I feel like every new episode of Dilemma Podcast is my new favourite episode. With that preface, I think this latest episode is my favourite. Listen to it here.

I listened to much of the podcast while walking to the train station having declined the offer of a lift. This was partially for the activity, but also because it was a particularly cold day and I take seriously the need to be subjected to discomfort. This decreases fear of the uncomfortable and allows for more accessible appreciation of the comfortable. During the conversation between Jay Shapiro and Matthew B. Crawford I noticed a conflation of “risk” and “comfort” when discussing friction. My walk was actually safer than travelling by car, but there was more friction. The episode had me revisiting first principles and questioning whether safety is the unalloyed good it is assumed to be. It’s not. However, I don’t think safety is the enemy here, I think what was missing from the conversation was an explicit acknowledgement that by removing friction we are making it, where it still exists, all the more unpleasant. This is one of the many reasons creating a more comfortable life isn’t inherently good.

Jay Shapiro directly referenced libertarianism nearer the end of the episode, but I noticed it came up abstractly earlier when discussing how regulation of something like traffic lights can actually dampen efficiency. Regulation of complexity seems like a good idea, but due to the nature of complex systems the side effects will be numerous and often more harmful in the long run. This makes Matthew all the more important - he is actually questioning the implications of things that are assumed to be all good, like self-driving cars.

Jay also mentioned what he had taken from Huizinga and it feeds into something I’ve heard John Vervaeke mention; our modern understanding of play doesn’t capture what it was historically meant to represent. One can “play music”, or “watch a play”. These exemplify how the current and simpler “play games” definition misses something.

It was acknowledged that religion can act as a motivator of good action, as in the case of Mitt Romney and the impeachment. The issue as I see it is that it is unreliable and humans are brilliant at self-deception. For as long as somebody can trick themselves into believing the actions they were already going to take, or had already taken, were in accordance with the religion behaviour doesn’t often improve.