I finished "The Power" by Naomi Alderman today.
I didn't enjoy the read, but it was thought provoking. The central thesis of the book seemed to be, "our society is based on power, and if women were stronger than men we would see the same oppressive dynamics we see now, reversed."
That's a grim thought.
Next book is The Entrepreneurial State, by Mariana Mazzucato.
I'm going to try not to overdo it with the social notes. It's a library book due back soon, and I'm not sure writing down everything helps me absorb the content.
Still, I'm excited to dive into another #NewConsensus book.
I didn't realize when i bought it that the book was written 2006, but I'm still pretty interested to read "Producing Open Source Software," by Karl Fogel.
I just joined an #opensource software company and I have a lot to learn.
Next read: I've got the audiobook of Margaret Atwood's "The Testaments". Figured I'd intersperse the heavy stuff with *some* fiction.
Next (current) read: if Beale Street Could Talk, by James Baldwin
Just finished the Tombs of Atuan by #UrsulaKLeGuin. The whole thing, cover to cover, on #archiveorg. The Internet rules.
"Design Justice" by Sasha Costanza-Chock
Next book is "City at World's End" by Edmond Hamilton, a 1950s #scifi book hosted on #Librivox.
Thus far, it's classic 1950s fare. A square-jawed team of white man scientists are flung into the far future along with their town. The local government is weak, the women are frail and must be protected.
For all that the premise is interesting - reminds me of "The Night Land" and "The City and the Stars" - post post post apocalypse cities surviving on doomed worlds.
Next read is "The Buried Giant," by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Post-Aurthurian legend where nobody can form long term memories.
Next read is Andrew Krivak's "The Bear". A father- daughter post-apocalypse tale.
Next Read is "Kiss The Ground" by Josh Tickell.
I started a job in October trying to help farmers (and other people living on the land) practice #RegenerativeAgriculture. We've got to store that #carbon and save the world.
More of an essay than a book, but my next read is "Making Kin with the Machines" by Jason Edward Lewis, Noelani Arista, Archer Pechawis, and Suzanne Kite. https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/lewis-arista-pechawis-kite/release/1
Next book is "Let It Rot!: The Gardener's Guide to Composting" by Stu Campbell.
SO excited to read some mother-effing #solarpunk fiction!
#KimStanleyRobinson's "Ministry for the Future".
Yay! Excited to get into "All We Can Save" by @ayanaeliza and Katherine K. Wilkinson
Next read, this time with the kiddo. "We Are The Water Protectors"
Beautiful illustrations. The right story.
The #Equity, #Diversity, and #Inclusion Working Group (EDIWG) at #NASA, published a white paper called "Ethical Exploration and the Role of Planetary Protection in Disrupting Colonial Practices" and it calls for incorporating #anticolonial practices as we explore other worlds. https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.08344
Next Read? The Murray Bookchin Reader
https://archive.org/details/TheMurrayBookchinReaderMurrayBookchin/page/n13/mode/2up
#ecology- focused #anarchism is about the furthest thing I can think of from #AynRand; maybe there will be similarities to #TheDispossessed.
I'm going to give this a shot! "Sustaining Lake Superior" by Nancy Langston is about a mass effort of #conservation and #recovery in a time of #ClimateChange.
Just finished "The Fall of Gondolin" by #jrrtolkien. More moved than I expected to do.
Before that "Deus X" by Norman Spinrad was the read. I first read it in high school, dusted it off as a pallet cleanser. A cyberpunk novel musing on the soul of software while the global ecosystem collapses.
#currentlyreading "Mission Economy" by Mariana Mazzucato. A call for stakeholder, rather than shareholder #capitalism.
#currentlyreading "The Word for World is Forest" by #ursulaleguin
https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/6031af62-c833-455a-a0cb-efec553d4c86
"Wild Seed" by #OctaviaButler was amazing. I inhaled it in two days.
I finally read "Ghost in the Shell" by Masamune Shirow. The manga basis for the classic 1996 film. Did you know the entire book is available on archive.org?
https://archive.org/details/manga_Ghost_in_the_Shell_1/GITS1/mode/2up
I finished reading the Lord of the Rings again. This time around the anti-industrialist, naturalist themes really stood out to me. The evil done to the Shire is industrialization; to win, our heroes end up deconstructing a coal-fired mill and building back a water-powered one.
"Upgrade Soul" by Ezra Clayton Daniels was a trip. https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/e4c3adef-b553-4176-8ff5-68f099c4205f
/panting
Just finished "Blackout / All Clear" by Connie Willis! What a monster.
Just finished Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre
Great #scifi fare.
New Read: "Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings" by Peter Kropotkin.
Apparently Kropotkin's writings inspired #ursulaleguin's "The Dispossessed". I've been on a Russian Revolution history binge of late, so I'm excited to add this to the mix.
