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- Pluralistic: An adversarial iMessage client for Android (07 Dec 2023)
- Thu, 07 Dec 2023 13:31:30 +0000
Today's links An adversarial iMessage client for Android: Beeper Mini preserves end-to-end encryption and doesn't require an Apple ID. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading An adversarial iMessage client for Android (permalink) Adversarial interoperability is one of the most reliable ways to protect tech users from predatory corporations: that's when a technologist reverse-engineers an existing product to reconfigure or mod it (interoperability) in ways its users like, but which its manufacturer objects to (adversarial): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability "Adversarial interop" is a mouthful, so at EFF, we coined the term "competitive compatibility," or comcom, which is a lot easier to say and to spell. Scratch any tech success and you'll find a comcom story. After all, when a company turns its screws on its users, it's good business to offer an aftermarket mod that loosens them again. HP's $10,000/gallon inkjet ink is like a bat-signal for third-party ink companies. When Mercedes announces that it's going to sell you access to your car's accelerator pedal as a subscription service, that's like an engraved invitation to clever independent mechanics who'll charge you a single fee to permanently unlock that "feature": https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/05/carmakers-push-forward-with-plans-to-make-basic-features-subscription-services-despite-widespread-backlash/ Comcom saved giant tech companies like Apple. Microsoft tried to kill the Mac by rolling out a truly cursèd version of MS Office for MacOS. Mac users (5% of the market) who tried to send Word, Excel or Powerpoint files to Windows users (95% of the market) were stymied: their files wouldn't open, or they'd go corrupt. Tech managers like me started throwing the graphic designer's Mac and replacing it with a Windows box with a big graphics card and Windows versions of Adobe's tools. Comcom saved Apple's bacon. Apple reverse-engineered MS's flagship software suite and made a comcom version, iWork, whose Pages, Numbers and Keynote could flawlessly read and write MS's Word, Excel and Powerpoint files: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay It's tempting to think of iWork as benefiting Apple users, and certainly the people who installed and used it benefited from it. But Windows users also benefited from iWork. The existence of iWork meant that Windows users could seamlessly collaborate on and share files with their Mac colleagues. IWork didn't just add a new feature to the Mac ("read and write files that originated with Windows users") – it also added a feature to Windows: "collaborate with Mac users." Every pirate wants to be an admiral. Though comcom rescued Apple from a monopolist's sneaky attempt to drive it out of business, Apple – now a three trillion dollar company – has repeatedly attacked comcom when it was applied to Apple's products. When Apple did comcom, that was progress. When someone does comcom to Apple, that's piracy. Apple has many tools at its disposal that Microsoft lacked in the early 2000s. Radical new interpretations of existing copyright, contract, patent and trademark law allows Apple – and other tech giants – to threaten rivals who engage in comcom with both criminal and civil penalties. That's right, you can go to prison for comcom these days. No wonder Jay Freeman calls this "felony contempt of business model": https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain Take iMessage, Apple's end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) instant messaging tool. Apple customers can use iMessage to send each other private messages that can't be read or altered by third parties – not cops, not crooks, not even Apple. That's important, because when private messaging systems get hacked, bad things happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak But Apple has steadfastly refused to offer an iMessage app for non-Apple systems. If you're an Apple customer holding a sensitive discussion with an Android user, Apple refuses to offer you a tool to maintain your privacy. Those messages are sent "in the clear," over the 38-year-old SMS protocol, which is trivial to spy on and disrupt. Apple sacrifices its users' security and integrity in the hopes that they will put pressure on their friends to move into Apple's walled garden. As CEO Tim Cook told a reporter: if you want to have secure communications with your mother, buy her an iPhone: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tim-cook-says-buy-mom-210347694.html Last September, a 16-year old high school student calling himself JJTech published a technical teardown of iMessage, showing how any device could send and receive encrypted messages with iMessage users, even without an Apple ID: https://jjtech.dev/reverse-engineering/imessage-explained/ JJTech even published code to do this, in an open source library called Pypush: https://github.com/JJTech0130/pypush In the weeks since, Beeper has been working to productize JJTech's code, and this week, they announced Beeper Mini, an Android-based iMessage client that is end-to-end encrypted: https://beeper.notion.site/How-Beeper-Mini-Works-966cb11019f8444f90baa314d2f43a54 Beeper is known for a multiprotocol chat client built on Matrix, allowing you to manage several kinds of chat from a single app. These multiprotocol chats have been around forever. Indeed, iMessage started out as one – when it was called "iChat," it supported Google Talk and Jabber, another multiprotocol tool. Other tools like Pidgin have kept the flame alive for decades, and have millions of devoted users: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/tower-babel-how-public-interest-internet-trying-save-messaging-and-banish-big But iMessage support has remained elusive. Last month, Nothing launched Sunchoice, a disastrous attempt to bring iMessage to Android, which used Macs in a data-center to intercept and forward messages to Android users, breaking E2EE and introducing massive surveillance risks: https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/21/23970740/sunbird-imessage-app-shut-down-privacy-nothing-chats-phone-2 Beeper Mini does not have these defects. The system encrypts and decrypts messages on the Android device itself, and directly communicates with Apple's servers. It gathers some telemetry for debugging, and this can be turned off in preferences. It sends a single SMS to Apple's servers during setup, which changes your device's bubble from green to blue, so that Apple users now correctly see your device as a secure endpoint for iMessage communications. Beeper Mini is now available in Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beeper.ima&hl=en_US Now, this is a high-stakes business. Apple has a long history of threatening companies like Beeper over conduct like this. And Google has a long history deferring to those threats – as it did with OG App, a superior third-party Instagram app that it summarily yanked after Meta complained: https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained But while iMessage for Android is good for Android users, it's also very good for Apple customers, who can now get the privacy and security guarantees of iMessage for all their contacts, not just the ones who bought the same kind of phone as they did. The stakes for communications breaches have never been higher, and antitrust scrutiny on Big Tech companies has never been so intense. Apple recently announced that it would add RCS support to iOS devices (RCS is a secure successor to SMS): https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/16/apple-rcs-coming-to-iphone/ Early word from developers suggests that this support will have all kinds of boobytraps. That's par for the course with Apple, who love to announce splashy reversals of their worst policies – like their opposition to right to repair – while finding sneaky ways to go on abusing its customers: https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently The ball is in Apple's court, and, to a lesser extent, in Google's. As part of the mobile duopoly, Google has joined with Apple in facilitating the removal of comcom tools from its app store. But Google has also spent millions on an ad campaign shaming Apple for exposing its users to privacy risks when talking to Android users: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23883609/google-rcs-message-apple-iphone-ipager-ad While we all wait for the other shoe to drop, Android users can get set up on Beeper Mini, and technologists can kick the tires on its code libraries and privacy guarantees. Hey look at this (permalink) Why We’re Publishing Never-Reported Details of the Uvalde School Shooting Before State Investigators https://www.propublica.org/article/uvalde-school-shooting-investigation-details-publishing-decision Artificial intelligence needs to work with humans — not replace us https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/artificial-intelligence-provocation-ideas-festival-1.7046841 Freeing Ourselves From The Clutches Of Big Tech https://www.noemamag.com/freeing-ourselves-from-the-clutches-of-big-tech/ This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago Not to be read by Metafilter Matt https://web.archive.org/web/20031208053325/https://jonsullivan.com/thread.php?id=110&mat=8549 #20yrsago How many years does an Azeri have to work to buy a copy of WinXP? https://web.archive.org/web/20031204165358/https://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/ghosh/index.html #15yrsago How the Great Firewall of Britain works https://nock.co.uk/2008/12/08/great-firewall-of-britain/ #15yrsago Maker of squeezy arthritis-friendly handgun claims the FDA has classed it as a medical device https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16207-company-tries-to-get-gun-classed-as-medical-device/ #5yrsago US governmental conservationists really hope that young endangered seals will stop getting eels stuck in their nostrils https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/12/07/make-better-choices-endangered-hawaiian-monk-seals-keep-getting-eels-stuck-up-their-noses-scientists-want-them-stop/ #5yrsago Every NSFWpocalypse sends users to small, indie platforms, who are threatened by the same factors that make no-platforming practical https://memex.craphound.com/2018/12/07/every-nsfwpocalypse-sends-users-to-small-indie-platforms-who-are-threatened-by-the-same-factors-that-make-no-platforming-practical/ #5yrsago Paranoid, miserable Facebook employees have started using burner phones to complain about the company to each other and the press https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/facebooks-tensions-zuckerberg-sandberg #5yrsago PWC recommended that corporations should ask science fiction writers about the future https://onezero.medium.com/nike-and-boeing-are-paying-sci-fi-writers-to-predict-their-futures-fdc4b6165fa4 #5yrsago America’s largest sex-furniture manufacturer pays well, sources locally, and is profitable and fast-growing https://qz.com/1481545/what-the-largest-sex-furniture-manufacturer-in-the-us-can-teach-america-about-trade #5yrsago #D5: Advice for people who just realized that Qanon is bullshit https://violentmetaphors.com/2018/12/04/your-q-anon-exit-briefing/ #5yrsago Devo’s open letter on “Drowning in a Devolved World” https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvqek5/devo-open-letter-devolution-rock-hall-trump-2018 #5yrsago Australia just voted to ban working cryptography. No, really. https://memex.craphound.com/2018/12/07/australia-just-voted-to-ban-working-cryptography-no-really/ #5yrsago Videos from the University of Chicago “Censorship and Information Control” seminar https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeNP7NIWmB70wFBv9QolYkg #1yrago EU to Facebook, 'Drop Dead' https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/07/luck-of-the-irish/#schrems-revenge Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Eric Migicovsky (https://twitter.com/ericmigi). Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: Don’t Be Evil https://craphound.com/articles/2023/12/03/dont-be-evil/ Upcoming appearances: The Geneva Dialog (Dec 7) https://genevadialogue.ch/event/geneva-manual-event/ Recent appearances: Artificial intelligence needs to work with humans — not replace us (CBC IDEAS) https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/artificial-intelligence-provocation-ideas-festival-1.7046841 Explore the Future of the 🔥 Climate and Information Climate (Andrew Revkin) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OGT-cvs4_Q Digital Markets Act; Interoperability; Entrenchment; Copyright; "What-About-Ism" (Digital Markets Research Hub) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm23pO5_WKM Latest books: "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024 Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://twitter.com/doctorow Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
- Pluralistic: Privacy first (06 Dec 2023)
- Wed, 06 Dec 2023 12:29:37 +0000
Today's links Privacy first: A powerful principle with a vast constituency. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Privacy first (permalink) The internet is embroiled in a vicious polycrisis: child safety, surveillance, discrimination, disinformation, polarization, monopoly, journalism collapse – not only have we failed to agree on what to do about these, there's not even a consensus that all of these are problems. But in a new whitepaper, my EFF colleagues Corynne McSherry, Mario Trujillo, Cindy Cohn and Thorin Klosowski advance an exciting proposal that slices cleanly through this Gordian knot, which they call "Privacy First": https://www.eff.org/wp/privacy-first-better-way-address-online-harms Here's the "Privacy First" pitch: whatever is going on with all of the problems of the internet, all of these problems are made worse by commercial surveillance. Worried your kid is being made miserable through targeted ads? No surveillance, no targeting. Worried your uncle was turned into a Qanon by targeted disinformation? No surveillance, no targeting. Worried that racialized people are being targeted for discriminatory hiring or lending by algorithms? No surveillance, no targeting. Worried that nation-state actors are exploiting surveillance data to attack elections, politicians, or civil servants? No surveillance, no surveillance data. Worried that AI is being trained on your personal data? No surveillance, no training data. Worried that the news is being killed by monopolists who exploit the advantage conferred by surveillance ads to cream 51% off every ad-dollar? No surveillance, no surveillance ads. Worried that social media giants maintain their monopolies by filling up commercial moats with surveillance data? No surveillance, no surveillance moat. The fact that commercial surveillance hurts so many groups of people in so many ways is terrible, of course, but it's also an amazing opportunity. Thus far, the individual constituencies for, say, saving the news or protecting kids have not been sufficient to change the way these big platforms work. But when you add up all the groups whose most urgent cause would be significantly improved by comprehensive federal privacy law, vigorously enforced, you get an unstoppable coalition. America is decades behind on privacy. The last really big, broadly applicable privacy law we passed was a law banning video-store clerks from leaking your porn-rental habits to the press (Congress was worried about their own rental histories after a Supreme Court nominee's movie habits were published in the Washington City Paper): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act In the decades since, we've gotten laws that poke around the edges of privacy, like HIPAA (for health) and COPPA (data on under-13s). Both laws are riddled with loopholes and neither is vigorously enforced: https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/09/how-to-make-a-child-safe-tiktok/ Privacy First starts with the idea of passing a fit-for-purpose, 21st century privacy law with real enforcement teeth (a private right of action, which lets contingency lawyers sue on your behalf for a share of the winnings): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/07/americans-deserve-more-current-american-data-privacy-protection-act Here's what should be in that law: A ban on surveillance advertising: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/ban-online-behavioral-advertising Data minimization: a prohibition on collecting or processing your data beyond what is strictly necessary to deliver the service you're seeking. Strong opt-in: None of the consent theater click-throughs we suffer through today. If you don't give informed, voluntary, specific opt-in consent, the service can't collect your data. Ignoring a cookie click-through is not consent, so you can just bypass popups and know you won't be spied on. No preemption. The commercial surveillance industry hates strong state privacy laws like the Illinois biometrics law, and they are hoping that a federal law will pre-empt all those state laws. Federal privacy law should be the floor on privacy nationwide – not the ceiling: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/07/federal-preemption-state-privacy-law-hurts-everyone No arbitration. Your right to sue for violations of your privacy shouldn't be waivable in a clickthrough agreement: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/stop-forced-arbitration-data-privacy-legislation No "pay for privacy." Privacy is not a luxury good. Everyone deserves privacy, and the people who can least afford to buy private alternatives are most vulnerable to privacy abuses: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/why-getting-paid-your-data-bad-deal No tricks. Getting "consent" with confusing UIs and tiny fine print doesn't count: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/02/designing-welcome-mats-invite-user-privacy-0 A Privacy First approach doesn't merely help all the people harmed by surveillance, it also prevents the collateral damage that today's leading proposals create. For example, laws requiring services to force their users to prove their age ("to protect the kids") are a privacy nightmare. They're also unconstitutional and keep getting struck down. A better way to improve the kid safety of the internet is to ban surveillance. A surveillance ban doesn't have the foreseeable abuses of a law like KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act), like bans on information about trans healthcare, medication abortions, or banned books: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/kids-online-safety-act-still-huge-danger-our-rights-online When it comes to the news, banning surveillance advertising would pave the way for a shift to contextual ads (ads based on what you're looking at, not who you are). That switch would change the balance of power between news organizations and tech platforms – no media company will ever know as much about their readers as Google or Facebook do, but no tech company will ever know as much about a news outlet's content as the publisher does: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising This is a much better approach than the profit-sharing arrangements that are being trialed in Australia, Canada and France (these are sometimes called "News Bargaining Codes" or "Link Taxes"). Funding the news by guaranteeing it a share of Big Tech's profits makes the news into partisans for that profit – not the Big Tech watchdogs we need them to be. When Torstar, Canada's largest news publisher, struck a profit-sharing deal with Google, they killed their longrunning, excellent investigative "Defanging Big Tech" series. A privacy law would also protect access to healthcare, especially in the post-Roe era, when Big Tech surveillance data is being used to target people who visit abortion clinics or secure medication abortions. It would end the practice of employers forcing workers to wear health-monitoring gadget. This is characterized as a "voluntary" way to get a "discount" on health insurance – but in practice, it's a way of punishing workers who refuse to let their bosses know about their sleep, fertility, and