This week on my podcast, the fifth part of a seven (?) part serialized reading of my 2020 @ozm book HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM, a book arguing that monopoly – not AI-based brainwashing – is the real way that tech controls our behavior.
Remember Hometown Deli? It's the squat cinderblock New Jersey sandwich shop that is publicly traded and raised $2.5m on a $100m valuation, based on $35k in annual revenue. It was the source of much puzzlement and mirth last month.
Since then, there's been a lot of financial sleuthing to figure out what this "company" is - the smart money is that it's a prepackaged financial vehicle to allow an otherwise unmarketable offshore company to go public, by doing a reverse-acquisition.
A reason for all this attention is that Hometown is a perfect emblem of the casino economy, in which the financial sector makes vast fortunes without producing anything of value, simply by making bets, including bets on other bets (which are sometimes also bets on bets).
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Part of my chronic pain management is a daily swim. Part of my daily swim boredom management is an underwater MP3 player, which I load with audiobooks.
Currently I'm listening to @amyklobuchar's book ANTITRUST, which is very good (review to follow).
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Klobuchar mentions a book I was familiar with, but never read: Ida Tarbell's HISTORY OF STANDARD OIL, a book that shifted political winds to make it possible to break up John D Rockefeller's robber-baronry.
Tarball was a muckraking journalist's muckraking journalist, and her book is one of those titles that alters the course of history, along with other books by political women: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Silent Spring, The Shock Doctrine, A Paradise Built in Hell.
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This coming Friday (May 7), the @gburgbookfestl is featuring me in an interview conducted by John @scalzi; we pre-recorded the event but I'll be in the live chat for the premiere.
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Dishwashers have become Iphones: Meet the Bob Cassette Rewinder.