User Profile

finktank

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Joined 2 years, 5 months ago

Exploring and supporting Community Informatics and Youth Power for just futures.

Loving hard sci-fi, queer & BIPOC-authored sci-fi, abolition and abolitionist futures, Afrofuturism, Solarpunk, cooperativism, pedagogy, social change.

he/him

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finktank's books

Currently Reading (View all 30)

2024 Reading Goal

84% complete! finktank has read 38 of 45 books.

David Arditi: Digital Feudalism (2023, Emerald Publishing Limited) 2 stars

Basic introduction to operations of (digital) capital in 2020s

2 stars

This book tries to construct a concept of "digital feudalism". It offers 3 areas that define this concept and traces each through the book, but for me at least, failed to connect the three in a compelling way. I think to argue that we are in a new digitally driven form of feudalism requires work that I didn't understand the author to have done. This seems more like a popular reading book, but I think to those audiences, the feudalism part will be even more unclear, and the sub concepts only partly explained.

Travis Baldree: Legends & Lattes (Paperback, 2022, Tor Books) 5 stars

Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv the orc barbarian cashes …

Cozy, fun story

5 stars

A fun and cozy queer narrative set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, but with a move into non-violence, solving problems through honesty/care, a love story, and so on. Takes place IN a cozy setting and leaves you feeling like you've curled up by the fire in winter. You quickly come to trust that, though there IS tension and danger, you, like the characters, will find ways through that don't toss you back into the violence of traditional D&D problem solving. A fun book, even if you aren't into D&D.

DisCO: If I Only had a Heart: a DisCO manifesto (EBook, 2019, DisCO.coop; the Transnational Institute; Guerrilla Media Collective) No rating

The DisCO Manifesto is a deep dive into the world of Distributed Cooperative Organizations. Over …

Excellent! Inspiring, thorough, accessible, inclusive, and aesthetically engaging. This is the manifesto to inspire people to think differently about how collectivism, cooperatives, and distributed technology might build into each other. Not a prescription, but an opening.

Annalee Newitz: Autonomous (Hardcover, 2017, Tor Books) 5 stars

Autonomous features a rakish female pharmaceutical pirate named Jack who traverses the world in her …

Another wonderful one ...

5 stars

Loved The Terraformers, so picked up Autonomous. I liked the former more, but it was such a high bar that Autonomous was still excellent. Different, though related themes. Terraformers is environmental where Autonomous is health care / pharmaceutical, but both tell deeply compelling future narratives about attempts to create survival and thriving in the face of terrible, dystopian, and yet believable futures. Appreciate wrestling with parallels between human freedoms and post-human freedoms, with both taking place in the context of capitalism that is recognizable today... On to Newitz's next work.

George Cheney, Matt Noyes, Emi Do, Marcelo Vieta, Joseba Azkarraga: Cooperatives at Work (2023, Emerald Publishing Limited) 5 stars

For too long, cooperatives have been considered marginal players in the global economy, and as …

A great summary of the worker cooperative movement

5 stars

Fast, engaging, and information packed, this book sent me tracing down references with excitement, energized me to think about the cooperative movement even more, and perhaps most importantly, gave name to things I've been studying better than I have yet to do. If you are at all interested in the futures of work, in economics beyond capitalism, or in more democractic ways of coming together, I highly encourage this book. It would be a great place to start.