movements. A privacy law would protect marginalized people from all kinds of digital discrimination, from unfair hiring to unfair lending to unfair renting. The commercial surveillance industry shovels endless quantities of our personal information into the furnaces that fuel these practices. A privacy law shuts off the fuel supply: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/digital-privacy-legislation-civil-rights-legislation There are plenty of ways that AI will make our lives worse, but copyright won't fix it. For issues of labor exploitation (especially by creative workers), the answer lies in labor law: https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/01/how-the-writers-guild-sunk-ais-ship/ And for many of AI's other harms, a muscular privacy law would starve AI of some of its most potentially toxic training data: https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-updated-terms-to-use-customer-data-to-train-ai-2023-9 Meanwhile, if you're worried about foreign governments targeting Americans – officials, military, or just plain folks – a privacy law would cut off one of their most prolific and damaging source of information. All those lawmakers trying to ban Tiktok because it's a surveillance tool? What about banning surveillance, instead? Monopolies and surveillance go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Some of the biggest tech empires were built on mountains of nonconsensually harvested private data – and they use that data to defend their monopolies. Legal privacy guarantees are a necessary precursor to data portability and interoperability: https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy Once we are guaranteed a right to privacy, lawmakers and regulators can order tech giants to tear down their walled gardens, rather than relying on tech companies to (selectively) defend our privacy: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar The point here isn't that privacy fixes all the internet's woes. The policy is "privacy first," not "just privacy." When it comes to making a new, good internet, there's plenty of room for labor law, civil rights legislation, antitrust, and other legal regimes. But privacy has the biggest constituency, gets us the most bang for the buck, and has the fewest harmful side-effects. It's a policy we can all agree on, even if we don't agree on much else. It's a coalition in potentia that would be unstoppable in reality. Privacy first! Then – everything else! (Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified) Hey look at this (permalink) After $500m Zuckerberg donation, Harvard university gutted its disinfo team studying Facebook https://boingboing.net/2023/12/04/after-500m-zuckerberg-donation-harvard-university-gutted-its-disinfo-team-studying-facebook.html Silicon Valley vs. teenage girls https://www.garbageday.email/p/silicon-valley-vs-teenage-girls Writing Documentation for Your House https://luke.hsiao.dev/blog/housing-documentation/ (h/t Jessamyn West) This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago Walt Disney’s FBI files https://memex.craphound.com/2003/12/06/walt-disneys-fbi-files/ #20yrsago Ska-anthem about duct tape https://web.archive.org/web/20031209020640/http://www.ducktapeclub.com/contests/roll/lyrics.asp?entryid=131 #15yrsago Britain’s “Great Firewall” set to restrict access to Wikipedia https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/British_ISPs_restrict_access_to_Wikipedia_amid_child_pornography_allegations #15yrsago Workers in Argentina taking over dead factories and running them democratically https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/2007/08/argentina-workers-movement #10yrsago rWhat Nelson Mandela’s life tells us about the legitimacy of “democratic nations” https://memex.craphound.com/2013/12/06/what-nelson-mandelas-life-tells-us-about-the-legitimacy-of-democratic-nations/ #10yrsago Medieval kids’ birch-bark doodles https://erikkwakkel.tumblr.com/post/67681966023/medieval-kids-doodles-on-birch-bark-heres #10yrsago Botnet of 20,000 point-of-sale machines https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/credit-card-fraud-comes-of-age-with-first-known-point-of-sale-botnet/ #5yrsago Jamie Dimon is getting fed up with the protesters who “occupy” him everywhere he goes https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-03/wherever-dimon-goes-activists-turn-his-speeches-into-spectacles #5yrsago Wells Fargo blames “computer glitch” for its improper foreclosure on 545 homes https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wells-fargo-loan-modification-error-homeowners-who-went-into-foreclosure-seek-answers/ #5yrsago The third annual AI Now report: 10 more ways to make AI safe for human flourishing https://web.archive.org/web/20181206184028/https://ainowinstitute.org/AI_Now_2018_Report.pdf #5yrsago Europe’s biggest sports leagues and movie studios disavow #Article13, say it will give #BigTech even more control https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/letter-eu-european-film-companies-and-sports-leagues-disavow-article-13-say-it #5yrsago On January 1, America gets its public domain back: join us at the Internet Archive on Jan 25 to celebrate https://creativecommons.org/2018/12/05/join-us-for-a-grand-re-opening-of-the-public-domain/ Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Slashdot (https://slashdot.org/). Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: Don’t Be Evil https://craphound.com/articles/2023/12/03/dont-be-evil/ Upcoming appearances: The Geneva Dialog (Dec 7) https://genevadialogue.ch/event/geneva-manual-event/ Recent appearances: AI needs to work with humans — not replace us (CBC IDEAS) https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/artificial-intelligence-provocation-ideas-festival-1.7046841 Explore the Future of the 🔥 Climate and Information Climate (Andrew Revkin) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OGT-cvs4_Q Digital Markets Act; Interoperability; Entrenchment; Copyright; "What-About-Ism" (Digital Markets Research Hub) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm23pO5_WKM Latest books: "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024 Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://twitter.com/doctorow Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
- Pluralistic: Pedophiles for Purdue Pharma (05 Dec 2023)
- Tue, 05 Dec 2023 10:59:20 +0000
Today's links Pedophiles for Purdue Pharma: With amici like these… Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Pedophiles for Purdue Pharma (permalink) It's not merely that the Sacklers – a multigenerational, ultra-wealthy drug-pusher dynasty – made billions while murdering hundreds of thousands of Americans by lying about the safety of Oxycontin, the flagship product of their Purdue Pharma drug company. It's that they got away with it. After a decade-long crime spree in which the family used a combination of elite philanthropy and vicious legal threats against critics (including me!) to maintain a squeaky-clean image, the Sackler name is finally a synonym for mass murder, and will forever be a curse. But though they lost their name, they kept their billions. In so doing, the Sacklers exposed the rot at the heart of American bankruptcy, bringing an obscure, deeply corrupt system into the public eye. Bankruptcy has always been with us. As Michael Hudson reminds us, "Debts that can't be paid, won't be paid." Without some system for discharging debt, control over the entire productive capacity of a society is eventually shifted to a hereditary creditor class, which precipitates calamity: https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/08/jubilant/#construire-des-passerelles But America has a bifurcated bankruptcy system. For normal people, bankruptcy is more punishment than relief. For the ultra-wealthy, bankruptcy is a system of total impunity for ghastly crimes. Simply undertake those crimes through the "personage" of an LLC and you're on easy street: https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/bankruptcy-protects-fake-people-brutalizes-real-ones/ (This is America, so of course there's a racial dimension to punishment-by-bankruptcy. Broke white people are funneled into quick means of discharging debts while people of color are pushed into "expensive and lengthy repayment plans") https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2376 Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. At a certain point, it wasn't possible for the Sacklers to maintain their cuddly billionaire charade. It was time to shut down the Big Store con, cool the mark, and blow town. For the Sacklers, that meant going to court. The Sacklers were facing hundreds of billions of dollars in personal liability for their individual and collective corrupt acts. They were being sued by estates, by survivors, by cities, by states, and by the USA itself. If even a fraction of these claims succeeded, the Sacklers would be wiped out. To get away clean, the Sacklers needed a plan. Enter the "Third-Party Nonconsensual Release," a bizarre and wildly corrupt feature of elite bankruptcy. The Sacklers offered the court a deal: they would take the family business, Purdue Pharma, into bankruptcy, and kick in a few billion out of their collective hoard. In return, the court would settle all claims against both Purdue and the family. The family would not have to go bankrupt. They could keep their billions. And no one would be allowed to sue them for their opioid killing-spree, ever: https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/18/lets-make-a-deal/#art-of-the-deal You can't make this argument in front of just any judge. It takes a Very Special judge, with a Very Special brain, to grant a proposal like this. There were just three courts in the USA where the Sacklers were likely to find a willing accomplice: two in Texas, one in New York. They chose the Empire State. To get their case in front of Judge Robert Drain, the Sacklers opened a tiny, empty office in White Plains, New York. They waited 190 days (satisfying the six-month residency requirement with a few days to spare), and then filed in the Southern District of New York. They hid invisible metadata in the PDF of their filing, which tricked the Case Management/Electronic Case Files system into putting their case in front of Drain. They even pre-captioned their brief with "RDD" for Robert D Drain: https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/23/a-bankrupt-process/#sacklers The Sacklers' plan worked. Judge Drain nonconsensually settled all the third-party claims against the Sacklers, without requiring the Sacklers to give up the majority of their fortunes. Then, Drain resigned from the bench and took a cushy job with the BigLaw corporate crime enablers at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/judge-who-oversaw-purdue-sears-bankruptcies-join-law-firm-skadden-2023-04-13/ But the story doesn't end here. While this kind of bankruptcy judge shopping and third-party nonconsensual releases had been SOP for some of the most vicious and unrepentant institutional criminals of the century, the Sacklers' impunity was so egregious, so revolting, that the Supreme Court (yes, this Supreme Court!) agreed to hear a case challenging its constitutionalilty: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed As the hearing looms, various "friends of the court" are filing amicus briefs, trying to ensure that the Supremes understand what's at stake here. This is a normal part of any Supreme Court case, but what's less normal is who these amici are, and what they want the court to understand. Writing for the New York Times, Abbie Van Sickle rounds up an eye-popping summary of these amici and their concerns. Tldr? There are a lot of pedophiles who are briefing for the Sacklers: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/us/politics/oxycontin-supreme-court-purdue-sacklers.html First on deck is the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, who remind the court that nonconsensual third-party releases were essential to the Catholic Church's ability to walk away from the untold number of children abused by the clergy who were protected by the Church: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-124/288262/20231027145345921_23-124%20bsac%20USCCB%20Purdue%20Pharma.pdf Next up are the Boy Scouts of America. Like the Bishops, the Scouts want the Court to remember that the decades of sexual abuse committed by scoutmasters who were protected by the BSA while their victims were marginalized and silenced would have destroyed the Scouts if the victims had been able to get justice. It was only through the magic of the Third-Party Nonconsensual Release that the BSA was able to live on, even after decades of unspeakable crimes. However the case pans out, there is change in the air. Johnson & Johnson's bid to escape liability for the years it spent knowingly telling women to dust their vulvas with asbestos failed (thank goodness): https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit Bankruptcy scholars are taking aim at the obviously corrupt practice of bankruptcy shopping: https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/07/hr-4193/#shoppers-choice And the judges who specialize in these Third-Party Nonconsensual Releases are dropping like flies. Not long after Judge Drain went through the revolving door at a BigLaw firm, (ex-)Judge David Jones was forced to resign when it emerged that he was romantically involved with a lawyer who kept winning huge windfalls for her clients in his court: https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/16/texas-two-step/#david-jones There's never just one ant. The kinds of judges, lawyers, law firms and corporations who use the bankruptcy system this way are bound to be corrupt in many, many other ways as well. Rooting out elite bankruptcy fraud doesn't have to stop in bankruptcy court. Anyone arrogant and immoral enough to pull these scams will have plenty of other skeletons in their closets. (Image: Jesse Collins, CC BY 3.0, modified) Hey look at this (permalink) Please Help Duane Wilkins Pay His Medical Debt https://www.gofundme.com/f/please-help-duane-wilkins-pay-his-medical-debt (h/t Jon Lasser) Inside America's School Internet Censorship Machine https://www.wired.com/story/inside-americas-school-internet-censorship-machine/ What Drives This Madness On Small Modular Nuclear Reactors? https://cleantechnica.com/2023/11/30/what-drives-this-madness-on-small-modular-nuclear-reactors/ (h/t Slashdot) This day in history (permalink) #15yrsago Berlin hacker con will use RFID badges to simulate life in a totalitarian panopticon https://events.ccc.de/congress/2008/wiki/OpenBeacon_with_OpenAMD/ #15yrsago RIP, Forrest J Ackerman https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-ackerman6-2008dec06-story.html #15yrsago Googling Security: book that opens your eyes to how much you disclose to Google https://memex.craphound.com/2008/12/05/googling-security-book-that-opens-your-eyes-to-how-much-you-disclose-to-google/ #10yrsago 75% of American silent feature films lost https://variety.com/2013/film/news/library-of-congress-only-14-of-u-s-silent-films-survive-1200915020/ #10yrsago NSA collecting unimaginable quantities of mobile phone location data for guilt-by-association data-mining https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-tracking-cellphone-locations-worldwide-snowden-documents-show/2013/12/04/5492873a-5cf2-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html #10yrsago Democratic lawmakers share a squalorous house in DC https://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/04/politics/real-alpha-house/index.html #10yrsago Rob Ford police document: allegations of heroin use and more https://torontolife.com/category/city/toronto-politics/2013/12/04/new-bombshells-from-police-documents-suggest-rob-ford-may-have-tried-heroin-been-blackmailed/ #10yrsago NYPD shoot at unarmed man, hit bystanders, charge man for making them shoot https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/nyregion/unarmed-man-is-charged-with-wounding-bystanders-shot-by-police-near-times-square.html?smid=pl-share #10yrsago Orange UK plumbs the depths of insulting, stupid marketing, finds a new low https://memex.craphound.com/2013/12/05/orange-uk-plumbs-the-depths-of-insulting-stupid-marketing-finds-a-new-low/ #5yrsago What it’s like to be a woman reporter on a cryptocurrency cruise where nearly all the other women are sex-workers https://web.archive.org/web/20181205144647/https://breakermag.com/trapped-at-sea-with-cryptos-nouveau-riche/ #5yrsago See you in court: amid protests, shameless Wisconsin GOP neuters the incoming governor in an all-night, lame-duck session https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2018/1205/Wisconsin-GOP-pass-slew-of-measures-during-lameduck-session #5yrsago British Member of Parliament publishes 250 pages of damning internal Facebook documents that had been sealed by a US court https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/Note-by-Chair-and-selected-documents-ordered-from-Six4Three.pdf #5yrsago The longest-serving Congressman in US history proposes a four fixes for American democracy https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/john-dingell-how-restore-faith-government/577222/ #5yrsago RIP, George HW Bush: a mass-murderer and war-criminal https://theintercept.com/2018/12/05/george-h-w-bush-1924-2018-american-war-criminal/ #5yrsago Trump cybersecurity advisor Rudy Giuliani has no idea how the internet works https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/rudy-giuliani-doesnt-seem-to-know-how-the-internet-works.html #5yrsago Not just breaches: Never, ever use Quora https://waxy.org/2018/12/why-you-should-never-ever-use-quora/ #5yrsago Obamacare study: 25% decline in home delinquencies among newly insured poor people https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-04/how-access-to-obamacare-cuts-late-housing-payments #5yrsago Poland rejects the EU’s copyright censorship plans, calls it #ACTA2 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/11/poland-saved-europe-acta-can-they-save-us-acta2 #1yrago Monopoly's event-horizon: The true capitalist singularity https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/05/eldritch-physics/#wouldnt-start-from-here Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: James Boyle (http://james-boyle.com/). Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: Don’t Be Evil https://craphound.com/articles/2023/12/03/dont-be-evil/ Upcoming appearances: The Lost Cause at Flyleaf Books (Chapel Hill), Dec 5 https://www.flyleafbooks.com/doctorow-2023 The Geneva Dialog (Dec 7) https://genevadialogue.ch/event/geneva-manual-event/ Recent appearances: Explore the Future of the 🔥 Climate and Information Climate (Andrew Revkin) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OGT-cvs4_Q Digital Markets Act; Interoperability; Entrenchment; Copyright; "What-About-Ism" (Digital Markets Research Hub) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm23pO5_WKM Science fiction for a dystopian present (Institute of Art and Ideas) https://iai.tv/video/science-fiction-for-a-dystopian-present-cory-doctorow?_auid=2020 Latest books: "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024 Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://twitter.com/doctorow Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
- Pluralistic: Francis Spufford's "Cahokia Jazz" (04 Dec 2023)
- Mon, 04 Dec 2023 13:05:59 +0000
