We Are Not Saved

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2023/04/27/the-modern-landscape-of-harm/

It is not just our ability to cause harm, but our ability to mitigate harm which has grown in an unprecedented fashion. Life has done whatever it could get away with for billions of year, but in the last few hundred humans have come along able to inflict or prevent great harms and the consciousness to decide whether and how. Recent debates have pitted maximalists from both sides. Those who believe we need to do everything possible to prevent certain harms and those who thing that any attempt to prevent harm is likely to cause more harm because it stalls progress.

In 2014, just a few days before Christmas I was fired and served with a lawsuit. The next two years were some of the toughest of my life. (Which actually makes me pretty lucky.) This is the story of that lawsuit. How it started and how it ended. I made a lot of mistakes, hopefully this will enable you to not make the same mistakes.

1. What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies by: Tim Urban
2. The Machinery of Freedom – Guide to a Radical Capitalism by: David Friedman
3. The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown by: Various
4. A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix by: Edwin H. Friedman
5. Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that Makes the Underclass by: Theodore Dalrymple
6. Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions That Define Us by: Russ Roberts
7. Darkness at Noon by: Arthur Koestler
8. The Horse and His Boy by: C. S. Lewis
9. Prince Caspian by: C. S. Lewis
10. Voyage of the Dawn Treader by: C. S. Lewis
11. The Silver Chair by: C. S. Lewis
12. The Last Battle by: C. S. Lewis
13. Till We Have Faces by: C. S. Lewis

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2023/03/31/eschatologist-27-golems-and-genies/

I recently read a book which claimed to describe the central problem of the modern world, What's Our Problem by Tim Urban. No one can say he lacked for ambition, but I feel like his analysis overlooks several large problems. In particularly I think he doesn't go nearly deep enough into how technology has changed the rules of the game.

He has divided the political landscape up into golems and genies. And he asserts that we just need stronger genies, the problem is that technology has developed in such a way that it actively sabotages genies while empowering golems. And this problem is not going to go away...

There have been some competing explanations for the Nord Stream explosions. Seymour Hersh claims the US did it. The New York Times claims it was Pro-Ukrainian forces and a somewhat obscure blogger claims he has evidence that it was the Russians. How is one to decide? And is it even necessary to decide? Is it perhaps more important to have a robust framework for conspiracy theories in general, than to have firm opinions about specific theories? How has the modern world made the whole entreprise more difficult?

1. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by: David Graeber and David Wengrow
2. America and Iran: A History 1720 to the Present by: John Ghazvinian
3. Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It by: M. Nolan Gray
4. Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed by: Ben R. Rich
5. The Hedonistic Imperative by: David Pearce
6. Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health—and Improving Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, OCD, PTSD, and More by: Christopher M. Palmer MD
7. Nicomachean Ethics by: Aristotle
8. Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction by: Jonathan Barnes
9. Dungeon Crawler Carl: A LitRPG/Gamelit Adventure by: Matt Dinniman
10. Carl's Doomsday Scenario: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 2 by: Matt Dinniman
11. The Magician's Nephew by: C. S. Lewis
12. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by: C. S. Lewis

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2023/02/28/eschatologist-26-a-crisis-of-change-and-choice/

In my last newsletter we talked about spiritual health, and a few options for acquiring that health, such as overcoming suffering or, alternatively, gaining material abundance. In this newsletter we're going to go beyond talking about the merits of different options to discussing the way in which these options have multiplied.

Go back a few centuries, and there was one religion, one staple crop, and one way of doing things. These days, however, we're spoiled for choices and options for both spiritual and physical health, and beyond that our emotional and mental health as well. We have countless religions to choose from: some secular, some informal. Beyond that there are a bewildering variety of diet and exercise programs, and tens of thousands of self-help books. We are offered a truly insane number of choices, all backed up by a deluge of data drawing sometimes contradictory conclusions. Everybody wants to be happy and live a good life, but which of the thousands of options best accomplishes that?

Transcript along with pictures of all the docs mentioned in the episode: https://wearenotsaved.com/2023/02/25/a-cautionary-tale/

In the interest of not spoiling things you're just going to have to listen...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2023/02/16/polycrises-or-everything-everywhere-all-at-once/

In general any individual catastrophe is probably overblown. Global warming is not going to cause human extinction. Despite the severity of the war in Ukraine, nukes will probably not be used. Or at least none of these bad things are going to happen all by themselves. The problem is that we face numerous crises and while each individual crisis might be managable on their own, in combination they often feed off each other and create a polycrisis that's far more severe than any of the crises considered in isolation. Bad things are happening everywhere, and all at once...

1. A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies by: Matt Simon
2. Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century by: Helen Thompson
3. The Captive Mind by: Czeslaw Milosz
4. Antinet Zettelkasten: A Knowledge System That Will Turn You Into a Prolific Reader, Researcher and Writer by: Scott P. Scheper
5. The Farthest Shore by: Ursula K. Le Guin
6. All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by: Martha Wells
7. The Mind of the Maker by: Dorothy L. Sayers
8. The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by: G. K. Chesterton
9. Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations by: Alex & Brett Harris