The Bad Philosopher Podcast
Dan Levesque
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The Bad Philosopher Podcast is exploring what it means to be human in this rapidly changing world of ours. We're building the #1 philosophy podcast, blog, and community on the internet. Being a bad philosopher means having the courage to dive into the rabbit hole, being able to boldly follow a new idea or perspective wherever it leads, and being willing to say “I don’t know” when the truth is elusive.
Available episodes
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Apr 13, 2022
Episode 14: Better never to have been? On Anti-Natalism
Anti-natalism is the ethical view that the act of having children is morally reprehensible, largely because of the consent issue: nobody who's born is capable of consenting to being born. On this episode, we discuss the ethical issues around procreation.
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Mar 30, 2022
Episode 13: The Ideology of Bitcoin
On this episode, we talk about the ideas behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
My goal here is to give a balanced overview of the ideology (or the philosophy) at work behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency protocols.
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Mar 23, 2022
Episode 12: The Myth of Atlantis - Disaster or Fable?
Here, we attempt to separate fact from fiction, exploring whether the Atlantis myth may be a fictionalized tale of a real natural disaster—such as the devastation of the Minoan civilization on Crete by a tsunami more than 3,500 years ago.
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Mar 16, 2022
Episode 11: Survival Stories and the Philosophy of Mountains
On this episode of the podcast, we discuss survival stories and the philosophy of mountains and mountaineering. I talk about a few close calls I've had while out in the mountains, and then we ask what draws humans to these mountains in the first place.
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Mar 9, 2022
Episode 10: Understanding Modern China through its Ancient Philosophy, Pt. 2: Virtue
On this episode, we're starting with Confucian ideals of Virtue and governance by wu-wei (effortless action). Then we jump straight into the politics of modern China, how Confucian principles are being mi-used, and contemplate the future.
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Mar 2, 2022
Episode 9: Understanding Modern China through its Ancient Philosophy, Pt.1: Harmony
On today's episode, we seek to understand modern China by examining its philosophy: in particular, the Confucian emphasis on social harmony. This concept is fundamental to understanding how the cultural identity of China has persisted over the past several thousand years and into the modern age.
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Feb 23, 2022
Episode 8: Escaping Earth and Colonizing Mars
On this episode of the podcast, we discuss the philosophical implications of settling humans on Mars. We also go into Elon Musk's idea that we humanity needs to become a multi-planetary civilization in order to avoid extinction, and the ideology behind this growing wave of Earth escapism.
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Feb 16, 2022
Episode 7: On Vegan Ideology
On this episode of the podcast, we talk about the ideology of veganism, the ethical problem of factory farming, and explore how different cultures view the consumption of animals differently.
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Feb 9, 2022
Episode 6: Creating Meaning in Life and Love
On this episode, we discuss how we can create meaning in life and love. To accomplish this task, we explore Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard, and What Love Is by Carrie Jenkins.
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Feb 2, 2022
Episode 5: Don't Panic! Pt. 3 - Hypothetical Risks and the Deep Future
We finish up our three-part series on Existential Risks. We discuss hypothetical and exotic existential risks that we could possibly encounter (ie. aliens!). From there, we go on to discuss the Fermi Paradox, the rare-Earth hypothesis, and ponder on the possibility that we're alone in the universe.
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Jan 26, 2022
Episode 4: Don't Panic! Pt. 2 - Human Caused Existential Risks
In this episode, we jump into a discussion about seven human-caused existential risks: what philosopher Toby Ord says are 1,000 times more likely to cause human extinction over the next century than any naturally occurring risks.
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Jan 19, 2022
Episode 3: Don't Panic! Pt. 1 - Naturally Occurring Existential Risks
In this episode of the podcast we discuss Existential Risks and the future of humanity. First, we start off with an analysis of the recent film "Don't Look Up." From there, we jump into an analysis of seven naturally occurring existential risks and how we might mitigate them.
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Jan 12, 2022
Episode 2: Is Life Worth Living?
In this episode, we go into "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus and formulate an alternative modern punishment to Sisyphus' boulder-rolling that I think is even worse. From there, we discuss how we can attempt to find meaning in an inherently meaningless world through absurd freedom.
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Jan 5, 2022
Episode 1: an Origin Story, Nietzsche, and Secular Metaphysics
In the first-ever episode of the Bad Philosopher Podcast, we discuss my philosophy origin story, Nietzsche's "God is dead" proclamation, jump into Mary Wollstonecraft on hedonism, and round things off with the Bhagavad Gita and a discussion about secular metaphysics.
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