Hotel Bar Sessions

The HBS hosts discuss Coppola's classic treatment of Nixon-era surveillance and paranoia.

Released in 1974, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation is often hailed as one of the defining films of the …

While the HBS hosts are taking a break between Seasons 6 and 7, we're re-playing some of our favorite conversations you might have missed. Enjoy this REPLAY episode from Season 5 on "The Public Intel…

While the HBS hosts are taking a break between Season 6 and Season 7, we're re-playing some of our favorite conversations you might have missed. Enjoy this NSFW episode from Season 2, in which our co…

The HBS hosts are on break between Seasons 6 and 7, so we're REPLAYing our Season 5 episode on "YouTube's Alt-Right Rabbit Hole."

In this episode, we interview Caleb Cain (@FaradaySpeaks) about his ex…

The HBS hosts are on break between Seasons 6 and 7, so we're REPLAYing our Season 2 conversation with David Gunkel about robots and robot rights.

The HBS hosts interview Dr. David Gunkel (author of Ro…

The HBS hosts consider the merits and demerits of the red pill/blue pill option.

The Allegory of the Cave (a section from Plato's longer dialogue entitled Republic) is one of the most famous and widel…

In a passage that could be considered the motto of our historical moment, Fredric Jameson writes "It seems to be easier for us today to imagine the thoroughgoing deterioration of the earth and of nat…

The HBS hosts try to figure out how much of the ChatGPT panic is warranted.

There seems to be a real panic among not only the professoriate, but also employers, about what ChatGPT is doing to "kids th…

The HBS hosts confront the inevitable.

It is most obviously true that we are all going to die. The very fact that anything is alive seems to entail that it is going to die. Death confronts us as an ul…

The HBS hosts chat with Alberto Toscano about the long shadow of racial fascism.

Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the word "fascism" has moved from the historian’s archives to the editoria…

The HBS hosts discuss the work of flunkies, goons, duct-tapers, box-tickers, and taskmasters.

In the middle of the last century it was expected that the number of working hours-- at least in the so-c…

The HBS hosts ask Sophie Lewis why the "family" is a troublesome institution.

In a society that is increasingly structured around isolated self-interested individuals, the family appears to be the one…

The HBS hosts ask themselves why and how they are under the influence of influencers.

Although humans have been influencing other humans for as long as we’ve been around each other, the category of “i…

The HBS hosts rewind the tapes to reconsider episodes 79-81.

They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so we designed “Afterthoughts” to give us a first chance to make a secon…

The HBS hosts talk about "stuff."

Materialism seems to be both one of the oldest and most contended philosophical positions. From Thales saying “all is from water,” to Hobbes saying “whatever is, is a…

The HBS hosts reconsider what they might've missed in the first three conversations of Season 6.

They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so we designed “Afterthoughts” to gi…

The HBS hosts invite Michael Naas to make himself at home on the podcast.

There are two popular ideas about hospitality that seem to be at odds with one another. The first is an understanding of a byg…

The HBS hosts focus their attention on... oh, look, a squirrel!

It is said that we are living in an attention economy,  an age in which attention has become both a scarce resource and a source of weal…

The HBS hosts argue for the merits of studying the history of philosophy.

In a recent essay, Hanno Sauer argued against the importance, for philosophy, of the history of philosophy. In summary, he pre…

The HBS hosts chat with Justin Joque about how we might get Thomas Bayes' robot boot off our necks. 

Why does Netflix ask you to pick what movies you like when you first sign on in order to recommend …