Read: Tactics

1st question type: "What do you mean by that?" used to get them to elucidate their view. Any question designed to get them to further explain themselves or clarify something after making a grand assertion falls here.

2nd question type: "How did you come to that conclusion?" People often assert things forcefully without actually giving any reasons for that idea. Just because something is possible doesn't mean it's plausible, let alone probable.. It's possible monkeys wrote Hamlet. Make the person give you an argument, reasons for their view, not just an opinion.

3rd question type: Leading questions. You must see the weakness in their argument. Pay attention to their response to question 2 and see if their conclusion is justified by their arguments or what presuppositions might be challenged. This step, unlike the first 2, is not automatic, it requires some insight and understanding of where you would like to lead the conversation to go. Use tact, don't come across as pushy or arrogant. "Have you ever considered..." is a good starter to this question type.

After discussions with people, review the encounter and think of ways you could have done better. Anything you didn't know or better directions you could have steered the conversation? It's also useful to spend time before interactions anticipating claims you will face and formulating responses.

When someone challenges you with a pseudo question, e.g. (who are you to...), respond with the 1st question type. Ask them to clarify what they are really asking or saying. For example, “What gives you the right to say someone else’s religion is wrong?” can be restated as “No one is justified saying one religious view is better than another.” It's easier to respond to the second statement than the first.

Statements that violate the law of noncontradiction are suicidal, they are inherently false. e.g. "My brother is an only child." He calls this "Formal Suicide." To respond to self- destructive statements first, pay attention to the basic premise, conviction, or claim. Next, ask if the claim applies to itself. If so, does it satisfy its own criteria, or is there an internal contradiction? If the exact same reasons in favor of another’s view (or against your own) defeat the reasons themselves, then the view is self-refuting. If you discover a problem, use a question (Columbo) rather than a statement to point it out. 

Another type of statement is similar, it is not logically inconsistent to believe it, but any argument for it is inherently self-defeating. E.G. "It is wrong to say other people are wrong." It's possible to believe that without logical contradiction, but any attempt to argue for it contradicts itself. He calls this "Practical Suicide."

Another is "Sibling Rivalry." This is 2 objections that contradict each other, such as someone saying they believe good and evil are relative but also saying how could God allow so much evil in the world.

The 4th type of "suicide" argument is "Infanticide" which is an argument that requires what it says is false. Someone arguing against God on the problem of evil commits this because they have no grounding for their belief in absolute good and evil, only a God like the God of Christianity gives an adequate explanation for the existence of evil. Evil is not just personal preference.

Reductio ad absurdum (or simply reductio). This is a Latin phrase that means to reduce a point to its absurd conclusion or consequence. Take their view and extend it to its logical consequence to show that the view can't be true because it results in absurdity.

If someone is a 'steamroller" and rapidly fires off objections but then cuts in when you try to respond, you may need to confront that behavior and request that he do you the courtesy of letting you respond uninterrupted.

Science, as a philosophy, presupposes secular materialism, so even if its methods point to evidence for divinity or creation, scientists are forced to come up with a materialist explanation for the data, because the supernatural is a priori ruled out. For example, eyewitness testimony of Jesus' resurrection can't be real, because it's impossible for someone to rise from the dead.

If someone makes an objection that is based on something factually inaccurate, correcting the inaccuracy is in order. Specific and precise facts are more impressive and convincing than broad round estimates.

Jehovah's Witnesses

 Notes on a lecture about Jehovah's Witnesses from James White.

Jehovah Witness Theology:

God created only the archangel Michael directly. Through Michael God created everything else.

Their theology is pretty standardized, completely controlled by the Watchtower.

You don't "have" a soul, you are a soul. You cease to exist when you die.

They don't believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus.

Michael "became" Jesus, when Jesus died, he "became" Michael again.

They are unitarian.

Predicted armageddons in 1914, 1915, 1918, 1925, 1943, 1975. They lost a million people after the 1975 false prophecy.

They have 3 "classes" of people instead of 2, justified and unjustified, where most JWs are in the second class.

The New World Translation, their bible, was translated by a committee that had cumulatively 2 years of classical greek education. It is a terrible translation that misrepresents what the greek says in any passage touching their theological distinctives.

The way to reach them regarding the deity of Christ is to agree that their is one God, "Jehovah" (aka Yahweh), but to show that scripture identifies Jesus as Jehovah. Psalm 102:25-27 is clearly about Jehovah God, the only unchangeable one, Hebrews 1:8 "but of the Son"...1:10, "And, You, Lord..." quotes Psalm 102:25-27 which can only be about Jehovah God, and applies to the Son. Another one is John 12:41, "Isaiah saw Jesus' glory", the prior quote from Isaiah is from Isaiah 6, where Isaiah has a vision of Jehovah God. 

Read: I Hear You by Michael S. Sorensen

 Ch 1:

Couple constantly make comments about things which can be responded to positively or negatively. Example: husband says to wife: "That's a nice car." The wife can respond with validation or negatively. Couples that respond with validation more often are more likely to remain married, according to 1 study.

Ch 2:

Validation is recognizing their emotion or feeling, and providing justification for them feeling that way.

When someone tells you something, before jumping in with advice or contrary opinion, take a moment to validate their feelings.

My natural temperament at the time of reading this book is about as far away from someone who naturally validates as it gets.

Ch 3:

Validation of good emotions is just as important as bad emotions.

Neutral (disinterested) responses can be just as harmful as negative responses.

You can validate without agreeing with someone. It just involves looking at things from their perspective for a moment and understanding why they feel as they do.

Validation is not just repeating back what they said. It is connecting on the emotion underlying the statement.

Match their energy level.

Part 2:

He has a good section on validating their feelings as opposed to giving false praise or reassurance when something is wrong or they have done poorly.

After you validate their feelings, only then is it ever appropriate to offer advice or criticism.

My conclusions:

On the whole, not terrible, but not a particularly great book. Something about the idea of validating what everyone feels regardless of what it is just doesn't sit well with me, but there's no arguing that it wouldn't be good for your relationships with people.

Read: The Worldy Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner

 Ch 2:

Economics is a relatively new field, because capitalism is a very recent innovation for organizing society. Before the 16th-18th centuries Feudalism was prevalent in Europe, where land was not sold, people did not work for wages, and the ideas of markets and commerce were limited at best. Capital, as something that is invested to be put to work and increased, was not really a thing. "Unjust gain" was stigmatized or outlawed by societies, innovation was feared, and people generally did whatever their fathers before them did. As the societal structure that later became known as capitalism took shape, it was vehemently opposed by all sides. In England wool became very expensive, causing noble landowners to fence off land from the peasants to put newly bought sheep in. In other countries those in power outlawed technological innovations or any changes in the way things were done. Even in cities, where commerce was more of a thing, workers did not negotiate for wages, rather they were set by the industry leaders. Protestantism preached more a work ethic, saying it was pious to fully utilize what God gave you, in contrast to medieval Catholicism which forbid Christians from being merchants or loaning at interest.

Ch 3:

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in 1776 really kickstarted economics. Before it, early theories were laughably incomplete. This book had a huge impact on society.

Smith had an incredible respect for the market mechanism, which he said would regulate all supply of goods (and even supply of people) if just left alone. He was against the collusion of industry leaders to artificially raise prices, which he said lowers the overall welfare by preventing the market from the producing the greatest amount of goods at the lowest possible prices.

He appreciated the increase in productivity the specialization of labor created, but he didn't see how it would be self-reinforcing in the long run. He thought that the increase in profits from increasing productivity, which led to increasing wages, would eventually lead to an increase in population that would drive wages back down to subsistence level, with no long term improvement in affairs.

Ch 4:

Thomas Robert Malthus wrote an influential treatise hampering the optimism of the times arguing that the reproductive urge will ensure that the population always increases as goods increase until people are barely able to subsist again.

David Ricardo was an opposing figure to Malthus, much more well liked, and they argued endlessly in publications back and forth, but they were great friends. Ricardo saw the landowner as opposed to both the capitalist and working classes of society. Market forces acted to correct capitalists' profits and workers' wages, but there is only so much land, so as population rises the amounted required & thus price of grain rises, benefiting the landowner at everyone else's expense. This was a big difference from the earlier Adam Smith, who saw a nation as one and did not perceive any shortage of good soil. The author states that Ricardo's analysis of land rents is accurate, but that we have been spared from its consequences today because of how much more food we can get from an acre of farmland and successes in checking population growth.

