain, doesn’t come out until next year, but I did sell it, which is great. It’s a very dark, very dark book about repression and love and murder. So it’s a bit of a crime book, and I’m very excited for that.