Episoder
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The Evil Creator: Origins of an Early Christian Idea by: M. David Litwa
Existential Kink: Unmask Your Shadow and Embrace Your Power by: Carolyn Elliott
The Ballad of the White Horse by: G. K. Chesterton
American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology by: D.W. Pasulka
Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences by: D.W. Pasulka
Undreaming Wetiko: Breaking the Spell of the Nightmare Mind-Virus by: Paul Levy
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A method for making better decisions should you ever find yourself in Kathmandu, or paying for SEO, or hoping to see the Supreme Court.
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Manglende episoder?
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Self-Help Is Like a Vaccine: Essays on Living Better by: Bryan Caplan
Anaximander: And the Birth of Science by: Carlo Rovelli
The Social Conquest of Earth by: Edward O. Wilson
The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class by: David S. Kidder and Noah D. Oppenheim
Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by: Donald Miller
The Power of Having Fun: How Meaningful Breaks Help You Get More Done by: Dave Crenshaw
The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change by: Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein
The Little Book of Aliens by: Adam Frank
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You have probably heard about Rotherham, and the child sex abuse rings that existed there (and may still be operating). As with so many things these days, this story entered the public discussion when Musk tweeted about it. For many people Iāve talked to, this was the first theyād heard of it. I actually spoke about about it in 2018. At the time I felt I was late to the game, but apparently I was six years ahead of most people. Given the story's re-emergence I thought it might be worth dusting off that old piece. I think it holds up pretty well, particularly the part about the woeful lack of reporting on the topic.
I have lightly edited it, smoothing things out in a few places, adding commas, that sort of thing. Temporal references have not been updated, so when I say āa week agoā Iām referring to 2018.
Even if youāve already read a lot about these horrific crimes, there are a few takes in here that I havenāt seen elsewhere
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Exactly five years ago, China identified a ānovel coronavirusā and the world was introduced to the term āwet marketā. In the time since then arguments continue to rage about the source of the virus, the measures that were taken, and the vaccines that were created.
In the midst of all these arguments, everyone seems to agree on one thing: extended school closures were a bad idea. Itās very easy to continue on from that to assume the harms of such closures were obvious from the very beginningāthat they happened only because we were blinded by fear. Some people donāt go quite so far, but nevertheless argue that such closures were implemented hastily and without much consideration. But consider this quote from the Michael Lewis book Premonition on the role of disease modeling:
The graph illustrated the effects on a disease of various crude strategies: isolating the ill; quarantining entire households when they had a sick person in them; socially distancing adults; giving people antiviral drugs; and so on. Each of the crude strategies had some slight effect, but none by itself made much of a dent, and certainly none had the ability to halt the pandemic by driving the diseaseās reproductive rate below 1. One intervention was not like the others, however: when you closed schools and put social distance between kids, the flu-like disease fell off a cliff. (The model defined āsocial distanceā not as zero contact but as a 60 percent reduction in kidsā social interaction.) āI said, āHoly shit!ā ā said Carter. āNothing big happens until you close the schools. Itās not like anything else. Itās like a phase change. Itās nonlinear. Itās like when water temperature goes from thirty-three to thirty-two. When it goes from thirty-four to thirty-three, itās no big deal; one degree colder and it turns to ice.
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A Gentleman in Moscow by: Amor Towles
The Humans by: Matt Haig
Super-Cannes: A Novel by: J. G. Ballard
Monster Hunter: International by: Larry Correia
Monster Hunter: Vendetta by: Larry Correia
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Three things converged for me recently and at the point of their convergence was the issue of placing women in frontline combat roles.
The first leg of the convergence was the election of Donald Trump. Weāre still debating the reasons why he won, but certainly a reassertion of gender differences are near the top of everyoneās list. For example, allowing natal men into womenās sports.
The second was Trumpās nomination of Pete Hesgeth for Secretary of Defense. Hegsethās nomination is controversial for a lot of reasons, but one of the controversies is his opinion that women should not be allowed into front line combat roles.
