[Plura-list] Constantly Wrong; Xi on interop and lock-in; Anti-bear robo-wolves

[Cory Doctorow]

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I'm on a Texas Book Festival panel today:

Cyberterrorists, Post-Apocalyptic Landscapes, and Were-Pomeranians

https://www.texasbookfestival.org/events/cyberterrorists-post-apocalyptic-landscapes-and-were-pomeranians-new-in-speculative-fiction/

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Today's links

* Constantly Wrong: "Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead."

* Xi on interop and lock-in: Inkjet business model as foreign policy.

* Anti-bear robo-wolves: Dr Tenma v lobo.

* This day in history: 2015

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

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👩🏼‍🏭 Constantly Wrong

In "Constantly Wrong," Kirby Ferguson continues his brilliant mashup
video work on conspiracy theories with a new, 47 minute documentary that
contrasts real-world conspiracies (crimes) with conspiracy theories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKo-84FsmlU

Ferguson says you can tell the difference because conspiracies collapse
as the complexity of maintaining secrecy among conspirators reaches
unsustainable levels, while conspiracy theories posit that there are
long-lived conspiracies that somehow solve this problem.

It's an argument others have made, but he makes it very well, in part
through of his dazzling video-editing and encyclopedic storehouse of
snippets that go into his mashups. It's what made Ferguson's "Everything
Is a Remix" videos so stunning.

https://www.everythingisaremix.info/

Ferguson's upfront that he's not looking to convert conspiratorialists
into skeptics - rather, he's wants to equip skeptics who've lost loved
ones to conspiracism with arguments that they can use in compassionate
dialogues to try to bring those people back up the rabbit-hole.

Ferguson doesn't dwell much on why people become conspiracists, but to
the extent that he does, he attributes it to trauma - in emotional
wounds that demand succour. He's echoing Anna Merlan's hypothesis from
her brilliant 2019 book REPUBLIC OF LIES.

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/09/21/republic-of-lies-the-rise-of-conspiratorial-thinking-and-the-actual-conspiracies-that-fuel-it/

Namely, that a rise in conspiracism comes from a rise in actual
conspiracies, and the trauma these engender. For example, there was and
is a conspiracy to allow powerful people to sexually abuse children with
impunity, from the church to Jeffrey Epstein.

And beyond - to the unwillingness of authority figures to punish abusers
(parents, teachers, coaches). Many suffered directly (and even more
indirectly) from these conspiracies, and the combination of trauma and
real conspiracies makes people vulnerable to Qanon nonsense.

Or the disregard for human life displayed by pharma giants - think
Oxycontin and the Sacklers - and the indifference of regulators both
traumatizes people and primes them to believe anti-vax, whose core is
"Pharma will kill you to make a buck and regulators don't care."

Both Merlan and Ferguson point to conspiracism as a problem of
epistemology, not belief. Rather than focusing on *what* conspiracists
believe, focus on *why* they believe:

* the ubiquity of real conspiracies (which we also call "corruption"), and

* the trauma these create.

Ferguson's work is always a delight. That said, I have a quibble with
his litmus test  for sorting conspiracies from conspiracy theories: if
the difference is that conspiracies eventually come to light but
theories go on forever, what about a pre-exposure conspiracy?

He cites Jeffrey Epstein as an example of a conspiracy and not a
conspiracy theory because Epstein was eventually exposed. But there were
*years* when Epstein was committing crimes with impunity thanks to
complicity from law enforcement and politicians.

Epstein - like other conspirators - used legal threats and worse to
attack people who threatened to expose him (think of Harvey Weinstein
hiring ex-Mossad agents to harass women who publicly accused him).

So there was a period when Epstein was a "conspiracy theory" (because
his crimes hadn't been brought to light and publicly acknowledged) and
then they became a mere "conspiracy" - in public view.

In that period, how could you determine whether Epstein was a
"conspiracy theory" or an underripe "conspiracy"?

