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#Essay

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"Reading these stories was never about inviting pain, frustration, or dismay for the sake of it. Nor, I suspect, was that the case for the writers who crafted them. As Aziza suggests, witnessing is about opening ourselves up to possibility."

Contributing editor Seyward Darby reflects on her year of reading in "The Wounds That Bind": longreads.com/2024/12/11/a-yea

Longreads · A Year in Reading: The Wounds That BindBy Seyward Darby

🔴 **A linkless internet**

Collin Jennings

_“Most discussions of AI are concerned with how soon an AI model will achieve ‘artificial general intelligence’ or at what point AI entities will be able to dictate their own tasks and make their own choices. But a more basic and immediate question is: what pattern of activity do AI platforms currently produce? Does AI dream of itself?”_

🔗 aeon.co/essays/when-ai-summari

#Essay #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Tech #Technology #Computing @ai

<p>From <em>Hypertext in General</em> (1965) by Ted Nelson. Courtesy the <a href="https://archive.org/details/ht-in-general-1/page/n13/mode/thumb" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Internet Archive/Ted Nelson</a></p>
AeonWhen AI summaries replace hyperlinks, thought itself is flattened | Aeon EssaysIn creating anonymous summaries, AI flattens out all the fascinating architecture of thought that makes the internet hum

Emergency Prep: Introduction to Go-Bags

I consider myself a small-scale prepper. By this, I mean that I am not interested in preparing for 'the end of the world as we know it' (TEOTWAWKI) or stocking up on weapons for the 'inevitable civil war.'

But I absolutely am interested in having enough emergency supplies laid in for 'predictable emergencies' (plus a bit)....

jessmahler.com/emergency-prep-

jessmahler.comEmergency Prep: Introduction to Go-Bags – Gryphon's Aerie

Nohara Shiro, until his death in 1981, was a #Marxist #historian specializing in Chinese history and #ChinesePolitics who had also become strongly involved in the movement to eradicate pre-war feudal and fascist influences from #Japanese education and learning. The essay translated here originally appeared in his 1960 collection, History and Ideology in #Asia (Ajia no rekishi to shisb). Despite his personal preference for #Marxism over anarchism, Nohara’s approach to the subject is quite open-minded. The strengths of his essay are its focus upon practical organizing attempts rather than intellectual activities, and its revelation of the considerable #anarchist influence upon Li Dazhao, whom the #Communist Party has long claimed as its own. Whilst most of the early intellectual exponents of the anarchist idea either drifted away into obscurity, were converted to Marxism, or joined the bandwagon of the nationalist movement (some even becoming outright fascists), the organizing activities described here often became the building blocks for the subsequent communist movement. Nohara’s work is thus invaluable not only for shedding light on the role of anarchism as an intellectual stimulus for the Chinese #revolutionary movement as a whole, but also for making clear the political debt owed the anarchists in terms of practical activities.

theanarchistlibrary.org/librar

The Anarchist LibraryAnarchists and the May 4 Movement in ChinaNohara Shirõ Anarchists and the May 4 Movement in China January 1975 Translated by Philip Billingsley.

🔴 🌍 How Colonialism Invented Food Insecurity in West Africa

"“There’s been this long-standing argument—and this is something that comes out of the colonial narrative—that parts of Africa have just always been food insecure because their agriculture, environments, or crops are inferior,” says Logan. But, as the data show, African farmers were knowledgeable and successful for thousands of years. Outside forces uprooted that security."

🔗 sapiens.org/archaeology/food-i

#Essay #Anthropology #History #Histodon #Histodons #Colonialism #Food #Africa @anthropology @histodon @histodons

SAPIENS · How Colonialism Invented Food Insecurity in West AfricaPeople in Ghana lived sustainably for millennia—until European colonialism and the trade of enslaved people changed everything.

"I don’t need to bury my nose in my curls to confirm it, but I do it anyway. On mulukhiyah nights, I leave my parents’ house smelling different than when I arrived. The spices that hung in the air like a fragrant fog when I walked in are now living in my pores, between my lips, on my coat." —Kristina Kasparian on a beloved childhood dish and the meaning of family.

longreads.com/2024/11/12/hunge

Longreads · The Kitchen with Two DoorsBy Kristina Kasparian

"There’s something strange that happens when we try to set up boxes. As soon as we box something in, things start to seep through."

For Cleveland Review of Books, Leo Kim writes a meditation on boxes, borders, pottery, the Container Store, and more: clereviewofbooks.com/writing/l

Cleveland Review of BooksAncient Jars — Cleveland Review of BooksStifling, leaking, hermetically sealed, and constantly spilling its guts.