Overthink – Details, episodes & analysis

Why are you so obsessed with me!? In episode 111 of Overthink, Ellie and David untangle envy, jealousy, and admiration, in everything from Sigmund Freud to Regina George. They think through the role of envy in social media and status regulation alongside Sara Protasi's The Philosophy of Envy, and investigate the philosophical lineage of this maligned emotion. Does the barrage of others’ achievements on social media lead to ill-will or competitive self-improvement? Why do we seek to deny our own envies? And how might Freud's questionable theory of 'penis envy' betray the politics of how we assign and deflect desire?

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed
Aristotle, Rhetoric
Basil of Caesarea, On Envy
Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies
Justin D'arms, Envy in the Philosophical Tradition
Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, “Analysis Terminable and Interminable”
Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not One
Plato, Philebus
Plutarch, Moralia, “Of Envy and Hatred”
Sara Protasi, The Philosophy of Envy
Max Scheler, Ressentiment
Genesis 4, Exodus 20

Snow White (1937)
Mean Girls (2004)

Overthink epiosdes
60. Influencers
82. Regret
98. Reputation

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What do skydiving, guitar-playing teenagers, and deep-seated psychic states have in common? They're all intense! In episode 110 of Overthink, Ellie and David untangle the role of intensity in shaping our aspirations, cultural tropes, and political goals. They trace the concept’s history from its tricky roots in Aristotle's theory of change, passing through medieval science and princely romanticism, to the thrills of skydiving and breathwork today. They turn to Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze’s accounts of consciousness and emotion to explore how intensity looks beyond the scientistic impulse to categorize and quantify, and question if intensity is of any help in addressing capitalist acceleration today.

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed
Aristotle, Categories
Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Life
Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will
Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition
Gustav Theodor Fechner, Elements of Psychophysics
Tristan Garcia, The Life Intense: A Modern Obsession
Mary Beth Mader, “Whence Intensity? Deleuze and the Revival of a Concept”
Benjamin Noys, The Persistence of the Negative
Nick Srnicek & Alex Williams, “#Accelerate: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics”
The Bachelorette
Inside Out 2 (2024)

Mentioned Overthink episodes
61 - Self Knowledge
32 - Paradox
107 - Organisms

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Welcome your robot overlords! In episode 101 of Overthink, Ellie and David speak with Dr. Shazeda Ahmed, specialist in AI Safety, to dive into the philosophy guiding artificial intelligence. With the rise of LLMs like ChatGPT, the lofty utilitarian principles of Effective Altruism have taken the tech-world spotlight by storm. Many who work on AI safety and ethics worry about the dangers of AI, from how automation might put entire categories of workers out of a job to how future forms of AI might pose a catastrophic “existential risk” for humanity as a whole. And yet, optimistic CEOs portray AI as the beginning of an easy, technology-assisted utopia. Who is right about AI: the doomers or the utopians? And whose voices are part of the conversation in the first place? Is AI risk talk spearheaded by well-meaning experts or investor billionaires? And, can philosophy guide discussions about AI toward the right thing to do?

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence
Adrian Daub, What Tech Calls Thinking
Virginia Eubanks, Automating Inequality
Mollie Gleiberman, “Effective Altruism and the strategic ambiguity of ‘doing good’”
Matthew Jones and Chris Wiggins, How Data Happened
William MacAskill, What We Owe the Future
Toby Ord, The Precipice
Inioluwa Deborah Raji et al., “The Fallacy of AI Functionality”
Inioluwa Deborah Raji and Roel Dobbe, “Concrete Problems in AI Safety, Revisted”
Peter Singer, Animal Liberation
Amia Srinivisan, “Stop The Robot Apocalypse”

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On episode 11 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss the ways in which Zoom has impacted our perception of the self and others. They begin by exploring the blurred lines of privacy that Zoom offers (who among us hasn’t cut their video feed to do a load of laundry?). Next, the two jump into the impact self-view has had on all of us now that we are able to see ourselves conduct our normal lives, tying it to Lacan’s mirror stage. Plus, they discuss disability theorists and the potential benefits that Zoom has for inclusion and accessibility. 