Ch 5:

Robert Owen was an 18th century liberal who made a very profitable factory with great labor conditions, in contrast to the horrors seen elsewhere. He also believed in getting rid of money and living in communes. He started one, but it quickly fell apart.

Utopian socialists are distinct from communists in that while communists appealed solely to the working masses & urged violence, the utopian socialists appealed to their fellow intelligentsia, members of the upper classes, trying to convince them the change would be to their benefit as well.

J. S. Mill made a huge insight in that economic laws deal with production, how to generate wealth. But once wealth is generated, "society" has the power to distribute it as it wills. There is nothing stopping it from taking the wealth from the one who would get it in a "natural" state of affairs. Critics rightly pointed out that one cannot so cleanly separate production from distribution as Mill implied. 100% tax rates would certainly impact what is produced, for example. He also thought that the working people could be taught to constraint their base impulses and voluntary keep population in check, keeping their wages up. He brought back optimism to economics after the glum pessimism of Ricardo and Malthus.

Ch 6:

Karl Marx published The Communist Manifesto in 1848.

The author had high regard for Marx as an economist, claiming he was very prophetic in his understanding of the inherent instabilities within capitalism. His theory was that capitalism would inevitably collapse into communism. That it had to, because of its nature. He claimed that the price of everything, wages & products ultimately is how much "labor" went into that thing, and that capitalists make profit by requiring employees to work "extra" "unpaid" hours, that the only hours they were paid for were the ones required to produce enough value to continue to subsist. He was prescient in predicting that capitalism would have a tendency to produce big businesses at the expensive of small, at a time when large corporations were the exception rather than the norm, saying at each bust in the business cycle many businesses would fail and allow the biggest ones to buy them cheaply. He was wrong in predicting that the misery of the proletariat would increase, as over the decades their wages went up and they went from being always in danger of starvation to much more prosperous.

Ch 9: Keynes

The author is effusive in flattery for Keynes. He was brilliant and knowledgable about many different fields. He became rich from a very small starting capital by spending 30 minutes each morning playing the commodity & currency markets.

His groundbreaking book: The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.

The author states that prosperity is not in a nation's physical assets (buildings, mines, factories, and forests), prosperity is measured by the incomes we earn. And income is not static, national income consists in the flow of incomes from one person to another. Every dollar of one's income was someone else's income at some point. The alleged issue arises with savings. Savings is capital that can be invested to improve production. But savings that is not invested in enterprise is income that does not get spent and thus does not become someone else's income. This alleged mismatch of savings and investment is what Keynes said caused depressions. You would think that if savings outstripped investment, interest rates would go down to incentivize businessmen to invest. But at the bottom of the great depression, savings dried up. The author doesn't explain how a glut of savings caused the depression but then there was no available savings funds for businesses at the bottom. From this idea Keynes concluded that Egypt was lucky in that it could always create work in making pyramids, a thing where more is always better so more savings can always be used, and that this is could even have caused its wealth! This is absurd, since creating pyramids did not actually create value for anyone, it didn't generate food or commodities that enable a society to be more prosperous. It just consumed them. Again, he claimed the government could bury bank notes in abandoned coal mines and let private enterprise employee people to dig them up, and thereby make society more prosperous.

Keynes was by no means a marxist. He had an appreciation for the cultivated life of the intelligentsia or bourgeoisie, and was generally trying to "save" capitalism, not replace it.

Ch 10: Joseph Schumpter

Schumpter had a new explanation for the existence of profits. Rather than coming from a deduction of the value of labor as Marx said, or from earnings of the capital itself, it is a result of innovation, growth, and is transient. Any profit will eventually be eliminated once competitors adopt the same technique. This guy was the closest thing to an "Austrian" discussed in the book. But he was very sociological, and saw the long term demise of capitalism resulting from sociological, not economic factors, as bureaucracy took over and squashed out entrepreneurism. 

The author mentions at the end of the last chapter that he is a democratic socialist. There is a list of lots of economics related books he recommends reading at the end of the book that lists many that would be interesting.

Read: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

This is a very engaging book. Franklin is clearly an interesting thinker. And he seems to be fairly honest in his representation of his thoughts, beliefs, and actions. He rejected the Christianity of his childhood, becoming a Deist, but eventually became disenchanted with Deism, saying “even if it is true, it is not useful.” He thought that his deism had a tendency to make people less moral, and though he didn’t believe the theological doctrines of Christianity, he upheld the value of its moral teaching for giving one a good life.

It’s interesting that even in this supposedly christian culture and time, he mentions plenty of people who were non-practicing. Having a society that generally upholds the truth and goodness of Christianity does not imply all the people are regenerated. It’s still a better society than ours now though.

Him and many of his friends enjoyed reading and desired to learn as much as they could in order to better themselves and further their success in life.

Interesting story about a member of the General Assembly who opposed him, who Franklin knew would grow to be a powerful person. Franklin, desiring to gain his liking, asked to borrow a rare book the man had, and then sent it back with a note of strong appreciation. Thereafter the man liked him and they even became friends. 

He was involved in a treaty with the Indians, where he mentions they were known to be drunkards, and as such they wouldn’t let the Indians buy alcohol until the treaty signing was over, on the promise that they would give them some freely after. It’s interesting their susceptibility to alcoholism was already a thing way back then.

Read: Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers by John Owen

Part 1: The Necessity of Mortification

Chapters 1 & 2 are both really good, chapter 2 especially.

Rom 8:13 is his foundational text: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death [mortify] the deeds of the body, you will live.”

The “if” in “if...you put to death” is not a cause effect relationship, as salvation is a gift, but a means and end relationship. “There is a certain infallible connection and coherence between true mortification and eternal life.”

The body, the flesh, the old man are also synonymous terms for indwelling sin, the corrupted flesh. “We know that our old man was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” (Romans 6:6)

“Put to death” is metaphorical. To kill something is to take away the principle of all its strength, vigor, and power.

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” (Colossians 3:5, ESV)

Sin is always there attempting to corrupt, so it is your perpetual duty to mortify it. Believers have had the condemning power of sin defeated, but they must still battle its indwelling.

“For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:14-19, ESV)

“For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” (Romans 7:22-23, ESV)

“For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” (Galatians 5:17, ESV)

“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.” (Hebrews 3:12-14, ESV)

Indwelling sin, if not carefully guarded against and put to death, will cause shipwreck of one’s faith. When sin is allowed to achieve victories over the Spirit, it destroys the believer’s joy in his salvation and any usefulness he had for the kingdom. See for example Psalm 51, where David talks about his sin with Bathsheba.

Though we are commanded to put to death the sin in our lives, the true efficient cause of any sanctification is the Holy Spirit. Means such as prayer, fasting, watching, & meditation are "streams" not "the fountain." Without Christ we ca do nothing.

The Holy Spirit mortifies sin by causing our hearts to abound in grace and fruits contrary to the flesh. It is the renewing of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit's work in the same way that all grace and good works in our lives are His. Fighting against sin without the Spirit is sad as they are trying to achieve goodness through the Law and that is hopeless.

Every unmortified sin weakens and darkens the soul. It destroys our communion with God and the "joy of our salvation." Psalm 51. It makes us weak and unable to be any spiritual use. Every sin desires to grow, every thought of hate would be murder, lust would be fornication, and if left unmortified it will grow until it consumes your thoughts and destroys your life.

Part 2: The Nature of Mortification

His outline is:

1. Show what it is to mortify a sin, both negatively and positively.

2. Give general directions for mortification.

3. Draw out particulars whereby mortification is to be done.

Mortification is not the utter destruction and death of sin. That is what is aimed at, but we cannot expect complete success in this life. Paul says not even he was perfect (Phil 3:12).

Mortification is not merely the ceasing of outward actions of a sin. Beating down the fruit of a tree is not effectual if the roots are left untouched, more fruit will grow again shortly. "This is the folly of some men; they set themselves with all earnestness and diligence against the appearing eruption of lust, but, leaving the principle and root untouched, perhaps unsearched out, they make but little or no progress in this work of sanctification."

Mortification is not the diversion of sin. Simon in Acts 8 left his sorceries for a season, but his covetousness and ambition, which were the root sins, were never mortified. His internal lusts were just as strong as they had ever been. If someone sets himself against the outbreak of some lust, and is able to prevent it from pouring forth in that way again, but does not put to death the internal lust itself, it will find another outlet in his life. Men in old age usually do not pursue the same lusts of their youth, but most have not mortified, or put to death, those lusts.

