biggest part of Big Media (more)

CableCo; aka Xfinity ISP (more)

Fernando A. Flores is a Mexican-American author.[1] His works include the novel Tears of the Trufflepig, which was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and the short story collections Death to the Bullshit Artists of South Texas, Vol. 1 and Death to the Bullshit Artists of South Texas. He is a recipient of an Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation grant, and won the Writers’ League of Texas Discovery Prize in Fiction in 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_A._Flores

associated with Language Action Perspective and CyberSyn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Flores (more)

C-WIN: The secret meeting that privatized public water supplies. Water policy is convoluted, difficult to parse, and usually proceeds incrementally. But sometimes things happen that dramatically alter the legal and regulatory landscapes. It can be a court ruling, such as the 1983 National Audubon v Superior Court decision, which established limits on the amount of water the City of Los Angeles can take from Mono Lake. Or it can be legislation such as the 1992 Central Valley Improvement Act, which mandated changes in the federal Central Valley Project for the protection and revitalization of fisheries and wildlife habitat. (more)

'Water czar' directed state agency for a record 15 years. David N. Kennedy, who faced the challenges of a five-year drought and three major floods during his record 15 years as director of the California Department of Water Resources in the 1980s and ‘90s, has died. He was 71. (more)

A hyperstition is a self-fulfilling idea that becomes real through its own existence.[1] The price of Bitcoin,[2] Roko's Basilisk,[3] accelerationism,[4] and the QAnon conspiracy theory[5] have all been described as hyperstitions. Self-fulfilling prophecies are a kind of hyperstition where predictions are made about the future that become true by being known.[6] The concept was coined by Nick Land in 1995 as a portmanteau of hyper- and superstition,[7] during his time at the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) developing the philosophy of accelerationism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperstition (more)

James Burnham (November 22, 1905 – July 28, 1987) was an American philosopher and political theorist. He chaired the New York University Department of Philosophy. Burnham was an editor and a regular contributor to William F. Buckley's conservative magazine National Review on a variety of topics. He rejected containment of the Soviet Union and called for the rollback of communism worldwide.[1][2] His first book was An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis (1931). Burnham became a prominent Trotskyist activist in the 1930s. His most famous book, The Managerial Revolution (1941), speculated on the future of an increasingly proceduralist hence sclerotic society. A year before he wrote the book, he rejected Marxism and became an influential theorist of the political right as a leader of the American conservative movement.[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Burnham

a Patrick McKenzie frame for someone who gets things done.... cf reality hacking, high agency. (not quite accurate, have to find reference..) (more)

Jason Crawford: Two mini-reviews: Seeing Like a State; the Unabomber manifesto. (more)

Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed is a book by James Scott critical of a system of beliefs he calls authoritarian high modernism, that centers around confidence in the ability to design and operate society in accordance with scientific laws.[1][2] It was released in March 1998, with a paperback version in February 1999. The book catalogues schemes which states impose upon populaces that are convenient for the state since they make societies "legible", but are not necessarily good for the people. For example, census data, standardized weights and measures, and uniform languages make it easier to tax and control the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State ISBN:978-0-30007016-3; see Legibility (more)

People/area. (more)

Erik Torenberg: Why Are Institutions Failing Us? The macro trend is an overall collapse of faith in institutions. (more)

Institutions are structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation, governing the behavior of two or more individuals. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing (Governance) Cooperative human behavior. The term, institution, is commonly applied to customs and behavior patterns (Culture?) important to a social Community, as well as to particular formal organizations of government and public service. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institution (more)

book by Douglas Allen ISBN:0226014746 (more)

author of (more)

Robin Sloan: Monochrome gambit. I’ve just released a new zine in the online shop: (more)

Rival Voices on Magic and Magicians. I think that both “Magick” and “Magicians” are two things that nearly everyone gets wrong and that that's because, while encountering a magician may be a frequent event, knowing that you did is not. (more)

Robin Sloan: Shopkeeper Rampant. Today, I’m launching a new line of business: Penumbra Print Shop, a manufacturer of stationery with interesting capabilities. (more)

Robin Sloan: Inevitable technologies of lightness (more)