Hi-Phi Nation
Hi-Phi Nation is philosophy in story-form, integrating narrative journalism with big ideas. We look at stories from everyday life, law, science, popular culture, and strange corners of human experiences that raise thought-provoking questions about things like justice, knowledge, the self, morality, and existence. We then seek answers with the help of academics and philosophers. The show is produced and hosted by Barry Lam of UC Riverside.
- Update frequency
- every 14 days
- Average duration
- 43 minutes
- Episodes
- 64
- Years Active
- 2016 - 2023
(Bonus) The Battle over CSOCs
On this bonus episode, I go into some of the history between the LAPD police commission and the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, and feature some of the tape from the Central station CSOC protest that did…
00:18:17 |
Sat 02 Feb 2019
The Precrime Unit
Predictive policing technology is spreading across the country, and Los Angeles is the epicenter. A small group of LA activists are in a lopsided campaign against billions of dollars in city, federal…
00:48:28 |
Thu 31 Jan 2019
Season 3 Preview
After two successful seasons, philosophy in story form comes to Slate on January 31st, 2019. On Season 3, we look at stories of risk, experiments in democracy, the reality of social categories, illu…
00:03:07 |
Fri 18 Jan 2019
Chamber of Facts
Do people of opposing political parties believe in different facts? The mantra at the moment is that they do, because of media echo chambers, motivated reasoning, and ideological blindspots. But a mo…
00:47:07 |
Mon 23 Jul 2018
A Night of Philosophy
Hi-Phi Nation stays overnight at the Brooklyn Public Library during the 2018 Night of Philosophy. From 7pm to 7am on a Saturday night, thousands of New Yorkers swarmed the central library for acrobat…
00:48:27 |
Tue 19 Jun 2018
Willful Acts
Army veteran Jim McKelvey applied for his VA benefits and was denied for willful misconduct. Thirty years later, Julie Eldred was sent to prison for a willful violation of probation. Both challenged,…
00:58:12 |
Wed 30 May 2018
Creed and Credences
Dave has been hunting for the one decisive piece of scientific evidence that will settle one of Christianity's most challenging questions. On this episode we look at two stories of people trying to r…
00:44:50 |
Tue 01 May 2018
The Self and Survival
In ordinary life, it is usually not hard to know who you are and who you used to be. For a small group of children around the world, their knowledge seems to conflict with what modern science believe…
00:46:22 |
Tue 27 Mar 2018
Cover Me Softly
When Lori Lieberman was 19 years old, she went to a concert of a singer she didn't know, and ended up writing a poem that would become one of the greatest cover songs of all time. This week we are go…
00:49:39 |
Wed 28 Feb 2018
Freedom and Hostile Design
Some acts of expression are awesome, while others suck, and one philosopher has a new theory about the difference. Using this theory as a guide, we look at some of the suckiest things that ever sucke…
00:30:06 |
Tue 23 Jan 2018
Drowned at Sea
In the process of preparing to testify in a divorce case, Brian had to study one of the strangest books he had ever come across, where religion, mathematics, and the apocalypse intersect. This week, …
00:31:07 |
Tue 19 Dec 2017
The Ethics Bowl
High school students from around the country converge on the University of North Carolina for a weekend of moral dilemmas. We follow twenty-four of the nation's top ethics teams competing in the 2017…
00:51:03 |
Tue 28 Nov 2017
The Bottom of the Curve
At the beginning of their adult lives, millennials are trying to find out what it means to be happy in their 20s, not knowing that they have no where to go but down. Meanwhile, three highly successfu…
00:39:12 |
Tue 31 Oct 2017
A Better Love
On our season finale, we follow a mother's love through the stages of life to seek wisdom about what love is, what love does, and why love happens. We follow five mothers at five different stages of …
00:50:05 |
Wed 03 May 2017
The Ashes of Truth
Documentary film and science do not appear to have much in common, except that, philosophically, they have everything in common. Two men met in 1971 and had a disagreement, which turned into an assau…
00:51:08 |
Tue 18 Apr 2017
Be a Man
Our ideas of manhood and womanhood determine the ways in which we raise and socialize our children, but how much does gender in a particular society depend on that society's relationship with violenc…
00:37:01 |
Tue 21 Mar 2017
Hackademics II: The Hackers
One scientist decided to put the entire field of psychology to test to see how many of its findings hold up to scrutiny. At the same time, he had scientists bet on the success-rate of their own field…
00:44:40 |
Tue 14 Mar 2017
Hackademics I: The Control
After years of unusual episodes dating back to her childhood, Anita went to the doctor and was told there was nothing medically wrong with her. "She had a gift," she was told, and she was sent down t…
00:46:11 |
Tue 07 Mar 2017
The Cops of Pop
Two records from 1983 achieved minor novelty fame, and then faded away, only to emerge 20 years later as the originators of a curious genre of pop music in the age of social media. This peculiar genr…
00:47:33 |
Tue 21 Feb 2017
The Name of God
With a small gesture of good will toward Syrian refugees, one woman incurred the wrath of evangelical Christians on social media. The resulting chaos helped write the next chapter in a thousand year-…
00:50:32 |
Tue 14 Feb 2017
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