general-en

caleb 2021-04-26 14:48:16

Books I'm thinkin about:

1. A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit. Discussion topics: inherent nature of people (good or bad?) What it is to be a hero, what it means to do good, the role of authority in society, emergency preparation, good governance vs bad...
2. Walkaway by Cory Doctorow (or really anything by Doctorow, Radicalized in particular has some short stories available online for free). Discussion topics: Open source / libre, project management, copyright/left, communism, anarchy, currency / value / economy, cryptography, futurism, philosophy of mind, LGBT issues, socio-economics, radical individualism, emergency preparation, distributed self-reliance, distributed networking, communication from a technical perspective...
3. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (or again anything by him lmao), Discussion topics: hacking and hacking philosophy (white, grey, blackhat, red/blue team), linguistics (especially in the internet era), the internet and its purpose and freedom therein, linguistic anthropology, programming, social engineering, VR/AR, feminism, capitalism, economics, futurism, mechanical and electrical engineering, sailing / sea-based technology,
4. Blindsight by Peter Watts. Discussion topics: Consciousness, theory of mind, extraterrestial life, sentience, mental health and related rights, space travel, bio-ethics, medicine and medical ethics, linguistics (intensely so), biology
5. Something by Isaac Asimov. Disccusion topics: Theory of Mind, AI, futurism, VR/AR, economics, government, society
6. The Communist Manifesto or Das Kapital. Discussion Topics: Economics, society, history, human rights, futurism, cryptocurrency, value / worth, life,
Notice that other than "Paradise Built in Hell" all of above were written by white men, and other than the Communist Manifesto, all were written originally in English. I'm very open to other suggestions, particularly from other backgrounds. I'm just craving some good talking!

caleb 2021-04-26 14:49:08

If I end up being the one to organize this, I would probably choose a relatively relaxed pace to allow fitting into the schedule of busy full-time working people. Maybe once-ever-two-weeks meetings, or, perhaps even once-every-month meetings!

bess 2021-04-26 15:56:53

Oh sounds great, would love to join 👀

caleb 2021-04-28 14:50:45

Cool 🙂 I'm putting the word out in different channels for now, want to get at least 5 people before i start crowdsourcing book suggestions

Thomas Breier 2021-04-28 15:15:06

Interested 🙂

patcon 2021-05-03 12:38:21

Maybe stupid idea for high participation: Progressive Time-Sink Book Club! Choose a book that also has a great podcast interview of the author, and maybe also a wicked tweet thread or instagram story, for the _really_ busy ppl. Then ppl have no excuse not to show up, even if they can't finish the book :wink:

patcon 2021-05-03 12:40:48

Also, good books for talking over: emergent strategy by adrienne maree brown, social physics by alex pentland, and collective courage by Dr jessica gordon-nembhard.