A Sacrifice on the Altar of AI

From Forbes.com, 17 August 2026:

Authors, archivists, historians and bibliophiles have launched an online war against tech giants and artificial intelligence developers after an increasing mountain of evidence shows they’re buying rare and antique books en masse and feeding them to large language models—only to slice off their spines and destroy the original print copies in the process.

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Documents made public in a lawsuit from authors against Anthropic earlier this year revealed the company had bought millions of physical books, hired contractors to slice their bindings off, fed the pages into high-speed scanners and then shredded the originals in a venture called “Project Panama.”

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Book lovers and AI skeptics called it “evil incarnate" and railed against the practice, but more reporting from 404 Media and others—including an Apple AirTag tracking investigation—has revealed it’s not just physical bestsellers hitting the chopping block, but rare, antique and out-of-print books that may not be otherwise preserved.

It seems that our tech overlords, in their eagerness to achieve whatever the hell it is they’re trying to accomplish, have decided that they have the right to gather in the sum of human knowledge, wit, pathos, comedy, tragedy, profundity, and inanity, and mash it into a digital pulp, destroying literally millions of books in the process. Apparently, this rich legacy of knowledge and insight is just another vein to be mined, another forest to be clear-cut, another mountain top to be blasted open. If I sound hyperbolic, it is because the scope and scale of this crime against human sense and sentience warrants it.

One obvious pushback is that, except for the rare, out-of-print books, it’s not like every book on the planet is being fed into the hopper. But that’s not really the point—yet.

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Total Noise

We live in the Age of Noise. Each day, each hour brings another wave of noise that is not so much cacophony or loudness, but mental sludge that gets into the crevices of your brain and congeals like grease in a cold deep fat fryer. David Shenk’s word for it was “data smog”. David Foster Wallace called it “total noise.” Input through our senses that is utterly devoid of any meaning or value.

Years ago, a diner I used to frequent decided to put up a bunch of flat screens—which was bad enough—but they elected to use those screens to run commercials for the very diner in which I was eating. Someone, somewhere, in some misbegotten marketing department had concluded that my dining experience would benefit from an endless stream of nagging, nattering commercials for a product I had already decided to buy. I seriously considered buying a TV-b-gone, but it wasn’t necessary. Eventually the screens came down, but other mental pollutants have stepped into the same role; we have been persuaded to carry blathering, evesdropping flat screens with us wherever we go.

It should be clear by now that noise and disinformation, if not synonymous, serve similar functions, which is to inhibit and disrupt patterns of thought. While much disinformation is designed to sway opinions in a particular direction, more insidious and increasingly common objectives are to destroy the very idea that anyone can know what’s real and what isn’t. There are ways to combat disinformation, which I have discussed elsewhere, but that involves filtering as one might sluice away dirt to find the flakes or nuggets of gold.

The Zone of Silence

Instead, I am preaching silence. Understand that I am not talking an absence of sound or some kind of sensory deprivation. We’re going for something that allows your own thoughts to surface where you can turn them over, set them opposite each other, and have an uninterrupted internal dialogue. A mellow coffee shop. A park bench. A public library… you get the idea.

An early 20th Century theologian, A. G. Sertillange understood that interior silence was critical to the intellectual life. In his book The Intellectual Life, he wrote:

Fr. Sertillange is absolutely correct. Few things are better for identifying bullshit than having the time to think something through. This is why the distractions we see on the Internet are paced so quickly. There isn’t enough time to adjust, to evaluate, to consider. That is by design. Sustained concentration becomes harder.

But this raises another problem, one that I am less sure how to address. Not only have our attention spans been shrinking, we have lost the ability to be alone with out own thoughts. To be fair, it has always been a problem; Blaise Pascal lamented that “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Let me delicately suggest that the problem is even worse today than it was for Pascal. Psychologists Timothy Wilson and Matthew Killingsworth both independently discovered that people do not like being alone with their own thoughts. But what was truly unsettling is that when participants in a study were given the option of giving themselves electric shocks while sitting alone with their own thoughts, 67% of men and 25% of women opted to shock themselves, even though they had previously said that they would pay money to avoid being shocked.

Answers in Silence

What the results of the above study implies is for others to figure out, but I maintain that perhaps sitting with your own thoughts in (relative) silence is a life skill that can be cultivated. In today’s ocean of noise, it is essential for the sanity of an independent mind. But it’s not easy. There are tools available, such as meditation practices, retreats, etc. Or you could just turn off the damn phone and the computer for a couple of hours provided you give yourself something to think about that matters to you. This may have been the flaw in Wilson and Killingsworth’s experiment: to let the mind just run is like spinning up a high-performance engine into the red zone without a load. Perhaps there is something like “bore-out” from lack of input that is at the opposite pole from too much, i.e., “burn-out.”

Make regular periods of silence a habit. In silence there is rest. Recovery, respite from the lies and prevarications that make up the slings and arrows of our time. It is also where the mind finds answers, and conscience recovers its voice.

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Note: The preceding content is 100% organic.

I’ve been amused, sort of, by some of the howls of protest offered by some of the chattering classes regarding the film. Not so much those surrounding a black Helen or similar. Honestly, the historical period associated with this story was one in which there was an early version of globalization at work. People from many different lands were traveling all over the Mediterranean basin, so seeing people of different ethnic types would actually be more accurate historically.

Another critique one heard went something like, “It’s not that way in the book!” wgeb describing this or that plot device or episode. As if the text of the poem was inerrant and infallible like that other ancient book is claimed to be, but isn’t. My classicist spouse assures me that there are significant variations in surviving manuscripts of The Odyssey and, further, that the very nature of these kinds of orally-transmitted epics would be altered to fit the occasion of their singing. That was a feature; a skilled singer of tales could add or edit, replace or remove entire sections depending on what was called for in the moment.

Nolan seems to understand this, and he has given us a version of Homer aptly fitted for our times. The characters make reference to a coming collapse of civilization, even though the time of the Trojan War was rather earlier than the Bronze Age collapse of around 1177 BCE. The same is true of the passing references to the mysterious Sea Peoples who disrupted and even destroyed several major cities. But we are living in a time when there is actual talk about collapse, whether it’s from climate change or an economic catastrophe due to feckless, grasping AI tech lords, the Middle East conflicts spilling beyond that region, or the agony of Ukraine, ditto.

As Ezra Klein has so eloquently pointed out, Nolan also invokes what he calls the “Law of Zeus,” which is really just the ancient convention of offering hospitality to the stranger, the beggar, the foreigner. One offers food and shelter to the stranger at one’s door, because it could be a god in disguise. The theoxenia (θεοξένια) turns up over and over again in the ancient world. One of my personal favorite examples comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in his tale of Baucis and Philemon, a story of poverty and hospitality that even after many years always moves me deeply.

Hospitality to the stranger is huge in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament; despite what you might have heard from ill-informed Sunday School teachers, Sodom was not destroyed because of homosexuality. The Bible itself makes clear that violating the conventions of hospitality turned that city into a smoking hole in the ground. Fast-forward to the New Testament; there’s no “maybe” about it. Jesus warns that offering or withholding aid from the vulnerable is the same as withholding it from the Son of God.

Klein states that Nolan re-casts the Odyssey in Judeo-Christian terms, but this isn’t really the case. Say rather that the Judeo-Christian tradition reflects a much wider, deeper, and older convention that civilization can be measured by the degree of kindness with which we treat those different from us. Societies that forget this are doomed.

It is unfortunate that over the last couple of centuries we have lost the essential meaning of myth. Popular usage employs “myth” as synonymous with falsehood or a story that lacks any meaning because it is “made up.” This shift happened sometime in the early 19th Century, but prior to that time “myth” referred to a deep, profound truth. It’s a meaning that needs to be recovered for our times.

In point of fact, myths are neither true nor false. The are more or less proximate to our lived experience. By the same token, each generation can re-cast them to fit their own circumstances. That’s what gives them their power, their ability to shape, or reshape individual lives or entire civilizations. America faces a desperate need for reshaping; “suitors” position themselves to gain power while draining public resources dry. Law and order are flouted by those expressly tasked with preserving it. The foreigner is turned away or worse, and the vulnerable is exploited and abused. People openly talk of a collapse of civilization, drawing parallels with everything from the Bronze Age collapse to the Fall of Rome.

It is time for Odysseus to come home.

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Note: this post was delayed due to a death in the family. -SG

One of the most important books that opened my eyes to the possibilities of non-academic scholarship was Ronald Gross’ The Independent Scholar’s Handbook. My spouse was out of town for a family wedding, and I decided to visit The Exploratorium in San Francisco as a diversion. Being a poor graduate student, I had just enough money for the train into the city, bus fare, and a modest lunch. However, I spotted a copy of Gross’ book in the gift shop and immediately realized that I needed this book. The purchase used up the lunch money and bus fare, so I walked a couple of miles to the Caltrain station, and started reading it on the way home. That book literally changed my life.

However, I do have one bone to pick with Ron, which is the term “independent.” I realize that it was, and remains, a term of art for non-professional, non-academic intellectuals, but it carries a sense of going it alone. It reeks of that uniquely stupid, uniquely American myth of rugged individualism.

