mandy brown

We must not work for war. https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/into-the-gap

What if the standard career ladder is a driver of authoritarianism? https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/forcing-and-detouring

I strongly suspect that many of the most interesting things about artificial “consciousness” were said decades ago, and we should be reading those instead of the very boring nonsense getting peddled today. aworkinglibrary.com/reading/he-s...

To talk of the impact of the work without talking of the process is very convenient for capitalism, which is always trying to externalize any effect not profitable. aworkinglibrary.com/writing/what...

"Casting AI as the monster-to-come obfuscates the monsters already in our midst."

“Talk about technology is an addiction.” aworkinglibrary.com/writing/an-a...

“Every moment that we fill with a screen forecloses the free play of the mind. We don’t just need different games. We need more *nothing*.” https://aeon.co/essays/play-is-doing-its-work-even-if-were-not-keeping-score

Every time I get an email from an “AI” inviting me to their new platform, not only do I block/report, I also put a hex on the human who released it into the wild. You’re gonna have toes growing out of your ears and everything you put in your mouth will taste like soap. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

One of the things I often think about with my clients is, how can they make their waged work subservient to the rest of their lives? And nearly always, the answer is to practice their art: https://everythingchanges.us/blog/energy-makes-time/

“I’m tired of art that doesn’t trust its audience, and I’m concerned that the few remaining gatekeepers seem determined we can’t and shouldn’t be trusted.” https://theantiquarian.email/archive/how-to-tell-a-story/

Semi-regular reminder that my posts do not originate in the likely place that you are reading them. I wrote about why I keep my distance here: https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/coming-home

“We’re occupying a strange political moment in which humanities work is both massively undervalued and everywhere extracted as a valuable resource.” https://defector.com/humanists-have-done-nothing-wrong

People are like, you can’t refuse LLMs forever, someday you’ll have to use them. But listen, motherfuckers, I have been refusing to drive a car for the entirety of the twenty-first century. I am *practiced.* Refusing AI is easy mode.

The cameras “come down when a few brave souls cut them down, and they stay down when there’s a massive wave of popular support.” https://margaretkilljoy.substack.com/p/people-really-are-cutting-down-flock

Where to look for what really matters: “not beyond, but in the work; the caring; the friction; the labor; the investment of time and effort;…the love born of patient, selfless attending to the world before us.” https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/expect-the-end-of-the-world-laugh

One of my most often given (and possibly most annoying) bits of counsel is: *talk with your mouth.* But really I don’t think there’s any other way out of this mess we’re in, so I am not going to stop. everythingchanges.us/blog/mouthwo...

“That’s how it is—we’re literate….But why do we lock ourselves into one mode? Why either/or? We aren’t binary. Why have we replaced oral text with written? Isn’t there room for both?” aworkinglibrary.com/writing/ther...

“Functional information-processing…is so utterly *un*like the lived intelligence of a human being that to call it ‘intelligence’ at all is to wholly falsify its nature. ’Artificial intelligence’ is a highly consequential misnomer.” www.ft.com/content/bdb3...

To reduce reading to the practice of empathy is to divorce it of its real power and pleasure. https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/reading-matters-deeply

Last call—applications for the work/shop close at noon EDT today! bsky.app/profile/awor...

Erin is the best person to do this kind of work. Not only because she has the aptitude and care, but also because she is in the right place to both observe the clouds and report back to those of us on the ground. Everyone should throw money at her! https://www.wrecka.ge/launching-a-cloud-atlas/

This will be the 7th cohort, and I’ve seen over and over that a practice of writing and noticing in community—bolstered by liberatory philosophies of abolition, feminism, and utopian thinking—is immensely powerful for training that imagination, and then showing the way forward, step by step by step.

Only a few more days to submit an application! Come join a crew of brilliant people building the imaginative muscle to make and move towards better futures. Applications are due Thu, noon EDT. everythingchanges.us/blog/fall-sf...

In my personal headcanon, Le Guin and Franklin are the *Ursulae*, and they are right at this moment resting in the shade of a great big tree, drinking tea (Franklin) and whiskey (UKLG) and talking about the end of the patriarchy—which for them has already happened.

“If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?” aworkinglibrary.com/writing/open...

Seeing some great applications rolling in already! This is going to be a fun group. bsky.app/profile/awor...

Why we need anarchist calisthenics at work. https://everythingchanges.us/blog/break-what-should-be-broken/

If you haven’t seen it yet the new @aworkinglibrary.com website is dope aworkinglibrary.com Lots of things to love. A few that stand out to me: - It's _fast_ - Every page has a “footer” that’s essentially just the home page — enthralled by this idea. - ❤️ the treatment for citations on post pages

This morning @aworkinglibrary.com shared this excerpt from Le Guin and offered a brief but bracing reflection drawing an apt parallel to our media environment. Read it here: aworkinglibrary.com/writing/hung...

“There is solidarity to be had in that motion and in that effort…for the act of creation, however humble or sublime, is elicited by the existence of the other who is to receive it.” https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/feeding-on-illusions

“When you eat illusions you end up hungrier than before.” https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/hungrier-than-before

“One day you will be called on to break a big law in the name of justice and rationality. Everything will depend on it.” How will you be ready? https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/anarchist-calisthenics

“What I was saying: I have imagined your life; I have had to imagine it. What he was saying: it would be dangerous for me to imagine yours.” https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n11/patricia-lockwood/diary

I've been reading A Working Library since, I think, 2010. mandy's writing is always thoughtful, always probing. It's a luxury to have all of those years of writing, which is of such high quality, be available online—for free. Thank you, mandy!

Consistently the most meaningful and grounding read on the internet, to me. Mandy's work reminds me of the best parts of the early promise of the internet made into a beating, living, and modern textual body. Here's to eighteen more years.

mandy’s given us two gifts here: this is a powerhouse of an essay, *and* she’s launched a gorgeous, stately new redesign. Don’t miss either.