EEDA Newsletter Vol 6, Res 23: Short Story, Opting Out, LifeKit Roundup, & genAI
This is a public issue of Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice. Feel free to share it!
Hi friends! I recognize that not everyone that reads this newsletter listens to my podcast and vice versa. There’s a little story that I share in this week’s podcast episode that I also want to share for my newsletter audience. Instead of typing out the story fresh, I’m just going to copy and paste from the transcript:
The other thing I wanna share is actually it goes, oh gosh, I can’t remember what episode we were talking about, but we kind of have talked about a number of times in the past about, you know, you don’t know if you don’t ask. And recently someone who is a cookbook author and makes pasta online and I follow, and I have her book and she has a Substack and she posted a recipe on Instagram and I, and she was like, this is gonna be out in this week’s Substack.
And I was like, you know what? I commented because I do not give money to Substack, I will not support the not-see machine and that vehicle that is documented as shoveling money to the far right. So I commented, I was like, hey, is there some way I can pay you? ’cause I still want to give her money for her work.
I want to pay you for this recipe, but I don’t wanna pay you through Substack. And we chatted a little bit in the comments and she’s like, you know what? Why don’t you DM me? And she responded to me. She’s like, hey, thank you so much. Sure we can work out getting me the recipe. She’s like, will you tell me like what’s your reasoning behind why you don’t wanna give money to Substack?
And I was like, thank you for asking. I actually have an issue of my newsletter on a different platform that is one of the free issues. On some citations and reasons why I don’t support Substack, but I also understand the growth potential there. And I don’t necessarily fault creators for still being there, and especially if they get a lot of their money from their newsletter, which I do not.
But she was open to having a conversation. And she was like, thank you. This is a lot of what I’m hearing. Some of her colleagues are also moving to other platforms and I was just reminded of a couple of things. Like one: ask. Ask, you don’t know if someone’s gonna meet you halfway. And two, just the importance of having those one-on-one conversations.
You know, we can post so many things online and just post into the void and resharing a post is not actually activism. It’s not actually going to affect real change. We actually need to talk to people. There was an article I read and I also shared in a recent newsletter that I could share in the show notes about how posting about a fire is not the same as throwing a bucket of water on the fire.
Yeah. It just really reminded me, huh. Conversations with people and not being a jerk about it, not being super prescriptive about it, but it was, uh, it was surprisingly pleasant.
New episode of EEDA Pod this week! Our Most Popular Communication Skill: Some/Many/Most
This episode of "Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice" covers Nicole and Patricia's recent activities, including a trip to Santa Rosa, obtaining library cards, and trying new hobbies like crochet and Pilates. They introduce and explain the communication tool "some/many/most," which helps avoid sweeping generalizations in conversations. The hosts also discuss their current reads and emphasize the importance of taking breaks and showing kindness to oneself.
You can find our show, Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. You can also support the show on Patreon, where we have some perks for paid subscribers with even more coming this year. You can also just make a recurring donation through subscribing to our Patreon, as our show is independently run and without ads. It helps keep us going!
Bonus: We updated the top tier of our Patreon to make it more accessible! You can find that announcement here.
It’s another resource week so let’s get to it!
Resource 1: keepbeyond.com/optout via YK Hong
Curated resources and helpful tips on opting out. From the site:
Opt Out of Biometric Theft, Facial Recognition Tech, and Data Scraping
Borders, check points, events and venues are increasingly implementing biometric gathering where we are by default opted in.
In addition, AI platforms have and continue to use our books, photos, videos, artwork, faces, and creations, to train their algorithms.
We should be asked for our consent to opt in, rather than us having to fight to opt out. And for our creations, we should be compensated if we do choose to opt in. We should demand consent culture and cannot allow the normalization of surveillance culture.
Resource 2: NPR LifeKit Round-Up
Just in case you don’t subscribe to NPR’s LifeKit newsletter, you may have missed the great round-up of past articles and episodes they did recently. Also: give money to NPR.
5 simple questions to ask yourself if you're feeling stuck in life
A surprising trick to making hard choices? Try thinking less
Resource 3: A little chat about genAI by Alex Plante
If you are interested in learning about why so many of us are against generative AI, this piece is clear and accessible. It’s not full of jargon and it plainly explains many reasons why generative AI is terrible for people and the planet. It also has some excellent responses to the folks who say they use generative AI because they cannot afford to pay actual artists as well as responses to the folks who say they don’t use it for important things.
Recent & Current Reads
Inclusion of a book in this section is not necessarily a recommendation and these books won’t always be added to my Bookshop. Links are affiliate links.
Recently Read:
Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance by Edgar Villanueva
Human Rites (HMRC #3) by Juno Dawson
Currently Reading:
The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity by Sarah Schulman
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown
That’s it for this week! You can shop many books I’ve mentioned in this newsletter at my affiliate shop, The Infophile’s Bookshop, and support independent bookstores. In fact, any Bookshop, Amazon, or Etsy links in this newsletter are affiliate links so if you shop through those, it helps support my work. Or you can leave me a tip on Ko-fi, Paypal, or Venmo.
If you want to send me some snail mail, you can find me at P.O. Box 21481, Oakland, CA 94620-1481.
You can find our podcast, Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts.