We Are Not Saved

We Are Not Saved is a podcast covering Eschatology. While this concept has traditionally been a religious one, and concerned with the end of creation, in this podcast that study has been broadened to include secular ways the world could end (so called x-risks) and also deepened to cover the potential end of nations, cultures and civilizations. The title is taken from the book of Jeremiah, Chapter 8, verse 20: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

Last Branch Standing - Honey Badger References and Case Analysis 05/09/2026

Four Short Classics for the Lazy Pseudo-Intellectual 04/30/2026

Against the Machine - Steelmanning Modern Luddism 04/22/2026

Against the Machine - Steelmanning Modern Luddism Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity By: Paul Kingsnorth Published: 2025 368 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? Before Kingsnorth can tell you how to be against the Machine, he first sets out to define it. The Machine is multi-faceted, but Kingsnorth distills it down into four S’s: Science, The Self, Sex, and the Screen. To take a position “against the Machine” he urges a return to the four P’s: People, Place, Prayer, and the Past. But before you grasp this simple heuristic too firmly, it turns out that not all P’s are good, and not all S’s are bad. He is opposed to progress, particularly as it reduces everything to the parameterized, portable, plannable, and ultimately purchasable. On the other side, he is attempting to carve out a path to salvation, through a return to Christian values, a settledness that comes from having a place and community, and a sacredness that comes from connecting with the natural world. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Kingsnorth has huge biases. He’s an ex-environmental activist who converted to Orthodox Christianity. He’s spent decades opposing globalization, technocratic progress, and materialism. It’s not true to say that he opposes all progress, but he certainly thinks that progress has gone from something we do, to something that is done to us—the Machine of the title, which turns everything (nature, people, culture, pleasure) into raw material that needs to serve ever more productive ends. As such he makes no pretense at being balanced. And that’s part of the book’s value. This is a steelman of the anti-progress argument and a powerful rhetorical broadside against the technological miasma we’re currently wading through. Who should read this book? I think those who would benefit most from this book probably won’t read it. And those who will read it, might end up being too radicalized. I personally think that Kingsnorth is pointing in the correct direction, but as a practical matter we can’t all duplicate Kingsnorth’s life in rural Ireland, growing our own food and fuel, while making a living as a writer. To be fair that’s not how he sees things playing out, but he still has a tendency to lump all of progress into one negative whole, without much effort to identify things that might have been useful. What does the book have to say about the future? He doesn’t think we’re going to overthrow the Machine, or even deflect it very much. He’s urging people to outlast it in the same way that Irish monasteries kept the light of knowledge alive during the Dark Ages. Specific thoughts: What exactly is the “Machine”? /episode/index/show/wearenotsaved/id/40984285

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama - More Palestinian Sadness 04/12/2026

Plagues upon the Earth - You're Not Sufficiently Horrified 04/08/2026

Phenomena - Why Must It Always Be a Spoon? 03/31/2026

Four Books of Speculative Fiction About Christian Damnation 03/26/2026

Unshrunk - Medication, Red in Tooth and Claw 03/19/2026

Unshrunk - Medication, Red in Tooth and Claw Delano is very much an example of something being wrong with psychiatry, the question is how emblematic is her experience? Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance By: Laura Delano Published: 2025 352 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? An autobiographical tale of Delano’s experience with the mental health industry starting at the age of thirteen. Among other things, it covers her bipolar diagnosis, eating disorders, cutting, and one, nearly successful, suicide attempt. On the treatment side of the ledger she took at least a dozen drugs, engaged in constant therapy, and was committed to psychiatric hospitals and treatment programs on several occasions. In the end she decided that most of her problems stemmed from the substances she was taking, both those that are recognized as harmful, like cocaine and alcohol, and those that were supposed to help her. A major theme of the book is that the horrible withdrawal symptoms that accompany most psychiatric drugs go a long way towards creating the impression that “the drugs are helping”. Woven through all of this, Delano provides significant research illustrating the bad incentives, and shoddy testing engaged in by the pharmaceutical industry, along with critiques of the DSM, the paradigm of mental illness as a chemical imbalance, and reliance on drugs as a first line of treatment. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Delano includes some extensive research. This is not merely an n=1 anecdote, there are clearly a significant number of people who are taking too many psychiatric drugs, and don’t have the skills to taper off those drugs. Also Delano is explicitly not “antimedication” or “antipsychiatry”. Nevertheless, it is clear that she is not a neutral observer, that she is profoundly distrustful of the pharmaceutical industry, and that she came by this distrust honestly, even if it doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone. It should also be mentioned that money was never a problem for Delano, which probably meant both that she received too much care, but also that she had a large support network available during every phase of her journey. Who should read this book? The debate over how to care for the mentally ill is both fascinating and fraught. It sits at a convoluted nexus that includes healthcare availability, cost, worries over youth, violence, homelessness, anti- and pro- drug narratives, and a weird tangle of culture war issues. Navigating this mess is going to take as much information as we can get and this is a great book describing one of the many angles available for approaching it. As a more specific matter I would recommend it to psychologists and psychiatrists as something of a counter-narrative/steelman for those who are wary of medications and interventions. Finally, for those seeking to taper or get off of medication, this book is essential reading, and the idea of hyperbolic tapering may be the single most important bit of knowledge it contains. If you want a taste of things, I read this as part of the Blocked and Reported book club, and they had an interview with Delano which was quite good. Specific thoughts: Mental health treatment is crazy complicated /episode/index/show/wearenotsaved/id/40542005

