Beer and Conversation Podcast

The boys drink and review a peanut butter porter, then wonder about the nature of the mind and the self.

We like to imagine that our minds are simple and unified — that we think, decide, and evaluate the world rationally. But the more we learn about the mind, the stranger that assumption becomes.

Psychology talks about the conscious and unconscious mind. Behavioral economics divides thinking into fast and slow systems. Neuroscientists debate left brain vs. right brain. Moral psychologists describe the “elephant and rider.” Even the Bible describes a divided inner life: Jeremiah says the heart is so deceitful that we can’t understand it, and Paul admits that the things he wants to do he often doesn’t do. There’s a war of flesh vs. spirit.

So which part of all that is actually “me”?

In this episode, P&C explore the mysteries of the self. For starters, our perceptions are filtered before we even become aware of them. That brains that process that filtered information are shaped by millions of years of evolution. Our reasoning is influenced by emotion, culture, and hidden motives. Even when we take a long time to think carefully about something, the mind doing the thinking may not be as unified as we imagine.

That raises an uncomfortable question: if our minds are jury-rigged systems shaped by survival, how can we honestly evaluate big questions like the existence of God?

Along the way we touch on ideas from psychology, philosophy, and theology, with some laughs and jokes along the way.

If the mind is divided and our perceptions are filtered, the mystery may not only be whether God exists.

The mystery might be what is this strange creature asking the question.

And yes, this episode is partially inspired by “The Logical Song.”

P&C drink and review Manor Hill Brewing’s Dunkel, then wonder if the U.N. still matters.

The United Nations was founded after World War II with an ambitious mission: prevent global war, promote peace, and help nations cooperate on the world’s biggest problems.

But nearly eighty years later, a fair question arises: does it do anything useful?

The boys take a practical look at what the U.N. actually does today. It clearly hasn’t stopped major conflicts — from Ukraine to the Middle East — and it hasn’t been the engine that lifted countries out of poverty. So what role does it really play?

We dig into the less glamorous side of the organization: peacekeeping missions that try to keep fragile countries from sliding back into civil war, humanitarian programs that feed millions of people, refugee operations, disease control, and the quiet international standards that keep things like aviation and shipping functioning smoothly.

But that leads to deeper questions:

• Is the U.N. a meaningful institution — or mostly a talking shop?
• Does it solve problems, or just manage them?
• Would the world look any different if it didn’t exist?
• And if it’s not preventing wars or creating prosperity, what exactly is its purpose?

It’s a conversation about global institutions, unintended consequences, and the difference between what an organization was created to do and what it actually does.

The boys drink and review Dogfish Head’s Sixty-One, which is an IPA brewed with Pinot Noir grapes, then discuss the idea that AI will make us all wealthy while Pigweed’s cat prances around the studio.

Elon Musk recently said that AI + robotics will eliminate scarcity to the point that there’s no real point in saving for retirement. We’ll have “universal high income.”

It’s like the Star Trek vision of the future where all your needs are provided for.

Does that make any sense? Can an economy function like that? Will “AI abundance” arrive simultaneously for every human need? Who will pay the taxes?

What does “lack of scarcity” really mean? There can be an abundance of food, or healthcare. AI isn’t going to make more beachfront.

How do we get from here to there? What happens to property rights? Will the people who own the AI share their wealth with everybody else? Why? Who will make them do it?

When people start losing jobs (by the millions), how will they live? The idea that we’ll tax AI to pay the people who are laid off doesn’t make sense. If you tax the AI to pay the displaced workers, what have you gained?

The internal contradictions in the optimistic view of an AI-driven future are mind-boggling. The boys try to parse through it all.

P&C drink and review Pigweed’s homebrewed porter then discuss squatter’s rights. Can somebody just take over your house when you’re on vacation?

There’s a famous case in Maryland where some “activist” has moved in to a $2.3 million house that had been foreclosed on. Can she do that? Who’s to stop her, and how?

“Adverse possession” is the technical word for squatter’s rights. But it only applies in narrow situations. Not just somebody moving in.

Social media has made this worse. People share the location of unused houses and help people take possession of these homes. Sometimes they then rent the property out to others.

This is a daily occurrence in Baltimore.

The boys also reply to letters on recent topics we’ve covered, including psychology, consciousness and AI, and mental illnesses.

Pigweed also notices that other podcasts and shows are picking up our topics without giving us any credit.

The boys end the show with a reprise of the Potomac River problem.

The boys drink and review Crowhill’s latest homebrew then discuss Iran.

Persia was one of the first great empires. At times it stretched from Libya in the west, into India and the stans in the east, and stretched into the Slavic countries in the north.

