Mastodawn

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

The second decade of the 21st century is truly a bounteous time. My backyard has produced a bumper crop of an invasive species of mosquito that is genuinely innovative: rather than confining itself to biting in the dusk and dawn golden hours, these stinging clouds of flying vampires bite at every hour that God sends:

https://themagnet.substack.com/p/the-magnet-081-war-with-mosquitoes

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The Magnet 081: War with Mosquitoes

Here in Los Angeles, no one in my family can step outside without getting bitten by mosquitoes. This summer has been the worst year for mosquitoes that I can remember. Rising temperatures and more rain than usual have sped up the northward migration of the

The Magnet

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/30/mesclada/#melange

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Pluralistic: The internet is not a (link)dump truck (30 Sept 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

Here in the twilight of capitalism's planet-devouring, half-century orgy of wanton destruction, there's more news every day than I can possibly write a full blog post about every day, and as with many weeks, I have arrived at Saturday with a substantial backlog of links that didn't fit into the week's "Hey look at this" linkdumps.

Thus, the eighth installment in my ongoing, semiregular series of Saturday #Linkdumps:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

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linkdump – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

This week, the miscellany begins with the first hesitant signs of an emerging, post-neoliberal order. The #FTC, under direction of the force-of-nature that is #LinaKhan, has brought its long-awaited case #antitrust case against #Amazon. I am *very* excited about this. Disoriented, even.

When was the last time you greeted every day with a warm feeling because high officials in the US government were working for the betterment of every person in the land?

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Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

It's enough to make one giddy. Plus, the #NYTimes let me call Amazon "the apex predator of our platform era"! Now that it's in the #PaperOfRecord, it's official:

https://pluralistic.net/ApexPredator

Now, lefties have been predicting capitalism's imminent demise since *The Communist Manifesto*, but any fule kno that the capitalist word for "crisis" also translates as "opportunity."

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Opinion | Lina Khan vs. Amazon

Why Lina Khan and the F.T.C. must prevail in their long-awaited lawsuit against Amazon.

The New York Times

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

Like the bedbugs that mutated to thrive in clouds of post-war DDT, capitalism has adapted to each crisis, emerging in a new, more virulent form:

https://boingboing.net/2023/09/30/bedbugs-take-paris.html

But "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop" (#SteinsLaw). Perhaps our mistake was in waiting for capitalism to give way to socialism, rather than serving as a transitional phase between #feudalism and...feudalism.

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Bedbugs take Paris | Boing Boing

Paris is infested with bedbugs, and the government there is vowing to take “further action” now that it’s got to the point where a constant stream of viral videos shows the beasti…

Boing Boing

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

What's the difference between feudalism and capitalism? According to #YanisVaroufakis, it comes down to whether we value #rents (income you get from owning things) over #profits (income you get from doing things):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

By that metric, the FTC's case against Amazon is really a case against feudalism.

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Pluralistic: Yanis Varoufakis’s “Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism?” (28 Sep 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Through predatory pricing and acquisitions, Amazon has turned itself into a chokepoint that every merchant, writer and publisher has to pass through in order to reach their customers. Amazon charges a fortune to traverse that chokepoint (estimates range from 45% to 51% of gross revenues) and then forces sellers to raise their prices everywhere else when they hike their Amazon prices so they can afford Amazon's tolls. It's "an economy-wide hidden tax":

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-ftc-sues-to-break-up-amazon-over

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The FTC Sues to Break Up Amazon Over an Economy-Wide "Hidden Tax"

"We have nowhere else to go and Amazon knows it." The FTC and states are going after Amazon, largely for stopping merchants from offering discounts elsewhere.

BIG by Matt Stoller

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

Now, feudalism isn't a straightforward proposition. Like, are you *sure* you mean feudalism? Maybe you mean "#manorialism" (they're easy to mix up):

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

Plus, much of what we know about the "#DarkAges" comes from grifter doofuses like #Voltaire, a man who was capable of dismissing the 800 year #HolyRomanEmpire with a single quip ("neither holy, roman, nor an empire"). But the reality is a lot more complicated, gnarly and interesting.

