Smol Updates + Recent Readings
Hey there. I haven’t written to you (y’all, really, this is a newsletter after all) in some time. Quite a few things have changed (as per usual), so I’ll begin with that.
new … new … new role
I’ve started a new role at a non-profit NGO. This is (more or less) what Nava is but without private investment and run in the open, which is more preferable and more in line with my values of working in the public for the public. Being a public benefit corporation has perks (and downsides) but the need for public transparency and a venue of public accountability has grown in my list of things I need to have in the places I contribute my labor to. As I’ve grown older, learned more from those before and in front of me, building for the sake of accruing wealth isn’t humane at all. I can’t abide by it, nor can I feel comfortable directly participating in it (cue a clink of the quarter into the “we live in a society” jar). Y’all know this about me by now (I’d hope).
giving it away
I recently had to move because of life. After recently moving from California, one of the biggest issues we had was our books. It was bad enough that I believe it contributed to a tire popping in the moving truck. With this one, we downsized a lot - I personally gave away about sixty books (my partner likely more so, she’s more well-read than me) to local donation centers. I still managed to have over two hundred books left over. What can I say, I like books! This has renewed my interest need to repair my eReader, so I can lean on it for more digital reading and slowly donate more books.
I’m also considering sending my books to people in a few months - I’ll have a page on my site that you all can visit, pick and have shipped to you. Keep an eye out for that.
reading
I’ve finally finished reading Abolish Silicon Valley by Wendy Liu. She published a video speaking about the book, but I do recommend getting a copy if you can. With books like this, I tend to get in the weeds - I go into the mentioned media and review the sections that linked to them. This gives me a deeper perspective of how the author presents their ideas. Liu’s approach to speaking to the younger generation of tech entrées and understanding how the apparatus of the industry works from a non-capitalist perspective was not only validating, but also affirming. I can use her work as an anchor and perspective going forward.
We need more peers writing material that challenges the status quo (that truly only exists within the wealthy circles - outside of it, people see tech as either a vulture or blocker to the things they need) and working on things to help combat this. For example, Dawn Wages has called on peers to look into the Ethical Source on her site with context as to how such an initiative can give us a level of legal “teeth” to companies that use tech to enact inhumane behaviors or endorse groups that do, ranging from Palantir to Microsoft.
I hope this is a chill update. If not, enjoy the picture of Nike sleeping next to me on the couch.
Until next time.