To be fair, Ron’s book does tout the virtue of working with others. But I thought much more could be said, and I did in my own book. Many years ago I ran across a charming Jewish Midrash that outlined the people that should be present in a town if a scholar was going to live there. Bookbinder, ink seller, etc. I couldn’t find the original source—Midrashic literature is absolutely vast. But the point is well taken.

The history of higher education usually mentions the universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which means “community of teachers and scholars.” The most important feature of a university, in my view, is that it is a community. As such, it incorporates many of the features of a town or village. These features and their dynamics are one of the main reasons why universities last for centuries, while Fortune 500 companies tend to expire after a few decades.

One of the tasks facing a guerrilla scholar is replicating the advantages enjoyed by their academic counterparts. I think that not nearly enough time is spent on how to deliberately, thoughtfully, build your own universitas that will meet your specific needs.

Look behind any high-performing individual, and you will find a support structure. A professional athlete will have coaches, trainers, one or more doctors, even legal expertise. At a university, you have colleagues, but there are also librarians, research assistants, technical staff, custodians, archivists, and administrators (although the actual usefulness of the latter is sometimes questionable).

But for the guerrilla scholar, what do you need and where do you find it?

The Brain Trust

For your particular subject, it’s good to have one or two other subject matter experts with whom you regularly communicate (ideally, over coffee), but having an expert in your pocket whose expertise is something totally different. If you are writing for a general audience, running your thinking by someone like that is a great way to catch yourself making arguments or using language that will leave non-experts scratching their heads.

If one or more of your brain trust is a professional academic, so much the better. They might be in a position to help you get copies of academic literature that resides behind expensive paywalls.

Resource Management

Get to know your local public library’s reference librarian. Better still, get familiar with all the reference librarians in the nearby public libraries. Do the same with your local Government Documents repository.

Have you visited your local independent bookstores? Used bookstores can be a surprising source of information. If you have a St. Vincent De Paul, aka “St. Vinnie’s” nearby definitely check them out; their used book sections rival those of many dedicated used bookstores. More importantly, get to know the people who run the stores.

When thinking about resources, get to know the people at local museums, clubs, city centers, community colleges, learning societies… they are out there, but you need to look for them. These are not only sources for people, they can serve as venues for publicizing your work.

If your computer goes wonky in a way you don’t know how to fix, do you know anyone who can help you recover? Every guerrilla scholar needs to know at least one good techno-geek. They make the world go ‘round.

A less obvious person to have in your universitas is what I like to call a “connector.” This is a person who knows people. Lots of people from all walks of life. They often open doors to interviews, collaborations, speaking opportunities, or otherwise unknown resources or venues to share your work.

Quality Assurance

Find and get to know someone who can carefully read and critique what you write. It doesn’t have to be an expert in your field. A retired English teacher or editor is perfect. Not only can they clean up your typos and grammatical mistakes, they can often show you how sloppy your thinking is, for which you should be eternally grateful.

The best ones can also double as a writing coach. Expository writing has generally fallen on hard times. Reading undergraduate papers has long been regarded as a mental health hazard, but it has been made worse by the onslaught of AI slop. The upside of this is if you can write well without recourse to AI, that skill becomes a superpower.

Morale Boosters

How you keep going is a big question, perhaps the big question for the guerrilla scholar. It’s easy to feel alone, that your work is going nowhere, and wouldn’t matter if it was going somewhere.

In short, you need a few local fans. This may or may not include significant others or family members. But there are people out there who may not want to scale the intellectual heights you aspire to, but they like the fact that you are doing so. They take an interest in others simply because they have the marvelous quality of honestly celebrating the wins of others.

If you find yourself lagging and procrastinating, an accountability group can help. This is a group of people who meet together regularly and work on whatever they have to work on. At the end of the session, they report to the group on what they did. Their respective subjects can be incomprehensible to everyone else, but what matters is that group members hold each other to account and offer support as needed. If you can’t find or form a group. one trusted friend can suffice.

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How it Started

I spent decades in academia, but eventually decided it was not the place for me. Maybe I outgrew it. Maybe my academic training was good enough to make me skeptical of the very institutions that trained me. Maybe.

But the more realistic truth is that when I finally emerged from the Ivory Tower clutching that precious sheepskin, not only was the career path I had envisioned no longer viable, no other jobs had filled that niche. Further, I had earned my Ph.D. while living in Silicon Valley during the early halcyon days of the dot.com boom, when an unbelievable amount of really, really interesting stuff was going on. Big money hadn’t quite corrupted the idealism that marked the early days of personal computing and the Internet. In that atmosphere, academic convention expected me to specialize; to pick a lane and stay inside it. Faced with a vast smorgasbord of fascinating topics, I was expected to pick one or two dishes and leave the rest.

I am a generalist by temperament and by habit. So, rather than force the issue, I struck out on my own to pursue a life of the mind, catch-as-catch-can, while somehow figuring out how to support my family. It hasn’t been easy, but I don’t have many regrets. There is a sense of freedom, but there are also pitfalls for the independent scholar. Here are a few of them:

Confirmation bias with nobody to catch it

When you choose your own reading list, you are, whether you admit it or not, choosing arguments that confirm what you already suspect. A university syllabus forces you through material you would never pick for yourself, including work that infuriates you and work that is simply right about something you got wrong. I’ll admit it: left to my own devices, I gravitate toward authors who sharpen a conclusion I already hold. The autodidact’s library is a hall of mirrors, and it is very easy to mistake the echo for corroboration.

The absence of a real feedback loop

In a classroom, someone with more expertise than you tells you, often bluntly, that you’ve misread the evidence. Outside that structure, the closest thing to correction is public exposure of your ideas, and even that only works if you seek out critics rather than fans. Substack itself can make this worse before it makes it better: the algorithm and the comment section reward the takes people already agree with. Applause is not peer review. I have had to go looking for people who know more than I do and are willing to say so, and that has taken real effort, because nothing in the medium encourages it.

Depth without proportion

Self-teaching lets you fall into a subject for years, and that immersion produces real expertise. But it also produces blind spots about how your obsession fits into the wider field. You can know the history of the Septuagint’s translation choices in granular detail and still misjudge how central or marginal that question is to the discipline as a whole, because no one ever made you sit through the survey course that would have given you the map.

Mistaking enthusiasm for rigor

This one is perhaps the most dangerous. Passion is not evidence. The fact that I find an idea compelling, that it organizes a dozen previously scattered observations into a satisfying pattern, tells me nothing about whether it’s true. Institutions have clumsy, bureaucratic ways of separating enthusiasm from rigor — peer review, comprehensive exams, the withering glance of a colleague. Guerrilla scholarship has to build its own version of that friction deliberately, or it will produce beautiful, well-written, confidently wrong ideas.

None of this is an argument for going back to school. It’s an argument for building, by hand, the correctives that institutions provide by default: deliberately adversarial reading, real critics instead of fans, and enough humility to remember that conviction is not proof.

A Solution

The university works because it is a community. At its best it is a collection of active minds who serve as sounding boards and bullshit detectors for their colleagues. Being an “independent” scholar suggests that you go it alone, perhaps feeding on the nonsensical notion of the rugged individual. Each of the pitfalls mentioned above, and probably many more, are avoidable if you collect around yourself a network of active, curious, informed, and preferably eccentric minds. I’ll have more to say about that in a later post.

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My current favorite anthropologist, the late David Graeber, made an interesting observation about how people communicate, and the work done by both parties in any given interaction. He drew attention to stories in which someone of lower station out-witted someone of higher station; the slave fooling the master, the butler taking care of his bumbling employer, a woman communicating with a man who sees himself as above her. In each of these cases, Graeber notes, the “lower” party has to exercise greater skill and work harder in order to discern the best way to handle the “higher” party. Even in hostile conversations, there is cognitive effort on each side to understand the other side, even if it’s mainly to gain an advantage.

Graeber then offered an insight that was as profound as it was chilling: if we consider violence by one person against another as a form of communication, it is the one form that requires the least amount of cognitive labor. There is no need to “understand” the other side when you’re beating them to a pulp or worse.

Knowing Me, Knowing You…

Sun Tzu famously wrote that if you know your enemy as well as you know yourself, you will not be in danger despite a hundred battles. A more modern and less bellicose form of that idea is something called the “Ideological Turing Test”1, which was advanced by Bryan Caplan. The original Turing Test was a test to see how well a computer could mimic a human that was communicating via a chat window. The idea was that if the human believed that they were chatting with an actual person and not an AI, then the computer passed the test and arguably was “intelligent.”

Caplan’s variation applies this idea to a discussion or debate between two parties of opposing ideologies. The goal is for one side to so completely understand the thinking, lines of argument, emotional tics, and use of language that they can convince their opponent that they are actually on their side. Philosopher Daniel Dennet in this book Intuition Pumps put it thusly: “You should attempt to re-express your target's position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, ‘Thanks, I wish I'd thought of putting it that way’.” This is Graeber’s cognitive labor taken to the ultimate level. And while this is partly about building bridges and understanding the other side, it is also about advancing a better argument.

Why Bother?

