User:Wordfa/readerNotes

- The Dawn of Everything ~ David Graeber & David Wengrow

“We are projects of collective self-creation. What if we approached human history that way? What if we treat people, from the beginning, as imaginative, intelligent, playful creatures who deserve to be understood as such? What if, instead of telling a story about how our species fell from some idyllic state of equality, we ask how we came to be trapped in such tight conceptual shackles that we can no longer even imagine the possibility of reinventing ourselves?”

To be honest I don't know much about Wengrow but I'm a Graeber stan. The book posits the question of when inequality started, and is written from an Anarchist and anthropological perspective. However, more then that it gives insights into the history of civilization, in a way that makes the reader question our strongly held assumptions about the linear telling of history. It constantly inspires me to believe in a better world, and to question the myths our society works under.

- The Real world of Technology ~ Ursula Franklin

"While we should not forgot that these prescriptive technologies are often exceedingly effective and efficient, they come with an enormous social mortgage"

A dear friend gave me this book when I started talking about AI too much. He told me that my issues with AI were less about the technology itself and more about Technology in general. I love this book and the way it breaks downs Technologies impact on our lives. Franklin was a scientist and this book is based of a series of lectures she gave, which make it so easy to read.

Last two chapters suck....

- Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation ~ Joseph Weizenbaum

"But the difference between a mechanical act and an authentically human one is that the latter terminates at a node whose decisive parameter is not 'Because you told me to' but 'Because I choose to'"

Oh have you read Weizenbaum. No?. We let me mansplaining this shit to you for like 5 hours because no one wants to read this whole book.

Weizenbaum was this computer scientist guy and he made ELIZA. people were like this shit amazing it should replace therapists, and we should make AI do everything. This book is Weizenbaum being like, no dude your dumb, this shit awful and anti human, let me explain child.

I love it so much.