Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch

A linguist explains the history and semiotics of internet communication. While some chapters sing out more than others, this book offers tremendously helpful insights about communication in the post-post-modern era.

Thanks to the internet and texting (and all of the irony, subtext, and various other linguistically subversive nuances one can communicate via those media) modern culture is experiencing what I consider could be the first stages of a hard fork in written communication. An early example might be a concept like Poe's Law, which arose to explain how entire demographics fail to see irony or sarcasm when clearly intended. The growing political bifurcation in the USA seems to be giving rise to noticeable differences in dialectic and language style.

Even the "language" of Bitcoiners with their rhetorically powerful memes and extensive use of vocabulary designed to be unintelligible to outsiders (e.g.: "few," "gradually, then suddenly," "hodler," US trash token" and so on) gives us a concrete example of how language can signal--and even serve to define--group membership.

When we've come to the point where the use of an eggplant emoji in the wrong context can be deeply embarrassing, I think it's safe to say that we are starting to see the development of an entire taxonomy of proto-languages online. This book will help you navigate these new frontiers.

The Great Taking by David Rogers Webb

"What is this book about? It is about the taking of collateral, all of it, the end game of this globally synchronous debt accumulation super cycle. This is being executed by long-planned, intelligent design, the audacity and scope of which is difficult for the mind to encompass. Included are all financial assets, all money on deposit at banks, all stocks and bonds, and hence, all underlying property of all public corporations, including all inventories, plant and equipment, land, mineral deposits, inventions and intellectual property. Privately owned personal and real property financed with any amount of debt will be similarly taken, as will the assets of privately owned businesses, which have been financed with debt. If even partially successful, this will be the greatest conquest and subjugation in world history." Sometimes a book hits you with a central idea that seems at first so preposterously unlikely that you can't help but laugh out loud (as I did) and think, &quo

The Two Income Trap by Elizabeth Warren

What is wrong with the following statement? "But the two-income family didn't just lose its safety net. By sending both adults into the labor force, these families actually increased the chances that they would need that safety net. In fact, they doubled the risk. With two adults in the workforce, the dual-income family has double the odds that someone could get laid off, downsized, or other wise left without a paycheck. Mom or Dad could suddenly lose a job." You've just read the fundamental thesis of The Two-Income Trap. If you agree with it--although I truly hope you're a better critical thinker than that--you'll have your views reinforced. Thus reading this book would be an unadulterated waste of your time. If on the other hand you are capable of critical thinking and you can successfully see through hilariously unrigorous "logic" of the above statement, then this book will still be a waste of your time (unless you like reading books for the s

Net Wars by Wendy M. Grossman

Workmanlike book about the early Usenet message boards that made up much of the internet's landscape in the early- to mid-1990s. While it offers helpful analogies for certain internet controversies today, I'd only recommend it to serious internet history geeks. It's not interesting enough of a read for the casual reader. However, books on technology ( and investing ) from past periods can offer surprisingly useful insights for current-day readers. The flame wars of the early days of Usenet rhyme with today's malevolently sarcastic social media arguments. Censorship battles of the 1990s give us a tiny hint of what they look like now. Spam, surveillance--we are grappling with the same problems today, just in far more extensive forms. And then again, there are some issues that seemed like a really big deal to everyone back then that, once enough time passes, end up hardly mattering at all. I wonder what things we think matter today that don't, and what things we think

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