We live in an age when the quality of ideas is more important than ever. And while it is tempting to resort to hyperbole and posturing as a substitute for informed debate, you won’t come up with meaningful solutions to problems. When misrepresentation is rampant, showing that you understand opposing arguments gives you extra credibility. Unfortunately, getting at those arguments without being misled by misrepresentations can be difficult. You need to identify and carefully read the very best thinking on the other side. John Stuart Mill described the process this way:

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers… He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them.2

In other words, it takes discipline to set aside the desire to see one’s own ideas and opinions prevail and really examine the other side, testing one’s ideas against the best the opposition can deliver. Another useful outcome is when it becomes clear that you are not going to stoop to misrepresentation, it tends to soften the overall tone of the conversation.

It’s challenging. It demands a certain moral grounding that prioritizes objectivity rather than “being right.” Over the years, I have noticed that in any discussion between two parties, the side that demonstrates a better grasp of their opponent’s position usually has the better argument and more reliable scholarship. A quick glance at the sources, footnotes, and bibliography in a book, article, or post will tell you a lot. Does the author cite serious, scholarly materials, in other words, the kinds of sources that a professional would turn to? Going through the notes takes time, but it’s important.

I retain this possibly naive belief that in the end the better arguments will prevail, if only because reality bats last. There comes a time when misrepresentation and lies crumble, although sometimes that happens only after its too late. There is a battle for the soul of the nation, a decision being taken as to what kind of people we are and how we will live in a not-so-brave new world. One of the best things we can do is add to our collective inventory of ideas. Let’s make sure they’re the best ones.

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Notes:

Recently it’s been my pleasure to join a book group consisting of young college students. We are reading. Daniel Immerwahr’s How to Hide an Empire. I’ve enjoyed watching members of this group find their way through this unsettling account of American history, grappling with the moral outrages and ambiguities and along the way gaining a clearer picture of what the United States is and how it got that way.

Although Immerwahr’s book has not been banned (yet), it’s definitely the kind of book that would raise the hackles of the censorious among us. For that reason, I recently told the others that groups such as theirs might become important later on. But that’s not what the post is about.

How does an independent scholar navigate the literature of a topic to their best advantage, especially in the context of self-education and the quest for expertise? I’m going to emphasize books here, not because I have anything against the Internet; it’s a great resource. However, there are some distinct disadvantages. For the most part, it now exists to sell you stuff and so it has mastered the art of distraction. In a related vein, a huge fraction of what’s available is low-quality information or simply flat-out wrong. Worse, much is deliberately designed to deceive. But my biggest complaint is how it has wrought havoc on our attention spans.

Books, by contrast, usually get more careful attention before they go to press. More fact checking, more critiquing from outside readers. Yes, it takes longer for their content to reach the public, but when it’s good, it’s very good.

Where to Start?

Getting started is a tricky business, especially when entering unfamiliar territory. You want to identify the key works, the foundational statements. One way to do this is to pick a few books on your subject and check the footnotes. Look for works that show up repeatedly. Another trick is to go to encyclopedia.com, which gives you access to hundreds of encyclopedias online. Look up half a dozen or so general articles in different encyclopedias on your subject and skip to the end, where you will usually find a bibliography of sources. See which works get mentioned the most and start there.

One pitfall in self-study happens when you find a good author and start reading everything by them. Don’t follow authors, follow arguments and ideas. Follow the thrust and parry of books debating, attacking, defending, responding, synthesizing, and summarizing. You don’t want to become a minor clone of someone else’s scholarship. To that end, book reviews are your friends. Use them judiciously; I’ve read books because they got good reviews, but I’ve also read books because they got bad reviews from reviewers I don’t respect.

On a related note, one useful tactic is to look for books that start fights, that get people riled up. More often than not, such books create more heat than light, but they do draw out the big players and can start useful, long-running conversations.

The Need for Speed?

There is an entire sub-genre of intellectual self-help out there on how to read a gazillion books in a ridiculously short period of time. I’ve always been skeptical of such claims. One reason is because the books that get read at such breakneck speed aren’t really all that deep; “reading” them mainly consists of sifting out the two or three big ideas that could be covered in a few pages. Such books often spend a lot of time gushing about how awesome the book is before they get anywhere near making their point, if they have one. Reading them consists mainly in skipping over the fluff.

The really good books are best read slowly, deliberately. Then, after you finish them, you wait a bit and read them again.

Another sign of a good book is, does it have footnotes? Bibliography? If you don’t see those, or very few of them, there’s a good chance the author isn’t really participating in the larger conversation surrounding their subject. Speaking of footnotes, look them over to see where the author gets their information. Sometimes you can triangulate an author’s position on a subject just by looking at the footnotes. Chasing down footnotes is part of the scholarly game. Most readers read forward through history, but footnotes let you go backwards and see where ideas come from. One caveat, however: reading the footnotes can make you aware of that next book that sounds really interesting… and you order a copy. No, it’s not a sustainable practice, but that hasn’t stopped me in the past.

Finally, find a way to share what you learn. We live in a time when informed voices are hard to find amidst the cacophony of talking heads, chattering pundits, and pompous edge-lords. Scholarship, good scholarship, is a social affair. Treat it accordingly.

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The White House has published a list of “leftist influencers” and actually naming names on a “media offenders” page. Supporters claim that the President has a right to rebut or correct what is said about him, while critics insist that this is less about setting the record straight and more about creating a climate of fear among those who would speak out. But let’s be clear: this president lies so often and so flagrantly that his “corrections” would simply amount to doubling down on existing lies.

Then there is the banned words list, “A growing list of words and materials is being scrubbed from government websites and documents and flagged for review by federal agencies in an attempt by the Trump administration to remove all references not only to diversity, equity and inclusion, but also to climate change, vaccines, and a host of other topics.”

Of course, book-banning has become a cottage industry in some areas, driven not by concerned parents, but by organizations whose purpose is to enervate public education into an extended exercise in ideological indoctrination or even eliminating it altogether.

The Silent Campuses

What got my attention recently was an article in The Conversation about campus speech suppression. The thrust of the article is that it’s working; student activism has fallen off significantly. The forces of censorship have learned how to stifle dissent on campuses, which is no small accomplishment. Historically, both in the United States and around the world, college campuses have served as the unofficial consciences of their nations. They are centers of resistance. Conservative reactionaries have understood this for years; witness Louis Powell’s infamous memo in which he argues for focusing attention of universities by altering their curricula and generally bringing them to heel. It also goes beyond student protests. Professors are unsure what they may or may not say in classes. There are even states that have passed laws dictating what an instructor may teach, something unthinkable not so long ago. With that cornerstone compromised, resistance in the larger sphere becomes more difficult, and that is exactly the point.

Nonprofit organizations that have relied on government funding are facing the loss of those funds outright, or contingent upon their taking a public position that is at odds with their stated goals, ideologies, and basic common decency.

Escalation

But a ruling in Texas by a craven backward jury and sentencing by a slack-jawed troglodyte on the bench has decreed that citizens can be accused of “terrorism” for belonging to non-existent organizations or simply possessing literature that ruffles conservative feathers. One of the defendants was charged for firing a gun at an ICE officer, but a 100-year sentence is far longer than actual murderers would receive. Moreover, he acted to prevent an ICE officer from shooting an innocent protester. Besides, the whole ICE organization is basically Trump’s personal Gestapo. It is lawless, unaccountable, and should not even exist in the first place.

This needs to be juxtaposed with a decline in ICE concentration camps. Alligator Alcatraz is closing for good. Multiple cities have turned away efforts by ICE to buy or lease large warehouses to serve as concentration camps. The Trump regime is consistently losing in court, and ICE policies are getting thrashed in court.

So the good people of Prairieland, TX are perhaps pushing back, trying to “send a message,” but I think there are some larger issues in play. What we are witnessing is a large-scale, concerted effort to remake American society in the image of something akin of the fever dreams of Stephen Miller, and to refashion culture to the tastes of Donald Trump. The regime is making repeated, consistent efforts to rewrite history from school textbooks, to national park visitors’ centers to the Smithsonian. They are attempting to erase our culture.

Back in the late 80s and early 90s historian and social critic Morris Berman looked at what he saw around him and lamented the decline of American civilization. I can only imagine what he would think today, but he saw the erosion of culture coming from a long ways off. He argued that institutions were not in position to preserve and pass on what was truly important because, simply stated, they are high-visibility targets and vulnerable because the very things that give them legitimacy and legal standing can be withdrawn. When I first encountered Berman’s works around 2015 I thought this seemed excessive. I don’t think so anymore.

Berman proposed something he called “the monastic option” which is a nod to the monks and scribes who preserved so much of the knowledge and literature of classical antiquity. Rather than taking monastic vows, he proposed that people form informal groups that could quietly keep the treasures of our culture alive; the literature, the music, the art, the history, the philosophy, or anything else that draws the ire of the present regime. This would create what he called “zones of intelligence” to conserve these ideas and serve as oases for people who value what the regime despises.

I like the idea. I believe we can not only preserve, but spread the best of our thinking by getting together with others and reading, sharing, talking. There is power in gathering around ideas, sharing thoughts, wrestling with great minds through books, art, and film. Reach out to a few friends and get together over coffee or a picnic table and let your mind savor big ideas and subtle insights.