Mortification is not an occasional "victory" over sin, caused by disgust with a particularly repugnant outbreak of sin. Sin may lie quiet for a time, even seeming mortified, but it will return after the hurry and inquest is over.

Mortification is the habitual weakening of sin. So that is does not impel and agitate as it did prior. Its strength and power is taken away. A sin that has been mortified moves but sparingly, and then only faintly, like a man on a cross who, nearing the end, is running out of strength. Romans 6:6, "We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin." (ESV)

Lusts are strengthened by temptation. 

Because of a man's natural temperament, some lusts may be stronger in him than others, but this does not in any ways mitigate his guilt. And some lusts are more outwardly noticeable, but hidden internal lusts are just as destructive to a man's soul. 

Mortification consists in constant fighting and contending against sin. This firstly requires knowing the danger of the enemy one carries within. Warfare requires work to learn the ways, wiles, methods, and occasions of success of the enemy. We are to work to inflict new blows against sin daily, not being content when it is quiet, but ever attempting to wound it more.

Mortification consists in frequent success against sin. One finds sin at work seducing, and instantly brings it to the law of God and love of Christ and condemns it. When a man has weakened his lusts in their root and principle, that their motions and actions are few and weak that they do not hinder his duty nor interrupt his peace, when he regularly finds out and fights against sin with success, that man may have peace with God all his days.

We weaken sin's root by implanting its opposite. Pride is weakened by growing humility, worldliness by heavenly-mindedness, etc. 

Colossians 3:5–10, "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." (ESV)

A man must be a believer to mortify sin. There can be mortification of sin in an unregenerate soul. This is the fault of works-based religion. Mortification is the work of the Spirit, so someone without the Spirit is unable to make any progress. Romans 9:31b–32 "Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works." (ESV) Men must undertake the conversion of their whole soul before they can be concerned with the mortification of a particular lust. "Be sure to get an interest in Christ - if you intend to mortify any sin without it, it will never be done." The axe must be laid to the root. Convincing unregenerate men to refrain from some earthly lust may have some beneficial effect on society, but it does nothing towards saving their souls, and in fact, can give them false comfort.

Ch 8:

There will be no mortification of any sin without sincerity and diligence in a universality of obedience. Someone may have one sin besetting them that greatly troubles them such that they pray and groan against it, giving them no peace, but if they are lax in their other duties, they should not expect to be delivered. Hatred of sin as sin, not only as galling or disquieting, and a sense of the love of Christ in the cross are where real mortification comes from. If someone strives to break free from one "serious" sin but meanwhile delights in filthy speech and neglects prayer and Scripture, they shall fail. Christ bled for those sins just as much. This is fighting against sin only because of your own trouble by it, not its inherent filthiness and the guilt of it. If it did not bother you, you wouldn't trouble about it. An unbelieving alcoholic may fight against the addiction to alcohol, but that doesn't arise from any desire for holiness. God will not ease you of that which afflicts you so that you can continue to do that which no less grieves Him. 'God says, "Here is one, if he could be rid of this lust I should never hear of him more; let him wrestle with this, or he is lost."' We need a universal frame of humbleness that abhors every evil.

Particular Directions for the one engaged in mortifying sin: Ch 9-13

Sin that has lain unmortified for a long time is especially serious. It has become familiar to the mind and conscience, and is basically indistinguishable from one still being under the dominion of sin as an unbeliever. A "regular course" of mortification will not suffice for such a sin.

When, upon confrontation with sin, instead of applying oneself to its destruction, one instead searches for solace in grace and mercy, one is in a dangerous condition. It reveals a heart that loves sin and undervalues peace and communion with God. A heart that, so long as it can escape hell, is content to be of no spiritual service to God whatsoever. Grace and mercy should never be applied to a sin that one is not engaged in attempting to put to death.

"Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? (Rom 6:1b-2 ESV). 

"Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" (Romans 2:3–4 ESV)

When a man must use arguments with himself against sin revolving around its punishment, his heart does not hate sin as it should. A believer should have the detestable nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, and the love of Christ displayed on the cross causing a deep-seated abhorrence for sin as sin. As the attitude of Joseph with Potiphar's wife, "How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” (Gen 39:9 ESV). Sin has possessed the will and affections to a great degree of a man who can only fight against sin using the law, devoid of Gospel weapons. Paul's call to believers to avoid sin was always one of "you are no longer under law, but grace."

The first step of one who would mortify sin is to get a clear grasp of the guilt of his sin.

Consider its danger, first its hardening power, and second the possibility of a chastening by God. Sin tends to harden, every sin makes some progress towards that eventuality. Eventually one will be "sermon-proof," you sin can be spoken and thought of without nary a thought or concern. You can avoid all spiritual duties without being the least bit affected. "Sin will grow a light thing in you." Symptoms of this are slight thoughts of heaven, hell, Christ's blood, grace, mercy, justice, etc. Thirdly, it will destroy all peace you have with God. Consider David's words in the Psalms of how his bones were broken and he didn't have the strength to look up, while plunged in his sin (Psalms 38 & 42). Fourthly, there is the danger of eternal destruction, as one who continues forever in unmortified sin should have no expectation of being saved.

Hebrews 3:12–13, "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." (ESV)

Consider the evils of it. It grieves the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4:30, "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." (ESV). It destroys a man's usefulness.

Additionally, one should load their conscience with the guilt of their sin. Be aware of terrors of God and His Law, His holiness. The proper work of the Law is to find out sin. David said his iniquity was ever before him. Psalm 51:3, "For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me." (ESV). Think about the evil of what you have done, how you have spit in the face of the God who died for you, defiled the abode of the Holy Spirit, despised the grace of God and communion with God, valued all these things as less than that of the sin pursued. Only then should you consider God's infinite patience and forbearance

One should constantly long for deliverance from sin's power. That was one of the results Paul rejoiced in from his letter to the Corinthians (2 Cor 7:11). Paul clearly longed for deliverance from sin's power (Rom 7:24). "Assure yourself, unless you long for deliverance, you shall not have it."

Sin which is particularly powerful in a believer's life, that is rooted in his nature and increased by his particular constitution, seems to be sin that the disciplining of the body to bring it into subjection is useful for (1 Cor 9:27). Fasting, watching, meditating, etc., are means given by God to put to death sin, but they cannot bring about true mortification of sin by virtue of their own power, in and of themselves, otherwise any unregenerate person could mortify sin, completely absent the help of the Spirit.

We are to watch or guard against sin. Luke 21:34, “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap." (ESV). We should see what occasions, companies, and conditions sin has used to attack us and avoid them.

We are to rise against the first conceptions of sin arising in us as against their ultimate completion. One cannot fix bounds to sin, saying it can come this far, but no further. It must be stopped where it arises, or else it will take over the whole person. Every thought of envy would have you murder and steal.

Consider that which should fill you with thoughts of self-abasement. The response of Job upon seeing the greatness of God, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes."  (Job 42:5, ESV), should be how we respond to God. Another similar passage is Proverbs 30:2-4. We no so little of the awesome majesty of God. “No man can see God and live.” and the response of any who has an encounter with Him is always self-loathing at their own wickedness. That is how we would respond if confronted with the holiness of God.

The difference between believers and unbelievers as to knowledge is not so much in the matter or amount of their knowledge as in the manner of their knowing. “The Excellency of a believer is, not that he has a large apprehension of things, but that what he does apprehend, which perhaps may be very little, he sees in the light of the Spirit of God, in a saving, soul-transforming light; and this is that which gives us communion with God, and not prying thoughts or curious-raised notions.

Speak not peace to yourself before God does. If one feels the stir of conviction from the Spirit, and then seek after a peace-giving word not accompanied by an abhorrence of the sin which caused the disquietment, that peace is not from God, but is the man’s own creation. Look at how godly men in Scripture responded when confronted with their sin, they were not quick to minimize its significance and go immediately to a peace-giving word of grace. They were filled with self-abhorrence and shame at what they had done.

Part 3: The Means of Mortification

The Spirit alone convinces the heart of the evil and guilt and danger of the corruption, lust, or send to be mortified. Without that, all that follows is in vain. Men may convince the mind that something is sinful, but the mind cannot overrule the heart for long.

Read: Ten Caesars - Roman Emperors From Augustus to Constantine

 Augustus:

Succeeded Julius Caesar. The book labels Julius Caesar as a dictator and Augustus as Rome’s first Emperor, though saying he wasn’t called that at the time, as Rome’s republican sentiments were still relatively strong in the background. 

