We Are Not Saved

A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies by: Matt Simon Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century by: Helen Thompson The Captive Mind by: Czeslaw Milosz Antinet Zettelkasten: A Knowledge System That Will Turn You Into a Prolific Reader, Researcher and Writer by: Scott P. Scheper The Farthest Shore by: Ursula K. Le Guin All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by: Martha Wells The Mind of the Maker by: Dorothy L. Sayers The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by: G. K. Chesterton  Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations by: Alex & Brett Harris

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2023/02/01/eschatologist-25-spiritual-health-and-suffering/ Modernity has inarguably made dramatic improvements in our material well-being, but what about the non-material? The social, emotional and spiritual? In this episode I tackle that question. And while I think it might be possible that modernity has been neutral on this front, I don't think there's any reason for thinking it's been positive. But some people disagree. Tune into see who's right!

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2023/01/28/the-optimal-dosage-of-war/ Previous to the invasion of Ukraine, a sense of pessimism seemed to be ubiquitous with respect to Europe. Since the invasion things seem far more optimistic. One might even say that there's a new vitality and unity. Naively one might expect war to do the opposite, but we have a funny way of stepping up to challenges and war is the biggest challenge of all. This unity is not limited to Europe, it's an issue that even Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on. The question is, can we get these benefits in the absence of war. If not, are we doomed to descend into an increasingly fractious political environment?

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2023/01/24/challenging-children/ A follow up to my previous episode The Ineffability of Conservatism this episode attempts to approach things without bringing in religion. Though it does circle back there before the end. In particular we discuss three kinds of challenges: Challenges which are unavoidable. Challenges which can be avoided but we choose not to.  Challenges which can be avoided and we do. I argue that while we've moved a lot of things out of the first bucket we should be cautious about trying to move everything into bucket three. Challenges make us, and particularly are children resiliant and that's a good thing.

The Culture Transplant: How Migrants Make the Economies They Move To a Lot Like the Ones They Left by: Garett Jones The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self by: Michael Easter Infinite Jest by: David Foster Wallace What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by: Randall Munroe The Sandman: Book One by: Neil Gaiman Failure Mode: Expeditionary Force, Book 15 by: Craig Alanson

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/12/31/eschatologist-24-chatgpt-and-a-lack-of-genius/ I reflect on my AI prediction from past years in light of the amazing abilities of ChatGPT. I wonder if you're ever going to get brilliant output from a huge corpus of material which strictly on account of it's volume has to be essentially average...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/12/24/the-ineffability-of-conservatism/ I tell a story I heard of a boy walking out of Church in a direct slap to his father. And wonder why such a thing would have been inconcievable 40 years ago. What changed? As it turns out it's hard to say, and that's a big part of the problem.

The Psychology of Totalitarianism by: Mattias Desmet The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World by: Adrian Wooldridge The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud by: Phillip Rieff Plato: A Very Short Introduction by: Julia Annas Jesus’ Son by: Denis Johnson Tombs of Atuan by: Ursula K. Le Guin Roadside Picnic by: Arkady and Boris Strugatsky Purple Days by: Baurus

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/11/30/eschatologist-23-avoiding-risk/  After all the hot takes which have been offered in the wake of the FTX collapse, this is the hot take to rule them all. Okay probably not, and at this point it's probably a cold take. But I do think the whole FTX debacle carries some valuable lessons about risk. So that's what you're getting...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/11/26/book-review-the-ethics-of-beauty/  This is a review I did for the first issue of American Hombre, a new magazine being published by a friend of mine. I did an excerpt of it back in episode 292, but he’s graciously agreed to let me release it in its entirety. If this makes you interested in the full magazine, the PDF is currently available for free at americanhombre.gumroad.com. But also you should consider subscribing to the print version. This magazine deserves to be held.  You can use the coupon code ‘RW’ to get 10% off a subscription or $1 off the price of the print issue. The next issue is coming out in January and it will include another review by me. (The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter, if you’re curious.)  This review includes some pictures which you can find either in the PDF version of the magazine, or on wearenotsaved.com. But I will attempt to describe them in the course of my reading. They’re mostly pictures from the trip I took to Ireland this s

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/11/19/finding-the-answer/ A somewhat discursive episode where I reflect on a book I just read about meritocracy and different answers for the best way to organize society. And how what we thought was the answer—liberal democracy—appears to be fracturing, leaving everyone to fight over what part of it is the most important. What part was truly The Answer.