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Cory Doctorow: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

As I write this in mid-November 2020, there’s quite a stir over the new version of Apple’s Mac OS, the operating system that runs on its laptops. For more than a year, Apple has engaged…

Locus Online

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

That's where medievalist @DrEleanorJanega comes in, and her "Against Voltaire, or, the shortest possible introduction to the Holy Roman Empire" is a banger:

https://going-medieval.com/2023/09/29/against-voltaire-or-the-shortest-possible-introduction-to-the-holy-roman-empire/

Now, while it's true that #Enlightenment thinkers gave medieval times a bum rap, it's likewise true that a key element of Enlightenment justice is #transparency: justice being done, and being seen to be done.

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Against Voltaire, or, the shortest possible introduction to the Holy Roman Empire

Long time readers of the blog will remember that I have written, a couple of times, about the Holy Roman Empire in the past before. There’s a few reasons for this – first of all the HRE goes so har…

Going Medieval

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

One way to distinguish "modern" justice from "medieval" trials is to ask whether the public is allowed to watch the trial, see the evidence, and understand the conclusion.

Here again, there is evidence that capitalism was a transitional phase between feudalism and feudalism. The Amazon trial has already been poisoned by farcical redactions, in which every key figure is blacked out of the public record:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-09-27-redacted-case-against-amazon/

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The [REDACTED] Case Against Amazon

You go to information war with the clickbait you have.

The American Prospect

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

This is part of a trend. The other gigantic antitrust case underway right now, against Google, has turned into a star chamber as well, with Judge #AmitPMehta largely deferring to Google's frequent demands to close the court and seal the exhibits:

https://usvgoogle.org/trial-update-9-22

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Trial Update #3 — US v Google

US v Google

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

Google's rationale for this is darkly hilarious: if the public is allowed to know what's happening in its trial, this will be converted into "clickbait," which is to say, "The public is interested in this case, and if they are informed of the evidence against us, that information will be spread widely because it is so interesting":

https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/secrecy-is-systemic

Thankfully, this secrecy is struggling to survive the public outrage it prompted.

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Secrecy Is Systemic

Here are seven ways that Judge Mehta is allowing Google to hide the Google antitrust trial.

Big Tech on Trial

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

While the court's Zoom feed has been shuttered and while Judge Mehta is still all-too-willing to clear the courtroom during key testimony, at least the DoJ's exhibits aren't being sealed at the same clip as before:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/27/23892215/google-search-antitrust-trial-documents-public-again-judge-mehta-rules

In 2023, the world comes at you fast. There's an epic struggle over the future of corporate dominance playing out all around us.

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The Google antitrust trial is opening back up... a little

Judge Amit Mehta has ruled that the Justice Department can post documents online after resolving a dispute with Google in the search antitrust trial.

The Verge

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

I mean, there are French antitrust enforcers kicking down doors of giant tech companies and ransacking their offices for evidence of nefarious anticompetitive plots:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/28/23894863/nvidia-offices-raided-french-competition-authority

As ever, the question is #SocialismOrBarbarism. But don't say that too loud: in America, #socialism is a slur, one that dates back to the Reconstruction era, when pro-slavery factions called Black voting "socialism in South Carolina."

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Nvidia offices raided by French competition authority

Nvidia’s offices were raided by France’s competition authority, according to The Wall Street Journal. The agency confirmed that it conducted a raid over concerns about anti-competitive practices.

The Verge

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

Ever since, white nationalists used "socialism" make Americans believe "socialism" was an "extremist" view, so they'd stand by while everyone from Joe McCarthy to Trump smeared their opponents as "Marxists":

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4066499-trump-paints-2024-campaign-as-righteous-crusade/

As #HeatherCoxRichardson puts it for #TheAtlantic, "There is a long-standing fight over whether support for the modern-day right is about taxes or race. The key is that it is about taxes *and* race at the same time":

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/american-socialism-racist-origins/675453/

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Trump paints 2024 campaign as ‘righteous crusade’ as he rallies evangelicals

Former President Trump during a speech on Saturday depicted the U.S. as a “beloved nation” that is “teetering on the edge of tyranny” and painted his 2024 presidential campaign as a “righteous crusade.” “For seven years, you and I have been fighting side-by-side to rescue our country from evil and from the sinister forces who…

The Hill

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

The cruelty isn't the point, in other words. Cruelty is the tactic. The point is power. Remember, no war but class war. All of this is in service to paying workers less so that bosses and investors can have more.

