The Ugly Decline Of Morality In The Digital Age - Alex O’Connor (4K)

Hello you beauties. Access all episodes 10 hours earlier than YouTube by Subscribing on Spotify - spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - apple.co/2MNqIgw. Here’s the timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:18 The Peter Hitchens Incident 08:11 Alex’s Experience Debating Ben Shapiro 17:00 Has Philosophy Revealed Anything Impactful Recently? 29:40 What Everyone Needs to Know About Ethics 38:07 Making Nihilism Great Again 47:38 Why People Hate Talking About Free Will 54:34 The Sexy Paradox 1:07:49 The Fine-Tuned Universe Argument 1:12:36 Was Jesus’ Resurrection Historically Accurate? 1:20:07 Why Philosophers Go Mad 1:26:50 Is Society Experiencing Mass Cope? 1:38:00 What’s Next for Alex?

Thanks for having me again, Chris!

40:20 Chris’s request for clarification is simply, “Be more accessible”. Brilliant. I’m stealing that one.

I’m 75 years old . My dad died when I was 5.Been the weird kid …and adult ,that wanted to talk about death..but no one else does…. til now in your generation.Finally…my people have showed up!

I'm probably the one-billionth person to say this on the internet, but we need more conversations like this. One fundamental issue, it seems, is that people just don't know what they don't know. This was fantastic, Chris. Alex is an intellectual treasure. Thanks for sharing!

Before the interview with Alex, Peter Hitchens had just spent a week in prison as an inmate as part of a documentary. During that stretch he had heated arguments about the drug issue with prisoners. Having spent a bit of time behind bars I can tel that the first few days are a fucking nightmare. He probably didn't know it himself but wasn't in the mental state to be having a debate. Especially on that topic.

The Freud joke Alex pulled off at 54:29 and the response from Chris was awesome - you can tell these guys are friends.

1:36:50 "I think we might need to actually start acting in accordance with what's true" said as a warning is such a perfect absurdist quote, I love it

I think it's very poignant how Alex describes "playing" with philosophical ideas in the context of entertaining them without becoming convinced by them. I play a lot of tabletop roleplaying games, and something which I have always done is consider the philosophy of every character I play or depict in the way they would see it, steelmanning it to be an honest version of how that character may see the world, even if it is very different from my worldview. So in my case these sorts of philosophical speculations are often very literally part of playing a game.

Big fan of Alex. First saw him in a number of debates with Capturing Christianity. Myself a Christian and him being Atheist/Agnostic, I see him as a great ally for genuine discourse.

God, can you guys do this like, twice a month. I love hearing rational people deliberate and learn from one another. I feel like this is the conversation I’m always craving and never hearing, much less having.

This was one of my favourite episodes. Hope to see Alex come on again, and eager to see him elsewhere.

"Be more accessible" Thanks for being a great host and helping the guest to flesh out their ideas.

O’connor is also one of my favorite people to watch debate. He has good arguments, he articulates them very well, but he’s also very respectful and actually listens to the other side. When i was younger, i used to enjoy ben’s style of debate. But as i get older, i realized that style doesn’t actually accomplish anything. It’s loud and fast, and that can be really entertaining, but it doesn’t actually help. The more relaxed and engaged debate is the constructive type of debate, where both sides actually think and learn, and don’t just try to be faster and louder than the other one.

Love the work that both of you do. The honest search for interesting ideas is something that enriches everyone. Keep up the good fight. 🙂

Loved that “be more… accessible” question/follow up. 40:28 Alex’s answers the question succinctly. Knowing he will need to explain. And you give him just that opportunity. Haha

This was an absolutely brilliant interview! Your chemistry with Mr. O’Conner is outstanding and the conversation was very engaging. Great work both of you! 🎉

The best of the best. Intelligence, generosity, friendship, humor, insight, generosity. It doesn't get better than this.

I started following both these guys during the pandemic a few years ago.....to see them come together like this in a crossover is like watching your fave avengers battle thanos.

I've been following Alex for a while but hadn't seen Chris before. This was a fun interview; I enjoy the way Chris "humanizes" Alex by way of friendly banter.