We Are Not Saved

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 on...

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 Je...

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 shou...

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...

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?

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/09/14/excerpt-book-review-the-ethics-of-beauty/ An excerpt from a book review I recently did for the new magazine American Hombre (available here: https://americanhombre.gumroad.com/ )

The Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail  by: Ray Dalio The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century  by: Louise Perry The War on the West  by: Douglas Murray The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: Woke, Entitled, and Drunk with Power  by: Mark Bauerlein Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life  by: Luke Burgis The Giver  by: Lois Lowry The En...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/08/31/eschatologist-20-the-antifragility-of-taboos/ We covered the fragility of systems and technology in the last newsletter . In this newsletter I'd like to move from the material to the ephemeral. In other words, let's talk about culture. This is a huge topic for a short newsletter, so while much of what I say can be applied to traditional culture in g...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/08/26/the-involution-of-everything/   Recently I came across a theory for the progression of subcultures, which seemed to have significant explanatory power for what's happening to Western culture in general. Among the many things this theory speaks to is why cultural fights have become so vicious, why young people are disengaging, and whether wokeism has...

To Save Everything Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism  by: Evgeny Morozov Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative?  by: Mark Fisher How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe  by: Thomas Cahill The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History  by: Alexander Mikaberidze Kidnapped  by: Robert Louis Stevens...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/07/31/eschatologist-19-the-non-linearity-of-baggage-systems/ I use the baggage chaos I encountered on a trip to Ireland as an example of fragility.

Liberalism and Its Discontents  by: Francis Fukuyama Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World  by: Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross Creative Evolution  by: Henri Bergson (didn't finish) An Introduction to Metaphysics  by: Henri Bergson The Great Hunger: Ireland: 1845-1849  by: Cecil Woodham-Smith  (didn't finish) The Man Who Died Twice: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/06/30/eschatologist-18-famines-and-fragility/   I'm leaving for Ireland in just over a week. The trip is about half touristy stuff and half genealogical. I discuss my Irish ancestors, in particular Charles Conner who came to America during the Potato Famine. I then discuss some potential lessons that famine has for our own time.

The future is important, it is where we're going to spend the rest of our lives. But there are lots of different frameworks for how the future is going to go. Has technology saved us? Is it about to save us? Or will technology doom us? Does the arc of the moral universe bend towards justice or are we a few years away from collapse. In this episode I consider a half dozen eschatological frameworks,...

Interestingly, the tragedy of Uvalde has been overshadowed by the unconscionable delay of the police. This is not the first time law enforcement has failed to operate in the way it should. An action by US Women Gymnasts seeking $1 billion dollars from the FBI for failing to stop Larry Nassar was also in the news recently. And again we have to ask why did law enforcement, in this case the FBI, fail...

The Exponential Age: How Accelerating Technology Is Transforming Business, Politics, and Society  by: Azeem Azhar Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men  by: Leonard Sax The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos  by: Sohrab Ahmari The China Dream: Great Power Thinking and Strategic Posture in the...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/05/31/eschatologist-17-weve-solved-all-the-easy-problems-only-hard-problems-remain/ Abortion is back in the news, but rather than arguing for one side or the other I thought I'd take a look at the arena of moral debates in general. Are we getting better at solving these thorny problems or worse? I suspect we're getting worse, both because of internet echo...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/05/26/conscience-authenticity-and-true-freedom/ In an episode that draws heavily from the book The Unbroken Thread :  Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos  by  Sohrab Ahmari I consider the apparently conflict between being authentic and doing what you're "supposed" to do.    

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/05/19/thoughts-on-yard-care-and-the-modern-world/ I'm moving and as a result I'm thinking of my decades long battle with my yard, and I'm wondering if there is any lesson for the modern world. I suspect that there is, but you should also consider that fact that I really hate yard work.

The Divide: How Fanatical Certitude Is Destroying Democracy  by: Taylor Dotson Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?  by: Mark Fisher  The Age of AI and Our Human Future  by: Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Daniel Huttenlocher A Confederacy of Dunces  by: John Kennedy Toole Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation  by: Roosevelt Montás B...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/05/01/eschatologist-16-the-right-amount-of-danger/ You may be familiar with the hygiene hypothesis, which holds that the increase in allergies we've been seeing are due to inadequately stressed immune systems. That in the absence of parasites and pathogens our immune systems overreact to things which aren't dangerous. Is it possible that something similar...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/04/28/the-drug-crisis-part-2-wrapping-up-and-maybe-some-solutions/ I wrap up my discussion of the drug crisis. I begin with discussing the fact that the US appears to be unique in the rate at which overdose deaths are increasing. This is not quite true, but there are some peculiarities which make the US a nice juicy target if you were interested in sellin...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/04/18/the-drug-crisis-part-1-the-role-of-progress-and-technology-in-creating-the-crisis/ An examination into how deaths from overdosing on drugs got so bad. Everyone knows how Oxycontin contributed to the problem, but there's far more to the story than that. Join me for a discussion of drug marketing, meth, benzodiazepines, and cocaine, and how it all com...

When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management  by: Roger Lowenstein How to Live on 24 Hours a Day  by: Arnold Bennet Burning Chrome  by: William Gibson Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of Grand Strategy: How Generals, Weapons Manufacturers, and Foreign Governments Shape American Foreign Policy  by:  Richard Hanania Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Man...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/03/31/eschatologist-15-covid-and-ukraine-the-return-of-messiness/ The last few decades have been a historical aberration, a time when things seemed simple and progress seemed inevitable. Alternatively we threw up our hands and assumed that our problems were so great that they risked causing the "End of the World". Reality is more messy, we will neither be...