Interested In the works discussed? 

Paul Virilio, Open Sky
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
Ellie Anderson, “You’re Not Staring at Yourself on Zoom, You’re Judging Yourself”
Jacques Lacan, "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function"
Céline LeBoeuf, "Anatomy of the Thigh Gap"
Iris Marion Young, "Throwing Like a Girl"
Zoe Beery “When the World Shut Down, They Saw it Open”
danah boyd, "Profiles as Conversation: Networked Identity Performance on Friendster"

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On episode 10 of Overthink, Ellie and David debate the merit of New Year’s Resolutions. Only 8% of people keep the resolutions they set – so why do we continue to make resolutions? The duo discusses the importance of questioning the resolutions we make and desire. To understand the January 1st phenomena, they dive into Stoicism and Nietzsche.

 Interested in works discussed?

William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life
Epictetus and Sharon Lobell, The Art of Living
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals
Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

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On episode 9 of Overthink, Ellie and David dive into the concept of parrhesia (speaking truth to those in power). They discuss its origin in Ancient Greece with Socrates and Diogenes, as well as its resurgence in Foucault. The two get into modern day truth tellers such as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Tristan Harris, Emma Sulkowicz, and more. 

Interested in the works discussed? Look no further:

Andreas Huyssen, “Foreword: The return of Diogenes as Postmodern Intellectual”
Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech
Gordon Hull, “The Banality of Cynicism: Foucault and the Limits of Authentic Parrhēsia”
Mary Anne Franks, “Fearless Speech”
“The Social Dilemma,” dir. Jeff Orlowski
Kurt Borg, “Foucault on Drugs: The Personal, the Ethical and the Political in Foucault in California”
Emma Sulkowicz, "Carry That Weight"

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Have you ever been ghosted? In episode 8 of Overthink, Ellie and David deconstruct this dating dilemma. The duo discuss what ghosting does to our emotions; how the Greek notion of akrasia can help us understand why people ghost; how ghosting leaves us feeling, well, haunted; and more!

Interested in the works discussed? Here you go!
Jacques Derrida,  Specters of Marx
Julia Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves
“Derrida,” dir. Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman
Carl du Prel, The Philosophy of Mysticism

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In episode 7 of Overthink, Ellie and David dive into the sensation of empathy! The dynamic duo discuss mirror neurons, whether animals can feel empathy, nice boy syndrome, why the phrase “I feel your pain” is so annoying, and more!

Interested in the works discussed? You can find them here:
Frans De Waal, The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society
Hal Herzog and Mel Foster, Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat
Edith Stein, On the Problem of Empathy
Amy Coplan and Peter Goldie, eds. Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, ed.
Marco Iacoboni, Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others
Paul Bloom, Against Empathy

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In episode 6 of Overthink, Ellie and David look at millennials' obsession with homemaking through the lens of Epicurus and Mariana Ortega. The duo talk about the Danish word “hygge,” alloparenting plants, IKEA, how 10-step skincare regimens are definitely the reason why millennials don’t own homes, and so much more! 

Interested in the works discussed? You can find them here!
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life
Mariana Ortega, In-Between: Latina Feminist Phenomenology, Multiplicity, and the Self
Malcolm Harris, Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials
Epicurus, The Art of Happiness

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In episode 5 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about the taste, smell, and function of nostalgia. They dive into al pastor tacos, cottagecore, teenage diary entries, old shampoo bottles, M.A.G.A and more!  

Interested in the works discussed? You can find them here!
Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia
Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian-American Reckoning
Lauren Berlant, "Big Man" (https://socialtextjournal.org/big-man/)
Sigmund Freud, Mourning and Melancholia
Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, volume 1: Swann's Way
Derek Walcott, Omeros
H.A. Kaplan, "The Psychopathology of Nostalgia"

Support the show

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