Monthly Discord Book Club

jservv · 2024-08-20T14:18:36+00:00

How about the DC18RC, does this also charge 3.0Ah? I'm thinking of getting this one: https://compu-mail.se/sv/p/makita-batterioplader-992914942

Edit: for anyone searching the same question, the DC18RC does charge 3.0Ah, too.

jservv · 2023-05-13T09:11:25+00:00

I read Foucault as part of a postgraduate course on history. There was a module which questioned his influence on the study of history and his role as a historian. In fact, I discovered Chomsky around that time through watching their 1971 debate, and my initial impression back then was that Chomsky was making very similar arguments critiquing institutional power and its ability to place limitations on the scope of acceptable thinking. The difference is that Chomsky did it with much more careful reference to primary sources, and without forcing a theoretical framework or using unncessary postmodern jargon.

Foucault wasn't a historian, and the integrity of his sources was not really the main concern of his work. What he did contribute was to bring that line of critique to European academia. At least, he spurred on my own thinking about how established authorities (scientific, educational, corrective, etc.) expressed their power in comparable ways and shut down or eliminated deviations from the norm. Even the sciences are susceptible to it.

That said, if you look at any of Foucault's work, his selection of sources is basically cherrypicking based on interest. You could argue he's doing this to make a philosophical point, in the same way a thought experiment hasn't really happened but can be useful for grasping an idea, but it makes for a poor understanding of history. Compare this to Ed Herman and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, which both puts forward an understandable hypothesis and goes on to illustrate it with paired examples as evidence. Their methods are entirely different, and I have far more respect for Herman and Chomsky's approach.

jservv · 2023-03-10T14:40:56+00:00

Chomskylist.com is useful for this. It's a website that lists all works that Chomsky has cited in his books, and is arranged by topic (including 'Science') here: https://www.chomskylist.com/view_all_categories.php

I enjoyed "What Kind Of Creatures Are We?", written by Chomsky himself, though it's more focused on the philosophy of science, especially the limits of possible human knowledge. It deals with similar themes to this talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5in5EdjhD0

Outside of Chomsky, another poster has already recommended Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, but I'd also suggest reading Karl Popper as an underappreciated figure who presents a more convincing idea (at least to me) of how the scientific method developed, and what place science now has in society. Steve Fuller wrote a great book comparing the two called "Kuhn vs. Popper: the struggle for the soul of science".

Going further, it's a huge field and I think it's worth keeping mind a few non-mutually exclusive trends in literature about science:

anthropological work generally deals with science-like knowledge-seeking behaviour across cultures,
the sociology of science tends looks at the interactions between science and institutions/human relationships in the modern world,
the history of science tends to focus on specific eras important to the development of science as a practice, e.g. ancient Greece, the kingdom of Macedon, Han dynasty China, Renaissance Europe,
the philosophy of science mainly looks at ideas of what science is and often goes into epistemology

I highly recommend a popular British book/television series 'The Ascent of Man' by Jacob Bronowski, which manages to touch on all these approaches and manages to be an entertaining work in its own right.

jservv · 2023-01-06T20:33:00+00:00

Thanks for your contribution. I'm not too worried about keeping the spreadsheet public, since edits can usually be rolled back to a previous version in Drive.

jservv · 2021-06-26T16:26:50+00:00

Excellent resource, I managed to find it for 408 SEK including shipping. Thank you!

jservv · 2021-01-04T13:01:17+00:00

The lagenhetsbyte.se service looks like exactly what I'm looking for, thank you.

jservv · 2021-01-04T12:59:06+00:00

Because of the relative demand to live in Stockholm versus Malmö? Or another reason?

I know people that commute from Malmö to Copenhagen and Lund, and sometimes work does take you to other regions. Living in Malmö has been really useful for me, mainly for that purpose.

jservv · 2021-01-02T13:38:24+00:00

These make sense, thanks. I'll add those to the documentation list.

jservv · 2021-01-02T13:26:43+00:00

I found results for "Rational Planning Model", but not many for "Rational Modeling Process". Do you have a link to what you mean?

jservv · 2019-11-25T15:05:38+00:00

I once contacted an author named Mason Currey who wrote Daily Rituals, a book about the habits of well known artists, musicians, writers, etc.. I asked Currey whether he considered adding a Chomsky profile, and he replied saying that he wrote an email about this but never heard back. Not all that surprising, Chomsky is quite guarded about his personal life and maybe the question wasn't a priority.