Three Books About Roman Stoicism or Lack Thereof 03/16/2026

Grand Strategy In Life [Essay] (w: review of 33 Strategies of War) 03/10/2026

Grand Strategy In Life [Essay] (w: review of 33 Strategies of War) There’s a concept within statecraft known as grand strategy. The “grand” strategy means paying attention to every avenue of conflict, not just the military sphere, but also the diplomatic, the logistical, and the domestic, and everywhere else advantage might be gained or lost. It encompasses soft power, irregular actions, public opinion, etc. But at the same time, it also encompasses prioritization and focus, because, while it’s important to consider every avenue, resources are always limited and need to be spent wisely. A great example of grand strategy done right is the US in WWII. We supported the Soviets, we developed nukes, we invaded Europe, we came together as a nation, and most of all, we buried the Axis with our industrial capacity. For an example of grand strategy done poorly consider Vietnam. Our battlefield tactics were great. But at the strategic level we comprehensively failed in almost every domain. There was vast domestic opposition, political goals were unclear, we failed to contain the conflict geographically, and never really understood the resolve of the Vietnamese people. You might think that the point of grand strategy, if well executed, would be winning. I disagree, I think the point of grand strategy is not losing. (There’s probably an essay to be written about how this applies to Iran, but I think we have enough hot takes on that subject at the moment.) Grand strategy asks you to pay attention to all potential avenues by which disaster may arrive. Disaster in Vietnam did not arrive through the front door, it came from many unexpected directions, but an unexpected disaster is still a disaster, and generally worse than disasters which have been foreseen. As one considers the various aspects of grand strategy, what would it mean to have a personal grand strategy? And how would that be different from just living a “good life”? As a bridge between these two ideas, consider the life of Napoleon. Something Robert Greene does at great length in his book: The 33 Strategies of War By: Robert Greene Published: 2006 496 Pages /episode/index/show/wearenotsaved/id/40390690

Meta-Competition and the Downfall of Civilization [Essay] 03/05/2026

Eugenics and Other Evils - Chesterton Was Right Everyone Else Was Wrong 03/03/2026

Eugenics and Other Evils - Chesterton Was Right Everyone Else Was Wrong Eugenics and Other Evils By: G. K. Chesterton Published: 1922 188 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? Once this book entered the public domain, someone (most likely Inkling Books) added a subtitle to their edition: “An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State”. This is a pretty good description of the book’s thrust, though the book’s major focus is still definitely eugenics. When the book was written eugenics was a powerful political force, supported by numerous well known individuals. Buck v. Bell, the famous case which approved involuntary sterilization, didn't arrive until 1927. This is where we get the infamous line from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. writing for the majority, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Though it was only when researching this piece that I discovered that the ruling explicitly invoked the precedent already set around compulsory vaccination. The full context is: We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11. Three generations of imbeciles are enough. What authorial biases should I be aware of? You’re probably already aware of Chesterton’s biases, though in addition to being very Catholic, and very traditional, he was also a big supporter of the “little guy”. This comes out a lot in this book since eugenics seems primarily aimed at the “unwashed masses”, not the inbred nobility. Who should read this book? I have previously mentioned that I am gradually working through an ebook I picked up many years ago collecting Chesterton’s best-known works. This happened to be next on the list. I wouldn’t recommend it as the first Chesterton you read, or even the fifth, but it gives a great insight into a particular time and place, and puts you in the middle of an argument we consider long settled but which was raging at the time. What does the book have to say about the future? I think there’s a lot that could be taken from this book and applied to the current debate over MAID (medical aid in dying). It will be interesting to see if that practice ends up following a similar arc. Specific thoughts: Chesterton’s surprisingly prescient archetypes /episode/index/show/wearenotsaved/id/40296210

