[rland]

I only got partway through this. I want to say to the author:

Oh my god just stop taking yourself so seriously. Really. You don't need to do this. You're trying waaaay too hard.

It's opaque and mysterious and lovecraftian to you because you clearly spend all of your time making cool graphics and drawing tenuous metaphors between 16th century monks, pharaohs, and jeff bezos. I assure you, for everyone who works in a lithium mine or amazon datacenter doing the actual thing, it's actually pretty obvious. you just, you don't need to write this maam.

And also google "commodity fetishism" sometime.

It does look cool though. Wonderful typography and illustrations. I have a nitpick which is that it's a little bit monochrome, a pop of color (maybe a gold? or like neon red) would really take it to the next level.

[xpe]

Taking oneself too seriously? Or a pair of authors building on top of a rich history of economic and social theory to make sense of an immense technology tree that affects millions?

It is all in how you look at it.

Criticizing is easy; we all do it sometimes.

I do it too -- I'll take a negative interpretation and make uncharitable assumptions. Then it snowballs and out pops a not very nice thought which might end up as a HN comment.

It seems that something grabbed you about the content. Perhaps if you look again and investigate the lens of the author you will find more to appreciate in it?

I wonder if you would be willing to examine your claim that "it is all obvious to those who do it". Is it really? All parts of how things fit together are obvious? Am I misunderstanding you?