Dilemma Series
Room: Business & Career Center Classroom, 2nd Floor
In the Dilemma series, academic philosophers help attendees unpack the particular weirdness of our times, examining the most precarious ethical and practical questions of being in cities, families, and amongst fellow citizens who deconstruct the world differently from us. Co-Curated with BPL Presents and Ian Olasov. A new question will be discussed every half hour from 8 to midnight.
8pm: Dilemma: "I find the recent attacks on trans people scary, but I also find the way a lot of young people talk about gender baffling. Does treating trans people decently mean I have to believe that sex and gender are just made up?" Discussed by Maximilian Rifkin
8:30pm: Dilemma: "Ever since the election, I’ve just wanted to tune out – watching movies, playing games, going for walks. I feel like I should be doing more, but paying attention to the world is just infuriating. How much escape is too much?" Discussed by Henry Curtis
9pm: Dilemma: "I’ve always struggled with body image issues, and just when I felt like I’d started to accept the way I look, Ozempic shows up. Does taking one of these drugs make you complicit in bullshit beauty standards?" Discussed by Rachel Abraham
9:30pm: Dilemma: "With everything going on, I want to do more to help out. People say that donating money is more effective than volunteering, but it feels like conscience-laundering. How do you make a difference without just paying other people to solve the world’s problems?" Discussed by Sandro Schwyzer
10pm: Dilemma: "Our parents died of a cancer that’s sometimes heritable. If I have the gene for it, my siblings probably do, too. I want to get screened, but my siblings don’t. Would it be a violation of their privacy for me to find out whether we’re all at risk—and talk openly about it?" Discussed by Ian Olasov
10:30pm: Dilemma: "My partner recently revealed, to my surprise, that they’d like to be cryogenically frozen when they die. I think it’s a ridiculous waste of money, but we can afford it. Is it really wrong, or just kind of silly, to deny your mortality?" Discussed by Nate McFaul
11pm: Dilemma: "I recently moved to New York City, and I’m finding myself kind of crushed by how lonely and transactional life is here. But joining a book club or taking up a hobby seems just as superficial as anything else. I guess my question is: what is real community, and how do you find it?" Discussed by Matt Vitello
11:30pm: Dilemma: "I want more beauty in my life, but every new kind of art I try to get into feels pretentious or scholastic or just ridiculous. Is this just cynical? And if it isn’t, what do you do?" Discussed by Andre Dobronic Parola
12midnight: Dilemma: "I have always been a staunch (though not especially militant) atheist. So had my best friend, until they had a recent health scare and started going to church. When they preach to me now, I want to defend the truth of atheism but it feels cruel now that this path is giving my friend comfort over mortality." Discussed by Ben Liljedahl
Ian Olasov teaches at NYU's Center for Bioethics. He is the author of Ask a Philosopher: Answers to Your Most Important and Most Unexpected Questions (St. Martin's: 2020) and a co-editor of A Companion to Public Philosophy (Wiley: 2022). He is the President of the Public Philosophy Network. He lives in Brooklyn with his amazing partner and their two dogs, Patty and Scrapple.
Nate McFaul is an MA student at NYU’s Center for Bioethics and is particularly interested in the ethics and governance of emerging technologies. He is a community organizer at heart, loves bringing people together to enact positive change, and believes philosophy is as integral to the public forum in today’s cloud-based world as in ancient history.
Sandro Schwyzer is a Bioethics MA student at NYU with expertise in journalism and creative storytelling dedicated to meaningful discussions and education on ethical issues in healthcare and medicine.
Matt Vitello is a current Bioethics MA student at NYU who spends his time thinking a lot about the way we should treat animals and other nonhuman beings. Last year he published a philosophical article in Columbia University's Gadfly and philosophically-minded poetry in the first issue of Edge City.
