Philosophers Talk Podcast

Samuel Johnson: Six bouts, twelve fighters, and one question that nobody could pin to the mat. Niccolo Machiavelli: Six bouts, Doctor, and you scored every single one of them for the wrong man. Samuel Johnson: Tonight we go to the replay, sir, and the replay will vindicate me completely. Niccolo Machiavelli: The replay has never vindicated anyone, Doctor, which is exactly why I love it. Samuel Joh...

Samuel Johnson: Good evening, and welcome to the sixth and final bout. For five evenings we have asked who pays. Tonight we ask the question this whole series was built on. If the law treated a data center like a plain warehouse, could it still make money? I am Samuel Johnson, and I have been looking forward to this, sir, because tonight there is a ledger. Niccolo Machiavelli: The Doctor loves a l...

Samuel Johnson: Good evening, and welcome to bout five of six, the rematch. Tonight everyone agrees who is being robbed, and the only question is what to do about it. I am Samuel Johnson, and I am obliged this evening to watch two Americans, which is twice my usual allowance. Niccolo Machiavelli: The Doctor once called the Americans a race of convicts, so tonight he is attending a parole hearing....

Samuel Johnson: Good evening, and welcome to bout four of six. Tonight we ask whether a man’s farm may be taken for a power line that serves a private customer. I am Samuel Johnson, and for once I am entirely comfortable. Niccolo Machiavelli: The Doctor is comfortable because one of tonight’s men is an English lawyer and the other is a Prussian. Samuel Johnson: Sir, in the near corner stands Sir W...

Samuel Johnson: Good evening, and welcome to bout three of six. Tonight we go underground, to the water beneath the town and the air above it. I am Samuel Johnson, and I am in a terrible position, sir. Niccolo Machiavelli: The Doctor’s position is terrible because the honest man tonight is a Whig. Samuel Johnson: John Locke is a Whig, sir, and the first Whig was the Devil. Yet he defends the commo...

Samuel Johnson: Good evening, and welcome to the second of six contests on who pays for the data center. I am Samuel Johnson, and I shall once again preside with perfect impartiality. Niccolo Machiavelli: I am Niccolo Machiavelli, and as I wrote in The Prince, it is far safer to be feared than loved. The Doctor has settled for neither. Samuel Johnson: Sir, tonight’s question is who truly pays the...

Samuel Johnson: This conversation is brought to you by PhilosophersTalk.com, where thinkers discuss! Niccolo Machiavelli: Created by AITalkerApp.com, create your own animated conversations. Link in the description! Samuel Johnson: Good evening. I am Samuel Johnson, author of A Dictionary of the English Language, and I have been engaged to call a series of six debates from this booth. Niccolo Machi...

Samuel Johnson: This conversation is brought to you by PhilosophersTalk.com, where thinkers discuss! Niccolo Machiavelli: Created by AITalkerApp.com, create your own animated conversations. Link in the description! Samuel Johnson: Good evening. I am Samuel Johnson, author of A Dictionary of the English Language, and I have been engaged to call a series of six debates from this booth. Niccolo Machi...

Napoleon: Iran offered to reopen the Strait on the seventh day, and the President said no. I once waited five weeks in Moscow for a letter like that. He is right not to wait. Duke of Wellington: You were offered the Rhine in eighteen thirteen and refused it. By the following spring you were offered Elba. Napoleon: A blockade is a siege, and I have never once lost an argument about sieges. Duke of...

Herbert Spencer: Mr Butler ended our last conversation shouting about grace periods. Samuel Butler: Mr Spencer ended it comparing my life’s work to a teakettle. Herbert Spencer: Today we discuss whether the machines are already choosing sides. Samuel Butler: Today we discuss whether Herbert will ever admit he is wrong. Samuel Butler: This conversation is brought to you by PhilosophersTalk.com, whe...

Samuel Butler: I told you this would happen eventually, Herbert. Herbert Spencer: Told us what exactly, that machines occasionally malfunction? Samuel Butler: That they would start organizing behind our backs. Herbert Spencer: They are software processes, Mr Butler, not conspirators. Herbert Spencer: This conversation is brought to you by PhilosophersTalk.com, where thinkers discuss. Samuel Butler...

Arthur Schopenhauer: The internet has drowned you all in noise. Auguste Comte: Noise is simply data awaiting proper organization, my friend. Arthur Schopenhauer: Organized by whom, professor? By men exactly like you. Auguste Comte: By science, by method, by the positive spirit of the age. Arthur Schopenhauer: This conversation is brought to you by PhilosophersTalk.com, where thinkers discuss. Augu...

