We Are Not Saved

This one was long enough, and book reviews sit poorly with podcasts in any event, that I decided to split it in two. This one has my monthly short personal update along with reviews for: Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by: James C. Scott Status Anxiety by: Alain de Botton

Back at the beginning of 2017 I made some long term predictions, at the beginning of 2020 I made some short term predictions and the time has come to see how I'm doing on the long-term ones and how I did on the short term ones. Along with that is a reminder of my philosophy of predictions, lots of additional predictions for 2021, and then finally I announce some minor changes I'll be making going forward. Start listening to see what I got wrong, keep listening to see what I'm going to be wrong about this time next year, and then end the whole thing on a cliffhanger!

The number of teenage girls identifying as transgender has skyrocketed, by as much as 4,400% in the last decade by some accounts. What explains this staggeringly rapid and precipitous increase? Abigail Shrier thinks that these girls are falling pray to a peer contagion. A combination of the typical confusion and discomfort associated with puberty combined with a culture that celebrates transgender individuals. That in essence going through puberty is tough and being trans allows these girls to put that out of their mind while also gaining the approval of the peers and in many cases mimicking their peers who have already transitioned. In this podcast we examine the arguments and the evidence. Might she have a point?

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.