Take "essential workers," everyone from teachers to zookeepers, nurses to librarians, EMTs to daycare workers.

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Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

All of these "caring" professions are paid sub-living wages, and all of these workers are told that "they matter too much to earn a living wage":

https://www.okdoomer.io/praise-doesnt-pay/

The "you matter too much to pay" mind-zap is called #VocationalAwe, a crucial term introduced by #FobaziEttarh in her 2018 paper:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

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Sorry, You Matter Too Much to Make a Living Wage

One year, my boss gave me a chocolate bar for a raise. It came with a Christmas card. The card made a joke about how sweet I was. He appreciated all the extra, unpaid work I'd done. I was invaluable. That was my third year without a raise, despite "exceptional"

OK Doomer

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

Vocational awe is how creative workers - like the writers who just won their strike and the actors who are still fighting - are conned into working at starvation wages. As the old joke goes, "What, and give up show-business?"

https://ask.metafilter.com/117904/Whats-the-joke-thas-hase-the-punchline-what-and-give-up-show-business

In this moment of #BigTech-driven, #AI-based wage suppression, mass surveillance, corruption and inequality, perhaps we should take a moment to remind ourselves that #cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion.

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What's the joke thas hase the punchline 'what and give up show business'

What's the original joke that has the punchline 'what, and give up show business?' Google doesn't help, since it's such a common reference, most links are using the line assuming you know the...

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

Or, more to the point, the *warning* was about high-tech corporate takeover of our lives, and the *suggestion* was that we could seize the means of computation (a synonym for @GreatDismal's "the street finds its own use for things"):

http://www.seizethemeansofcomputation.org/

We are living in a lopsided cyberpunk future, long on high-tech corporate takeover, short of computation seizing.

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The Internet Con | Cory Doctorow's craphound.com

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

This point is made sharply in @jwz's "Dispatch From The Cyberpunk City," beautifully packaged as a #Hypercard stack you run on an in-browser MacPlus emulator at the @internetarchive:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/09/neuroblast-dispatch-from-the-cyberpunk-city/

> Cast your gaze ahead, to the near future: Public space has all but disappeared. Corporate landlords use AI-powered robots to harass the homeless. The robots, built slick and white with an R2-D2 friendliness now resemble giant butt plugs covered in graffiti and grime.

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NEUROBLAST: Dispatch From The Cyberpunk City

The following is the first of two articles that I contributed to the second issue of the NEUROBLAST HyperCard DiskZine, which was available for sale on floppy disk at last month's Cyberdelia. It is a State of the Union of San Francisco 2023, and is about the healing power of the Doom Loop. I'm re-posting it here because it's a little complicated to access in its original form... If your kids ...

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

Science fiction doesn't *have* to be a warning. It can also be a wellspring of hope. That's what I tried to do with #TheLostCause, my forthcoming #GreenNewDeal novel, which @billmckibben called "The first great YIMBY novel":

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

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The Lost Cause

It’s thirty years from now. We’re making progress, mitigating climate change, slowly but surely. But what about all the angry old people who can’t let ...

Macmillan Publishers

Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

Writing a hopeful novel of ecological, social and economic redemption, driven by #solidarity, #repair, and #LibrarySocialism, was a powerful tonic against despair in this smoke-smothered, flooded, mosquito-bitten time. And while the book isn't out yet, there are early indications I succeeded, like #KimStanleyRobinson's reaction, "Along with the rush of adrenaline I felt a solid surge of hope. May it go like this."

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Cory Doctorow Sep 30, 2023

And now, we have a concurring judgment from #LibraryJournal, who yesterday published their review, which concludes: "a thought-provoking story, with a message of hope in a near-future that looks increasingly bleak":

https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/the-lost-cause-2196385

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The Lost Cause

Library Journal

Lou Katz Oct 1, 2023

@pluralistic 45% to 51% of GROSS revenues? WOW