Ten Child Sex Abuse Rings in Search of a Narrative - 2025
We Are Not Saved
You have probably heard about Rotherham, and the child sex abuse rings that existed there (and ). As with so many things these days, this story entered the public discussion when Musk tweeted about it. For many people I’ve talked to, this was the first they’d heard of it. I actually spoke about . At the time I felt I was late to the game, but apparently I was six years ahead of most people. Given the story's re-emergence I thought it might be worth dusting off that old piece. I think it holds up pretty well, particularly the part about the woeful lack of reporting on the topic. I have...
info_outline
Why Did They Really Close Schools?
We Are Not Saved
Exactly five years ago, China identified a “novel coronavirus” and the world was introduced to the term “”. In the time since then arguments continue to rage about the source of the virus, the measures that were taken, and the vaccines that were created. In the midst of all these arguments, everyone seems to agree on one thing: extended school closures were a bad idea. It’s very easy to continue on from that to assume the harms of such closures were obvious from the very beginning—that they happened only because we were blinded by fear. Some people don’t go quite so far, but...
info_outline
Short Fiction Book Reviews: Volume II
We Are Not Saved
info_outline
Band of Brothers? - Women on the Front Lines
We Are Not Saved
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...
info_outline
Mid-length Non-fiction Book Reviews: Volume 3
We Are Not Saved
info_outline
Mid-length Non-fiction Book Reviews: Volume 2
We Are Not Saved
info_outline
A Review of Nate Silver: The Election and His Book "On the Edge"
We Are Not Saved
He talks about the Village, and the River, but what we really need is a Redoubt. By: 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...
info_outline
Evaluating Epstein Conspiracies and a Review of One Nation Under Blackmail
We Are Not Saved
By: Briefly, what are these books about? The alleged connections between organized crime and national intelligence agencies which led to the numerous illicit operations including , , 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...
info_outline
Short Fiction Book Reviews Volume I
We Are Not Saved
info_outline
AI and Forecasting
We Are Not Saved
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, 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...
info_outlineThree 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...