Without a good answer, I fear that conspiracists will simply argue that
Q or Pizzagate or anti-vax are still ripening and will bear fruit in the
future.

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👩🏼‍🏭 Xi on interop and lock-in

Back in April, Xi Jinping gave a (just released) speech about his "dual
circulation" plan for China's economy:

* stimulating consumer spending and reducing China's dependence on
trade, and

* increasing other countries' dependence on Chinese tech."

https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/t0235_Qiushi_Xi_economy_EN.pdf

The strategy speaks volumes about the issues of most urgency in our
current political economy, grounded as it is in competing bids to
strengthen one's own autonomy while reducing other economic actors'
capacity for self-determination.

Think of California's Prop 22, which stripped employees of the right to
organize, to earn minimum wage, or to receive benefits - and gave gig
companies the assurance that their power to exploit and abuse workers
will never face organized resistance.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/07/obamas-third-term/#peoplesbailout

Or how HP forces you to pay stonking monthly ink-fees, denying you
access to competitors' ink.

You lose the autonomy that comes from shopping around, they gain the
self-determination of being able to bank on your monthly payment.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

"Lock-in" and "interoperability" are the twin poles of
self-determination and autonomy. You would like Google Photos to
continue to have unlimited storage (locking Google in); Google would
like to prevent you from switching to a competitor when they jack up prices.

Hence Xi's pronouncements: "For industrial & national security, we must
focus on building production chains and supply chains that are
independent, secure and reliable, and strive for important products to
all have at least one alternative source."

https://twitter.com/gwbstr/status/1326640387562196992

The idea that important state procurements should allow for alternate
sourcing is old and important. Back in the US Civil War, the Union army
sourced clones of the Springfield rifle from 20+ alternate vendors.

https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/small-arms-and-ammunition.html

Today, that lesson is largely lost. We sometimes entertain notions of
mandated interoperability (as with the ACCESS Act), but lose sight of
the power of procurement to shape markets.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6487

Think of the imprudence when school districts source thousands of Ipads
without extracting a guarantee that they can sideload apps. That failure
exposes the whole system to risk in the event that Apple capriciously
decides to remove an app that these classrooms depend on.

By contrast, remember how the Obama admin's procurement requirements
shifted Google in 2009: after Obama took office, he abandoned his weekly
Youtube "fireside chats," citing the privacy problems from embedding
Youtube videos on whitehouse.gov pages.

Youtube - not wanting to lose its status as a supplier to the US
presidency - rolled out a no-surveillance version of the service,
www.youtube-nocookie.com, which every person in the world could make use
of for their videos, too.

https://vator.tv/news/2009-03-02-obama-administration-dumps-googles-youtube

In the years since, the US presidency has de-emphasized protecting
people from commercial surveillance and Google appears to have quietly
sunset its surveillance-free version of Youtube.

Xi's insistence on second-sourcing for key industries is going to meet
with stiff headwinds from industrial execs who want to maintain their
monopolies, but it's absolutely the right thing to do - a grand American
tradition, forgotten at home, renewed in China.

But let's not forget the other half of Xi's "dual circulation" plan:

"We must tighten international production chains' dependence on China,
forming powerful countermeasures and deterrent capabilities based on
artificially cutting off supply to foreigners."

https://twitter.com/gwbstr/status/1326641115680841729

This is the other end of the self-determination see-saw: Xi wants to
strengthen China's resiliency by making other countries fragile.

Left to their own devices, the powerful always seek to move risk to
other peoples' side of the ledger.

By permitting the growth of lock-in fuelled monopolies at home, the US
has allowed its large corporations to do to the American people what Xi
now proposes to do on a global scale.

US government apparatchiks will doubtless be horrified at Xi's plan to
strengthen China by making American's vulnerable to lock-in - but
lock-in is lock-in. Xi Jinping doesn't care about your thriving or
self-determination.

But neither do Google, Apple, Facebook or HP.

