We Are Not Saved

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/12/31/eschatologist-24-chatgpt-and-a-lack-of-genius/ I reflect on my AI prediction from past years in light of the amazing abilities of ChatGPT. I wonder if you're ever going to get brilliant output from a huge corpus of material which strictly on account of it's volume has to be essentially average...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/12/24/the-ineffability-of-conservatism/ I tell a story I heard of a boy walking out of Church in a direct slap to his father. And wonder why such a thing would have been inconcievable 40 years ago. What changed? As it turns out it's hard to say, and that's a big part of the problem.

The Psychology of Totalitarianism by: Mattias Desmet The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World by: Adrian Wooldridge The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud by: Phillip Rieff Plato: A Very Short Introduction by: Julia Annas Jesus' Son by: Denis Johnson Tombs of Atuan by: Ursula K. Le Guin Roadside Picnic by: Arkady and Boris Strugatsky Purple Days by: Baurus

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/11/30/eschatologist-23-avoiding-risk/ After all the hot takes which have been offered in the wake of the FTX collapse, this is the hot take to rule them all. Okay probably not, and at this point it's probably a cold take. But I do think the whole FTX debacle carries some valuable lessons about risk. So that's what you're getting...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/11/26/book-review-the-ethics-of-beauty/ This is a review I did for the first issue of American Hombre, a new magazine being published by a friend of mine. I did an excerpt of it back in episode 292, but he's graciously agreed to let me release it in its entirety. If this makes you interested in the full magazine, the PDF is currently available for free at americanhombre.gumroad.com. But also you should consider subscribing to the print version. This magazine deserves to be held. You can use the coupon code 'RW' to get 10% off a subscription or $1 off the price of the print issue. The next issue is coming out in January and it will include another review by me. (The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter, if you're curious.) This review includes some pictures which you can find either in the PDF version of the magazine, or on wearenotsaved.com. But I will attempt to describe them in the course of my reading. They're mostly pictures from the trip I took to Ireland this summer.

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/11/19/finding-the-answer/ A somewhat discursive episode where I reflect on a book I just read about meritocracy and different answers for the best way to organize society. And how what we thought was the answer—liberal democracy—appears to be fracturing, leaving everyone to fight over what part of it is the most important. What part was truly The Answer.

Link to survey: https://forms.gle/tCxmpwM4RTxPCJKUA What We Owe the Future by: William MacAskill The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe by: Michael D. Gordin Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character by: Jonathan Shay Socrates: A Very Short Introduction by: C.C.W. Taylor Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy by: Mortimer J. Adler A Wizard of Earthsea by: Ursula K. LeGuin Freemasonry and the Origins of Latter-day Saint Temple Ordinances by: Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/10/31/eschatologist-22-a-survey/ Survey: https://forms.gle/toRzdKPervpygw8MA It's time for me to stick my head out and see what people think of me. Yes I'd like you to fill out a survey. Tell me what you think. I mean it. Be brutal!

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/10/29/chip-off-the-old-bloc/ Recently the US enacted a set of punishing trade restrictions on China with respect to high-end chips. Some have called these restrictions the annihilation of China's semiconductor industry. Maybe so, but China's not going to go down without a fight, and the situation is complicated by numerous factors, including the complications of the technology itself. There's a lot going on and I attempt to cover a large portion of it.

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2022/10/22/the-midterms-biases-and-a-lack-of-moderation/ We're a few weeks from the midterms and it seemed like a good time to review the state of things. Though they're changing rapidly. In between composing this episode and recording it people went from expecting the Democrats to keep the Senate expecting them to lose it by a few seats. Beyond the reshuffling the election is exciting (or terrifying, depending on your perspective) for other reasons. We get to see if polls are still horribly broken (probably) and if there's any hope for either party to become more moderate. And of course there's the eternal possiblity that we'll finally get a viable third party (almost certainly not but a man can hope).