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mateitudor's reviews
27 reviews
The Age of AI and Our Human Future by Henry Kissinger, Daniel Huttenlocher, Eric Schmidt
1.0
Written by heavyweights- the trifecta of poop
Years of Renewal by Henry Kissinger
1.0
how were you a nobel peace prize laureate when you murdered millions?
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
4.0
This is a book everyone, especially white people, should read. I read it in English, which has an addendum about how the translator & editor were going back and forth regarding certain words like 'colonised' → 'colonist', trying to more accurately represent the state pushed onto those people by the white colonizers. Even the word 'colonizer' gives power to people that shouldn't have it.
This version also tries to simplify the "1950s pompous writing style", as the translator writes, to make it easier to understand for younger generations.
Truthfully it's been difficult to read it. Some chapters I read twice because of their immense importance and... relevance, ~60 years later. Other chapters I read with a knot in my stomach, especially those that describe in detail methods of torture the French state was conducting in Algeria, just... awful.
But it was in that chapter I learned in more depth about the psychiatric effects of racism, from his time as a resident psychiatrist at Pontorson, Mont Saint-Michel, dealing with victims of racism but also torture — on both ends, which I found fascinating. Although I have zero empathy for police, it has a few stories about the trauma those pieces of shit also felt from the immense amount of people they tortured, day in, day out. Hope they rot in hell forever. I piss on their graves.
But anyway, here's a good quote:
“The truth is that colonization, in its very essence, already appeared to be a great purveyor of psychiatric hospitals. [...] Because it is a systematized negation of the other, a frenzied determination to deny the other any attribute of humanity, colonialism forces the colonized to constantly ask the question: Who am I in reality?”
I loved the sprinkled parallels to Palestine throughout the book, but also zooming out and pointing out how deeply rooted racism is on the whole planet. We should be ashamed of ourselves.
The one thing I hated with a passion was his speciesism. He talks about slavery but casually writes a story about solidarity — how poor families should lend their only donkey to transport revolutionaries into battle. And if the donkey gets gunned down they should not get mad, they should only ask if the revolutionary survived. Cognitive dissonance at its finest.
This version also tries to simplify the "1950s pompous writing style", as the translator writes, to make it easier to understand for younger generations.
Truthfully it's been difficult to read it. Some chapters I read twice because of their immense importance and... relevance, ~60 years later. Other chapters I read with a knot in my stomach, especially those that describe in detail methods of torture the French state was conducting in Algeria, just... awful.
But it was in that chapter I learned in more depth about the psychiatric effects of racism, from his time as a resident psychiatrist at Pontorson, Mont Saint-Michel, dealing with victims of racism but also torture — on both ends, which I found fascinating. Although I have zero empathy for police, it has a few stories about the trauma those pieces of shit also felt from the immense amount of people they tortured, day in, day out. Hope they rot in hell forever. I piss on their graves.
But anyway, here's a good quote:
“The truth is that colonization, in its very essence, already appeared to be a great purveyor of psychiatric hospitals. [...] Because it is a systematized negation of the other, a frenzied determination to deny the other any attribute of humanity, colonialism forces the colonized to constantly ask the question: Who am I in reality?”
I loved the sprinkled parallels to Palestine throughout the book, but also zooming out and pointing out how deeply rooted racism is on the whole planet. We should be ashamed of ourselves.
The one thing I hated with a passion was his speciesism. He talks about slavery but casually writes a story about solidarity — how poor families should lend their only donkey to transport revolutionaries into battle. And if the donkey gets gunned down they should not get mad, they should only ask if the revolutionary survived. Cognitive dissonance at its finest.
Contact by Carl Sagan
4.0
Saw the movie when I was little, which I loved. But! Turns out the movie left out the part where Sagan rips into rich assholes going to space to run away from the damage they did to Earth. The accurate critique of crapitalism was left out of a Hollywood movie, shocker.
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky
5.0
I see a lot of brainwashed 'murkkkans have issues with this book and with Chomksy in general. Good. If you still love USA after reading this book... yikes.
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
5.0
As far as memoirs go, I enjoyed the nonlinear style, mixed with natural history, philosophical musings and inner thoughts.
Between the high expectations to overcome as a woman in science, the patriarchal gender norms, the stress of gathering funds alongside her male lab partner with whom she has a special relationship (which had several pressure points, for that relationship to be defined, or to "progress" in a direction she didn't want, even though the expectations were there as well).
Really loved reading about her relationship with her mom. How she had to overcome the imposed upon her housewife status. How she inspired her love for not just reading but exhaustively reading a book.
Also loved her relationship with her husband, how in spite of people telling her, at various points, that she was too inexpressive or too expressive, their relationship had the right chemistry.
Two quotes I really loved:
"People don't know to make a leaf, but they know how to destroy one."
