hello! hi! it’s newsletter time! how are you, and what have you been thinking about and doing this month?

first off, quick note: you may or may not have noticed this is not from substack! back to buttondown (referal link!) as i had a crisis of moral confidence about substack again and decided to stop trying to be comfortable there. this should be the last move for the foreseeable.

i’m debating doing a walkthrough of my capacities space as my first proper youtube video after a long hiatus, or maybe a walkthrough of the highlights of the last month thinking and writing wise. capacities is PKM (personal knowledge management, very grandiose term i’m not sure i like¹) software, aka where i do my not etaking or commonplacing. i do a lot of day to day planning in it, but also all my writing starts out in there as an idea or series of links so i love it. would love to hear of more people who do this, i like nym’s archive a lot though i have less of a focus on collecting media, so would like to see other examples (or hear from you if you’re a notekeeper/commonplacer/PKMer/etc)!

been thinking a lot about effective altruism (spoiler i hate it but find it seductive and notice how easily it’s a frame that gets used for big decisions that maybe need more careful thought about the values a decision reveals e.g. “it’s most important to save the most lives” is often a thing they espouse, ignoring the silent “no matter the structural or economic apparatus i am helping put in place or maintaining through my actions”. i’m not saying it has no place, i think utilitarianism can be a helpful tool among many. positioning their altruism as “effective”, and others as not is weird straight away. i read moral ambition (an EA book) this month, can you tell? in the book the thing i found the most seductive, a school for effective charities, lost its shine when it was described more. no attaching yourself to “pet” causes (aka “do what is most effective to EA, not what you are passionate or already knowledgeable about”) and of course, you must work like a dog. no thanks! i think every life is important and, surprisingly to many, that includes my own.

reading:

• careless people, which i am fascinated and repelled by. spoilers i guess but i find it repellant that someone would (apparently, i really hope she is exaggerating for effect) guess where facebook is heading (most kindly, having huge sway and influence in governments and decisions across the globe) and want to get in on the ground floor as a policy person. no one seems to agree with me that has read it, and i really feel for her circumstantially, but difficult to read knowing of all the harm meta has done in the world honestly.

• less computer (read it in reverse order/from the last link up), a guide to how to “reduce computer anxiety and make better tech choices”. i found it really thought provoking and i think computer should always be a choice, not an imposition. someone on instagram that i can’t remember the handle of said that the internet was better when it was for freaks and weirdos and whilst i have enjoyed having more people here with me, i think a lot of them feel trapped and we can’t be having that.

• moral ambition, as mentioned above. frustrating book in many ways, easy to read. diabolical a white man would get on his computer/notebook and say the abolitionist movement started with a plagiarist (sure, the person who was copied didn’t care and it was normal) in england (when even the author describes the movement as having adherents already??). people get on the internet and tell lies everyday so i’m not sure why i’m surprised. if you read it let me know what you think, i have a whole video/blog/whatever cooking tentatively titled “i wanted to be a billionaire to save the world” about effective altruism, earning to give and the audacity/delusion of individual action. he admits a bit in the book that it takes networks of people to create a change, but it’s so so seductive to believe you could just decide to it.

watching: pain in the neck, a lesbian “vampires and zombies” web series. great costumes! muchelleb and creative pep talk, self help content i love and pretty much the only youtubers i can still stand in the space² these days. reuploaded cecile emeke taking me through a wormhole to an earlier time in the internet. abe’s fables video on giving up, explaining why i can’t give up on writing/posting/researching in their characteristic flair.

listening: ed buys houses by sidney gish, especially hexagons and other fun materials.

researching: effective altruism (when will i be released from this? sorry for saying it so much in this newsletter lol), AI data centers’ energy consumption, audre lorde. also have something bubbling away in my mind about “valuable/meaningful” work and lives, but it’s very early.

wrote three weeknotes since last time: #67, #68 and #69 (nice). if i was sensible i would have written #70 before this newsletter went out but i’m not! wrote the price of community is not inconvenience and it went down well-for-my-blog which was nice! did one additional livestream but my wifi was playing up so won’t be linking. i will try and do some pre-recorded youtube videos soon! how do youse feel about slideshow/powerpoint/”live talk” style videos lol? cos that’s probably what you’re getting.

hope you’re having a great day! see you on the flip side, on the internet somewhere, or in a month’s time!

any typos are ‘cos i didn’t re-read, i mean, are on purpose actually.

wishing you more than the best, olu online 💟