archive.is
archive.is
  • hello_hello [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    At the alternative elementary school Doctorow attended, students from kindergarten through 8th grade all sat in the same classroom, where they were free to pursue their interests. For Doctorow these included communism, nuclear disarmament, Dungeons and Dragons, Mad Magazine, and most of all an Apple II, on which he spent countless hours learning to code with his friend Tim Wu, a legal scholar and antitrust advocate who served in the Biden Administration as a special assistant to the president for competition and tech policy.

    I knew he was an insufferable “easy for consumption” liberal but it’s good to know that he was always like this.

    In any case, Doctorow’s ideas are another form of liberal repackaging of the ideals of the free software movement. Richard Stallman had already written about this phenomenon decades and decades ago. Doctorow is popular because his critiques never offer up any systemic solutions but rather place “enshittification” as a bad thing corporations do.

    If a guy supposedly critiquing capitalism gets featured in the NYT, then you know you’re in real radlib territory.

    Anyway read the original https://www.gnu.org/doc/fsfs3-hardcover.pdf

    • hellinkilla [they/them, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      Doctorow is popular because his critiques never offer up any systemic solutions but rather place “enshittification” as a bad thing corporations do.

      Literally he is constantly saying that there are no personal solutions, only systemic solutions. He even makes fun of people who ask questions like “so what can I do about it?” He’s like, haven’t you been listening? You can do nothing other than organize to build and enforce collective power. I heard him say how important it is that people do not think he is advocating for individual actions of any sort.

      I think there are critiques to be made of Cory doctorow but overall he’s a good influence to have around. He sees his role as articulating communism in a way that will be appealing to his constituency, who are mostly lib/center technocrat types.

      We are mostly not his target audience. But sometimes I really appreciate his analysis on some technical or legal issue because he knows that shit really well and there’s not a lot of leftists who do.

      As to “enshittification” specifically he has been going around introducing the concept by attributing the popularity to how it gives people the opportunity to use bad language in a context they usually wouldn’t. which I find very funny.