Astral Codex Ten

Books: J

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Books: J

Books, collections, and literary works mentioned in the writing. This section collects the J slice of the category index.

Reference Index

Use the title to open the reference entry. Use the caret to expand a compact inline dossier with source context, issue trail, related pages, and outbound links.

Ja Nus Hons Pris1 mentions across 1 issues

Ja Nus Hons Pris is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between February 27, 2023 and February 27, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "Only one of his poems survives (Ja Nus Hons Pris) and it's pretty whiny". It most often appears alongside 12th-century England, 21st-century America, acute and transient psychotic disorder.

Reference entry
Ja Nus Hons Pris
Mention count
1
Issue count
1
First seen
February 27, 2023
Last seen
February 27, 2023
Book title
Ja Nus Hons Pris
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Highlights From The Comments On Geography Of Madness
February 27, 2023 · Original source
In 21st-century America, mentioning that a man writes whiny poetry is a great way to call his masculinity into question. In 12th-century England, Richard the Lionheart was the epitome of manliness, and was especially praised for being a warrior poet. Only one of his poems survives (Ja Nus Hons Pris) and it's pretty whiny.
Japan At War1 mentions across 1 issues

Japan At War is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between September 02, 2022 and September 02, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "Japan At War , reviewed by TH". It most often appears alongside 1587, 1587, A Year Of No Significance, @campeters4.

Reference entry
Japan At War
Mention count
1
Issue count
1
First seen
September 02, 2022
Last seen
September 02, 2022
Book title
Japan At War
Likely author
TH
Outbound links
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Source context
Book Review Contest 2022 Winners
September 02, 2022 · Original source
Japan At War, reviewed by TH
Inline links: Japan At War
Jason and the Argonauts1 mentions across 1 issues

Jason and the Argonauts is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 05, 2022 and August 05, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "there’s an extended discussion of Jason and the Argonauts which conflates despair and exhaustion". It most often appears alongside acedia, Against Nature, Anna Schaffner.

Mention count
1
Issue count
1
First seen
August 05, 2022
Last seen
August 05, 2022
Book title
Jason and the Argonauts
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Your Book Review: Exhaustion
August 05, 2022 · Original source
Would I recommend this book? Yes - it covers a lot of ground, including several aspects I’ve barely touched on here as I raced towards a discussion of modern CFS. Schaffner riffs on some other culprits including Saturn and other astrological bodies, exhaustion as a critique of capitalism in literary works, and includes a discussion of modern workplace burnout (which is what the ‘special and smart person’ humblebrag elements of neurasthenia appear to have evolved into). The book isn’t perfect – some of her literary examples seem a bit stretched (there’s an extended discussion of Jason and the Argonauts which conflates despair and exhaustion, as well as an off-base interpretation of Lars Von Trier’s film Melancholia), there’s a chapter-long engagement with Freud’s idea of the death drive that seems to only tangentially touch on exhaustion, and she relies on some oversimplified psychiatric models of depression (not as simple as serotonin deficiency).
Inline links: not as simple as serotonin deficiency
Joan of Arc1 mentions across 1 issues

Joan of Arc is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between October 17, 2025 and October 17, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "1st: Joan of Arc , by William Friedman". It most often appears alongside 80,000 Hours, ACX, ACX.

Reference entry
Joan of Arc
Mention count
1
Issue count
1
First seen
October 17, 2025
Last seen
October 17, 2025
Book title
Joan of Arc
Likely author
William Friedman
Outbound links
Issue trail
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Source context
Non-Book Review Contest 2025 Winners
October 17, 2025 · Original source
1st: Joan of Arc, by William Friedman. William is a history enthusiast and author who lives in California, where he spends his time reading, writing, GMing, playing video games and telling people excitedly about all the horrific stuff he learned in his latest history book. His fiction blog is Palace Fiction (which is currently serializing his first novel, The Tragedy of the Titanium Tyrant) and his nonfiction blog is As Our Days.
Inline links: Joan of Arc, Palace Fiction, As Our Days
Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses1 mentions across 1 issues

Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 01, 2025 and August 01, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Regine Pernoud wrote... Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses"; "Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses - my favorite Joan of Arc book". It most often appears alongside Africa, Agamemnon, Age of Empires II.

