Episode · Behind the Bastards · 2022-02-12
Books mentioned on It Could Happen Here Weekly 21
All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file. Join us on 2/17 for a live digital experience of Behind the Bastards (plus Q&A) featuring Robert Evans, Propaganda, & Sophie Lichterman.
Andrew (surname unknown) discussed Desert. Robert Evans discussed The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and others, Gypsies, wars, and other instances of the wild by Mattijs van de Port, and The Cybernetic Brain by Andrew Pickering. Also mentioned: Hyperobjects by Timothy Morton, African Anarchism by Sam Mbah and others, Brain of the Firm by Stafford Beer, Cybernetic Revolutionaries by Eden Medina, and Designing Freedom by Stafford Beer.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Desert
Discussed“Um today we'll be talking about the book the infamous uh pimic desert by anonymous. For those who are, you know, not aware of this extremely controversial text, uh, Desert is a nihilist anarchist text first published in 2011”
Where to get it
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Hyperobjects
Hyperobjects by Timothy Morton is a philosophical exploration of massive ecological phenomena, such as climate change and radiation, that are so vast and enduring that humans can only perceive them in fragments rather than in their totality.
Discussed“This was written one year before hyper objects which is really interesting actually because you know the whole premise of that book is that climate change is is done.”
Where to get it
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African Anarchism
African Anarchism: The History of a Movement by Sam Mbah and I.
Discussed“With regard to the African um chapter, the impression that I got while reading that chapter u and I think the book itself references um Samba um I got the impression that the author had read um African anarchism, history of a movement”
Where to get it
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The Dawn of Everything
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow is a sweeping archaeological and anthropological study that challenges conventional narratives about social evolution, inequality, and the origins of human civilization.
Discussed“I'm reading a book about the history of the Mupuche right now which are historically like the indigenous group in Chile that resisted the long and the indigenous group really in in you could argue in all of Latin America that resisted the longest and most effectively. But even then”
Where to get it
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Gypsies, wars, and other instances of the wild
Discussed“Cuz there's a there's a there's a thing I like it genuinely disturbed me reading it in here about the Serbs during during the the Bosnian genocide where they they're they're quoting that's disturbing about that. Oh, yeah. This is this is a I I uh Okay, so they're they're doing a they're reading a quote from the book Gypsies”
Where to get it
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The Cybernetic Brain
Discussed“Like we on the show we we got into the cybernetics angle by reading uh Andrew Pickering in his book the cybernetic brain in which um he kind of acknowledged that like there's he kind of split it into two like there's American cybernetics”
Where to get it
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Brain of the Firm
Brain of the Firm by Stafford Beer is a foundational work of management cybernetics that explores organizational design and the application of systemic models to complex social and economic structures.
Discussed“And there was something very interesting like when we were reading um the reissue of uh his book Brain of the Firm where he has a section at the end um that that documents this whole experience in Chile.”
Where to get it
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Cybernetic Revolutionaries
Discussed“And even like you read the accounts from this thing like uh both in Eden Medina's cybernetic revolutionaries and in Beer's own account and there's like the sense that it was actually kind of spooky and weird that like even the people involved didn't quite expect it to work out that way”
Where to get it
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Designing Freedom
Designing Freedom by Stafford Beer collects a series of presentations exploring cybernetics, human freedom, and the redesign of social systems.
Recommended“There's there's one little line from uh Beer's book. Well, it's actually a set of presentations called Designing Freedom that I absolutely love. It cracks me up every time I read it. So, I'm just going to read it out for the listeners.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (4) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“This was this was written before, you know, this was written before climate leviathan. This was written before um the uninhabitable earth.”
“This was written before um the uninhabitable earth. This was written before a lot of kind of the texts that view climate change as an absolute.”
“Read something. Uh doesn't have to be a desert, but just go read a thing. Go read a read the back of your shampoo bottle.”
“But years ago, I decided to proactively demonetize. I turned off my AdSense and I take no money from any views. So, it's not like advertising doesn't drive what I do. And I feel like the reason I did that was partially just [ __ ] you YouTube. It was the hacker manifesto of you come watch my content, I”