He was a victorious commander in his younger years, but turned Rome into a wealthy peaceful empire during his long reign. He was largely a good ruler.

His first few successor choices didn’t work out, either dying or not being suited to it, so he went with Tiberius, the daughter of his wife Livia from her first marriage. 

He posthumously adopted his wife Livia in his will, giving her more political power during her son’s reign.

Tiberius:

A soldier-emperor. He sort of tried to return power to the nobility at the start, attending senate sessions and whatnot, but was disgusted by the slavishness of the nobles, they had been largely turned into sheep. By the end of his reign, he was very hostile to the senate. He was not charismatic and not well liked. 

He was the first ruler not to try to expand the Roman kingdom. The armies were now for defending the peace instead of conquest. 

Nero: 

Started alright when he was young and under the influence of his 2 mentors, including Seneca. He was even more of a degenerate than normal for Rome. He also fancied himself a performer. 

Vespasian: Became emperor through the legions he commanded, not the senate. Was the first emperor who was without noble blood. Had a reputation as a tightwad, raising taxes and cutting spending, which was really necessary for Rome to recover from Nero’s frivolousness. Him and his son Titus were the ones who sacked Jerusalem in AD 70.

Titus: Wasn’t bad, but died after just a few years of rule in AD 81 from an illness. 

Trajan: Considered to be a very good emperor. First emperor from the provinces and not Italy. 

Hadrian: more intellectual than previous emperors. Big time Hellenist who was infatuated with Greek thought. He wore a beard, resulting in a singlehanded change of the Roman custom from one of shaved faces, which it had been for centuries. Every emperor after him for 150 years wore a beard as well.

He to a great extent owed his becoming emperor to Plotina, the wife of Hadrian, who helped him advance throughout his career. It wasn’t a love affair though. Hadrian was “primarily homosexual,” and had love affairs with young boys.

In response to a revolt in Judea, which had started because Hadrian was goin to rebuild Jerusalem as a Roman city, tons of Jews were killed. After the revolt was finally put down in AD 135 Jews were only a minority in Judea.

He died in AD 138.

Marcus Aurelius:

The best example in history of a “philosopher-king.” He lived the greek philosophy of Stoicism. Also, he is really the only ancient ruler to bare his soul to posterity. His book Meditations is second in sales to only the New Testament of books written during these centuries. 

Commodus:

The son of Marcus. He was only 18 when his father died, and had been made co-emperor at 15. He acted like a rebellious teen, finally released from parental constraints when his dad died. He rejected all of the virtue his father sought in favor decadence. People started trying to assassinate him pretty quickly and eventually one try succeeded. He was strangled by his wrestling partner in AD 192 after 12 years of solo rule.

Diocletian:

Ruled for 21 years. He was the only emperor to abdicate, or retire, by choice.

Constantine:

In a real way he converted the empire from paganism to Christianity. He wasn't a perfect man by any means, but he seems to have been a real believer. And his initial conversion to and profession of Christianity did not come at a time when it would have been politically beneficial to him to do so.

Concluding thoughts:

The book was interesting. The writer definitely had a modern bent though, he often spent more time talking about the supposed power of the emperors’ wives then the emperors themselves. It also was incredible how many of the emperors had a thing for young boys.

Read: Superfreakonomics

 The introduction had one of the most hilarious passages of all time. Talking about the difficulties of Indian women, it mentioned that Indian men’s condoms malfunction more than 15% of the time. Why? According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, some 60% of Indian men have penises too small for condoms manufactured to western specs. Direct quote: “The condom is not optimized for India.”

The feminist revolution has plummeted the demand for prostitution, causing prices to be lower now than 100ish years ago when it wasn’t illegal. Men can get sex for free relatively easy now. He didn’t mention it, but I bet the preponderance of pornography has also contributed to this. Escorts however, as opposed to the street prostitutes, make great money, with many charging $300 an hour.

Another loser of the feminist revolution has been schoolchildren. The average IQ of schoolteachers plummeted between between 1960 and 1980. They used to be significantly above average IQ, with 40% of teachers being in the top 20% of IQ, but no more.

On the wage gap, gender discrimination is at most a minor contributor. There is a difference in desire between men and women. Men love money, and women love children. Women take more career interruptions and even when they’re not they work fewer hours. Particularly the wives of men who make good money cash in on their privilege of being able to stay at home. 

A study using an SAT style math test to measure the difference in money motivation. When paid for each correct answer men did significantly more better than women, compared to when they were given a flat fee for doing the test. 

Pregnant Muslim women participating in Ramadan causes a significant increase learning and other disabilities in their children. 

Simple fixes are usually better. Seat belts cost about $30,000 per life saved in America. Airbags, by contrast, cost about 1.8 million per life saved.

This was an interesting book. Like the first one, it talked about lots of random topics, but the underlying idea is that incentives determine behavior on the aggregate. It’s section on global warming was interesting, mentioning lots of very cheap technological ideas that could solve the temperature issue, but many environmentalists hate them. Environmentalism is a religion, where technology is evil and the natural is good, so using technology to solve the problem is sacrilege. 

Read: How to Be a Dictator - The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century

 Mussolini:

His war atrocities in Ethiopia were hid from Italians by the state-backed media, instead presenting it as a war bringing liberation, freedom, & civilizations to victims of a feudal caste system.

He was probably pretty popular for awhile, but eventually the forced enthusiasm of Italy became more and more forced as people became fed up with food shortages imposed by sanctions from the international backlash to the annexation of Ethiopia. 

His army was woefully unprepared for WW2 and they never had any success in the war. They were always more like a vassal state of Germany.

Hitler and the Nazis tried to launch a coup against the republic in November 1923, but the army didn’t join them and they were easily crushed. His sentence for high treason was incredibly short, 5 years, shortened to 13 months. He has sympathetic judges and in his trial he appeared more as the accuser of the government than a defendant. He wrote most of Mein Kampf while in prison. 

Over and over again, bread lines are what cause people to really start expressing unhappiness with their dictator. It seems people are quite content with one as long as their material needs are met. I’d be interested if there were any capitalist dictatorships in history and how they performed, since they would have likely not had the food shortages. 

Another common thing was the “if only X knew...” line. Dictators would be thought of as good and kind, while all the cruelties of the regime would be blamed on the dictator’s subordinates. Their were examples in Soviet Russia of people writing direct pleas to intervene in their case after being arrested for no real reason, not knowing that Stalin had ordered the arrest himself. Reading that over and over again made me less sympathetic to the arguments some right wing nationalists have made blaming the White House’s lack of follow through on Trump’s nationalist campaigning on the nefarious influence of the establishment people in the administration. 

Another common thread was their feigned humility. When praised by party leaders they would act bashful saying that they didn’t deserve the praise, but beforehand they had checked and edited every word. Not to mention imprisoning/killing those who wouldn’t offer praise. 

Another common trait was the prizing of loyalty over competence. Anyone with any independent thought (which would inevitably entail critique) would be removed eventually. Ultimately this resulted in the despot being surrounded by midwit sycophants.

Read: Freakonomics

 People’s actions are a result of incentives. In areas with declining birth rates, obstetricians are more likely to perform expensive cesarean section surgeries. Real estate agents on average leave their homes on the market for 10 days longer and sell them for 3% more than their clients’ homes, because the extra work is not worth the tiny amount more they will make on client houses. That principle, that incentives are the cornerstone of life, is the fundamental idea of this book, and it applies that principle in various situations. Another principle is that “experts” use their informational advantage to serve their own agenda. This applies to everyone from real estate agents to criminologists. 

There are economic incentives, moral incentives, & social incentives.

In response to the high-stakes testing that started around the year 2000, teachers started illegitimately bringing their students scores up in droves. 

John Kenneth Galbraith coined the phrase “conventional wisdom” and meant by it that society associates truth with convenience. That which accords with our self-interest & personal well-being, avoids awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation of life, and that which contributes to self-esteem. Economic and social behaviors are complex, so we subscribe reasons that are convenient, comfortable, and comforting. 

People are terrible risk accessors. From mad cow disease vs dirt in the kitchen to swimming pools vs having a gun in the home to flying vs driving a car, people don’t feel the difference between a 1 in 10,000 risk and a 1 in 1,000,000 risk. Many “dangers” that cause outrage/panic are ridiculously unscary statistically. “The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do - Parents Matter Less than You Think and Peers Matter More” argued that the influence of parents on their children is overwhelmed by the brunt force applied everyday by their peers.

