Join 📚 Josh Beckman's Highlights
A batch of the best highlights from what Josh's read, .
In October of last year, YouTube creator and fandom expert Sarah Z coined the term “ [sacrificial trash](https://substack.com/redirect/76bb3cb9-f409-4fe2-b605-6e67a21b2164?j=eyJ1IjoiMXlmdTFqIn0.qYv5NVQwodvs9yAW1b9IqXxz-UTiPAUp4JXaRMXUArU) ,” and it’s a great concept. If I can try and condense her almost hour-long video into one sentence: “Sacrificial trash” is a piece of media that tries to pander to young audiences with woke identity politics to cover up how mediocre it is, which, in turn, creates a chaotic feedback loop of online discourse.
The "Scooby Doo" Psyop
Garbage Day
With more education, more and more people want to be published. More want to be published than want to read. “I need you to hear me, more than I need to hear you.” […] Not even poets want to read poetry, unless they are required to do so in order to see their own work published.
So Many Books
Gabriel Zaid and Natasha Wimmer
As a religion, social justice works. It works not merely in the sense that a lot of people take it very seriously and react angrily when people misuse its sacred terms … but also in a much more fundamental and potentially constructive way. It has done what so much of anodyne, classical liberalism has failed to do. It has imbued the secular sphere with meaning. It has reenchanted a godless world.
Resources for Climate Nihilism
Sara Hendren from undefended / undefeated
...catch up on these, and many more highlights
Readwise