We Are Not Saved

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.