It had a section on names, where names go through a lifecycle, with names used by wealthier people being copied by poorer ones, and then being associated with the lower classes, and then falling out of favor entirely. Based on that idea it listed 24 names that might break into the mainstream over the next decade but were currently unheard of it. Quite a few were right. It included, Ava, Avery, Ella, Emma, Grace, Isabel, Kate, Sophie, Anderson, Carter, Cooper, Jackson, Liam, & Will.

Seth Roberts was the old self-experimenting guy I liked who died.

This book was interesting, but after “A People’s Trajedy” it felt very short. It’s lack of a central theme was also very obvious. It felt very random.

Read: A People’s Tragedy

 The last Tsar, Nicholas II, was determined to rule as an autocrat but did not possess the intelligence or temperament of a strong ruler. 

The emancipation of 1861 is a big turning point. It liberated the serfs, who previously were owned as part of the land they lived on, giving them the right to own property and businesses. It started the terminal decline of the old noble landowners, who were already heavily indebted and now deprived of their free serf labor and newly subject to the pressures of capitalism. Between 1861 and 1900 over 40% of the gentry’s land was sold to peasants. Prior to 1861 the gentry’s estates were not run like businesses at all.

Concept of the “Two Russias.” The educated urban elites and the peasants. The elites had very little knowledge the peasants’ lives. Russian populists romanticized peasant living, but would have dissolutionment when actually going to live with peasants and seeing they were no better people than the elites, being savagely violent and dumb. A example Russian peasant proverb: “Beat your wife like a fur coat, then there’ll be less noise.”

Rising literacy causes revolutions, English, French, and Russian revolutions all happened as literacy rates approached 50%. It disrupts traditional society, reducing the power/importance of patriarchal elders and spreading new ideas to the youth.

The literate young men would leave their farms, desiring to go work in the cities. City work was backbreaking, with no labor protections. He argues the Tsar’s refusal to enact labor laws improving workers’ conditions was a contributing factor to the revolution. Marxist/Socialist revolutionary factory workers would meet in secret. 

There was a huge suppression of dissent by the State. Secret police who could in imprison or exile on the just the suspicion of “political crimes.” State agents posed as revolutionaries to report on what was going on. 100s of bureaucrats were employed in reading people’s intercepted mail. In 1917, the average Bolshevik activist had spent 4 years in jail or exile. This suppression led to radicalization, resulting in the activists rejecting the more moderate liberal reform goals of the western European nations for a more violent and terrorism-filled ideology. 

At the top of the movement were guilt-ridden children of nobles, who felt they got their wealth and knowledge only because of the unjust exploitation of the peasants. They had the idea that they could be redeemed from their original sin of “privilege” by achieving the liberation of the peasants. They were newly minted atheists, and this was their substitute religion. 

What is to be Done? by Chernyshevsky was a book that pushed lots of people (including Lenin. Marx learned Russian just to read it) towards becoming a revolutionary. The protagonist is a force of nature who suffers no pleasures in life or any distraction from the single goal of the revolution. Another book’s character, Bazarov of the book Fathers and Sons by Turgenev was embraced as a model for the revolutionaries, despite being intended as a monstrous caricature of nihilists (evidence of the huge gulf between one generation and the next). 

Originally, during the early 1870s, revolutionaries were populist, but the failure of the “to the People” movement where many went and spent time in peasant villages trying to convert people to their cause, they realized the peasants weren’t having it, and gradually changed to a strategy of conspiracy to seize power using violence. They explained the failure of propaganda on the idea that the laws of social progress dictate that the richer peasants would always support the current regime.

The marxists succeeded the populists and kept the class struggle to overthrow the current system but changed the good guys from the peasants to the working class. Marx saw history as a inevitable sequence, where capitalism had to arise first before socialism.  

Lenin had no real compassion for people and would gladly increase their suffering if he could use it to agitate for his revolution. The split between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in 1903 was defined by Lenin. His personality, and his harsh methods and disregard for democracy in his sole aim of revolution.

End part 1

The great famine of 1891 was a big pusher towards political agitation, particularly marxism. 

Note, the term “liberal” or “political liberal” is used a lot and seems to be the those who wanted to keep the Tsarist state, but have it undergo liberal reforms for the benefit of the workers.

The author’s perhaps biggest point so far has been how the autocracy continually pushed people into radicalism by clamping down hard and viciously on any attempts at even moderate reform.

Bloody Sunday, on Jan 9 1905, where the state’s soldiers shot on an unarmed peaceful procession asking for reforms caused a lot of people to start hating the Tsar. Months of protests and violence ensued, with Russia teetering on the edge of collapse. Finally, after months, the Tsar accepted their demands and signed the October Manifesto, which among other things initiated forming a constitution and the duma. But after the Manifesto rioting if anything got worse, but eventually the Tsar was able to put it down, with vicious suppression, thanks to the continued loyalty of his military and the uncoordination of the various revolutionary sects. The Manifesto also mostly satisfied the liberals, leaving the socialists alone in rebellion.

From the 1905 Manifesto to 1917, discontent simmered. The well-to-do Liberals became conservatives, fearing future violence against them, and the peasants and working-class had had none of their economic demands met in the Manifesto.

During those years Stolypin tried to convert the peasants into land owners by getting them to private their communes, but resistance from the gentry, land captains, and older/wealthier peasants made this largely a failure. 

In WWI Russia was hopelessly incompetent. It’s military leaders had been promoted because of loyalty to the Tsar rather than military knowledge. They were still obsessed with using cavalry, which were mowed down by German artillery, they resisted digging trenches, which mowed down many more men. They had no ammunition and food supply for a long war, and were not quick to start working on making more. 

End part 2

Food shortages caused by WWI ultimately brought down the Tsar. It was a very sudden end, with no one predicting it even 2 weeks out. Protests and strikes about bread quickly turned political as people demanding the ousting of the Tsar. The soldiers, who already resented the government because of its incompetence in the war so far, started siding with the working class protesters and violence between protesters and police escalated quickly. The Tsar was very committed to his oath to uphold the principle of Autocracy and one could argue he preferred abdicating to becoming a constitutional monarch. 

The protests were very riot-like, with lots of excess violence as time went on, caused in part no doubt because they had emptied all the prisons. 

A provisional government was constructed and also the Soviet, which literally means council, the Soviet had the power because all the workers were behind it, but the government was officially in charge. At this time, the Bolsheviks were not really involved in the Soviet. It was largely Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionary members and Social Democrats. The government was mostly liberal bourgeois folks, not socialists, originally, but Mensheviks Soviet members joined later, which decreased their popularity as they became part of the government in a coalition with the liberals and helped the Bolsheviks.

Lenin returned to Russia April 3, 1917, a couple months after the February revolution had begun. Lenin lived like a spartan, exercising to build his muscles and didn’t live lavishly even after seizing power, author said Bolshevism had a “macho culture”: violence, power etc. He didn’t have lots of mistresses either, but he cultivated in himself coldness. Lenin quote: “I can’t listen to music too often, it makes me want to say kind, stupid things, and pat the heads of people. But now you have to beat them on the head, beat them without mercy.” He had no interests or hobbies outside of politics and his quest to seize power.

His April Theses were radically different that what current Bolsheviks, let alone Mensheviks or SRs were even considering. It was much more radical, arguing the proletarian revolution should try to seize power now, skipping the lengthy period of Bourgeoisie rule.

Gorky was one socialist who was disenchanted with revolution because of its violence and anti-civilization nature. Quote: “In my view the overwhelming majority of the population in Russia is both evil and as stupid as pigs.” He blame Lenin for taking a revolution that would’ve been Westernizing for Russia and “peasantizing it.”

The Bolsheviks seized power in October. And started rolling back freedoms and stepping up persecution of competing political parties. People really hated any form of privilege, peasants really believed everyone should get the exact same things, so the Bolshevik “eat the rich” policies struck a chord with people. They encouraged plundering bourgeois property as a form of social justice by revenge: “looting the looters.” Armed gangs robbed everywhere in the country as law and order completely vanished in early 1918. Mob violence killed people by the thousands, the Cheka courts had no legal principles and often primarily convicted people on the basis of their upbringing and former social class. Bourgeois people were forced to do menial labor like cleaning streets, primarily to humiliate them. Noble lands were split up and brought into the village communes.