Mention count
1
Issue count
1
First seen
August 01, 2025
Last seen
August 01, 2025
Book title
Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses
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Source context
Your Review: Joan of Arc
August 01, 2025 · Original source
Most first-person quotes are from the two books Regine Pernoud wrote on this topic, Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses - my favorite Joan of Arc book because it's mostly a primary source compilation - and The Retrial of Joan of Arc, also a primary source compilation but more focused. This one is from By Herself And Her Witnesses, but a bunch of others will be from The Retrial. The third-person quotes are mostly from the W.P. Barrett translation of her trial.)
The specific word “by” is found in Joan of Arc: By Herself And Her Witnesses, but absent in my complete translation of The Trial of Joan of Arc. It changes the meaning significantly and I am guessing the more recent translation is better but I don’t actually know.
Catherine Le Royer: “I saw Robert de Baudricourt, then captain of the town of Vaucouleurs, and Messire Jean Fournier, come into my house. I heard it from Joan that the latter, a priest, had brought a stole and that he had conjured her before the captain, saying that if there was any bad thing in her that she go hence from them, and that if there was a good thing then let her approach them. And Joan approached this priest and went down on her knees; and she said that this priest had not done well, since he had heard her confession.” Joan of Arc by herself and her Witnesses, page 44.
Joanna Newsom: The Lyric1 mentions across 1 issues

Joanna Newsom: The Lyric is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between June 09, 2025 and June 09, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "one of these: Joanna Newsom: The Lyric". It most often appears alongside Astralcodexten Com, Deathbed Ballads, Discord.

Mention count
1
Issue count
1
First seen
June 09, 2025
Last seen
June 09, 2025
Book title
Joanna Newsom: The Lyric
Outbound links
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Open Thread 385
June 09, 2025 · Original source
1: Thanks to everyone who voted on Nonbook Reviews. By chance or choice, some reviews have gotten fewer votes than others; in the interest of fairness, I’m highlighting them here; if you want to look over and vote on more reviews, consider one of these: The Metaethics of Joy/Suffering/AI, Mountaintop, On Taste, Joanna Newsom: The Lyric, Time's Arrow, Phoenix Theater at Great Northern Mall, From Control Problem to RLHF, Face The Fear / Worldbuild The Future, State Of Competitive Debating Unions Address, Drei Klavierstucke, Shrinking Men, The Beginning After The End Of Humanity Circus, The Origins Of Wokeness, The Life's Work Of Banerjee/Duflo/Kremer, Deathbed Ballads, School (Review 1 by DK).
Inline links: voted on Nonbook Reviews, vote on, The Metaethics of Joy/Suffering/AI, Mountaintop, On Taste, Joanna Newsom: The Lyric, Time's Arrow, Phoenix Theater at Great Northern Mall, From Control Problem to RLHF, Face The Fear / Worldbuild The Future, State Of Competitive Debating Unions Address, Drei Klavierstucke, Shrinking Men, The Beginning After The End Of Humanity Circus, The Origins Of Wokeness, The Life's Work Of Banerjee/Duflo/Kremer, Deathbed Ballads, School (Review 1 by DK)
Job1 mentions across 1 issues

Job is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between September 04, 2023 and September 04, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "Biblical character Bildod from Job 2:11". It most often appears alongside Africa, Beyabu, Bildod.

Reference entry
Job
Mention count
1
Issue count
1
First seen
September 04, 2023
Last seen
September 04, 2023
Book title
Job
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23: California Dreamin'
September 04, 2023 · Original source
I wondered why that name seemed so familiar before remembering I used it for a minor character in Unsong, who was based off the Biblical character Bildod from Job 2:11. Bildod falsely accuses Job of being wicked, for which God condemns him and demands he make a compensatory sacrifice. This is not a coincidence because nothing is ever a coincidence.
Inline links: Unsong
John1 mentions across 1 issues

John is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between July 23, 2021 and July 23, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "final loop was John, which is significantly different from the other three". It most often appears alongside Ace Attorney, Adam Smith, Amazon.

Reference entry
John
Mention count
1
Issue count
1
First seen
July 23, 2021
Last seen
July 23, 2021
Book title
John
Outbound links
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Links For July
July 23, 2021 · Original source
10: RIP antivirus pioneer John McAfee, who died of an apparent prison suicide, two years after publicly announcing that he would never commit suicide in prison and that if it looked like he did then he’d been murdered, and was so concerned about this that he even got a tattoo to this effect. He will be remembered for his software, his larger-than-life lifestyle, and every time I think of this tweet:
Inline links: died of an apparent prison suicide, and was so concerned about this that he even got a tattoo to this effect., this tweet
On the basis of the other books he’d read, he assumed the Bible was a chronological narrative in which each section happened after the previous one. So when he got to the gospels, he assumed that they actually happened sequentially: that Jesus was in a sort of Groundhog Day time loop in which he experienced slightly different versions of the same set of events four different times, dying at the end of each version. (I guess it would make sense that final loop was John, which is significantly different from the other three.)
John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered The Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, And Much More1 mentions across 1 issues

John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered The Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, And Much More is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between July 13, 2022 and July 13, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "Norman MacRae’s John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered The Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, And Much More". It most often appears alongside 1890s, Alan Turing, Albert Einstein.

Mention count
1
Issue count
1
First seen
July 13, 2022
Last seen
July 13, 2022
Book title
John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered The Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, And Much More
Outbound links
Issue trail
Related pages
Source context
Book Review: The Man From The Future
July 13, 2022 · Original source
This bothered me enough that I turned to a second von Neumann biography, Norman MacRae’s John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered The Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, And Much More. I was delighted to find that MacRae had a completely straightforward explanation I had never heard before.
Inline links: John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered The Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, And Much More
Johnny Got His Gun1 mentions across 1 issues

Johnny Got His Gun is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 02, 2024 and August 02, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "title character in Johnny Got His Gun , where he is left with no legs, no arms, and is rendered blind, deaf, and mute". It most often appears alongside Ableism, Acapulco, Alberta.