Today's links Francis Spufford's "Cahokia Jazz": A stunning alternate history that fires on every cylinder. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Francis Spufford's "Cahokia Jazz" (permalink) Francis Spufford's Cahokia Jazz is a fucking banger: it's a taut, unguessable whuddunit, painted in ultrablack noir, set in an alternate Jazz Age in a world where indigenous people never ceded most the west to the USA. It's got gorgeously described jazz music, a richly realized modern indigenous society, and a spectacular romance. It's amazing: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Cahokia-Jazz/Francis-Spufford/9781668025451 Cahokia is the capital city of Deseret, a majority Catholic, majority indigenous state at the western frontier of the USA. It swirls with industry, wealth, and racial politics, serving as both a refuge from Jim Crow and a hive of Klan activity. Joe Barrow is new in town, a veteran who survived the trenches of WWI and moved to Cahokia with his army buddy, Phineas Drummond, where they both quickly rose through the police ranks to become detectives. We meet Joe and Phin on a frigid government building rooftop in the predawn night, attending a grisly murder. Someone has laid out a man across a skylight, cut his throat, split his chest open, and excised his heart. This Aztec-inspired killing points at Cahokian indigenous independence gangs, some of whom embrace an apocryphal tale of being descended from Mesoamerican conquerors in the distant past. That makes this more than a mere ugly killing – it's a political flashpoint. The Klan insists that Cahokia's system of communal land ownership is a form of communism (Russia never ceded Alaska in this world, so the USSR is now extending tendrils across the Bering Strait). They also insist that Cahokians' reverence for the Sun and the Moon – indigenous royals who have formally ceded power to elected leaders – makes them a threat to democracy. Finally, the Cahokians' fusion of Catholocism with traditional faith makes the spritually suspect. A rooftop blood-sacrifice could cause simmering political tension to boil over, and for ever white oligarch drooling at the thought of enclosing the shared land of Deseret, there are a thousand useful idiots in white hoods. Joe and Phin now have to solve the murder – before the city explodes. But Phin seems more interested in pinning the case on an Indian – any Indian – than he is on solving the murder. And Joe – an indigenous orphan who has neither the language nor the culture that the Cahokians expect him to have – is reappraising his long habit of deferring to Phin. This is the setup for a delicious whodunnit with a large helping of what if…? but Spufford doesn't stop there. Joe, you see, is a jazz pianist, and his old bandmates are back in town, and one thing leads to another and before you know it he's sitting in with them at a speakeasy. This gives Spufford a chance to roll out some of the most evocative, delicious descriptions of jazz since Doctorow's Ragtime (no relation): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/41529/ragtime-by-e-l-doctorow/9780812978186 It's not just the jazz. This is a book that fires on every cylinder: there's brilliant melee (and a major battle set-piece that's stunning), a love storyline, gunplay, and a murder mystery that kept me guessing right to the end. There's fakeouts and comeuppances, bravery and treachery, and above all, a sense of possibility. Most of what I know about Cahokia – and the giant mounds it left behind near St Louis – I learned from David Graeber and David Wengrow's brilliant work of heterodox history, The Dawn of Everything: https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/08/three-freedoms/#anti-fatalism Graeber and Wengrow's project is to make us reassess the blank spaces in our historical record, the ways of living that we have merely guessed at, based on fragments and suppositions. They point out that these inferences are vastly overdetermined, and that there are many other guesses that fit the facts equally well, or even better. This is a powerful message, one that insists that history – and thus the future – is contingent and up for grabs. We don't have to live the way we do, and we haven't always lived this way. We might live differently in the future. In evoking a teeming, indigenous metropolis, conjured out of minor historical divergences, Spufford follows Graeber and Wengrow in cracking apart inevitability and letting all the captive possibility flow out. The fact that he does this in a first rate novel makes the accomplishment doubly impressive – and enjoyable. Hey look at this (permalink) Small Frame, Infinite Canvas https://timmb.com/small-frame-infinite-canvas/ It’s All Bullshit https://thebaffler.com/latest/its-all-bullshit-tan (h/t Naked Capitalism) Plagiarism and You(Tube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDp3cB5fHXQ (h/t Metafilter) This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago What happens when you give gamers intellectual property rights? https://web.archive.org/web/20031205163841/https://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1290 #15yrsago Little Nemo in Slumberland, Many More Splendid Sundays — a new gigantic collection of Winsor McCay’s lush and surreal comics https://memex.craphound.com/2008/12/03/little-nemo-in-slumberland-many-more-splendid-sundays-a-new-gigantic-collection-of-winsor-mccays-lush-and-surreal-comics/ #20yrsago Stephen King: forget piracy, boomers are just tired of buying crap https://ew.com/article/2007/02/01/stephen-king-laziness-baby-boomers/ #15yrsago Britain ordered to destroy its database of innocents’ DNA https://web.archive.org/web/20130905083503/https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/dec/05/dna-database-civilliberties #15yrsago What is non-commercial use? Creative Commons survey https://web.archive.org/web/20081210100702/https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/11045 #15yrsago Women in science group want a female Doctor Who https://web.archive.org/web/20081204091523/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/3538551/Doctor-Who-should-be-a-woman-say-female-scientists.html #15yrsago US military interrogator decries torture — worse than useless https://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/3/us_interrogator_in_iraq_says_torture #10yrsago UN counter-terrorism rapporteur announces investigation into NSA and GCHQ surveillance https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/02/guardian-terrorism-snowden-alan-rusbridger-free-press #10yrsago Podcasting Lawful Interception, a Little Brother story https://ia800903.us.archive.org/6/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_257/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_257_Lawful_interception_01.mp3 #10yrsago Terabyte laptop SSDs for $435! https://memex.craphound.com/2013/12/03/terabyte-laptop-ssds-for-435/ #10yrsago Charity sends Amazon a cake celebrating 3d anniversary of unpaid invoice https://twitter.com/MusicBrainz/status/408000817048731648 #10yrsago Blues Brothers mall car-chase recreated in Lego https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ_uqlNgSU8 #10yrsago NSA’s talking points for friends and family — rebutted https://web.archive.org/web/20131202215105/http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/12/02/nsa-sent-home-talking-points-for-employees-to-use-in-conversations-with-family-friends-during-holidays/ #5yrsago Malware authors have figured out how to get Google to do “irreversible takedowns” of the sites they compete with https://torrentfreak.com/scammers-hit-pirate-game-sites-with-irreversible-google-takedowns-181130/ #5yrsago Facebook lured charities to its platform, then abandoned them once they got hacked https://www.wired.com/story/nonprofits-facebook-get-hacked-need-help/ #5yrsago Thousands of Wisconsinites turn out to protest outgoing Republicans’ plan to seize power after electoral defeat https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/04/coup-protests-engulf-wisconsin-capitol-outgoing-scott-walker-and-gop-move-cripple #5yrsago Facebook made itself indispensable to media companies, “pivoted to video,” changed its mind, and triggered a industrywide mass extinction event https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-digital-media-bubble-is-bursting-thats-hurting-a-generation-of-promising-young-journalists/2018/12/03/d7887d30-f6f2-11e8-8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html #5yrsago Med students are being paid to act as Instagram “influencers” on behalf of cosmetics and other products https://slate.com/technology/2018/11/medical-students-instagram-influencers-ethics-debate.html #5yrsago Spiegel claims ties between Germany’s neofascist movement and secretive billionaire https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/billionaire-backing-may-have-helped-launch-afd-a-1241029.html #5yrsago A seemingly ingenious, simple solution to nonrepresentative government and gerrymandering https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2018/11/12/the-problem-with-our-democracy-isnt-gerrymandering-its-integers/?sh=5bd7e9f2899c #5yrsago We don’t know how much Village Roadshow paid to buy Australia’s new censoring copyright law https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/02/village-roadshow-donates-millions-to-major-parties-while-lobbying-on-piracy #5yrsago The best Christmas computer and electronics ads of 1980 https://paleotronic.com/2018/12/02/paleotronics-12-years-of-christmas-year-one-1980/ #5yrsago An appreciation of the long-lost MP3 player skins of yesteryear https://twitter.com/fart/status/1069312730249650176 #1yrago The urinary tract infection business-model https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/03/painful-burning-dribble/#law-of-intended-consequences #1yrago Yes, It’s Censorship https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/04/yes-its-censorship/ Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: Don’t Be Evil https://craphound.com/articles/2023/12/03/dont-be-evil/ Upcoming appearances: The Lost Cause at Flyleaf Books (Chapel Hill), Dec 5 https://www.flyleafbooks.com/doctorow-2023 The Geneva Dialog (Dec 7) https://genevadialogue.ch/event/geneva-manual-event/ Recent appearances: Explore the Future of the 🔥 Climate and Information Climate (Andrew Revkin) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OGT-cvs4_Q Digital Markets Act; Interoperability; Entrenchment; Copyright; "What-About-Ism" (Digital Markets Research Hub) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm23pO5_WKM Science fiction for a dystopian present (Institute of Art and Ideas) https://iai.tv/video/science-fiction-for-a-dystopian-present-cory-doctorow?_auid=2020 Latest books: "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024 Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://twitter.com/doctorow Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
- Pluralistic: Stinkpump Linkdump (02 Dec 2023)
- Sat, 02 Dec 2023 17:34:26 +0000
Today's links Stinkpump Linkdump: With a bonus jarring shift in tone. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Stinkpump Linkdump (permalink) Once again, I greet the weekend with more assorted links than I can fit into my nearly-daily newsletter, so it's time for another linkdump. This is my eleventh such assortment; here are the previous volumes: https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/ I've written a lot about Biden's excellent appointees, from his National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chair Rohit Chopra to FTC Chair Lina Khan to DoJ antitrust boss Jonathan Kanter: https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets But I've also written a bunch about how Biden's appointment strategy is an incoherent mess, with excellent appointees picked by progressives on the Unity Task Force being cancelled out by appointees given to the party's reactionary finance wing, producing a muddle that often cancels itself out: https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/08/fiduciaries/#but-muh-freedumbs It's not just that the finance wing of the Democrats chooses assholes (though they do!), it's that they choose comedic bunglers. The Dems haven't put anyone in government who's as much of an embarrassment as George Santos, but they keep trying. The latest self-inflicted Democratic Party injury is Prashant Bhardjwan, a serial liar and con-artist who is, incredibly, the Biden Administration's pick to oversee fintech for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC): https://www.americanbanker.com/news/did-the-occ-hire-a-con-artist-to-oversee-fintech When the 42 year old Bhardjwan was named Deputy Comptroller and Chief Financial Technology Officer for OCC, the announcement touted his "nearly 30 years of experience serving in a variety of roles across the financial sector." Apparently Bhardjwan joined the finance sector at the age of 12. He's the Doogie Houser of Wall Street: https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2023/nr-occ-2023-31.html That wasn't the only lie on Bhardjwan's CV. He falsely claimed to have served as CIO of Fifth Third Bank from 2006-2010. Fifth Third has never heard of him: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-occ-crowned-its-first-chief-fintech-officer-his-work-history-was-a-web-of-lies Bhardjwan told a whole slew of these easily caught lies, suggesting that OCC didn't do even a cursory background search on this guy before putting him in charge of fintech – that is, the radioactively scammy sector that gave us FTX and innumerable crypto scams, to say nothing of the ever-sleazier payday lending sector: https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/01/usury/#tech-exceptionalism When it comes to appointing corrupt officials, the Biden administration has lots of company. Lots of eyebrows went up when the UN announced that the next climate Conference of the Parties (COP) would be chaired by Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, who is also the chair of Dubai's national oil company. Then the other shoe dropped: leaks revealed that Al-Jaber had colluded with the Saudis to use COP28 to get poor Asian and African nations hooked on oil: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67508331 There's an obvious reason for this conspiracy: the rich world is weaning itself off of fossil fuels. Today, renewables are vastly cheaper than oil and there's no end in sight to the plummeting costs of solar, wind and geothermal. While global electrification faces powerful logistical and material challenges, these are surmountable. Electrification is a solvable problem: https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/09/practical-visionary/#popular-engineering And once we do solve that problem, we will forever transform our species' relationship to energy. As Deb Chachra explains in her brilliant new book How Infrastructure Works, we would only need to capture 0.4% of the solar radiation that reaches the Earth's surface to give every person on earth the energy budget of a Canadian (AKA, a "cold American"): https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/17/care-work/#charismatic-megaprojects If COP does its job, we will basically stop using oil, forever. This is an existential threat to the ruling cliques of petrostates from Canada to the UAE to Saudi. As Bill McKibben writes, this isn't the first time a monied rich-world industry that had corrupted its host governments faced a similar crisis: https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/a-corrupted-cop Big Tobacco spent decades fueling science denial, funneling money to sellout scientists who deliberately cast doubt on both sound science and the very idea that we could know anything. As Tim Harford describes in The Data Detective, Darrell Huff's 1954 classic How to Lie With Statistics was part of a tobacco-industry-funded project to undermine faith in statistics itself (the planned sequel was called How To Lie With Cancer Statistics): https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#harford But anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. When the families of the people murdered by tobacco disinformation campaigns started winning eye-popping judgments against the tobacco industry, the companies shifted their marketing to the Global South, on the theory that they could murder poor brown people with impunity long after rich people in the north forced an end to their practice. Big Tobacco had a willing partner in Uncle Sam for this project: the US Trade Representative arm-twisted the world's poorest countries into accepting "Investor-State Dispute Settlements" as part of their treaties. These ISDS clauses allowed tobacco companies to sue governments that passed tobacco control legislation and force them to reverse their democratically enacted laws: https://ash.org/what-is-isds-and-what-does-it-mean-for-tobacco-control/ As McKibben points out, the oil/climate-change playbook is just an update to the tobacco/cancer-denial conspiracy (indeed, the same think-tanks and PR agencies are behind both). The "Oil Development Sustainability Programme" – the Orwellian name the Saudis gave to their plan to push oil on poor countries – maps nearly perfectly onto Big Tobacco's attack on the Global South. Nearly perfectly: second-hand smoke in Indonesia won't give Americans cancer, but convincing Africa to go hard on fossil fuels will contribute to an uninhabitable planet for everyone, not just poor people. This is an important wrinkle. Wealthy countries have repeatedly demonstrated a deep willingness to profit from death and privation in the poor world – but we're less tolerant when it's our own necks on the line. What's more, it's far easier to put the far-off risks of emissions out of your mind than it is to ignore the present-day sleaze and hypocrisy of corporate crooks. When I quit smoking, 23 years ago, my doctor told me that if my only motivation was avoiding cancer 30 years from now, I'd find it hard to keep from yielding to temptation as withdrawal set in. Instead, my doctor counseled me to find an immediate reason to stay off the smokes. For me, that was the realization that every pack of cigarettes I bought was enriching the industry that invented the denial playbook that the climate wreckers were using to render our planet permanently unsuited for human habitation. Once I hit on that, resisting tobacco got much easier: https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/03/i-quit/ Perhaps OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al-Ghais is worried about that the increasing consensus that Big Oil cynically and knowingly created this crisis. That would explain his new flight of absurdity, claiming that the world is being racist to oil companies, "unjustly vilifying" the industry for its role in the climate emergency: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/27/opec-says-oil-industry-unjustly-vilified-ahead-of-climate-talks-.html Words aren't deeds, but words have power. The way we talk about things makes a difference to how we act on those things. When discussions of Israel-Palestine get hung up on words, it's easy to get frustrated. The labels we apply to the rain of death and the plight of hostages are so much less important than the death and the hostages themselves. But how we name the thing will have an enormous impact on what happens next. Take the word "genocide," which Israel hawks insist must not be applied to the bombing campaign and siege in Gaza, nor to the attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. On this week's On The Media, Brooke Gladstone interviews Ernesto Verdeja, executive director of The Institute for the Study of Genocide: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/genocide-powerful-word-so-why-its-definition-so-controversial-on-the-media Verdeja lays out the history of the word "genocide" and connects it to the Israeli government and military's posture on Palestine and Palestinians, and concludes that the only real dispute among genocide scholars is whether the current campaign it itself an act of genocide, or a prelude to an act of genocide. I'm not a genocide scholar, but I am a Jew who has always believed in Palestinian solidarity, and Verdeja's views do not strike me as outrageous, or (more importantly) antisemitic. The conflation of opposition to Israel's system of apartheid with opposition to Jews is a cheap trick, one that's belied by Israel itself, where there is a vast, longstanding political opposition to Israeli occupation, settlements, and military policing. Are all those Israeli Jews secret antisemites? Jews are not united in support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians. The hardliners who insist that any criticism of Israel is antisemitic are peddling an antisemitic lie: that all Jews everywhere are loyal to Israel, and that we all take our political positions from the Knesset. Israel hawks only strengthen that lie when they accuse me and my fellow Jews of being "self-hating Jews." This leads to the absurd circumstance in which gentiles police Jews' views on Israel. It's weird enough when white-nationalist affiliated evangelicals who support Israel in order to