late night thoughts on change

  1. there are 3 narratives of how the world changes over time.
  • there’s liberalism, which goes something like: the world is getting better over time, because we know more science, and science solves social problems.
  • there's fatalism, nowadays referred to as decel/doomerism
  • there's eternal return: we make the same errors, over and over again, eternally

  1. anybody who wants to change anything about the world should first spend several years in a quiet room learning how the world works.

  2. is it chris who said to me, or did i say to him - "the future is more radically undetermined than we even believe" ?

  3. here's what i know about change: less than 15 years ago in this country, if you couldn't afford it, you simply went without health insurance. insurers could deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions. i know that the healthcare landscape in the US is still absymal. i also know that there is now preventative care, dependent coverage for young adults, and no lifetime or annual limits.

  4. i know that when you are trying to lose or gain weight you should use the scale, at least at first, because you simply can’t trust your eyes.

  5. hamza said to me once: "compounding is a personal kink of mine almost. i just love thinking about compounding." and then i was like, "hmm alr. what do you like besides compounding?" and he was said: "just different flavors of compounding. you can compound metabolicism. you can compound suffering reduction. you can compound muscularity or how wealthy you are or the population of humanity. in some level i see the entire world as a possible compound opportunity."

  6. how do demographics of people come to be allied with progressive social and political movements? what kind of political accountability can be constructed to tie people together across scientifc-technical hierarchies?

  7. might there be ways of developing a progressive science/technology politics in alliance with antimilitary science facility conversion action groups? many technologists in silicon valley, the high-tech cowboys included, do not want to work on military science. can these personal preferences and cultural tendencies be welded into progressive politics among this professional middle class? haraway

  8. in 1845, factory workers in lowell were spending an average of 12.5 hours per day performing dreary, exhausting work in onerous conditions. with commute time factored in, the days approached 15 hours. after asking and demanding and asking and demanding, the 10-hour movement was finally passed in parliament. another factory act was passed in 1831, limiting the working day to 12 hours for all those under 18. but there were no procedures for enforcement.

  9. i know you have to ask and demand and ask and demand and take and take and demand and ask.

  10. in 1886 in the US, a loose collection of skilled/unskilled workers/farmers/reformers, referring to itself as the "national labor union", petitioned congress for a 40-hour workweek. while this call went unheeded at the time, and the organization folded in 1873, by 1912 the idea made its way into the progressive campaign of theodore roosevelt. "8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest and 8 hours for what you will."

  11. daniel always tells me: "madeleine, you don't think your way into a new way of living. you live your way into a new way of thinking."

  12. technologists and social scientists are both cultural brokers.

  • in sociology we need a moratorium on the stigmatizing language that riddles contemporary research with such loaded terms such as "hard core", welfare "users", "intergenerational transmission". "working poor" as a replacement for "working class" depoliticizes poor people by divorcing their interests in better wages and income from those of more organized labor groups.
  • likewise technologists should begin by acknowledging that all technology has a political mission. and then maybe we can be curious & optimistic about the future of mind-expanding tools for thought.

  1. a charming and revealing compliment - ben refers to himself and people he respects as "doin the work", with the "g" dropped from "doing", sort of like a Beat poet

  2. the fear is that everything changes. the greater fear is that nothing does.

  3. top down thinking: what is perfection. bottom up thinking: how to build things in an imperfect world?

  4. something something deleuze idk i didn't finish reading capitalism & schizophrenia .. there does not exist a fixed and stable ontology for the social world that proceeds from "atoms" to "molecules" to "materials". rather, social formations are assemblages of other complex configurations, and they in turn play roles in other, more extended configurations ..

  5. one need not be the "kind of person who would do X" in order to do X. oscar schindler was a lowkey a pretty shitty guy -- for one, he was a decided antisemite! he just didn't think that jews should be genocided. and so he began to hide them in his factory.

  6. sutton: what is so obvious to you that you can’t even see it? Your biggest contribution to the world will be something that is obvious to you. his own answer is that when he was young it was obvious that intelligence was mediated by a rewards signal. This obvious idea would later turn into reinforcement learning

  7. pointing out a market failure is trivial. finding a solution is the hard part

  8. sontag: time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once, and space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you.

  9. beds and a computer and 3 square meals for every child.

  10. the worst thing about moving on from any catastrophe on any scale is that the best way to move on is the one that doesn't give you immediate catharsis.