Link to survey: https://forms.gle/tCxmpwM4RTxPCJKUA What We Owe the Future by: William MacAskill The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe by: Michael D. Gordin Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character by: Jonathan Shay Socrates: A Very Short Introduction by: C.C.W. Taylor  Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy by: Mortimer J. Adler A Wizard of Earthsea by: Ursula K. LeGuin Freemasonry and the Origins of Latter-day Saint Temple Ordinances by: Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/10/31/eschatologist-22-a-survey/ Survey: https://forms.gle/toRzdKPervpygw8MA  It's time for me to stick my head out and see what people think of me. Yes I'd like you to fill out a survey. Tell me what you think. I mean it. Be brutal!

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/10/29/chip-off-the-old-bloc/ Recently the US enacted a set of punishing trade restrictions on China with respect to high-end chips. Some have called these restrictions the annihilation of China's semiconductor industry. Maybe so, but China's not going to go down without a fight, and the situation is complicated by numerous factors, including the complications of the technology itself. There's a lot going on and I attempt to cover a large portion of it.

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/10/22/the-midterms-biases-and-a-lack-of-moderation/  We're a few weeks from the midterms and it seemed like a good time to review the state of things. Though they're changing rapidly. In between composing this episode and recording it people went from expecting the Democrats to keep the Senate expecting them to lose it by a few seats. Beyond the reshuffling the election is exciting (or terrifying, depending on your perspective) for other reasons. We get to see if polls are still horribly broken (probably) and if there's any hope for either party to become more moderate. And of course there's the eternal possiblity that we'll finally get a viable third party (almost certainly not but a man can hope). 

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/10/15/dalio-vs-zeihan/ Ray Dalio and Peter Zeihan have both written books about the future of America, China, and the world. On some points they agree and on some points they're profound disagreement. I compare and contrast these too books, hoping by doing so to tease out a credible view of the future. It's a view that's pretty pessimistic. But I think once you've looked at both of them, that's what you end up with.

The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization by: Peter Zeihan The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by: David Deutsch Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism by: Anne Applebaum Post-Truth by: Lee C. McIntyre Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be by: Steven Pressfield  A Reader’s Companion to Infinite Jest by: Robert Bell and William Dowling The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by: Agatha Christie Dauntless: Lost Fleet, Book 1 by: Jack Campbell Fearless: Lost Fleet, Book 2 by: Jack Campbell Courageous: Lost Fleet, Book 3 by: Jack Campbell Outland by: Dennis E. Taylor

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/09/30/eschatologist-21-but-what-if-theyre-wrong/ I consider the predictions of three books and how one might approach these predictions when deciding how to prepare for the future.  It seems clear that most people start by trying to determine if a prediction is more likely than not to be accurate, but you should actually do somewhat the opposite, you should consider what the consequences are if the prediction is wrong.

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/09/28/the-bifurcation-created-by-technology/ This episode started as a tweet: Technology bifurcates problems. 99% of problems go away, but the 1% that are left are awful. Case in point customer service: 99% of the time you don't even need customer service from Amazon, etc. but the 1% of the time you do you're suddenly in a story by Kafka. Which I followed up with: Additional thoughts/example: Self driving cars. Tech can take care of easiest 99%. Tosses most difficult 1% back to driver. Driver has no context, just suddenly in deep end, therefore much worse at hardest 1% than if they had just dealt with the full 100% from start. What causes this phenomenon and how worried should we be?

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/09/21/the-tails-of-the-cultural-bell-curve/ If we imagine that culture has historically taken the form of a bell curve. Does it still do so? Or have we gutted the middle in service of making sure that the tails don't feel neglected? This seems very likely to be the case, and if it is what are the consequences?