Why does bad CGI make us feel weird?   ... Where digital effects work (The Avengers) vs. where they don't (CATS)   ... Gollum vs. Thanos, Roger Rabbit vs. Jar Jar Binks  ... The tragic digital miscues of The Irishman  ... Are practical effects dead?  ... The closing of aesthetic diversity  ...

The Lacanian Principle of Special Effects (Daniel Kaufman & David Ottlinger)

Conversations about philosophy, science, religion and spirituality

A bizarre Washington Post column about critical theory and Immanuel Kant  ... Why has Kant become a bogeyman?   ... How contingent is the history of philosophy?  ... Relativism vs. rationalism  ... What Kant meant by the "Critique of Pure Reason"  ... Steven Pinker and the problem with rationalists   ... David explains what Kant actually believed ...

Kant Stop Critiquin' (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & David Ottlinger)

What part of secular-guru space (if any) does Bob occupy?  ... On the origin of Bob’s theses (by means of natural selection)  ... The mind-boggling mystery of consciousness  ... Could evolution have a larger purpose?  ... The “global brain” as the flowering of natural selection’s seed  ... Saving our species by transcending some species-typical tendencies   ... The algorithm of evolution as “the Logos”  ... How cognitive biases get in the way of global cooperation  ... The positive feeling of negative emotions (but can mindfulness feel even better?)   ... Bob explains his recent writings on tribalism  ... Bob: You are an expression of "the [evolutionary] Logos"  ... Bob’s latent-functionality theory of epiphenomenal consciousness  ... Does evolution steer us toward greater alignment with moral truth?  ... On the “panoramic specificity” of Bob’s dharma ...

The Dharma of Bob 8: A Cosmic View of Our Situation (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)

Remembering Michael Brooks  ... The existential stakes of enlightenment   ... Overcoming the affective dimension of cognitive bias   ... Bringing broader awareness to the concept of cognitive bias  ... Cognitive bias and the roots of war  ... The folly of feedback loops  ... Quelling our primitive retributive impulses  ... Taking a mulligan in your meditation practice  ... Focusing on the hindrances   ... Can you fail at meditation? ...

The Dharma of Bob 7: Cognitive Bias and Conflict (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)

A plea to the weary to return to the Woke Wars  ... Who is James Lindsay?  ... Lindsay's book, Cynical Theories  ... Lindsay's other critiques of wokeness  ... The religion of wokeness, the religion of anti-wokeness  ... Lindsay jumps on the Trump train (starts shoveling coal)  ... The anti-semitism thing  ... David: In a way, Lindsay is on the side of BLM ...

Saving Anti-Wokeness from Itself (David Ottlinger & Cathy Young)

Oliver's new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals  ... Oliver outlines “compatibilism,” the idea that free will and determinism can coexist  ... Bob: Everyone should be a free will agnostic  ... The occasionally dramatic consequences of arguments against free will  ... Would determinism require us to reform our approach to criminal justice?  ... A (possible) quantum hack for free will vs. determinism  ... Bob thinks compatibilism is bullshit ...  ... ... but Oliver tries to persuade him there's something to it  ... Oliver: No position on free will and determinism is free of contradiction ...

The Lacanian Principle of Special Effects (Daniel Kaufman & David Ottlinger)

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