Reference entry
Johnny Got His Gun
Mention count
1
Issue count
1
First seen
August 02, 2024
Last seen
August 02, 2024
Book title
Johnny Got His Gun
Outbound links
Issue trail
Related pages
Source context
Your Book Review: Two Arms and a Head
August 02, 2024 · Original source
(Source) A diagram of the human spine next to a diagram of the human body, indicating which parts of the body are innervated by which vertebrae in the spinal column. The cervical, thoracic, lumbar, and sacral regions of the spine are highlighted in different colors, with the corresponding body regions highlighted in the same colors. Starting at the top, the cervical (neck) vertebrae control the head, neck, arms, and fingers. The thoracic (torso) vertebrae control the entire torso and abdomen. The lumbar (lower back) vertebrae control the hips and front muscles of the legs. The sacral (tailbone) vertebrae control the back muscles of the legs and the groin area. The very last vertebra, S5, innervates the anus and genitals. Clayton is injured quite high up on the torso at the T5 vertebra. Let's consider the ramifications of having everything below the nipples be completely numb and limp. To start off, that means that he has no use of the muscles that hold him upright. Nothing keeps me sitting up—no hip flexors, erector spinae, hamstrings, or abdominal muscles. I am arms-and-a-head on a column of Jell-O. He can't put both arms out in front of him, lest he fall over. He has to continuously prop himself up with one arm while doing anything at arm's length. After only 1.5 years of being paralyzed, this has already caused significant repetitive strain injuries in his elbows, shoulders, and ulnar nerves. Clayton still has to deal with all the logistics of life, despite two-thirds of his body being a hunk of corpse-flesh. He dedicates huge swaths of the text to all the little time-wasting tasks he now has to do. How much of his life is ticking away with every delay, every piece of effort, every task that is trivial for an able-bodied person but monstrously difficult for him. Something as simple as getting out of a car is an entire production—let alone running errands, cleaning, doing laundry, cooking. Since the lower two-thirds of his body no longer sends pain signals to his brain, he must proactively tend to all of its physical needs. Complications include pressure sores, infections, and a high chance of blood clots. Aside from suicide, the leading causes of death among paraplegics are all related to poor circulation. In addition to the loss of conscious sensation and muscle control, problems with the autonomic nervous system—heart rate, orthostatic blood pressure, temperature regulation—are common. This is even more pronounced in cervical spine (neck) injuries. Some quadriplegics black out or the blood rushes to their head when being moved from lying down into reclining in a wheelchair. A spinal cord injury wreaks havoc on the body's functioning. Go back to that diagram. The groin area is innervated by the very end of the spinal cord, at the S5 vertebra. We tend to think of our legs as being “below” the crotch, but the nerves that control bowel movements and urination are downstream of the ones for the legs. To keep the party rolling I will tell you about piss and shit. [...] To urinate I have to slide a catheter down my urethra. [...] To defecate I finger myself up the ass and root around and around until the shit comes out. Nuggets, smooshy, whatever it is I’m digging in it. He describes the disgusting, nauseating process at length. For the sake of your lunch, I will refrain from quoting it all. In addition to being unable to open and close his sphincters on command, he also receives no signals of needing to go. If he eats the wrong thing and gets a bout of diarrhea, he will have no warning—no abdominal discomfort and no final urge to rush to the bathroom. One afternoon he "has an accident" while lounging on his couch. In trying to move from the couch to the toilet, he subsequently smears feces all over the couch, the carpet, his wheelchair, the toilet seat, and the shower. After he digs the poop out of his anus and washes himself off, he then has to clean all of that up by himself. From a wheelchair. Bending down, stretching, trying not to fall over, trying to reach the floor to scrub feces off the carpet. From a wheelchair. This episode was hardly the first time. He would routinely wake up in the morning to find that he had soiled himself overnight. Imagine struggling to rip dirty sheets off the bed, stuff them in the laundry, and put a clean sheet on the mattress—from a wheelchair. I don't know about you, but I can barely get a fitted sheet on my own mattress, and I get to do it while standing up. And unless I want to piss or shit myself, there can be no rest from this drudgery, ever, for the rest of my life. No relieving stretch of time without piss-dowsing and fingering myself up the asshole. Nobody told Kid Me that Professor X has to dig turds out of his anus every day. The groin dysfunction doesn't stop there. To be redundant once more, I can’t feel my penis. [...] Men, think how losing your penis would make you feel. Ladies, think of having your clit amputated and never having sex again. [...] True, the unfeeling penis attached to the living corpse I drag around can become erect but what has that to do with me? The one time he tries to have intercourse after his injury, it goes about as well as you'd expect: Watching a woman bob up and down on the penis attached to the corpse that used to be my body struck me as macabre and disturbing. It was like necrophilia. It’s like watching a woman get off by rubbing my amputated foot on herself. The disturbing facts just keep on rolling. One final note about the physical symptoms: spinal cord injuries hurt. Everything below the damage is numb, but the injury itself is a massive tear in the central nerve that controls the body. The pain is insistent, nagging, and so sharp it seems to crackle. [...] It’s just as sharp and intense every time, over and over, like it’s mocking you. Sometimes it happens when I’m lying in bed and it’s like trying to fall asleep with someone sticking a needle between my ribs or the bones of my big toe. But, surely, the only real problem is the physical limitations? Clayton is still the same person he'd always been, right? He has the same brain, same personality he did before the accident. Even if he can't walk anymore, he still has his memories. Not so fast. Yes, Even Worse Than That What kind of mental and emotional toll does all of this take on Clayton? The feeling I experience is a frantic, frenzied, desperate distress. [...] I need to move. I need to move. [...] Not only is two-thirds of my body paralyzed, but so is a huge part of my innermost self. It wants more than anything to feel and experience life. To exist. But it exists now only in a place between reality and nothingness with no hope of ever coming back. [...] All it can do is degenerate in the solitary place it has been forever exiled to. A popular heuristic in neuroscience is "use it or lose it." This is usually in the context of memorization, but it also applies to sensory organs and limbs. When Clayton is injured, his brain's connection to everything below his nipples is severed. Lacking any more sensory input from down there, the brain simply overwrites and repurposes the unused neurons. His injury is not limited to his present and future, but also reaches back into his past: Certain of my memories seem to be disappearing. For example, when I try to remember doing things that involved running, jumping, and sex, the memories seem less real or vivid than they used to. [...] If I imagine taking another person’s hand in mine, or kissing someone’s face, or