Absurd Sage finished reading This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange …
Like poetry
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I come from GoodReads and before that, BookLikes. I think that I like to read way more than I do, but I like tracking what I'm reading.
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34% complete! Absurd Sage has read 17 of 50 books.
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"Get ready for a world in which anyone can have the powers of a god …
That, right there, is the difference between the heroes and the nobodies. The difference between people like you and people like me. People like me know that there is no magic. There is only the grind. Work looks like magic to those unwilling to do it.
— Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong, Jason Pargin (64%)
One of the points Jason wants to preach as part of the "lesson" of the book.
Is it true? Yeah, in part. Repetition is required for skill.
Also read it in the context of a city that is unabashedly defined by meritocracy. Billionaires have what they have because they earned it!
Maybe the truth is that it is both - that success at something both requires hard work and dull repetition put in by the individual AND the magic of circumstances beyond that person's control.
Definitely not a point made by this book, at least not at this point.
Absurd Sage replied to Baltipink's status
@Baltipink A very accurate assessment and reflects how I felt as well upon finishing. The book was very good but misnamed, or misleadingly named.
Absurd Sage
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Review of 'Disassembly Required: A Field Guide to Actually Existing Capitalism' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
As a non-economist, I found this a very readable description of capitalism. Mann went over the historical routes and philosophical underpinnings, as well as the current world economic system. I would definitely recommend it for that. I guess the only reason I didn't give it four stars is because I was let down by the end of the book. I kept anticipating some ideas about how we are going to disassemble the current system and there isn't anything of substance there.
Absurd Sage started reading The Places That Scare You by Pema Chödrön
When socialists give up socialism to placate capital (or give up bothering to pretend they hadn’t abandoned it long ago), as they have in Catalunya and all over the world since the end of the Long Boom, it is unacceptable to attribute it simply to political cowardice or self-interested ideological disarmament On the contrary, the explanation is far more straightforward: capital won. Sometimes with armies, sometimes with persuasion, sometimes with money, and sometimes by accident, but it won.
— Disassembly Required: A Field Guide to Actually Existing Capitalism by Geoff Mann
From Chapter 7: "Disassembly Required, or, This Will Not Be Easy"
Absurd Sage finished reading No time to lose by Pema Chödrön
Absurd Sage finished reading Abolish Silicon Valley by Wendy Liu
Abolish Silicon Valley by Wendy Liu
Former insider turned critic Wendy Liu busts the myths of the tech industry, and offers a galvanising argument for why …
Absurd Sage wants to read A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey
Recommended in a footnote of Abolish Silicon Valley
Absurd Sage wants to read Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher
Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? is a 2009 book by British theorist Mark Fisher, …
Recommended in a footnote of Abolish Silicon Valley
Recommended in a footnote of Abolish Silicon Valley
Absurd Sage wants to read The Gig Economy : A Critical Introduction by Jamie Woodcock
Recommended in a footnote of Abolish Silicon Valley
Absurd Sage wants to read Bhagavad-Gita As It Is (Paperback)
After almost a decade of sitting in my "Currently Reading" lists across a half dozen platforms, I'm giving up and moving this back to "Want to Read"
Absurd Sage started reading Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse, #6)
A revolution brewing for generations has begun in fire. It will end in blood.
The …
Loving the Expanse right now