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Writing by tag: politics

Reading Notes: The Abolition of Work

24 November 2021

Bob Black published his essay The Abolition of Work in 1985, though it is as prescient as ever. You can find it freely available at The Anarchist Library. As you might anticipate, it is a critique and criticism of work. The first sentence of the essay is “No one should ever work.” — a sentiment I fully endorse and which I suspect the careerist workaholics in Silicon Valley will shun as sacrilege.

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Reading Notes: The Wage System

21 November 2021

Peter Kropotkin wrote and first published The Wage System in La Revolte in 1888. It was translated for Freedom newspaper in 1889. Surprisingly, the essay is not available at The Anarchist Library. However, you can find it in Why Work? Arguments for the Leisure Society, a collection of essays (re)published by PM Press. The essays focus on dissecting “work”, its form under capitalism, and the possibilities for an alternative society.

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Returning to normal, Part 3

23 March 2021
Updated: 24 March 2021

After only five days, yet another mass shooting has happened in the US. This post follows Part 1 and Part 2 in this ongoing series documenting how the US is recovering from a life-threatening virus.

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Returning to normal, Part 2

17 March 2021

I did not expect that I would have to follow-up on yesterday’s essay so soon, but I can’t say I’m surprised. In the past 24 hours, there were two mass shootings in the US. It is shocking and horrifying, yet somehow entirely predictable.

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Returning to normal

16 March 2021

Oakland has been anything but normal over the past year during the pandemic. But we are starting to see glimpses of normality. Little by little, the whole country is returning to “business as usual”, as they say. And the first real indication that normality is on the horizon for the US was a recent story out of Arkansas.

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Radical readings for the Tech Worker

26 November 2020

After reading my recent satire piece, a good friend of mine (and tech worker) asked if I had a list of books or other resources to learn more about labor history and capitalism in the United States, and how the tech industry operates in this broader context. I had been meaning to write about this, and I figured others would likely be interested, too. So, if you are interested in these topics then this is post for you!

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Seasons Greetings from your CEO at TECH COMPANY

An email from your boss's boss's boss 24 November 2020

Dear COMPANY NAME team:

Hello employees — or should I say independent contractors?! (More on that shortly.) I’m writing to you from my second mansion located in ECONOMICALLY DESTABILIZED COUNTRY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH EXPLOITED BY UNITED STATES IMPERIALISM! I see the poor children here, and it just reminds me how privileged all of us are to live in a virtuous place like Silicon Valley (at least when I’m there, lol) where we pretend homeless people simply don’t exist. And if they do, it’s because they didn’t try hard enough to do a startup or they didn’t have enough generational wealth to do financial crimes.

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Unpropertied

30 August 2020

I’m currently reading Marquis Bey’s Anarcho-Blackness: Notes Toward a Black Anarchism. These are some reflections on and excerpts from the fourth chapter, titled Unpropertied. This post comes against the backdrop of continued protests and uprisings here in Oakland and the rest of the Bay Area in solidarity with Minneapolis, Kenosha, and the broader fight against police violence.

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Who do they protect?

An essay on police brutality in America 17 May 2020

I am infuriated. Yesterday morning I woke up to the news that in my hometown of Louisville, KY Breonna Taylor was murdered by the police while she was sleeping. Because she was Black. She was shot 8 times. I do not need to list the names of every innocent and unarmed (or sleeping!) Black human being who has been murdered on the streets or in their own homes by the police in this country. You already know them. This has happened so many times before, from the lynchings in the 1800s to LA in 1992 to Louisville today.

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The ACA and your credit report

19 September 2019

As some of you may know, I recently quit my job in San Francisco to pursue personal projects, freedom (sort of) from our collective capitalist nightmare, and self-determination. But I’ll write more on that later. This post is about dealing with health care as an independent software developer in the United States.

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The impossible

Or, how my Dad just ate an Impossible Whopper and loved it 19 August 2019

I’ve been eating vegetarian (and often vegan) for a decade now. I don’t talk about it much. This is a choice I’ve made for myself and my own reasons. What I never imagined happening is the growing popularity and wide availability of vegan/vegetarian food. It is simply remarkable.

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Reading Notes: The Individual, Society, and the State

22 March 2019

I intend to start a new series of posts called Reading Notes where I publish notes, excerpts, and thoughts on what I’m currently reading. My goals are to better document my notes and thoughts on what I’m reading for my future self, and give myself a reason to write more blog posts (in general, but also more non-technical ones). I also hope to inspire you, dear reader, to read some of these books and essays.

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A list of books I read in 2018

05 January 2019

Here’s the list of the books I read in 2018. There are 36 in total. At first it seemed like a small number to me. However, that averages to three books per month, which actually feels like a lot. In fact, I’m not sure I could read more than three books each month. There was never a time last year when I wasn’t reading something, and I often read multiple books at once.

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Hold it! Or, how to blame homelessness on the homeless in San Francisco

An essay on capital and compassion 19 July 2018
Updated: 06 November 2021

The mayor of San Francisco called out feces on the sidewalks as a core problem to address in the city and wants homeless folks to “at least have respect” and “clean up after themselves”. It’s an unfortunate response, but I’m sure a lot of folks agree with the sentiment. No one relishes walking through the dirty streets in this city and it certainly is a concern, but this kind of rhetoric is actively harmful. It deliberately shifts responsibility for the problem onto the victims and away from the system that produced it. Homeless folks are among the most vulnerable in our society. In addition to their lack of housing, persistent precarity, mental health issues, and emotional struggles, the city is now going to ask them for respect and cleanliness?

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Data & Society: Media Manipulation and Disinformation online

New report from the Data & Society Research Institute 13 August 2017

Data & Society recently released a stunning report, Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online. I highly suggest you read it if you care about understanding the rise of neo-fascism, the ‘fake news’ phenomenon, and manipulation of the media that plagued the 2016 US Presidential Election — and how Silicon Valley, particularly social media platforms, facilitated the rise of the alt-right movement and the spread of fascist propaganda. Don’t let the more than 100 pages deter you. The core report is only 50 pages, followed by a few pages of case studies, and finally a whopping 45 pages of citations and bibliography. (Direct download)

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A Fair Hotel

Choosing a place to stay for your next conference 28 May 2017

Earlier this week, the Tech Workers Coalition and UNITE HERE! in San Francisco hosted a panel discussion on how we can use our power as consumers to support hotel workers in the Bay Area and across the United States. The tech industry is full of remote workers, as well as conference organizers that host thousands of conferences each year — meaning thousands of programmers, designers, product managers, and others travel all the time to attend these conferences or attend their own company’s events. By choosing to stay at a fair hotel, you can make a significant impact on an industry where workers are struggling to negotiate fair wages and benefits.

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