Weekend Review

19th September 2021

image by Tahmineh Monzavi

How China Avoided Soviet-Style Collapse

By Adam Tooze in Noema journal on how “China escaped the shock therapy that brought down the Soviet Union.”

Maud Gonne and the 1930s' movement for basic income in Ireland

By Gordon Warren in the Irish Times on “how a band of Catholic monetary reformers promoted the idea of a basic income to eradicate poverty and introduce an age of leisure.”

Made for the moon, built in Iran

By George Upton in Kinfolk. “Colorful organic forms have begun to appear on the sparsely populated western shore of Hormuz Island in Iran… Central to the scheme is superadobe, an innovative building technique that uses local resources and that can be carried out by unskilled workers. Pioneered by the late Iranian architect Nader Khalili in the 1980s, superadobe was developed in response to a call from NASA for proposals for settlements that could be built on the moon.”

I’m not recommending this as a solution to the housing crisis or anything, just thought they looked beautiful and otherworldly.

Profilicity

Dr Hans-Georg Moeller on Good Ol Boyz podcast on the concept of profilicity.

What Ever Happened To The Sundays?

This is part of a retrospective series and this episode is on “Whatever Happaned To The Band Behind "This is Where The Story Ends" & Harriet Wheeler?” In case you were curious!