@pluralistic@mamot.fr
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pluralistic

@pluralistic@mamot.fr

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)
@doctorow.

Archived at pluralistic.net

I post long threads. If you don't like these in your timeline but want to read them, I suggest unfollowing me here and subscribing to my RSS, or my newsletter, or any of my various long-form feeds. Links at https://pluralistic.net.

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pluralistic, to random
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In 1997, Jorn Barger coined the term "web-log" to describe his website "Robot Wisdom," where he logged his journeys around this exciting new digital space called "the web." Two years later, @peterme shortened "web-blog" to "":

https://peterme.com/archives/00000205.html

--

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/2023/05/02/wunderkammer/#jubillee

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pluralistic,
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This doesn't just make me want to stand up and salute - it makes me want to build a barricade (or a ).

On to "Reddit Data API Update: Changes to Pushshift Access," a thread where the volunteer mods are discussing another move: Reddit's pre-IPO API shut-down that has broken all the mod tools that volunteers use to shovel out Reddit's Augean Stables, getting rid of spam and catfishing and fraud:

https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/134tjpe/reddit_data_api_update_changes_to_pushshift_access/

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pluralistic,
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This isn't just "stop talking to each other and start buying things" - this is "stop doing billions of dollars in volunteer labor keeping our users safe, and start paying us for the privilege." Good luck with that, Reddit.

Hey! The Hollywood writers are back on strike! The Guild is a shitkicking, take-no-prisoners, radical union with massive solidarity:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/2/23707813/wga-hollywood-writers-strike-2023-streaming-ai-wages-contract

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

It's what let them trounce the talent agencies - hyper-concentrated to just four companies, two owned by ghouls - over a 22 month strike:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/23/opsec-and-personal-security/#monopsony

The talent agencies had rigged the system so that instead of getting a 10% commission on the writers' earnings, they were taking as much as 90% out of every dollar - and were about to make it worse, building their own studios, so they could negotiate with themselves on behalf of their clients.

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

In the same week, 7,000 writers - even the ones who weren't getting screwed - fired their agents, and demanded a return to the 90/10 split and a ban on agencies owning studios. The agencies say nfw. The writers stayed on the picket line.

There's a whole chapter on this in , 's and my book on creative labor markets and monopoly. One of our sources was , who led the strike:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

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pluralistic,
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David hosted our LA launch, where he told us, "We thought the agencies had all the power. We learned that they only had as much power as we gave them. You can make a movie without an agent. You can't make one without a writer."

The new strike is about the same thing as the old strike: shifting money from labor to capital. The studios have figured out how to use streaming to avoid paying writers.

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pluralistic,
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They're , using gimmicks like shorter seasons and running their own streaming services to dodge the wages the writers are owed. As the union says, the studios "created a gig economy inside a union workforce."

I live in Burbank, where many of these studios are located. I'll see you on the picket line.

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Sticking with labor for a moment: the Biden administration is investigating the use of - the spyware your boss uses to monitor your driving, keystrokes, web usage, location, hand-movements, facial expressions, even your eyeballs:

https://gizmodo.com/remote-work-surveillance-software-workers-rights-1850392911

The 's Request for Information solicits your experiences with bossware:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/050123_OSTP_RFI_PREPUBLISH_.pdf

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

They want to know:

  • Workers’ firsthand experiences with surveillance technologies;

  • Details from employers, technology developers, and vendors on how they develop, sell, and use these technologies;

  • Best practices for mitigating risks to workers;

  • Relevant data and research; and

  • Ideas for how the federal government should respond to any relevant risks and opportunities.

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

But there's a catch: these are Amazon drivers, but they don't work for Amazon. They drive Amazon-branded vans, specced down to the last rivet by Amazon. They wear Amazon vests. They deliver Amazon packages. But they work for "Delivery Service Partners," a kind of pyramid scheme created by Amazon that tricks workers into thinking that paying Amazon for the privilege of working for a trillion-dollar company makes them "entrepreneurs."

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Instead, they're . "" because - like poultry farmers - they are totally controlled by a monopoly buyer that dictates every part of their business to them, dribbling out just enough money to roll over their loans and go deeper into debt.

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pluralistic,
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"," because they're the inverse of the theorists' idea of a "," that is, a computer-assisted human. Instead, they are human-assisted computers, with their every last move scripted to the finest degree by that they have to pay for:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/19/the-shakedown/#weird-flex

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

If you're living under bossware's yoke - say, if your boss has transformed "work from home" into "live at work," then you know what to do: melt the switchboard!

