Hi everyone!🌸

I’ve just watched a very interesting 🔗Youtube video focussing on technology – specifically criticisms of modern technology but also advantages. It provides a lot of philosophical insights into the topic so I’d recommend you check it out! Why am I bringing this up here though? So, in one part of the video the author, Jared, talks about metrics and value capture – basically how we use metrics, e.g. grades at Uni to capture information and make it comparable – which also can apply to reading imo.

Value capture is a 3-step process: 1 your values are rich and subtle 2 you enter some social or institutional setting that offers simple quantifiable renditions of your values 3 the simplified version takes over

However, using such metrics often makes people work towards the metric - changing our practices to conform with and only care about the metric instead of the original value. We might work (understandably in this system) rather towards a grade, losing our passion for a subject, or we might say “We’ve been productive for x hours” instead of reflecting on the quality of our work.

Connecting this to reading, this made me think about some discourse here recently about reading goals and what should count (or not). Much has been said about this already but I think this lens of value capture is quite interesting and I guess explains that need that many of us feel to work towards a certain number of books. Obviously, that is not a problem in itself, but similar to the examples in this video we as readers sometimes forget our nuanced reasons and values. On one hand it might make us choose shorter or easier books to reach a goal that we set for ourselves – on the other hand it might make us question the validity of our reading when we read, e.g. a children’s book, mangas, graphic novels or novellas that might seem to “inflate” our reading, making us doubt if we can count that to a goal. Reading becomes less of an activity in itself and we end up focussing only on the number and not the process of reading.

Imo this is a very interesting and useful concept that applies to many areas of life – hence I wanted to share it and I hope y’all maybe got something interesting out of this (admittedly) quite long post ^^

So in the end – pls read whatever you like and try not to think too much about numbers if it prevents you from reading what you want 🫶

With Europe experiencing this insane heat wave as well as other parts of the world struggling under inhumane heat it is easy to get overwhelmed and anxious. It’s difficult to imagine a future which might get better as climate action is often deemed “unnecessary” or “too expensive” etc by various governments. I would love to try and counter this doomerism mindset with some hopeful climate reads, be it fictional or not. Maybe we could share such reads here with each other! Also, if you have any other hopeful sources, feel free to share them as well! One book I think might inspire hope is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.