I am really sorry to hear about the tremendous loss of your dad.
The list of books is wonderful. May I add that Matteo Pasquinelli also wrote a most readable and arresting short critique of machine learning, which eloquently explains how the technology works and offers a radical critique of its capabilities. The article is titled "How a Machine Learns and Fails--A Grammar of Error for Artificial Intelligence." The article's ending might provide a good sense of Pasquinelli's voice and argument: "In the final analysis, the main effect of machine learning on society as a whole is cultural and social normalisation. Corporate AI but extends the normative power of former knowledge institutions into the new computational apparatuses. The distorted normativity of AI proceeds from the logical limitations of statistical modelling – a technique that is worshipped, embarrassingly, as animistic totem of superhuman cognition." His book I found a bit dense, but I highly recommend this piece! https://spheres-journal.org/wp-content/uploads/spheres-5_Pasquinelli.pdf
Thank you Christa. This is a delayed reply as I was a complete mess at the time I published this essay, in the heart of my grief. Really appreciate this recommendation and will check it out!
Sincere condolences at the passing of your father. I have made a list and checking it twice of the books you have discussed here. Thank you, and to the extent it is appropriate, I do wish you a happy holiday season.
Thank you Joy for your kind words, and sorry I'm only now responding. You've been an active reader, I'm curious if you dug into any of these recommendations? (No judgments!)
I appreciate these book recommendations. Decades ago, I loved reading Baldwin and appreciate the nudge to revisit one of my favorite authors. I'm also intrigued by The Restless Clock...
Hi Jed, I appreciate the kind words, apologies for delayed reply. Love the "all models are wrong" tag. You can never go wrong by revisiting Baldwin. A giant.
This is a great list, but I really must object to the unqualified inclusion of David Graeber on it. Charitably, one might say he advocates fiercely and with dubious accuracy for fringe views, while straw-manning or outright lying about more mainstream views. Read his books uncritically and you will come away with a bizarro-world understanding of their topics.
Here for example is a studiously polite critique of DoE from an academic:
"I largely refrain from taking issue with points of detail: not because they are all unobjectionable, (which is hardly imaginable for any book of such extraordinary length, breadth and verve) but because they are so varied and so frequently presented without reference to competing views that a diverse team of experts would be required to probe them."
I'd like to think I read everything critically, including The Dawn of Everything. I actually find it quite a refreshing read, insofar as Graeber and Wengrow repeatedly acknowledge the limits of what we can definitively say about the human past. What's further refreshing is their general thesis that academics tend to layer neat theories on top of messy realities, and often from a priviliged (one might even say colonial) vantage point. I've learned a lot from reading this book and am happy to recommend it to others!
DoE is a good example of an end of the age of mythological thought. We use cause and effect to convince ourselves the past is recoverable, but analyzing events accurately using records mostly built in arbitrary words is impossible. We can’t analyze behavior, we characterize it, archetypecast it, stereotype it. Narrative is processually defunct.
I am really sorry to hear about the tremendous loss of your dad.
The list of books is wonderful. May I add that Matteo Pasquinelli also wrote a most readable and arresting short critique of machine learning, which eloquently explains how the technology works and offers a radical critique of its capabilities. The article is titled "How a Machine Learns and Fails--A Grammar of Error for Artificial Intelligence." The article's ending might provide a good sense of Pasquinelli's voice and argument: "In the final analysis, the main effect of machine learning on society as a whole is cultural and social normalisation. Corporate AI but extends the normative power of former knowledge institutions into the new computational apparatuses. The distorted normativity of AI proceeds from the logical limitations of statistical modelling – a technique that is worshipped, embarrassingly, as animistic totem of superhuman cognition." His book I found a bit dense, but I highly recommend this piece! https://spheres-journal.org/wp-content/uploads/spheres-5_Pasquinelli.pdf
Thank you Christa. This is a delayed reply as I was a complete mess at the time I published this essay, in the heart of my grief. Really appreciate this recommendation and will check it out!
Sincere condolences at the passing of your father. I have made a list and checking it twice of the books you have discussed here. Thank you, and to the extent it is appropriate, I do wish you a happy holiday season.
Thank you Joy for your kind words, and sorry I'm only now responding. You've been an active reader, I'm curious if you dug into any of these recommendations? (No judgments!)
Ben, I'm sorry to hear the news about your dad.
I appreciate these book recommendations. Decades ago, I loved reading Baldwin and appreciate the nudge to revisit one of my favorite authors. I'm also intrigued by The Restless Clock...
Hi Jed, I appreciate the kind words, apologies for delayed reply. Love the "all models are wrong" tag. You can never go wrong by revisiting Baldwin. A giant.
This is a great list, but I really must object to the unqualified inclusion of David Graeber on it. Charitably, one might say he advocates fiercely and with dubious accuracy for fringe views, while straw-manning or outright lying about more mainstream views. Read his books uncritically and you will come away with a bizarro-world understanding of their topics.
Here for example is a studiously polite critique of DoE from an academic:
"I largely refrain from taking issue with points of detail: not because they are all unobjectionable, (which is hardly imaginable for any book of such extraordinary length, breadth and verve) but because they are so varied and so frequently presented without reference to competing views that a diverse team of experts would be required to probe them."
From https://zenodo.org/records/5907061#.ZAIfNR_MKUk
I'd like to think I read everything critically, including The Dawn of Everything. I actually find it quite a refreshing read, insofar as Graeber and Wengrow repeatedly acknowledge the limits of what we can definitively say about the human past. What's further refreshing is their general thesis that academics tend to layer neat theories on top of messy realities, and often from a priviliged (one might even say colonial) vantage point. I've learned a lot from reading this book and am happy to recommend it to others!
DoE is a good example of an end of the age of mythological thought. We use cause and effect to convince ourselves the past is recoverable, but analyzing events accurately using records mostly built in arbitrary words is impossible. We can’t analyze behavior, we characterize it, archetypecast it, stereotype it. Narrative is processually defunct.