That said, it’s not enough to refresh our minds at the well of great ideas. Retreating into reclusive navel-gazing misses the point. Our very culture is at stake. The best ideas demand action, implementation. At this time, that means resistance. Not mere opposition, but acting to inhibit, to slow or stop the incursion upon our rights. After all, the great thinkers, writers, and artists were revolutionaries, too.

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What makes this even more absurd is that this “achievement” has fallen to a man who is self-absorbed to the point of mania, narcissistic, morally bankrupt and, quite frankly, not all that bright. He is, to be brief, a parasite. He does have the necessary qualities for his new rank among the rich. He is greedy, ruthless, driven, and unscrupulous. He is, in other words, a perfect example of why people who are capable of amassing this much wealth should on no account be allowed to do so.

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That may come across as draconian, but the pattern of history is very clear on this. No civilization can survive the emergence of an ultra-rich oligarchy. It degraded and fatally weakened both ancient Greece and Rome, but by contrast, ancient Mesopotamian civilization enjoyed thousands of years of economic stability. This is all the more remarkable considering that the interest-bearing loan was invented in ancient Sumer. However, they also understood a few things we “moderns” don’t seem to get.

First of all, debts that can’t be paid, won’t be paid. When a government is facing significant levels of un-payable debt, their task becomes how to manage that non-payment. Debt among the average citizen was more like a bar tab; you needed a loan because your crops failed, or someone got sick and couldn’t work. That sort of thing. Loans came from the wealthy aristocracy, most of whom were connected with the royal court.

Second, they understood that markets do not self-regulate. They have to be managed. Their solution to all this was to declare “clean slate” proclamations when the debt levels among the common people became too high. This offered two big advantages: the ordinary people on whom the king depended for taxes, labor on public works, and filling the ranks of the army in times of war could do those things because they weren’t in hock to some rich parasite. Second, it prevented super-wealthy people from happening. When the practice of debt cancellations and amnesties fell out of use after the Bronze Age Collapse (c. 1177 BCE) we start to see much more pronounced political instability. The Hebrew Jubilee Year detailed in the Torah was an attempt to restore this practice, but instead of binding it to the whim of the king, it was fixed in the sacred calendar.

So, yes. I advocate for stripping billionaires of their billions. I studied the fall of many civilizations and do not wish to witness one first hand. When billionaires respond to talk of taxing them by “threatening” to leave, I say, “Great! Leave! We don’t need you!”

It will be a magnificent day when we finally understand deep down in our souls that billionaires and trillionaires are a fatal liability.

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If you haven’t heard the news, the analog life is making a roaring comeback, to the enormous satisfaction of this dead-tree snob. DVDs, vinyl, even cassette tapes are returning to favor, particularly among the younger set. It seems that getting dinged to death by subscription rates, incessantly nagged by algorithmic recommendations, and streaming services that don’t really deliver for what they charge are driving their erstwhile customers back to “old” media.

Return to Old School

This is a natural reaction to the ongoing enshitification of the Internet and the economy in general, which is a whole other discussion handled elsewhere far better than I could articulate.

But there’s another problem that digital media, particularly online digital media has created, and that’s the norm of speed. Social media keeps pulling you from one thing to another, to another, to another, forever. The brain overloads trying to keep up with a tempo of information that is simply beyond its capacity. Two things result from this. The first is that our attention span has been sliced and diced to the point where we have trouble concentrating on anything for more than a minute or two, or less.

But the second is the idea that we must consume content fast, and that by doing so we somehow can become smarter. Nice idea; I frankly wish it were true, but it’s not. I know, I know… there are all kinds of YouTube vids and articles on “How I Read a Gazillion Books Each Month” or some such claim. Usually, the trick is to skim intelligently to get the gist of the book without getting down into the weeds. This is a useful skill to have, but it’s no substitute for deeper reading. The other trick is, frankly that most of the books I see listed are probably not worth reading anyway. The books I see being read so quickly are mostly success literature, which tends to consist of a lot of inflated prose.

What’s missing is the slow read.

Now it’s not really fair to blame this on the reader. The better the book, the higher the density of ideas per page, the better it is to slow down. But I have also found that trying to read shallow books slowly is the very essence of tedium and boredom. For the slow read to work, you need something worth reading.

An Example

When I was working on my doctorate, I took a seminar titled “Advanced Readings in Biblical Hebrew” led by Rabbi Jacob Milgrom at Berkeley. It was the epitome of the slow read. We would spend an entire semester reading one single chapter from the Book of Leviticus. In Hebrew. That worked out to roughly one, perhaps two verses in a single two and one half hour session. I’ll bet you’re probably thinking, “My God, shoot me now,” right? You really haven’t lived until you’ve spent a couple of hours poring over an obscure text under the tutelage of an old-school rabbi who gently but firmly grinds you brain to a razor’s edge

But this seminar turned out to be one of the highlights of my intellectual life. In that seminar I learned how to probe, to question, to seek context relentlessly. In the process I found that a deep study of just one chapter of Leviticus ended up shedding light on a remarkably large swath of the rest of the Hebrew Bible.

One key to the process is asking questions of the text as you interact with it. When the text is in a foreign language the questions multiply because there is the issue of translation, but even when it is in your own tongue a good, meaty text will have plenty of opportunities to pause and re-read something, ask a question, look something up, or simply stare into space and let and idea work its way into your larger picture of the world.

The slow read doesn’t end when you shut the book. It continues while the words and ideas play around in your head, sometimes raising chaos until your worldview settles back down, hopefully clearer and more nuanced than before.

Did I say slow read? I meant slow reads—plural. If you’ve discovered a truly good book, then reading it once isn’t enough. The best books should be read at least twice. I have found that I can get much more out of one or two really good books on a subject than I can with half a dozen or more less good books on the same subject. Wild, reckless, undisciplined reading is all good fun and has its place, especially when you are young and finding your way through unfamiliar intellectual terrain. But as time’s winged chariot draws near, one has to be choosy. You don’t have time for the superficial except as entertainment.

We all need to slow down. Not just in our reading but in many other aspects of our lives. Speed has become a defining feature of our age, but it is a species of noise. It prevents us from seeing the territory we traverse, reducing it to a seven-inch rectangle of plastic and glass, tainted with advertising.

If there is a lesson to be extracted from the practice of slow reading, it is that the process is as important as the result, and arguably moreso.

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I’ve always loved radio. When I was a child, my brothers and I would gather around the radio to listen to a station in Portland, Oregon that would replay old shows from the 30’s and 40’s: The Shadow, Amos and Andy, The Inner Sanctum and, our favorite, The Lone Ranger. We would create our own radio shows using a tape recorder; comedy mostly, but other things as well.

Me: Cub Reporter and DJ

Then, sometime in my mid-teen years I discovered that I had a “voice.” The kind speaking voice that gets a good chest tone and commands attention. In other words, an announcer’s voice. In high school, this led to my working as a radio “stringer” for local radio stations. I would write short news pieces about the goings on at our high school and then phone them in, mostly to the news desk at KSLM in Salem, Oregon. I got to be pretty good at it; usually I could nail a thirty-second news report in one take. My contact at KSLM, Terry Fuller, decided I had potential in the broadcast industry and encouraged me to get my FCC commercial broadcast license (”Radiotelephone Operator 3rd Class”). This meant studying an manual and taking a test that turned out to be just a little bit harder than the test for a driver’s learner’s permit.

Following graduation, I was hired for the summer of 1977 as a disc jockey at KSLM doing late-night and weekend shifts. It was fascinating stuff, even if I didn’t quite resonate to the “middle of the road” format of Montavani and 101 Strings. I was also responsible for piping in the news from Mutual Broadcasting that came in on the wire at exactly the top of the hour, which meant that I had to time my records so that the last one ended with about five seconds to do a station ID before the news came in, and then switch over to the news feed. I got pretty good at that, too. At the bottom of the hour, I’d read news items I’d pulled off the teletype chugging away in the other room, tearing off the printout of stories that looked interesting.

And along the way, at this and other small radio stations I gained an appreciation for small-scale, local radio. As more and more radio stations were bought up by large media conglomerates, radio stations grew less and less interesting, less and less relevant. More recently I’ve been discovering the ham radio community since getting my license a number of years ago.

Your Community Radio Station?

But against all odds and expectations (on my part, at least) Congress passed the Local Community Radio Act in 2010. This law removes previous restrictions on small, low-power FM (LPFM) community radio stations. Of course, the major broadcasters fought this bill, but a fierce, determined grass-roots efforts won through. Ostensibly the rules were to prevent signals from small stations interfering with larger stations, but this was a dubious objection at best. The bottom line is that the way is now open for thousands of community stations to take to the airwaves. This is a wonderful opportunity not only to counter the talk-radio idiocy that has grown to corner the disinformation market, but to create radio that is creative, quirky, idiomatic, and local.

Radio is one of those things that gets forgotten in this age of cell phones, iPods, cable TV and the plague that is now most social media. But the invention of the small, cheap transistor radio way back when fueled a minor information revolution. A single AM station could connect isolated towns and villages in rural America or across African deserts or south sea islands.

