Chad Kohalyk
The documentary fiction style is masterful. His writing is very tight, easy to understand, despite some very long sentences. Each chapter captures the “voice” of the author. Early on in the book I was listening to the physicists’ comments and my head was full of AI. Of course, that comes later. I wish I knew more about each of the characters, I am sure there are a lot of jokes I missed.
Definitely going to pick up his other book. Man this must have taken forever to research and write. Respect the craft of it!
I was kind of expecting a Simon Schama-like narrative overview but this turned out to be more of an academic overview: a series of papers by the two authors that cover different aspects of the academic study of the Anglo-Saxons. It was pretty interesting and gives a good account of the current state of the research, but probably not something someone (other than me) would read for fun. I think it probably is perfect as a textbook for an introductory course on the Anglo-Saxons.
This sequel is more like a tv show follow-up to a movie… a tv show shot with just 2 cameras and mostly of just people talking in rooms. None of the sci-fantasy epic sweeping desert and space that I would expect from the Duniverse. That said, Herbert can turn a phrase.
Probably should not have listened to the Audiobook. The different narrators makes no sense. Things started to flow past me... and since the story takes some surprising turns I got lost a couple times.
Joy Lisi Rankin focuses on computing in the schools of the Northeastern USA in the 1960s and 1970s, arguing that PLATO has an important place in US computing history, especially as an alternative narrative to the standard ARPANET → Silicon Valley → Apple and Microsoft history. The PLATO story shows technological advancement and community building before even the ARPANET. Since it was shared infra run by schools and state agencies, PLATO network participants were "citizens" and not "consumers". The book is tightly focused on a specific geographic area, but there are some good gems including the “users’ bill of rights” which was developed my the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium to guarantee governance and service standards to reassure stakeholders. But it isn't all positive: Rankin also highlights the high degree of sexism in the community. This book isn't quite on the level of The Dream Machine, but if you are interested in early computing history, and branches that could have lead to a different present, it is a pretty quick and worthwhile read.
(Don't forget to check my Reading Journal for chapter notes)
Good episode. Nice to have Kobna back in my ears. And Abigail! The two first-person characters, not to mention the rest of the fam getting involved, was well-handled, especially in a new setting. The various threads came together quite nicely, and there was some serious tension near the end. Happy to have the group back and looking forward to the next one!
Wonderful world-building saturated with details like a vivid Ghibli movie, soaked in themes of obligation: the debt, oaths, contracts, and duty that we have towards our communities and the land, and when we need to break those constraints in order to heal.
Rounded up my rating since this is such a great showing for a first novel. Looking forward to more.
This book ended on such a high note that I am biased and putting it at 5 stars. Amazing. I read it over a very long time—it was my “late night can't get to sleep” reading, which is normally the Dhammapada for me. But as soon as finishing I thought “I can't wait to read this again”. So many highlights and annotations!
In order to flourish as individuals and a society we must free ourselves from the strictures of standardized testing, industrialized education, “accelerated learning”, technocratic utopianism, solutionism, longtermism, white supremacy and eugenic thinking, the carceral state, credit scoring and the “ordinal society” (See Fourcade and Healy), and more! It is hard to be imaginative when we are oppressed... but we have to be imaginative to overthrow the oppressors. In an ultimately hopeful argument, Benjamin provides example after example of real projects where humans work together to protect one another and lift one another up. She argues for “radical interdependence” and building a safe, equitable society to further our collective “radical imagination.”