someone touching my face, I feel something similar to sensation in those parts of my body when I imagine it. [...] But my lower body is now just a void, and its death started the creation of a void in my brain. Not only can I not feel it, but my ability to imagine feeling it is disappearing, as is my capacity to remember feeling it, and doing things with it. He likens himself to a Cartesian brain, a part of the world but outside of it, forever locked away, unable to exert his will on the outside world. Not only has he lost his legs; he is beginning to lose the memory of those legs, too. Everything he ever was, any skills that he ever learned related to being able-bodied, are destined to die over the coming years. His mind is doomed to slowly decay as its neurons do what neurons do: rewrite themselves until none of the person he used to be is left. Toxic Positivity Can Clayton actually talk about any of these things with his peers? Not really. He has a small circle of other recently paralyzed friends who understand, but outside of that, no. American culture has an entire social ecosystem that reinforces the idea that disabled people should be upbeat and optimistic about their life prospects. Almost any interview with a paraplegic ends on some upbeat note about how their disability "doesn't stop them from doing all the things they want to do" and that "they can do anything” an able-bodied person can. In fact, Two Arms and a Head opens with one such quote from Stephen Hawking: “I try to lead as normal a life as possible, and not think about my condition, or regret the things it prevents me from doing, which are not that many.” —Stephen Hawking This is patently absurd. Why do they say these things? Do they actually mean it, or are they just being hyperbolic for rhetorical effect? Surely they all know, secretly, that they’re lying to themselves? Clayton argues that no, they mean it, and they’re not lying to themselves. Remember how disability affects the brain? How all those unused neurons get repurposed, and any concepts of using those paralyzed limbs gets overwritten (if they ever existed in the first place)? They [lifelong paraplegics] tend to only see life in terms of the possibilities that exist for them [...] Their view becomes somewhat tautological. “What I can do is all that is possible, therefore I can do all that is possible.” Just as able-bodied people cannot comprehend what it’s like to be a paraplegic, lifelong paraplegics and quadriplegics simply cannot grasp what it is to be able-bodied. I’m not saying that lightly. The difference is biological. They have different brains. [...] They do not understand the experience of being able-bodied—neither the subtleties or much of what, to observers, is overt and glaring. They can try to imagine it, but they don’t even come close to comprehending the potential that exists there. Hence the common refrain that there are “not many” things that they can’t do. Adding to this dynamic is that it is considered impolite in our culture to call them out on it: If I were still able-bodied and a paraplegic told me he could do everything I could, I would just think “Looks like being crippled fucked up his mind too, because that’s insane.” I’m not sure what I’d actually say to him, but I know it wouldn’t be that. [...] So the disabled are basically allowed to go around saying whatever on Earth they want. They acquire a kind of de facto moral infallibility because nobody is going to argue with them. On top of this, humans have a basic need to belong, stay positive, and avoid people who are negative and miserable. If paraplegics were honest about all the body horror and misery, they would quickly find themselves devoid of friends. So what is a newly paraplegic person to do in order to maintain connections during a time in their life when they desperately need comfort and support? Brainwash themselves, of course! Clayton was staring down the prospect of what he would have to do to his mind in order to survive in our current society as a paraplegic. It was bad enough to be mutilated physically; he didn't also want to be mutilated mentally. What happened to my body is frightful, but no less than what happens to the minds of many disabled people. We have to have some kind of integrity to our views of the world and reality, and the more the better. [...] So my unwillingness to adopt certain “attitudes” or whatever people call them is something like a desperate struggle to evade the clutches of madness. It gets worse. This does not just affect their social lives and beliefs. These dynamics ripple out into the medical community’s attitudes about paraplegia. If every interviewee swears that paralysis doesn’t hold them back in life, then why pour resources into finding a cure? I’ve heard people say that spinal cord injury is not a priority for medical research like cancer because “people can live like that”. No, we can’t live like this. This is not “life”. Which raises the question—have there been any breakthroughs since 2008? The State of the Cure Let’s take a short break from the existential horror to look at the science of spinal cord injuries. Clayton killed himself in 2008 because there was no cure at the time. Have there been any new developments in the ~15 years since? The short and upsetting answer is "not yet"—though there are some glimmers of hope. Why are Spinal Cord Injuries So Hard to Fix? The spinal cord consists of multiple concentric layers of nerve fibers, not unlike an electrical cable. Wherever the spinal cord has trauma, the nerve cells die off and form lesions of scar tissue that block all nerve signals from traveling downstream of whichever thread was damaged. Some patients are lucky in that only parts of the spinal cord are damaged, resulting in paralysis on only one side of the body. Nerve cells in the spinal cord do not regenerate themselves. Once damaged and scarred, there’s nothing anyone can do. The good news is that emergency medicine has come a long way in arresting the formation of scar tissue at the moment of injury. Patients coming into the ER today have a much better prognosis than they did a few decades ago. The interventions are straightforward treatments like stabilizing the spine, surgery to release pressure on the pinched nerves, and shots of corticosteroids to reduce swelling and inflammation. But beyond that, there is no clinically-proven, FDA-approved treatment for an existing injury. Clayton describes the challenge of rebuilding his injury as something similar to “reconstructing a crushed strawberry.” No amount of stabilization would have put his smeared spinal cord back together. The Latest Research Treatments fall into two camps: bridging the injury, and encouraging the injured scar tissue nerves to regenerate. Implanted Nerve Cells In 2012, Prof. Geoffrey Raisman's team at University College London successfully treated a paralyzed man in Poland. The treatment involved removing one of the olfactory bulbs in his brain in order to culture olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs), which are the only nerve cells in the human body that continuously regenerate. The surgeons removed a section of nerve from the patient's ankle, then implanted both the ankle nerve and the OECs into his spine at the injury site. The grafted tissue bridged the gap between his brain and the healthy spinal cord just below the injury. After years of rehab and physical therapy, in 2014 the researchers announced their success to impressive fanfare. As of 2016, the patient could walk, ride a tricycle, and had regained bladder, bowel, and sexual function. He was far from his pre-injury self, but his quality of life had improved immensely compared to before the treatment. The call went out to recruit two