Will the #fediverse #anarchist community come out of the woodwork? 😃
Also on deck, when the fit takes me, is #ursulaleguin's "Tao Te Ching"
"Basic Bakunin", by the Anarchist Federation, is a brief pamplet on the writings of Mikhail Bakunin. A contemporary of Marx - apparently the two agreed about the problems of capitalism but clashed over how to address them. Bakunin inspired Kropotkin (see above in the the thread). Adding to my collection of late 19th-century revolutionary thinkers.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anarchist-federation-basic-bakunin
"When people gain power ... he argued, their way of looking at the world changes. From their exalted position of high office the perspective on life becomes distorted and seems very different to those on the bottom... Bakunin suggests that such backsliding from socialist ideas is not due to treachery, but because participation in parliament makes representatives see the world through a distorted mirror."
Donella Meadows argues that a person makes decisions based off their role within a system.
“The political and economic organization of social life must not, as at present, be directed from the summit to the base – the centre to the circumference – imposing unity through forced centralization. On the contrary, it must be reorganized to issue from the base to the summit – from the circumference to the centre – according to the principles of free association and federation.”
This advocacy for federation aligns with the arguments I've heard for #decentralized social networks.
Ahh, some description of Bakunin's positive philosophy (the society we should build) as opposed to the negative philosophy (the society we should oppose). "Revolutionary Catechism" (1866) apparently conveys a lot of his ideas around federated sovereign communes. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/michail-bakunin-revolutionary-catechism
Good - the closest thing I have to a positive description is Ursula Le Guin's "The Dispossesed"
OK - that was a quick read. I found the primer thought-provoking - and I'm interested in reading more on this decentralized ideal - but it seems so strange to me that violent militancy is seen as the logical and natural way to a new world order. It's so... 19th century? Nonviolent revolutions are proven to be far more effective in achieving their goals (see "Why Civil Resistance Works" by Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth.) http://cup.columbia.edu/book/why-civil-resistance-works/9780231156820
Finished "Russia in Flames" by Laura Engelstein. A history of the Russian civil war. TL;DR? It was brutal.
Currently reading "Building Soil" by Elizabeth Murphy. The principles of building #soil health.
"Plants take up nutrients through their roots. This means that plant food must be dissolved in soil water. Quick-release and chemical fertilizers immediately dissolve into soil water, making them instantly available to plant roots. This is useful when a quick fix is needed to address a deficiency. On the other hand, it also means they are instantly vulnerable to being lost when water drains out of the soil."
"Nutrients from organic amendments and slow-release fertilizers stick around longer in the soil. They are plant-available only after microbes decompose them. We rely on living systems to make these nutrients available and to hold them in the soil. Fertile soils hold nutrients in the actual bodies of living and dead organisms, in spongy organic matter, or on the surfaces of soil minerals."
Jackpot! This book has a list of nitrogen fixers in #gardening and #agriculture.
Up until this moment I had no idea how much I wanted a chicken tractor. 🐔 🚜
"Nature's Best Hope" is superb. The author advocates that we grow native species in our yards (and minimize our grass lawns) to provide food for the insect and bird populations we love.
So many of Philip K. Dick's stories are about being trapped and struggling (usually failing) to escape.
Murray Bookchin's "Ecology of Freedom" is supposed to be his magnum opus, I'm just hoping that one of these anarchists (Bookchin, Kropotkin, Bakunin) will eventually tell me what the ideal society actually looks like.
"Our world, it would appear, will either undergo revolutionary changes, so far-reaching in character that humanity will totally transform its social relations and its very conception of life, or it will suffer an apocalypse that may well end humanity's tenure on the planet."
Holds up regrettably well today.
"The Anarchist Handbook" is a collection of essays by various authors: https://1lib.us/book/14727303/4691c0?id=14727303&secret=4691c0
"Every nation is in an anarchist relationship with one another. If a Canadian kills an American in Mexico, there is some agreed-upon mechanism to adjudicate the situation without involving a higher authority—because there is no higher authority to invoke."
"An anarchist world would still have murderers, and thieves, and evil men and women. It simply wouldn’t put them in a position to enforce their evil on everyone else via getting elected and decreeing the law."
Solarshades, by Andrew Dana Hudson
A #solarpunk short story about quiet mobilization and energy transition, with critical analysis.
"Parable of the Talents" by Octavia Butler
I've read that a lot of great figures in history had trouble connecting with their children. That part of the story rings true. The Trump-Jarrett parallel was eerie considering this story was written decades ago.
In "An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz recounts a colonialist and imperialist history U.S. Americans are not taught in school. Changing things for the better requires one to first understand what is and has been, and this book is a great instrument to educate oneself.
"Environmental Monitoring with #Arduino" Emily Gertz and Patrick Di Justo
I don't have Arduino, but I've got a bread board and my work has me focusing on tech for the environment. Let's do this!
