[Plura-list] Impossible Music; Yanis Varoufakis on capitalism's self-destruction; India bans Chinese apps

[Cory Doctorow]

Today's links

* Impossible Music: Sean Williams's superb novel of Deafness and music
theory.

* Yanis Varoufakis on capitalism's self-destruction: And what to do
about it.

* India bans Chinese apps: Chekhov's Law, China-India cyberspace
sovereignty edition.

* Post-Trump trumpism: What will the right do after Trump's defeat?

* Gilead's $3k covid med should sell for $10: And the research was
funded by the US public.

* This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing
projects, current reading

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🧗🏿‍♀️ Impossible Music

One of my favorite novel formulas is for the author to take two subjects
they're incredibly passionate about and use them as a springboard for
their characters' problems and growth.

Sean Williams's *Impossible Music* is right in that sweet-spot.

https://www.impossiblemusic.info/

It's the story of Simon Rain, an 18-year-old Australian noise-rock kid
whose hearing is permanently, totally wiped out overnight when he
suffers a rare stroke that obliterates the brain structures that process
sound. That's the curtain-raiser for a superb coming-of-age novel.

It's the tale of Simon's coming to grips with his new Deafness, and how
this affects his obsession with the outer bounds of what music is: when
noise is musical, when music is noise, and even whether music has to be
audible.

Williams himself was a promising and award-winning young composer who
never stopped playing and writing, and like many of the musicians of my
acquaintance, he can explain experimental music like John Cage's 4:33 in
ways that make it sensible, even to musical dumdums like me.

As Simon struggles to convince a famous musicologist that he should be
admitted into her elite composition program at a local uni, Williams
takes us on a compelling and edifying journey through the meaning of
music itself.

Meanwhile, Simon is also coming to grips with being deaf, and deciding
whether he is willing to become Deaf - that is, whether he can make his
deafness into part of his identity, a fact of life rather than a disability.

He's aided - and hindered - on this journey by the medical specialists,
sign teachers and counsellors assigned to him, and by his girlfriend,
who he meets in Deaf class after brutal, unstoppable tinnitus renders
her unable to hear.

Simon's journey into adulthood, into Deafness, and into a new kind of
musicianhood twine around each other, the familiar trappings of teen
romance providing a sturdy, easily grasped scaffold for some deep,
philosophical nerding out about two seemingly contradictory subjects.

It's a book that's hard to finish with a dry eye, but it's also a book
that'll have you thinking about communications, music, Deafness and
accommodation in new ways.

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🧗🏿‍♀️ Yanis Varoufakis on capitalism's self-destruction

Here's an admirably compact diagnosis of the malady afflicting
capitalism and a suggestion for a cure from Yanis Varoufakis:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/06/yanis-varoufakis-interview-with-lea-el-azzi-on-capitalism-after-the-pandemic-europe-greece-lebanon-the-imf.html

In 2008, we had an "endogenous" crash, caused by the finance sector
itself. Governments gave them trillions, but "this liquidity did not
turn into actual investment in the real economy."

"Banks recovered, the oligarchy found themselves with appreciating
assets, the majority our there had to face harsh austerity. This boosted
the disconnect between the world of money (that was doing well) and the
world of the real economy (which was not)."

Now we face an "exogenous" crash, caused by the pandemic, but, "when
Covid-19 arrived on the scene, it acted like a pin that bursts a
gigantic bubble. Reflating this bubble, in the absence of public
investment, will not be possible however much money Central Banks pump in."

All this is by design. Capitalism is supposed to produce technologies
that undermines capitalism itself: "new machines come into play that cut
down the content of labour per unit of output. New jobs are created
lower down the hierarchy of work. This means that machines play an
increasing role in producing great new products which the machines will
never want and which humans are decreasingly able to afford."

Capitalism defenders argue that average standards of living has been
improving for 150+ years. But income increase is a bad proxy for
standard of living improvement, and actual living standard increases (as
in China) are largely attributable to public investment, not markets.

Meanwhile, capitalism's banker-socialism and worker austerity " led to
discontent, which then breeds fascism, xenophobia, nativism,
ultra-nationalism."

