Hello everyone welcome to Blockton reported I'm Jesse Single.

Katie is off this week she is on the run as the authorities

try to track her down for her role in the cloud-seeding conspiracy that led to

Hurricane Milton. In Katie's place I'm joined by Dan Williams. Dan is a lecturer in philosophy that's an assistant

professor as we Americans call it at the University of Sussex and an associate fellow

at the Leverholm Center for the Future of Intelligence at the University of

Cambridge which is also where he got his PhD in philosophy.

He writes, quote, the main focus of my research is on the social functions and causes of beliefs.

I am especially interested in self-deception, religious beliefs, political ideologies, and delusions."

End quote.

Dan also authors the truly excellent sub-stat conspicuous cognition at conspicuous cognition.

com. Dan, thank you for joining us.

Thank you for the invitation.

Just to give a listener's a bit of a roadmap.

The first part of our conversation

will be a tiny bit wonky just so we can define some terms and so on.

But then we're going to apply your work and your writing

to some real world situations,

including the rioting in England over the summer,

this researcher who claims to have invented a vaccine

for misinformation,

and a recent article in the Atlantic by Charlie Warsaw.

...