Three Books With Some Variation of the Word “Fly” in the Title 02/21/2026

HeartMath Solution - A Sugary Pseudoscience Soufflé 02/18/2026

Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - A Series of Unfortunate Events 02/10/2026

Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - A Series of Unfortunate Events A book full of potential comparisons to our own day for the motivated, and strangely removed from our own day if you're really going to be honest about it. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany By: William L. Shirer Published: 1960 1250 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? A comprehensive history of Nazi Germany, from Hitler’s birth to the Nuremberg trials. Written by someone who was there for a great deal of the most important period. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Shirer is a journalist, not a historian, but he did have access to the German state and party archives, plus some diaries, etc. that were captured at the end of the war. Plus he witnessed the rise of Hitler in the 30’s. I love passages like this: No wonder that Hitler was in a confident mood when the Nazi Party Congress assembled in Nuremberg on September 4 [1934]. I watched him on the morning of the next day stride like a conquering emperor down the center aisle of the great flag-bedecked Luitpold Hall while the band blared forth “The Badenweiler March” and thirty thousand hands were raised in the Nazi salute. Who should read this book? It’s clear that this isn’t the most accurate book about this subject. Scholarship is always advancing and this was written more than 60 years ago. But it may be the most readable book on the subject. It flows very well. 1250 pages fly by. (Or rather the minutes fly by, I listened to it, but with a physical copy for reference and anchoring.) If you’re at all interested in this period I think you’ll really enjoy this book. What does the book have to say about the future? I think a lot of people are trying to draw comparisons between the rise of Hitler and the Trump phenomenon. Other people see echoes of fascism in the ubiquity of woke-ism. I don’t think history is going to repeat. And I’m not even sure it’s going to rhyme this time around. People are still too aware of the dangers of populist demagoguery for someone to come to power in the same way Hitler did. Which is not to say there’s nothing to be gleaned from this book, but I suspect that by the time things start lining up, in some bizarre fashion, it will be too late. Specific thoughts: Pivot points /episode/index/show/wearenotsaved/id/40057090

Radical Markets - I Mean Really Radical 02/05/2026

Radical Markets - I Mean Really Radical Policy proposals from the White Queen. (It’s a Lewis Carroll reference. No, I’m not talking about the Mad Hatter or the Red Queen. It’s from “Through the Looking Glass”.) Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society By: Eric A. Posner and Eric Glen Weyl Published: 2019 384 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? A series of radical proposals for restructuring property, voting, immigration, investing, and employment. All of the proposals seek to solve the problem of “monopolized or missing markets” in ways that seem pretty strange. One has to wonder if there’s a good reason those markets didn't exist in the first place. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Posner has his finger in all sorts of things, and has defended everything from post-9/11 government surveillance to increasing foreign aid. I guess the throughline is a belief in technocratic solutions? Weyl is an economist working for Microsoft who helped popularize the idea of quadratic voting, and had a political awakening while reading Ayn Rand. This feels more like his book than Posner’s but perhaps I’m imagining that. Who should read this book? I read this as part of an ACX/SSC book club. Most of the people didn’t like it. They felt that it was too radical. (Though you can’t say we weren’t warned, it’s right there in the title.) But if you want to see what mechanisms Georgist economists come up with when they’re completely unrestrained, this might be the book for you. What does the book have to say about the future? Hayek is famous for noting that the big advantage of markets is that they are giant distributed systems for discovering prices and allocating resources effectively. They’re obviously not perfect, and socialists have long dreamt of having a centrally planned economy that would be fairer and work better. Posner and Weyl imagine a future where computing power and machine learning could take over some of the work currently being done by markets, and thereby improve the outcomes. Specific thoughts: “Six impossible things before breakfast” /episode/index/show/wearenotsaved/id/40011465

