The other day Anita’s Organic Flour Mill featured my bread No. 40 on their social media because I always use their flour to bake bread.
The other day Anita’s Organic Flour Mill featured my bread No. 40 on their social media because I always use their flour to bake bread.
I am one of those people who started baking sourdough buns during the lockdown. I’ll try going through this blog post without any bun jokes!
I had never done any baking before, but the idea of nurturing and attending to a homegrown yeast colony that leads to a delicious treat has been a helpful momentary distraction from a world pandemic. I noticed that kneading dough could lightly fool my touch starved nerves when I spent months without giving and receiving human touch.
The idea of using only three ingredients, water, salt, and flour, appealed to my appreciation for minimalism. Yet, I had many parameters to adjust and watch for, such as time, temperature, and moisture. I tried baking more complex recipes and very quickly gave up.
I am guilty of soliciting Likes and validations on social media to remind my friends that I still exist and officially living like a monk due to the circumstances.
It took me a couple of extra weeks to grow a starter active enough to bake loaves of bread. My first few buns were suitable substitutes for construction material and good candidates for mercy killing! Things started to improve after the first ten attempts.
I even added a few pictures of buns on my dating profile, but I don’t think it made much of a difference. Next time I’ll bake a loaf that looks like a fish!
I don’t remember the last time that I bought bread from the market. I now make my own. Surprisingly I consumed less bread than before, and every slice of toast is ever more satisfying. I am guilty of soliciting Likes and validations on social media to remind my friends that I still exist and officially living like a monk due to the circumstances.
I even added a few pictures of buns on my dating profile, but I don’t think it made much of a difference. Next time I’ll bake a loaf that looks like a fish!
So here we go, enjoy the progression of my pandemic sourdough baking journey:
To be frank, I got this book because I liked the owl on the cover, and I have a thing for owls! If you are into machine learning and artificial intelligence thought experiments, you would want to read Superintelligence.
According to the Swedish author, Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence is any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest. He believes if machine brains surpass human brains in general intelligence, this new superintelligence could replace humans as the dominant lifeform on Earth. The book explores multiple scenarios that superintelligence can happen and how we can detect or possibly contain it.
I think, by the time a superintelligent agent is born, it will be too late, and it will either kill us all or adopt us as their pets!
Nick Bostrom is a Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University and founding Director of the Future of Humanity Institute. This book has small text, long sentences, and sizable paragraphs, so it takes a committed reader to make it to the other side of the book.
Difficult Women a History of Feminism in 11 fights by Helen Lewis is a good primer on the feminist history of Divorce, The Vote, Sex, Play, Work, Safety, Love, Education, Time, Abortion, and The Right to be Difficult.
I read this book because I favour learning history from books rather than social media memes and videos. It also helps me better “mansplain” feminism to cis-men in my circle. This book was a captivating read, and every morning I was looking forward to reading it after my first coffee.
Hellen Lewis (Twitter: @helenlewis) is a staff writer at the Atlantic and former deputy editor of the New Statesman. She was also the 2018/19 Women in the Humanities Honorary Writing Fellow at Oxford University.
So three takes that I got from this book:
First, women had it bad, really bad, and many still do around the world. For thousands of years, they have been deprived of some of their fundamental rights and autonomy. They have been disgraced, persecuted, and killed. I honestly don’t see a future for humanity if we continue to oppress and exploit half of humanity in this fashion. Learning about the history of feminism puts many struggles that women have had to face in context, so please make it part of your learning curriculum.
Second, none of the historical characters in this book are morally pure and perfect. As the book’s introduction points out, you come across women who advocated bombings and arson, who opposed abortion, had ableist and eugenics beliefs, blamed women who escaped abusive relationships, or some didn’t even identify as feminists. Helen Lewis is unapologetically honest about sharing this imperfect history. It is a reminder of the messinesses and imperfections of human nature. Yet, these women got a few things right and played a lasting part in challenging and corroding patriarchy.
I am not suggesting that we do not aspire to be better human beings. Still, we need to realize that the idea of morally pure saints and messiahs who will come to clean up the society of its evils and impurities is very much an invention of the religious right. That is not how people function in real life. We have grown accustomed to seeing the carefully curated and refined version of people and events on social media, and I’m telling you, I doubt it if most of these historical characters would have survived social media’s court of public opinion.
Third, social change happens incrementally. It has always been that way. Unfortunately, we can’t just uninstall patriarchy like a legacy app that is hindering society. A revolution will unlikely fast-forward the process. It takes many small victories to shift the public’s mindset and restructuring systems that favour patriarchy. It takes everyone’s involvement and not just those who identify as women. Learning history and making adjustments to our immediate living and workspaces is a good start.