We Are Not Saved

In which I present the parable of the traffic light, and a deep discussion of the various epistemologies at play in the world today including conflict vs. mistake theory, on which I spend quite a bit of time. Each of these frameworks has different consequences and benefits, but I contend that right now, no framework is dominant, and it's possible that having numerous frameworks is even worse than having a bad one.

The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder By: Peter Zeihan The Good Soldier Švejk By: Jaroslav Hasek The Diaries of Adam and Eve By: Mark Twain White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism By: Robin DiAngelo Guns of August By: Barbara W. Tuchman Euripides III: Heracles, The Trojan Women, Iphigenia among the Taurians, Ion (The Complete Greek Tragedies) By: Euripides Acid Test: LSD vs. LDS By: Christopher Kimball Bigelow The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon’s Missing Stories By: Don Bradley

I decide to offer an opinion on the current Black Lives Matter protests. I understand that there are a lot of opinions being offered on the subject, and it's entirely reasonable to assume that mine is not necessary nor welcome, but I hope despite that to add something to the conversation. In particular I think trying to combine combatting police brutality with eliminating all racism might make the first and arguably more important task, harder to accomplish.

Elon Musk really wants to establish a colony on Mars. One reason he keeps coming back to this the idea is that he claims it is the only way to prevent our eventual extinction. But is this really the best way to avoid the problems he fears? If we're really interested in increasing localism (which as strange as it might sound is what a Mars Colony is) are there better ways of achieving it if we focus on a better identification of what we're trying to prevent? And does this insight apply at scales much lower than preventing x-risk?

I relate a couple of stories (which are worth the price of admission all by themselves) about how once you've made an initial mistake it's so much more likely that you'll make additional mistakes. Recently we've made a lot of mistakes, and in this episode I suggest that there might be some precautions we can take letting the panic from the initial mistakes cause us to make further mistakes. Because the subsequent mistakes always end up being worse...

The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity By: Toby Ord Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction By: Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner Dune By: Frank Herbert Marriage and Civilization: How Monogamy Made Us Human By: William Tucker Euripides II: Andromache, Hecuba, The Suppliant Women, Electra By: Euripides 10% Less Democracy: Why You Should Trust Elites a Little More and the Masses a Little Less By: Garett Jones Saints Volume 2: No Unhallowed Hand By: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

After getting lots of feedback and some criticism of my previous episode on superforecasting I decide to make one final attempt to detail the issues I see with it. This episode ended up being pretty long, so while I normally wouldn't ever say this, if you had enough of superforecasting after the last episode, or if you're already in complete agreement with me (also possible I suppose) then you can probably skip this one.

I reluctantly go back to the well of COVID-19 commentary. In particular I wonder what leadership would look like. I conclude that where past instances of leadership emphasized sacrifice, that I'm not sure that this crisis is amenable to calls for that sort of sacrifice, rather our best bet is to be smart, implementing measures that work and easing off those where the evidence is weak. And that if we can't do that we might end up falling Sweden in a de facto and unorganized fashion.

Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models By: Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control By: Stuart J. Russell Joseph Smith’s First Vision: Confirming Evidences and Contemporary Accounts By: Milton Vaughn Backman The Cultural Evolution Inside of Mormonism By: Greg Trimble  Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President By: Candice Millard A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream By: Yuval Levin The Worth of War By: Benjamin Ginsberg The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West By: David McCullough Sex and Culture By: J. D. Unwin Euripides I: Alcestis, Medea, The Children of Heracles, Hippolytus By: Euripides

A review of J.D. Unwin's 1934 book Sex and Culture which puts forth the theory that once a culture loosens up restrictions on pre-marital sex that this culture only has about 100 years before it sinks into irrelevance. If we take this prediction seriously and set the sexual revolution as the beginning of this countdown, then we're about halfway through it. What should we do with this possibility?