further the end-times prophesied in Revelations slam Jews for being antisemitic. But in Germany, it's even weirder. There, regional, non-Jewish officials charged with policing antisemitism have censured Jewish groups for adopting policies on Israel that mainstream Israeli political parties have in their platforms: https://jewishcurrents.org/the-strange-logic-of-germanys-antisemitism-bureaucrats Antisemitism is real. As Jesse Brown describes in his recent Canadaland editorial, there is a real and documented rise in racially motivated terror against Jews in Canada, including school shootings and a firebombing. Likewise, it's true that some people who support the Palestinian cause are antisemites: https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/is-jesse-a-zionist-editorial/ But to stand in horror at Israel's military action and its vast civilian death-toll is not itself antisemitic. This is obvious – so obvious that the need to say it is a tribute to Israel hardliners – Jewish and gentile – and their ability to peddle the racist lie that Israel is Jews and Jews are Israel, and that every Jew is in support of, and responsible for, Israeli war-crimes and crimes against humanity. One need not choose between opposition to Hamas and its terror and opposition to Israel and its bombings. There is no need for a hierarchy of culpability. As Naomi Klein says, we can "side with the child over the gun": https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/11/why-are-some-of-the-left-celebrating-the-killings-of-israeli-jews Moral consistency is not moral equivalency. If you're a Jew like me who wants to work for an end to the occupation and peace in the region, you could join Jewish Voice For Peace (like me): https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org Now, for a jarring tone shift. In these weekend linkdumps, I put a lot of thought into how to transition from one subject to the next, but honestly, there's no good transition from Israel-Palestine to anything else (yet – though someday, perhaps). So let's just say, "word games can be important, but they can also be trivial, and here are a few of the latter." Start with a goodie, from the always brilliant medievalist Eleanor Janeaga, who tackles the weirdos who haunt social media in order to dump on people with PhDs who call themselves "doctor": https://going-medieval.com/2023/11/29/doctor-does-actually-mean-someone-with-a-phd-sorry/ Janega points out that the "doctor" honorific was applied to scholars for centuries before it came to mean "medical doctor." But beyond that, Janega delivers a characteristically brilliant history of the (characteristically) weird and fascinating tale of medieval scholarship. Bottom line, we call physicians "doctor" because they wanted to be associated with the brilliance of scholars, and thought that being addressed as "doctor" would add to their prestige. So yeah, if you've got a PhD, you can call yourself doctor. It's not just doctors; the professions do love their wordplay. especially lawyers. This week on Lowering The Bar, I learned about "a completely ludicrous court fight that involved nine law firms that combined for 66 pages of briefing, declarations, and exhibits, all inflicted on a federal court": https://www.loweringthebar.net/2023/11/federal-court-ends-double-spacing-fight.html The dispute was over the definition of "double spaced." You see, the judge in the case told counsel they could each file briefs of up to 100 pages of double-spaced type. Yes, 100 pages! But apparently, some lawyer burn to write fat trilogies, not mere novellas. Defendants accused the plaintiffs in this case of spacing their lines a mere 24 points apart, which allowed them to sneak 27 lines of type onto each page, while defendants were confined to the traditional 23 lines. But (the court found), the defendants were wrong. Plaintiffs had used Word's "double-spacing" feature, but had not ticked the "exact double spacing" box, and that's how they ended up with 27 lines per page. The court refused to rule on what constituted "double-spacing" under the Western District of Tennessee’s local rules, but it ruled that the plaintiffs briefs could fairly be described as "double-spaced." Whew. That's your Saturday linkdump, jarring tone-shift and all. All that remains is to close out with a cat photo (any fule kno that Saturday is Caturday). Here's Peeve, whom I caught nesting most unhygienically in our fruit bowl last night. God, cats are gross: https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53370882459/ This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago Dell won’t help customers remove spyware https://yro.slashdot.org/story/03/12/03/0257238/dell-to-techs-dont-help-customers-remove-spyware #15yrsago Spider Robinson reads John Varley’s “The Persistence of Vision” https://web.archive.org/web/20111215214809/http://hw.libsyn.com/p/b/f/e/bfea9a6569a591aa/SOTW057.mp3?sid=669e18ee3a02e91b0ddc3bc71878673a&l_sid=21159&l_eid=&l_mid=1970776&expiration=1323992876&hwt=f3158434ea94dcfa536ce7d3b1a49107 #15yrsago Atheism Song — Adam Sandler’s Hannukah Song, but for nonbelievers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFqSNpK9vm8 #15yrsago Interview with Harvard law prof who’s challenging the constitutionality of the RIAA suits https://web.archive.org/web/20090925094643/http://wilkins.law.harvard.edu/podcasts/mediaberkman/radioberkman/2008-11-25_nesson.mp3 #10yrsago RIP, Roy Trumbull: happy mutant, TV/radio engineering legend, podcaster https://memex.craphound.com/2013/12/02/rip-roy-trumbull-happy-mutant-tv-radio-engineering-legend-podcaster/ #10yrsago Leaked UN document: countries want to end War on Drugs and prohibition https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/30/un-drugs-policy-split-leaked-paper #10yrsago How big corporations and government spy agencies surveil and sabotage activist groups https://web.archive.org/web/20131121063549/http://www.corporatepolicy.org/spookybusiness.pdf #10yrsago 84% of stocks owned by richest 10% of Americans https://money.com/stock-ownership-10-percent-richest/ #1yrago How tech changed global labor struggles for better and worse https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/02/not-what-it-does/#who-it-does-it-to Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Naked Capitalism (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/). Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: Moral Hazard (from Communications Breakdown) https://craphound.com/stories/2023/11/12/moral-hazard-from-communications-breakdown/ Upcoming appearances: The Lost Cause at Flyleaf Books (Chapel Hill), Dec 5 https://www.flyleafbooks.com/doctorow-2023 The Geneva Dialog (Dec 7) https://genevadialogue.ch/event/geneva-manual-event/ Recent appearances: Explore the Future of the 🔥 Climate and Information Climate (Andrew Revkin) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OGT-cvs4_Q Digital Markets Act; Interoperability; Entrenchment; Copyright; "What-About-Ism" (Digital Markets Research Hub) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm23pO5_WKM Science fiction for a dystopian present (Institute of Art and Ideas) https://iai.tv/video/science-fiction-for-a-dystopian-present-cory-doctorow?_auid=2020 Latest books: "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024 Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. 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- Pluralistic: All the books I reviewed in 2023 (01 Dec 2023)
- Fri, 01 Dec 2023 12:58:56 +0000
Today's links All the books I reviewed in 2023: Plus three of my own. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading All the books I reviewed in 2023 (permalink) It's that time of year again, when I round up all the books I reviewed for my newsletter in the previous year. I posted 21 reviews last year, covering 31 books (there are two series in there!). I also published three books of my own last year (two novels and one nonfiction). A busy year in books! Every year, these roundups remind me that I did actually manage to get a lot of reading done, even if the list of extremely good books that I didn't read is much longer than the list of books I did read. I read many of these books while doing physiotherapy for my chronic pain, specifically as audiobooks I listened to on my underwater MP3 player while doing my daily laps at the public pool across the street from my house. After many years of using generic Chinese waterproof MP3s players – whose quality steadily declined over a decade – I gave up and bought a brand-name player, a Shokz Openswim. So far, I have no complaints. Thanks to reader Abbas Halai for recommending this! https://shokz.com/products/openswim I load up this gadget with audiobook MP3s bought from Libro.fm, a fantastic, DRM-free alternative to Audible, which is both a monopolist and a prolific wage-thief with a documented history of stealing from writers: https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff All right, enough with the process notes, on to the reviews! NOVELS I. Temeraire by Naomi Novik One of the finest pleasures in life is to discover a complete series of novels as an adult, to devour them right through to the end, and to arrive at that ending to discover that, while you'd have happily inhabited the author's world for many more volumes, you are eminently satisfied with the series' conclusion. I just had this experience and I am still basking in the warm glow of having had such a thoroughly fulfilling imaginary demi-life for half a year. I'm speaking of the nine volumes in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, which reimagines the Napoleonic Wars in a world that humans share with enormous, powerful, intelligent dragons. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/08/temeraire/#but-i-am-napoleon II. Destroyer of Worlds by Matt Ruff The Destroyer of Worlds is a spectacular followup to Lovecraft Country that revisits the characters, setting, and supernatural dread of the original. Country was structured as a series of linked novellas, each one picking up where the previous left off, with a different focal characters. Destroyer is a much more traditional braided novel, moving swiftly amongst the characters and periodically jumping back in time to the era of American slavery, retelling the story of the settlement of the Great Dismal swamp by escaped slaves. https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/21/the-horror-of-white-magic/#anti-lovecraftian III. Scholomance by Naomi Novik The wizards of the world live in constant peril from maleficaria – the magic monsters that prey on those born with magic, especially the children. In a state of nature, only one in ten wizard kids reaches adulthood. So the wizarding world built the Scholomance, a fully automated magical secondary school that exists in the void – a dimension beyond our world. The Scholomance is also an extremely dangerous place – three quarters of the wizard children who attend will die before graduation – but it is much safer than life on the outside. https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/29/hobbeswarts/#the-chosen-one IV. Tsalmoth by Steven Brust Longrunning Brust hero Vlad Taltos has been convinced to recount the story of how he and Cawti came to fall in love, and how they planned their marriage. This is quite an adventure – it plays out against the backdrop of a gang-war within the Jhereg organization, with Vlad in severe mortal peril that he can only avoid by uncovering an intricate criminal caper of crosses, double-crosses, smuggling and sorcery. But while Vlad is dodging throwing knives and lethal spells (or not!), what's really going on is that he and Cawti are falling deeply, profoundly, irrevocably in love. The romance that plays out among the blades and magic is more magical still, a grand passion that expresses itself through Nick-and-Nora wordplay and Three Musketeers swordplay. https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/27/mannerpunk/#ask-anyone V. Hopeland by Ian McDonald Seriously what the fuck is this amazing, uncategorizable, unsummarizable, weird, sprawling, hairball of a novel? How the hell do you research – much less write – a novel this ambitious and wide-ranging? Why did I find myself weeping uncontrollably on a train yesterday as I finished it, literally squeezing my chest over my heart as it broke and sang at the same moment? The stars of Hopeland are members of two ancient, secret societies. There's Raisa Hopeland, who belongs to a globe-spanning, mystical "family," that's one part mutual aid, one part dance music subculture, and one part sorcerer (some Hopelanders are electromancers, making strange, powerful magic with Tesla coils). Amon is a composer and DJ who specializes in making music for very small groups of people – preferably just one person – that is so perfect for them that they are transformed by hearing it. https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/30/electromancy/#the-grace VI. The World Wasn't Ready For You by Justin Key These are horror stories, though some of them are science fiction too, and more to the point, they're Black horror stories. In his afterword, Key writes about his early fascination with horror, the catharsis he felt in watching nightmares unspool on screen or off the page. And then, he writes, came the dawning recognition that the Black characters in these stories were always there as cannon-fodder, often nameless, usually picked off early. "Black horror" isn't merely parables about racism. In the deft hands of these writers – and now, Key – the stories are horror in which Blackness is a fact, sometimes a central one, and that fact is ever a complication, limiting how the characters move through space, interact with authority, and relate to one another. https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/19/justin-c-key/#clarion-west-2015 VII. The Future by Naomi Alderman A cracking, multi-point-of-view adventure novel about billionaires prepping for the end of the world. Three billionaires, the lords of thinly veiled analogs to Facebook, Google and Amazon, each getting ready in their own way. Stumbling into their midst comes Lai Zhen, a prepper influencer vlogger with millions of followers. When Zhen becomes romantically entangled with Martha Einkorn, the top aide and chief-of-prepping for one of these billionaires, she finds herself in possession of an AI chatbot that is devoted to protecting a very small number of people from incipient danger. This chatbot determines that Zhen is being stalked by an assassin at a mall in Singapore, and guides her to safety. The chatbot is a closely held secret among the tech billionaire cabal. It is designed to monitor world events and predict when The Event is imminent, be it disease, war, or other cataclysmic disaster. With the chatbot's predictive powers and its superhuman guidance, the billionaires, their families, and their closest confidantes will be able to slip away before the shit hits the fan, fly by different private jets to one or another luxury bunker, and wait out the apocalypse. Once the fires raging without have died down to embers, the chatbot's billionaire charges will emerge to assume their places as wise and all-powerful leaders of the next human civilization. https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/07/preppers-of-the-red-death/#the-event VIII. Liberty's Daughter by Naomi Kritzer There's so much sf about "competent men" running their families with entrepreneurial zeal, clarity of vision and a firm confident hand. But there's precious little fiction about how much being raised by a Heinlein dad would suuuck. But it would, and in Liberty's Daughter, we get a peek inside the nightmare. https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/21/podkaynes-dad-was-a-dick/#age-of-consent NONFICTION I. The Once and Future Sex by Eleanor Kaneaga A history of gender and sex in the medieval age, describing the weird and horny ways of medieval Europeans, which are far gnarlier and more complicated than the story we get from "traditionalists" who want us to believe that their ideas about gender roles reflect a fixed part of human nature, and that modern attitudes are an attempt to rewrite history: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/17/ren-faire/#going-medieval II. Pirate Enlightenment by David Graeber In the early 18th century, the Zana-Malata people – a new culture created jointly by pirates from around the world and Malagasy – came to dominate the island. They brought with them the democratic practices of pirate ships (where captains were elected and served at the pleasure of their crews) and the matriarchal traditions of some Malagasy, creating a feminist, anarchist "Libertalia." Graeber retrieves and orders the history of this Libertalia from oral tradition, primary source documents, and records from around the world. Taken together, it's a tale that is rollicking and romantic, but also hilarious and eminently satisfying. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/24/zana-malata/#libertalia III. A Hacker's Mind by Bruce Schneier Schneier broadens his frame to consider all of society's rules – its norms, laws and regulations – as a security system, and then considers all the efforts to change those rules through a security lens, framing everything from street protests to tax-cheating as "hacks." This leaves us with two categories: hacks by the powerful to increase their power; and hacks by everyone else to take power away from the powerful. https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/06/trickster-makes-the-world/#power-play IV. Responding to the Right by Nathan J Robinson Robinson describes conservativism as a comforting, fixed ideology that allows its adherents to move through the world without having to question themselves: you broke the law, so you're guilty. No need to ask if the law was just or unjust. This sidelines sticky moral dilemmas: no need for judges to ask if something is good or fair – merely whether it is "original" to the Constitution. No need for a CEO to ask whether a business plan is moral – only whether it is "maximizing shareholder benefit." Robinson anatomizes the most effective parts of conservative rhetoric and exhorts his leftist comrades to learn from it, and put it to better use. https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/14/nathan-robinson/#arguendo V. A Collective Bargain by Jane McAlevey An extraordinary book that is one part history lesson, one part case-study, two parts how-to manual, one part memoir, and one million parts call to action. McAlevey devotes the early chapters to the rise and fall of labor protections in America, explaining how the wealthy mounted a sustained, expensive, obsessive fight to smash union power. She moves into a series of case-studies of workers who tried to organize unions under these increasingly inhospitable rules and conditions. The second half of the book is two case studies of mass strikes that succeeded in spite of even stiffer opposition. For McAlevey, saving America is just a scaled up version of the union organizer’s day-job. https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/ VI. Open Circuits by Windell Oskay and Eric Schlaepfer A drop-dead gorgeous collection of photos of electronic components, painstakingly cross-sectioned and polished. The photos illustrate layperson-friendly explanations of what each component does, how it is constructed, and why. Perhaps you've pondered a circuit board and wondered about the colorful, candy-shaped components soldered to it. It's natural to assume that these are indivisible, abstract functional units, a thing that is best understood as a reliable and deterministic brick that can be used to construct a specific kind of wall. Peering inside these sealed packages reveals another world, a miniature land where things get simpler – and more complex. https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/14/hidden-worlds/#making-the-invisible-visible-and-beautiful VII. Doppelganger by Naomi Klein This is a very odd book. It is also a very, very good book. The premise – exploring the divergence between Naomi Klein and Naomi Wolf, with whom she is often confused – is a surprisingly sturdy scaffold for an ambitious, wide-ranging exploration of this very frightening moment of polycrisis and systemic failure. For Klein, the transformation of