Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2023/02/28/eschatologist-26-a-crisis-of-change-and-choice/ 

In my last newsletter we talked about spiritual health, and a few options for acquiring that health, such as overcoming suffering or, alternatively, gaining material abundance. In this newsletter we’re going to go beyond talking about the merits of different options to discussing the way in which these options have multiplied. 

Go back a few centuries, and there was one religion, one staple crop, and one way of doing things. These days, however, we’re spoiled for choices and options for both spiritual and physical health, and beyond that our emotional and mental health as well. We have countless religions to choose from: some secular, some informal. Beyond that there are a bewildering variety of diet and exercise programs, and tens of thousands of self-help books. We are offered a truly insane number of choices, all backed up by a deluge of data drawing sometimes contradictory conclusions. Everybody wants to be happy and live a good life, but which of the thousands of options best accomplishes that?

Transcript along with pictures of all the docs mentioned in the episode: https://wearenotsaved.com/2023/02/25/a-cautionary-tale/ 

In the interest of not spoiling things you're just going to have to listen...

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2023/02/16/polycrises-or-everything-everywhere-all-at-once/ 

In general any individual catastrophe is probably overblown. Global warming is not going to cause human extinction. Despite the severity of the war in Ukraine, nukes will probably not be used. Or at least none of these bad things are going to happen all by themselves. The problem is that we face numerous crises and while each individual crisis might be managable on their own, in combination they often feed off each other and create a polycrisis that's far more severe than any of the crises considered in isolation. Bad things are happening everywhere, and all at once...

1. A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies by: Matt Simon
2. Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century by: Helen Thompson
3. The Captive Mind by: Czeslaw Milosz
4. Antinet Zettelkasten: A Knowledge System That Will Turn You Into a Prolific Reader, Researcher and Writer by: Scott P. Scheper
5. The Farthest Shore by: Ursula K. Le Guin
6. All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by: Martha Wells
7. The Mind of the Maker by: Dorothy L. Sayers
8. The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by: G. K. Chesterton 
9. Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations by: Alex & Brett Harris

Transcript: https://wearenotsaved.com/2023/02/01/eschatologist-25-spiritual-health-and-suffering/

Modernity has inarguably made dramatic improvements in our material well-being, but what about the non-material? The social, emotional and spiritual? In this episode I tackle that question. And while I think it might be possible that modernity has been neutral on this front, I don't think there's any reason for thinking it's been positive. But some people disagree. Tune into see who's right!