As a result of their disastrous negotiating strategy, the Soviets’ peace with Germany involved giving up 34% of its population (55 million people), 32% of its agricultural land, 54% of its industrial enterprises and 89% of its coal mines. 

In 1918 Lenin created Committees of the Rural Poor which were supposed to consist of the poorer peasants in communes with the goal of inciting class conflict between the wealthier peasants and the poorer ones. It failed miserably and was abolished within a year. The peasants all thought of themselves as one group and the slightly wealthier peasants were looked up to and respected as the older and most success farmers. 

This book was very interesting, but very long, and I took far fewer notes in the second half of the book. (Still read the whole thing though.)

Read: The Happiness Hypothesis

It is estimated that 50-80% of the variance in happiness from person to person is a result of their genetics, and only the remainder is a function of how good or bad their environment is. I think I probably got dealt a not terrible but slightly below average hand on the baseline happiness level.

He talks about the brain with the analogy of a person riding and trying to steer an elephant. Where the person represents our logical rational mind and the elephant is our instincts and deep seated emotions. Contrary to how people feel, he says it’s actually closer to the elephant controlling the person, where no rational mind will do what it wants, and then the rider becomes the elephant’s lawyer, making justifications for what the elephant wants to do.

When faced with a decision, people usually have an inclination about it (take raising the minimum wage) and then they look for reasons to support that position. When they find something to support it, there minds turn off. People naturally have no inclination to seek out contradictory evidence.

People’s reasoning is even worse when it is motivated. People given different sides of a court case and then asked to negotiate an agreement were much less reasonable and more likely to be unable to come to an agreement than those who read the court case before being given their side.

Interestingly, people have more accurate perceptions of others than they do of themselves. People over estimate their own skills, moral qualities, and value, but are generally fairly accurate when asked to predict people as a whole. 

Studies show that people who do acts of abject evil, from spousal abuse to rape to genocide, rarely think that what they’re doing is evil. They see themselves as responding to provocations in a justified manner, often seeing themselves as the victim. This is one of the reasons the first goal of evangelism is to convince people they aren’t good. Unfortunately, his main conclusion from this topic was that “pure evil” is a myth.

Because of the biases that people have thinking what they do is fine, it is very difficult follow Jesus’ admonition to take the log out of our own eye first. In conflicts the author suggests trying to find one thing you did wrong, and ignoring the mind lawyer’s justifications for that action. 

After 4 chapters of analyzing the brain, chapter 5 finally begins a discussion on happiness. 

The adaption principle: Within a year lottery winners and paraplegics have mostly returned to their baseline happiness level.  We are sensitive to change in conditions in determining our happiness much more so than the absolute quality of our conditions. Buddhism sees this and tells me to stop striving for anything and just exist or whatever, Christianity warns of the love of money that is never satisfied. 

However, there are some environmental changes that do contribute to lasting happiness. Marriage does, being religious does, and having strong social ties does. A 65 year old with health problems and living off social security who is married and has strong ties to her church will be happier than a 35 year old guy making $100K but who is a single intellectual who reads all the time. 

Levels of power, status, freedom, health, and sunshine are all subject to the adaptive principle. More attractive people are not on average happier than uggos. People in good climates aren’t happier than those in bad, consistent chronic health conditions are adjusted to. Wealth does not really increase happiness after you get above the poverty line. 

Some environmental things can lastingly harm happiness without ever being adapted to. Noise, particularly intermittent noise. So avoid living near an interstate or traffic light. Bad commutes are lastingly negative. You can significant improvement your happiness long term by living nearer work even in a smaller house. Lack of a feeling of being in control can negatively impact (applicable to the elderly in particular). Bad relationships with coworkers or spouses are never adapted to. 

Pleasures like food and sex cause an increase in happiness that fades very quickly after the enjoyment is over. And they should not be overindulged in. Pleasures should be savored and varied to maximize enjoyment and avoid adaption. 

Participating in things that challenge you in areas you are good at or care about can improve mood for hours after the event. I think of playing sports for me personally here, or vigorous debate.

Joyously, the author described his change from expecting the Buddha to be the best psychologist, to realizing that there are actions and things we can do to improve happiness and just detachment doesn’t maximize our lives. 

Strong social bonds are beneficial for everyone. Introverts who are forced to be outgoing find their mood is boosted. Lack of social bonds is a great predictor for suicide likelihood.

Its chapter on morality was interesting. Secular of course, but it had some interesting data, such as that helping others, volunteering, etc, causes people to be happier, and even have health benefits like living longer.  It also had an interesting contrast between the way morality was taught of old, focusing on virtues: wisdom, courage, justice, temperance, etc, and the way morality is taught today, focusing on rationally analyzing individual decision to determine the “moral” course of action. Early America honored the virtues of producers: hard work, self-restraint, sacrifice for the future, but with the rise of consumerism a view of the self centered on personal fulfillment arose. Also, inclusiveness killed virtue. America has experienced a huge shrinking of moral ideas that everyone agrees with. Society needs homogeneity in moral values.

People who view their work as a calling enjoy it far more than those who view it as a job or career. They enter “flow” states more and don’t spend as much time looking at the clock. 

Read: The Charisma Myth - Olivia Fox Cabane

Hilariously, she says immediately that you can become charismatic “without changing your personality.” Not wanting to “change who they are” keeps a lot of people from working on self-improvement so her stance is one way to avoid those barriers.

She says charisma is a matter of 3 things: presence, power, and warmth.

On presence, she says you should always strive to be 100% present whenever talking to someone. Give them your full attention and do not let your mind wander. 

I ended up not finishing the last couple chapters. It just wasn’t really very useful to me. Too PC and more focused on a corporate setting, which i’m just not very interested in right now. 

I will take the presence idea though. I need to try to be more focused 100% when talking to people and not get distracted by other things or internally monologuing about what I’m gonna say next.

Read: The Art of Learning any Josh Waitzkin

Not terrible, but I didn’t get a lot out of it. Very buddhism influenced. More of a story about the Author’s competitive life than a systematic research of knowledge/skill acquisition. Still, there was some useful stuff, like spending lots of time on the bare basics, going over and over them slowly until they are perfect. 

Read: Willpower - Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength

Information loaded introduction. The very first paragraph was very interesting, saying the two traits psychologists have found to strongly correlate with success are intelligence and willpower, but that while they haven’t been successful in finding any way to increase someone’s intelligence, willpower is trainable. 

It had a brief history of willpower from when it was at a peak during the victorian era to how it has been declining since WWII as the self help movement moved to a feel good approach focusing on the alleged benefits of self esteem and “empowerment.”

It was the famous Marshmallow Study that really discovered the important of self control. They found that the four year olds who resisted the urge to eat the marshmallow for the full 15 minutes scored 210 points higher on the SAT than those who caved within the first 30 seconds. They also had better grades, were more popular, earned higher salaries, were less overweight, and had fewer drug problems. This was really huge, as he said it was very rare for things measured in early childhood to predict anything adult statistically significantly. Self control is a better predictor of grades than IQ or SAT score, which makes sense to me, sense grades are more about being a hard worker and conscientious than being brilliant, but I would bet that IQ is a better predictor of SAT scores than self control.

People with self-control are rated higher by coworkers and subordinates, are more stable mentally with less behavioral/mental disorders, are less likely to be domestically violent, have fewer STDs, are less likely to be alcoholic, are more likely to own a home, are less likely to have children as a single parent, and are less likely to go to prison. Obviously these things are also correlated with intelligence and socioeconomic status and race, but their relationship to self-control remained statistically significant after taking those into account. I’d be curious what the relative strengths of the correlations are for IQ vs self control, but he didn’t say. 

There is now a mountain of evidence that people have a finite amount of willpower that depletes as it’s used and that all kinds of different tasks use the same stock of willpower.

The radish experiment showed that those who exerted willpower to resist the temptation to eat cookies had lower levels of perseverance working on puzzles than those who hadn’t previously used their willpower.

People also subconsciously will conserve willpower  When warned that their will be another round of (willpower depleting) exercises after this one, participants performed worse on the current one, saving willpower for later, and when surprised with an extra round they weren’t expecting, people performed terribly  

People with depleted willpower (fancy psychological term: ego depletion) have slower brains, specifically in the anterior cingulate cortex, which watches for mismatches between what you are doing and what you intend to do. 

Students have extreme ego depletion by the time final exams roll around. 

