Book Club Delay & Notes From New York (Patreon)

Hello sweet little fucking strawberries how are you?

BOOK CLUB:

So: I fucking forgor last week Book Club was supposed to cover chapter 8 as well. As such I am behind in my reading. I also will just readily admit to you I also am languishing a bit in the length of some of Lanier's detours in between the critical hits, and now I am in New York with a bunch of things to do this weekend so crushing Chapters 8-10 sounds really unfun.

As such we'll be shifting the schedule back a week like so:

Part Three:

April 14th - Chapters 8 - 10 [30 PAGES]

April 21st - Chapters 11 and 12 [25 PAGES]

Part Four:

April 28th - Chapters 12 and 13 [26 PAGES]

Part Five:

May 5th - Chapter 14 + Afterward (if your copy has one) [34 PAGES]

NEW YORK:

I'm here for a friends birthday and to see a concert, and to continue doing the things I do all the time but in new locations and at greater expense.

Books are a fuckign stupid thing to buy while travelling because theyre fucking heavy but I love the book stores here so much!! Excited abt all these buys

I came across a quote by Ellen Ullman on tumblr that had me scrambling to learn more about her, within about 4 seconds found this convo w Jaron Lanier and discovered Lanier did the forward of one of her books. Birds of a feather, apples, trees etc.

Here's the quote that got me excited:

“Real techies don’t worry about forced eugenics. I learned this from a real techie in the cafeteria of a software company. The project team is having lunch and discussing how long it would take to wipe out a disease inherited recessively on the X chromosome. First come calculations of inheritance probabilities. Given a population of a given size, one of the engineers arrives at a wipe-out date. Immediately another suggests that the date could be moved forward by various manipulations of the inheritance patterns. For example, he says, there could be an education campaign. The six team members then fall over one another with further suggestions. They start with rewards to discourage carriers from breeding. Immediately they move to fines for those who reproduce the disease. Then they go for what they call “more effective” measures: Jail for breeding. Induced abortion. Forced sterilization. Now they’re hot. The calculations are flying. Years and years fall from the final doom-date of the disease. Finally, they get to the ultimate solution. “It’s straightforward,” someone says. “Just kill every carrier.” Everyone responds to this last suggestion with great enthusiasm. One generation and—bang—the disease is gone. Quietly, I say, “You know, that’s what the Nazis did.” They all look at me in disgust. It’s the look boys give a girl who has interrupted a burping contest. One says, “This is something my wife would say.” When he says “wife,” there is no love, warmth, or goodness in it. In this engineer’s mouth, “wife” means wet diapers and dirty dishes. It means someone angry with you for losing track of time and missing dinner. Someone sentimental. In his mind (for the moment), “wife” signifies all programming-party-pooping, illogical things in the universe. Still, I persist. “It started as just an idea for the Nazis, too, you know.” The engineer makes a reply that sounds like a retch. “This is how I know you’re not a real techie,” he says.”

Here is Ullman's Google Talk, Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology. If you even CARE.

Here is a 300 dollar shirt that I didn't buy (or realize was 300 dollars when i went to try it on)

Now I have to run to birthday festivities.

Talk soon!

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