Three things converged for me recently and at the point of their convergence was the issue of placing women in frontline combat roles.
The first leg of the convergence was the election of Donald Trump. We’re still debating the reasons why he won, but certainly a reassertion of gender differences are near the top of everyone’s list. For example, allowing natal men into women’s sports.
The second was Trump’s nomination of Pete Hesgeth for Secretary of Defense. Hegseth’s nomination is controversial for a lot of reasons, but one of the controversies is his opinion that women should not be allowed into front line combat roles.
Finally, I just got done watching the miniseries Band of Brothers, while at the same time re-reading the Stephen E. Ambrose book it’s based on. I would highly recommend the exercise (see my review of the book here.) In addition to being enjoyable it reminded me of how physical, grimy, and desperate combat can be. And of course the theme of both the book and the series is that Easy Company was so effective because they had developed strong bonds of brotherhood through the numerous challenges they overcame. These challenges include D-Day, Market Garden, liberating concentration camps, and finally being the first into Hitler’s stronghold at Eagle’s Nest. But if you were to pick the hardest thing they did, it was probably defending Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.
Watching and reading about Bastogne was a sobering experience. It is also the point where the three things I just mentioned crystallized into this line of inquiry. Given that it might be helpful to give you a brief overview of the Siege of Bastogne...
Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict by: Ara Norenzayan
A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains by: Max Bennett
The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump by: Max Blumenthal
What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars by: Jim Paul and Brendan Moynihan
The Laws of Trading: A Trader's Guide to Better Decision-Making for Everyone by: Agustin Lebron
Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by: Oliver Burkeman
Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory by: Peter Hessler
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration by: David Roberts
The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War by: Michael Shaara
He talks about the Village, and the River, but what we really need is a Redoubt.
On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything
By: Nate Silver
Published: 2024
576 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
There are two different ways of approaching the world: the River, which thinks in terms of numbers, expected values, and quantification and the Village, which is the paternalistic expert class which manifests as the vast bureaucracy.
What's the author's angle?
I got the impression that Silver just wanted to write about things that interested him. Because of this, his thesis was kind of tacked on. That said, he is a fairly passionate advocate for things that interest him.
Who should read this book?
Silver is worried that people will skip the first half of the book which is about gambling, but in reality that was the best part, or at least the part I found to be novel. The second part is about Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), AI, and all the stuff you’ve already heard too much about if you spend much time online. With this in mind, I think there are three reasons to read this book:
If you want a deep exploration of high-level poker playing.
You have never heard of AI Risk or SBF.
If you think my discussion of Silver’s model of the Village vs. the River is incomplete.
Specific thoughts: An mashup of the election and this book
...
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?
...
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
What are the problems of superforecasting?
...
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.
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?
A narcissistic dialogue around ideas that are either annoyingly fractured or wholly unrealistic.
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...
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 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
Transcript: https://www.wearenotsaved.com/p/divine-disappointment-and-mortal
By: Kurt Francom
Published: 2024
190 Pages
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.
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.
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.”
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
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
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:
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
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
He Who Fights with Monsters 2: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
He Who Fights with Monsters 3: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide by: Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay
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
He Who Fights with Monsters: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
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
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