Five Blog Years
Next month marks the fifth anniversary of my first blog essay. That makes the tally almost 250,000 words (the size of a good-sized book). In my initial pieces, I took on the nature of History (critiquing Santayana’s famous quote) and wrestled with how the COVID pandemic was an unsurprising manifestation of the long-term process of globalization. Since then, I’ve talked about democracy and the US Constitution, a variety of international relations issues, questions of law, and the difficulties of modernity. I’ve reflected on my own life, work, and travels, the state of the nation and the world, and tossed in a few recommended book lists. It’s been fun and I plan to continue.
To mark this auspicious anniversary, I’ve looked back over this mass of output and, with the help of a (friendly, if sometimes hallucinatory) AI called Google’s Notebook LM, consolidated and restated what I’ve said. Over the next month, I will post these recapitulations in four installments:
Sept. 5—Personal Reflections, The Interpretation of Truth, Proposals for Change
Sept. 12—The Modern World, Critiques of Modernity, The Nature of History
Sept. 19—Democracy and Governance, The State of States, Imperialism and Nationalism
Sept. 26—The 20th Century, Climate Change
While you’re more than welcome to read all of the backlist, these essays will hopefully capture the more important and interesting perspectives in a reasonably succinct manner, even if—as a partial product of AI—they may lack some of the dynamic wryness of my usual prose.
It’s been an interesting experience to review and edit the AI’s output. In part to study how it works, but more for the self-reflective aspect; seeing what I’ve said, how consistent I’ve been, and how my ideas have evolved over time.
This week, by way of introduction, I attach two lists, the first contains all the books and thinkers whom I’ve referred to over the past five years. The second contains all the dated events I’ve referred to. Neither is “curated” (at least not intentionally), but they may spark some interest in digging deeper. In particular, the latter is not a “history of the world,” since it, too, was not consciously generated and offers no interpretation of our past. It does, however, provide an interesting set of points along the way, much in the way of looking up at the stars and constructing constellations and stories to go with them.
As ever, I appreciate your attention and encourage comments and questions, whether posted or private.
Thx, smh
Next month marks the fifth anniversary of my first blog essay. That makes the tally almost 250,000 words (the size of a good-sized book). In my initial pieces, I took on the nature of History (critiquing Santayana’s famous quote) and wrestled with how the COVID pandemic was an unsurprising manifestation of the long-term process of globalization. Since then, I’ve talked about democracy and the US Constitution, a variety of international relations issues, questions of law, and the difficulties of modernity. I’ve reflected on my own life, work, and travels, the state of the nation and the world, and tossed in a few recommended book lists. It’s been fun and I plan to continue.
To mark this auspicious anniversary, I’ve looked back over this mass of output and, with the help of a (friendly, if sometimes hallucinatory) AI called Google’s Notebook LM, consolidated and restated what I’ve said. Over the next month, I will post these recapitulations in four installments:
Sept. 5—Personal Reflections, The Interpretation of Truth, Proposals for Change
Sept. 12—The Modern World, Critiques of Modernity, The Nature of History
Sept. 19—Democracy and Governance, The State of States, Imperialism and Nationalism
Sept. 26—The 20th Century, Climate Change
While you’re more than welcome to read all of the backlist, these essays will hopefully capture the more important and interesting perspectives in a reasonably succinct manner, even if—as a partial product of AI—they may lack some of the dynamic wryness of my usual prose.
It’s been an interesting experience to review and edit the AI’s output. In part to study how it works, but more for the self-reflective aspect; seeing what I’ve said, how consistent I’ve been, and how my ideas have evolved over time.
This week, by way of introduction, I attach two lists, the first contains all the books and thinkers whom I’ve referred to over the past five years. The second contains all the dated events I’ve referred to. Neither is “curated” (at least not intentionally), but they may spark some interest in digging deeper. In particular, the latter is not a “history of the world,” since it, too, was not consciously generated and offers no interpretation of our past. It does, however, provide an interesting set of points along the way, much in the way of looking up at the stars and constructing constellations and stories to go with them.
As ever, I appreciate your attention and encourage comments and questions, whether posted or private.
Thx, smh
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