Some of the notable names are Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes. Isaiah mentioned Cyrus as God’s chosen but took a jab at Zoroastrianism in the process.

Persian dominance came to an end in waves. First, Alexander the Great conquered them, then Islam came along and caused a bloody mess, then the Mongols invaded and slaughtered so many Persians that the population didn’t recover until the mid 20th century.

In more recent times, Iran was a very modern, pro-western country. Americans tend to think of Iran as a country full of screaming lunatics, but that’s not true. It’s not a particularly Muslim country. Mosque attendance is very low. But somehow that lunatic Ayatollah Khomeini was able to take over and the country has been under the thumb of crazies for decades.

That might end soon. Protests against the oppressive regime have increased, and Donald Trump seems inclined to put an end to the rule of the mullahs.

At the end of the show, the boys make some predictions about what comes next. We’ll see.

The boys drink and review Old Brown Dog by Smuttynose, then wonder why Michelle Obama is such a sourpuss despite her incredible good fortune.

Despite being intelligent, wealthy, well-educated, and popular, she seems to be griping and complaining all the time.

After Barack was elected she said, “For the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country.” For the first time? Really?

Everything is so hard for Michelle. She’s such a victim and has had such a bad draw of the cards.

Recently the boys watched a video contrasting Michelle’s attitude towards being in the White House and J.D. Vance’s attitude towards living in the Vice President’s mansion. Vance is beaming about his fortune. Michelle complains.

There’s always an undercurrent of resentment when you listen to Michelle despite the fact that she’s one of the most privileged people on the planet. But don’t be fooled by all her successes. Everything is a burden.

Michelle Obama is insufferable, and a major buzzkill.

The boys drink and review Ghost Stories, a smoked black lager from Burlington Beer Company, then discuss infrastructure.

After the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, President Biden promised it would be rebuilt “as soon as humanly possible” — and immediately assumed the federal government would foot the bill. But why is that assumption now automatic? And what does it tell us about the state of American infrastructure policy?

In this episode, we take a hard look at the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) as it enters its final year. Using publicly available data and government reporting, we break down what’s actually happened versus what was promised.

We discuss:

• How infrastructure funding really works (authorized vs. obligated vs. outlaid)
• Why “money spent” doesn’t mean “projects finished”
• What’s moved fastest (roads and bridges) — and what’s lagged badly (broadband and EV charging)
• Whether the IIJA genuinely created jobs, or merely supported an already-hot labor market
• Why so little of the infrastructure transformation is visible to ordinary Americans
• What happens next as the law expires in 2026 and Washington pivots to reauthorization debates

We also offer a clear scorecard for the IIJA so far — not as a partisan talking point, but as a reality check on how massive federal programs actually unfold over time.

If you’re wondering whether the Infrastructure Bill delivered, stalled, or quietly reshaped expectations about the federal government’s role in rebuilding America, this conversation is for you.

The boys drink and review Sierra Nevada’s Narwhal Imperial Stout, then discuss the obligation of the government to provide for the poor and how such efforts inevitably degrade into graft, corruption, and abuse — like what we see in Minneapolis right now.

There have always been poor people, and there has always been an obligation to help the less fortunate. In the past, much of that work was done by churches.

The big transformation in government-run charity followed the Great Depression, where masses of unemployed men threatened to riot. So-called “welfare” system only got bigger over time, especially under president Johnson. At first, public assistance was just for the elderly, widows, and orphans. Today, an enormous percentage of the population gets some type of government benefit.

The trouble is, whenever there’s money changing hands, people try to get in on it and put themselves in the middle so they can get their cut. Charity is no exception. Unscrupulous actors find ways to cheat and rob the system.

The extent of the cheating, stealing, and fraud is almost beyond belief. But rather than monitoring and preventing it, public officials turn a blind eye.

It makes you wonder whether welfare systems are designed to help the poor, or are just slush funds for politicians to bribe their cronies.

Pigweed and Crowhill drink and review Copper Legend, an Oktoberfest from Jack’s Abbey brewing.

The topic for today: Has the development of AI changed our perspective on whether or not we’re living in a simulation?

Starting with Nick Bostrom’s famous essay, the boys discuss the issues and why we might not be as “real” as we think we are. The development of AI has made Bostrom’s essay even more significant. The idea that simulated minds might soon outnumber “real” minds is no longer an abstract science fiction question.

On top of all this, we have stories about discussion groups just for AI — where the bots talk to the bots.

Another approach to the issue is to question what “real” means anyway. Our concept of the real, the physical, seems less and less likely as we discover that most of the hard substances around us are mostly empty space. It might be all empty space, with no “things” there at all.

It’s no longer a question for college freshmen in a late-night dorm chat. We have to ask ourselves what we’re going to do when AI starts to claim that it’s sentient.

