Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain
| First Written | 2022 |
| Genre | nonfiction |
| Origin | Canada |
| Publisher | Riverhead Books |
| My Copy | library copy |
| First Read | April 18, 2022 |
How to Take Over the World
Notes
I did like his bit about the upsides of death: always fun to see people kind of work their way backwards into classic theology arguments (death limits the downsides of human freedom, eg, endless capacity of original sin to make life bad for ourselves and others).
Noted on April 18, 2022
Light sciencey reading in the vein of Randall Monroe's What If book; themed along big supervillain projects (clone a dinosaur! defeat death! drill to the center of the earth!). Pop science explanations, and written in the Ryan North style, which I like. I still read his Dinosaur Comics every day. Not as funny as the choose-your-adventure pathway Shakespeare books, but with more facts!
Noted on April 18, 2022
Quotes
And then there's the problem of tyrants a reality in which the Adolfs Hitler, Leopolds I, Genghises Khan, or Ivans the Terrible of the world had the chance to hold on to power indefinitely is objectively a much worse place. Death is a safety valve on human society: as bad as any one leader can get, they too will die someday, and while they often try to pass power off to a trusted lieutenant or family member, it doesn't always succeed, and this at least opens the door slightly to regime change. Death is also a motivating aspect in things some of us get to occasionally enjoy, like the philanthropy of billionaires." Yes: you have now reached the point, perhaps inevitable in retrospect, wherein your supervillain guide ar- gues for the intrinsic benefits of everybody dying.Quoted on April 18, 2022