Finally, I just got done watching the miniseries Band of Brothers, while at the same time re-reading the Stephen E. Ambrose book itās based on. I would highly recommend the exercise (see my review of the book here.) In addition to being enjoyable it reminded me of how physical, grimy, and desperate combat can be. And of course the theme of both the book and the series is that Easy Company was so effective because they had developed strong bonds of brotherhood through the numerous challenges they overcame. These challenges include D-Day, Market Garden, liberating concentration camps, and finally being the first into Hitlerās stronghold at Eagleās Nest. But if you were to pick the hardest thing they did, it was probably defending Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.
Watching and reading about Bastogne was a sobering experience. It is also the point where the three things I just mentioned crystallized into this line of inquiry. Given that it might be helpful to give you a brief overview of the Siege of Bastogne...
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Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict by: Ara Norenzayan
A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains by: Max Bennett
The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump by: Max Blumenthal
What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars by: Jim Paul and Brendan Moynihan
The Laws of Trading: A Trader's Guide to Better Decision-Making for Everyone by: Agustin Lebron
Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by: Oliver Burkeman
Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest by: Stephen E. Ambrose
The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement by: Sharon McMahon
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AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Canāt, and How to Tell the Difference by: Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor
Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory by: Peter Hessler
On Grand Strategy by: John Lewis Gaddis
Leisure: The Basis of Culture by: Josef Pieper
Anatomy of the State by: Murray Rothbard
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration by: David Roberts
The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War by: Michael Shaara
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He talks about the Village, and the River, but what we really need is a Redoubt.
On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything
By: Nate Silver
Published: 2024
576 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
There are two different ways of approaching the world: the River, which thinks in terms of numbers, expected values, and quantification and the Village, which is the paternalistic expert class which manifests as the vast bureaucracy.
What's the author's angle?
I got the impression that Silver just wanted to write about things that interested him. Because of this, his thesis was kind of tacked on. That said, he is a fairly passionate advocate for things that interest him.
Who should read this book?
Silver is worried that people will skip the first half of the book which is about gambling, but in reality that was the best part, or at least the part I found to be novel. The second part is about Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), AI, and all the stuff youāve already heard too much about if you spend much time online. With this in mind, I think there are three reasons to read this book:
If you want a deep exploration of high-level poker playing.
You have never heard of AI Risk or SBF.
If you think my discussion of Silverās model of the Village vs. the River is incomplete.
Specific thoughts: An mashup of the election and this book
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One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein, Volumes 1 & 2
By: Whitney Alyse Webb
Briefly, what are these books about?
The alleged connections between organized crime and national intelligence agencies which led to the numerous illicit operations including Watergate, Iran-Contra, the JFK Assassination, and of course the entire Jeffrey Epstein mess.
A key component of these operations was the tactic of collecting blackmail and using it to convince people to do things they otherwise wouldnāt.
What's the author's angle?
Charitably, Webb is an autodidact with an enormous command of facts and connections.
Uncharitably, sheās someone with a weak evidentiary filter making conspiratorial mountains out of tenuously connected molehills.
Who should read these books?
No one should just read them. You should either ignore them or study them intently as part of an āIntro to Conspiracy Theoriesā curriculum. Of the two I would recommend the former. Read on to see why.
I- How does one approach a book like this?
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The Ocean at the End of the Lane by: Neil Gaiman
There Is No Antimemetics Division by: qntm
The Man Who Had All the Luck by: Arthur Miller
How Green Was My Valley by: Richard Llewellyn
Theft of Fire: Orbital Space #1 by: Devon Eriksen
Assassin's Apprentice (The Farseer Trilogy, Book 1) by: Robin Hobb
Royal Assassin (The Farseer Trilogy, Book 2) by: Robin Hobb
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With the enormous increase in the power of AI (specifically LLMs) people are using them for all sorts of things, hoping to find areas where theyāre better, or at least cheaper than humans. FiveThirtyNine (get it?) is one such attempt, and they claim that AI can do forecasting better than humans.
Scott Alexander, of Astral Codex Ten, reviewed the service and concluded that they still have a long way to go. I have no doubt that this is the case, but one can imagine that this will not always be the case. What then? My assertion would be that at the point when AI forecasting does āworkā (should that ever happen) it will make the problems of superforecasting even worse.2
I- The problems of superforecastingWhat are the problems of superforecasting?
