Tell Me Why I'm Wrong

S3E6: So Long and Thanks for All the Fish: Sophie and Amos discuss the two premier pieces of fish-sex art in the Western Canon: The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Shape of Water. They pick up on the conversation from two episodes ago and notice that these two works ascribe VERY different value judgments to the phenomenon of human/fish-man coupling.

S3E5: Human: Sophie wonders what the heck is up with behaviorism in psychotherapy. It seems to her that it's very popular right now, and she wants to know why. Amos has been learning about modern European history and he's noticed that the liberals seem to also be nationalists. He wants to understand the connection between these two ideologies, and Sophie is just the person to explain it.

Season 3, Episode 4: Homework Part 2 Amos ask Sophie what she thought of yer boy Howard Philip. Is the prose terrible? (yes) Is it really that racist? (yes) Is it any good?? Sophie asks Amos what he thought about Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie. Is it literary novel with genre pretensions? A genre novel with literary pretensions? Is Rushdie just goofing?

Season 3, Episode 3: Secret Ingredients Amos asks Sophie about the challenges of translation Sophie asks Amos about finding your way through the epistemological morass of nutrition science.

Season 3, Episode 2: Movies vs. Television: Sophie on why Amos thinks movies are great. Amos on why Sophie thinks TV is great.

S3E1: Art & Experience: Amos on why the 4th wall is great. Sophie wonders what the heck the deal with phenomenology is.

Waaaay, back in S1E3, Sophie asked "Why is Wonder Woman in World War I?" We speculated about dramatic/thematic and cultural reasons why you might set a Wonder Woman movie in The Great War, and now that the movie is out, and you've all seen it (right?), they're hear to talk about it. Does the setting make sense? Is the movie any good? What's up with Ludendorff? Would we say that Steve Trevor is a typical example of his sex?

A couple themes have been coming up throughout the show. Sophie thinks words mean things. Amos is a vulgar Marxist, and thinks that all cultural change is always and everywhere the result of technological change. They tell each other why their wrong. Listen all the way through for the surprise ending!

A little while back, Sophie and Amos assigned each other homework. Sophie told Amos to watch a bunch of episodes of Community, and Amos assigned two Guillermo Del Toro movies, Pan's Labyrinth and Pacific Rim. Now it's time to find out what each of them thought!

Amos read Twilight of the Elites by Chris Hayes a few months ago, and one section in particular made him think about the obnoxious characters in the Iliad. Sophie wonders how far you can push that comparison. Amos says you can push it as far as you want, you're not the boss of me. Sophie says, I mean come on, don't be ridiculous. The past is the past, and we're here now. I know it's the past, I'm just saying that the chapter 1% Pathologies raises some interesting points of comparison. You don' t need to be a jerk about it. A jerk? You think I'm being a jerk? I'll show you a jerk. O you who art clothed in shamelessness, most covetous of all men! Thou heavy with wine, with the face of a dog and the heart of dear! Never have you had the spirit to arm yourself for war with the men, nor to go on ambush with the best of the Achaeans. Devourer of the people, since you lord it over worthless men.

Sophie on why American history is boring and "under-theorized." Amos tries to explain what's interesting about it, but still isn't sure what "under-theorized" means. Amos on why the "Golden Age" of television is over. Sophie agrees, but has a weird way of looking at the whole golden age thing.

Amos vs. the Internet's "love" of "science", Neil deGrasse Tyson, and "glib science boosterism" Sophie vs. science as a hegemonic, totalizing force that is responsible for everything wrong with the world

Sophie is very concerned because she doesn't have any hobbies and she wants some. Amos has the opposite problem. He has so many hobbies, but has trouble staying interested for something for the long-term. Can these two friends help each other out? Will Sophie find a passion for rug-hooking? Will Amos recover from the Typhus and devote himself to his studies?

Bonus bonus: Amos here. I remembered the thing that I forgot. It was about Nazis. I was taking a "Transformational Leadership" class through his work a little while back. At the end of the day, the trainer gave a list of examples of transformation leaders, people who used expression of their values to lead people to do great things. It included some people you might expect, like MLK. It also included Erwin Rommel, the German general from WWII who fought Patton in North Africa. I raised my hand and pointed out that Rommel was, literally, a Nazi. The trainer acknowledged this, but said He didn't execute prisoners. He was involved in a plot against Hitler. I responded that you don't get points for going after Hitler in 1944, and that not committing war crimes seems like a pretty low bar for "transformational leadership." The whole thing was creepy.

“Why Political Comparisons are (mostly) Bullshit” Sophie on Misuses of History (II) “Why Nate Silver is the Worst (not really, but everyone loves to give him a hard time)” Amos on Political Science and Straight-Line Modeling

Episode 3: "Self & Other" “Self?” Amos on what's awesome and troubling about Zen Buddhism. Bonus #StarWars content for maximum engagement and SEO optimization. “Other?” Sophie on why Democratic Socialism is a thing and not the thing that Bernie Sanders talks about.

Sophie on why she hates technology Amos on why he loves technology

“Why Is Wonder Woman in World War I?” Amos on the power and popularity of (mid-20th C) superheroes. “Why Isn’t Austria Part of Germany?” Sophie on 20th C Europe and wars and stuff.

Episode 2: “Epic!” A. “Who Cares About Poems?” Sophie on why nobody pays attention to poetry anymore, but really, maybe no one ever did. B. “What is 'Ancient Greece,' and Why Is It Cool?” Amos on all the different kinds of Ancient Greece and the difficulties of historical imagination.

Episode 1: “Ways of (Not) Knowing” “Why I’m Scared I might become an Anti-Vaxxer” Amos on epistemology and the allure of knowledge-systems. Covers Stegasaurus burgers and the importance of social pressure. “Why Most Historical Fiction is a Waste of Time” Sophie on the uses and misuses of history (part 1). Includes a discussion of why Downton Abbey is the worst.