We Are Not Saved

Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis By: Annie Jacobsen Published: 2017 544 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? An exhaustive history of the government's attempts to systematize and weaponize paranormal abilities. It also covers the broader paranormal research landscape, with lots of discussion of Uri Geller. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Jacobsen claims to be approaching the subject as a neutral observer, but I got a strong "I want to believe" vibe from the book. Her approach appears to assume what it claims to be investigating. The overarching question of the book is: "Why did the government spend so much time and effort on these areas if there's nothing there?" As one example of bias, I grew up reading Carl Sagan, and in his telling the appearance of Uri Geller on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was the smoking gun. Carson went to great lengths to make sure that Geller couldn't influence the demonstration, and, what do you know? Geller failed to bend any spoons. I read about this when I was a teenager and it has loomed large in my memory ever since, so I was very interested to see how Jacobsen would handle it. She devotes one sentence to it: Geller was nervous, he said, having recently been unable to demonstrate psychokinesis on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. I'm sure I'm reflecting my own biases with this focus, but if she was truly being a neutral observer, I would have expected Geller's Carson appearance to have gotten several pages. Who should read this book? ...

Black Easter by: James Blish The Day After Judgment by: James Blish Into the Storm by: Larry Correia A Prisoner's Cinema by: Justin Lee

Delano is very much an example of something being wrong with psychiatry, the question is how emblematic is her experience? Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance By: Laura Delano Published: 2025 352 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? An autobiographical tale of Delano's experience with the mental health industry starting at the age of thirteen. Among other things, it covers her bipolar diagnosis, eating disorders, cutting, and one, nearly successful, suicide attempt. On the treatment side of the ledger she took at least a dozen drugs, engaged in constant therapy, and was committed to psychiatric hospitals and treatment programs on several occasions. In the end she decided that most of her problems stemmed from the substances she was taking, both those that are recognized as harmful, like cocaine and alcohol, and those that were supposed to help her. A major theme of the book is that the horrible withdrawal symptoms that accompany most psychiatric drugs go a long way towards creating the impression that "the drugs are helping". Woven through all of this, Delano provides significant research illustrating the bad incentives, and shoddy testing engaged in by the pharmaceutical industry, along with critiques of the DSM, the paradigm of mental illness as a chemical imbalance, and reliance on drugs as a first line of treatment. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Delano includes some extensive research. This is not merely an n=1 anecdote, there are clearly a significant number of people who are taking too many psychiatric drugs, and don't have the skills to taper off those drugs. Also Delano is explicitly not "antimedication" or "antipsychiatry". Nevertheless, it is clear that she is not a neutral observer, that she is profoundly distrustful of the pharmaceutical industry, and that she came by this distrust honestly, even if it doesn't necessarily apply to everyone. It should also be mentioned that money was never a problem for Delano, which probably meant both that she received too much care, but also that she had a large support network available during every phase of her journey. Who should read this book? The debate over how to care for the mentally ill is both fascinating and fraught. It sits at a convoluted nexus that includes healthcare availability, cost, worries over youth, violence, homelessness, anti- and pro- drug narratives, and a weird tangle of culture war issues. Navigating this mess is going to take as much information as we can get and this is a great book describing one of the many angles available for approaching it. As a more specific matter I would recommend it to psychologists and psychiatrists as something of a counter-narrative/steelman for those who are wary of medications and interventions. Finally, for those seeking to taper or get off of medication, this book is essential reading, and the idea of hyperbolic tapering may be the single most important bit of knowledge it contains. If you want a taste of things, I read this as part of the Blocked and Reported book club, and they had an interview with Delano which was quite good. Specific thoughts: Mental health treatment is crazy complicated

The Obstacle Is the Way Expanded 10th Anniversary Edition: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by: Ryan Holiday The Enchiridion & Discourses by: Epictetus The Lives of the Caesars by: Suetonius

There's a concept within statecraft known as grand strategy. The "grand" strategy means paying attention to every avenue of conflict, not just the military sphere, but also the diplomatic, the logistical, and the domestic, and everywhere else advantage might be gained or lost. It encompasses soft power, irregular actions, public opinion, etc. But at the same time, it also encompasses prioritization and focus, because, while it's important to consider every avenue, resources are always limited and need to be spent wisely. A great example of grand strategy done right is the US in WWII. We supported the Soviets, we developed nukes, we invaded Europe, we came together as a nation, and most of all, we buried the Axis with our industrial capacity. For an example of grand strategy done poorly consider Vietnam. Our battlefield tactics were great. But at the strategic level we comprehensively failed in almost every domain. There was vast domestic opposition, political goals were unclear, we failed to contain the conflict geographically, and never really understood the resolve of the Vietnamese people. You might think that the point of grand strategy, if well executed, would be winning. I disagree, I think the point of grand strategy is not losing. (There's probably an essay to be written about how this applies to Iran, but I think we have enough hot takes on that subject at the moment.) Grand strategy asks you to pay attention to all potential avenues by which disaster may arrive. Disaster in Vietnam did not arrive through the front door, it came from many unexpected directions, but an unexpected disaster is still a disaster, and generally worse than disasters which have been foreseen. As one considers the various aspects of grand strategy, what would it mean to have a personal grand strategy? And how would that be different from just living a "good life"? As a bridge between these two ideas, consider the life of Napoleon. Something Robert Greene does at great length in his book: The 33 Strategies of War By: Robert Greene Published: 2006 496 Pages

Or how America went from the platonic ideal of goal-scoring to the messy theatricality of flopping. And whether we can stop it before someone get's stoned in the forum.