„Our world is falling apart quietly. Human civilization has reduced the plant, a four-hundred-million-year-old life form, into three things: food, medicine, and wood. In our relentless and ever-intensifying obsession with obtaining a higher volume, potency, and variety of these three things, we have devastated plant ecology to an extent that millions of years of natural disaster could not.”
The one thing I disliked — the fact that she cared so deeply about plants, about the planet, but in several instances described eating beings. Wish she applied her way of thinking to what's on her plate as well. Or, rather, who is on her plate.
Between the high expectations to overcome as a woman in science, the patriarchal gender norms, the stress of gathering funds alongside her male lab partner with whom she has a special relationship (which had several pressure points, for that relationship to be defined, or to "progress" in a direction she didn't want, even though the expectations were there as well).
Really loved reading about her relationship with her mom. How she had to overcome the imposed upon her housewife status. How she inspired her love for not just reading but exhaustively reading a book.
Also loved her relationship with her husband, how in spite of people telling her, at various points, that she was too inexpressive or too expressive, their relationship had the right chemistry.
Two quotes I really loved:
"People don't know to make a leaf, but they know how to destroy one."
„Our world is falling apart quietly. Human civilization has reduced the plant, a four-hundred-million-year-old life form, into three things: food, medicine, and wood. In our relentless and ever-intensifying obsession with obtaining a higher volume, potency, and variety of these three things, we have devastated plant ecology to an extent that millions of years of natural disaster could not.”
The one thing I disliked — the fact that she cared so deeply about plants, about the planet, but in several instances described eating beings. Wish she applied her way of thinking to what's on her plate as well. Or, rather, who is on her plate.
Lingura care dispare. Și alte povestiri adevărate de nebunie, dragoste și istorie a lumii din tabelul periodic al elementelor by Sam Kean
5.0
Aș da orice să mă pot întoarce în timp să-i dau această carte copilului îngrozit de orele de chimie, de manualele sterile și de profesorii fără tact. Ar trebui să fie în bibliografia școlară. Petiție?
Din păcate în 2023.01.16 @ 21:00 confirm că nu mă pot întoarce încă în timp, însă cartea e minunată și pentru adulții curioși, care nu vor să se oprească din învățat.
Sam Kean e un povestitor iscusit care îmbină informație rece cu povestiri despre descoperirea fiecărui element chimic sau anecdote... funny (dar adevărate), precum cea cu băiatul care a vrut să-și facă reactor nuclear în garajul părinților.
Singura chestie care nu mi-a plăcut e, ca de obicei cu cărțile de știință / nonficțiune, inevitabila secțiune în care fac teste pe ființe nonumane. Nu e știință, dar oamenii de știință continuă să abuzeze animale, din păcate.
Din păcate în 2023.01.16 @ 21:00 confirm că nu mă pot întoarce încă în timp, însă cartea e minunată și pentru adulții curioși, care nu vor să se oprească din învățat.
Sam Kean e un povestitor iscusit care îmbină informație rece cu povestiri despre descoperirea fiecărui element chimic sau anecdote... funny (dar adevărate), precum cea cu băiatul care a vrut să-și facă reactor nuclear în garajul părinților.
Singura chestie care nu mi-a plăcut e, ca de obicei cu cărțile de știință / nonficțiune, inevitabila secțiune în care fac teste pe ființe nonumane. Nu e știință, dar oamenii de știință continuă să abuzeze animale, din păcate.
Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen
1.0
Kilcullen's book is deeply problematic, but also a mirror image of imperialist foreign policy. His (and the US/NATO/EU's) approach to "counterinsurgency" is rooted in a conservative, militaristic worldview that prioritizes the use of force and the suppression of any dissent. His ideas are based on flawed assumptions about who the "insurgents" are, but also of the efficacy of military intervention and the ability of foreign powers to impose their will on other nations.
Kilcullen's emphasis on "winning hearts and minds" is particularly troubling, as it is often used as a justification for imperialism and the suppression of local resistance movements. His strategies for counterinsurgency are often geared towards protecting the interests of Western powers (money).
Overall, I found "Counterinsurgency" to be a deeply flawed and troubling book, but to be treated as a manual of the methods and arguments colonialist "peacekeepers" use to subjugate and harm. We're supposed to trust them while he emphasises we definitely shouldn't trust Afghan children because they're "resourceful" and "explosive".
Had to stop a few times with long gaps between reading sessions because it's such a disgusting book, especially because it's true.
Kilcullen's emphasis on "winning hearts and minds" is particularly troubling, as it is often used as a justification for imperialism and the suppression of local resistance movements. His strategies for counterinsurgency are often geared towards protecting the interests of Western powers (money).
Overall, I found "Counterinsurgency" to be a deeply flawed and troubling book, but to be treated as a manual of the methods and arguments colonialist "peacekeepers" use to subjugate and harm. We're supposed to trust them while he emphasises we definitely shouldn't trust Afghan children because they're "resourceful" and "explosive".
Had to stop a few times with long gaps between reading sessions because it's such a disgusting book, especially because it's true.