Surrounded by idiots

The edge of Sentience

What if a silent patient feels every cut? What if an octopus or AI possesses a hidden inner world? Jonathan Birch’s The Edge of Sentience explores harrowing territory where consciousness is uncertain but the stakes are life or death. From medical tragedies to the emerging minds of machines and invertebrates, Birch builds a vital precautionary framework. This book demands we face the mystery of sentience and protect potential minds before it is too late.

How are corporates become rich

Why are global corporations so dominant and billionaires so rich while technically following the law? Profit and Power reveals the secret DNA of modern capitalism: jurisdictional arbitrage. Ronen Palan exposes how elite networks exploit legal grey areas and fragmented national rules to maximize profits. By operating at the edges of legality, these corporate leviathans decouple physical business from legal registration, creating a world where power is redefined through strategic ambiguity and hidden structures of control.

Science of animal brains

Can we ever truly know what an octopus thinks or a bee feels? Mike Dacey's Seven Challenges for the Science of Animal Minds dives into the mysterious black box of nonhuman thought. From human bias to the puzzle of consciousness, Dacey explores why studying alien-like minds is so difficult yet essential. This book bridges philosophy and science to reveal how we can finally understand the sophisticated mental lives of the creatures sharing our world.

Capability building instead of GDP

Forget the cold numbers of GDP. Nussbaum’s book reveals why national wealth often hides deep human suffering. Instead of measuring money, she asks a crucial question: what are people actually able to do and to be? This work introduces the Capabilities Approach, a revolutionary framework for social justice. Through actual stories, Nussbaum defines ten essential human entitlements from bodily integrity to political freedom demanding a world where every person can live with true human dignity.

The idea of associationism

Kojin Karatani's Transcritique on Kant and Marx shatters traditional boundaries by reading Immanuel Kant through Karl Marx and vice versa. This provocative work uncovers a hidden space between ethics and political economy, introducing the dynamic concept of the parallax. Karatani dissects the iron grip of the Capital-Nation-State trinity, showing us how to escape its cycle. By weaving together linguistics and mathematics, he offers a visionary blueprint for global associationism that finally bridges practice and theory.