Ethics and Chill

Gabe Fleisher has been a political junkie since he was a child, starting his now-famous Wake Up To Politics daily newsletter before the age of ten. Now Gabe has a podcast on St. Louis Public Radio, and is blazing a trail as one of America’s most promising political journalists. Gabe joins James to discuss the portrayal of politics in pop culture, exploring the idealism of “The West Wing,” the dystopian world of “House of Cards,” and the doltishness of “VEEP.”

“Animal Crossing: New Horizons” is a pop-culture phenomenon. The new installment of the long-running Nintendo series came out just as many of us were starting our COVID-19-induced lockdowns, and offers millions of people an escape, giving players a chance to create their own island getaways. But what is the etiquette of “Animal Crossing”? How should we act when we visit another player’s island, and why does it matter? James discusses this pressing question with an “Animal Crossing” super-fan, Rachel Reams.

Is immortality a good thing? Death is the great inevitability of hum an life – we all know, deep down, that one day we will die. And most of us don’t want to die. So, for millennia, human beings have sought methods –religious, occult, and technological – to avoid our inevitable fate. Mostly, people have considered it a good thing: we want to be immortal. Pop culture works like Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon (recently made into a new Netflix series), on the other hand, say “Not so fast! Maybe immortality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!” And that’s what this episode is about: using Altered Carbon, and the world it presents, to explore the desirability of immortality.

When trainers battle with Pokémon, is it as bad as dog fighting? And how about eating Pokémon – what’s up with that? This week James is joined by Dr. Jen McCreight, the scientist in charge of Research Communications at 23andMe, a genomics PhD, and lifelong Pokémon lover! Pokémon is one of the most successful pop culture creations ever, beloved in its incarnations as a video game and anime series, as well as numerous films and a trading card game! But the series, which features human trainers raising little monsters and causing them to fight one another, provokes numerous ethical questions which parallel many of the discussions we have today over animal rights…

LaShana Lewis returns for a spoiler-filled wrap-up of Picard, which recently dropped its Season 1 finale. What did we think of the show? How did it develop the ethical themes we explored in our earlier episode on the virtues of Jean-Luc Picard? Was the show “Star Trekky” enough? Join us as we talk all about Picard!

When do artificial intelligences become people? This is one of the most profound ethical questions of all, a question raised by numerous works of science fiction over many decades. Using the 2014 film “Ex Machina” as a springboard, James explores this question with guest Meia Chita-Tegmark, co-founder of the Future of Life Institute and human-robot interaction expert. We ask how we would know if an AI deserves rights, what the way we treat robots tells us about ourselves, and why some people clean up before running their Roomba!

Dive into the dark, disturbing, yet compelling world of “death media” with self-described “death media weirdo” Kat Weir! Death media is the increasingly popular genre of podcasts, TV-shows, films etc. focused on death and the darker side of life, and here we ask “Is it morally wrong to consume death media? How about to create, host, or share it?” Warning: this episode is not for kids – listen at your own risk!

In the beginning, games simulated simple things: a bat and ball, driving a car. More recently, however, games have started exploring morality, using different ways to give players choices between right and wrong. How do video games simulate morality, and do they effectively convey how it feels to make difficult moral decisions? James explores, using examples from Fable, Mass Effect, the Telltale games, and Planescape: Torment.

How can we prevent our minds from being taken over by dangerous ideas? This week James is joined by philosopher Andy Norman, who previews his new book which is all about how to protect our minds from Mind Flayers! How can we make sure we are thinking well, and won't be overcome by dogmatism and irrationality?

Who gets to tell which stories? If you are a man, can you successfully and ethically write stories starring women? If you are straight, will you ever really be able to capture the experience of being gay, and should you try? Using the novels of Rick Riordan, the incredibly popular fantasy author for children, as a springboard, James discusses this question with Amanda Poppei, Leader of the Washington Ethical Society.