Varoufakis is cofounder of a movement called Progressive Internatioanl,
which has 2 goals:

1. "Putting together a global plan for shared green prosperity"

2. "Organising global actions in support of local causes (eg a global
campaign in support of striking women workers in, say, India)"


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🧗🏿‍♀️ India bans Chinese apps

India's Ministry of Information Technology has banned 59 Chinese mobile
apps, ordering app stores to block them and ISPs to interdict
communications with their servers.

https://www.wired.com/story/smartphone-apps-weapon-international-disputes/

This follows a fatal "skirmish" between Chinese and Indian troops on the
Himalayan border, and while the banned apps are justifiably suspect on
privacy grounds, the unilateral ban of major communications channels
without due process has human rights campaigners worried.

In some ways, this kind of ban is inevitable, stemming from the twin
monopilistic forces of:

* App Stores: highly centralized repositories of software for the most
personal and ubiquitous computing platforms; devices can be configured
to ban switching to alternative stores;

*  Concentration in telcoms, which makes it practical to enforce
national censorship rules because you need only deputize a handful of
giant ISPs to follow the rules you've set down.

Anywhere these forces are present is at high risk of this kind of
unilateral censorship.

Included in the ban are some of the most popular apps in India, and
Indian audiences are crucial to those apps' success. For example, India
leads the world in Tiktok downloads, and Wechat plays a major part of
the country's messaging activity.

Meanwhile, Indian online spaces are filling up with some pretty dank
national cyberspace sovereignty memes, as Bruce Sterling documents here:

https://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/622355066558595072/memes-erupt-as-india-bans-chinese-smartphone

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🧗🏿‍♀️ Post-Trump trumpism

It's hard to predict how the world will look on Nov 3, but if the
election were held today, Trump would be *slaughtered*.

With that in mind, John Quiggin engages in some shrewd analysis of what
the US and global right will do when Trump is trounced.

https://crookedtimber.org/2020/06/29/trumpism-after-trump/

Quiggin is sanguine about a peaceful transition between administrations,
betting that there won't be enough denial and motivated reasoning either
from Trump's base or from party bigwigs to sustain any kind of
electoral-fraud/rigged-game attempt to delegitimize the outcome.

Not least because Trump's policies are going to murder people by the
tens of thousands in Red State strongholds filled with at-risk elderly
veterans, and those same policies mean there is *zero* chance of an
economic recovery in time for election day.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/28/politics/lincoln-project-trump-coronavirus-deaths-greatest-generation/index.html

What will the right do when they are routed?

The big power block will be "hard neoliberals who controlled the party
before Trump, attempting to reassert themselves, breaking with Trump’s
explicit racism while still trying to keep the Repubs white voting base
behind them."

But they will be countered by "more competent Trumpists, in the mould of
Viktor Orban, keen to push an ethnonationlist, racist and authoritarian
policy program without Trump’s clownish demagoguery."

Globally, a Trump defeat will mean little for dictators in Trump's mold,
but it will make some of the right wing of the political class "outside
the bounds of legitimate discussion...while others will engage in some
quick reinvention."

So look for a battle between "competent Trumpists" and "hard
neoliberals," with the neolibs in trouble due to the "massive
unpopularity" of "just about everything that is identified with hard
neoliberalism."

In particular, it's hard to sell under-40s on finance and trickle-down,
because they "never experienced the illusory prosperity of the 1990s, or
the crises of the 1970s."

Which means...future dominance of the right by competent Trumpists, I guess?

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🧗🏿‍♀️ Gilead's $3k covid med should sell for $10

Oh, Gilead. No sooner do you stop demanding corporate welfare to help
you price-gouge on a covid drug developed at public expense; then you
step in a pile of greedy dogshit again, and insist it tastes great and
we should try it!

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/19/shared-microbial-destiny-2/#remdesivir

At issue: your decision to charge Americans $3,000 for a five-day course
of remdesivir, a drug developed with public money that experts say you
could profitably sell for $10.

https://icer-review.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ICER-COVID_Initial_Abstract_05012020-3.pdf

Now, this isn't all your fault. We can (and should) also blame the
finance-friendly, pharma-dependent politicians, many of the Democrats,
who paved the way for this, as David Sirota reminds us.

https://sirota.substack.com/p/gilead-is-profiteering-off-a-covid

There's a bipartisan consensus on blocking the reinstatement of a rule
that would require pharma companies to charge a fair price for drugs
developed at public expense.