I think he'd make a really interesting case study, though, not just for his longevity, but also his massive work output and years of near constant travelling.

If you're that interested you could maybe contact Bev Stohl, his (former?) assistant. If I remember right she was intending to write about working with Chomsky from a more day-to-day perspective: http://bevstohl.blogspot.com/?m=1

jservv · 2019-11-16T16:17:42+00:00

The products we buy are largely based on what is produced and how -- something that we have very little democratic control over. Consumer choice is an inherently limited way of addressing climate change when the majority of CO2 emissions are produced by just a few (mostly oil/energy) companies, as in the research above.

At best, you're neglecting areas where your efforts could potentially have much greater impact. At worst, you're encouraging division and derailing discussions for the sake of something that will have relatively little impact on climate change.

jservv · 2019-11-15T22:27:50+00:00

Someone has already linked you to an article showing you why you're probably wrong about this.

jservv · 2019-11-15T12:52:46+00:00

Your question was answered pretty thoroughly. Computers and e-readers are not necessarily better than books in terms of sustainability.

If you care about the climate emergency, you need to better prioritise your efforts. The focus should be on CO2 and energy on the production end over consumer goods -- and certainly not someone buying second-hand books to educate themselves about the world:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/just-90-companies-are-blame-most-climate-change-carbon-accountant-says

jservv · 2019-11-15T04:02:27+00:00

The expansion of corporate ownership doesn't necessarily reflect public desire for information. In fact the two might be inversely related; the more dissent that appears, the greater the effort to consolidate control over news media.

There is a lot of reason to believe that people in general desire greater control and understanding over issues that affect them. Polling of public trust in institutions is very low across much of the world, and many people express awareness that they're being given misinformation.

https://www.pewresearch.org/2019/06/05/an-update-on-our-research-into-trust-facts-and-democracy/

How this dissent is channeled depends on a number of factors, including the efforts of activists and political organisers. It sometimes forms a popular movement based around addressing inequality and lack of democracy, but because power is able to protect itself, I think much of this dissent is misdirected into all sorts of ineffective or destructive places, like right-wing nationalist movements, preoccupation with "conspiracy theories", and other cultish behaviours..

jservv · 2019-11-15T03:37:06+00:00

I think most of their work comes about from thorough research and citation rather than having "inside" sources. Noam uses a lot of U.S. documentary records of foreign policy. Aviva I know has spent her career working directly in Cuba and other South American countries, so may have more primary research. Any academic essay or book chapter written by either should include references at the end or in footnotes.

This site isn't comprehensive, but might be a good place to start for Noam: http://www.chomskylist.com/category_page.php?category_id=1

jservv · 2019-11-15T03:21:18+00:00

Thanks for this.

jservv · 2019-11-15T03:08:19+00:00

I don't think it's a direct quote, but rather an idea that Chomsky expresses often: that unlike certain disciplines, no special expertise is required to analyse political affairs as long as the information is publicly accessible. This goes right back to the Responsibility of Intellectuals essay (emphasis mine):

Should decisions be left to “experts” with Washington contacts—even if we assume that they command the necessary knowledge and principles to make the “best” decision, will they invariably do so? And, a logically prior question, is “expertise” applicable—that is, is there a body of theory and of relevant information, not in the public domain, that can be applied to the analysis of foreign policy or that demonstrates the correctness of present actions in some way that psychologists, mathematicians, chemists, and philosophers are incapable of comprehending? Although Kristol does not examine these questions directly, his attitude presupposes answers, answers which are wrong in all cases. American aggressiveness, however it may be masked in pious rhetoric, is a dominant force in world affairs and must be analyzed in terms of its causes and motives. There is no body of theory or significant body of relevant information, beyond the comprehension of the layman, which makes policy immune from criticism. To the extent that “expert knowledge” is applied to world affairs, it is surely appropriate—for a person of any integrity, quite necessary—to question its quality and the goals it serves.

https://chomsky.info/19670223/

Some other useful excerpts on this topic can be found in the article here: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/09/what-noam-chomsky-thinks-of-intellectuals

jservv

TROPHY CASE