Governments can intervene directly in lock-in by mandating
interoperability and carving out exceptions to copyright, patent, trade
secrecy and cybersecurity laws to permit interoperability - but these
are slow-moving wrangles that must get through Congress.

But there's a faster and almost as powerful lever that local, state and
national governments can yank on to make change NOW: procurement rules.
The same procurement rules that helped the Union army beat the Confederacy.

Xi wants these interop rules for China, but wants the rest of the world
to have the opposite - lock in. American officials can give us the
freedom that Xi would deny us simply by spending our money prudently and
refusing to buy products without a promise of interoperability.

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👩🏼‍🏭 Anti-bear robo-wolves

Bear attacks have spiked in the Hokkaido city of Takikawa, likely due to
climate change, which has reduced the bears' supply of pre-hibernation
forage. After two fatalities, city officials turned to Ohta Seiki,
makers of the "Monster Wolf" robot.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/11/japanese-town-deploys-monster-wolf-robots-to-deter-bears

Monster Wolf is a motion-activated, roaring, snapping, blinking
scarecrow for bears (scarebear?) that substitutes for the wild Japanese
wolves that were hunted to extinction in the early 20th century.

Ohta Seiki has sold 70 Monster Wolf's nationwide; two are in use in
Takikawa. The robots were installed in September and there have been no
reported bear-attacks since.

The video that The Guardian shot of the robot in action is amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gI3KdrKfbs

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👩🏼‍🏭 This day in history

#5yrsago How big offshoring companies pwned the H-1B process, screwing
workers and businesses
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/large-companies-game-h-1b-visa-program-leaving-smaller-ones-in-the-cold.html

#5yrsago Edward Snowden’s operational security advice for normal humans
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/12/edward-snowden-explains-how-to-reclaim-your-privacy/

#5yrsago Councillor who voted to close all public toilets gets a ticket
for public urination
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/councillor-cut-public-toilets-fined-094432429.html

#5yrsago Female New Zealand MPs ejected from Parliament for talking
about their sexual assault
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/11/new-zealand-female-mps-mass-walkout-pm-rapists-comment

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👩🏼‍🏭 Colophon

Today's top sources: Naked Capitalism
(https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/), Fipi Lele, Waxy (https://waxy.org/).

Currently writing: My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel
about truth and reconciliation. Yesterday's progress: 553 words (83128
total).

Currently reading: The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson

Latest podcast: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 22)
https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/11/08/someone-comes-to-town-someone-leaves-town-part-22/

Upcoming appearances:

* Cyberterrorists, Post-Apocalyptic Landscapes, and
Were-Pomeranians/Texas Book Festival, Nov 12,
https://www.texasbookfestival.org/events/cyberterrorists-post-apocalyptic-landscapes-and-were-pomeranians-new-in-speculative-fiction/

* Shaping the Digital Future Summit/Kaspersky, Nov 17,
https://transparency.kaspersky.com/home

* Misinformation and Disinformation in Science Fiction and Fantasy/LITA,
Nov 17, details TBD

* Keynote, Data Natives, Nov 18, https://datanatives.io/tickets/

* Keynote, Cologne Futures, Nov 20, details TBD

* Keynote, Cybersummit 2020, Nov 26 https://www.cybera.ca/cyber-summit-2020/

* Beaverbrook Lecture: How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism, Nov 30,
https://www.mcgill.ca/maxbellschool/channels/event/2020-beaverbrook-annual-lecture-part-ii-cory-doctorow-325538

* Keynote, NISO Plus, Feb 22-25,
https://niso.plus/cory-doctorow-to-keynote-at-niso-plus-2021/

Recent appearances:

* Allen School Distinguished Lecture "Early Onset Oppenheimers"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep78A-jtcrE

* Author Stories Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxSPZn8EGTE

* The Gould Standard:
https://www.glenngould.ca/thegouldstandard/#cory-doctorow

Latest book:

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone
technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political
cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution
and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies
* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet
analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a
solution.
https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

* "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

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime,
gender, and kicking ass. 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.

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

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