They knew they were killing people who thought and felt and dreamed and loved as they did. Indeed, that was the entire point of it. Their civilization had as its sole purpose delivering living, breathing, conscious and informed human beings to the killing-stone. open.substack.com/pub/thepsm…
Today in books to prepare your children for the permanent underclass.
open.substack.com/pub/thepsm…
I found it, the most neocon book of all. (It’s about the 1939 New York World’s Fair and it’s great.)
open.substack.com/pub/thepsm…
>YOU ARE ON SUBSTACK. YOU SEE A BOOK REVIEW BY JOHN PSMITH. YOU SEE A TROLL POST BY RICHARD HANANIA. YOU SEE A BOOK REVIEW BY SCOTT ALEXANDER. WHAT DO YOU DO?
open last post
>I’M SORRY I DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT.
click scott alexander post
>I’M SORRY I DON’T KNOW THE VERB: ‘CLICK’
read
>‘READ’ WHAT?
read scott alexander
>YOU CANNOT READ A ‘SCOTT ALEXANDER’
read book review
>YOU SETTLE IN TO READ A BOOK REVIEW BY JOHN PSMITH. THE REVIEW IS NINE THOUSAND WORDS LONG. YOU BEGIN MAKING A CUP OF TEA TO KE^C
stop
>EP YOU GOING FOR THE LONG NIGHT AHEAD. THE REVIEW BEGINS WITH A WILD AN^C
cancel
>D UNJUSTIFIED ASSERTION. IT MAKES SEVERAL SWEEPING GENERALIZATIONS. IT BARELY TALKS ABOUT THE BOOK, BUT USES IT AS AN EXCU^C
exit
>SE TO TALK ABOUT SOMETHING SEEMINGLY UNRELATED. SOON YOUR CANDLE BURNS DOWN. IT GROWS DARK. YOU ARE EATEN BY A GRUE. THIS IS THE END OF YOUR JOURNEY. YOU HAVE SUFFERED A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH.
>TRY AGAIN? (YES/NO/QUIT)
open.substack.com/pub/thepsm…
This isn’t the worst book I’ve ever read. But it’s the worst book I’ve ever finished.
thepsmiths.com/p/review-boym…
Bad news: it turns out we’ve been reading philosophy wrong for hundreds of years. thepsmiths.com/p/joint-revie…
Come for the navel-gazing, stay for the look at what’s next (further navel-gazing). thepsmiths.com/p/2025-the-ye…
Lots of people want to opt out of particular technologies, whether it’s giving smartphones to our kids or using embryo selection to choose them. Do the Amish have anything to teach us about doing it? thepsmiths.com/p/review-an-a…
Have you ever wondered how options trading is like neopaganism? Then this book review is for you! (It’s also for you if you haven’t.)
Me at @PsmithBooks on how the "16th century witches were practicing a pre-Christian religion" is wrong, but 1) the theory conjured neo-paganism into being and 2) people have ascribed wildly different meanings to the theory.
open.substack.com/pub/thepsm…
The memes that turn the wheels of history: thepsmiths.com/p/review-the-…
Just one more sweeping transdisciplinary exploration of global history. C’mon, bro, I won’t ever talk about the Hajnal Line again. Just let me have one more study of an under-appreciated causal factor for the differing trajectories of human societies. open.substack.com/pub/thepsm…
