I should start by acknowledging that this is a hard book for me to review honestly and thoroughly. First, it’s long and dense! I’m not sure I would have made it through if it hadn’t been via audiobook, and even then, I was sometimes listening at 3x speed to make it through before my loan expired. I know I missed some details along the way. Second, these authors are clearly making a big argument that takes on much of the received wisdom in fields like anthropology and archaeology. I have zero training in either of these fields, so even if I had followed every detail, I wouldn’t be able to evaluate the argument against other findings and arguments in the literature.

My spouse and I watched all four seasons of this show more or less as they came out. The past few months have seen some pretty big changes to our family schedule, and we haven’t has as much time to watch TV together, so we recently decided to rewatch The Good Place (since episodes are short). It’s a very rewatchable show; you can get a lot out of it once you know what’s yet to come. I enjoyed the first season the most the first time through, and upon rewatch, I have trouble imagining that will change in any way.

Only thing better than a critique of utilitarianism is a critique of utilitarianism in the form of a comic.

The last panel is the real gem here.