Mastodawn

extremely mad because my relative in American prison has let me know that from now on, instead of being charged once per book or per song and having the files added permanently to his account, he's going to ALSO be charged by the minute to read or listen to music on the tablets that are the only things they're allowed to use.

reminder that paying prisoners (vastly) less than minimum wage is legal in the US because they're defined as an exception to anti-slavery laws.

Show thread

Allpoints

@0xabad1dea terribly sorry for the situation your friend is in. @pluralistic has a character in The Bezel in that situation.

We once had a work volunteer day where we helped pack books for shipment to prisoners, back when they could actually get paper books. The restrictions on what they were allowed to receive was just capricious and cruel.

In many ways, we live in a dystopian present

Show thread

Jef Poskanzer 14h ago

@allpoints @0xabad1dea Yeah, now I have to wonder if Cory was reporting stuff that was already real, or if the prison industrial complex people are cribbing ideas from his books.

Show thread

Allpoints 14h ago

@jef @0xabad1dea granted a lot of tech bros look at dystopian fiction as a playbook and not a warning. But in this case, I think he's just really good at grounding his fiction in reality.