We Are Not Saved

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, bu…

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.

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…

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 wh…

Rationality: AI to Zombies is a book with an ideology, but how effective is it. While I don't especially agree that Bayesian Rationality is a better individual ideology than a religion like Christian…

Russian meddling in the election via the medium of Facebook ads has been much in the news lately. This episode examines whether social media advertising is disproportionately effective, after conclud…

In this episode I talk about a recent article I encountered which explored the orthodox-progressive divide in Mormonism. I talk about how, while excellent, the article may not have gone far enough. I…

In chess notation a “?!” indicates a speculative attempt to complicate. A move that throws a wrench into things, and mostly comes up when someone is losing and they hope by creating some chaos they c…

There are lots of very smart people who tell us we don't have to worry about the national debt, despite the fact that it recently passed $20 trillion. Is this true, are we over-reacting? Or is this t…

In this episode I tell the story of the Melanesian Cargo Cults, and I after relating some of the ways this story has been used as a cautionary tale by people in the past, I turn it on it's head and u…

In this episode I continue to examine the Moderate Manifesto, and how even the recommendations of moderation end up being pretty conservative. Specifically, this time around I look at the seven assum…

In this episode I talk about DACA, how it may not be quite as hateful as people make it out to be, and how it is especially not kicking someone while they're down or dancing in the endzone as a conti…

Is there a cold civil war taking place? If so which side is right? Or if they both have some truth and some good people how do we limit the damage from this war? How do we keep the cold civil war fro…