We Are Not Saved

Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification by: Timur Kuran Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism by: Scott Horton The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Volume 1 by: Alexander Solzhenitsyn Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet by: Gernot Wagner & Martin L. Weitzman The Vertigo Years: Europe 1900-1914 by: Philipp Blom The Lion's Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Day War by: Steven Pressfield

Things are changing. Hopefully in good ways.

In which I decide that I am not going to read "Wind and Truth". And also that 63 hours on audio is just ridiculous.

The Evil Creator: Origins of an Early Christian Idea by: M. David Litwa Existential Kink: Unmask Your Shadow and Embrace Your Power by: Carolyn Elliott The Ballad of the White Horse by: G. K. Chesterton American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology by: D.W. Pasulka Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences by: D.W. Pasulka Undreaming Wetiko: Breaking the Spell of the Nightmare Mind-Virus by: Paul Levy

A method for making better decisions should you ever find yourself in Kathmandu, or paying for SEO, or hoping to see the Supreme Court.

Self-Help Is Like a Vaccine: Essays on Living Better by: Bryan Caplan Anaximander: And the Birth of Science by: Carlo Rovelli The Social Conquest of Earth by: Edward O. Wilson The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class by: David S. Kidder and Noah D. Oppenheim Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by: Donald Miller The Power of Having Fun: How Meaningful Breaks Help You Get More Done by: Dave Crenshaw The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change by: Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein The Little Book of Aliens by: Adam Frank

You have probably heard about Rotherham, and the child sex abuse rings that existed there (and may still be operating). As with so many things these days, this story entered the public discussion when Musk tweeted about it. For many people I’ve talked to, this was the first they’d heard of it. I actually spoke about about it in 2018. At the time I felt I was late to the game, but apparently I was six years ahead of most people. Given the story's re-emergence I thought it might be worth dusting off that old piece. I think it holds up pretty well, particularly the part about the woeful lack of reporting on the topic. I have lightly edited it, smoothing things out in a few places, adding commas, that sort of thing. Temporal references have not been updated, so when I say “a week ago” I’m referring to 2018. Even if you’ve already read a lot about these horrific crimes, there are a few takes in here that I haven’t seen elsewhere  

Exactly five years ago, China identified a “novel coronavirus” and the world was introduced to the term “wet market”. In the time since then arguments continue to rage about the source of the virus, the measures that were taken, and the vaccines that were created. In the midst of all these arguments, everyone seems to agree on one thing: extended school closures were a bad idea. It’s very easy to continue on from that to assume the harms of such closures were obvious from the very beginning—that they happened only because we were blinded by fear. Some people don’t go quite so far, but nevertheless argue that such closures were implemented hastily and without much consideration. But consider this quote from the Michael Lewis book Premonition on the role of disease modeling: The graph illustrated the effects on a disease of various crude strategies: isolating the ill; quarantining entire households when they had a sick person in them; socially distancing adults; giving people antiviral drugs; and so on. Each of the crude strategies had some slight effect, but none by itself made much of a dent, and certainly none had the ability to halt the pandemic by driving the disease’s reproductive rate below 1. One intervention was not like the others, however: when you closed schools and put social distance between kids, the flu-like disease fell off a cliff. (The model defined “social distance” not as zero contact but as a 60 percent reduction in kids’ social interaction.) “I said, ‘Holy shit!’ ” said Carter. “Nothing big happens until you close the schools. It’s not like anything else. It’s like a phase change. It’s nonlinear. It’s like when water temperature goes from thirty-three to thirty-two. When it goes from thirty-four to thirty-three, it’s no big deal; one degree colder and it turns to ice.

A Gentleman in Moscow by: Amor Towles The Humans by: Matt Haig Super-Cannes: A Novel by: J. G. Ballard Monster Hunter: International by: Larry Correia Monster Hunter: Vendetta by: Larry Correia

Three things converged for me recently and at the point of their convergence was the issue of placing women in frontline combat roles. The first leg of the convergence was the election of Donald Trump. We’re still debating the reasons why he won, but certainly a reassertion of gender differences are near the top of everyone’s list. For example, allowing natal men into women’s sports. The second was Trump’s nomination of Pete Hesgeth for Secretary of Defense. Hegseth’s nomination is controversial for a lot of reasons, but one of the controversies is his opinion that women should not be allowed into front line combat roles.  Finally, I just got done watching the miniseries Band of Brothers, while at the same time re-reading the Stephen E. Ambrose book it’s based on. I would highly recommend the exercise (see my review of the book here.) In addition to being enjoyable it reminded me of how physical, grimy, and desperate combat can be. And of course the theme of both the book and the series is that Easy Company was so effective because they had developed strong bonds of brotherhood through the numerous challenges they overcame. These challenges include D-Day, Market Garden, liberating concentration camps, and finally being the first into Hitler’s stronghold at Eagle’s Nest. But if you were to pick the hardest thing they did, it was probably defending Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. Watching and reading about Bastogne was a sobering experience. It is also the point where the three things I just mentioned crystallized into this line of inquiry. Given that it might be helpful to give you a brief overview of the Siege of Bastogne...