We Are Not Saved

This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race  by: Nicole Perlroth  Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope  by: Mark Manson Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It  by: Chris Voss Gray Rhino: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore  by: Michele Wucker Golden Son by: Pierce Brown Red Rising: Sons of Ares – Volume 1 and 2 (Graph...

In the ongoing discussion of dealing with an uncertain future I put forth the idea that believing in God and belonging to a religion represents "easy mode". 

When people consider the harms which might be caused by technology, they often point to the "precautionary principle" as a possible way to mitigate those harms. This principle seems straight forward but once you actually try to apply it the difficulties become obvious. In particular how do you ensure that you're not delaying the introduction of beneficial technologies. How do you insure the harms...

My hot take on the situation in Afghanistan.  Highlights: -Why couldn't we have maintained a presence at Bagram, even if we pulled out everywhere else (think Guantanamo and Cuba). -Biden had more flexibility than he claimed. -It feels like this might lead to a loss of confidence similar to what we experienced after Vietnam -The effect on our allies may be the worst consequence of our withdrawal.

Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race  by: Shanna H. Swan End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking)  by: Katie Mack Facing Reality: Two Truths About Race in America  by: Charles Murray Winning: The Unforgiving Race to Greatness  by: Tim Grover Streaking: The Simple Practice of...

I discussed Fermi's Paradox in my last newsletter. In this I discuss the hint it provides that technology may be inevitably linked to extinction. That the reason the universe is not teeming with aliens is that the technology to get to that point presents insuperable risks which cannot be overcome. As I said this is a hint, but I think it's a hint we need to take seriously.

Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters  by: Steven E. Koonin Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science  by: Peter Godfrey-Smith The Start 1904-30  by: William L. Shirer The Storm on Our Shores: One Island, Two Soldiers, and the Forgotten Battle of World War II  by: Obmascik, Mark Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman  by: Robert K. M...

The massive attention being paid to UFOs in the form of the Pentagon/Naval videos has rekindled interest in the subject and by extension interest in Fermi's Paradox. I think people's interest in these subjects is entirely too trivial. Treating it as a curiosity rather than one of the most important indications of what the future has in store for humanity — either eventual doom or being terribly al...

In a continuation of the last episode I examine my favorite explanation for the inflection point in 1971: that this is when energy decoupled from economic growth. Economic output which has no connection to energy usage is a new and strange beast, much easier to manipulate in ways that produce inequality and inflation and all the other ills which have afflicted us since the early 70s.

The website wtfhappenedin1971.com presents a series of charts which show that there was inflection in rates of everything from inequality to obesity in 1971. In every case with things getting worse. Why would that be? In this episode I examine at 8 explanations (possibly more depending on how you count). Full warning, my favorite explanation is not included. That will be the subject of my next epi...

And here is where I have cordoned off spoilers for Project Hail Mary. Listen at your own risk.

My capsule reviews for the month: Persepolis Rising  by: James S. E. Corey Project Hail Mary  by: Andy Weir The Perfect Dictatorship: China in the 21st Century  by: Stein Ringen The Ethics of Authenticity  by: Charles Taylor Legal Systems Very Different From Ours  by: David D. Friedman Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage  by: Alfred Lansing The Graveyard Book  (Graphic Novel) by: Neil Gaiman...

This episode is in three parts. First is the eschatological reviews: A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence  by: Jeff Hawkins One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger  by: Matthew Yglesias

I've been talking about the knobs of society in my newsletters. Well one of the knobs we appear to have lost all fear of is the spending knob and we've decided we can pretty much turn it as high as we want without consequence. And yet everyone regardless of their economic ideology realizes that we can't turn it up forever. And the key problem is that people imagine that when the time comes when we...

I recently encountered the term Wizards and Prophets as a way of describing those who were, respectively, optimistic about technology or pessimistic about it. I think this is a good way of thinking about things, and as the context I encountered these terms ended up being a full-throated defense of wizardry, I thought it might be worthwhile to offer up a defence of Prophets. Those who contend that...

Making any predictions about China is difficult, but that doesn't mean it's not important. It may in fact be one of the most important things we can do if we want to have some idea of what the future holds. And while predictions are difficult, it does seem like a worthwhile endeavor to look at potential inflection points. Points where we can definitely say that past here things are very different....

"Engineering the Apocalypse" Podcast Episode by Sam Harris and Rob Reid This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World  by: Yancey Strickler The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life  by: Boyd Varty Babylon's Ashes  by: James S. E. Corey Peter the Great: His Life and World  by: Robert K. Massie Exhalation: Stories  by: Ted Chiang What's Wrong With the World  by: G. K. Chesterton Uncharted:...

In my last newsletter I described the temple of technology and progress with a countless knobs that could be turned. Some of the knobs obviously inspire caution, but some seem like an unalloyed good. Like the knob for safety. Accordingly that's what we've done we've turned the knob of safety all the way to 11, but as with all progress the effects have not always been what we expect. For example wh...

Lately there have been a lot of attempts to relitigate history. It is felt that taking history which has been ignored and giving it new emphasis will both increase the accuracy of that history and also help mitigate the negative effects of historical events. I show that this is generally not the case and that what we choose to emphasis is more based on the narrative we're pushing than the actual i...

There were various approaches to fighting COVID, and in retrospect we ended up with the worst of all. It's understandable that we didn't follow China in taking the authoritarian approach. And it's also understandable that we weren't going to be as lackadaisical as we were in 1918. But what kept us from taking the technolibertarian approach of human challenge trials, first doses first, and approvin...

Secular Cycles  by: Peter Turchin and Sergey A. Nefedov Where Is My Flying Car? A Memoir of Future Past  by: J. Storrs Hall A Short Stay in Hell  by: Steven L. Peck Cibola Burns  by: James S. A. Corey Nemesis Games  by: James S. A. Corey Classical Philosophy: A history of philosophy without any gaps, Volume 1  by: Peter Adamson Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantast...

I present a metaphor for technology and progress as an ancient temple with thousands of knobs. Technology allows us to turn the knobs, but we're never quite sure what they do, and we generally decide to turn the knobs as far as we can without this understanding. In the metaphor they control the weather, but in reality they control the weather of civilization, which just like the actual weather is...

The recent Netflix series "Murder Among the Mormons" bills itself as a true crime drama, but really it's a multi-faceted philosophical inquiry into questions of epistemology. Most notably through the central role fraud and forgery plays in the story, but the inquiry goes beyond that into issues of divine revelation, the reconstruction of history and the role of mercy when truth becomes difficult t...

Scott Alexander recently posted a study showing European municipalities which had the Napoleonic Code imposed upon them did better economically than nearby municipalities which didn't. He uses this to support a contention that radical reform is better than traditional institutions at delivering positive outcomes. My contention is not that we should be looking at narrow metrics of success but rathe...

The WEIRDest People In the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous  by: Joseph Henrich Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on the World's Greatest Scientific Expedition  by: Stephen R. Bown The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism  by: Thomas Frank Billy Miske: The St. Paul Thunderbolt  by: Clay Moyle The Landmark Thucydides  by: Thucydide...