Afleveringen
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One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein, Volumes 1 & 2
By: Whitney Alyse Webb
Briefly, what are these books about?
The alleged connections between organized crime and national intelligence agencies which led to the numerous illicit operations including Watergate, Iran-Contra, the JFK Assassination, and of course the entire Jeffrey Epstein mess.
A key component of these operations was the tactic of collecting blackmail and using it to convince people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t.
What's the author's angle?
Charitably, Webb is an autodidact with an enormous command of facts and connections.
Uncharitably, she’s someone with a weak evidentiary filter making conspiratorial mountains out of tenuously connected molehills.
Who should read these books?
No one should just read them. You should either ignore them or study them intently as part of an “Intro to Conspiracy Theories” curriculum. Of the two I would recommend the former. Read on to see why.
I- How does one approach a book like this?
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The Ocean at the End of the Lane by: Neil Gaiman
There Is No Antimemetics Division by: qntm
The Man Who Had All the Luck by: Arthur Miller
How Green Was My Valley by: Richard Llewellyn
Theft of Fire: Orbital Space #1 by: Devon Eriksen
Assassin's Apprentice (The Farseer Trilogy, Book 1) by: Robin Hobb
Royal Assassin (The Farseer Trilogy, Book 2) by: Robin Hobb
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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With the enormous increase in the power of AI (specifically LLMs) people are using them for all sorts of things, hoping to find areas where they’re better, or at least cheaper than humans. FiveThirtyNine (get it?) is one such attempt, and they claim that AI can do forecasting better than humans.
Scott Alexander, of Astral Codex Ten, reviewed the service and concluded that they still have a long way to go. I have no doubt that this is the case, but one can imagine that this will not always be the case. What then? My assertion would be that at the point when AI forecasting does “work” (should that ever happen) it will make the problems of superforecasting even worse.2
I- The problems of superforecastingWhat are the problems of superforecasting?
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The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by: Michael A. Singer
Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It by: Ethan Kross
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World by: John Mark Comer
Dumb Money: The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders That Brought Wall Street to Its Knees by: Ben Mezrich
Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results by: Shane Parrish
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Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos by: Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam
Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States by: James C. Scott
This post represents a new feature (experiment?) I plan to occasionally write posts which take advantage of one or more books I read recently, but which aren’t actually reviews of those books. See, for example, my last post: Superminds, States, and the Domestication of Humans.
Despite the fact that the books feature heavily in these posts, I assume my adoring fans still want actual reviews. But it doesn’t make sense to wait until the next book review collection for those reviews to appear, nor does it make sense to cram the reviews into the original essay which was about something else. And so I thought that instead I would have the reviews quickly follow the essay as sort of supplementary material. So that’s what this is. Let me know what you think.
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How durable is the state? How resistant is it to being overthrown? How closely does it reflect our desires? Is it possible it has its own desires?
But maybe more importantly how does all this affect the possibility of a very close election in November?
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A narcissistic dialogue around ideas that are either annoyingly fractured or wholly unrealistic.
DON'T DIE: Dialogues
By: Bryan Johnson
Published: 2023
247 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
How best to extend the lifespan of humans and the lifetime of humanity presented in the form of a fictional dialogue between various aspects of the author's personality.
What's the author's angle?
Bryan Johnson is a biohacker who measures dozens and dozens of biomarkers. As a result of this he claims to be aging at 64/100th the normal rate. He’s also a former and, as near as I can tell, disaffected member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Who should read this book?
If you’re really into lifespan expansion, then maybe? Or similarly very concerned with X-risks? But I will warn you that the book is written in one of the more annoying styles I’ve ever encountered. Not only does it directly impede the transmission of information, it actively works against its inclusion..
Specific thoughts: A strange approach to X-risks...
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Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by: George Chauncey
The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised by: James Pethokoukis
Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History by: Nellie Bowles
Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir by: Werner Herzog
The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale by: Art Spiegelman
The Master and Margarita by: Mikhail Bulgakov
The Buried Giant: A Novel by: Kazuo Ishiguro
Naked Defiance: A Comedy of Menace by: Patrik Sampler
The Riddle of the Third Mile (Inspector Morse Series Book 6) by: Colin Dexter
Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Player's Handbook (D&D Core Rulebook) lead designer: Jeremy Crawford
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Transcript: https://www.wearenotsaved.com/p/divine-disappointment-and-mortal
Is God Disappointed in Me?: Removing Shame from a Gospel of GraceBy: Kurt Francom
Published: 2024
190 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?Our parents expect that we will do certain things—perhaps it’s cleaning our rooms, perhaps it’s becoming a doctor—when we don't, they're disappointed. We have a tendency to view God in the same fashion; He also has expectations, and when we fail to meet them we imagine that He is similarly disappointed. Francom claims this is a false belief. Because of God’s omniscience and infinite love, He cannot be disappointed. When we think He might be it leads to shame, which prevents us from accessing His love.