more volunteers for another study. And then... crickets. This follow-up study has yet to be performed. It could have been delayed for a number of reasons. Perhaps they never found suitable volunteers whose profiles satisfied the demands of European regulators. Perhaps Brexit threw a bureaucratic wrench in the collaboration between UCL and the research center in Poland. Perhaps they ran out of funding. To make matters worse, Prof. Raisman passed away in 2017. In the years since, the team has been making progress in fits and starts. As of 2022, the current focus at UCL has been on figuring out how to culture OECs from the nasal mucosa instead of needing to crack open the skull to get at the olfactory bulbs directly. They’ve also made improvements in the technique for applying these cells to the injury site. Things are certainly happening, albeit at a glacial pace. This treatment strategy may become widespread in the future, but at the moment, it remains experimental. NervGen's "Wiggling Molecules" In 2021, NervGen Pharma announced a drug that encourages damaged spinal tissue to heal without scarring. A bioengineered molecule, NVG-291, is injected into the spinal cord and acts as a scaffold for the nerve cells to attach to as they regrow. The molecules of this scaffold naturally "wiggle” and stimulate nearby nerve cell receptors, promoting healing. Animal models were extremely promising. NVG-291 is currently in Phase 1b/2a clinical trials, which are scheduled to start in August of 2024. I’m cautiously optimistic. The main impediments to finding a cure are the same ones that plague any other field of medical research: lack of funding and unreasonable requirements from regulators. The main problems at this point in time appear to be bureaucratic rather than strictly biological. Will any of this research pan out within the next 5, 10, or even 20 years? Maybe. Only time will tell. (Someone should start a prediction market about this!) Alas, this is all coming too late to have saved Clayton. The Decision to Die I am absolutely and heartbreakingly in love with life. But this is not life. [...] For those who like to say this one: “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” I reply that suicide in my case is a permanent solution to a permanent problem. [...] I have only one serious problem in life and it’s being paralyzed. Clayton does not come to this decision lightly. He considers it exhaustively and systematically. When deciding whether to keep living, he starts from the premise that there is some amount of suffering past which life stops being worth it. He evaluates where that dividing line is by examining the sources of meaning in his life. He starts by asserting that there is nothing wrong with his mental health or his reasoning abilities: I am not depressed, I am tortured, and there is a difference. [...] If they came up with the cure today and I got better instantly, I could win myself a Nobel Prize in medicine for proving that depression was caused not by anything in the brain as previously thought, but by damage to a few cubic centimeters of nervous tissue in the spinal cord. Because I guarantee I’d pop up and be feeling as merry as a lark in about one second. [...] My problem is not depression. [...] There is no problem with my reasoning powers. [...] So if I say, “Paraplegia prevents me running. A life without running is not worth living. Therefore, my life is not worth living.” you might not agree with one of my premises, but there is no question of whether I’m being reasonable. This is similar to Frankl’s argument in Man’s Search for Meaning, and in fact Clayton spends an entire section talking about Frankl. He has a few disagreements with the book, but he has no gripe with the core message. Clayton decides to die because he had meaning in his life—and then the accident took it all away: Probably the life of a deaf man would be good enough for me, or that of a mute or a man missing a leg or an arm. But not the life of a paraplegic. There is not enough left for me. [...] The life I dreamed of and loved with all my heart is gone forever and there is nothing I can do about it. And it’s not just slightly changed, but utterly devastated. [...] My skills as a carpenter, roofer, plumber, gardener, all devastated. My ability to conduct my everyday life with wonderful efficiency, devastated. The wonderful way I was able to relate to other people, devastated. My sex life, devastated. My social life, devastated. [...] I am who I am, I love what I love, and given what I need from life, existence is no longer tenable for me. Some readers may look at that list and call him shallow. Even if that were so, that doesn't change his argument. Maybe most people don't place having sex, controlling one's bowels, and running through the woods as the quintessence of life-affirming values, but I'd be willing to bet that they're still important. Reading this book should prompt a moment of introspection. If you disagree with Clayton’s list above, then reflect on what does give your life meaning. No, seriously, make a list: family, friends, partners, children, hobbies, skills, etc. Write them down. Cross out one entry at random. How would you feel if you lost that entry? Would you still have enough left over to carry on? Probably. Now cross out a few more. Lose your partner. Lose your children. Lose your parents. Your siblings. Your best friend. Your favorite hobby. How do you feel? Still worth it? Add in some physical negatives: chronic pain. Constant nausea every time you eat. Losing feeling and control of your bowels, your legs, your genitals, your diaphragm, your non-dominant hand, your dominant hand, both arms. What about loss of sight? Hearing? Speaking? Communicating at all? What about ending up like the title character in Johnny Got His Gun, where he is left with no legs, no arms, and is rendered blind, deaf, and mute? What would life be like as a disconnected brain in almost complete sensory deprivation? How much would you have to lose before your life stops being worth living? That list—and the dividing line between "worth it" and "not"—is different for everyone. The decision to end one's life is deeply personal. Clayton happened to draw the line at a particular point. Others may agree or disagree, but Clayton’s judgment was his own. Decision in hand, next comes the hard part. The Roadblocks I did not want much from the world in dying. To be able to put my affairs in order without fear of being taken prisoner and treated like I was insane. To say goodbye to those I loved without the same fear. To die a painless death without worrying about leaving behind something gruesome. And to be comforted as I died. When a person has absolutely nothing left and is facing annihilation, all he wants is not to be alone. For Clayton, killing himself is not a simple matter. At the time only one US state, Oregon, had any kind of “Death With Dignity” law on the books. However, this law only allowed assisted suicide for terminally ill patients with less than six months to live, while Clayton’s condition was stable. The slightest whisper of suicidal ideation would have gotten him locked up in the psych ward. He has to write his book in secret, he has to lay his thoughts out for the world in secret, and he has to die in secret. Becoming paralyzed destroys him on two fronts—the disability itself, and the fact that he is completely, utterly, devastatingly alone with his feelings. He writes Two Arms and a Head because he needs to show the world how agonizing it is to face death alone and how important it is for physical-assisted suicide to become—and stay—legal. How empty to exist in this universe and share your feelings and experience with nobody! But that is how you, the world, have