Gemini Goes Insane — How Should I Update? [Essay] 02/03/2026

Goliath's Curse (and the Agents of Doom!) 01/30/2026

Goliath's Curse (and the Agents of Doom!) Using the Stone of Democracy to Slay the Goliath of Inequality Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse By: Luke Kemp Published: 2025 592 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? By most accounts, civilization, which is to say the large Hobbesian state, is a good thing. Kemp doesn’t necessarily agree. In his account, states are lumbering, tyrannical, extractive Goliaths, cursed to grow bigger, more oppressive and more brittle until they are eventually brought down by a “stone” that hits in just the right place. Civilization forms out of dominance hierarchies, and these hierarchies generally only move in one direction, towards greater inequality, greater extraction, and more self-interested decisions. This leads to ever increasing fragility and eventual collapse. Collapse might actually be a better place for the masses of people, though it’s often quite bloody to get there. Though if that’s how it played out in the past, Kemp doesn’t think it will necessarily play out that way going forward. If (when?) civilization collapses this time, it will be far more apocalyptic. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Kemp is associated with the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge. I was recommended this book by the sagacious Florian U. Jehn of the excellent Existential Crunch blog. Jehn knows his stuff which gives me the confidence to safely locate Kemp as an important scholar in the genre of collapse research, with an interesting, albeit populist/anti-elite take on the subject. Who should read this book? Kemp draws heavily on the ideas of James C. Scott (Seeing Like a State and Against the Grain) and writes in opposition to the ideas of Steven Pinker (in particular The Better Angels of Our Nature). If you find yourself similarly situated, you’ll enjoy this book. It’s also a great book for anyone who can’t get enough discussion of existential risk. And really given the stakes we should be considering as many viewpoints as possible. What does the book have to say about the future? As you might imagine, Kemp’s vision of the future is pretty bleak. He is not a techno-optimist, rather he sees in technology the emergence of a new Goliath, a new arena of dominance and extraction. He has a certain amount of hope, but it all revolves around using democracy to disrupt the ratcheting up of inequality and elite power, which seems like a tall order. Specific thoughts: Past, present, and future collapse /episode/index/show/wearenotsaved/id/39936700

Knowing Our Limits - Epistemology Without Bayes 01/28/2026

Knowing Our Limits - Epistemology Without Bayes I was promised useful stories to assist me in a quest for justified belief. Instead I got a lesson in the limits of expertise. Unfortunately it was the author’s expertise that was limited. Knowing Our Limits By: Nathan Ballantyne Published: 2019 344 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? Regulative epistemology as opposed to descriptive epistemology. Put more simply, this is about how to find truth, as opposed to how to define truth. Though because the author recommends having very high standards, you may come away from the book thinking that there is no truth. That is not Ballantyne’s intent, but most of his guidance revolves around less confidence rather than more confidence. There is some good stuff about tolerance, and the utility of doubt. And while I take issue with some of what he says on the subject of expertise, he covers the subject exhaustively and thought-provokingly. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Ballantyne isn’t just interested in epistemology. He doesn’t dabble in it. He is epistemology, or rather an epistemologist. Accordingly, even though it’s apparent that he’s trying really, really hard to not make the book overly academic, it’s still pretty academic. For example: If an undefeated defeater for believing p were included in the evidence I don’t have, then I (probably) would have heard of it by now. But I have not heard of it and the “silence” gives me reason to think that the unpossessed defeater is probably defeated. He’s a big fan of the word defeater, and various constructions involving the word. In the course of a few pages he uses the term “defeater-defeater” seventeen times. Who should read this book? Epistemological collapse is the major crisis of our time, so on some level it’s probably useful to read everything you can get your hands on. (Which was my big reason for reading it.) But, as much as I crap on Yudkowsky’s Rationality: From AI to Zombies I’d probably read his chapters on Bayes’ Theorem before reading this. I heard about the book on Jesse Singal’s substack. He was much more bullish on it. So you might read that if you’re interested or on the fence. Specific thoughts: Lots of epistemic tools, Ballantyne really only covers one /episode/index/show/wearenotsaved/id/39904550

A YA Series, a First Contact Novel, and a Startup Book Walk Into a Bar—Pursued by Wolves 01/17/2026

The Origin of Politics - Kibbutzim, Chimps, and Children 01/16/2026

The Origin of Politics - Kibbutzim, Chimps, and Children Would you like some genetics in your politics? The Origin of Politics: How Evolution and Ideology Shape the Fate of Nations – Social Disintegration, Birth Rates, and the Path to Extinction By: Nicholas Wade Published: 2025 256 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? Wade offers up an evolutionary psychology account of how to make politics actually function; how, when you try to disconnect politics and the exercise of power from core human nature, as shaped by evolution, things go off the rails. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Nicholas Wade worked as a science writer for the NYT for 30 years. For the bulk of those years he was the science and health editor. He left the paper in 2012 and in 2014 he published A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History. The book argued that human evolution is ongoing and that it has been “recent, copious, and regional”. The regional part got him “cancelled” or at least it attracted a lot of negative attention, since it implied that differing national outcomes might be partly genetic in nature rather than wholly the result of chance, culture, or colonization. Who should read this book? If you’re looking for a strong pushback against blank-slateism along with a defense of the traditional nation-state (and of tradition in general). Or if you’re looking for another reason to worry about decreasing fertility. What does the book have to say about the future? The aforementioned fertility decline looms large in his warnings about the future, but as I mentioned he also warns about any policy that tries to exercise power in ignorance of evolutionary drives. One of the major drives is tribalism and immigration directly conflicts with that instinct. All of this points to the potential for a demographically declining society with lots of disorder. Specific thoughts: Children are the ultimate civilizational scorecard /episode/index/show/wearenotsaved/id/39753690