This is not a trivial undertaking; it requires some organization, people coming together, and funding, which is kinda the point. It’s not just radio for a community, it’s radio by a community. Besides, these licenses are only granted to non-profit, educational, or public safety organizations. LPFM stations are limited to 100 watts, which may not sound like much, but on average that gives you a broadcast radius of about 3.5 miles. You can improve that a little with a taller antenna, but even so, that gives you coverage of nearly 39 square miles.

Obtaining a license for an LPFM station can be tricky. Applications are only accepted during “windows” of time. These windows only appear occasionally, but are announced on the FCC website. Another good resources is Prometheus Radio.

Alternative Channels

Now this might seem like a highly improbable idea, and at some level I have to agree. But I have a secondary agenda here, which is that as the regime tightens its grip on conventional legacy media, those of us who resist and and should be looking at alternative ways of communicating. A radio station could be shut down, true, but one can listen anonymously if you use an actual radio rather than streaming. An additional thought: one can still buy relatively inexpensive short-wave receivers that can pick up foreign news broadcasts. Foreign news services are becoming an important source of real news about what’s going on the “Land of the Free.” Another option is Software Defined Radio, which is basically a little gizmo you plug into your computer’s USB port that turns your computer into a remarkably powerful radio receiver. You can get started for as little as about 30 bucks.

If starting a radio station isn’t feasible, chances are there is already a local radio station in your area, and they are probably hungry for content. Maybe you can take that podcast you’re doing and create a version that can play on that local station? Get creative. There are so many information channels, many of them neglected or almost forgotten that are just begging to be dusted off in the name of community and country.

Consider other low-tech tools such as pamphlets, zines, broadsheets, or hard copy newsletters (go look up the Soviet-era Samizdat system). An old, but working typewriter could become a tool of resistance and subversion. They turn up frequently at thrift stores, often in good working order.

So what do you think? Anyone out there want to start a radio station? Our rights to speak out are being pressed on all sides. This is not the time to be quiet. The one tried-and true way to protect your rights is to use them. So let’s make some noise.

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Last November we received a letter from a law firm representing his estate. Terry had passed away in his 90s and in his will, he bequeathed Denise and I ... his library.

Well, those books arrived this morning. The shippers left them in the driveway--I was sort of expecting them to, you know, ring the doorbell so we could open the garage we had cleared out to receive the four shipping pallets, but here we are.

Happily, a friend of ours has a pallet jack we might be able to borrow tomorrow afternoon. Failing that, we will probably just gather some friends and move them in the old-fashioned way. In the meantime, we’ve moved a few of the boxes inside and taken a peek. It’s a crazy-quilt collection of ideas and interests, which is pretty much what we expected. Once we get them inside, we’ll be going through them to see what we can do with them. Suggestions are welcome, by the way. Some we’ll no doubt keep, others we’ll donate or... something. Whatever ends up happening, I expect it will be interesting and fun.

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The “learning sprint” is one of those creations of the corporate world that has found its way into the overall self-improvement, self-education world. It usually consists of a 30-day “sprint” of intense, focused learning designed to teach some new skill or learn a domain of business, acquire enough of a foreign language to avoid creating an international incident on your trip abroad. A lot of online courses are designed to be taken as part of a 30-day learning sprint.

Learning sprints are quite trendy. One reason is because it sidesteps the need for long-term intellectual engagement—as though that were a bad thing. More on that later. On the plus side, these programs are intended to help build good habits that carry on well after the sprint has (we hope) crossed the finish line.

A Conventional Learning Sprint

The design of a learning sprint takes what looks like an impossible goal and reduces it to a series of manageable, doable steps:

• Define a Single Goal: Choose one highly specific, measurable objective (e.g., “build a basic React application” rather than “learn to code”).

• Map Out 4 Weekly Sprints: Divide your 30 days into four mini-goals.

  • Week 1: Fundamentals and basic theory.

  • Week 2: Guided practice or tutorials.

  • Week 3: Small independent project.

  • Week 4: Capstone project and review.

• Commit to Daily Action: Block out 15 to 60 minutes every single day. Treat this time as a non-negotiable appointment.

• Track Your Progress: Use a habit tracker, journal, or apps like Todoist to log your daily wins and maintain momentum.

Why They Don’t Work

• Reason number one: 30 days isn’t enough time to really grasp a new concept well enough for it to stick in the mind. You can acquire superficial knowledge, maybe even convince others that you know your stuff. But the deep comprehension that is the mark of true competence takes longer. It’s just the way the mind works.

• Reason number two: burnout. Intense learning over a long period of time will gradually yield diminishing returns. Willpower is finite. You only have so much of it and it requires time to replenish. You need to take breaks to let your brain assimilate what you’re trying to cram into it.

• Reason number three: The "Forgetting Curve": Rapidly cramming new information often means the brain fails to transfer it into long-term memory. Without deliberate, spaced repetition, learners can forget up to 80% of what they consumed within a week after the sprint ends. Naturally, there are apps to help with the space repetition part.

• Reason number four: After 30 days of intense work, learners often abandon the skill entirely rather than transitioning into sustainable daily practice. You don’t want to be so sick of saturation in a subject that you can’t wait for the sprint to end.

The other problem is that whole “30-day” thing. It turns out that the average time needed to really acquire a skill is about 66 days. Better to make it a medium distance run than a quick sprint. This gives you time to rest, reset, properly chew over and understand what you’re trying to learn. You’re also more likely to develop a long-term habit.

Fixing Your Sprints

Other aspects of a learning sprint—tight focus, non-negotiable daily study time, elimination of distractions, breaking things into sub-goals—all good. No argument there.

Here are some other adjustments you can make:

• Chose Your Learning Materials Carefully. Not all learning tools are created equal. Some courses or books or teachers and better than others. The most prestigious authors and professors are sometimes the worst instructors. Sometimes you’ll be better served by videos at Khan Academy than by MIT opensourceware. Shop around, and use more than one source.

• Switch to Micro-Immersion: Instead of hour-long study sessions, integrate 10-15 minute daily bursts of content (like reading articles or flashcards) to keep neural pathways “always on” without triggering exhaustion.

• Space It Out: Use the sprint to build the habit of daily engagement, rather than trying to master the skill itself.

• Keep good notes: you’ll want them when you need to review weeks or months later. Note-taking (by hand!) is itself a powerful learning practice.

• Plan the Next Step: Before you even begin your 30-day challenge, design a sustainable, lower-intensity plan for Day 31 and beyond to avoid quitting.

• Finally, Don’t Do It Alone! Assemble a team, not just people who are subject matter experts, but people you can report to, who will hold you accountable and, perhaps more important, give you the nudge (or the swift kick) you need to get going when things get hard.

There are examples of rapid learning regimens that do in fact work, and work wonders. So it can be done, but you have to respect the limitations of the human mind and body, and the corporate world has a nasty way of forgetting or ignoring the human factor.

Now go learn something.

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Not too long ago I finished reading a remarkable book by Liz Theoharris, Always With Us? What Jesus Really Said About the Poor” that concerns Matthew 26:11:

“For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”

This verse is the one people turn to when they try to argue that there’s no point in trying to eliminate poverty because not only is it an intractable problem, Jesus said there was no way to eliminating it, so give charity to the poor, but don’t try to do anything like enacting structural social or economic change. What I find personally exasperating is that this understanding of the verse comes not only from people who would just as soon let the poor starve (because, you know, the poor can’t be made to suffer enough), but from people who are spend a lot of time and effort working to alleviate the suffering of those caught in poverty. Out of respect for my audience’s blood pressure, I’ll spare you these quotes. Theoharris has them and they are, quite frankly, loathsome.

One of many problems with this interpretation is that is flies in the face of a huge part of Jesus’ ministry. He was absolutely all about the poor and, frankly, the elimination of poverty. Consider a point I think is important, but that does not appear in Theoharris’ or Wallis’ books, which is that when Jesus begins his first public preaching in Luke’s gospel (Luke 4:16-30) in which he proclaims “good news to the poor” and calls for “the year of the Lord’s favor”, which is synonymous with the Jubilee year in which debts are canceled, slave freed, and foreclosed and seized lands returned to their original owners. In other words, a massive redistribution of wealth that was designed from the ground up to eliminate systemic poverty.

Jesus and the Poor

Jesus was one of the poor, and they were his people. The chapter in Matthew were this famous verse appears is set in a town called Bethany, literally “House of the Poor”. It was a gathering at the house of Simon the Leper, who apparently was doing well enough to own a house, but as a leper his career options must have been limited.

The problem later readers face is that they don’t read scripture the way the ancients read it.

For example, when Jesus is on the cross and cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is more than a cry of despair, although in context it’s not even that. It’s the opening lines of Psalm 22, in which the speaker is indeed facing difficult circumstances, but it ends with a promise of deliverance and salvation. Understood in this way, Jesus’ words take on new, deeper meaning.