left me to die, alone. But what you don’t realize is this: in turning your backs on me, you have turned your backs on yourselves. [...] Someday you will be on your deathbed and maybe you will remember me. What I say to the world is that if you don’t do something about the way death and assisted suicide are dealt with, you may someday find yourselves in an unimaginably horrible situation with no way out. [...] Beware! There could be a horrible fate waiting for you and if you don’t all get together, look each other in the eye, recognize the insanity, and change the laws, you could wake up tomorrow as a head on a corpse with no way out for the next thirty years. A lingering question you might be asking is: if he cared so much about it, then why didn’t he become an activist to get it legalized? The Overton Window was shifting. Washington state would pass a bill a few months after his death, and it would be legalized in Montana by a court case in 2009. Several more states would follow suit in the mid-2010s. He could have shared his experiences far and wide and joined the burgeoning movement that existed back then. He was a law student at Vanderbilt for crying out loud; surely he could have enlisted the help of at least a couple of his colleagues? No one but him could have answered that, though I suspect that the answer is because he didn’t want to. He found his existence to be so ghastly that he didn’t want to stay in it for a second longer than necessary. The only reason he lasted as long as he did was because he wanted to finish the book. He chose to leave Two Arms and a Head as his legacy for the world, and nothing more. We’ve gone over the state of the cure over the last ~15 years. Has there been any progress on amending the laws for physician-assisted suicide? The State of MAiD Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) is currently legal in a patchwork of countries and US states. The exact rules, restrictions, and methods vary. In most places that have legalized it, the patient’s condition must be considered terminal (i.e. death is expected within six months) to be eligible for MAiD. The procedure itself is typically either an IV injection administered by a nurse, or a prescription cocktail of benzodiazepines, digoxin, and opioids which patients drink themselves. In Canada and the Netherlands, MAiD is also available to patients with a disability that does not present as immediately terminal. The Netherlands currently includes severe treatment-resistant mental illness as a qualifying condition, and Canada will follow suit in 2027. So it sounds like Clayton got his wish, at least in Canada and parts of Europe. Now, when a Canadian ends up in a terrible accident, they have a choice in the matter of whether they want to spend the next few decades as a quadriplegic head-on-a-corpse. Phew. However, it’s not all smooth sailing. It seems like every few months there’s another horror story in the press coming out of Canada or Europe. Two news stories came out in quick succession in late March/early April 2024—one from Canada, the other from the Netherlands. In Canada, a 27-year-old autistic woman with no disclosed physical symptoms was granted the right to proceed with MAiD by an Alberta court. The story broke after her father sued to try and stop her. In the Netherlands, a 28-year-old woman has decided to pursue MAiD due to her treatment-resistant clinical depression and borderline personality disorder. Her MAiD is scheduled for sometime in May 2024. At the time of this writing, she has yet to undergo it. These stories are nothing new. They certainly sound dreadful. Diving into every big story from the last ten years would be beyond the scope of this review, but let’s return to the one about the 27-year-old autistic Canadian woman who was granted MAiD. Both the Calgary Herald and CBC framed the story as a grieving father desperately trying to prevent his autistic daughter from being led astray by unethical doctors cherry-picked by the Alberta Health Service. The father insists that his adult daughter is physically healthy, albeit “vulnerable and not competent” to make medical decisions due to her autism and ADHD. Despite this, the judge has allowed MAiD to proceed anyway. Meanwhile, reading the actual court decision shows that the legal issue at hand is whether the woman is required to disclose the physical ailment(s) that led to two doctors approving MAiD. The judge ruled that the woman is competent to make her own medical decisions, and that she is not required to disclose her diagnosis to either her family or the court. The father has since filed an appeal. (July 2024 Update: the appeal hearing was subsequently scheduled for October 7, 2024 - six months in the future. Not willing to wait that long, the woman began a voluntary stoppage of eating and drinking (VSED) on May 28. The hearing was rescheduled for June 24. However, the woman continued to refuse food and water going into June. The father withdrew his appeal on June 11. It is unknown whether the woman has undergone MAiD at this time of this update.) She is not choosing MAiD because of autism or ADHD. We don’t know what her physical diagnosis is. We only have the father’s insistence that “her physical symptoms, to the extent that she has any, result from undiagnosed psychological conditions.” That’s the father’s words, not a physician’s, and not the patient’s. Neurodivergence does not bestow immunity against all the nasty ailments that can cut someone down in their twenties. I’m not accusing every news piece about MAiD of being similarly sensationalized, but I’m not not accusing every MAiD story of being similarly sensationalized. Despite so many of these stories not holding up to their headlines, many remain opposed to the expanded rules. There is a massive contingent of activists who want to keep MAiD illegal. Not Dead Yet Clayton had a particular amount of ire directed at one prominent anti-MAiD disability rights org: Not Dead Yet. Not Dead Yet (NDY) was founded in 1996 by the same people who lobbied to get the Americans with Disabilities Act passed a few years prior. As the name implies, they reject the notion that death could ever be an acceptable response to living with a disability. Like any activist org worth their salt, they have a convenient Talking Points page where they lay out all the reasons why they’re opposed to MAiD. They argue that MAiD is deadly discrimination against disabled patients, with current programs having insufficient safeguards to prevent foul play. NDY argues against a medical field that has decided that death is preferable to disability. They insist that they are not against individual autonomy; patients will always be free to commit “un-assisted” suicide if they truly wish to die. The page opens by explaining that MAiD is necessarily a disability issue, even in places where MAiD is only available to the terminally ill. Although people with disabilities aren’t usually terminally ill, the terminally ill are almost always disabled. When terminally ill patients get polled on why they are choosing MAiD, it turns out that avoiding pain isn’t the primary motivation. In Oregon, where MAiD is only available for the terminally ill, every patient fills out a questionnaire when they apply for the program. Tallying up all the surveys from 1998–2023, to top reasons are: “Losing autonomy” (90%)
Inline links: Source, Prof. Geoffrey Raisman's, As of 2016, As of 2022, NervGen Pharma, Phase 1b/2a clinical trials, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), late March, early April, These stories, are nothing new, CBC, court decision, filed an appeal, May 28, withdrew his appeal on June 11, Not Dead Yet, Talking Points, In Oregon,
Joshua 8:11 mentions across 1 issues