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=106&session;=2&vote;=00168

In 2016, Obama blocked Democratic Congressional calls to enforce the
existing laws against pharma price-gouging.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/272065-hhs-rejects-house-dems-request-for-drug-pricing-step

In 2020, GOP Senators blocked reforms that would have allowed Medicare
to negotiate drug prices, something that (incredibly) they are currently
prohibited from doing, forced to pay whatever price pharma companies name

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/477604-drug-price-outrage-threatens-to-be-liability-for-gop

This rare bipartisan unity on transfering public funds to lazy,
monopolistic pharma giants is hard to understanding. Maybe its the
millions of dollars that pharma companies give to both Republican and
Democratic campaigns?

https://khn.org/news/drugmakers-funnel-millions-to-lawmakers-a-few-dozen-get-100000-plus/

The result is that Americans - who financed the R&D; for remdesivir -
will pay more for it than anyone else in the world.

Your $29m/year CEO Daniel O'Day earned every penny when he published an
open letter defending this practice,  on the basis that the US system is
unique in the world.

https://www.gilead.com/news-and-press/press-room/press-releases/2020/6/an-open-letter-from-daniel-oday-chairman--ceo-gilead-sciences

He's right! The US system is uniquely broken.

He should know.

He broke it.

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🧗🏿‍♀️ This day in history

#10yrsago Fox News advocates shutting down public libraries
https://web.archive.org/web/20100711102442/http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/special_report/library-taxes-closed-20100628

#10yrago Lost steampunk coaster of Disneyland Paris
https://3dconceptualdesigner.blogspot.com/2010/03/project-review-e-ticket-paris-1997.html

#10yrsago Toronto cops justify extreme G20 measures with display of
LARPing props, weapons from unrelated busts
https://web.archive.org/web/20100702002151/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/weapons-seized-in-g20-arrests-put-on-display/article1622761/

#10yrsago ACLU: America is riddled with politically motivated
surveillance https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/Spyfiles_2_0.pdf

#5yrsago Shadowshaper: outstanding supernatural YA contemporary fantasy
https://boingboing.net/2015/06/30/shadowshaper-outstanding-supe.html

#5yrsago On Big Data's shrinking returns
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/30/the-shrinking-of-the-big-data-promise

#5yrsago Scalia insult-generator
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/antonin-scalia-insult-generator/

#1yrago Police cameras to be augmented with junk-science
"microexpression" AI lie-detectors
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/face-reading-ai-tell-police-145927474.html

#1yrago Billionaire newspaper monopolist family cancels editorial
cartoonist after anti-Trump drawing
https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2019/06/29/brunswick-news-inc-cancels-michael-de-adder/

#1yrago Debunking Microsoft's anti-Right-to-Repair FUD
https://securepairs.org/microsoft-tells-ftc-repair-poses-a-cyber-risk-it-doesnt/

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🧗🏿‍♀️ Colophon

Today's top sources: Naked Capitalism (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/).

Currently writing:

* My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and
reconciliation. Yesterday's progress: 564 words (32922 total).

* A short story, "Making Hay," for MIT Tech Review. Yesterday's
progress: 350 words (4272 total)

Currently reading: Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro

Latest podcast: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 07)
https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/06/22/someone-comes-to-town-someone-leaves-town-part-07-2/

Upcoming appearances:

* 'What Big Tech does to discourse, and the forgotten tech tool that can
make tech less big', Jul 1, Oxford Internet Institute
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/6015930181073/WN_MnlH5x2XTRqiKKmhU0QPAg

* In Conversation with Hank Green, Jul 10,
https://www.magersandquinn.com/product_info?isbn_id=26578312&products;_id=163359157

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book
about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed
copy here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new
introduction by Edward Snowden:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies
here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

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*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla* -Joey "Accordion Guy"
DeVilla


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