One more labor story: a reminder that labor rights are a marathon, not a sprint. A group of drivers won a $30/hour contract through their union, the . Even more importantly, the contract lets them refuse to work under unsafe conditions (it's never just about money):

https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/4/27/23667968/amazon-contractor-delivery-union-teamsters

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pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

My latest @locusmag column is "The Swivel-Eyed Loons Have A Point," about all the ways that I agree with the Right's paranoid fringe, whom I mostly disagree with:

https://locusmag.com/2023/05/commentary-cory-doctorow-the-swivel-eyed-loons-have-a-point/

--

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/2023/05/03/paranoid-style/#eat-bugs

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

The impetus for the article was a widely reported, bizarre protest against the plan to create a in Oxford, England. A 15-minute city is a city where planning strives to ensure that you can walk or bicycle to all the things you need - shopping, leisure, school, work, healthcare - within 15 minutes. It's been the source of unhinged conspiracy theories from the far-right fever swamp, on both sides of the Atlantic.

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

The protest in Oxford was especially bizarre since it's already basically a 15-minute city - not only is it a college town (most college towns are 15-minute cities), it's a medieval college town, and olde timey people laid out their cities for the convenience of pedestrians (for obvious reasons).

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pluralistic,
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The protesters had a raft of objections to the plans, including a complex system for limiting cars' access to the center of town. This plan rationed vehicular access to the narrow, clogged, medieval roads in town, allowing each resident a few trips through town every week but otherwise requiring them to use transit, or take the ring road that detoured around the city center.

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

On the one hand, something has to be done. Oxford can't support the vehicle traffic it experiences today, and the amount of traffic is climbing. On the other hand, the protesters worried that the automatic license plate recognition () system would just be the start, and that the British state would eventually use its ubiquitous network of traffic cameras as a system of totalitarian control.

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pluralistic,
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And - as the title of the article has it - the swivel-eyed loons have a point. The UK is a snooper's paradise. What guns are to America, CCTVs are to Britain. The country pioneered the use of ubiquitous "security" cameras, even as successive governments passed laws to suspend habeas corpus, criminalize literary works that "glorify" terrorism, created a nationwide system of curfews, and impose bizarre orders for "anti-social behavior."

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

There's nothing wrong with asking questions about how a grid of ubiquitous surveillance cameras can be abused, especially not in England - indeed, these are questions that should have been asked many years ago.

The protesters didn't just worry about movement restrictions and surveillance - they also claimed that these controls would be used on everyday people, while elites were exempted from these measures. Again, the swivel-eyed loons have a point.

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

The UK has a longstanding culture of impunity for its wealthy and powerful people.

Think of 's behind-the-scenes maneuvers to keep her top civil servant from being outed and prosecuted for his sex-crimes against children:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/02/thatcher-peter-hayman-named-paedophile-archives

Or how was able to secretly rewrite and block legislation before it was presented to Parliament, in order to feather his own nest:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/13/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-lobbying-ministers-tony-blair

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

The protesters claimed that we were steaming towards in which everyday people would have their movements severely limited, while the Great and Good did as they pleased. While there's no reason to believe that "climate lockdowns" are a thing, Britain's long history of creating severe rules for everyday people and then turning a blind eye to elite rulebreaking is undeniable.

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

After all, it was , architect of the lockdowns, who violated his own rules, drove 275 miles to see his family, then took a detour to visit a scenic castle, and finally insulted every Briton's intelligence by concocting a story that this was all necessary to confirm that his eyesight was in good working order (no, really).

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

was bad enough, but it turns out that Cummings' boss, then-PM , threw a series of boozy, illegal parties in his official residence, lied about them - including lying to Parliament. All this while people were banned from visiting dying relatives or attending their funerals.

When the swivel-eyed loons say that measures taken to address climate change will restrict them, but not the rich and powerful, they have a point.

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Covid is real. The swivel-eyed loons say it was made up or exaggerated, and in any rate, it was a pretext to impose restrictive and extractive policies on everyday people. Covid is real, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a pretext, too.

For example, covid let our bosses declare our homes to be branch offices of their commercial premises, and then use to spy on us and control us in our own homes, turning "work from home" into "live at work":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Covid let monopolistic grocers and consumer packaged goods manufacturers hike prices way beyond anything justified by supply-chain shocks and blame it on :

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/11/price-over-volume/#pepsi-pricing-power

The oil companies got in on the act, too:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/15/sanctions-financing/#soak-the-rich

The energy sector was especially shameless in the UK, more than doubling the price of fuel:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/costoflivinginsights/energy

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

There is nothing inconsistent about claims that "covid is real" and also that "covid was a pretext to gouge, control and harm everyday people."

Swivel-eyed loons are very worried about . They say that vaccines are the product of a ruthless, uncaring, murdering sector that is so concentrated that it can easily capture its regulators, who allow it to kill with impunity.

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