@pluralistic@mamot.fr
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pluralistic

@pluralistic@mamot.fr

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)
@doctorow.

Archived at pluralistic.net

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pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Y'know how "" became a synonym for "?" As in, "I'm not a racist, I'm just a ?" That "realism" is also used to discredit the idea of democracy, among a group of self-styled "," who claim that social science proves that democracy doesn't work - and can't work.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

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pluralistic,
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You've likely encountered elements of this ideology in the wild. Perhaps you've heard about how our make us incapable of deliberating, that "reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments."

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pluralistic,
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Or maybe you've heard that voters are "," choosing not to become informed about politics because their vote doesn't have enough influence to justify the cognitive expenditure of figuring out how to cast it.

There's the , the idea that rational argument doesn't make us change our minds, but rather, drives us to double-down on our own cherished beliefs.

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pluralistic, to random
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@adamconover ruins !

> David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of the network I’m talking to you on right now, was paid $250 million last year, a quarter of a billion dollars. That’s about the same level as what 10,000 writers are asking him to pay all of us collectively, alright. So I would say if you’re being paid $250 million—these companies are making enormous amounts of money. Their profits are going up. It’s ridiculous for them to plead poverty.

video/mp4

pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

"Two things have quickly become very clear: First, corporations will happily sacrifice quality for infinite amounts of passable AI sludge. And, second, unless you have some mechanism for collective action in your workplace, your boss is going to try and figure out a way to replace you with an AI."

  • Ryan Broderick, Garbage Day

https://www.garbageday.email/p/unions-are-our-only-defense-against

pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: The Swivel-Eyed Loons Have A Point; and more!

Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/03/paranoid-style/

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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,
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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,
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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,
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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,
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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,
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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,
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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,
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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,
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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,
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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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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Now, I believe in vaccines and have had five jabs - but the swivel-eyed loons have a point here, too. The pharma sector does put profits ahead of safety, and its regulators do allow the sector to run rampant.

For example, about a decade ago, I went to a specialist - a Harley Street quack - for my chronic pain. The doctor, a very eminent private MD, told me that I should go on daily opioids, for the rest of my life.

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pluralistic,
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When I asked whether that was safe, he assured me it was, that addiction concerns were vastly overblown, and that new research had completely overturned the received wisdom. He told me that regulators all over the world had reconsidered their guidance, and approved new, powerful pain drugs, and that I should have no concerns.

Reader, I had concerns. So I "did my own research."

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pluralistic,
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I concluded that a powerful family of secretive, reclusive billionaires - the - were recklessly pushing pain meds in ways they knew would likely lead to addiction and death. I concluded that this family was growing unbelievably wealthy doing this, and threatening the press into silence to prevent anyone from writing about it (years later, I would be threatened by the Sacklers' lawyers for doing so).

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pluralistic,
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I concluded that the regulators who were supposed to guard me from this kind of predation were so cozy with the opioid barons that they were letting them do as they pleased.

In other words, I became an opioid denier.

The covid vaccines underwent a lot of scrutiny from a variety of experts, including independent experts that can't be credibly connected to the pharma giants.

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

There is a wealth of data about them - these medications have been administered to more people, in a shorter timespan, under very transparent conditions, than any other pharma product I can think of.

But despite this, the core claims - that pharma companies can't be trusted to choose safety over profits, and that regulators defer to pharma companies in ways that risk the lives of the public they are meant to protect - are undeniable. The swivel-eyed loons have a point.

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Another concern I share with the protesters: the "post-ownership" society. While I'm extremely excited about the idea of public goods, I'm terrified about the rise of a rentier economy.

What's the difference? Well, say that small household tools were public goods. Today my neighbors and I all own genuinely terrible, cheaply made drills that sit in drawers all year except for the 1-2 times that someone needs to make a hole in the wall.

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pluralistic,
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But what if our library system bought the highest-quality imaginable drills, designed to be repairable, and to gracefully decompose back into the material stream when they were finally used up? What if these drills were location-aware, and gathered usage telemetry to allow for continuous improvement? I'd love that world. There's even a name for it: , coined by the @srslywrong podcast:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/11/25/library-socialism-a-utopian-vision-of-a-sustaniable-luxuriant-future-of-circulating-abundance/

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

It's a vision that's so exciting that I based a whole book around it, "The Lost Cause," my post- novel about the inevitable white nationalist backlash, which is coming out in November:

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

But there's another version of the "post-ownership society." It's the , -locked version, where you own nothing and pay rent to use everything. Think of and its fucking subscription seat warmers:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/02/big-river/#beemers

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

This is the world of another story of mine, , about the maximal rent-extraction dystopia where your toaster won't work unless you use it with the high-priced, proprietary bread the manufacturer requires:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

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pluralistic,
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

As much as I'd love to live in a world of circulating abundance, courtesy of library socialism, there's no chance that organizations like the are planning to create that world - the commercial excitement about "post-ownership" is entirely about rent-extraction, not abundance.

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