We Are Not Saved

Transcript: https://www.wearenotsaved.com/p/tribe-by-sebastian-junger-and-the

The Siege of Sarajevo killed 20% of the population, a horror most of us can scarcely grasp, yet those who survived it look back on the siege as a period of unique happiness. Why should that be?

Transcript: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatchesendofworld/2023/07/chestertons-fence-and-technology/

G. K. Chesterton noted that one shouldn't remove a fence until you understand why it was there in the first place. This is a great analogy for the concept of the traditions which have been passed down to us by religion. Technology allows us to remove a lot of fences, but are we sure we understand why they were there to begin with?

Expanding on Nick Bostrom's metaphor for technological development — it's like drawing balls of various shades from an urn, and if you ever draw a pure black ball, the world ends...

Transcript: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatchesendofworld/2023/07/separating-the-beneficial-from-the-barbarous/

Clearly there are some traditions which should be abandoned. And just as clearly there are some which should be preserved. But what are we to do with the vast majority which fall in the middle?

There's significant evidence that traditional practices were beneficial and adaptive. But many reject traditions as relics of a barbarous past. How do we make that determination?

Transcript: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatchesendofworld/2023/07/the-technology-of-religion-vs-the-technology-of-progress/

Religion is a very old technology, and the wisdom contains is often hard to identify. This is unlike the technology we create intentionally, where the goal is always obvious. When these two technologies come into conflict who should we decide between them. It's easy and attractive to go with the new, but by dispensing with the old we may be incurring harms that will only manifest years or decades later.

1. Feminism Against Progress by: Mary Harrington

2. Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine by: Robert H. Lustig

3. Categories by: Aristotle

4. Prior Analytics by: Aristotle

5. The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by: Mike Michalowicz

6. The Butcher's Masquerade: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 5 by: Matt Dinniman

7. Xenocide (The Ender Saga, 3): by: Orson Scott Card

8. When We Cease to Understand the World by: Benjamin Labatut

9. The Sandman 3 by: Neil Gaiman

10. The New Jerusalem by: G. K. Chesterton

Religion is often viewed as being completely different from technology, but in actuality religion is a technology, one of the oldest forms of it in fact. It's a particularly important form of technology one that we abandon at our peril.

Transcript: https://www.wearenotsaved.com/p/the-ideas-of-nassim-nicholas-taleb-20d?sd=pf

For many years this was the most listened to episode of my podcast. So it seemed logical to update it, but also it's one you might have already heard.

Transcript: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatchesendofworld/2023/06/a-judgment-day-for-ais/

If AIs are going to act as independent agents then they should be praised for the virtues and judged for their sins just as we all are. And in fact this judgment is one of the few things that will ensure their morality.