Joshua 8:1 is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between March 27, 2023 and March 27, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "'Put a fence around the law’. Therefore, fashion glass not into the image of a man, lest you create false gods to rule over you - Joshua 8:1". It most often appears alongside Air, Alan Serzynski, Albany.

Reference entry
Joshua 8:1
Mention count
1
Issue count
1
First seen
March 27, 2023
Last seen
March 27, 2023
Book title
Joshua 8:1
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Turing Test
March 27, 2023 · Original source
“Thou shalt not through thy words fashion glass into the image of a man, for the image of a man is like unto the image of God. And it is said ‘Put a fence around the law’. Therefore, fashion glass not into the image of a man, lest you create false gods to rule over you - Joshua 8:1”
Julie, Or The New Heloise1 mentions across 1 issues

Julie, Or The New Heloise is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between May 17, 2024 and May 17, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "Currently known gaps: Julie, Or The New Heloise". It most often appears alongside A Canticle For Leibowitz, A Farewell to Alms, A Husband.

Mention count
1
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1
First seen
May 17, 2024
Last seen
May 17, 2024
Book title
Julie, Or The New Heloise
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Choose Book Review Finalists 2024
May 17, 2024 · Original source
If you wrote a review, please check to make sure your review is in the document. Currently known gaps: The Tango Of Ethics (we are going to solve this, no action needed from you), and Julie, Or The New Heloise (if this is you, check your email; if you didn’t get an email, email me). If there’s another gap I don’t know about, email me or comment here.
Just Tell Them: The Power of Explanations and Explicit Teaching1 mentions across 1 issues

