Quentin's Weeknotes 1/26/19-2/01/19

This Week:

• I read an explanation of a General Strike from America’s most radical publication. This is increasingly relevant given that the recent shutdown seems to have inspired a growing informal general strike, and that General strikes get shit done.
• I listened to a recent WITH episode on Amazon. Instead of focusing on their atrocious labor relations, the episode instead talks about their business model and their long-term plans. The short version is that they rely pretty heavily on what we used to call predatory pricing (a crime under anti-trust laws), require massive government subsidies to operate, and are basically planning to supplant what we think of as the free market with a siloed portal between consumers and producers. I’ve had a growing distrust of Amazon for a long time, and this podcast inspired me to try and migrate some aspects of my life off of it.
• I read this profile of Jordan Peele. Get Out was amazing. Key and Peele was amazing. But this piece makes clear that Peele has both a grand agenda as a horror filmmaker, and the skill, depth of knowledge about horror, and fierce intellect to achieve it.