Finished reading: Neoliberalism’s Demons by Adam Kotsko 📚
Neoliberalism is, in sum, a totalizing world order, an integral self-reinforcing system of political theology, and it has progressively transformed our world into a living hell. This is felt most acutely by those who have been fully demonized by an economically rapacious and brutally violent prison system.
Finished reading: Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here by Jonathan Blitzer 📚
This book is a must read for those who want to know how the current #immigration crisis in the United States came to be.
Spoiler alert: In many ways, the U.S. is living with the results of its own actions.
Finished reading: Debt by David Graeber 📚
This is a terrific book. I wish I could write more like Graeber.
Finished reading: Social Catholicism for the Twenty-First Century? Volume 1 by William F. Murphy 📚
This is a vitally important & timely read for anyone interested in the relationship between the Catholic church & these political times.
Today, I was able to attend a special exhibit at the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum: The Artist Who Captured Eichmann.
This compelling exhibition tells the exciting exploits of Peter Malkin, an artist and Mossad agent who played a pivotal role in apprehending Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1960. During his three-week mission, Malkin sketched and painted on the pages of a South American travel guide, creating a unique artistic chronicle of his experiences.
This was an episode of history not on my radar until now. The art was vibrant and engaging, a stark contrast to the evil encountered by the artist.
JD Vance says school shootings are a ‘fact of life,’ calls for better security
No, JD. You’re wrong. School shootings are not a fact of life.
They are the result of policies that prioritize “liberty” over life and an inane interpretation of the 2nd amendment over the common good.
I cannot believe that the NYT published this opinion piece on the birthday of the United States. Why I Don’t Vote In this flippant article, Matthew Walther writes off the concept of civic duty as relativism and argues that not voting is okay because abstaining is just as expressive as casting a ballot. WHAT? All this just days after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a former president’s quest for immunity!
Scarlett Johansson Says OpenAI Ripped Off Her Voice for ChatGPT
Johansson’s statement, relayed to WIRED by her publicist, claims that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman asked her last September to provide ChatGPT’s new voice but that she declined. She describes being astounded to see the company demo a new voice for ChatGPT last week that sounded like her anyway.
This alleged behavior by OpenAI erodes any trust I might have had in the company. Brazenly disregarding Johansson’s declination does not bode well for those of us who don’t have the resources to hire a legal team.
Perhaps this story will be an exhibit in the NYTimes’ lawsuit against OpenAI which alleges similar behavior: seemingly amicable negotiations that end with OpenAI doing whatever they want with content they don’t have permission to use.
After a first read of Dignitas Infinita, I share a few of my initial thoughts here.