The Most Interesting People I Know
News:Politics
Ben Burgis is a philosopher and logician who lectures at Rutgers University. He has a segment on the Michael Brooks Show called the Debunk and writes a weekly column for Jacobin magazine. We spend most of the show talking about his book Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left, which challenges the left to take logic more seriously.
Ben’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/benburgis?lang=en
And Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/benburgis
We also discuss:
The aesthetic of reason being adopted to defend bad arguments, why the left needs to make better arguments for their positions, the limits of logic in persuading people whose material interest differ from ours, why left principles for redistribution don't stop at our borders, conflict vs mistake theory in explaining the motivations of our political opponents, and where each theory may apply, the importance of interpreting our allies' arguments charitably, Ben's thoughts on moral philosophy, why tankies are bad utilitarians, double standards for Marx vs other problematic philosophers from history, Jeremy Bentham’s good takes, state monopoly on violence and police reforms, where Ben disagrees with the left, the problems with a radically empirical worldview, whether utilitarianism takes you to implausible places, and how to balance epistemic humility with the need to beat confident bullshitters.
Links:
Conflict vs Mistake Theory
Dark Money
Life expectancy going up under mao
Deconstructing the ‘Ferguson Effect’ (Note: I think the evidence for this is more mixed than I thought at the time of the interview)
The Case for Disarming America's Police Force
NEW YORK CITY VOTERS MAY EXPAND POWER OF CIVILIAN REVIEW BOARD, ALLOWING IT TO INVESTIGATE POLICE WHO LIE
Moral Tribes
35 - Yoshua Bengio on Why AI Labs are “Playing Dice with Humanity’s Future”
34 - Carl Robichaud on Oppenheimer and Dealing with Nukes
33 - Habiba Islam on the Left and Effective Altruism
32 - Rutger Bregman on Why People Are Decent, Effective Altruism, and Causing Tucker Carlson’s Meltdown
31 - Alexander Zaitchik on How Bill Gates Impeded Global Access to Covid Vaccines
30 - Tobias Leenaert on the Pragmatic Path to a Vegan World
29 - Conor Oberst on Bright Eyes, the Iraq War, protest music, and the music industry under socialism
28 - David Shor on Why Bernie Would Have Won in 2016- But Not in 2020
27 -Trevor Beaulieu on Champagne Sharks and Why Killmonger Was Right
26 - Ross Barkan on Running for Office and the Return of Socialism to New York
25 - Charlie Bresler on the Lives You Can Save
24 - Edgar Villanueva on Decolonizing Wealth
23 - Akash Mehta on why Andrew Cuomo is Not Your Friend
22 - Zach Roberts on Bloomberg's NYPD and Antifascist Journalism
21 - Malaika Jabali on Identity Politics and Myths About the Midwest
20 - Meagan Day on the Case for Bernie Sanders
18 - Marcus Davis on Nuclear War, Invertebrate Sentience, and Foundational Research
17 - Rob Scott on Teaching College in Prison
16 - Andrés Gómez Emilsson on Solving Consciousness and Being Happy All the Time
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