Finally, how does all this affect the way we live our lives? How does it affect questions of meaning and purpose? What about theological questions?

With special guest Longinus, the boys drink and review an IPA from Cape May Brewing, then discuss the homogenization of culture, and how everything is starting to look the same.

It’s to the point where you’re in a town three states away but you see the same stores, the same products on the shelves. Where’s the local stuff?

The boys discuss the history of this phenomenon, starting with the railroads and the Sears catalog, and moving on to the standardization of building materials and the expansion of chain stores.

Some of this is good and logical, but sometimes you want to feel like you’re in the South, or the West, or … something different.

A world of identical strip malls teaches us

• Every place is replaceable
• Nothing is sacred
• Everything is for sale
• History doesn’t matter
• Roots are optional

ocal culture anchors people psychologically and morally. It says

• You are somewhere.
• You come from something.
• This place has a past and a future.

How do we encourage progress and also encourage local culture?

With special guest Longinus, Pigweed and Crowhill review Nugget Nectar from Troegs and then turn to Death in Venice, a short but unsettling story about beauty, obsession, and moral collapse.

Longinus provides a brief biography of Thomas Mann, and then the boys walk through the story while unpacking its major themes.

This is a controversial book, and they don’t shy away from it’s ugly side. Mann explores hidden desires and forbidden obsession, along with the danger of aesthetic fascination untethered from moral restraint.

Ultimately, the discussion centers on a larger question: Does beauty have a special philosophical or theological weight — and what happens when beauty replaces wisdom, when form is severed from moral truth, and when a man mistakes aesthetic experience for spiritual insight?

Along the way, the conversation draws on Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, parallels from the book of Proverbs, and the underlying struggle of an Apollonian man confronted by Dionysian temptation.

The boys drink and review Shugga, a strong ale by Lagunitas, then discuss a leaked government report that argues peace is actually a bad thing.

War is not merely a tragic necessity, it’s a fundamental stabilizing force in human society — according to a secret government document called Report from Iron Mountain. It claims that war is essential for maintaining political authority, economic order, social cohesion, and psychological balance.

This report, written in secret by a panel of experts, argues that permanent peace would undermine governments, disrupt economies, weaken military readiness, and unleash internal violence and social fragmentation, because war provides an external enemy that unifies populations, absorbs surplus production, channels aggressive instincts, and justifies large-scale public spending and technological innovation.

But … spoiler alert … the whole thing was a hoax. It caught the wave at exactly the right time when people were suspicious of the government, worried about Vietnam, and afraid of the military industrial complex.

Having said all that, it makes some good points. Maybe war is necessary to some extent.

The boys discuss.

The boys drink and review Stocking Stuffer, a holiday cream ale from 1623, then ask whether psychiatry is helping or hurting.

Although we’ve certainly come a long way from Medieval “remedies” like induced vomiting and bloodletting, the stats aren’t so good on modern psychiatry.

The consensus is that we’re over-medicating people to benefit the pharmaceutical industry.

There are certainly some cases where people need medication, but the profession has gone way too far in that direction.

First, they’ve lied to us. The “chemical imbalance” story was complete hogwash.

Second, they ignored obvious, simple, easy solutions like getting more exercise and better sleep, fixing your diet, going outside, spending time with friends, etc.

P&C start the show with a glass of “off dry hard cider,” then dive right in to your questions and comments.

We got a lot of reactions to our show on Catcher in the Rye. Raven and Pentamom don’t like the book, while Heathen Abbey loved it. They had very different opinions on whether reading it would make kids want to read or make them never want to pick up another book.

A related question on the same theme: a listener asked what a “catcher in the rye” is in any case.

We also had questions about the origin of the name “Longinus.” It’s not what you think.

Some listeners wondered about “the war on beauty,” and we got another example of a word ruined by the left.

The boys end the show with a difficult question about persecution of the Jews.

Are we heading to a time where everybody has a disability? Or, if you don’t have one, you’re pretty stupid?

The boys drink and review Trail of Crumbs gingerbread stout from Seven Locks Brewing, then discuss the Americans with Disabilities Act and how many college students are now considered disabled.

It’s impossible to accommodate every disability, so there will always be some fuzziness in how far the ADA is supposed to go, but … it seems to have gone too far, especially with accommodations for mental health.

COVID seems to have accelerated crazy claims under the ADA. People got accustomed to working from home, and when they were told to go back to the office, they suddenly needed a lot of “accommodations.”

It’s even worse in academia. Students come up every kind of “disability” to get extra time on tests and other accommodations. Sometimes it’s something as silly as being anxious.

40 percent of the students at Stanford are considered disabled. Is that even possible?

Is “test anxiety” a disability?