Our Summer Beach Reads
Plus: Go to the Beach Already!
Dear Citizen,
Picture it: A cool breeze. A refreshing drink in your hand. Waves. Family. And a gripping book about the ways in which Big Tech is facilitating a global march towards authoritarianism. We’ve got you covered!
We’re taking the week off to recharge at one of our data centers and we hope you will too.
Crowdsourced from our “brains trust” of members and our signal group, here’s a Citizens summer reading list like no other.
- Profits + Persecution by Peter Hayes - Hey, let’s start with the holocaust! Subtitled German Big Business in the Nazi Economy and the Holocaust, this “horrifying and riveting” book looks at big business complicity with Nazi Germany, and its parallels to today.
- OWNED: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left by Eoin Higgins. What happened to Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi and other left luminaries? Read and find out.
- Roger McNamee recommends two essential books on AI - Empire of AI by Karen Hao and The AI Con by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, both deep and fascinating reads into the false promise and perils of artificial intelligence.
- Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams - Imagine being at the beach. Now imagine being forced to cuddle, at the beach, with Sheryl Sandberg. You’re getting the picture! An essential whistleblower account.
- Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein - A favorite of our board, on the perils of disinformation, internet wormholes, conspiracy theories and sharing a name online.
- Want a little light slide into fascism, tyranny and blind nationalism to go with your pina coladas? Our signal group recommends On Tyranny by Tim Snyder and How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley, and a fantasy novel pick, Monstrous Regiment, one of the later Discworld books by Terry Pratchett.
- Our signal group also recommends We the Elites: Why the US Constitution Serves the Few by Robert Overtzand Putin’s People by Katerine Belton. Read them together and you’ve got a poolside book club going on America’s complete capitulation to Russia.
If you want to go even deeper, the Rebel Tech Alliance has a fantastic resource list. Patrick from Rebel Tech especially recommends Privacy is Power.
In fact, we had the author of Privacy is Power, Dr. Carissa Véliz, along with venture capitalist turned Big Tech critic Roger McNamee and journalist Carole Cadwalladr on the Citizens Reunited Live this week. In case you missed it, you can watch it here:
The Citizens
Last but not least, our Board Member Laura Edelson just published some remarkable new work: the first ever comprehensive detailing of China's censorship system that's ever been attempted.
The Locknet: How China Controls Its Internet and Why It Matters, is fascinating new scholarship - for the beach, the pool or anywhere.
Enjoy your weekend!
Team Citizens