Reading Matthew 26:11 in Light of Deuteronomy

“For you always have the poor with you,” is a quote from Deuteronomy 15. The topic of that chapter is the elimination of poverty. Here’s where the instruction begins:

There will, however, be no one in need among you, because the Lord is sure to bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession to occupy, if only you will obey the Lord your God by diligently observing this entire commandment that I command you today. (v. 4-5)

The implication is pretty clear; if there are people in need, it’s because of failure to obey God’s law. Verse 7 is a concession to reality, however, and stipulates laws for taking care of those in need. Verse 11 likewise concedes, that “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land’ before we find the rules in Deuteronomy—and expanded elsewhere—for the manumission of slaves.

This is what Jesus was referring to when talking to his disciples; a portion of the Law expressly about eliminating poverty. The law takes a two-pronged approach. The first is to put in place measures that prevent the accumulation of runaway debt. Debts are canceled every seven years. Those in debt bondage are freed and, when they are freed, their erstwhile master is required to provide grain, wine, and other commodities to give them a basis for a new start.

There are other places in the Torah that describe laws to reduce or eliminate poverty. Deuteronomy does not mention the Jubilee year. We find that in Leviticus 25, for instance. But Deuteronomy as a whole has a lot to say about the plight of the poor and how the Israelites should work to remedy their circumstance.

Theoharris points to a textual survey described by Pastor Jim Wallis in his book, Faith Works, Lessons from the Life of an Activist Preacher. While he was in seminary, Wallis and some of his fellow students made a study of every mention of the poor in the Bible. What they found was that poverty was the second-most prominent theme in the Hebrew Scriptures, the first being idolatry, the two often being related. Wallis elaborates on what they found:

In the New Testament, one out of every sixteen verses had to do with wealth and poverty. In the first three Gospels the subject is in one out of every ten verses; in the Gospel of Luke is is in one out of seven verses.¹

Upon further discussion, Wallis and his fellow students realized that none of them had ever heard a sermon in any of their churches on the danger of riches and God’s concern for the poor. I would note that we see something similar in the larger religious discourse here in the United States.

Your Mission…

It seems pretty clear to me that we don’t care enough about each other, and that there are political and social forces pushing us apart, polarizing us as a society. Let me suggest that perhaps looking out for those in need, but also fighting like hell to change a bleak, inhumane, and often evil system is the best way to dispel the darkness that lies over so much of our country.

One of the best indicators of the health of a government or a society, is how they treat their vulnerable. When that treatment sinks below a certain threshold, that society’s days are numbered.

Notes:

1Wallis, Faith Works, Lessons from the Life of an Activist Preacher, p. 71.

Learning is a team sport, even if it’s just a team of two. Yes, there are “autodidacts” out there, but in most cases if you look closely you will find a mentor or two that helped them along. When the Internet started heating up back in the late 80s, Silicon Valley was redolent with the hope of a surging tide of information that would lift us all up to rarefied intellectual climes that would… well, we all know how that turned out. More to the point, we are more “connected” than ever before and yet somehow we also experience a strong sense of isolation. That is perhaps the signature irony of our age. But I digress.

It’s true that one can learn a tremendous amount on the Internet. No question of it. But for deeper understanding more often than not you need another human. Someone who has had a long time to not just learn the esoteric stuff, but perhaps more importantly, understands the simple things deeply. Someone who can take you through the long game. For that, you need a mentor.

Independent intellectual work does not have to be isolated and probably shouldn’t be. With care, preparation, and humility, amateur scholars and scientists can often find professional scientists or scholars willing to advise, critique, or peer-review serious projects, even when no formal institutional bridge exists.

What Are You Looking For?

First of all, don’t go chasing after prestige. You don’t need that. You are also not looking for “free labor” from someone else. They don’t need that. Your aim is to build a working relationship with another intellectual by giving them a reason to take an interest in you and your work. Along the way, you learn how to ask better question, think more clearly about your topic, learn the “trade knowledge” that gets passed from teachers to students outside of the classroom, and present your findings in a clear, professional way.

You also want someone who is relevant, generous, responsive, and capable of giving the kind of help the project actually needs. Retirees often make excellent mentors because they have loads of experience and usually have some extra time on their hands. Recent retirees, are especially useful because they are freer to discuss some of the problems that exist in a particular field (or institution).

How and Where to Look

First rule: don’t look for a generic teacher who will take you through a topic like you’re taking an undergraduate introductory course. You should have a project already started or in the advanced planning stages.

Take your time with this. You need the match to be just right. That means finding someone whose expertise closely matches the exact question your project raises. Start with faculty pages at universities, especially the profiles of people whose research interests overlap with your topic. Many professors, lecturers, and research staff list current projects, publications, and contact information, which makes it easier to approach the right person with a precise request.

If you attended a university, check the alumni association. Even if you’re not an alum, contact them. The worst that can happen is that they’ll say, “no.”

Try to stay local. It’s better to have someone you can actually talk to without the tenuous, bloodless medium of Zoom. LinkedIn is a good place to start, but so are resources like your local public library, Chamber of Commerce, or community learning centers. One of the things I’ve found is that there is a vast reservoir of talent, skills, experience, and passion that goes unused for want of an outlet.

Mentor Databases

1. National Research Databases

Government-backed networks aggregate university associations to improve research mentorship across scientific disciplines.

• National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN): This national network connects diverse mentees—ranging from undergraduate students to early-career faculty—with skilled mentors to support biomedical, clinical, and behavioral research projects. [1, 2, 3]

2. General Directory Aggregators

Global association databases index thousands of professional and scholastic organizations, categorized by specific field of study.

• Directory of Associations: A massive repository indexing over 37,000 professional associations, chambers of commerce, and non-profit organizations globally. It allows users to filter by specific intellectual and industry sectors to locate groups offering mentorship structures.

3. Specialized STEM Mentorship Networks

Platforms optimized specifically for tracking, matching, and maintaining technical and scientific research partnerships.

• MentorNet (Great Minds in STEM): A virtual mentorship platform designed to match STEM students and early-career researchers with working professionals and academics for project guidance, research advice, and career longevity. [1, 2]

4. Professional and Academic Society Lists

Most established, discipline-specific scholarly societies host dedicated mentor match services for project peer reviews.

• Specific Professional Societies: Entities like the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) host internal databases where members register as trusted project advisors, coaches, and peer-review mentors.

5. National Mentoring Registries

Broad-scope, localized program registries that feature filters specifically optimized for finding scholastic and project-based guidance.

• MENTOR’s Mentoring Connector: The only national database of mentoring programs in the United States. It indexes thousands of local and national mentoring organizations, enabling users to search directly for programs focused on academic and intellectual development.

Approaching Potential Mentors or, the Art of the Schmooze

Rule number one: Do your homework! If you want someone to help you, they need to see you as more than a student. You need to come across as a potential collaborator or even a potential colleague. Their time is precious and they aren’t going to waste it on someone who isn’t serious. If you’re going to approach an expert, read everything you can that they have written, and what others have said about their work. You need to show that you’ve done the hard, gritty groundwork and aren’t just some armchair hobbyist.

Next, start small. Don’t ask for mentorship up front; we’re playing the long game here. Pick a very specific question that your expert is uniquely qualified to address. Something like, “I’ve been reading your research on this, but I’ve noticed something related that your work doesn’t address. Would that be an avenue worth pursuing?“ Show your work. Cite peer-reviewed sources. If you’ve started something preliminary, let them see what you have while making clear that it’s a work in progress.

If you need additional leverage, you can tout your independent status. You aren’t constrained by grant cycles (who needs money, right?), departmental politics, or the pressure to publish marginal results for tenure. You can look at high-risk, interdisciplinary, or niche angles they might not have the funding to explore.

Another advantage is if you have a background in a different professional field, highlight how those methodologies give you a unique lens on their specific domain. Many an academic investigator has had to veer off from a promising avenue of investigation because it led into a discipline that was outside their declared area of expertise.

Take time to build the relationship. Be gracious. Be humble. But ask good questions and make yourself useful if you can. One last tip: don’t ask for an opinion. Couch your question as a request for advice. When they give an opinion, there’s a stop. But if they offer advice, there is a small but implicit investment in your success.

Now go out there and find yourself a mentor. Maybe you’ll get to do the same for someone else someday.

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Ever wonder what you could do to make the world better, if only you knew how?

There’s really no easy way to say it: the world is even more of a mess than usual, and brother, that’s saying something. Despite the chaos and brokenness that fills the daily newsfeeds, I am still hopeful that at some point a critical mass of sensible people with well-calibrated moral compasses will get their chance to put our collective Humpty-Dumpty back together again.

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That’s not to say that we can’t start now. Nor is there any reason to learn the arts and science of healing the world. If one is to inflict goodness on the world, better that our care and compassion is matched by our competence. To that end, I’ve assembled a list of (mostly) free courses and certification programs that teach the skills of being a shameless do-gooder; peacebuilding, sustainability, climate action, human rights, pollution, justice, security—the works.

What was so interesting about researching this post is discovering how many such courses are available from places most people wouldn’t think to look. The United Nations, for instance. The US Government also offers lots of great stuff (get it while you still can). NPOs and NGOs are also very active in semi-formal education, but often get overlooked. Take a look through these courses and learn the nuts and bolts of making the world a better place.