A Case for Latter-Day Christianity - (i.e. A Case for the Christianity of Mormons) 01/11/2026

Taking Religion Seriously - Can You Get to Belief Purely Through Reason? 01/08/2026

Children of Mars - Sid Meier's Civilization Lied 01/06/2026

Origins of Efficiency - The Glories of the Modern World 01/02/2026

Origins of Efficiency - The Glories of the Modern World We have a lot of nice things. We’re really good at making nice things. We should preserve these nice things. But also nothing lasts forever? The Origins of Efficiency By: Brian Potter Published: 2025 384 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? The clever and incremental ways we’ve vastly increased humanity’s ability to make stuff. We’re constantly finding ways to build stuff cheaper, faster, and with fewer resources. What's the author's angle? Potter is probably best known for his Substack Construction Physics, which covers infrastructure, manufacturing, and building stuff in general. He also works at the Institute for Progress. Put those two together and you’ve got someone who’s a big fan of material progress, or what is sometimes referred to as a techno-optimist. Who should read this book? If you want some amazing stories of how processes have improved, and a stirring defense of the modern world and all its wonders this is a great book. If you’re looking for higher level reflection on what it all means, particularly any sort of caution around progress and efficiency, then this is not the book for you. Potter is definitely an “onward and upward!” kind of guy. He does note that efficiency can’t be applied everywhere, and that it’s often constrained by other goals, like safety, but he still treats it as being inherently good. What does the book have to say about the future? The book does point out that efficiency has become a “sociotechnical” issue. Particularly in the West, we often make choices to constrain efficiency as part of some broader societal goal. Potter doesn’t talk very much about China, but one could imagine that their drive for efficiency is not constrained in the same way and, going forward, this could give them the edge in our ongoing competition. Specific thoughts: Fantastic, awesome, hopeful, and scary /episode/index/show/wearenotsaved/id/39595585

The New Testament in Its World - A Brief, Thousand-Page Intro 12/27/2025

The New Testament in Its World - A Brief, Thousand-Page Intro Everything you wanted to know about 1st Century Palestine, but were afraid to ask… The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians By: N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird Published: 2019 992 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? An deep dive on the New Testament covering (as the subtitle suggests) the history: Second Temple Judaism against a Greco-Roman background; the literature: the New Testament’s genesis, structure, authors and audience; and theology: the religious claims of the book, the doctrine, miracles, and contentions. What's the author's angle? Despite me saying that this is a deep dive, it is also something of a sampler for Wright’s other, even more expansive books. Also it’s important to note that Wright is very much a believing Christian and while the book is exceptionally scholarly, it’s also backgrounded by the idea that Jesus Christ is the Messiah who died for the sins of the world and was gloriously resurrected. Who should read this book? This is a long book, and I ended up deciding to read it, rather than listen to it. As such, it honestly took me several months to get through, so you should certainly take that into account. This should not be construed as saying the book is difficult. It’s very accessible, and reads easily. I will say that I learned a lot, but I’m not sure that will be true for everyone. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) don’t generally focus on straight down the line Bible scholarship. To the extent that we do deep scholarship in this area it’s in search of parallels between early Christianity and LDS Christianity. (For example in 1 Corinthians 15:29 when Paul mentions baptisms for the dead. Something no major denomination does, other than us.) This is all to say that I think LDS individuals might find this book particularly enjoyable, as being somewhat outside of our normal wheelhouse. Specific thoughts: It’s both shocking how much New Testament we have and how little we have of everything else /episode/index/show/wearenotsaved/id/39541625

Superbloom - Volume 23 in the "Social Media is Awful" Series 12/24/2025

We Belong to the Land - The Best Palestinian Making His Best Case 12/22/2025

Five Fictional Books In Search of a Common Thread 12/18/2025

The Kid Stays in the Picture - A Story of Old "New Hollywood" 12/17/2025

We Are Not Saved

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