books – Page 2 – Rastin Mehr

Platform Capitalism by Nick Srnicek

Platform Capitalism by Nick Srnicek is a historical summary of the mainstream internet platforms we use daily on our devices. It also does a decent job of describing different types of internet platforms and their business models.

This book is a quick read; it took me only a few days to finish. Despite the word “Capitalism” in the title, in my opinion, the author keeps a somewhat politically neutral position on the topic and focuses primarily on the platforms’ taxonomy and evolution rather than how they impact the communities and their culture.

Suppose you are an internet consultant or developer who develops and maintains any multi-user infrastructure on the Internet. In that case, the Platform Capitalism helps you better connect the dots between what you already know and what happens behind the closed doors of your organization and leadership team.

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

I’m a big Naomi Kelin fan, and it took me a while to finish this book. The Shock Doctrine is a good summary of the history of Free Market Capitalism favoured by center-right and conservative political parties.

This book explains how a Noble Prize-winning American economist named Milton Freedman became an advocate of a free-market economic system and minimal government interventions. Freedman became an advisor to politicians such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Their policies often boiled down to tax cuts, defunding of social programs, privatization, and deregulations.

The impact of these policies was relatively minimal in more democratic countries yet devastating in South America and the Middle East. Free market policies are often introduced after an intentionally induced shock, such as a war or natural disaster.

The Shock Doctrine is ample with historical details from countries that adopted the free-market economic principles and those who chose to move away from it.

The Case for Mars by Dr. Robert Zubrin

The Case for Mars by Dr. Robert Zubrin is a good primer about everything you need to know about humanity’s attempt to colonize Mars. The author, Dr. Zubrin, is an American aerospace engineer, author, and advocate for the human exploration of Mars.

As an engineer, his book has formulas and timelines, estimates, and analyses, so you’d need at least a Freshman college or university level of math, physics, and chemistry to make sense of them all. Don’t let that stop you; because the author offers you suitable history lessons and some good arguments favour tax-funded and commercial scientific endeavours to reach Mars. According to Dr. Zubrin, a human mission to Mars is entirely within reach even using late 1950s rockets, not computing, technologies.

Dr. Zubrin advises against building a Battlestar Galactical ship for this trip. Instead, he advocates living off the land and using local resources to make a two-way mission possible

It took about 250 days for the British navy to make it to Australia for the first time. Now with proper planning, we can go to Mars within only six months! Dr. Zubrin advises against building a Battlestar Galactical ship for this trip. Instead, he advocates living off the land and using local resources to make a two-way mission possible. We can send uncrewed spaceships and equipment to Mars in advance to use local Marsian resources to make rocket fuel and oxygen a round-trip to Mars possible.

If you follow NASA and SpaceX missions to Mars, this book will give you some good foundational knowledge to enrich your experience.

Defying Limits by Dr. Dave Williams

After reading a dystopian novel such as 1984, I needed something more uplifting. Space travel is always uplifting, especially when it isn’t about billionaires flying to space. The book Defying Limits is by Dr. Dave Williams, an ER physician turned astronaut who was part of the first Canadian crew of astronauts.

This book is a super easy read and suitable for people of all ages, especially if they have big dreams. One of my favourite parts of the story is when they realized that their lab rats stopped feeding their babies in space, so the astronaut crew stayed up drip-feeding the baby mice. It turned out that mice enjoy playing in zero gravity.

Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff

The first book that I read by Douglas Rushkoff was called Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, and I really enjoyed it. The name refers to the 2013 protests in San Francisco during which shuttle buses from Google and Apple were attacked and vandalized by the protestors.

Team Human is Rushkof’s most recent book that he published last February. He is a sociologist, university professor and, best selling author of several books. Terms such as “Program or be programmed” or “Viral Media” were first coined by him. You can read his bios on his website and Wikipedia page.

At first, I thought Team Human would be an updated CyberPunk manifesto by him. Still, after reading a few chapters, I realized that this isn’t about being a technology Luddite and attacking technological innovations. He is, in fact, very much in favour of technology that augments humanity.

Rushkoff is critical of technologies that are optimizing human behaviour for profit. For example, data mining and algorithms on social media, search engines, eCommerce websites, dating apps, and electronic music. He describes an era of post-colonialism after the invention of the Internet, where corporations are colonizing their own users, employees, and customers.

Team human has one hundred chapters, and the last chapter tells you to go and “Find the others.” Douglas Rushkoff is publishing Team Human on Medium platform under the same name. You can listen to his interviews with prominent thought leaders on Team Human Podcast, which I recommend. While at it, also check out his lecture on CBC Ideas.