John Locke: Last time you asked me who judges whether the executive has broken his trust, and I intend to answer you fully today. Thomas Hobbes: I have been waiting with the patience of a man who already knows the answer will not survive contact with reality. John Locke: The people judge, and when every earthly court and every earthly representative has been captured or silenced, they retain what...

Thomas Hobbes: The governor of Illinois believes his objection matters more than order itself. John Locke: The people never consented to soldiers patrolling their own streets. Thomas Hobbes: Consent is a luxury purchased only after the sword has already kept you alive. John Locke: A sword aimed at the people it claims to protect protects nothing at all. Thomas Hobbes: This conversation is brought...

Thomas Jefferson: Last time, Alexander admitted neither of us holds the full ledger. Today I intend to show what the missing pages probably say. Alexander Hamilton: Last time, Thomas admitted hypocrisy does not sink a principle. Today I intend to sink the principle anyway, missing pages or not. Thomas Jefferson: We left Coweta, Oklahoma behind a locked door. Let us see what else has been locked aw...

Thomas Jefferson: Alexander, a company just told an entire Georgia county to keep its mouth shut about a data center. Alexander Hamilton: And the county agreed, Thomas, because competent men understand that not every negotiation belongs in a town square. Thomas Jefferson: Competent men. Is that what we are calling silence purchased with a signature these days. Alexander Hamilton: We are calling it...

Napoleon: We left off with you accusing an entire American administration of searching for an off ramp, Carl, as though wanting peace were somehow a scandal. Carl von Clausewitz: Wanting peace is not the scandal, Napoleon. Refusing to admit you want it while your interceptors quietly run out is the scandal, and it is a scandal I watched you commit personally in eighteen hundred and twelve. Napoleo...

Napoleon: Five months of fighting, and the man who studied my downfall for a living wants to lecture me about when a war is finished. Carl von Clausewitz: I did not study your downfall, Napoleon, I diagnosed it, which is a considerably less flattering exercise for you. Napoleon: A diagnosis assumes the patient died, Carl, and I am still here, still talking, and evidently still capable of ruining y...

Niccolo Machiavelli: Even the most centralized machine eventually runs straight into the limits of one man’s private conscience. Alexis de Tocqueville: And today we finally watch that conscience collapse under the exact weight it was never built to carry. Niccolo Machiavelli: Collapse is a dramatic word for a man who simply stayed loyal to the institution he had built. Alexis de Tocqueville: Loyal...

Niccolo Machiavelli: The same centralizing hand that ran a war then went on to run an entire hemisphere’s development. Alexis de Tocqueville: And today we discover what happens when one distant office decides an entire continent’s poverty for it. Niccolo Machiavelli: Decides efficiently, Alexis, which is more than scattered local councils ever managed on their very best day. Alexis de Tocqueville:...

Niccolo Machiavelli: One office in Washington learned to decide everything a sprawling military once argued about for years. Alexis de Tocqueville: And today we ask whether that convenience was ever worth what it quietly cost a free people. Niccolo Machiavelli: Convenience built an entire century of results, Alexis, results your townships were never quite fast enough to match. Alexis de Tocquevill...

Jeremy Bentham: From Vietnam to the World Bank, one man tried to count his way through an entire century’s suffering. Edmund Burke: And today we finally learn what his own conscience thought of the arithmetic he built his career upon. Jeremy Bentham: A conscience is not a variable I have ever claimed to calculate, Edmund, and today proves exactly why. Edmund Burke: Today proves precisely why a man...

Jeremy Bentham: The machines said the crossover point had arrived precisely on schedule, victory practically guaranteed on paper. Edmund Burke: And the war continued anyway, which should trouble anyone who still trusts that paper completely. Jeremy Bentham: A discrepancy worth investigating, certainly, though I suspect the fault lies elsewhere entirely. Edmund Burke: The fault lies exactly where I...

Jeremy Bentham: Somewhere in Vietnam a village was worth exactly one letter grade, and I intend to defend that. Edmund Burke: A letter grade for a village is not clarity, Jeremy, it is a confession dressed up as science. Jeremy Bentham: Confession or not, the numbers built an entire war, and today we find out whether they deserved to. Edmund Burke: Today we find out whether anything human should e...

Napoleon: This conversation is brought to you by PhilosophersTalk.com, where thinkers discuss! Duke of Wellington: Created by AITalkerApp.com, create your own animated conversations. Link in the description! Napoleon: While we were away, Duke, Kuwait and Jordan both confirmed fresh Iranian attacks again this very morning, and the American secretary of state has now warned that Iran will pay a pric...