UN and international organizations

• UNSSC Free Course Catalogue — free courses on peacebuilding, climate action, and human rights for people interested in global development and public service.

• UNRIC’s UN e-learning roundup — a broad index of UN learning resources covering sustainable development, climate change, nuclear safety, and human rights; many are self-paced and some include certificates of completion.

• UNITAR: Learn Anywhere, Anytime — free public courses on topics like climate, biodiversity, and governance, with some courses offering digital certificates after completion.

• FAO eLearning Academy — free learning on food systems, agriculture, nutrition, and sustainable development, often in self-paced or multilingual formats.

• UNESCO Open Learning — free courses and learning modules on issues such as disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation, science, and ICT.

• UNESCO webinars & open courses — open webinars and courses on education, culture, science, and communication, including live and recorded learning opportunities.

• UNEP Massive Open Online Courses — environment-focused MOOCs on pollution, sustainability, and climate-related topics.

• UNODC eLearning — free courses on cybercrime, trafficking, corruption, border control, and related justice and security topics.

• UNICEF Agora — UNICEF’s learning platform for child rights, humanitarian response, program management, and related development work.

• UNODA Disarmament Education Dashboard — free learning on arms control, disarmament, and peace education.

US government and public agencies

• FEMA Emergency Management Institute Independent Study — free self-paced emergency management courses, including disaster preparedness, incident command, and community response; many courses provide official completion certificates.

• CDC TRAIN — a large catalog of public health and healthcare training, with many courses offering continuing education credit or certificates.

• CDC Watch Me! training — training for developmental screening and related child-health topics, with certificates or CE options for some learners.

Nonprofits and NGOs

• NonprofitReady — over 600 free resources on fundraising, grant writing, leadership, governance, finance, volunteer engagement, marketing, and program management.

• NonprofitReady certificates — free certificate programs in areas like fundraising, board leadership, accounting, grant seeking, nonprofit marketing, and DEI.

• GlobalGiving learning — free nonprofit management courses for NGOs and social-impact teams, especially useful for organizations in the Global South.

• Nonprofit Hub courses — courses for nonprofit professionals, with a free membership to the Cause Network included.

• OWL nonprofit training — free e-learning for nonprofit staff and volunteers, aimed at practical skills and community support.

• Nonprofit.Courses free resources — a large library of free nonprofit videos, podcasts, and documents, plus paid certificate options for some programs.

• Alison NGO courses — free NGO-related courses on topics like project management, fundraising, and community work; certificates may be available depending on the course.

Final Thoughts

This is by no means an exhaustive list. But it’s enough to give you a sense of what’s out there. In the face of growing disorder and—let’s call it what it is—evil, people are organizing, reaching out to find others who see the same signs, portents, and outrages and wonder what is to be done. My hope is that resources like the ones above can serve to establish a foundation of popular competence for what comes next.

Yes, things are falling apart. But sometimes the best time to reinvent, to rebuild is when things are already in pieces.

These literary societies were not only for Blacks who wished to learn how to read and write or for those who wished to refine their writing skills. Meetings often included readings of abolitionist tracts and essays, allowing those ideas to spread even among those who could not read. But even more important was the role played by these societies in the evolving abolitionist movement. The writers and thinkers who grew out of these organizations went on to write pamphlets, editorials, and books for both black and white audiences.

Some schools combined education as part of a larger mission of mutual aid. One of these was the Phoenix Society, founded in New York City in 1833 by Samuel Cornish, Theodore Wright, Peter Williams Jr., and Christopher Rush, with help from the philanthropists Arthur and Lewis Tappan. The aims of the society were ambitious: to promote education and welfare throughout the black community in New York. One of their initial objectives was to take a survey of the black population and identify anyone who could read, write, and do arithmetic and then use this reservoir of knowledge to educate others. They started schools, built circulating libraries, and set up programs to help children attend those schools. For example, they would loan clothing to poor children of color so they could go to school, but the clothing would be taken away if a child neglected their studies. The Phoenix Society also supported “mental feasts” — “meetings for intellectual cultivation and improvement” — lyceums in which members could hear speakers on the sciences, moral societies to promote ethical conduct, and training in trades and business.“

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After the Civil War, there was a surge of interest in education among recently freed slaves who wanted to enjoy the benefits of their freedom. African American learning and literary societies were an important supplement to schoolteachers from the North to set up schools for both black children and adults.

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One of the worst things ever to happen to American academia was the slow adoption of business thinking into its administration. Critics of higher education sounded the alarm as far back as the 1970s as business administrative practices and attitudes wormed their way into universities across the land. This thinking did not stay on campus. Publishers of academic literature soon got the message and turned the publication of academic publications into a money-making machine. In addition for charging university libraries absurdly high prices for academic publications, the terms required that universities limit access only to university personnel. This means that anyone who wants to access an article from a peer-reviewed journal must do so through the publisher’s website, and pay $40 or higher—sometimes much higher—to obtain what used to be available pretty much for the asking.

When it comes to published research, scholarly types have long tended to a certain benign communal approach. Ask someone for a copy of a paper and usually they are happy to send you one, especially if it’s something they wrote. In my book, I describe how scholars around the world have pushed back by creating open-access sites along with other tricks to circumvent greedy publishers. Most are legal, some less so.

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An ugly side-effect of overpriced journals is the emergence of predatory or fake journals that will print anything for a price. If you’re caught in a “publish-or-perish” situation, they offer a way to pad one’s publishing record, but the stuff they put out is decidedly sub-par and sometimes outright fraudulent.

Below are some tools for finding, vetting, and obtaining papers, usually for free. Some of the suggestions are from my book, others have come to my attention since it was published.

The Strategy

You begin my finding or identifying a publication that looks interesting. The next step is to see if there is a legal way to get a copy other than going through a paywall. Along the way, unless you know something about the author and/or the journal, it might be a good idea to confirm that the publication is legit.

Once that’s done, get the document. Repeat as needed.

Tooling Up

There are a couple of nifty plugins that ought to be installed in the browser (Chrome/Firefox) of every guerrilla scholar. These tools do the hunting for you and find free versions of paywalled papers automatically.

• Unpaywall: When you land on a paywalled journal page, a small “green lock” icon will appear if a free version exists in a legal repository.

• Open Access Button: Similar to Unpaywall, but includes a feature that helps you email the author to request a copy if no public version is found.

• #ICanHazPDF is a hashtag used on Twitter to request access to academic journal articles which are behind paywalls or otherwise inaccessible. Users request articles by tweeting an article's title, DOI or other linked information like a publisher's link, their email address, and the hashtag "#ICanHazPDF". Someone who has access to the article might then email it to them. The user then deletes the original tweet.

Search Options

These are your primary starting points. They index millions of papers and provide clear indicators of whether a full text is available.

• CORE (Connecting Repositories): The world’s largest aggregator of open-access research. It pulls from thousands of institutional repositories, making it a premier tool for finding “Green OA” (author-archived) versions of paywalled papers.

• Google Scholar: The most comprehensive index globally. Pro-tip: Look for the [PDF] or [HTML] links on the right side of the results. Use the “Cited by” feature to track how an idea has evolved over time.

• Semantic Scholar: An AI-powered engine from the Allen Institute. It provides one-sentence “TL;DR” summaries of papers, helping you quickly decide if a study is worth the deep dive.

Locate and Verify

Use these tools to filter out “predatory” journals or to focus on specific geographic or academic regions.

• BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine): One of the most voluminous engines in the world, operated by Bielefeld University Library. It is particularly strong for European scholarship and the humanities.

• DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals): Use this to verify the legitimacy of a journal. If it’s in the DOAJ, it has passed a rigorous quality-control check for peer review.

• The Lens: An excellent multidisciplinary tool that integrates scholarly research with patent data, providing a unique view of how science translates into technology.

Top Open Access Publishers

In the best open access sites, the entire journal is free to read from day one. These are the heavy hitters in STEM and Social Sciences.

• PLOS (Public Library of Science): A nonprofit leader in open science. PLOS ONE is a massive, peer-reviewed multidisciplinary journal that covers almost every scientific field.

• Frontiers & BMC: High-impact platforms for medicine, neuroscience, and environmental science. All content is fully peer-reviewed and open.

• MDPI: Offers a vast portfolio across all disciplines. While useful for broad coverage, evaluate individual journals carefully as their selectivity varies.

• Project MUSE: A primary destination for high-quality scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.

Subject-Specific Repositories & Pre-prints

Many scholars post “pre-print” versions of their work here before they are even published in a formal journal. While these are still useful for research, keep in mind that “pre-print” sometimes means “not yet ready for prime-time.”

• arXiv: Hosted by Cornell, this is the gold standard for hard sciences, including Physics, Math, and Computer Science.

• bioRxiv / medRxiv: The leading repositories for biological and health sciences.

• JSTOR (Free Tier): Indispensable for history, literature, and social sciences. You can create a free personal account to read a limited number of articles per month for free.

• SSRN (Social Science Research Network): The best repository for law, economics, and social science pre-prints.