Hell yes! Decentralize knowledge and save the world. ✊
"Monitoring the environment for ourselves, however, pulls the curtain back on what all those experts are doing. Understanding brings knowledge, and with knowledge comes the power to make decisions that can change our lives for the better—from lowering the electric bill, to holding polluters accountable, to helping scientists study the changing climate."
Oh man, this book is more that a decade old. It's referencing #RadioShack. Hope the fundamentals of tech haven't changed too much since that time.
Got this book on#arduino from the humble bundle: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/charles-platt-make-community-books
I'm already in love with "Make: Tools - How They Work and How to Use Them" by Charles Platt
It's essentially a collection of very simple "how to" guides. It feels like a written version of what YouTube tutorials have evolved into, if that makes sense.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/8e4e020a-97f1-405c-85c7-014d85445cd0
I found something exciting in the very first pages. I was under the delusion that to make a miter joint I would need to buy a miter saw, which is several hundred dollars! But I have learned that the task can be done with a miter box and a tenon saw, which can be purchased for less than $20!
For someone who didn't grow up with an appreciation for tools, learning about this sort of thing is just marvelous.
"Sprint" by Jake Knapp seems to be required #design reading?
https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/a8374734-7753-4817-8891-17bc149f0194
Also read "Future home of the Living God" by Louise Eldrich.
Current read is "Glass and Gardens #Solarpunk Summers"
The editor, Sarena Ulibarri, introduces the book by explaining how she selected the stories for the anthology. The stories she selected didn't need to be about #SolarPower or to be #anticapitalist, "but I tried to choose stories that depict adaptation and compromise rather than destruction and conquest, stories that value empathy and cooperation over greed and competition."
This one is for work - "Cross-Cultural #Design" by Senongo Akpem. https://bookwyrm.social/book/235300
A great tidbit: "Culture has a huge, yet often overlooked, effect on what we consider aesthetically pleasing. It's common for Western designers to point to concepts like rational type systems, clean lines, an absence of decoration, and mathetmatical layout grids as universally 'good' design without realizing that most of those principles originated in the century-old #Bauhaus movement." #books
What good is any form of literature to Black people? What good is science fiction’s thinking about the present, the future, and the past? What good is its tendency to warn or to consider alternative ways of thinking and doing?
What good is its examination of the possible effects of science and technology, or social organization and political direction? At its best, science fiction stimulates imagination and creativity. It gets reader and writer off the beaten track, off the narrow, narrow footpath of what “everyone” is saying, doing, thinking—whoever “everyone” happens to be this year.
Finished John Green's "The Anthropocene Reviewed". Really good! Green speaks simply but the words strike hard.
I can tell I'm going to inhale this one. Becky Chambers' "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet"
Senogo Akpem highlighted a concept I hadn't heard of before called "power distance", which refers to the degree to which less powerful members of a society both accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. People from low-power distance societies can openly question authority. People from high power distance societies tend it to accept the rules of leaders. In terms of design, websites for people in high PD societies tend to emphasize the authority of experts.
@Argus Heard a nice opinion that russia was the only country witch suffers from communism in a hard way. By that the author means that Lenin&co managed to destroy the old russian elite and break their channels of communication. So now it is like "If you are talking with rich and successful chineese, dont mention Mao, case his parents likely suffered from his policy. If you are talking with successful russian, dont mention Stalin, cause he probably benefited from his policy"
@Argus Yeah I'm partway through it now and it really is a scary similarity!
@Argus I have one of these! It's pretty cool. The only downside is you can accidently slice the box with the saw of you're not careful.
But yeah, very handy for a very low price.
@mibzman @Argus yeah, that's true. but in the olden days, craftsmen often used to make their own miter boxes from scratch with a few screws and whatever wood scraps they had lying around, using a square or a 45° miter angle (or any angle they needed) as a guide. so this tool was quite temporary back then.
@daniel_bohrer @Argus oh neat, that makes a lot more sense! Thanks for elaborating!
@Argus and if you want to save even more money, used tools often go for even cheaper on the flea market. sometimes they are a bit rusty, but can usually be cleaned up with a bit of fine sand paper or a wire wheel.
@Argus
One of my old faves. Didn't know she had a new book out. Thanks.
@Argus
But (I neglected to ask) what did you think of the book?
@bhaugen Definitely worth the read!
@Argus nice. Are you on bookwyrm? I'd follow with interest
@dudenas I just started an account Bookwyrm and have started filling it out: @DerekCaelin
I've been using TheStoryGraph but a federated alternative... that's worth a shot!
@Argus This is a lot of fun. I've used Arduinos to drive sensors and logging in Controlled Environmental Agriculture systems I've experimented with. Definitely worth pursuing.
"In Bakunin’s view, three conditions are necessary to bring about popular revolution. They are:
Sheer hatred for the conditions in which the masses find themselves
The belief that change is a possible alternative
A clear vision of the society that has to be made to bring about human emancipation"
I think this is why #scifi is such an important genre. In order for there to be a new world - say, a post-scarcity or eco-friendly society - we first must be able to imagine it.