We Are Not Saved

My annual episode where I look back on predictions I've made in the past (particularly my 100 year predictions) and make some predictions for the upcoming year. As you might imagine there would be no point of making 2020 predictions if I didn't cover the upcoming presidential election. I think there's a lot going on there, and while Bloomberg hasn't made a big impact he might still do that. Also Biden looks increasingly shaky as a front runner. Whatever happens it's going to be chaotic, but I take a stab at saying what exactly that chaos will look like.

1. Only the Dead: The Persistence of War in the Modern Age By: Bear F. Braumoeller
2. Tower Lord (Raven's Shadow #2) By: Anthony Ryan
3. Oath of Swords (War God #1) By: David Weber
4. The War God's Own (War God #2) By: David Weber
5. Aeschylus II: The Oresteia- Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides, Proteus (Fragments) By: Aeschylus
6. The New Testament: A New Translation for Latter-day Saints (Religious) Translated By: Thomas A. Wayment
7. The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Maxwell Institute Study Edition (Religious) Annotated by: Grant Hardy
8. Republican Party Animal: The "Bad Boy of Holocaust History" Blows the Lid Off Hollywood's Secret Right-Wing Underground By: David Cole
9. Utterly Dwarfed (The Order of the Stick #6) By: Rich Burlew
10. Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus By: Wizards RPG Team
11. A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul By: Leo Tolstoy
12. The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations for Clarity, Effectiveness, and Serenity By: Ryan Holiday
13. The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932 (The Last Lion #1) By: William Manchester

A recent debate on the dangers of pornography, and whether government should restrict things more or whether people just need to "parent better" plus an article about "total sexual freedom" causing the collapse of a nation within three generations are all tied together into a discussion of how to deal with more subtle eschatological concerns.

The title pretty much says it all, but in case you don't know what an Eschatologist is, an eschatologist is someone who studies eschatology. And eschatology is "a part of theology concerned with the final events of history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity. This concept is commonly referred to as the 'end of the world' or 'end times'.

In my discussion of eschatology I intend to broaden the definition both horizontally (to include secular concerns) and vertically (to include not merely the end of the world, but the end of the nation).

My book reviews for November:

1. The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why By: Amanda Ripley
2. The Mapping of Love and Death (Maisie Dobbs, #7) By: Jacqueline Winspear
3. The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution By: Francis Fukuyama
4. The Odyssey By: Homer
5. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl By: Harriet Ann Jacobs
6. You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life By: Jen Sincero
7. Ayoade on Top By: Richard Ayoade
8. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business By: Neil Postman
9. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology By: Neil Postman
10. Midnight Riot (Peter Grant, #1) By: Ben Aaronovitch
11. Aeschylus I: The Persians, The Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliant Maidens, Prometheus Bound By: Aeschylus

In 1985 Neil Postman published the book "Amusing Ourselves to Death". The central claim of the book was that TV had replaced the superior epistemology of the printed word with an inferior version focused entirely on entertainment. Now TV itself has been replaced as the dominant medium by the internet and social media. What epistemology has it brought with it, and is it better than TV or far, far worse?

After getting significant pushback I revisit my evaluation of Bryan Caplan's argument for open borders. I continue to maintain that if the average GDP of the US drops by half that some low-skilled workers will be caught in that. Even if many people end up benefiting. I bring in Garett Jones' argument against Caplan along with Caplan's response.

In the book War! What is it Good For? by Ian Morris, he speculates that the world has been built on the back of productive war. But what happens when empire building is out of fashion and nukes make war impossible even if it wasn't. Is it possible that after using war to achieve unity over the course of thousands of years, that it will stop working just at the moment it seemed possible we might unify the whole world?

1. The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation By: Carl Benedikt Frey
2. Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age By: Arthur Herman
3. All Creatures Great and Small By: James Herriot
4. To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian By: Stephen E. Ambrose
5. War! What Is It Good For?: Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots By: Ian Morris
6. The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses By: Dan Carlin
7. Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics By: Mary Eberstadt
8. Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration By: Bryan Caplan

A collection of ways in which atheists misunderstand the strength of their position (or rather the lack their of).

1. The difference between gathering evidence on the existence of something like Bigfoot as opposed to gathering evidence on the existence of God.
2. Their ability to imagine things which in all respects meet the definition for the existence of God. They just don't like the God proposed by religions.
3. Pascal's Mugging and the oversimplification of religious belief.