Ego depletion seems to be tied to glucose. Doing ego depleting tasks can significantly reduce your blood glucose levels, and studies have repeatedly found that giving someone a sugared lemonade restores their willpower after an ego depleting task, compared to giving them lemonade with an artificial sweetener, which didn’t help at all. Studies have also shown that diabetics and hypoglycemics have more outburst issues, again possibly tied to their blood glucose levels.

The craziness of women while PMSing may be tied to a scarcity of glucose, as their reproductive systems require more than normal, starving the rest of the body. This also explains the stereotypical crazing for chocolate. However, in the real world, it is better to eat something that will break down into glucose slowly over time than have a quick sugar hit, except maybe in the case of emergencies. 

There was one chapter on Decision Fatigue, the phenomena of us being less able to make decisions the more decisions we make. Interesting example of car companies that can increase the cost of car options bought with a new car by $1500 by having more expensive default options near the end of the choices after customers had already made many mentally taxing decisions. Another example of judges being less likely to parole prisoners who aren’t the first case of the day (or the first case after a meal/snack).

A study of korean employees showed that focusing on what you’ve already accomplished causes contentment and increases current satisfaction, but focusing on what you want to achieve in the future stokes motivation and ambition.

Now on to improving self-control. They did studies where students were tasked with working on 1 thing for two weeks (and logging how they did) such as standing up straight instead of slouching. When their willpower was tested after two weeks there was significant improvement. But interestingly, the improvement was not mostly in the absolute amount of willpower, that was about the same, but in its resistance to ego depletion, or stamina. Even just having students log what they eat for 2 weeks caused the same improvement. 

Basically, working on changing a habitual behavior will increase your willpower overall. This can be as simple as brushing your teeth with your left hand or cutting out phrases like “like” or “you know” from your vocabulary. Or it can be something ambitious like regularly exercising. 

One note, I don’t know if it’s necessary, but all the students mentioned also involved the subjects keeping a log or diary to monitor progress. This ties in with one of the findings he discussed that self-awareness (such as having a mirror present) will increase people’s self-control. 

There is a crossover with this willpower improvement into other areas of people’s lives. Studies have shown those following a fitness program will study more diligently, those following a study-discipline program exercised more often and cut excessive spending, etc. People successfully exercising self-control in one area have it improve in all areas of their life: They smoke fewer cigarettes, drink less alcohol, do laundry more often, don’t leave dishes in the sink, & eat less junk food.

It takes willpower to establish patterns of healthy behavior, but once the habits are established, life can proceed smoothly. 

Interesting section on the “hot-cold empathy gap,” our inability, during cool rational moments to appreciate how we’ll behave during the heat of passion or temptation. Brought up in the context of the fall into savagery of Englishmen doing their expedition through Africa. Study proof of concept: Men were asked to answer questions regarding what they would be willing to do sexually, once in a normal state, and once while aroused, and they rated all possibilities, including many “deviant” things, as much more likely when they aroused. 

Ultimately, to achieve lasting change, you have to get to the point where the thing you’ve changed no longer requires willpower to do; it has become a habit. Once your self-control has established a daily habit, you’ll produce more with less effort in the long run.

Establishing orderly habits can carry over, improving other aspects of your life. 

Alcohol reduces self-control. And it does this via 2 processes: lowering blood glucose and reducing self-awareness.

Peer pressure aka social support is extremely influential on our behavior, both for good and bad. Resolutions made in the presence of others are more likely to be followed, especially if the other person is their significant other. Women who regularly received feedback on how their saving compared to their peers saved significantly more money than those who did not. 

Religious people have higher levels of self-control because of all the ways religiosity requires it. Social pressure, the belief that God is watching, etc. The social pressure caused changes that make people more outwardly moral are the people with an appearance of godliness but denying its power. However, interestingly, researchers found that those who attend church for extrinsic reasons, like wanting to impress others or make connections, don’t have the same high levels of self-control as believers. 

Interesting concept of the “Bright Line” as a necessary rule when significant levels of self-control are going to be required. Saying you’ll drink “moderately” is not a bright line, it’s fuzzy and there’s no obvious point where you go beyond it. Zero tolerance however is a bright line. When you commit to following a bright line rule, it will actually help your self-control by increases your belief that you’ll follow it, since you know exactly what it is. This concept has obvious applications to Christian dating, where many have no clear idea what is acceptable, outside of the obvious “no sex.” But regarding kissing vs kissing vigorously vs whatever else, people don’t have clear cut offs so often are pulled along farther than they would have wanted in hindsight.

It’s chapter on parenting was really good. Up to this point I had been noticing that this book, while including some research, relied much more on individual stories than hard data, compared to the Against Empathy or Lifecycle Investing, the last 2 books I’d read, but this chapter was chock full of useful information.

The huge emphasis put on self-esteem started based on research that showed low self-esteem was associated with bad grades, unwed pregnancies, drug addiction, and criminality. This kickstarted the push to improve people by making them think they were better. The participation trophy, emphasis on “being unique.” Unfortunately, it turned out that high performance predicted later high self-esteem, but not vice versa. So what ended up happening was students across the whole country had their self-esteem go up as their performance went down. While the correlation between low self-esteem and bad behavior does exist, the causality goes one way. His quote, “Being a sixteen-year-old pregnant heroine addict can make you feel less than wonderful about yourself.” The only real benefit of high self-esteem is that it prevents depression.

One interesting study, narcissists were initially rated as people’s favorite person in weekly meeting groups, but after a few months they dropped to the bottom. They wear on you. Narcissism has increased over the past few decades in America. 

He argued Asians turn out great because of their exceptional parenting. They couldn’t care less about “self-esteem,” rather they heavily promote self-control and discipline. Asians overperform professionally relative to their IQ because of their discipline. They give things to their children, but as rewards for accomplishing things. In studies on mother’s attitudes on how to contribute to their children’s academic success, immigrants from China mentioned setting high goals and enforcing tough standards. American white women mentioned not overemphasizing academic success, stressing social development, and pushing the idea that “learning is fun,” as well as promoting their child’s self-esteem.

For children, the speed of the punishment is important, delayed punishment doesn’t have the same effect, but the punishment doesn’t have to be draconian. But the single most important thing is consistency, rules and punishment must be consistent. You cannot punish based on your mood and whether you want to deal with the hassle right now. Parents must exercise self-control to consistently discipline for bad behavior. This will make their lives much easier in the long run. 

Children from single parents perform terribly. Some may be genetic, their parents often don’t have much self-control, as witnessed by their behavior. But children with fathers stationed overseas still underperform, though to a lesser extent, suggesting that with this, as with pretty much everything. Genetic and environmental causes both play a role, building upon each other. 

Dieting is a double whammy, because avoiding unhealthy foods for dieters requires willpower, which exhausts blood glucose, causing cravings for unhealthy foods. Keeping unhealthy foods out of sight is big, as the closer the food is, the faster your willpower is exhausted resisting it. Another good technique is “implementation intention” where you predetermine responses in certain situations. “If x then y.” “If I have a strong craving for x I will immediately go and eat y” is a good way to avoid the unhealthy food and minimize the depletion of willpower. 

One topic he’s mentioned throughout the book that I haven’t written about yet is “precommitment.” Precommitment can be pretty effective. An example of precommitment related to food would be to not go to a get together where there will be unhealthy food. You are precommitting to not eat the food, and thus conversing willpower. 

The common notion that you shouldn’t weigh yourself everyday is actually wrong because of the larger principle the book discussed about self-monitoring/self-awareness leading to more self-control. Those who weigh daily actually are more successful. 

Perhaps the biggest overarching point is that those with more willpower are not more successful because they use that willpower to better resist huge temptations all the time, but because they use that willpower to structure their life in an ordered way where they aren’t being bombarded with temptation.

Read: Lifecycle Investing

This one was really interesting. I didn’t take any of these notes while I was reading it because I just tore through it and was done in a day. So unfortunately my notes my not be the most detailed. 

The basic idea of this book is that people should be diversifying across time in the same we diversify across asset classes. Diversification has been shown to be beneficial in that it reduces the unit risk (volatility) for a given expect return. 

People are significantly overexposed to stocks in their last few years of working, and significantly underexposed at the beginning of their working life  This is true even if they have an “aggressive” 100% stock portfolio when young and a more conservative 50-50 portfolio as they approach retirement. The reason for this is that they have so few absolute dollars to put in the stock market at the start  100% of $10,000 is $10,000, but 50% of $1,000,000 is $500,000, 50 times as much, a significant stock market hit near the end of their working life will have a much more significant impact on the value of their portfolio at retirement compared to one at year 2, even though they are proportionally less exposed to equities  They quantify this by the idea that your future income is very much like a bond, and its value should be taken into account when allocating investments. If someone has $50,000 that is 100% stocks, but 30 years of working left where the present value of their future savings is $450,000, they’re really only 10% invested in stocks. 

