This was the pair of books that actually that got me thinking about the idea of Books in Conversation. This pair was pretty much perfect for this sort of project. I’m glad I thought of this, because it’s been a lot of fun writing these videos, reading the books, and filming the videos.
This script was more of a bunch of notes than an actual script, so it’s a bit rough
Takes place during the industrial revolution
Steam power exists, but generally isn’t the dominate power domain. Instead a special type of silver with magic inscribed on it drives the world
Magic operates in a really cool way, it is the distance between a word in one language like Cozy and in another language, Dutch for example with Gezellig, which means much more than just cozy. The closeness of family, the warmth of the fire, the joy of the season, etc…
That distance creates the magic and some related effect appears in the world
The magic eventually becomes less potent over time and more extreme language gaps are required, such as English and Chinese
This drives colonalism; that and acquiring more silver
This is a book about Luddites during the industrial revolution
There’s a misconception of the intent of the Luddites
If you don’t like AI and you are an artist that adds Glaze to your art when you load it to the internet you are being a Luddite. You fully support the internet and the novel ways that you can use it to reach your audience
You do not support technologies that allows your explotation for lower quality art
This is one of the reasons why I will not intentionally use AI art on this channel, I just hate the way it looks. If I see someone using it, just to include a picture, I almost immediately, right or wrong, discount their ideas. There’s no reason not to hire someone to make the art or to find stock images
Hell on Youtube it’s almost a gag to include water marked images, as much as a joke, but also because it’s easy.
Blood in the machine is about the luddite uprising
Babel was an interesting book for me. I’ve always been interested in efficiency, technology history, language (despite being terrible at anything other than english), and magical worlds. In some way, I feel like this book was written for me.
The depth of father of the main character was willing to sink to gain more power, by finding poor women in China and paying them to have his children, and then forcing them to expand his legacy. Just abhorrent. You learn pretty quickly in the novel that this man, did it more than twice.
Like Jefferson and his enslaved mistresses and their offspring, he treats these children as less than british. They will never be british because they have been tainted by foreign lesser blood.
The protagonist, Robin Swift, shows again and again in the story that he is equal and if not superior to his father Richard Lovell. He picks up languages relatively easily, he works hard and studies hard and he is willing to fight for what he stands for
He learns that he does not support the status quo and believes the only option is to join a group that steals Silver from Babel and provides it to poorer nations. In todays world, you can consider this as stealing technology, patents, and know-how and taking it to developing nations to grow their economy and overthrow the yoke of neo colonialsm.
One of the more interesting parts of this is the solidarity between workers and foreign academics. I think this was really well done. Considering this takes place after the Luddite civil war in England, the men who support Robin Swift and his friends are former members of Ludd’s army. They know how to Fight the British troops, because they’d fought a war for years. During their battles there were more British troops in the middle of England than in India. Some 30,000 troops.
Kuang models the response of the Crown to the uprise at Babel off the response during the Luddite civil war. The power of the academics must be broken, regardless of the cost. Regardless of the damage. Because it is about power. It isn’t just about how these blocks of Silver are used.
I won’t spoil the ending, if you’re interested in the book, so I’ll leave it there. I really enjoyed the ending of the book. If you want to understand what being a Luddite was really like in the 1810s read this book. It’s clear to me that Robin Swift follows in their foot steps and fight against complicit actors.
Anyway, thank you for spending your time with me and my friends here. Please drop a comment below to continue the discussion.
Dark Academia: https://chantillynews.org/12644/arts-and-entertainment/review-dark-academia-genre-displays-discrimination/
Climate Town Fast Fashion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6R_WTDdx7I
Technology and Making the Netherlands: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262013628/technology-and-the-making-of-the-netherlands/
Dutch Empire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_colonial_empire
Cottage Industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putting-out_system#Cottage_industry
Musk moving Spacex: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-16/musk-says-spacex-to-move-headquarters-to-texas-from-california
DOGE Fork in the Road: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/07/1229744828/trump-doge-musk-federal-workers-fork-in-the-road
Why Information Grows: https://bookshop.org/a/110384/9780465096848
New Argonauts: https://bookshop.org/a/110384/9780674025660
The Myth of American Idealism: https://bookshop.org/a/110384/9780593656327
The man who broke capitalism: https://bookshop.org/a/110384/9781982176426
Glaze: https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu
Nightshade: https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
Oregon Grad Student Union: https://www.cge6069.org
I was also inspired by Maggie Mae Fish’s Films in Conversation series: https://youtu.be/h7wNDJ9BiUY?si=TzC8tCgSQjdDOeXl