Dwarkesh Patel

Throw the book at these guys.

This is the worst thing.

They really are obsessed with this incredibly petty minor heresy to the degree that when the Encyclopédie is banned by Rome, France likes the Encyclopédie, right?

This is Diderot and Dolbach's big project of universal education to print an encyclopedia that will collect all world knowledge.

They articulate it as, should a new dark age come upon humankind and even one copy of the encyclopedia survive?

It will be sufficient to reconstruct all human progress.

That's the goal of this thing.

And it's advancing incredibly radical ideas about biology, about statecraft, about reforming the law to be rational instead of traditional, all sorts of stuff.

When that is banned by Rome, Paris is commanded – you know, Paris loves this book.

The king likes this book.

The queen likes this book.

She's on record saying it was so cool being able to look up the technology that we used to make her silk pantyhose, right?

She just loves it.

Everybody loves it.

France allows it to circulate despite its controversial content.

But Rome says, no, you must ban this book.

And so they agree they're going to have the ceremonial burning and they march the encyclopedia up to the fire.

And then they get some Jansenist treatises about the nature of the Trinity and burn those instead because they don't want to burn the Encyclopedia.

They love it.

They want to burn this other thing.