Wolf from liberal icon – Democratic Party consultant and Lean-In-type feminist icon – to rifle-toting Trumpling with a regular spot on the Steve Bannon Power Hour is an entrypoint to understanding the mirror world. How did so many hippie-granola yoga types turn into vicious eugenicists whose answer to "wear a mask to protect the immunocompromised" is "they should die"? https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine VIII. Your Face Belongs to Us by Kashmir Hill A tell-all history of Clearview AI, the creepy facial recognition company whose origins are mired in far-right politics, off-the-books police misconduct, sales to authoritarian states and sleazy one-percenter one-upmanship. Facial recognition is now so easy to build that – Hill says – we're unlikely to abolish it, despite all the many horrifying ways that FR could fuck up our societies. https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/20/steal-your-face/#hoan-ton-that IX. Blood In the Machine by Brian Merchant The definitive history of the Luddites, and the clearest analysis of the automator's playbook, where "entrepreneurs'" lawless extraction from workers is called "innovation" and "inevitable." Luddism has been steadily creeping into pro-labor technological criticism, as workers and technology critics reclaim the term and its history, which is a rich and powerful tale of greed versus solidarity, slavery versus freedom. Luddites are not – and have never been – anti-technology. Rather, they are pro-human, and see production as a means to an end: broadly shared prosperity. The automation project says it's about replacing humans with machines, but over and over again – in machine learning, in "contactless" delivery, in on-demand workforces – the goal is to turn humans into machines. https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen X. Technofeudalism by Yanis Varoufakis Varoufakis makes an excellent case that capitalism died a decade ago, turning into a new form of feudalism: technofeudalism. A feudal society is one organized around people who own things, charging others to use them to produce goods and services. In a feudal society, the most important form of income isn't profit, it's rent. Varoufakis likens shopping on Amazon to visiting a bustling city center filled with shops run by independent capitalists. However, all of those capitalists are subservient to a feudal lord: Jeff Bezos, who takes 51 cents out of every dollar they bring in, and furthermore gets to decide which products they can sell and how those products must be displayed. The postcapitalist, technofeudal world isn't a world without capitalism, then. It's a world where capitalists are subservient to feudalists ("cloudalists" in Varoufakis's thesis), as are the rest of us the cloud peons https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital XI. Underground Empire by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman Two political scientists tell the story of how global networks were built through accidents of history, mostly by American corporations and/or the American state. The web was built by accident, but the spider at its center was always the USA. At various junctures since the Cold War, American presidents, spies and military leaders have noticed this web and tugged at it. A tariff here, a sanction there, then an embargo. The NSA turns the internet into a surveillance grid and a weapon of war. The SWIFT system is turned into a way to project American political goals around the world – first by blocking transactions for things the US government disfavors, then to cut off access for people who do business with people who do things that the US wants stopped. Political science, done right, has the power to reframe your whole understanding of events around you. Farrell and Newman set out a compelling thesis, defend it well, and tell a fascinating tale. https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/10/weaponized-interdependence/#the-other-swifties XII. How Infrastructure Works by Deb Chachra A hopeful, lyrical – even beautiful – hymn to the systems of mutual aid we embed in our material world, from sewers to roads to the power grid. It's a book that will make you see the world in a different way – forever. It's a bold engineering vision, one that fuses Chachra's material science background, her work as an engineering educator, her activism as an anti-colonialist and feminist. The way she lays it out is just…breathtaking. https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/17/care-work/#charismatic-megaprojects GRAPHIC NOVELS I. Shubiek Lubiek by Deena Mohamed An intricate alternate history in which wishes are real, and must be refined from a kind of raw wish-stuff that has to be dug out of the earth. Naturally, this has been an important element of geopolitics and colonization, especially since the wish-stuff is concentrated in the global south, particularly Egypt, the setting for our tale. The framing device for the trilogy is the tale of three "first class" wishes: these are the most powerful wishes that civilians are allowed to use, the kind of thing you might use to cure cancer or reverse a crop-failure. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/11/your-wish/#is-my-command II. Ducks by Kate Beaton In 2005, Beaton was a newly minted art-school grad facing a crushing load of student debt, a debt she would never be able to manage in the crumbling, post-boom economy of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Like so many Maritimers, she left the home that meant everything for her to travel to Alberta, where the tar sands oil boom promised unmatched riches for anyone willing to take them. Beaton's memoir describes the following four years, as she works her way into a series of oil industry jobs in isolated company towns where men outnumber women 50:1 and where whole communities marinate in a literally toxic brew of carcinogens, misogyny, economic desperation and environmental degradation. The story that follows is – naturally – wrenching, but it is also subtle and ambivalent. Beaton finds camaraderie with – and empathy for – the people she works alongside, even amidst unimaginable, grinding workplace harassment that manifests in both obvious and glancing ways. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/14/hark-an-oilpatch/#kate-beaton III. Justice Warriors by Matt Bors Justice Warriors is what you'd get if you put Judge Dredd in a blender with Transmetropolitan and set it to chunky. The setup: the elites of a wasted, tormented world have retreated into Bubble City, beneath a hermetically sealed zone. Within Bubble City, everything is run according to the priorities of the descendants of the most internet-poisoned freaks of the modern internet, click- and clout-chasing mushminds full of corporate-washed platitudes about self-care, diversity and equity, wrapped around come-ons for sugary drinks and dubious dropshipper crapola. It's a cop buddy-story dreamed up by Very Online, very angry creators who live in a present-day world where reality is consistently stupider than satire. https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/22/libras-assemble/#the-uz IV. Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki The story of three young Canadian women meeting up for a getaway to New York City. Zoe and Dani are high-school best friends who haven't seen each other since they graduated and decamped for universities in different cities. Fiona is Dani's art-school classmate, a glamorous and cantankerous artist with an affected air of sophistication. It's a dizzying, beautifully wrought three-body problem as the three protagonists struggle with resentments and love, sex and insecurity. The relationships between Zoe, Dani and Fiona careen wildly from scene to scene and even panel to panel, propelled by sly graphic cues and fantastically understated dialog. https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/11/as-canadian-as/#possible-under-the-circumstances Like I said, this has been a good year in books for me, and it included three books of my own: I. Red Team Blues (novel, Tor Books US, Head of Zeus UK) Martin Hench is 67 years old, single, and successful in a career stretching back to the beginnings of Silicon Valley. He lives and roams California in a very comfortable fully-furnished touring bus, The Unsalted Hash, that he bought years ago from a fading rock star. He knows his way around good food and fine drink. He likes intelligent women, and they like him back often enough. Martin is a—contain your excitement—self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. He knows computer hardware and software alike, including the ins and outs of high-end databases and the kinds of spreadsheets that are designed to conceal rather than reveal. He’s as comfortable with social media as people a quarter his age, and he’s a world-level expert on the kind of international money-laundering and shell-company chicanery used by Fortune 500 companies, mid-divorce billionaires, and international drug gangs alike. He also knows the Valley like the back of his hand, all the secret histories of charismatic company founders and Sand Hill Road VCs. Because he was there at all the beginnings. Now he’s been roped into a job that’s more dangerous than anything he’s ever agreed to before—and it will take every ounce of his skill to get out alive. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues II. The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation (nonfiction, Verso) We can – we must – dismantle the tech platforms. We must to seize the means of computation by forcing Silicon Valley to do the thing it fears most: interoperate. Interoperability will tear down the walls between technologies, allowing users to leave platforms, remix their media, and reconfigure their devices without corporate permission. Interoperability is the only route to the rapid and enduring annihilation of the platforms. The Internet Con is the disassembly manual we need to take back our internet. https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con III. The Lost Cause (novel, Tor Books US, Head of Zeus UK) For young Americans a generation from now, climate change isn't controversial. It's just an overwhelming fact of life. And so are the great efforts to contain and mitigate it. Entire cities are being moved inland from the rising seas. Vast clean-energy projects are springing up everywhere. Disaster relief, the mitigation of floods and superstorms, has become a skill for which tens of millions of people are trained every year. The effort is global. It employs everyone who wants to work. Even when national politics oscillates back to right-wing leaders, the momentum is too great; these vast programs cannot be stopped in their tracks. But there are still those Americans, mostly elderly, who cling to their red baseball caps, their grievances, their huge vehicles, their anger. To their "alternative" news sources that reassure them that their resentment is right and pure and that "climate change" is just a giant scam. And they're your grandfather, your uncle, your great-aunt. And they're not going anywhere. And they’re armed to the teeth. The Lost Cause asks: What do we do about people who cling to the belief that their own children are the enemy? When, in fact, they're often the elders that we love? https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause I wrote nine books during lockdown, and there's plenty more to come. The next one is The Bezzle, a followup to Red Team Blues, which comes out in February: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle While you're waiting for that one, I hope the reviews above will help you connect with some excellent books. If you want more of my reviews, here's my annual roundup from 2022: https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/01/bookishness/#2022-in-review Here's my book reviews from 2021: https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/08/required-ish-reading/#bibliography And here's my book reviews from 2020: https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/08/required-reading/#recommended-reading Hey look at this (permalink) We pulled off an SEO heist that stole 3.6M total traffic from a competitor https://twitter.com/jakezward/status/1728032634037567509 Tech Conference Collapses After Organizer Admits to Making Fake ‘Auto-Generated’ Female Speaker https://www.404media.co/devternity-fake-speakers-eduard-sizovs/ The Secret Trial https://prospect.org/justice/2023-11-28-google-secret-trial/ This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago San Francisco’s homelessness quagmire https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/SHAME-OF-THE-CITY-HOMELESS-ISLAND-They-live-2510831.php #20yrsago Roy Disney resigns from Disney, slams Eisner https://craphound.com/roytoeisner.txt #20yrago Bruce Sterling hits his stride on his blog https://web.archive.org/web/20040505163610/https://wiredblogs.tripod.com/sterling/index.blog?entry_id=154868 #20yrsago Hayes Micro: the moral is, take the money and run https://web.archive.org/web/20031205001612/https://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/1103/23hayes.html #20yrsago Fan builds 11,000 sqft Haunted Mansion replica https://web.archive.org/web/20031203011208/https://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/1103/26haunted.html #15yrsago Neil Gaiman explains why he opposes laws banning speech he disagrees with https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html #15yrsago Why Candyland doesn’t suck https://web.archive.org/web/20081205063135/http://playthisthing.com/candy-land #15yrsago Vietnam’s amazing phone-unlockers https://www.cnet.com/culture/unlocking-iphone-3gs-the-vietnamese-way/ #15yrsago UK to punish “publishing police info” with 10 years in jail https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/11/413023.html #15yrsago How Dan Kaminsky broke and fixed DNS https://www.wired.com/2008/11/ff-kaminsky/ #10yrsago Porno copyright trolls Prenda Law fined $261K https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/unhappy-thanksgiving-for-prenda-law-ordered-to-pay-261k-to-defendants/ #10yrsago Presenting political argument on Twitter, and the “prestige economy” https://www.mic.com/articles/48829/why-you-should-never-have-taken-that-prestigious-internship #10yrsago Apps come bundled with secret Bitcoin mining programs, paper over the practice with EULAs https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2013/11/potentially-unwanted-miners-toolbar-peddlers-use-your-system-to-make-btc #10yrsago Study shows removing DRM increased music sales https://torrentfreak.com/what-piracy-removing-drm-boosts-music-sales-by-10-percent-131130/ #10yrsago JP Morgan’s “Twitter takeover” seeks questions from Twitter, gets flooded with critiques of banksterism #AskJPM https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/30/shock-poll-reveals-gulf-britain-eu-france-germany-poland-hostile #10yrsago UK Home Secretary Theresa May secretly charters private jet to (unsuccessfully) deport dying man to Nigeria https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/30/theresa-may-hunger-striker-ifa-muaza-asylum-uk #5yrsago To save Brexit deal, Prime Minister Theresa May dropped an assault rifle ban https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/11/something-crazy-happened-parliament-last-night-and-no-one-talking-about-it #5yrsago David Byrne’s “Eclectic Music for the Holidays” playlist http://davidbyrne.com/radio/david-byrne-presents-eclectic-for-the-holidays #5yrsago Incredibly detailed technical guide to camgirling is a mix of advanced retail psychology and advice on performing emotional labor https://knowingless.com/2018/11/19/maximizing-your-slut-impact-an-overly-analytical-guide-to-camgirling/ #5yrsago AI scientist who quit Google over Chinese censorship plans details the hypocrisy that sent him packing https://theintercept.com/2018/12/01/google-china-censorship-human-rights/ #5yrsago St Louis cops indicted for beating up a “protester” who turned out to be an undercover cop https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/30/its-still-blast-beating-people-st-louis-police-indicted-assault-undercover-officer-posing-protester/ #5yrsago Tavi Gevinson is folding up Rookie, after seven years: part mediapocalypse, part moving on https://www.rookiemag.com/2018/11/editors-letter-86/">https://www.rookiemag.com/2018/11/editors-letter-86/ #5yrsago Peak indifference has arrived: a majority of Republicans say climate change is real https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/MonmouthPoll_US_112918/ #5yrsago The EU took the word “filters” out of the Copyright Directive, but it’s still all about filters https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/11/yes-eus-new-copyrightdirective-all-about-filters #5yrsago One More For the Road: The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats are back! https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/30/one-more-for-the-road-the-laugh-out-loud-cats-are-back/ #1yrago Booz Allen ticketmastered America's public lands https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/30/military-industrial-park-service/#booz-allen #1yrago All the books I reviewed in 2022 https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/01/bookishness/#2022-in-review Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: Moral Hazard (from Communications Breakdown) https://craphound.com/stories/2023/11/12/moral-hazard-from-communications-breakdown/ Upcoming appearances: The Lost Cause at Flyleaf Books (Chapel Hill), Dec 5 https://www.flyleafbooks.com/doctorow-2023 The Geneva Dialog (Dec 7) https://genevadialogue.ch/event/geneva-manual-event/ Recent appearances: Explore the Future of the 🔥 Climate and Information Climate (Andrew Revkin) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OGT-cvs4_Q Digital Markets Act; Interoperability; Entrenchment; Copyright; "What-About-Ism" (Digital Markets Research Hub) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm23pO5_WKM Science fiction for a dystopian present (Institute of Art and Ideas) https://iai.tv/video/science-fiction-for-a-dystopian-present-cory-doctorow?_auid=2020 Latest books: "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024 Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://twitter.com/doctorow Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
- Pluralistic: Sponsored listings are a ripoff…for sellers (29 Nov 2023)
- Wed, 29 Nov 2023 12:37:28 +0000
