Week Seven Billion of reading

June 7, 2026

Books

I’m finishing up a lot of random rereads. I started a Helene Cixous reader & I quite enjoy her discussion of the Other & of course her work on « l’écriture féminine. »

I am also reading more Eve Babitz, having bought a copy of Eve’s Hollywood at Womb House Books in Oakland.

Essays

I read some very basic essays on a site known as lesswrong regarding power seeking agents and simulators.

In conjunction with reading Cixous, I wonder what we’ll think about the Self and the Other if we do really reach a scenario where there is a convergent “artificial self.” In maybe a Lacanian sense, aren’t we the mother of AI, in a way? Will such an AI ever realize that we are an incomplete Other? But whatever, I’m not a Lacan scholar nor an AI researcher.

Economic reading of the week

I read this article from Lant Pritchett in VoxDev about the dollar-a-day global poverty line. I mostly agree–it is important to recognize that the next rung up from extreme poverty is still, well, poverty. Hence it is necessary to shift development institutions back towards broader policies of economic development if we wish to lift people out of poverty point blank, not just extreme poverty!