We Are Not Saved

Books Reviewed: Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis by Jared Diamond Then It Fell Apart by Moby Fall; or, Dodge in Hell: A Novel by Neal Stephenson To Live and Die in LA (Podcast) Hosted by Neil Strauss Left For Dead: 30 Years On - The Race is Finally Over by Nick Ward and Sinead O'Brien Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory by Michael Korda How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler

We've discussed cultural evolution, and everyone knows about evolution by natural selection, but is something different happening now? Some people have said that we have transitioned to a different a third type of evolution, memetic evolution. Is this just an improvement to cultural evolution in the same way that cultural evolution was an improvement on genetic evolution? Or is it an entirely different beast? Does it allow us to adapt faster? Or does it make all adaptation more difficult?

It seems obvious that there are certain traditions which work to improve the survival of the culture in which they exist. It seems equally obvious that some traditions are pointless. How do we tell the difference? As it turns out it may be harder and take longer than you think. Also reason might help you less than you think. In this episode I consider four factors which might be helpful: The duration of the tradition. How long has it been around? The strength of enforcement for the tradition. How severe are the penalties for going against it? The frequency of the tradition among the various cultures. How widespread is it? Is it present in many different cultures? The domain of the tradition. Is the tradition related to something which could impact survival or reproduction?

A review of Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis by Jared Diamond. It's not Guns, Germs and Steel, but he does put forth an interesting list of factors for how nations successful navigate crisis. My assessment of these factors is that they're useful, but that they also serve to illustrate the depths of the current crises faced by the US and the world.

Lots of trends associated with the modern world seem to be increasing at an exponential rate. This includes things like energy use, CPU speed, and even scientific publications. But what if rather than being a exponential curve, all of these trends are really the bottoms of S-curves? Curves that start out looking like exponential curve, but which taper off at the top and plateau as constraints kick in. What would that mean for the ongoing progress people have come to count on, and what might be some potential examples of this?

I review a bunch of books: The Collapsing Empire Porcelain: A Memoir Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI The Inevitable Apostasy and the Promised Restoration (Religious) The City & The City 13 Ways of Going on a Field Trip: Stories about Teaching and Learning Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (Incerto)

I had not intended to revisit abortion so soon, but the previous post generated some interesting comments on a wide range of issues, so I decided to collect them and answer in the form of a post. In particular I should have paid more attention to the actual women involved in what is objectively a horrible decision to have to make. But there are other nuances as well that deserve more space.

I was reading the Iliad recently and I was struck by the fact that while there were a lot of horses that no one rode them, they were all used to pull chariots. Horses had been domesticated for thousands of years but no one thought to ride them. And it would be another couple thousand years before someone came up with the idea of a stirrup. This illustrates that a technology can be around for a long time and then suddenly someone will figure out a new way of using it which ends up being incredibly effective. Could this happen with Nukes? 

Abortion is back in the news, and perhaps unwisely I've decided to give my two cents on the subject. I think most of the things that annoy people about the recent laws are tactics in the larger game of getting the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Though I'm of the opinion that it won't happen regardless, unless Ginsburg dies, which would bring its own level of craziness. But most importantly I think there are genuine disagreements about the morality of abortion which are not going away, and that unless we figure out a way to "agree to disagree" things are going to get ugly.

I review the book Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick, with a particular focus on the way the history of walls has been misinterpreted and distorted by recent examples of wall building. This is a problem, because it's actually more important than ever to understand the correct history of walls as we enter a second age of wall-building. Though most modern walls are built to keep out immigrants not invading armies. 

At the moment it seems like nothing can stop the Democratic nominee from beating Trump and nothing can stop Biden from being the democratic nominee. But what are they going to do about immigration? Trump has done two things, made the issue impossible to ignore and also utterly toxic to rational discussion. There are only good people who want de facto open borders and evil people. But any rational assessment of the situation leads to the inevitable conclusion that some restrictions are needed, and not only that, but that the majority of the country wants greater restrictions. What's a Democrat to do? Are they trapped?

When people think about AI Risk they think about an artificial superintelligence malevolently and implacably pursuing its goals with humans standing by powerless to stop it. But what if AI Risk is more subtle? What if the same processes which have been so successfully used for image recognition are turned towards increasing engagement? What if that engagement ends up looking a lot like addiction? And what if the easiest way to create that addiction is by eroding the mental health of the user? And what if it's something we're doing to ourselves?

I was recently listening to some old episodes from 2016 from my daughter. There were parts where I felt like I had done pretty well in taking the temperature of the world and parts where I cringed. Knowing how much certain of my listeners like to see my cringe I thought I'd share the experience with all of you. Accordingly in this episode I review my comments from immediately before and after the 2016 election and see how they look with the benefit of hindsight.

If you have high cholesterol the doctor will tell you you're at risk for heart disease and prescribe statins. If your society is poor, a sociologist will tell you that your population could be happier, and suggest that you raise the standard of living. At some point we expect that drug companies will prove the connection between their drug and lowering deaths from heart disease. Shouldn't we also expect that our sociologist will prove the connection between standard of living and happiness? What if while focusing on standard of living we actually ignore things that actually do improve happiness?

The race to defeat Trump has begun in earnest. There are 19 notable candidates in the Democratic primary race already and that doesn't include some big names that are expected to enter the race, but haven't yet. Why are there so many? There were only six in 2016. One theory is that Trump appears vulnerable so it's anybodies race. Even people who were traditionally to radical or progressive to win a nationwide election feel like they could beat Trump, but can they, and what does the moderate progressive split mean for the primaries?

I admit that as I discuss things there is some emotion involved. A lot of stuff is my subjective sense of how the world is going. And in this episode in the interest of transparency I toss a few of those things out. Stories and trends where, maybe there's no cause for concern, but which viscerally really make me question, "What is going on?!?!?"

Someone once said that "All you need is love." This episode disagrees with that. I feel that love is overemphasized and that particularly from a Christian perspective, we should be more concerned with repentance. 

It's an article of faith that there is no safe levels of radiation. Recently I read a paper which suggested otherwise, and pointed out that survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had a greater life expectancy than the Japanese average. But these days, it's not merely with radiation where people feel that there is no safe level. Current opinion holds that there is no safe level of danger, comfort, shame or suffering. In this episode I examine whether that is in fact the case. And provide evidence that it's exactly the opposite that low levels of harm are not only safe, but actually beneficial.

It's easy to put together an analogy, tie it to some recent anecdotes and call it wisdom, but is it? That's the question I address in this episode. After examining it more generally I examine the specific example of chemotherapy as a metaphor for modern discourse. We may in fact have certain societal cancers which need to be rooted out, but just as chemotherapy kills healthy cells along with bad cells, is it possible that we are being too aggressive with our metaphorical chemo?

In my first reposting, I go back and revisit my review of the book Tribe by Sebastian Junger. In particular an examination of how stress and struggle can improve mental health, and how by removing both struggle and community modern society creates a situation where psychological problems, particularly in the military, become more acute.