Eugenics and Other Evils By: G. K. Chesterton Published: 1922 188 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? Once this book entered the public domain, someone (most likely Inkling Books) added a subtitle to their edition: "An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State". This is a pretty good description of the book's thrust, though the book's major focus is still definitely eugenics. When the book was written eugenics was a powerful political force, supported by numerous well known individuals. Buck v. Bell, the famous case which approved involuntary sterilization, didn't arrive until 1927. This is where we get the infamous line from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. writing for the majority, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." Though it was only when researching this piece that I discovered that the ruling explicitly invoked the precedent already set around compulsory vaccination. The full context is: We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11. Three generations of imbeciles are enough. What authorial biases should I be aware of? You're probably already aware of Chesterton's biases, though in addition to being very Catholic, and very traditional, he was also a big supporter of the "little guy". This comes out a lot in this book since eugenics seems primarily aimed at the "unwashed masses", not the inbred nobility. Who should read this book? I have previously mentioned that I am gradually working through an ebook I picked up many years ago collecting Chesterton's best-known works. This happened to be next on the list. I wouldn't recommend it as the first Chesterton you read, or even the fifth, but it gives a great insight into a particular time and place, and puts you in the middle of an argument we consider long settled but which was raging at the time. What does the book have to say about the future? I think there's a lot that could be taken from this book and applied to the current debate over MAID (medical aid in dying). It will be interesting to see if that practice ends up following a similar arc. Specific thoughts: Chesterton's surprisingly prescient archetypes

1- Operation Overflight By: Francis Gary Powers and Curt Gentry Published: 1970 384 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? An autobiographical account of Powers' experiences before, during, after and around his U-2 spy plane being shot down over the Soviet Union, including his 21 months of imprisonment in a Soviet prison and his long campaign to rehabilitate his reputation upon his return to the US. 2- Flybot By: Dennis E. Taylor Published: 2025 430 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? Another Taylor book where a few scrappy nerds get thrust into the middle of world altering events. In this case it's the emergence of an ASI (artificial superintelligence). 3- Gun Runner By: Larry Correia and John D. Brown Published: 2025 430 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? Set in a science fiction future, this is a classic tale of scoundrels with a heart of gold, who may seem like bad guys but once you peel away their gruff exterior. Though actually the story is somewhat reversed. You see the heart of gold right from the beginning, but because they are still scoundrels, some of the scoundrelly things they do end up being bad, and they have to undo the damage they've caused. The story mostly revolves around Jackson Rook, a mech pilot whose piloting implants were once subverted forcing him to cause tremendous harm. This has left him haunted and in search of redemption.

Come for the unreplicatable science, stay for the promise of a planetary heart beating out peace for a thousand years. The HeartMath Solution: The Institute of HeartMath's Revolutionary Program for Engaging the Power of the Heart's Intelligence By: Doc Childre, Howard Martin, and Donna Beech Published: 1999 304 Pages (But somehow this translates to only 2 hours 45 minutes on audio…) Briefly, what is this book about? The idea that the heart contains a separate brain, and true emotional health comes from aligning the heart's brain and its "intelligence", with the actual brain. Basically it's mindfulness, meditation, and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) wrapped in pseudoscience. What authorial biases should I be aware of? These guys are definitely trying to sell you on the HeartMath program. Also many of the studies they cite were conducted by their institute. Who should read this book? No one, unless perhaps for its (completely unintentional) value as a work of humor. Specific thoughts: You had me at "quantum nutrients"

A book full of potential comparisons to our own day for the motivated, and strangely removed from our own day if you're really going to be honest about it. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany By: William L. Shirer Published: 1960 1250 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? A comprehensive history of Nazi Germany, from Hitler's birth to the Nuremberg trials. Written by someone who was there for a great deal of the most important period. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Shirer is a journalist, not a historian, but he did have access to the German state and party archives, plus some diaries, etc. that were captured at the end of the war. Plus he witnessed the rise of Hitler in the 30's. I love passages like this: No wonder that Hitler was in a confident mood when the Nazi Party Congress assembled in Nuremberg on September 4 [1934]. I watched him on the morning of the next day stride like a conquering emperor down the center aisle of the great flag-bedecked Luitpold Hall while the band blared forth "The Badenweiler March" and thirty thousand hands were raised in the Nazi salute. Who should read this book? It's clear that this isn't the most accurate book about this subject. Scholarship is always advancing and this was written more than 60 years ago. But it may be the most readable book on the subject. It flows very well. 1250 pages fly by. (Or rather the minutes fly by, I listened to it, but with a physical copy for reference and anchoring.) If you're at all interested in this period I think you'll really enjoy this book. What does the book have to say about the future? I think a lot of people are trying to draw comparisons between the rise of Hitler and the Trump phenomenon. Other people see echoes of fascism in the ubiquity of woke-ism. I don't think history is going to repeat. And I'm not even sure it's going to rhyme this time around. People are still too aware of the dangers of populist demagoguery for someone to come to power in the same way Hitler did. Which is not to say there's nothing to be gleaned from this book, but I suspect that by the time things start lining up, in some bizarre fashion, it will be too late. Specific thoughts: Pivot points