Today's links Sponsored listings are a ripoff…for sellers: Welcome to the age of danegeld. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Sponsored listings are a ripoff…for sellers (permalink) Not all ads are created equally sleazy. The privacy harms from surveillance ads, though real, are often hard to pin down. But there's another kind of ad – or "ad" – that picks your pocket every time you use an ecommerce site. This is the "sponsored listing" ad, which allows merchants to bid to be among the top-ranked items in response to your searches – whether or not their products are a good match for your query. These aren't "ads" in the way that, say, a Facebook ad is an ad. These are more #payola, a form of bribery that's actually a crime (but not when Amazon does it): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola#U.S._investigations_and_aftermath Amazon is the global champion of payola. It boasts of $31 billion in annual "ad" revenue. That's $31 billion that Amazon sellers have to recoup from you. But Amazon's use of "most favored nation" deals (which requires sellers to offer their lowest prices on Amazon) mean that you don't see those price-hikes because sellers raise their prices everywhere: https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos Forget Twitter: Amazon search is the poster-child for enshittification, in which Amazon locks you in (for example, with a year's shipping prepaid through Prime) and then you get recommended worse products while sellers make less money and Amazon pockets the difference. Sellers who don't sell on Amazon are dead in the water, because most US households have Amazon Prime and overwhelmingly, Prime users start their search on Amazon, and, if they find the goods they're seeking, buy them on Amazon. After all, they've prepaid for shipping. So sellers suck it up and pay a 45-51% Amazon tax and pass it on to us – no matter where we shop. A lot of the junk fees sellers pay are related to Prime and other fulfillment services, but an increasing share of the Amazon tax comes from the need to pay to "advertise," because if they don't buy the top result for searches for their own products, their competitors' ads will push them right off the first page (those competitors spend money on advertising, rather than manufacturing quality). There's a lot of YOLO/ROFLMAO in those ads: search for "cat beds" and 50% of the first five screens are ads – including ads for dog products, apparently bought by companies adopting a spray-and-pray approach to advertising. Someone selling a quality product still has to outbid all of those garbage sellers: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola This is at the root of Amazon's Pricing Paradox: while Amazon can defend itself against regulators by citing sellers whose prices are lower and/or whose quality is higher, it's nearly impossible for shoppers to get those deals. If you click the top result for your search, you will, on average, pay 29% more than you would if you found the best bargain on the site: https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens What's more, you can't fix this by simply sorting by price, or by reviews, or some mix of the two. The sleaziest sellers have mastered tricks like changing the number of units they sell so the total price is lower. For example, if batteries are normally sold $10 for a four-pack, a sleazy seller can offer batteries at $9 for three units. A lowest-to-highest price-sort will put this item ahead of a cheaper rival. Researchers found that getting a good deal at Amazon requires that you make a multifactorial spreadsheet by laboriously copy/pasting multiple details from individual listing pages and then doing sorts that Amazon itself doesn't permit: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3645/ There's an exception to this: Amazon and Apple have a cozy, secret arrangement to exclude these "ads" from searches for Apple products. But if you're shopping for anything else, you're SOL: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11 These payola markets are bad for buyers, and they cost sellers a lot of money, but are they at least good for sellers? A new study from three business-school researchers – Vibhanshu Abhishek, Jiaqi Shi and Mingyu Joo – shows that payola is a very bad deal for good sellers, too: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3896716 After doing a lot of impressive quantitative work, the authors conclude that for good sellers, showing up as a sponsored listing makes buyers trust their products less than if they floated to the top of the results "organically." This means that buying an ad makes your product less attractive than not buying an ad. The exception is sellers who have bad products – products that wouldn't rise to the top of the results on their own merits. The study finds that if you buy your mediocre product's way to the top of the results, buyers trust it more than they would if they found it buried deep on page eleventy-million, to which its poor reviews, quality or price would normally banish it. But of course, if you're one of those good sellers, you can't simply opt not to buy an ad, even though seeing it with the little "AD" marker in the thumbnail makes your product less attractive to shoppers. If you don't pay the danegeld, your product will be pushed down by the inferior products whose sellers are only too happy to pay ransom. It's a system where everybody loses – except monopoly ecommerce platforms, who enshittify everything and rake it in. Hey look at this (permalink) The 2023 Kottke Holiday Gift Guide https://kottke.org/23/11/the-2023-kottke-holiday-gift-guide FLAMING HYDRA: 60 Brilliant Writers & Artists Join Forces https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thebrickhouse/flaming-hydra-60-brilliant-writers-and-artists-join-forces Read These 10 Articles to Understand the Landmark Google Search Monopoly Trial https://usvgoogle.org/trial-wrap-11-20 This day in history (permalink) #15yrsago Peak Population: when will population growth stop, why, and how? https://www.alexsteffen.com/peak_population_and_sustainability #15yrsago James Boyle’s “The Public Domain” — a brilliant copyfighter’s latest book, from a law prof who writes like a comedian https://memex.craphound.com/2008/11/29/james-boyles-the-public-domain-a-brilliant-copyfighters-latest-book-from-a-law-prof-who-writes-like-a-comedian/ #10yrsago NSA and Canadian spooks illegally spied on diplomats at Toronto G20 summit https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/new-snowden-docs-show-u-s-spied-during-g20-in-toronto-1.2442448 #10yrsago New CC licenses: tighter, shorter, more readable, more global https://creativecommons.org/Version4/ #10yrsago Berlusconi kicked out of Italian senate https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/27/silvio-berlusconi-ousted-italian-parliament-tax-fraud-conviction #5yrsago Sennheiser’s headphone drivers covertly changed your computer’s root of trust, leaving you vulnerable to undetectable attacks https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/sennheiser-headset-software-could-allow-man-in-the-middle-ssl-attacks/ #5yrsago New York City’s municipal debt collectors have forged an unholy alliance with sleazy subprime lenders https://www.bloomberg.com/confessions-of-judgment #5yrsago Here’s how the Pentagon swindled Congress with $21 trillion worth of undocumented, untraceable, unaccounted for expenditures https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/pentagon-audit-budget-fraud/ #5yrsago The prosecutor who helped Jeffrey Epstein escape justice is now a Trump Cabinet member https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html #5yrsago Reddit takes a stand against the EU’s plan to break the internet https://www.redditinc.com/blog/the-eu-copyright-directive-what-redditors-in-europe-need-to-know/ #5yrsago The secret history of science fiction’s women writers: The Future is Female! https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/29/the-secret-history-of-science-fictions-women-writers-the-future-is-female/ #5yrsago Redaction ineptitude reveals names of Proud Boys’ self-styled new leaders https://splinternews.com/proud-boys-failed-to-redact-their-new-dumb-bylaws-and-a-1830700905 #5yrsago Redaction ineptitude reveals Facebook’s 2012 plan to sell Graph API access to user data for $250,000 https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/facebook-pondered-for-a-time-selling-access-to-user-data/ #5yrsago Google engineer calls for a walkout over China censorship and raises $200K strike fund in hours https://twitter.com/lizthegrey/status/1068208484053856256 #5yrsago Correlates of Trump voting: searches for erectile dysfunction, hair loss, how to get girls, penis enlargement, penis size, steroids, testosterone and Viagra https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/11/29/how-donald-trump-appeals-to-men-secretly-insecure-about-their-manhood/ #5yrsago Google’s secret project to build a censored Chinese search engine bypassed the company’s own security and privacy teams https://theintercept.com/2018/11/29/google-china-censored-search/ #5yrsago Mozilla pulls a popular paywall circumvention tool from Firefox add-ons store https://web.archive.org/web/20181130141509/https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox/issues/82 #1yrago The Big Four accounting firms are one (more) scandal away from collapse https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/29/great-andersens-ghost/#mene-mene-bezzle Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Researchbuzz (@Researchbuzz@researchbuzz.masto.host). Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: Moral Hazard (from Communications Breakdown) https://craphound.com/stories/2023/11/12/moral-hazard-from-communications-breakdown/ Upcoming appearances: The Lost Cause at The Strand (NYC), Nov 29 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-the-lost-cause-tickets-734958008187 The Lost Cause at Flyleaf Books (Chapel Hill), Dec 5 https://www.flyleafbooks.com/doctorow-2023 Recent appearances: Digital Markets Act; Interoperability; Entrenchment; Copyright; "What-About-Ism" (Digital Markets Research Hub) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm23pO5_WKM Science fiction for a dystopian present (Institute of Art and Ideas) https://iai.tv/video/science-fiction-for-a-dystopian-present-cory-doctorow?_auid=2020 Pushing back on unconstrained capitalism (Changelog) https://changelog.com/podcast/565 Latest books: "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024 Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://twitter.com/doctorow Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
- Pluralistic: Insurance companies are making climate risk worse (28 Nov 2023)
- Tue, 28 Nov 2023 12:20:12 +0000
Today's links Insurance companies are making climate risk worse: How to break the climate insurance doom-loop. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Insurance companies are making climate risk worse (permalink) Conservatives may deride the "reality-based community" as a drag on progress and commercial expansion, but even the most noxious pump-and-dump capitalism is supposed to remain tethered to reality by two unbreakable fetters: auditing and insurance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community No matter how much you value profit over ethics or human thriving, you still need honest books – even if you never show those books to the taxman or the marks. Even an outright scammer needs to know what's coming in and what's going out so they don't get caught in a liquidity trap (that is, "broke"), or overleveraged ("broke," again) or exposed to market changes (you guessed it: "broke"). Unfortunately for capitalism, auditing is on its deathbed. The market is sewn up by the wildly corrupt and conflicted Big Four accounting firms that are the very definition of too big to fail/too big to jail. They keep cooking books on behalf of management to the detriment of investors. These double-entry fabrications conceal rot in giant, structurally important firms until they implode spectacularly and suddenly, leaving workers, suppliers, customers and investors in a state of utter higgeldy-piggeldy: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/29/great-andersens-ghost/#mene-mene-bezzle In helping corporations defraud institutional investors, auditors are facilitating mass scale millionaire-on-billionaire violence, and while that may seem like the kind of fight where you're happy to see either party lose, there are inevitably a lot of noncombatants in the blast radius. Since the Enron collapse, the entire accounting sector has turned to quicksand, which is a big deal, given that it's what industrial capitalism's foundations are anchored to. There's a reason my last novel was a thriller about forensic accounting and Big Tech: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues But accounting isn't the only bedrock that's been reduced to slurry here in capitalism's end-times. The insurance sector is meant to be an unshakably rational enterprise, imposing discipline on the rest of the economy. Sure, your company can do something stupid and reckless, but the insurance bill will be stonking, sufficient to consume the expected additional profits. But the crash of 2008 made it clear that the largest insurance companies in the world were capable of the same wishful thinking, motivated reasoning, and short-termism that they were supposed to prevent in every other business. Without AIG – one of the largest insurers in the world – there would have been no Great Financial Crisis. The company knowingly underwrote hundreds of billions of dollars in junk bonds dressed up as AAA debt, and required a $180b bailout. Still, many of us have nursed an ember of hope that the insurance sector would spur Big Finance and its pocket governments into taking the climate emergency seriously. When rising seas and wildfires and zoonotic plagues and famines and rolling refugee crises make cities, businesses, and homes uninsurable risks, then insurers will stop writing policies and the doom will become undeniable. Money talks, bullshit walks. But while insurers have begun to withdraw from the most climate-endangered places (or crank up premiums), the net effect is to decrease climate resilience and increase risk, creating a "climate risk doom loop" that Advait Arun lays out brilliantly for Phenomenal World: https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/the-doom-loop/ Part of the problem is political: as people move into high-risk areas (flood-prone coastal cities, fire-threatened urban-wildlife interfaces), politicians are pulling out all the stops to keep insurers from disinvesting in these high-risk zones. They're loosening insurance regs, subsidizing policies, and imposing "disaster risk fees" on everyone in the region. But the insurance companies themselves are simply not responding aggressively enough to the rising risk. Climate risk is correlated, after all: when everyone in a region is at flood risk, then everyone will be making a claim on the insurance company when the waters come. The insurance trick of spreading risk only works if the risks to everyone in that spread aren't correlated. Perversely, insurance companies are heavily invested in fossil fuel companies, these being reliable money-spinners where an insurer can park and grow your premiums, on the assumption that most of the people in the risk pool won't file claims at the same time. But those same fossil-fuel assets produce the very correlated risk that could bring down the whole system. The system is in trouble. US claims from "natural disasters" are topping $100b/year – up from $4.6b in 2000. Home insurance premiums are up (21%!), but it's not enough, especially in drowning Florida and Texas (which is also both roasting and freezing): https://grist.org/economics/as-climate-risks-mount-the-insurance-safety-net-is-collapsing/ Insurers who put premiums up to cover this new risk run into a paradox: the higher premiums get, the more risk-tolerant customers get. When flood insurance is cheap, lots of homeowners will stump up for it and create a big, uncorrelated risk-pool. When premiums skyrocket, the only people who buy flood policies are homeowners who are dead certain their house is gonna get flooded out and soon. Now you have a risk pool consisting solely of highly correlated, high risk homes. The technical term for this in the insurance trade is: "bad." But it gets worse: people who decide not to buy policies as prices go up may be doing their own "motivated reasoning" and "mispricing their risk." That is, they may decide, "If I can't afford to move, and I can't afford to sell my house because it's in a flood-zone, and I can't afford insurance, I guess that means I'm going to live here and be uninsured and hope for the best." This is also bad. The amount of uninsured losses from US climate disaster "dwarfs" insured losses: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/hurricanes-floods-bring-120-billion-insurance-losses-2022-2023-01-09/ Here's the doom-loop in a nutshell: As carbon emissions continue to accumulate, more people are put at risk of climate disaster, while the damages from those disasters intensifies. Vulnerability will drive disinvestment, which in turn exacerbates vulnerability. Also: the browner and poorer you are, the worse you have it: you are impacted "first and worst": https://www.climaterealityproject.org/frontline-fenceline-communities As Arun writes, "Tinkering with insurance markets will not solve their real issues—we must patch the gaping holes in the financial system itself." We have to end the loop that sees the poorest places least insured, and the loss of insurance leading to abandonment by people with money and agency, which zeroes out the budget for climate remediation and resiliency where it is most needed. The insurance sector is part of the finance industry, and it is disinvesting in climate-endagered places and instead doubling down on its bets on fossil fuels. We can't rely on the insurance sector to discipline other industries by generating "price signals" about the true underlying climate risk. And insurance doesn't just invest in fossil fuels – they're also a major buyer of municipal and state bonds, which means they're part of the "bond vigilante" investors whose decisions constrain the ability of cities to raise and spend money for climate remediation. When American cities, territories and regions can't float bonds, they historically get taken over and handed to an unelected "control board" who represents distant creditors, not citizens. This is especially true when the people who live in those places are Black or brown – think Puerto Rico or Detroit or Flint. These control board administrators make creditors whole by tearing the people apart. This is the real doom loop: insurers pull out of poor places threatened by climate disasters. They invest in the fossil fuels that worsen those disasters. They join with bond vigilantes to force disinvestment from infrastructure maintenance and resiliency in those places. Then, the next climate disaster creates more uninsured losses. Lather, rinse, repeat. Finance and insurance are betting heavily on climate risk modeling – not to avert this crisis, but to ensure that their finances remain intact though it. What's more, it won't work. As climate effects get bigger, they get less predictable – and harder to avoid. The point of insurance is spreading risk, not reducing it. We shouldn't and can't rely on insurance creating price-signals to reduce our climate risk. But the climate doom-loop can be put in reverse – not by market spending, but by public spending. As Arun writes, we need to create "a global investment architecture that is safe for spending": https://tanjasail.wordpress.com/2023/10/06/a-world-safe-for-spending/ Public investment in emissions reduction and resiliency can offset climate risk, by reducing future global warming and by making places better prepared to endure the weather and other events that are locked in by past emissions. A just transition will "loosen liquidity constraints on investment in communities made vulnerable by the financial system." Austerity is a bad investment strategy. Failure to maintain and improve infrastructure doesn't just shift costs into the future, it increases those costs far in excess of any rational discount based on the time value of money. Public institutions should discipline markets, not the other way around. Don't give Wall Street a veto over our climate spending. A National Investment Authority could subordinate markets to human thriving: https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/industrial-policy-requires-public-not-just-private-equity/ Insurance need not be pitted against human survival. Saving the cities and regions whose bonds are held by insurance companies is good for those companies: "Breaking the climate risk doom loop is the best disaster insurance policy money can buy." I found Arun's work to be especially bracing because of the book I'm touring now, The Lost Cause, a solarpunk novel set in a world in which vast public investment is being made to address the climate emergency that is everywhere and all at once: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause There is something profoundly hopeful about the belief that we can do something about these foreseeable disasters – rather than remaining frozen in place until the disaster is upon us and it's too late. As Rebecca Solnit says, inhabiting this place in your imagination is "Completely delightful. Neither utopian nor dystopian, it portrays life in SoCal in a future woven from our successes (Green New Deal!), failures (climate chaos anyway), and unresolved conflicts (old MAGA dudes). I loved it." Hey look at this (permalink) Portal – 1987 – MS-DOS Game Reviews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3URO-5pCMyw (h/t Salim Fadhley) Draft Digital Replica Bill Risks Living Performers’ Rights over AI-Generated Replacements https://rightofpublicityroadmap.com/news_commentary/draft-digital-replica-bill-risks-living-performers-rights-over-ai-generated-replacements/ The Case For A Technology Aware Lobby Correspondent https://hackaday.com/2023/11/17/the-case-for-a-technology-aware-lobby-correspondent/ This day in history (permalink) #15yrsago Canada’s Internet is crap https://web.archive.org/web/20081207154815/https://www.cbc.ca/searchengine/blog/2008/11/is_canada_becoming_a_digital_g.html #10yrsago Brainwashed: Neuroscience vs neurobollocks https://memex.craphound.com/2013/11/28/brainwashed-neuroscience-vs-neurobollocks/ #10yrsago Florida sheriff arrests mayor on drug charges: “This isn’t Toronto” https://www.onlineathens.com/story/news/state/2013/11/26/florida-mayor-arrested-drug-charges/15549584007/ #10yrsago Pope blasts capitalism https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/11/26/pope-francis-has-a-few-thoughts-about-the-global-economy-we-added-these-13-charts/ #10yrsago Venn menu https://memex.craphound.com/2013/11/28/venn-menu/ #5yrsago Probing a mysterious network of dropshippers, evangelicals, crapgadgets, and semi-vacant Manhattan department stores https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/27/style/what-is-inside-this-internet-rabbit-hole.html #5yrsago Houston’s “inchworm bandits” create performance art while robbing restaurants on their bellies https://www.loweringthebar.net/2018/11/inchworm-bandits-are-either-idiots-or-comedy-geniuses.html #5yrsago Dutch church holds 27 days of round-the-clock services to protect immigrant family from deportation https://qz.com/1470153/a-dutch-church-is-holding-non-stop-services-for-a-refugee-family #5yrsago Comcast cranks up extra charges on cable bills, again, even for people who signed contracts promising a lower rate https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/comcasts-controversial-tv-and-sports-fees-rise-again-hit-18-25-a-month/ #5yrsago Prince’s entire catalog of obscure, hard-to-find music videos, collected and annotated https://www.anildash.com/2018/11/28/every-single-video-prince-ever-made/ #5yrsago Before Youtube nukes annotations, take one last look at these amazing, creative projects that showed how much annotations could do https://waxy.org/2018/11/a-tribute-to-youtube-annotations/ #5yrsago Labour report on executive pay proposes giving customers a vote on compensation, ending share-based compensation for execs https://web.archive.org/web/20181129113350/visar.csustan.edu/aaba/LabourExecutiveRemunerationReview2018.pdf #5yrsago Toronto 2033: science fiction writers imagine the city of the future https://web.archive.org/web/20190306140656/https://toronto2033.com/ #1yrago How monopoly enshittified Amazon https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Naked Capitalism (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/). Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: Moral Hazard (from Communications Breakdown) https://craphound.com/stories/2023/11/12/moral-hazard-from-communications-breakdown/ Upcoming appearances: The Lost Cause at The Strand (NYC), Nov 29 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-the-lost-cause-tickets-734958008187 The Lost Cause at Flyleaf Books (Chapel Hill), Dec 5 https://www.flyleafbooks.com/doctorow-2023 Recent appearances: Digital Markets Act; Interoperability; Entrenchment; Copyright; "What-About-Ism" (Digital Markets Research Hub) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm23pO5_WKM Science fiction for a dystopian present (Institute of Art and Ideas) https://iai.tv/video/science-fiction-for-a-dystopian-present-cory-doctorow?_auid=2020 Pushing back on unconstrained capitalism (Changelog) https://changelog.com/podcast/565 Latest books: "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024 Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. 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- Pluralistic: The real AI fight (27 Nov 2023)
- Mon, 27 Nov 2023 13:16:23 +0000
Today's links The real AI fight: Effective Accelerationists and Effective Altruists are both in vigorous agreement about something genuinely stupid. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading The real AI fight (permalink) Last week's spectacular OpenAI soap-opera hijacked the attention of millions of normal, productive people and nonconsensually crammed them full of the fine details of the debate between "Effective Altruism" (doomers) and "Effective Accelerationism" (AKA e/acc), a genuinely absurd debate that was allegedly at the center of the drama. Very broadly speaking: the Effective Altruists are doomers, who believe that Large Language Models (AKA "spicy autocomplete") will someday become so advanced that it could wake up and annihilate or enslave the human race. To prevent this, we need to employ "AI Safety" – measures that will turn superintelligence into a servant or a partner, not an adversary. Contrast this with the Effective Accelerationists, who also believe that LLMs will someday become superintelligences with the potential to annihilate or enslave humanity – but they nevertheless advocate for faster AI development, with fewer "safety" measures, in order to produce an "upward spiral" in the "techno-capital machine." Once-and-future OpenAI CEO Altman is said to be an accelerationist who was forced out of the company by the Altruists, who were subsequently bested, ousted, and replaced by Larry fucking Summers. This, we're told, is the ideological battle over AI: should we cautiously progress our LLMs into superintelligences with safety in mind, or go full speed ahead and trust to market forces to tame and harness the superintelligences to come? This "AI debate" is pretty stupid, proceeding as it does from the foregone conclusion that adding compute power and data to the next-word-predictor program will eventually create a conscious being, which will then inevitably become a superbeing. This is a proposition akin to the idea that if we keep breeding faster and faster horses, we'll get a locomotive: https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/ As Molly White writes, this isn't much of a debate. The "two sides" of this debate are as similar as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Yes, they're arrayed against each other in battle, so furious with each other that they're tearing their hair out. But for people who don't take any of this mystical nonsense about spontaneous consciousness arising from applied statistics seriously, these two sides are nearly indistinguishable, sharing as they do this extremely weird belief. The fact that they've split into warring factions on its particulars is less important than their unified belief in the certain coming of the paperclip-maximizing apocalypse: https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/effective-obfuscation White points out that there's another, much more distinct side in this AI debate – as different and distant from Dee and Dum as a Beamish Boy and a Jabberwock. This is the side of AI Ethics – the side that worries about "today’s issues of ghost labor, algorithmic bias, and erosion of the rights of artists and others." As White says, shifting the debate to the existential risk posed by a future, hypothetical superintelligence "is incredibly convenient for the powerful individuals and companies who stand to profit from AI." After all, both sides plan to make money selling AI tools to corporations, whose track record in deploying algorithmic "decision support" systems and other AI-based automation is pretty poor – like the claims-evaluation engine that Cigna uses to deny insurance claims: https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims On a graph that plots the various positions on AI, the two groups of weirdos who disagree about how to create the inevitable superintelligence are effectively standing on the same spot, and the people who worry about the actual way that AI harms actual people right now are about a million miles away from that spot. There's that old programmer joke, "There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't." But of course, that joke could just as well be, "There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand ternary, those who understand binary, and those who don't understand either": https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/11/the-ten-types-of-people/ What's more, the joke could be, "there are 10 kinds of people, those who understand hexadecenary, those who understand pentadecenary, those who understand tetradecenary [und so weiter] those who understand ternary, those who understand binary, and those who don't." That is to say, a "polarized" debate often has people who hold positions so far from the ones everyone is talking about that those belligerents' concerns are basically indistinguishable from one another. The act of identifying these distant positions is a radical opening up of possibilities. Take the indigenous philosopher chief Red Jacket's response to the Christian missionaries who sought permission to proselytize to Red Jacket's people: https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5790/ Red Jacket's whole rebuttal is a superb dunk, but it gets especially interesting where he points to the sectarian differences among Christians as evidence against the missionary's claim to having a single true faith, and in favor of the idea that his own people's traditional faith could be co-equal among Christian doctrines. The split that White identifies isn't a split about whether AI tools can be useful. Plenty of us AI skeptics are happy to stipulate that there are good uses for AI. For example, I'm 100% in favor of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group using an LLM to classify and extract information from the Innocence Project New Orleans' wrongful conviction case files: https://hrdag.org/tech-notes/large-language-models-IPNO.html Automating "extracting officer information from documents – specifically, the officer's name and the role the officer played in the wrongful conviction" was a key step to freeing innocent people from prison, and an LLM allowed HRDAG – a tiny, cash-strapped, excellent nonprofit – to make a giant leap forward in a vital project. I'm a donor to HRDAG and you should donate to them too: https://hrdag.networkforgood.com/ Good data-analysis is key to addressing many of our thorniest, most pressing problems. As Ben Goldacre recounts in his inaugural Oxford lecture, it is both possible and desirable to build ethical, privacy-preserving systems for analyzing the most sensitive personal data (NHS patient records) that yield scores of solid, ground-breaking medical and scientific insights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-eaV8SWdjQ The difference between this kind of work – HRDAG's exoneration work and Goldacre's medical research – and the approach that OpenAI and its competitors take boils down to how they treat humans. The former treats all humans as worthy of respect and consideration. The latter treats humans as instruments – for profit in the short term, and for creating a hypothetical superintelligence in the (very) long term. As Terry Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax reminds us, this is the root of all sin: "sin is when you treat people like things": https://brer-powerofbabel.blogspot.com/2009/02/granny-weatherwax-on-sin-favorite.html So much of the criticism of AI misses this distinction – instead, this criticism starts by accepting the self-serving marketing claim of the "AI safety" crowd – that their software is on the verge of becoming self-aware, and is thus valuable, a good investment, and a good product to purchase. This is Lee Vinsel's "Criti-Hype": "taking press releases from startups and covering them with hellscapes": https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5 Criti-hype and AI were made for each other. Emily M Bender is a tireless cataloger of criti-hypists, like the newspaper reporters who breathlessly repeat " completely unsubstantiated claims (marketing)…sourced to Altman": https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/111464030855880383 Bender, like White, is at pains to point out that the real debate isn't doomers vs accelerationists. That's just "billionaires throwing money at the hope of bringing about the speculative fiction stories they grew up reading – and philosophers and others feeling important by dressing these same silly ideas up in fancy words": https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/111464024432217299 All of this is just a distraction from real and important scientific questions about how (and whether) to make automation tools that steer clear of Granny Weatherwax's sin of "treating people like things." Bender – a computational linguist – isn't a reactionary who hates automation for its own sake. On Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 – the excellent podcast she co-hosts with Alex Hanna – there is a machine-generated transcript: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2126417 There is a serious, meaty debate to be had about the costs and possibilities of different forms of automation. But the superintelligence true-believers and their criti-hyping critics keep dragging us away from these important questions and into fanciful and pointless discussions of whether and how to appease the godlike computers we will create when we disassemble the solar system and turn it into computronium. The question of machine intelligence isn't intrinsically unserious. As a materialist, I believe that whatever makes me "me" is the result of the physics and chemistry of processes inside and around my body. My disbelief in the existence of a soul means that I'm prepared to think that it might be possible for something made by humans to replicate something like whatever process makes me "me." Ironically, the AI doomers and accelerationists claim that they, too, are materialists – and that's why they're so consumed with the idea of machine superintelligence. But it's precisely because I'm a materialist that I understand these hypotheticals about self-aware software are less important and less urgent than the material lives of people today. It's because I'm a materialist that my primary concerns about AI are things like the climate impact of AI data-centers and the human impact of biased, opaque, incompetent and unfit algorithmic systems – not science fiction-inspired, self-induced panics over the human race being enslaved by our robot overlords. (Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified) Hey look at this (permalink) "A Pan-African Vision for Structural Transformation" ~ Fadhel Kaboub https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnXjtyTnpig DISENGAGE Opting Out—and Finding New Options—to Reclaim the Internet from Spammers, Scammers, Intrusive Marketers and Big Tech https://www.lindaformichelli.com/_files/ugd/7f54e8_b4212db40a8342b59fe1e0a4c2087997.pdf National Rail Action Plan https://youtu.be/-VrvAzwpFmE This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago Big Mouth Billy Bass runs Linux, does impressions https://web.archive.org/web/20031123212606/http://bigmouth.here-n-there.com/ #15yrsago Tony Benn’s War on Terror diaries — an inspirational look at the life of a princpled fighter https://memex.craphound.com/2008/11/26/tony-benns-war-on-terror-diaries-an-inspirational-look-at-the-life-of-a-princpled-fighter/ #15yrsago Passwords suck https://web.archive.org/web/20081220181358/http://www.links.org/?p=425 #10yrsago RIP, Richard “Datamancer” Nagy https://web.archive.org/web/20131129114041/http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,41728.msg879191.html #10yrsago Pratchett’s “Raising Steam”: the magic of modernity https://memex.craphound.com/2013/11/27/pratchetts-raising-steam-the-magic-of-modernity/ #10yrsago NSA spied on non-terrorist “radicalizers”‘ porn use in order to discredit them https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nsa-porn-muslims_n_4346128 #10yrsago Public Citizen threatens legal action against Kleargear on behalf of customers https://www.techdirt.com/2013/11/26/public-citizen-suing-behalf-customers-whose-credit-was-ruined-kleargears-3500-bad-review-fee/ #10yrsago Beasties/GoldieBlox debunked https://waxy.org/2013/11/goldieblox_and_the_three_mcs/ #5yrsago Billboards are using sensors to identify, target and track individuals https://onezero.medium.com/irl-ads-are-taking-scary-inspiration-from-social-media-7088e8241beb #5yrsago Man arrested for rape after his Playstation mic allegedly broadcast audio from the crime to other players https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/11/a-hot-playstation-mic-captures-sounds-of-apparent-rape-leads-to-arrest/ #5yrsago Amnesty will stage global protests over Google’s spying, censoring Chinese search engine plan https://theintercept.com/2018/11/26/google-dragonfly-project-china-amnesty-international/ #5yrsago Supreme Court looks ready to let customers sue Apple for abusing its App Store monopoly https://gizmodo.com/supreme-court-appears-to-lean-heavily-against-apples-de-1830662533?IR=T #5yrsato A visual guide to America’s concentrated, uncompetitive markets https://concentrationcrisis.openmarketsinstitute.org #5yrsago US tax shortfalls have our public schools begging for donations https://truthout.org/articles/bake-sales-cant-fix-school-funding-pinch-caused-by-corporate-tax-cuts/ #5yrsago Using information security to explain why disinformation makes autocracies stronger and democracies weaker https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/27/using-information-security-to-explain-why-disinformation-makes-autocracies-stronger-and-democracies-weaker/ #5yrsago The Fifth Risk: Michael Lewis explains how the “deep state” is just nerds versus grifters https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/27/the-fifth-risk-michael-lewis-explains-how-the-deep-state-is-just-nerds-versus-grifters/ #5yrsago Malware vector: become an admin on dormant, widely-used open source projects https://github.com/dominictarr/event-stream/issues/116 #5yrsago Babysitter vetting and voice-analysis: Have we reached peak AI snakeoil? https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/26/babysitter-vetting-and-voice-analysis-have-we-reached-peak-ai-snakeoil/ #5yrsago Chinese AI traffic cam mistook a bus ad for a human and publicly shamed the CEO it depicted for jaywalking https://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/2174564/facial-recognition-catches-chinas-air-con-queen-dong-mingzhu #5yrsago Using data-science to evaluate whether Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption sweeps were really about consolidating power https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2019/preliminary/paper/hSA5ri6d #1yrago Poe vs. Property https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/27/poe-vs-property/ Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: Moral Hazard (from Communications Breakdown) https://craphound.com/stories/2023/11/12/moral-hazard-from-communications-breakdown/ Upcoming appearances: Who Is Watching Big Tech? Nov 27 (Toronto)` https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/who-is-watching-big-tech-tickets-707927880347 The Lost Cause at The Strand (NYC), Nov 29 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-the-lost-cause-tickets-734958008187 The Lost Cause at Flyleaf Books (Chapel Hill), Dec 5 https://www.flyleafbooks.com/doctorow-2023 Recent appearances: Digital Markets Act; Interoperability; Entrenchment; Copyright; "What-About-Ism" (Digital Markets Research Hub) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm23pO5_WKM Science fiction for a dystopian present (Institute of Art and Ideas) https://iai.tv/video/science-fiction-for-a-dystopian-present-cory-doctorow?_auid=2020 Pushing back on unconstrained capitalism (Changelog) https://changelog.com/podcast/565 Latest books: "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024 Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. 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- Pluralistic: The moral injury of having your work enshittified (25 Nov 2023)
- Sat, 25 Nov 2023 13:41:29 +0000
