We Are Not Saved

Global Catastrophes and Trends: The Next Fifty Years by: Vaclav Smil The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley By: Malcolm X (Author), Alex Haley (Author), Laurence Fishburne (Narrator) Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets By: Sudhir Venkatesh Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters By: Abigail Shrier (Moved to the next episode) The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage By: Anthony Brandt Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations by: John Bartlett The Golden Age By: John C. Wright How to Start Your Homeschool: What I Learned My First 5 Years by: Taylia Clegg Bunker Destroying Their God: How I Fought My Evil Half-Brother to Save My Children By: Wallace Jeffs  (Author), Shauna Packer  (Author), Sherry Taylor  (Author) The Neal A. Maxwell Quote Book by: Neal A. Maxwell

In politics there's always a choice between extremism and moderation. In this episode I discuss all the reasons for making moderation the default, and under what circumstances it might be appropriate abandon it and pursue extremism instead. My general conclusion is that there aren't many, but that it's a very difficult problem where clear lines are hard to draw.

Most people understand that voting is a way of making decisions via consensus, what people have forgotten is that voting is also a proxy for power. A much better proxy than those which have existed historically, and positively fantastic when compared to directly matching power via bloodshed and violence.  If people have decided (as Trump supporters) evidently have, that the proxy of voting is no longer working then they can either decide that they have been outmatched in these different arenas, or they can seek other proxies of power to even things out. Up to and including a direct exercise of power, through resorting to bloodshed and violence. 

Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies by: Geoffrey West From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia by: Pankaj Mishra Just like You by: Nick Hornby Seven Types of Atheism by: John N. Gray Why Not Parliamentarism? by: Tiago Ribeiro dos Santos An Instinct for Dragons by: David E. Jones Aristophanes: The Complete Plays by: Aristophanes Translated by: Paul Roche Battle Ground by: Jim Butcher

I think many people expect too much out of the election. Trump supporters expect that if he manages to get reelected that he will do all the things he's been promising since 2016, while Biden supporters expect that their long nightmare of political dysfunction will finally be over. But political dysfunction has been around for a lot longer than Trump and so much of what seems wrong with the world has nothing to do with him. He does have the talent of making everything seem like it's about him, but if Biden is elected (and I think he will be) it will quickly become apparent that most of our problems had nothing to do with Trump... 

Any rational assessment of the effect of your vote on the presidential election is bound to conclude that there is no effect if you're not in a swing state and that even if you are in a swing state the effect is still infinitesimal. But what other option do you have? Well that's what this episode is designed to reveal. I would argue that there's a great option which is almost entirely overlooked, voting for a third party candidate or writing someone in! I'm writing in General Mattis, and if you want to know why you'll have to listen.

In this episode we discuss China, and the various opinions about what they're up to, and what we should do in response to whatever that is. There are numerous opinions and while I don't try to cover them all, I cover a lot of them, and it's safe to say opinions are all over the place. But beyond all of the opinions of others I provide my own unique theory, which is not the theory I find most likely, but it may be the most frightening theory. What is it? You'll have to listen and find out.

Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress by: Christopher Ryan The End of History and the Last Man by: Francis Fukuyama Sidhartha by: Herman Hesse The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Sławomir Rawicz Alien Oceans: The Search for Life in the Depths of Space by: Kevin Peter Hand Kansas City Noir by: Various Innsmouth: (The Weird of Hali #1) by: John Michael Greer The Kill Chain: How Emerging Technologies Threaten America’s Military Dominance by: Christian Brose Trump vs. China: Facing America’s Greatest Threat by: Newt Gingrich A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 by: G. J. Meyer

In the book The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama spends quite a bit of time talking about the idea of legitimacy, in particular how the End of History represents a time when only liberal democracy has any reserves of legitimacy. But two questions occur, first where does a nation go if liberal democracy starts failing? And second does that failure happen, does it end up just like all previous systems, if it no longer provides reserves of legitimacy? Recent events seem to indicate that the answer to those two questions maybe no where, and yes. In other words liberal democracy is suffering a crisis of legitimacy and unfortunately, at this point, there's no where left to go.

Coming up with solutions is difficult. I've read many books that present an excellent diagnosis of the problem, but then finish things off by presenting utterly ridiculous solutions. I take one of these books Civilized to Death by Christopher Ryan and go into detail on why the solutions he proposed are so inadequate and then go into some detail as to what I think good solutions should include.