Typically I read two books simultaneously: one fiction, one non fiction. I love audiobooks, and usually follow the same pattern. So two books in text, two books in audio simultaneously. Sometimes, when I want to get through a book quick, I'll do both audio and text.
If you are interested in what movies I watch, check me out on Letterboxd (letterboxd.com/chadkoh/)
We all notice when the poor get poorer: when there are more rough sleepers and …
Ch1: Poverty much more visible than extreme wealth. Media doesn’t report enough on the rich, many don’t notice inequality. 4 kinds of wealthy. Diff between rich and super-rich. 3 thresholds: the Rich Limit: how much it takes for people to think of you as rich; the Ethical Limit: the max amount you can hold without feeling icky (about 1M per person); the political limit: the cap the gov should incur (10M per person).
We all notice when the poor get poorer: when there are more rough sleepers and …
Intro: Exploring the ethics of extreme wealth. She puts her cards on the table right away, arguing for an “ethical limit” of 1m per person, to be dug into later. She bats away common criticisms: limitarianism is not about USSR communism. Nor the abolition of markets or private property. She takes apart the “envy objection” and points out the illogic of envy politics.
Our current definition of “productivity” is broken. It pushes us to treat busyness as a …
Just enough capitalism
3 stars
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.
When was the last time you participated in an election for an online group chat …
Epilogue: Wrapup. "Feudal designs permit expressions of affective voice but not… effective voice." "Feudal defaults teach their users the embedded ideology of homesteading" (colonialism) "Through governable stacks, communities can identify and root out feudal patterns and remake them as commons." "The stack is social, technical, and environmental infrastructure. It is affective and effective." Not techno-solutionism.
When was the last time you participated in an election for an online group chat …
Ch5: Cultivating governable spaces. Relies heavily on feminist theory and countering paternalism of feudalism and hierarchy. Examples of coops, exit to community, citizen assemblies, participatory budgeting, Decidim, German codetermination, etc etc. These are seeds that show how we could bring citizen governance to online life. "Self-governance is not a solution; it is a practice"
When was the last time you participated in an election for an online group chat …
Ch4: Designing "governance stacks" to refuse the colonialism of implicit feudalism. "Governable stacks are confrontations." Designing user control into apps, even at a small scale. Covers many experiments. May First Movement Tech & Policykit mentioned! 4 design goals for building self-governing modular systems, plus "archaeology" which is about connecting new gov designs to those of the past.
When was the last time you participated in an election for an online group chat …
Ch3: using case studies of Restorative Justice and Cryptoeconomics to show expanded political imaginaries. In order to have an accountable social space, we need to "shift from scalability to subsidiarity." He does offer criticisms, but both cases demonstrate new ways for local autonomy that the reigning social infrastructure won't allow.
When was the last time you participated in an election for an online group chat …
Ch2: Examination of the California Ideology, its "politics of no politics", frontierism and homesteading logic, and "faithless religion of exit." Stands to reason the tech does not teach political skills. Contrasts with homeplaces, Politics of everyday life, consensus building and basically microsolidarity.
When was the last time you participated in an election for an online group chat …
Ch1: A history of online spaces from the old BBSs to modern platforms, and how their design leads to "implicit feudalism" taking away voice and leaving exit as the only option for users. From BDFLs to all powerful mods: there is little to no democratic infra for communities to improve. This is the core problem this book will tackle. The chapter ends with some positive cases (Wikipedia, Debian, Python).
A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the …
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 …
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.
A new way of seeing the essential systems hidden inside our walls, under our streets, …
Ch11 “like forests our infrastructure systems have the potential to be modular, networked, decentralized, responsive, and resilient” Not huge Hoover Dams, should be smaller & all over the place. Nobody completely independent. Citizenship = responsibility = stewardship. Call for equity! shoutout to William Gibson's “Jackpot” 🤓 Default measure for decision making should not be ECONOMIC. Pink collar future for infra!
A new way of seeing the essential systems hidden inside our walls, under our streets, …
Ch10 - 6 precepts for designing future infra: Design for energy abundance (solar!); Resilience; Flexibility (Small, decentralized, federated, flexible, even temporary); towards an ethics of care (no Utilitarianism!); recognize & defend non-monetary benefits; make it PUBLIC. Transforming infra is transforming culture. Little by little. Avoid huge overarching solutions. Need room to explore, experiment, roll back