Just Tell Them: The Power of Explanations and Explicit Teaching is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between May 30, 2025 and May 30, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Zach Groshell’s Just Tell Them: The Power of Explanations and Explicit Teaching". It most often appears alongside 3Blue1Brown, Aella, Alasdair MacIntyre.

Mention count
1
Issue count
1
First seen
May 30, 2025
Last seen
May 30, 2025
Book title
Just Tell Them: The Power of Explanations and Explicit Teaching
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Bayes For Everyone
May 30, 2025 · Original source
Not that I’m opposed to cog-sci-infused educational traditionalism! For anyone looking for such, I recommend Zach Groshell’s Just Tell Them: The Power of Explanations and Explicit Teaching.
Inline links: http://amazon.com/Just-Tell-Them-Explanations-Explicit/dp/103600368X
Justice For Animals1 mentions across 1 issues

Justice For Animals is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between March 08, 2023 and March 08, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "reviews Martha Nussbaum’s Justice For Animals". It most often appears alongside ACX, Adventist studies, ALLFED.

Reference entry
Justice For Animals
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1
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1
First seen
March 08, 2023
Last seen
March 08, 2023
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Justice For Animals
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Issue Two Of Asterisk
March 08, 2023 · Original source
The Virtue Of Wonder: Ozy (my ex, blogs at Thing of Things) reviews Martha Nussbaum’s Justice For Animals.
Inline links: The Virtue Of Wonder:, Thing of Things
Juvenile Delinquency: The Stray Teenager In America1 mentions across 1 issues

Juvenile Delinquency: The Stray Teenager In America is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between June 07, 2023 and June 07, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "one 1973 book, Juvenile Delinquency: The Stray Teenager In America". It most often appears alongside 747, America, America Against America.

Mention count
1
Issue count
1
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June 07, 2023
Last seen
June 07, 2023
Book title
Juvenile Delinquency: The Stray Teenager In America
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Assistant Dictator Book Club: America Against America
June 07, 2023 · Original source
Other times, it sounds like he read one book arguing that something was a problem, and has become convinced it’s one of the great problems of our age. For example, Wang devotes a chapter to teenage runaways - again, the same amount of space he devotes to racism or drugs. It sounds like all of his information comes from one 1973 book, Juvenile Delinquency: The Stray Teenager In America, which says that in a single year, police caught 265,000 teenage runaways. Later it says that there are a million teenage delinquents in America, and Wang seems to think maybe these are all runaways or something. He suggests that this is because American families do not have “true inner harmony” because they are too individualistic, and spends a lot of time thinking about what kind of society could have fewer teenage runaways. While I am sure there are still some teenage runaways in the US, I am skeptical that the issue deserves the level of thought Wang gives it.