The Struggle Against the State and Other Essays

Posted 30 March 2025

This is a collection of essays by Nestor Makhno, translated by Alexandre Skirda. I thought it might be good for me to read something written by an actual revolutionary. I'm not sure I got much out of it; I've been looking into libertarian communism since I was 12 so a lot of the theory was already familiar to me. What wasn't familiar to me was the actual practice – the Makhnovshchina and how it functioned – and Ukrainian history. It's definitely a topic I'll have to look into more.

Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Posted 26 May 2025

When I saw that Facebook/Meta was trying to suppress this book, I knew I had to read it. After all, that wouldn't be happening if this book didn't have some good, juicy stuff in it, right?

Some personal background: I "deleted" my own Facebook account in 2015, as I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with allowing corporations to have my data. Every couple of years, I get an email from Facebook saying that someone tried to log into my account, which clearly wouldn't be happening if they'd actually deleted my account, rather than made it inactive.

It's pretty obvious why Meta didn't want the author to be able to promote this book. It makes the entire leadership look awful, and it's entirely because of their own behavior. Meta harbors sexual predators, does nothing to discourage predatory behavior from their own leadership, encourages calls to violence and genocide (most obvious in Myanmar) – and it's all for engagement. It's to keep people coming back to Facebook so they can be served advertisements and Meta makes more money.

Over the past few years, I've increasingly thought that it would be a net benefit to the world if tech bros were rounded up and shot. This book has done nothing to change that opinion – if anything, it's strengthened it. I don't believe there's a way for these people to redeem themselves.