Is This the Most Bloodless Form of Mysticis That You Can Imagine?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

i was really just disappointedern thist this takes at the end. If you're going to be a mystic, this is the most bloodless, kind of clinical form of mysticis that i can imagine. As an exercise in writing an essay, though, like, my only criticism is, i want make it orter and two, but some of the longer parts be in your solution.

David and Tamler wind their way through the long-requested “Meditations on Moloch” by Scott Alexander, a comprehensive account of the coordination problems (personified by Allan Ginsberg’s demon-entity Moloch) that lead to human misery and values tossed out the window. Does Alexander’s rationalist conception of human nature ignore the work of VBW favorites like Joe Henrich and Robert Frank? Is he a little too friendly to the neo-social Darwinism view of some guy named Nick Land? And oh no, why does he have to go transhumanist at the end?! Plus, we talk about the unique comic vision of Norm Macdonald and why we loved him.