Ethics and Chill

What is the meaning of honor? James is joined by Prof. Helen De Cruz, the Danforth Chair in the Department of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, to discuss the meaning of honor in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Their wide-ranging discussion goes all over the philosophical landscape, so don’t miss this one!

OnlyFans – a content creation network launched in 2016 – has quickly become a pop culture phenomenon, allowing fans to subscribe to creators’ channels and get privileged access to their content. Because OnlyFans is one of the few sites which allows creators to post explicit sexual and pornographic content, it has become extremely popular with sex workers: today a large proportion of the content on the site is people selling access sexy photos and video. James talks to Kaden and Tyler Hylls – two of the most successful content creators on OnlyFans – about their sex work, exploring the ethics of creating and selling sexual content. What are the reactions of fans to their work? Has it changed their relationship with each other? Do they think about sex differently now? Explore all this and more with this very adult episode of Ethics and Chill! (Seriously, this one is not for kids.)

Wasteland 3 – the new roleplaying game from inXile Entertainment – enables the player to make numerous choices which affect the simulated game world. As such it is a fascinating examination of consequentialist ethics in video game form! What is consequentialism, and how does Wasteland 3 help us understand it? James explores in this solo episode.

Aaron Rabinowitz, host of the Embrace the Void Podcast, joins James to talk about the AI algorithms which are ruining our lives! How does YouTube decide what videos we should watch next? How does Facebook determine what posts should invade our eyeballs? And do these algorithms help or hurt us? Find the answers to these questions – and hear Aaron’s 'tight five' on why Blade Runner is a bad film – in Episode 24 of Ethics and Chill!

Chris Stedman is an author, interfaith activist, and lover of pop culture – particularly pop music. Just before the launch of his new book “IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives”, Chris joins James to talk about how pop culture shapes our identity. How do the pop stars we love to love and love to hate shape who we are? Fine out more about Chris at his website.

In this special live show James discusses the ethics of Star Trek with filmmaker Scott Baker. Part of the Virtual Trek Con, Scott and James explore how Star Trek examines ethical themes throughout its many decades on air. Check out the video of their discussion on YouTube.

Post-apocalyptic fiction puts humanity in impossible situations in order to explore how we react: when civilization breaks down, what’s left of us? The Last of Us parts 1 and 2 explore this question more thoroughly than any other videogame, and in this episode James explores the moral themes and ethical lessons of both games. There are major spoilers for both titles, and since both games are very violent, this episode is not one for the kids.

Recently Wizards of the Coast – owners and developers of the Dungeons & Dragons games and franchise – outlined how they intended to change their games to remove objectional racist stereotypes. This, only a few weeks after our earlier episode in which James and Corey Clapp called them to do just that! The impact of this podcast is truly incredible! This week, Corey returns to discuss the planned changes to D&D, and to ask whether they go far enough.

Martin Casas has had an unusual career: he worked in politics for years, starting as a White House intern, then supporting the campaigns of Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, and most recently St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson. But in recent years, he’s opened comic bookstore, Apotheosis Comics and Lounge. Apotheosis is an explicitly social-justice oriented bookstore, a community venue which seeks to use comic book stories to promote social change. James speaks with Martin about how superheroes have inspired and supported social justice movements through the decades.

Are there ethical limits on comedy? Can a joke be so extreme, so offensive, or just so mean that it becomes unethical? James is joined by actress, writer, and comedian Nadia Kamil to discuss “Can comedy go too far?” Using a notorious bit by Stewart Lee about Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond as their starting point, Nadia and James explore the ethical boundaries of comedy.