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 episode.

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

My capsule reviews for the month:

1. Persepolis Rising by: James S. E. Corey
2. Project Hail Mary by: Andy Weir
3. The Perfect Dictatorship: China in the 21st Century by: Stein Ringen
4. The Ethics of Authenticity by: Charles Taylor
5. Legal Systems Very Different From Ours by: David D. Friedman
6. Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by: Alfred Lansing
7. The Graveyard Book (Graphic Novel) by: Neil Gaiman Adapted by: P. Craig Russell Illustrated by: Various
8. Learning from Loss: The Democrats, 2016–2020 by: Seth Masket

This episode is in three parts. First is the eschatological reviews:

1. A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence by: Jeff Hawkins
2. 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 need to moderate our spending that it will be easy to turn down. I very much doubt that.

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 we are playing a dangerous game, one whose stakes Wizards may not entirely understand. The recent resurgence of the Wuhan lab-leak theory for the pandemic proved very timely.

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. In this episode I offer up some potential inflection points. I'm not sure that any of them will come to pass, to say nothing of all of them, but they provide a useful marker for where China is headed and what it might mean should it arrive there.

1. “Engineering the Apocalypse” Podcast Episode by Sam Harris and Rob Reid
2. This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World by: Yancey Strickler
3. The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life by: Boyd Varty
4. Babylon’s Ashes by: James S. E. Corey
5. Peter the Great: His Life and World by: Robert K. Massie
6. Exhalation: Stories by: Ted Chiang
7. What’s Wrong With the World by: G. K. Chesterton
8. Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future by: Margaret Heffernan
9. Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice by: Fredrik deBoer
10. Mormon Philosophy Simplified: An Easy LDS Approach to Classic Philosophical Questions by: Brittney Hartley

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 when you maximize safety you can't actually maximize safety, you can only maximize it's perceived importance, which is how we ended up in a situation where, in the midst of a deadly pandemic, we have paused, or refused to approve, or otherwise restricted vaccines, dooming thousands because the vaccines are not entirely risk free. But is anything?