Bonus Pro-Tip: The “Author Request” Method

If you find a paper you absolutely need that is behind a paywall, look for the “Corresponding Author” email address. Most researchers are allowed and delighted to share a PDF of their work with an individual researcher for free via email. It’s also a pretty good way to expand your network.

ResearchGate / Academia.edu Are both useful open access sites. You can often request a full-text copy directly from the authors on these social networking sites for scientists.

If all else fails, there is always the option of “pirate” sites like Library Genesis, Z-Library, Anna’s Archive, and Sci-hub. The links tend to change for obvious reasons, so I haven’t posted them here. Yes, technically using these sites is illegal, but then again, so is jaywalking.

Good hunting!

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This is even more true now than it was then. Your public library very probably has resources that most of its users don’t know about. There are also some nifty tricks and tips for you to get the most out of a public library when you want to find things out.

Tips, Resources, and Hidden Treasures

Here are ten tips, tricks, and hidden resources. Please note, however, that not all public libraries are created equal, and that some of these services may not be available due to budget cuts, censorship, and external hostility from slack-jawed troglodytes.

1. Pro Tip: Browse the Shelves
   Shelving books by subject is the most time-consuming and expensive way to arrange a library’s collection. So why do it? Because shelf browsing is a pwerful research tool. If you look up a book in the catalogue, you’ll find that book. But if you explore the shelf where that book resides, you will probably find other books you didn’t know about.

2. Don’t Pay for Wall Street Journal or New York Times Access
   Most libraries provide a “72-hour pass” or direct login access to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

3. The “Pre-Release” Hold
   Many libraries add upcoming bestsellers to their online catalogs months before the are actually published and available. Look for your favorite authors and place a hold early to be at the top of the list on the day their latest book drops.

4. Book a Librarian
   Many libraries let you schedule 30 to 60 minutes of one-on-one time with a professional librarian for help with research, genealogy, computer training, or other needs.

5. Learn subject headings (Library of Congress system)
   The Library of Congress system has a fixed set of subject headings for classifying and shelving books. Searching by these subject tags will usually give you far better material than keyword searches. As the reference librarian to walk you through the subject headings that interest you.

6. Explore journal and publication databases
   Many libraries provide access to academic journals, trade publications, and historical archives. This is a particularly useful service for independent researchers, as most academic journals will otherwise charge non-subscribers exorbitant fees for a single paper.

7. Passport and Notary Services
   Skip the post office lines. Many central libraries are certified passport acceptance facilities, including photo services and application processing. Many libraries also have public notary services available.

8. Check Out Museum and Park Passes
   Libraries can let you use your login to book free of heavily discounted tickets to local museums, aquariums, or zoos through programs like Culture Pass or Discover & Go. Some libraries also have state park passes—physical hang-tags—you can check out for entry to state or local parks.

9. Library of Things
   Thinking of buying a new power drill? Telescope? Sewing machine? Many branches now lend out expensive tools and technical gizmos for free. Some branches now have makerspaces where you can use sophisticated tools like 3D printers, laser cutters, and so on. You only pay for the cost of materials.

10. Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
    This is your library’s superpower. Looking for a rare academic text or out-of-print book? ILL will literally mail the book from another library across the country just for you, or send you a photocopy of that article from that obscure journal. Many people know ILL exists, but don’t appreciate what a powerful research tool it can be.

Concluding thoughts

Think of your local public library as more than just a building with books, DVDs, etc. Think of it instead as part of a larger information ecosystem that includes digital collections, partner services, interlibrary loan, and much more. Remember that it’s also perfectly okay to have library cards from more than one library. There are city, country, and state libraries, as well as government document repositories.

Take some time to get to know your local, state, and regional library system. Get on a first-name basis with your public librarians, especially the reference librarians. They can work miracles—it’s their job. And, finally, pay attention to efforts to curtail access to libraries, books, public records, and knowledge in general, and fight like hell to keep it from happening.

Some months ago I was perusing the used book section of our local St. Vinnie’s thrift store when I came across a book from the 1930s on “political economy.” Out of curiosity I took it off the shelf and opened and discovered a remarkable book plate inside the front cover. This book had once graced the shelves of a mechanics’ union library in San Francisco in the late 1930s, back when unions had libraries and thriving educational programs for their members.

What Was Lost

There was a time when learning happened everywhere. Coffee shops, libraries, union halls, bars, park benches, churches… all were places where people would gather to discuss, to argue, and kick ideas around. It ranged from small book circles to the elaborate educational system developed by Welsh coal miners that included entire libraries and lecture halls paid for by union members—and everything in between.

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While there are still fragments of this kind of communal learning here and there, we have to concede that much has been lost; libraries are being de-funded or denuded of “offensive” books, civic spaces are privatized, society is atomized and even our very attention spans commodified. Meanwhile, universities have grown more insular and subject to relentless attacks as part of a rising anti-intellectualism.

As I said before, it was not always like this. The American Lyceum movement, workers educational circles, the Free University movement of the 1960s and 70s are all proof that community learning is possible. The problem is that it doesn’t just spring into existence out of nowhere. Local intellectual culture is built, deliberately, gradually, imperfectly, by people who give a damn about the need for an informed citizenry.

How do you nurture a local intellectual culture?

Notice, I said “intellectual culture” and not “intellectual center.” A single organization isn’t going to solve the problem. It takes an ecosystem; a network of overlapping groups, individuals, and regular, public events; the monthly lecture, reading groups, nature walks, public debates, music, poetry readings, art shows, or local theater.

It’s important to keep in mind that you don’t need everything at once to have a working ecosystem. In fact it’s better for it to grow organically. It’s easy to assume that one or two or three “geniuses” can drive the formation of an intellectual ecosystem, but resulting communities can prove brittle and even monotonous.

What you really need are connectors. People who know other people and can identify who should get to know whom based on shared interest or experiences. Look for people like this first. If you can find the right organizers and connectors, the “genius factor” will most likely attend to itself.

You also need spaces that support these events; along with the aforementioned coffee houses, libraries, and whatnot, virtual spaces have become indispensable. Granted, I have a personal bias for meeting in meatspace; the web, frankly, is bloodless. Too many subtle information channels get stripped away in a Zoom call or Discord room. But for organizing, sharing information, it’s tough to beat a well-managed social media presence or even a simple email list (remember those?). Spaces extend to public spaces; parks, greenways, public squares. Remember that much of the intellectual activity in Golden Age Greece took place in the marketplace. The Stoic philosophers got their name because they typically held their discussions on the Stoa Poikile (Painted Porch) in the Agora of Athens, which was literally a marketplace of ideas.

Finally, you need to leave something behind. Some sort of artifact; a zine, newsletter, local journal of ideas. Accumulate a record that can continue to speak after the event. Sure, websites are nice, but they are ephemeral. I’m not saying don’t use them, but supplement them with something you can still read when the power goes out.

The Details: How to Start

Think small and start smaller. Four people discussing a book over coffee is a start. A local zine consisting of a single page is a start. Take your project and give it a name, an identity. Make it informal and do whatever it takes to keep it that way. Lower the barriers for entry relentlessly. Free admission. Make it walkable or near public transit. Try a hybrid format; live and Zoom or some other virtual connection to expand the scope of your meeting. Forget about credentials. Attendees don’t even need to have finished or even started the reading.

Now, generate public connections. Find some way to output what your group does and what they’ve been up to lately. A short recap post, a reading list, an outline. See if you can post information about your group to the public library, local schools, bookstores, retirement homes, community centers, anywhere people gather and converse. Many churches have adult education programs that might want to hear about what you are doing. Don’t overlook local newspapers (if your community has one) or local public radio stations (ditto).

The Pitfalls and Obstacles

Time is precious, moreso because we all seem to have less and less of it. Promoting a local intellectual culture is one way of taking back our time, our leisure. We live lives that leave us exhausted. Whatever you decide to do, keep this factor in mind.

Another problem is that intellectual activity has long carried a hint of status. Independent intellectual work has historically been the domain of the gentleman and occasional gentlewoman of means (our word school comes from a Greek word that means “leisure”). That hint of snobbery is a vestige of that reality. Be welcoming, be accommodating, but do what you can to help newcomers or newbies tackle that learning curve.

This leads to another self-inflicted problem with learning groups: the “serious people only” trap. There is a tendency for intellectual communities to quietly, slowly become gatekept and exclusionary despite a desire to avoid exactly that. If you must be a gatekeeper, keep that gate open.

We also have to acknowledge that the art of measured, polite discourse has fallen on hard times, I have a number of strategies and tips in my book that can help mitigate the danger of cage-match discourse.

The Vision

As a practitioner of guerrilla scholarship, I have been part of countless learning groups, discussion circles, classes, seminars, nonprofits, and universities. I know just how much a few vibrant learning communities can enhance the life of a town. We’re not looking for a thinker’s utopia. The role of a guerrilla scholar is to not wait for institutions to step up and provide intellectual richness to their communities. That richness is already there. All around you there are people with remarkable sets of life experiences, skills, educational backgrounds, or just raw curiosity looking for an outlet.

Start building the pieces of your local intellectual culture, and start now. Find a book to discuss, a question to debate, a wonder to share. Ask yourself, what would you have to do just this week, to start something new in your community?

Let’s get started.