Philosophy talk dot org

BC December 10, 2016 at 19:51 5625 views 11 comments

I'd like to put in a plug for a site that looks pretty good, Philosophytalk.org , and its radio show, Philosophy Talk. I came across the program on a small commercial Minnesota station which offers "progressive talk radio". It's format is similar to any other talk radio format -- features and call ins, plus news and weather. This doesn't help the 99.999% of The Philosophy Forum participants who don't live in earshot of this station, but the radio programs are downloadable.

There are serious but low key discussions, intended for an interested and informed "general public". Today's show was on conspiracy theories -- none in particular and non-partisan. More, "Why do we spin conspiracy theories?" and how do we evaluate them.

the program that questions everything

Comments (11)

Agustino December 10, 2016 at 20:19 #37955 0 likes

Quoting Bitter Crank

"progressive talk radio"

Alarm goes off :P

Terrapin Station December 11, 2016 at 11:16 #38020 0 likes

I see they're on quite a few different stations already, so that's good. The forum looks to be completely inactive to this point though. What I'd like to find is a forum in the vein of this one but where there's a steady stream of many different posters. Things tend to get a bit stale when it's the same 20-30 or so people posting for weeks, months, years on end.

It's frustrating, because anyone in the world could post on a forum like this, but out of billions of people, and surely tens of thousands who have some interest in academic philosophy and who regularly use the Internet and sometimes post on message boards, it always seems like venues like this can't manage to do anything but attract the same 20-30 regulars (if that many) having more or less the same conversations with each other over and over for years on end. I don't know why that is.

jorndoe December 11, 2016 at 12:43 #38029 0 likes

(*psst*, Whenever I come across someone elsewhere that seems genuinely cool — including people I disagree with mind you — then I point them over here, but don't tell anyone *sshh*) :)

Agustino December 11, 2016 at 12:46 #38030 0 likes

Reply to jorndoe My hat goes off to you kind Sir! :)

Sir2u December 11, 2016 at 17:13 #38055 0 likes

Quoting Terrapin Station

It's frustrating, because anyone in the world could post on a forum like this, but out of billions of people, and surely tens of thousands who have some interest in academic philosophy and who regularly use the Internet and sometimes post on message boards, it always seems like venues like this can't manage to do anything but attract the same 20-30 regulars (if that many) having more or less the same conversations with each other over and over for years on end. I don't know why that is.

The same can be said for the past several thousand years. Many people exist but only a few get together to discuss the important things of the world. the rest either do not understand, find it boring or always have more important things to do (like farcebook).

BC December 11, 2016 at 20:30 #38066 0 likes

Quoting Sir2u

or always have more important things to do

Like crawl into caves and make paintings on the wall, or carve statuettes, or invent plaid textiles, or teach old dogs new tricks, sneak away to have sex with that cute girl (she's such a neanderthal), and other such damn wastes of time.

Sir2u December 15, 2016 at 02:22 #38690 0 likes

Quoting Bitter Crank

sneak away to have sex with that cute girl (she's such a neanderthal)

Well that would certainly be more entertaining than sitting around the fire discussing where the universe came from. X-)

Thorongil December 15, 2016 at 02:27 #38692 0 likes

Quoting Bitter Crank

The Philosophy Forum

I always read this like people from Ohio State refer to their university. It sounds so pretentious.

BC December 15, 2016 at 02:37 #38698 0 likes

Reply to Thorongil Can you elaborate a bit on this? I don't quite get it.

Thorongil December 15, 2016 at 14:44 #38783 0 likes

Reply to Bitter Crank They added the "the" and now emphasize it whenever they reference the university. You hear it on commercials, hear it from alumni, etc. Really annoying.

BC December 15, 2016 at 14:51 #38786 0 likes

Reply to Thorongil That would be annoying. Some PR firm is probably working with them on establishing a "more definite identity". I hate these kinds of things. The Minneapolis Institute of Art recently decided to call itself "Mia" - pronounced "me ah". Totally loathsome. Another huge annoyance, even though I don't have to deal with it often: instead of "Champaign-Urbana", THE U of Illinois has reversed the order of the two names given for its location. Urbana Champaign? Why?