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Full professor of philosophy at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and sometimes David Cross impersonator Ryan Jenkins returns to Micro-Digressions to discuss the dangers of AI. The conversation covers such matters as the AI-alignment problem and why Chat GPT can't be horny.

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Mark Oppenheimer from Brain in a Vat discusses controversies surrounding hate speech in South Africa.

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Philosophers J.P. Andrew, Mark Oppenheimer, Jason Werbeloff, Nicholas Delon, and Jason Brennan discuss their worst philosophical nightmares.

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Marcus Arvan returns to MD to talk about his new book, Why It's Ok to be a Moderate, which you can find here:

Amazon.com: Why It's OK to Be a Moderate: 9781032613864: Arvan, Marcus: Books

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Nathan Cofnas joins Spencer Case to discuss the nature of the political ideology/movement known as "wokeness." Cofnas argues that wokeness follows from accepting environmental differences combined with post-Christian morality. Case partly agrees with this analysis, but places greater emphasis on moral egalitarianism than empirical egalitarianism. Both interlocutors agree that wokeness isn't going away anytime soon, despite wishful thinking to the contrary. 

Cofnas' newsletter can be found here:

https://ncofnas.com/

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Oliver Traldi challenges the standard conservative model of academic freedom in his article, "Defusing Academic Freedom." Link here:

Defusing Academic Freedom

Spencer and Oliver discuss. Topics include: does the university have a univocal purpose? Does a truth norm really justify academic freedom as it's ordinarily understood and practiced. 

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Jake Monaghan joins Spencer to discuss his new book, Ethical Policing. The discussion covers such questions as: what makes policing legitimate? What sorts of considerations undermine that legitimacy? How can police appropriately balance order and respect for individual freedom in a non-ideal world?

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Matthew Adelstein returns to Micro-Digressions to talk about the arguments for the existence of God at the top of his tier list. You can find his complete ranking of arguments for God's existence here:

Arguments For God Tier-list - by Bentham's Bulldog

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Mike Huemer and His Offensiveness Steve Kershnar join Spencer to discuss free will and moral responsibility.

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Matthew Adelstein, the prolific young writer who posts at "Bentham's Bulldog" on Substack, has recently attracted attention for a tier ranking of philosophical arguments for the existence of God. Matthew and Spencer discuss the arguments at the bottom of his list, ascending from arguments that get an "F" to one in the C tier.