Their proposal for ideal time diversification would be to have the same percent of your total assets, including the value of future savings, invested in stocks every year  This is the concept of the Samuelson Share, it is the percent of your lifetime portfolio you want in stocks.  So if you are a conservative 50% Samuelson share and have $500,000 in current investments and $500,000 in present value of future savings, you should actually be 100% invested in stocks that year  

Now where their proposal gets the most controversial is they actually advocating taking on leverage in an attempt to get closer to your Samuelson Share during the early years of your working life, up to a maximum 100% leverage, which they cap to avoid margin calls. This sounds crazy, but they analyzed historical market performance and showed that, even taking into account interest expense on margin, the Lifecycle investing strategy they propose outperforms traditional investing strategies, with the outperformance growing stronger the larger the number of working years it is applied.

I took their data and have been analyzing it myself, adding the ability to easily change the number of working years and also checking with increased margin interest rates to see how durable this strategy is. My early results have been pretty favorable, as with timelines of a decade or more it comes out ahead in almost every way even with slightly increased margin rates from their calculated ones.

For achieving market leverage they discuss either using margin or buying deep in the money LEAP options expiring 1-2 years in the future. They would like to see funds set up to do all this for people, but it doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen anytime soon.

Unfortunately, achieving this leverage is harder to achieve then it sounds for the average smart saver. You can’t leverage investments or buy options in a 401k and margin is also prohibited in IRAs, though they do allow option purchasing. Unfortunately, from my analysis, right now at least the option method is significantly less attractive as margin is easily available at about 2.5% interest but the implied interest of a 50% in the money S&P 500 LEAP option is closer to 4%, high enough that the strategy likely would loose most of its benefits, especially once you take into account the difficulty of rebalancing with options, as their unit sizes are huge. Regular rebalancing is quite important for this strategy, particularly to avoid getting wiped out during downturns. 

Read: Against Empathy

It argues that empathy is a poor motivator for moral decision making, and that rational judgment should be used instead.

One important note to make is he makes a distinction between “cognitive empathy,” or what I might call sympathy, or intellectual understanding of what someone is feeling, and empathy proper, which is actually feeling what they are feeling. He sees value in the first, and empathy below always refers to the second.

Empathy can hijack your decision making. Example of the study of people told the story of a girl waiting in line for a medical procedure involving a transplant, and when people were told her story and made to empathize with her, they would say to move her up in line for the procedure, even when told that the people in front of her were more in need of the life saving procedure. Empathy didn’t pursue justice, but rather it increased special concern for the target of the empathy despite the cost to others. Those told not to view the story empathetically but to remain objective did not say to move her up. Empathy is a spotlight, illuminating one thing but obscuring all else.

Example of cop who shoots a black man, and liberals want you to empathize with the trials the black guy faced and conservatives argue we need to empathize with the difficulty of being a police officer and being put into life or death situations, but neither is a good way to analyze the situation. 

We experience empathy to different amounts for different people. People we identify with or feel sorry for we will have more empathy for. Studies have shown people have more empathy for fans of the same sports team, and for those suffering from an illness if the illness was not a result of their actions.

To be fair and impartial we have to escape empathy and instead apply rules and principles and the calculation of costs and benefits.

Empathy is different and distinct from caring about people. One response to empathy is trying to alleviate a suffering. But another, just as common response is to try to remove the suffering from your vision so you “don’t have to think about it.” Example of the woman in Nazi Germany writing a letter asking the concentration camps to either stop committing in humane acts, or else do them where they aren’t seen from over the wall.

The conclusion of many studies on empathy and good behavior is that high levels of empathy have either no or just a very weak correlation to being a good person. And even more surprisingly, very low levels of empathy don’t predict aggression or bad behavior. 

Chapter 3 has a lot of interesting points on how empathy causes useless/harmful charity. Examples of adopting 3rd world children & actually increasing the demand for such children that orphanages start intimidating single parents to give their kids up, donating food to 3rd world countries and putting their local farmers out of business or enable wars or child slavery to continue, and many more. I am becoming fairly convinced that the real best way to help a 3rd world nation financial is to start/support businesses there, in a capitalist way.

On politics, he wants to present being against empathy as something nonpartisan, that everyone can get behind. And he talks about conservatives who were empathetic like Reagan and liberals who present themselves as problem solvers like Al Gore. And liberals care more about climate control, which isn’t an empathetic argument. Both parties often couch their arguments in empathetic ways. Often the debate is over who to really empathize with, Ex: gun control, immigration. But he does concede that their are on the average empathetic differences between liberals and conservatives. Liberals tend to be more empathetic. They care about the moral values of “fairness” and “reducing harm” above things like purity, loyalty, and authority, while conservatives care about all of them more equally. Most interestingly, he mentioned research that concluded that if men were as empathetic as women their would be no gender gap in party affiliation (as women are more empathetic than men). I definitely will remember that point when discussing women’s suffrage and the decline of society.

Shockingly to me, he argues empathy is bad even when applied to intimate relationships. He makes a distinction between empathy and compassion. “In contrast to empathy, compassion does not mean sharing the suffering of the other; rather, it is characterized by feelings of warmth, concern and care for the other, as well as a strong motivation to improve the other’s well-being. Compassion is feeling for and not feeling with the other.” Uncontrolled empathy makes you suffer when faced with those who are suffering, which can make you less effective at helping. Compassion and empathy show up very differently in brain scans; they are distinct. We can care for people without feeling what they are feeling. Good example of a therapist who would be useless to her clients if she felt hopelessly depressed with every client who suffered from depression. Rather she should have a concern and care for her clients. A similar example is available with doctors. This unempathetic compassion is not coldness or heartlessness.

He argues empathy can be a negative for parenting, as feeling your children’s feelings makes it hard to cause them to suffer now for their long term good. He also says that empathy could be “evolved” primarily for mothers and their children. He didn’t spend enough time on the topic to flesh it out.

He discusses the issue of giving preference to your friends and family over strangers, and whether that is wrong. If one impartially weighed every life as equal, we wouldn’t spend such an inordinate amount of our time and money on ourselves and even our families. He (and I) doesn’t that caring more about your family is wrong. It is reasonable to be willing to do more for your child than a stranger. Blood is thicker than water. (This is the principle that is applied for Nationalism by the way.) But even conceding that, he doesn’t think that validates empathy. Their can be a rational compassion that prioritizes family over strangers, while still caring about strangers. 

Empathy causes violence. Some politicians today say the solution to wars and violence is putting ourselves in the other side’s shoes. More empathy. But ironically, wars are often if not always motivated by empathy itself. When we bomb Syria, we hear tales about the atrocities of Assad, When Israel attacked palestinians, it was in response to the murder of Israeli teens, Nazi hatred of jews started from stories of jewish pedophiles molesting german girls. Empathy is a spotlight, and it is wired to shine on those closest to you. On top of that studies have found that people with higher levels of empathy will actually select harsher punishments for criminals. An interesting tie in to empathy being designed for mothers and their children, a huge effect of empathy is the desire to protect, violently if necessary, those one feels empathy for. 

Good quote on IQ: “Scores are correlated with all sorts of good things, such as steady job performance, staying out of prison, good mental health, being in stable and fulfilling relationships, and even living longer. A long time ago people said things like ‘IQ tests just measure how good you are at doing IQ tests,’ but nobody takes this seriously anymore.”

Read: Cuckservative - How Conservatives Betrayed America

 Interesting book. Written with a general audience in mind. I think it would probably be fairly convincing to the average person on the issue of immigration.

It talks about magic dirt and the melting pot and how people don’t just change their culture and values when they move to a new place. It talks about how migration is really just warfare by other means as it results in a foreign people taking control of a nation and its resources. It has some interesting history talking about migration preceding the fall of Rome and the expansion of Islam through migration and war. It has an interesting, if short and simple, chapter arguing against free trade on nationalist grounds. I have a friend of mine I’d like to read that chapter just to see what he thinks of it. I’ve been growing more skeptical of completely free trade over the last year or so, but it’s an uneducated skepticism that hasn’t really read enough on the subject to defend itself.