Today's links The moral injury of having your work enshittified: I missed my mother's funeral for this? Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2018 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading The moral injury of having your work enshittified (permalink) This week, I wrote about how the Great Enshittening – in which all the digital services we rely on become unusable, extractive piles of shit – did not result from the decay of the morals of tech company leadership, but rather, from the collapse of the forces that discipline corporate wrongdoing: https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/ The failure to enforce competition law allowed a few companies to buy out their rivals, or sell goods below cost until their rivals collapsed, or bribe key parts of their supply chain not to allow rivals to participate: https://www.engadget.com/google-reportedly-pays-apple-36-percent-of-ad-search-revenues-from-safari-191730783.html The resulting concentration of the tech sector meant that the surviving firms were stupendously wealthy, and cozy enough that they could agree on a common legislative agenda. That regulatory capture has allowed tech companies to violate labor, privacy and consumer protection laws by arguing that the law doesn't apply when you use an app to violate it: https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men But the regulatory capture isn't just about preventing regulation: it's also about creating regulation – laws that make it illegal to reverse-engineer, scrape, and otherwise mod, hack or reconfigure existing services to claw back value that has been taken away from users and business customers. This gives rise to Jay Freeman's perfectly named doctrine of "felony contempt of business-model," in which it is illegal to use your own property in ways that anger the shareholders of the company that sold it to you: https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain Undisciplined by the threat of competition, regulation, or unilateral modification by users, companies are free to enshittify their products. But what does that actually look like? I say that enshittification is always precipitated by a lost argument. It starts when someone around a board-room table proposes doing something that's bad for users but good for the company. If the company faces the discipline of competition, regulation or self-help measures, then the workers who are disgusted by this course of action can say, "I think doing this would be gross, and what's more, it's going to make the company poorer," and so they win the argument. But when you take away that discipline, the argument gets reduced to, "Don't do this because it would make me ashamed to work here, even though it will make the company richer." Money talks, bullshit walks. Let the enshittification begin! https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend But why do workers care at all? That's where phrases like "don't be evil" come into the picture. Until very recently, tech workers participated in one of history's tightest labor markets, in which multiple companies with gigantic war-chests bid on their labor. Even low-level employees routinely fielded calls from recruiters who dangled offers of higher salaries and larger stock grants if they would jump ship for a company's rival. Employers built "campuses" filled with lavish perks: massages, sports facilities, daycare, gourmet cafeterias. They offered workers generous benefit packages, including exotic health benefits like having your eggs frozen so you could delay fertility while offsetting the risks normally associated with conceiving at a later age. But all of this was a transparent ruse: the business-case for free meals, gyms, dry-cleaning, catering and massages was to keep workers at their laptops for 10, 12, or even 16 hours per day. That egg-freezing perk wasn't about helping workers plan their families: it was about thumbing the scales in favor of working through your entire twenties and thirties without taking any parental leave. In other words, tech employers valued their employees as a means to an end: they wanted to get the best geeks on the payroll and then work them like government mules. The perks and pay weren't the result of comradeship between management and labor: they were the result of the discipline of competition for labor. This wasn't really a secret, of course. Big Tech workers are split into two camps: blue badges (salaried employees) and green badges (contractors). Whenever there is a slack labor market for a specific job or skill, it is converted from a blue badge job to a green badge job. Green badges don't get the food or the massages or the kombucha. They don't get stock or daycare. They don't get to freeze their eggs. They also work long hours, but they are incentivized by the fear of poverty. Tech giants went to great lengths to shield blue badges from green badges – at some Google campuses, these workforces actually used different entrances and worked in different facilities or on different floors. Sometimes, green badge working hours would be staggered so that the armies of ragged clickworkers would not be lined up to badge in when their social betters swanned off the luxury bus and into their airy adult kindergartens. But Big Tech worked hard to convince those blue badges that they were truly valued. Companies hosted regular town halls where employees could ask impertinent questions of their CEOs. They maintained freewheeling internal social media sites where techies could rail against corporate foolishness and make Dilbert references. And they came up with mottoes. Apple told its employees it was a sound environmental steward that cared about privacy. Apple also deliberately turned old devices into e-waste by shredding them to ensure that they wouldn't be repaired and compete with new devices: https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently And even as they were blocking Facebook's surveillance tools, they quietly built their own nonconsensual mass surveillance program and lied to customers about it: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar Facebook told employees they were on a "mission to connect every person in the world," but instead deliberately sowed discontent among its users and trapped them in silos that meant that anyone who left Facebook lost all their friends: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs And Google promised its employees that they would not "be evil" if they worked at Google. For many googlers, that mattered. They wanted to do something good with their lives, and they had a choice about who they would work for. What's more, they did make things that were good. At their high points, Google Maps, Google Mail, and of course, Google Search were incredible. My own life was totally transformed by Maps: I have very poor spatial sense, need to actually stop and think to tell my right from my left, and I spent more of my life at least a little lost and often very lost. Google Maps is the cognitive prosthesis I needed to become someone who can go anywhere. I'm profoundly grateful to the people who built that service. There's a name for phenomenon in which you care so much about your job that you endure poor conditions and abuse: it's called "vocational awe," as coined by Fobazi Ettarh: https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/ Ettarh uses the term to apply to traditionally low-waged workers like librarians, teachers and nurses. In our book Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin and I talked about how it applies to artists and other creative workers, too: https://chokepointcapitalism.com/ But vocational awe is also omnipresent in tech. The grandiose claims to be on a mission to make the world a better place are not just puffery – they're a vital means of motivating workers who can easily quit their jobs and find a new one to put in 16-hour days. The massages and kombucha and egg-freezing are not framed as perks, but as logistical supports, provided so that techies on an important mission can pursue a shared social goal without being distracted by their balky, inconvenient meatsuits. Steve Jobs was a master of instilling vocational awe. He was full of aphorisms like "we're here to make a dent in the universe, otherwise why even be here?" Or his infamous line to John Sculley, whom he lured away from Pepsi: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?" Vocational awe cuts both ways. If your workforce actually believes in all that high-minded stuff, if they actually sacrifice their health, family lives and self-care to further the mission, they will defend it. That brings me back to enshittification, and the argument: "If we do this bad thing to the product I work on, it will make me hate myself." The decline in market discipline for large tech companies has been accompanied by a decline in labor discipline, as the market for technical work grew less and less competitive. Since the dotcom collapse, the ability of tech giants to starve new entrants of market oxygen has shrunk techies' dreams. Tech workers once dreamed of working for a big, unwieldy firm for a few years before setting out on their own to topple it with a startup. Then, the dream shrank: work for that big, clumsy firm for a few years, then do a fake startup that makes a fake product that is acquihired by your old employer, as an incredibly inefficient and roundabout way to get a raise and a bonus. Then the dream shrank again: work for a big, ugly firm for life, but get those perks, the massages and the kombucha and the stock options and the gourmet cafeteria and the egg-freezing. Then it shrank again: work for Google for a while, but then get laid off along with 12,000 co-workers, just months after the company does a stock buyback that would cover all those salaries for the next 27 years: https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/ Tech workers' power was fundamentally individual. In a tight labor market, tech workers could personally stand up to their bosses. They got "workplace democracy" by mouthing off at town hall meetings. They didn't have a union, and they thought they didn't need one. Of course, they did need one, because there were limits to individual power, even for the most in-demand workers, especially when it came to ghastly, long-running sexual abuse from high-ranking executives: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html Today, atomized tech workers who are ordered to enshittify the products they take pride in are losing the argument. Workers who put in long hours, missed funerals and school plays and little league games and anniversaries and family vacations are being ordered to flush that sacrifice down the toilet to grind out a few basis points towards a KPI. It's a form of moral injury, and it's palpable in the first-person accounts of former workers who've exited these large firms or the entire field. The viral "Reflecting on 18 years at Google," written by Ian Hixie, vibrates with it: https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627373 Hixie describes the sense of mission he brought to his job, the workplace democracy he experienced as employees' views were both solicited and heeded. He describes the positive contributions he was able to make to a commons of technical standards that rippled out beyond Google – and then, he says, "Google's culture eroded": Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision. In other words, techies started losing the argument. Layoffs weakened worker power – not just to defend their own interest, but to defend the users interests. Worker power is always about more than workers – think of how the 2019 LA teachers' strike won greenspace for every school, a ban on immigration sweeps of students' parents at the school gates and other community benefits: https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/ Hixie attributes the changes to a change in leadership, but I respectfully disagree. Hixie points to the original shareholder letter from the Google founders, in which they informed investors contemplating their IPO that they were retaining a controlling interest in the company's governance so that they could ignore their shareholders' priorities in favor of a vision of Google as a positive force in the world: https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/ Hixie says that the leadership that succeeded the founders lost sight of this vision – but the whole point of that letter is that the founders never fully ceded control to subsequent executive teams. Yes, those executive teams were accountable to the shareholders, but the largest block of voting shares were retained by the founders. I don't think the enshittification of Google was due to a change in leadership – I think it was due to a change in discipline, the discipline imposed by competition, regulation and the threat of self-help measures. Take ads: when Google had to contend with one-click adblocker installation, it had to constantly balance the risk of making users so fed up that they googled "how do I block ads?" and then never saw another ad ever again. But once Google seized the majority of the mobile market, it was able to funnel users into apps, and reverse-engineering an app is a felony (felony contempt of business-model) under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to install an ad-blocker. And as Google acquired control over the browser market, it was likewise able to reduce the self-help measures available to browser users who found ads sufficiently obnoxious to trigger googling "how do I block ads?" The apotheosis of this is the yearslong campaign to block adblockers in Chrome, which the company has sworn it will finally do this coming June: https://www.tumblr.com/tevruden/734352367416410112/you-have-until-june-to-dump-chrome My contention here is not that Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in personnel via the promotion of managers who have shitty ideas. Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in discipline, as the negative consequences of heeding those shitty ideas were abolished thanks to monopoly. This is bad news for people like me, who rely on services like Google Maps as cognitive prostheses. Elizabeth Laraki, one of the original Google Maps designers, has published a scorching critique of the latest GMaps design: https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182 Laraki calls out numerous enshittificatory design-choices that have left Maps screens covered in "crud" – multiple revenue-maximizing elements that come at the expense of usability, shifting value from users to Google. What Laraki doesn't say is that these UI elements are auctioned off to merchants, which means that the business that gives Google the most money gets the greatest prominence in Maps, even if it's not the best merchant. That's a recurring motif in enshittified tech platforms, most notoriously Amazon, which makes $31b/year auctioning off top search placement to companies whose products aren't relevant enough to your query to command that position on their own: https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos Enshittification begets enshittification. To succeed on Amazon, you must divert funds from product quality to auction placement, which means that the top results are the worst products: https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens The exception is searches for Apple products: Apple and Amazon have a cozy arrangement that means that searches for Apple products are a timewarp back to the pre-enshittification Amazon, when the company worried enough about losing your business to heed the employees who objected to sacrificing search quality as part of a merchant extortion racket: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11 Not every tech worker is a tech bro, in other words. Many workers care deeply about making your life better. But the microeconomics of the boardroom in a monopolized tech sector rewards the worst people and continuously promotes them. Forget the Peter Principle: tech is ruled by the Sam Principle. As OpenAI went through four CEOs in a single week, lots of commentators remarked on Sam Altman's rise and fall and rise, but I only found one commentator who really had Altman's number. Writing in Today in Tabs, Rusty Foster nailed Altman to the wall: https://www.todayintabs.com/p/defective-accelerationism Altman's history goes like this: first, he founded a useless startup that raised $30m, only to be acquired and shuttered. Then Altman got a job running Y Combinator, where he somehow failed at taking huge tranches of equity from "every Stanford dropout with an idea for software to replace something Mommy used to do." After that, he founded OpenAI, a company that he claims to believe presents an existential risk to the entire human risk – which he structured so incompetently that he was then forced out of it. His reward for this string of farcical, mounting failures? He was put back in charge of the company he mis-structured despite his claimed belief that it will destroy the human race if not properly managed. Altman's been around for a long time. He founded his startup in 2005. There've always been Sams – of both the Bankman-Fried varietal and the Altman genus – in tech. But they didn't get to run amok. They were disciplined by their competitors, regulators, users and workers. The collapse of competition led to an across-the-board collapse in all of those forms of discipline, revealing the executives for the mediocre sociopaths they always were, and exposing tech workers' vocational awe for the shabby trick it was from the start. Hey look at this (permalink) This Song Teaches Counting But Is INSANELY Hard To Count https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMtGImlEmu0 (h/t Salim Fadhley)4 Ben Goldacre's inaugural lecture: a whistlestop tour of everything we do! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-eaV8SWdjQ The Bond villain compliance strategy https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/bond-villain-compliance-strategy/ This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago Hilbert’s 16th problem solved by 22-year-old student https://web.archive.org/web/20031202154719/http://www.unstruct.org/archives/000186.html #5yrsago DHS plans to use credit-scores to judge who may become a citizen https://slate.com/technology/2018/11/dhs-credit-scores-legal-resident-assessment.html #5yrsago New Scientist calls for the end of the scholarly publishing industry: “more profitable than oil,” “indefensible” https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032052-900-time-to-break-academic-publishings-stranglehold-on-research/ #5yrsago British Parliament seizes internal Facebook documents by threatening to jail a rival exec https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/24/us/six4three-facebook-uk-parliament/index.html #5yrsago Missouri’s latest senator is part of a wave of (extremely selective) Republican enthusiasm for trustbusting https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/newly-elected-republican-senator-could-be-googles-fiercest-critic/ #5yrsago Taylor Swift makes a payout to all Universal artists a clause in her new record deal https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/25/taylor-swift-makes-a-payout-to-all-universal-artists-a-clause-in-her-new-record-deal/ Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: @fabienmarry@mastodon.social (https://mastodon.social/@fabienmarry), @Curly_Wyer@techhub.social (https://techhub.social/@Curly_Wyer). Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: Moral Hazard (from Communications Breakdown) https://craphound.com/stories/2023/11/12/moral-hazard-from-communications-breakdown/ Upcoming appearances: Who Is Watching Big Tech? Nov 27 (Toronto)` https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/who-is-watching-big-tech-tickets-707927880347 The Lost Cause at The Strand (NYC), Nov 29 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-the-lost-cause-tickets-734958008187 The Lost Cause at Flyleaf Books (Chapel Hill), Dec 5 https://www.flyleafbooks.com/doctorow-2023 Recent appearances: Digital Markets Act; Interoperability; Entrenchment; Copyright; "What-About-Ism" (Digital Markets Research Hub) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm23pO5_WKM Science fiction for a dystopian present (Institute of Art and Ideas) https://iai.tv/video/science-fiction-for-a-dystopian-present-cory-doctorow?_auid=2020 Pushing back on unconstrained capitalism (Changelog) https://changelog.com/podcast/565 Latest books: "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024 Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. 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