What’s the author’s angle?Francom is the director of Leading Saints, an organization whose primary focus is providing advice and resources for the lay leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He’s also heavily involved with Warrior Heart a Christian men’s organization that runs retreats with a focus on addiction recovery. This book is part of those focuses and a personal expression of Francom’s approach to leadership and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
What’s My Angle?I’ve known Francom for going on ten years. As such I’ve been privy to his argument that God cannot be disappointed from his initial epiphany all the way down to his full, book-length treatment of the subject. As I’ve watched the idea develop, I’ve raised numerous objections. To Francom’s great credit most of these objections are at least acknowledged in the book. I suspect that I wasn’t the only one to raise these objections, but I fancy that he first heard of them from me.
My name is listed in the book’s acknowledgments but it’s pretty generic. I had hoped for something more like “And thanks to Ross Richey, if not for his relentless criticism, unending negativity, poor character, and dark soul, the book would have been less accurate, but probably more inspiring.”
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A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? by: Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe by: Judith Herrin
The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by: Paul Collins
Missing: The Need for Closure After the Great War by: Richard van Emden
In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife by: Sebastian Junger
Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness by: Steve Magness
Eruption by: James Patterson and Michael Crichton
The Last Devil to Die: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery (#4) by: Richard Osman
He Who Fights with Monsters 8: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
He Who Fights with Monsters 9: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
He Who Fights with Monsters 10: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
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My submission to the Astral Codex Ten Book Review Contest. It was not a finalist. Comments are appreciated. (Especially ones pointing out how much better it is than the actual finalists.)
Links to transcript sections:
I- Prologue
II- The Core Observation
III- The Realm of the Potentially Traumatic
IV- “Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Children!?”
V- A Continuum of Parenting, With Sundry Bad Examples, and an Appearance by The Last Psychiatrist
VI- Resilience
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If Trump can brazen is way through all of his various scandals why can't Biden brazen his way through this?
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Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by: Matthew B. Crawford
Nuclear War: A Scenario by: Annie Jacobson
The Pragmatist's Guide to Relationships: Ruthlessly Optimized Strategies for Dating, Sex, and Marriage by: Malcolm and Simone Collins
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by: Salman Rushdie
Arkham: (The Weird of Hali #7) by: John Michael Greer
Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian: The Complete Weird Tales Omnibus by: Robert E. Howard & compiled by: Finn J D John
Stories of Your Life and Others by: Ted Chiang
He Who Fights with Monsters 6: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
He Who Fights with Monsters 7: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
Astrophilosophy, Exotheology, and Cosmic Religion: Extraterrestrial Life in a Process Universe by: Andrew M. Davis (editor), Roland Faber (editor), and Various
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Just look at the episode picture. The episode picture explains all...
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The Burnout Society by: Byung-Chul Han
Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization by: Brad Wilcox
The MANIAC by: Benjamín Labatut
Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire by: Peter Wilson
You Can’t Screw This Up: Why Eating Takeout, Enjoying Dessert, and Taking the Stress out of Dieting Leads to Weight Loss That Lasts by: Adam Bornstein
Norwegian Wood by: Haruki Murakami
He Who Fights with Monsters 2: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
He Who Fights with Monsters 3: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
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Irish Impressions by: G. K. Chesterton
How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide by: Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay
A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form by: Paul Lockhart
A Little History of Science by: William Bynum
Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling by: Michael Port
The Goblin Emperor by: Katherine Addison
Red Hook: (The Weird of Hali #6) by: John Michael Greer
He Who Fights with Monsters: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir by: Beth Moore
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Meganets: How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner Realities by: David B. Auerbach
The Robot’s Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin by: Keith E. Stanovich
Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by: John Vaillant
Persian Fire The First World Empire and the Battle for the West by: Tom Holland
Submission by: Michel Houellebecq
The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation by: Rod Dreher
Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why by: Phyllis Tickle
Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses by: Richard Lloyd Anderson
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The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World (Volume 2) by: Iain McGilchrist
The World Behind the World: Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science by: Erik Hoel
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by: Beth Macy
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by: Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
Younger Next Year, 2nd Edition: Live Strong, Fit, Sexy, and Smart - Until You're 80 and Beyond by: Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge M.D.
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by: Mason Currey
Meditations on First Philosophy by: Rene Descartes
Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans by: Plutarch
Neuromancer by: William Gibson
Aftermath: Expeditionary Force, Book 16 by: Craig Alanson
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The Creative Act: A Way of Being by: Rick Rubin
The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by: Leonard Mlodinow
Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year compiled by: Allie Esiri
The Monster of Florence by: Douglas Preston
Encountering Mystery: Religious Experience in a Secular Age by: Dale C. Allison Jr.
As a Driven Leaf by: Milton Steinberg
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My report from Natal Con 2023. Including reflections on Tommy Boy, seatbelts, and the proliferation of polycrises.
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