It’s been a helluva year. Join us as we relive 2017 and ring in the new year.

As we close in on three years of Six Pack Philosophy, we start the new year by taking our traditional look back at 2017 and see what sort of predictions we can screw up for the next year. We’ve carefully culled through all the beer ratings, to bring to you the best of the best, including the only beer that’s ever gotten a full 5 star rating by any of six pack philosophers. And while we indulge in the best beer of the year, we’ll be discussing some of the best and worst of humanity and imagine what’s coming down the pipes next for the show, society, and philosophy.

The Beer:

Lizard of Koz – Founders Brewing Company

Brother Thelonius – North Coast Brewing Company

Old Rasputin – North Coast Brewing Company

Hefe-weizen by Paulaner Brewing Company

Three Philosophers by Ommegang Brewing Company

Many people spend this time of year thinking about the meaning of Christmas, but this year we look at how this time of year came to be.

Many cultures have had something to celebrate this time of year, from the “pagan” celebration of the winter solstice to father Christmas, Saint Nicholas and many others. In this episode, we explore how those celebrations conspired to create what we know today. Later on in the episode (the reason for the spoiler alert), we discuss the morality of Santa, so be sure to send the kids (and Mike) away for this part.

The Beer:

We swapped out the beer for eggnog this time. Find the recipe here and watch Anastasia and John whip it up here.

What place do gender roles have in our society?

There are clear differences between men and women, and even if the only differences you recognize are biological, they can’t be ignored. However, those differences have developed over time into prescribed roles that each person identifying within those groups are expected to fall into. As society evolves, we’re starting to see significant friction over the ways those roles seem to be changing, further “complicated” by the concept of gender fluidity. It’s something that tends to make people uncomfortable, which is why we’re diving head first into it.

The Beer:

The Temptress – Lakewood Brewing Company

**quietly enough you don’t pick up on it** You want to share Six Pack Philosophy with your friends.

So you’ve probably heard about the hocus pocus of subliminal messaging, maybe even going so far as some sort of Manchurian Candidate level stuff, but what is it and does it really work? In this episode, we attempt to define it and manage to find even that difficult since this type of “communication” seems to be interpreted so differently by everyone who talks about it. Once we possibly get past that point, we try to tackle the question of its morality.

And once this episode is over, if you’ve decided you want to give subliminal messaging a shot, keep an eye out here for the Six Pack Philosophy self-help subliminal audio affirmations.

 

The Beer:

Liquid Truth Serum IPA – Dogfish Head Brewing Company

The Links:

Can this feature of the early US stand the test of time?

It may seem like this discussion of the electoral college is ill-timed considering the last presidential election happened over a year ago at this point and the next one is nearly three years away, but if I’m honest, we didn’t really want to talk about it during or right after the last election because we were all pretty weary of politics at the time. However, we’ve had ample time to recover by diving into some of philosophy’s deepest caves, and we feel rejuvenated enough to attempt to explore this complex, often heated issue.

As with any great topic, there are people on both sides with varying reasons for holding the position they do. Some want to keep the E.C. as an homage to the founding fathers. Others think that it better distributes campaign resources and time to cover a more diverse subset of the populous along with a half dozen other reasons. On the opposite side, you have people wanting to get rid of it because they see it as undemocratic, some who think it gives an unfair advantage to states with smaller populations, and still others who want to get rid of it simply for the fact that it’s convoluted.

We cover all of that in this episode and quite possibly come to a solution…maybe…

The Beer:

Hefe-Weizen – Paulaner Muchen Brewery

What is the difference between propaganda, brainwashing, and manipulation?

Since the common discourse seems to include a lot more references to people being “brainwashed”, we decided to use this episode to take a look at what we call brainwashing versus what brainwashing actually is…if there’s any sort of reliable definition. We explore what it takes to rise to the level of brainwashing and what’s just propaganda. Following that, we take a look at a few segments of society to see how rampant this sort of behavior is and the ethical ramifications of such actions.

The Beer:

Premium Dunkel – Warsteiner Brew House

What is philosophy’s solution to the rampant sexual misconduct we’ve been hearing so much about lately?

It may not seem, the way we talk sometimes, that philosophy has any place in this sort of question, but in this episode, we take a look at the accusations of sexual misconduct and ask the questions to figure out what consent means, how it works, when it goes away, and when yes doesn’t necessarily mean yes. Though we pay particular attention to the Louis C.K. situation as it crosses some of the murkiest lines when it comes to consent, we also take a broader look at the societal dialogue surrounding how we interact with one another, what has led to this change in our dynamic, and where we need to go moving forward.

The Beer:

D’oches Kolsch – Fredonia Brewery

Arguing Aristotle

 

Hey, everyone, this is John. Ana was busy, so I got to take the reins on this one. Oh, the power to shape the show, hahaha! This week on Six Pack Philosophy we are taking a look at Aristotle and his contributions to logic and debate. His distinguishments between dialogue and rhetoric and why he spent so much time looking at this stuff. Aristotle was one of the great philosophers of his time. He trained under Plato (that’s Socrates’ pupil for those who are keeping count), he trained Alexander the Great, and went on to reshape western views on science, psychology, skepticism, government, logic, and debate.  If you have ever wanted to get into debating, wondered where logic came from, or just wondered what people were talking about when you said something on Facebook and they told you it was a logical fallacy then you need to read up on Aristotle, but, before you go running off diving in to a new copy of On Rhetoric check out this episode.

The Beer:

Check out our beer page!

How many times do we have to get involved in something and completely ruin it before we realized that it doesn’t serve us well to be busybodies?

This question can obviously be applied at so many levels, and it’s not to say that there aren’t cases in which individual or human involvement hasn’t been an overall benefit, but by and large when it comes to urban development, we’ve seen that many policies have contributed to if not outright caused many of the issues we see in impoverished areas. What we end up discussing in this episode is a little bit on the history of city and urban planning, the driving factor behind certain developments, their goals and ultimate results followed up by a discussion of the ethics of interjecting our own master plans onto cities and communities.

The Beer:

Pecan Ale With Honey – BS Brewing Company

Are we equipped to define morality for artificial intelligence?

Humans have spent most of our sentient existence trying to figure out what morality is and whether there’s some unwavering morality out there that doesn’t find itself subject to location and time. As the technology for artificial intelligence grows, people have developed concerns about the coming robot uprising. Whether or not it’s a real possibility, it does present an interesting philosophical question. If human beings have so far been incapable of settling on a moral philosophy themselves, how can we imbue robots with a morality that will allow them to function effectively in our societies?