Recently I've been getting into politics. There's been a big shift happening in the world over my adolescence, and this has pushed me to learn more about how the world works.

Not everything I've read has made me feel great, but it has all given me surer footing. I feel more proactive, and less reactive. I've had the wherewithall to help people in need instead of panicking during crises.

I'm going to use this page as a way to log all the items I've read, listened to, or discussed. I'll have some thoughts on each as well.

There are some links to websites that are resources for those who feel they are maybe a little lost, as well as resources for those who are well into their own personal studies.

Luxemburg refutes the arguments of revisionist soicialists, namely Eduard Bernstein, by clearly laying out the material consequences of his logic. Bernstein describes 'means of adaptation' for capital to change into socialism, or have capitalism be rendered 'docile' to the needs of society. Luxemburg explains why these 'means of adaptation' have no stabalizing effect on a capitalist system, are counter productive to the aims of socialists, and why the very notion of adapting capitalism is anti-socialist.

The credit system is explained as a concentration of capital, accelerating cycles of collapse, pushing the capitalist system towards its own destruction. Luxemburg explains why employers' organizations (cartels, trusts, and monopolies) do not produce a stable system of pricing and production, but instead produce irreconcilable antagonism between the producer and the consumer, and capital and laborer. Luxemburg explains why Bernstein's 'small capitalists' (petit bourgeois), no matter how great their innovations, will always fail under the weight of less sensitive, more risk averse 'large capitalists'. Bernstein's belief that 'small capitalists' will succeed and produce a more favorable system for society is thus debunked.

Luxemburg refutes the idea of achieving socialism through social reform, clearly noting that systems of politics in a capitalist system are subservient to it. A bourgeois democracy is better than fuedalism but as feudal politics wer subject to the whims of a regnant, a bourgeois democracy is subject to the whims of capital; any progressive social gains are at the whims of capital, and can be taken away if new whims arise. Here too she explains the sleight of hand with regard to the terms 'state' and 'society' that Bernstein is playing. Luxemburg discusses the failure of trade unionism; to defend the labor in one industry in one country is to do one of three things: deny technological advancement, make an enemy of the labor of another industry, or harm the labor of another country.

Luxemburg describes the faulty logic of Bernstein's revisionism with regards to the transition from capitalism to socialism. It is not achieved through the directed action of a small knowing minority, or simply numeric majority. Socialism is only achieved as a result of the economic neccessity of, and its comprehension by, the working masses. To this end, bourgeois democracy cannot address the internal contradictions of capitalism. Democracy is reliant on the success of socialism, while socialism is not reliant in the success of bourgeois democracy.

Revisionism seeks to build socialism within capitalism, as capitalism was born from feudalism. But feudalism gave birth to capitalism by a struggle in legal rights; poverty and inequity cannot be solved by changing legal rights, these are economic issues. Bernstein refutes the idea that capitalism will collapse, revoking the root of Marxist and Socialist thought. Luxemburg explains that this stance proves revisionist thought is not socialist, but capitalist, and should be ignored.

Marion Wheeler and a few others drag me (but like in a camp way?) through a heady non-linear story of fighting a metaphysical force that can kill and maim by simply being observed, known. We know almost from the beginning that the ending will be bitter-sweet. This book builds off of the SCP Foundation universe, a quasi-governmental organization which controls the things in this world (and beyond it) that are dangerous, important, or just weird.

The writing is good, you can really get in the heads of the characters, but where the book shines is iteration on a theme; digging down on the concept of an antimeme. Where a meme is a concept that is propogated, and memetics is the study of how memes begin, evolve, are managed, and die. Antimemes are a concept that has the effect of preventing its own propogation: self-keeping secrets, bugs that disapear from you memory as soon as you perceive them, universe consuming memeplexes that exist only to feed on the space conciousness exists in, a friendly little guy that eats your short term memory. Honestly this should be on highschool curriculum.

The story of a community facing the slow destruction and transformation of New York City. Robinson often seems to have an 'eternal liberalism' mindset that pervaded the writings of the post war to early 2010's sci-fi. In this vein, we follow a number of individuals; a few quants working the economic system and hunted for the privilege, near-feral and seemingly neglected children, workers engaged in slowing the decline of the city's infrastructure, and members of a slowly failing housing cooperative.

The natural outcome of the 'eternal liberalism' is justly framed as climate collapse, and the question is posed, how do you survive when the ecology and social support systems shift beneath your feet, while the economic reality stays basically constant. The ending is hopeful. It frames both the ecology of the Earth and a society of humans as highly adaptable to change. I personally believe that the Earth and human society cannot be successful in rebounding as quickly as this.. But there are quite a few notes of realistic hope to be found.

We follow Horza. He is one of a select few remaining from a species of shape changers. He is working for a highly militaristic species, the Idirans, who consider all non-Idirans to lack a soul and thus be lesser. Another society, The Culture, has engaged the Idirans in war. The Culture believes in personal freedom to the extent that it doesn't interfere with others. They have arrived at an ideological impasse, fight the Idirans for thier obivous excess cruelty and violence, or sit with the knowledge that they didn't. Horza sides with the Idirans on completely different ideological grounds; Horza believes that the citizens of The Culture have given up thier self-actualization to non-sentient computers and have thus given up thier agency.. These 'non-sentient computers' have thier own beliefs about this.

Horza is sent by the Idirans to find and acquire a 'mind', one of the AI that maintains The Culture, that has recently been manufactured. Nothing goes according to plan. We follow a wide cast of characters, privy to all of thier thoughts. We witness thier hopes, dreams, falling into and out of love, and a great deal of loss. The whole enterprise is doomed nearly from the beginning. We are left with the results of the greater conflict between the Idirans and The Culture. The two Questions the book asks at the end; did the actions of the characters we followed have any effect on the outcome of the war?, Was the outcome worth the suffering of those involved?

Another by QNTM. Or more correctly, 10 short stories. Each one is a fascinating dive into a potential technology and how it might interface with humanity. If we can create copies of human minds, how will they be treated? Several of the stories deal with how two cultures interact; when one is dying, when one has greater power over the other, when one is responsible for the other. How alien will true artificial intelligence be? Will it hold similar ethics as humanity? What if it's primed for growth, or for production, or simply designed to mimic our behaviour?

Each story is told in its own style, like an archived article, like chat logs, memos, or conversations. The book plays around with how the story medium affects the way the story is interpreted. I would definitely reccomend this to friends. It's short, sweet, and in nice little chunks.