I love the romance with which you write about dry beans! I feel so similarly since incorporating more dry beans --- and the ritual of soaking and boiling---in my meal prep. P's brother's xmas gift to us is always fancy dry beans, and the first year he got us Rancho Gordo. :)
Really cogent and deep analysis of Labatut here, thank you!! I so appreciate your critique of how he misses or forsakes a deep engagement with the practical, environmental, and labor implications of AI, which also stood out to me about the book.
My own biases being what they are, I am pretty sure that the divide between concerns about achieving enlightenment/mysticism and selling our labor is not so much a divide as it entangled, one is implicated in the other, in my own experience. Enlightenment, like mathematics, is a field that is accessible to all, imo, and learning both are human skills that, if nourished and nurtured, provide a more robust consciousness that helps with the tangibles of finding employment and “doing a life” while also helping one understand appropriate relationships to work, pleasure, technology, AI, gods, demons, whatever.
More than this, though, the point you’re teasing out is so, so important, which is one that Labatut hovers over and misses in his focus on the pure reason that destroys/the madness that enhances even these “great minds”: and that is the privilege to access the time, space, training, and teachers to understand math, let alone mysticism or philosophies and experiences of Mind-capital-M is doled out unevenly, and more and more so as fascist corporate technology both destroy our earth as well as our ability to even consider luxuriating in learning, in consciousness, bc the bills come due and our leaders could give a shit about anything other than ensuring we’re exhausted, unquestioning, heads bent down.
Thanks so much for taking the time to write this, and offering me the space to explore this tonight. It’s created light in a very terrible moment in time for my own brain, work, heath, etc.
Ah! I’m glad this resonated, you were the third person in a row to mention this book to me and that definitely tipped me over to actually reading it. And I think it was very worthwhile to read it! I’m still thinking through what a narrative of this sort, so well done and riveting, looks like in the hands of a writer with a different lived experience. But I love the point about enlightenment and survival being entangled instead of separate, makes me think of the notion of finding what your work is in the sense of a bigger purpose, but we still use the word ‘work’ which both reflects capitalism and draws attention to the more mundane aspects of living that purpose. And I hope there are more moments of light in store for you, I think of you often.
I've picked The Maniac up like 5 times but never committed, this might be what gets me to actually dig into it!
I’d be curious to know what you think! The start is a touch tough but I really flew through the middle. And thanks for reading my review!
I love the romance with which you write about dry beans! I feel so similarly since incorporating more dry beans --- and the ritual of soaking and boiling---in my meal prep. P's brother's xmas gift to us is always fancy dry beans, and the first year he got us Rancho Gordo. :)
Aw, that’s such a sweet gift! Preparing food that was a gift always feels like such an intimate connection
Really cogent and deep analysis of Labatut here, thank you!! I so appreciate your critique of how he misses or forsakes a deep engagement with the practical, environmental, and labor implications of AI, which also stood out to me about the book.
My own biases being what they are, I am pretty sure that the divide between concerns about achieving enlightenment/mysticism and selling our labor is not so much a divide as it entangled, one is implicated in the other, in my own experience. Enlightenment, like mathematics, is a field that is accessible to all, imo, and learning both are human skills that, if nourished and nurtured, provide a more robust consciousness that helps with the tangibles of finding employment and “doing a life” while also helping one understand appropriate relationships to work, pleasure, technology, AI, gods, demons, whatever.
More than this, though, the point you’re teasing out is so, so important, which is one that Labatut hovers over and misses in his focus on the pure reason that destroys/the madness that enhances even these “great minds”: and that is the privilege to access the time, space, training, and teachers to understand math, let alone mysticism or philosophies and experiences of Mind-capital-M is doled out unevenly, and more and more so as fascist corporate technology both destroy our earth as well as our ability to even consider luxuriating in learning, in consciousness, bc the bills come due and our leaders could give a shit about anything other than ensuring we’re exhausted, unquestioning, heads bent down.
Thanks so much for taking the time to write this, and offering me the space to explore this tonight. It’s created light in a very terrible moment in time for my own brain, work, heath, etc.
Ah! I’m glad this resonated, you were the third person in a row to mention this book to me and that definitely tipped me over to actually reading it. And I think it was very worthwhile to read it! I’m still thinking through what a narrative of this sort, so well done and riveting, looks like in the hands of a writer with a different lived experience. But I love the point about enlightenment and survival being entangled instead of separate, makes me think of the notion of finding what your work is in the sense of a bigger purpose, but we still use the word ‘work’ which both reflects capitalism and draws attention to the more mundane aspects of living that purpose. And I hope there are more moments of light in store for you, I think of you often.