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The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by: Michael A. Singer
Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It by: Ethan Kross
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World by: John Mark Comer
Dumb Money: The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders That Brought Wall Street to Its Knees by: Ben Mezrich
Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results by: Shane Parrish
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Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos by: Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam
Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States by: James C. Scott
This post represents a new feature (experiment?) I plan to occasionally write posts which take advantage of one or more books I read recently, but which arenāt actually reviews of those books. See, for example, my last post: Superminds, States, and the Domestication of Humans.
Despite the fact that the books feature heavily in these posts, I assume my adoring fans still want actual reviews. But it doesnāt make sense to wait until the next book review collection for those reviews to appear, nor does it make sense to cram the reviews into the original essay which was about something else. And so I thought that instead I would have the reviews quickly follow the essay as sort of supplementary material. So thatās what this is. Let me know what you think.
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How durable is the state? How resistant is it to being overthrown? How closely does it reflect our desires? Is it possible it has its own desires?
But maybe more importantly how does all this affect the possibility of a very close election in November?
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A narcissistic dialogue around ideas that are either annoyingly fractured or wholly unrealistic.
DON'T DIE: Dialogues
By: Bryan Johnson
Published: 2023
247 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
How best to extend the lifespan of humans and the lifetime of humanity presented in the form of a fictional dialogue between various aspects of the author's personality.
What's the author's angle?
Bryan Johnson is a biohacker who measures dozens and dozens of biomarkers. As a result of this he claims to be aging at 64/100th the normal rate. Heās also a former and, as near as I can tell, disaffected member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Who should read this book?
If youāre really into lifespan expansion, then maybe? Or similarly very concerned with X-risks? But I will warn you that the book is written in one of the more annoying styles Iāve ever encountered. Not only does it directly impede the transmission of information, it actively works against its inclusion..
Specific thoughts: A strange approach to X-risks...
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Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by: George Chauncey
The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised by: James Pethokoukis
Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History by: Nellie Bowles
Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir by: Werner Herzog
The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale by: Art Spiegelman
The Master and Margarita by: Mikhail Bulgakov
The Buried Giant: A Novel by: Kazuo Ishiguro
Naked Defiance: A Comedy of Menace by: Patrik Sampler
The Riddle of the Third Mile (Inspector Morse Series Book 6) by: Colin Dexter
Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Player's Handbook (D&D Core Rulebook) lead designer: Jeremy Crawford
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Transcript: https://www.wearenotsaved.com/p/divine-disappointment-and-mortal
Is God Disappointed in Me?: Removing Shame from a Gospel of GraceBy: Kurt Francom
Published: 2024
190 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?Our parents expect that we will do certain thingsāperhaps itās cleaning our rooms, perhaps itās becoming a doctorāwhen we don't, they're disappointed. We have a tendency to view God in the same fashion; He also has expectations, and when we fail to meet them we imagine that He is similarly disappointed. Francom claims this is a false belief. Because of Godās omniscience and infinite love, He cannot be disappointed. When we think He might be it leads to shame, which prevents us from accessing His love.
Whatās the authorās angle?Francom is the director of Leading Saints, an organization whose primary focus is providing advice and resources for the lay leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Heās also heavily involved with Warrior Heart a Christian menās organization that runs retreats with a focus on addiction recovery. This book is part of those focuses and a personal expression of Francomās approach to leadership and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Whatās My Angle?Iāve known Francom for going on ten years. As such Iāve been privy to his argument that God cannot be disappointed from his initial epiphany all the way down to his full, book-length treatment of the subject. As Iāve watched the idea develop, Iāve raised numerous objections. To Francomās great credit most of these objections are at least acknowledged in the book. I suspect that I wasnāt the only one to raise these objections, but I fancy that he first heard of them from me.
My name is listed in the bookās acknowledgments but itās pretty generic. I had hoped for something more like āAnd thanks to Ross Richey, if not for his relentless criticism, unending negativity, poor character, and dark soul, the book would have been less accurate, but probably more inspiring.ā
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A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? by: Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe by: Judith Herrin
The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by: Paul Collins
Missing: The Need for Closure After the Great War by: Richard van Emden
In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife by: Sebastian Junger
Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness by: Steve Magness
Eruption by: James Patterson and Michael Crichton
The Last Devil to Die: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery (#4) by: Richard Osman
He Who Fights with Monsters 8: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
He Who Fights with Monsters 9: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
He Who Fights with Monsters 10: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
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