Limitarianism is an ethical framework advocating for limiting excess wealth and redistributing to the benefit of wider society. The book builds its case by historically analyzing the rise of inequality over the past 50 years through global neoliberal policy; the social problems that inequality cause or exacerbate; how taking a Limitarian stance could improve things for everyone including the wealthy; and what needs to be done to get there. She starts off the book with her proposal that there be a “political” wealth cap of 10mm $/€/£ per person, and an ethical limit of 1mm $/€/£ per person. Basically, she comes out of the book fighting. Then, throughout the author provides many shocking statistics and refers to many different academic studies. Furthermore, she runs though many of the counter arguments that have been posed to her by the public and the media, naming and taking apart each objection as a trained philosopher should. She brings a lot to the fight, and in the end settles basically on a strong welfare state (I would like to a see an anarchist argument). Altogether is a strong package. It is not the kind of thing you pass to the proverbial conservative uncle at the Thanksgiving dinner table. He will scoff, reject it outright, and recommend Thomas Sowell or some other ghoul. But for people who do not pray to Ludwig von Mises or one of the Mont Pelerin set, but do not necissarly have a strong critical bent or are not as politically aware, it might serve as a good catch-me-up and help them understand why they think we might be in the Bad Timeline. I really appreciate Robeyns's call at the end for more political engagement by regular people. Our democratic muscles have atrophied in the decades of consumerist atomization. As the classic Graeber quote goes, “The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”
Cal Newport's latest advice book tackles the question of productivity in knowledge work. Factory work can much more easily be measured and systematized. Newport points out that office workers, writers, artists, and scholars are often assigned tasks and must come up with their own individual system to be productive. These systems are opaque to managers, who end up relying on “visible activity” (which many busy office workers are familiar with) as the proxy for productivity. Add in always-on email and instant messaging apps, plus a global pandemic and people trying to work from busy homes, and you end up with a lot of burnout.
However...
See rest of review https://micro.chadkohalyk.com/2024/04/22/just-enough-capitalism.html
Rashid Khalidi takes us through six turning points of modern Palestinian history woven with family and personal history, including his frontline experience escaping Beirut during the 1982 Lebanon War. Khalidi has a long history as an advocate and an academic and writes a highly detailed account with an insider view. He covers the early Zionist movement, the Nakba of 1948, the Six Day War of 1967, the Lebanon War, the Intifadas and the rise of Hamas, giving context throughout as to who the geostrategic players are and how they change.
The book ends in 2017, with Trump making promises for a new deal for peace. Things don't look good for the Palestinians. Khalidi offers some ideas on how to proceed in a constructive manner, from first principles of equality for both Palestinians and Israelis. There is a lot in the book about crafting a more favourable public opinion of Palestinians around the world, from a few different angles. It certainly presented perspectives new to me. One key argument is that the world cannot afford to have the US continue as sole, self-selected guarantor of the peace process. That is borne not just of the evidence presented in the book, but of what we have seen in the past couple of months.
I listened to an interview with Khalidi on a podcast or on YouTube somewhere right after October 7th. Many people were giving this book plaudits, and since he was so well spoken I thought I would give it a try. I am no specialist, so I cannot recommend this book with any real authority. But I found it very readable, appreciated the occasional personal history elements sprinkled throughout, and came away with some new frames for thinking about the problem. But I didn't have to read this detailed and complex book to know that they need to STOP.
Expanding on their article on “weaponized interdependence” Farrell and Newman show how the US government uses “global networks” like financial and internet infrastructure for geopolitical ends. Their argument is that this “Underground Empire” has become more and more visible, with other powers like Europe and China considering how to get out from under the US's boot: American power is undermining itself. Lest we forget, WWI was exacerbated by sanctions, and the Cold War never went hot because the two super-powers were independent of one another. Farrell and Newman are arguing for a transformation of our neoliberal globalization.
On the tech side, a lot of the stories in the book will be familiar to those who follow, but I appreciated the history of banking side of the narrative. The parallels are striking, and that is the main contribution of this book. I think it captures much of the frustration that we have been feeling over the US for the past 15 years. For this I give it high marks
However, at the very end, it kind of falls down. The conclusion is pretty lacklustre. After spending a whole book criticizing America for having these powers (never mind abusing), they all of a sudden do an about face and speculate that “maybe we can use this power for good! Like, to fight climate crisis!” (not a direct quote obviously...)
A tour of how countries subdivide themselves to attract investors and libertarians trying to “exit” or find a new frontier to exploit. Slobodian does not give us any solutions, but really breaks down the processes and ideology leading to the proliferation of free trade zones, special economic zones, tax havens, etc etc. He really shows why we need to break the mental relation we have that capitalism and democracy goes hand-in-hand. It does not, and the book goes through example after example to demonstrate. One thing I really appreciated was how well he ties together the intellectual history of all the characters involved. It would also be nice to get a version of this book that explores similar intellectual connections in non-English-speaking communities.
