Hello! We're finishing Techno-Negative by Thomas Dekeyser this week with his conclusions. If you'd like to, now might also be a good time to check out Thomas Dekeyser's interview with Paris Marx on Tech Won't Save Us, where they discussed the book, techno-negativity, and about techno-abolitionism.

Also, our Thursday plan this week will be a little different than usual:

On Thursday, we'll get to chat with Thomas Dekeyser about his book. In order to make that possible, we'll be meeting at 6pm GMT (aka 1pm EDT (aka 10am PDT)). This is a few hours earlier than usual, so I'll send an email on Thursday morning to remind you of the exceptional meeting time. I'm really excited to get to chat with him about the book, and I hope you'll be able to join us this Thursday.

We may also change our meeting time in general after this week; if you'd like to give input on that, please join the signal or the fluxer chat (both linked below) and look out for a message (or feel free to reach out privately).

next books

After Techno-Negative, we'll read The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy by Gil Durán. We'll start The Nerd Reich next week, so preorder it at bookshop.org or put in a request at your local library ASAP.

After The Nerd Reich, we'll read The Eye of the Master by Matteo Pasquinelli. I think we'll get to this around the end of September. Please plan accordingly (it may be available at your local library already, but if not, you might consider asking them to acquire it).

After The Eye of the Master, we'll read Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires by Paris Marx. The book launches October 20, so my goal is to arrive at the doorstep of the launch, (more or less) ready to start the book.

(I usually don't plan this far in advance, so I hope this roadmap is helpful. If it is, I'll try to continue to plan ahead like this.)

to do

Buy or reserve the following books at your local library (with descending urgency):

• Preorder The Nerd Reich by Gil Durán (August 31)
• The Eye of the Master by Matteo Pasquinelli (appx end of September)
• Preorder Hyperscale by Paris Marx (October 19)

Also: I recently I made a page on bookshop.org to list the books we've been reading and will be reading going forward. If you want to point someone to a rundown of what we've been reading, this is an easy option: AI Skeptics Books on Bookshop.org.

You don't seem to be subscribed. Consider subscribing if you're interested in getting these emails in your inbox.

Ok, let's get back to the rest of the thing.

routine stuff

As a reminder, there are a few good ways to keep up with the reading group:

• newsletter: I send updates on Mondays and Thursdays. In the Monday updates, I'll point to what to read; in the Thursday updates, I'll send some reflections and an icebreaker question to think about, and a reminder of where & how to join the video chat.
• video chats: Thursdays at 8pm ET (usually, not this week though!) we have a video chat on jitsi where we talk about the week's readings.
• group chat: if you want to chat with people, we have a few pretty active group chats: We're using Fluxer, which is similar to Discord or Slack. We also have a signal group chat (but keep in mind that Signal group chats can get overwhelming, especially at large scales).

reading plans

I'll figure out our week-by-week reading plans for the next few books soon, but we'll start The Nerd Reich on August 31. For now, just try to get a copy of the book, and we'll try to ease into it for the first week to avoid losing everyone who's still waiting on their order to arrive.

last thoughts

If you come across something you think we'd like to read, I'd love to hear about it; contact me.

Okay, that's it for now; see you Thursday.