We Are Not Saved

Tiny trends are all around us. Some of these trends compound, like compound interest, exponential growth that works like a juggernaut destroying whatever came before. Other trends are slower, and harder to notice, and generally only noticed once their impact is already obvious. Like the opioid epidemic and deaths of despair. Sometimes humans can reverse the trends. Sometimes they reverse naturally and sometimes the only way to reverse them is through instability and violence.

Once again (though perhaps for the last time) John Brockman of Edge.org has asked a variety of intellectuals to answer his question of the year. This year it was "What is the Last Question?" I spend this episode discussing some of the responses, specifically how they relate to things I've mentioned in previous podcasts and how well they fit into the category of a "last question." And then at the end I give my "last question."

After reading a significant number of books from the early 19th century, I noticed that a lot of the better known authors were "communist sympathizers". Which prompted me to examine what communism must have looked like back then, before the full horror of Stalin, and the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. My conclusion is that it must have looked pretty good. But then we all know how the story turned out, and however good it looked back then, that was an illusion. And if you had banned criticism based on how bad it looked you would have missed out on the chance to avoid some communism's excesses and failures.

With the advent of social media and the internet the entire landscape of speech has changed. For as long as the concept of freedom of speech it has always been assumed that more speech was better, but what if we have finally reached the point where there can be too much speech, that in fact the quantity of speech is now such that it acts as a form of censorship?

This week I had the flu, so I decided to take the low energy approach of covering three topics briefly, rather than one in depth. I start off talking about the new LDS First Presidency, than move to the recent excitement about Steven Pinker, and finally provide on update on the progress of the Pervnado. What all of these topics have in common is that we don't appear to be reaching any kind of equilibrium point. Both sides appear to just be getting angrier, and the question, as always is how is it going to end?

I spend this episode commenting on Scott Alexander's epic Meditations on Moloch post. In particular I look at the way his conception of Moloch interacts with religion and Fermi's paradox.

My annual prediction episode, of course since I have a set of permanent predictions, mostly I'm looking at whether 2017 brought any of them any closer to completion. There was some progress with AI, and with nuclear war getting more likely, but nothing earth-shattering. On top of the raw predictions I explain why the future is dominated by Black swans and being antifragile is the only way to deal with unexpected and impactful events because the future is not going to go the way we think it will.

I revisit Fermi's Paradox and my explanation for it, in light of the second edition of Stephen Webb's "If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens...Where Is Everybody? Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life". I find several places, where in my opinion Webb shows a lack of imagination. Then as a Christmas gift to myself I explain how too great of a focus on social justice may be keeping us from getting off of our own planet.

Another issue on the latest explosion of accusations of sexual harassment, which I've decided to gather under the term Pervnado (no, I did not coin it.) In this episode I lump together some things which didn't make it into the previous episode, including whether supervisors and co-workers of the perpetrators will also end up facing consequences. How far back things will extend (in particular whether the Pervnado will come for Bill Clinton). But the biggest thing I look at is the subjectivity of the accusations. And how, once unleashed, it's a weapon which may not be a discriminating as people hoped.

In this episode I examine the current spike in allegations of sexual harassment, with the attendant consequences. And while totally agreeing that it's a big problem I worry that people might be getting swept into a mania, where innocent people might be suffering. Of course this is not something unheard of. Back in 1841 Charles Mackay wrote a book about it, and from that day to this, even though the severity may have decreased we still suffer from the occasional witch hunt. Is the current spate of allegations in any danger of drifting into that territory?