This is a book about a socio-economic bubble. Like economic bubbles, when they pop, political, financial, and social chaos can ensue. Unlike economic bubbles, which always seem to grow larger than common sense should allow but from which nations usually recover, this bubble often, though not always, results in the collapse of the country or ..read more

My review of Sheild of Achilles is linked here. Garments of Court and Palace is an examination of the first of the transitions (from the feudal order of the European Middle Ages to the “Princely State”) that took place (in Europe) in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. My purpose in this essay is to examine Bobbitt’s projection—in the epilogue to this book—of the next, presently occurring evolution in statehood from “Nation-State” to “Market State.” Bobbitt tells us a State, of whatever kind, must draw legitimacy from the people living in it by serving “the common good” of the people livi ..read more

I like Bernie Sanders. I have a lot of sympathy for him, and I agree with most of what he says in this book. However, I have a few quibbles I’m going to discuss here.  Mr. Sanders addresses seven primary areas: Collapsing Health Care Collapsing Education The Crumbling Media The Obscene Wealth Gap Monied capture of the Democratic Party Climate Change and the Petroleum Industry Labor – Unions, Corporate Representation, and the work-day I have nothing to say in this essay about the first five. Sanders makes a superb case for every one of them. I’m going to talk about the last two, and conc ..read more

This is one of those books about which too much additional comment is warranted. In the main, I have said what needs be said in the review itself (see below). Gee can be correct about the mechanism of evolution and the inability of the physical evidence (fossils and DNA) to tell us a complete story about who came from what, and be incorrect as to its ultimate directedness towards capacity for abstraction laying the groundwork for moral free will, religion, and art. Most of these arenas pertain to Gee’s discussion of consciousness, in particular “self awareness,” which he claims may be exhibit ..read more

In my formal review (included below) I said this book has problems. Byron Belitsos is a long-time friend and I did not wish to give him too difficult a time on Amazon, but there are more problems with his book than I noted in the review. It’s time I reviewed those other issues. I hope he will take these in the philosophical spirit with which they are offered. First up is a technical quibble. Byron seems disposed to believe in demons to a greater degree than The Urantia Book (a source in Byron’s book, see below) suggests is real or sensible, at least in my reading. On page 279, with reference ..read more

By Wehttam Tropapar, October 2023 Cult of Aten, the highly anticipated capstone novel in the Foreign Agent series is out, and this one is different! Book one (Foreign Agent) and book two (Foreign Agent the Last Chapter) are closely related. The final setting in the first book (Bangkok), and its characters, carry through the entirety of the second book. The “Cult of Aten” is introduced in the second book where its infrastructure begins to be built, but the novel ends before it is finished and launched. Book three takes us back to the U.S. where its author, having published the second novel, rec ..read more

I have issues with this book (as always the full Amazon review is included below), but none of them involve the author’s contention that the present global civilization is going to unwind back a century or two (possibly much more) starting, well, now. My main problem has to do with Zeihan’s treatment of climate change but in addition, and in general, the problem is his own failure to fully integrate the impact of all the unwinding that will take place along every dimension he explores. I will give one example. Zeihan says that as the world’s land becomes mostly barren again (shortages of wate ..read more

In the review (attached below), I said I would deal with two issues that Ellis Cose touches on but does not elaborate. The two matters are: first, a principled way to draw a line between acceptable speech and unacceptable speech in a liberal, democratic, political order, and second, how to prevent or significantly reduce garbage speech (lies, propaganda, even if technically acceptable) automatically so that it does not overwhelm true speech without having armies of censors passing judgment on every post. I’ve written about both of these points elsewhere, but not here on the blog, so I will la ..read more

There aren’t any philosophical danglers in this book (that I can see) to discuss, but there is the matter of Israeli apartheid. Several stories Bamford ties together begin with Israel and apartheid South Africa in the 1970s, particularly the man Arnon Milchan, an Israli agent who became (and still is) a billionaire Hollywood film producer. His story threads its way through half the book. In the 1970s and 80s, the Israelis and South Africa were allies. In particular, the Israelis were actively helping South Africa maintain and strengthen apartheid. Arnon Milchan (before he was a Hollywood produ ..read more

There isn’t much extra I want to say about this book I haven’t said in many other essays. The review itself (see below) says what needs to be said about his projections for humanity. The issue for me here is his contention that (1) physics is all there is, (2) we have no free will, and (3) personality and mind are illusions. None of his projections for a human future depend on these assertions. If God is real, human religious institutions might be substantially wrong about his nature. Like almost everyone else, Harari fails to distinguish between religion (and what God is) and religious instit ..read more