Kickoff For April 21, 2025
It's the tail end of Easter weekend, a time that (according to something I read) has nothing to do with chocolate bunnies. Shocking, right? Seriously, though, even if you don't celebrate Easter I hope you've been able to take some time to be with those important to you.
With that out of the way, let's get Monday started with these links:
The flavour of mechanisation — Wherein we learn a bit about the history of olive oil, the mystique surrounding it, about how the technologies used to produce it have evolved over the millennia, and how those production techniques change social and labour relations.
From the article:
Modern oil-making not only brought the Enlightenment to the Mediterranean world, but also new capitalist forms of production. Up to that point, oil making had followed the logic of mixed property and communal rights. Modern oil-making, by contrast, could succeed only where entrepreneurs controlled the entire cycle of production, from harvesting to storage.
Why the Left needs to watch Star Trek — Wherein Yanis Varoufakis discusses the lessons that we can learn about building a more egalitarian, just (yes, communist) society from paying close attention to the legendary SF television series.
From the article:
But Star Trek does not just offer a vision of a splendid future. Like any other practical manifesto, it offers a theory of change: of social evolution founded on solid historical materialist tenets.
Time expansion experiences: why time slows down in altered states of consciousness — Wherein Steve Taylor looks at some of the theories that try to explain the titular phenomenon, and briefly presents his own idea about it.
From the article:
Around a half of Tees occur in accident and emergency situations. In such situations, people are often surprised by the amount of time they have to think and act. In fact, many people are convinced that time expansion saved them from their serious injury, or even saved their lives – because it allowed them to take preventative action that would normally be impossible.
A User’s Guide to Building a Subculture — Wherein Jeremiah Johnson walks us through the six general principles involved in building a subculture online (a couple of which are a bit disturbing).
From the article:
Embrace all of it. Embrace the goofy jokes and memes. Create lore around your community’s history and why it thinks the way it does. Embrace the canonization, whether ironic or genuine, of “holy figures” for your movement.
What Made the Harlem Hellfighters Legendary? — Wherein we learn about an all-but-forgotten African American unit which fought in World War One alongside the French, a unit that gained the respect of its enemies and its French allies but not their fellow Americans.
From the article:
The German soldiers watched the 369th Infantry withstand their artillery bombardments, poison gas attacks, and unremitting assaults. For this, they called them “Hellfighters.” Their French comrades respectfully called them “Men of Bronze.”
You don’t need a smartphone: a practical, personal guide to downgrading your device — Wherein August Lamm explains how she shrugged off her addiction to her smartphone and the effects it had on her, and offers advice for anyone wanting to make the switch to a so-called dumbphone.
From the article:
The most easily quantifiable benefit of downgrading is time. You will get hours of each day back when you stop scrolling. You can use that time to be healthy or social or productive, but you can also use it to be idle. Idleness is a lost art, and is in my opinion essential to mental health and creativity. I spend a good part of the day just flipping through periodicals, drinking cups of tea, poking clumsily at the piano. I don’t believe that it is possible to waste time when you’re fully present.