[Plura-list] Blacklight; Avoiding climate lockdowns; Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy Day in Trump's America

[Cory Doctorow]

Today's links

* Blacklight: A realtime web privacy inspector.

* Avoiding climate lockdowns: The climate crisis is inseparable from the
health and economic crises.

* Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy Day in Trump's America: Ruben Bolling at
his finest.

* This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019

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

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🥩 Blacklight

Blacklight is a new "realtime web privacy inspector" from The Markup:
you give a URL, and it gives you back a realtime snapshot of the
trackers on that page.

https://themarkup.org/blacklight/

Though you may think of this as a "gotcha" tool that lets you see how
the site you visit are nonconsensually harvesting your data, a core
audience for this tool is web publishers, who often have no idea how the
partners they trust invite others to the party.

As Aaron Sankin and Surya Mattu discuss in their accompanying feature,
proprietors of privacy-sensitive sites have no idea that the simple
discussion board they've chosen smuggles in 21 other companies' trackers!

https://themarkup.org/blacklight/2020/09/22/blacklight-tracking-advertisers-digital-privacy-sensitive-websites

The Markup used Blacklight to analyze 80,000 top-rated sites, finding,
for example, 200 popular sites that run Javascript keyloggers, and that
sites serving women seeking abortions or ondocumented migrants expose
their users to third-party trackers.

As do government covid sites, the Mayo Clinic and other health sites,
state Departments of Health, etc.

The Markup doesn't leave you with no way to defend yourself - rather,
they provide an excellent guide to online surveillance self-defense:

https://themarkup.org/ask-the-markup/2020/09/22/i-scanned-the-websites-i-visit-with-blacklight-and-its-horrifying-now-what

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🥩 Avoiding climate lockdowns

Writing in Project Syndicate, Mariana Mazzucato warns us of a looming
wave of "climate lockdowns" - harsh limits on our normal activities
triggered by runaway effects of the neglected climate emergency:

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/radical-green-overhaul-to-avoid-climate-lockdown-by-mariana-mazzucato-2020-09

Those of us in the American west have just lived through one of these
lockdowns, as the pandemic made it potentially lethal to see others
indoors, while the wildfire smoke made it likewise untenable to do
anything outdoors as our skies turned postapocalyptic blood-red.

As Mazzucato writes, the crisis is made up of three entwined strands,
each worsening the other:

I. The climate crisis

II. The health crisis

III. The economic crisis

For example: covid comes from climate change.

Zoonitic plagues come from  environmental degradation and habitat
destruction, which sends animals into places with no predators, along
with their diseases (for which there is no local resistance).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7227607/#:~:text=A%20close%20and%20tragic%20antecedent,caused%20more%20than%20750%2C000%20deaths.

And the botched covid response comes from economic dysfunction, which
created our patchwork, underfunded health-care system and the
incoherence of our low-paid "essential workers" - as well as our states'
preference for bailing out shareholders, rather than workers.

Add to that, our inadequate labor protections, from the
meat-packing-plant outbreaks to LA's blazing covid flareups, caused not
by mask-refusal, but by employer-refusal - jobs where precarious workers
have no real protections, either for their health or their paycheck.

So: climate change exposes us to pathogens, pathogens burn through our
civilization because of wealth-concentration, labor precarity, and
anemic public services.

Climate, disease and economics - three strands, hopelessly snarled
together, impossible to untangle.

And any of them can trigger lockdowns: moments, even months, when our
everyday activities grind to a halt, maybe even disappearing forever.

Mazzucato warns that a failure to act will result in sharp changes:
state-ordered halts to private vehicle use, oil extraction, meat
consumption, etc, and not in a managed way that ensures the people
involved in these activities don't have their lives destroyed.

She identifies three green economic transformations we need to make to
avert this crisis-management style of adaptation:

I. Abolish shareholderism in favor of stakeholderism: force firms to
reckon with communities, workers, and climate.

This means no more bailouts without conditions - public ownership
stakes, limits on future activities, from pollution to tax-evasion.

II. Use finance appropriately and adequately: At the national level,
create job guarantees, ban the use of the most environmentally damaging
materials and processes.

Reorient finance around 25-year horizons instead of 5-10 year ones.

III. Replace outmoded economic theory and faulty assumptions: revive the
entrepreneurial state, that "innovates, takes risks, and invests
alongside the private sector" while "crowding in innovation from
multiple actors to achieve public green goals."

While we're doing this, let's "evict fossil-fuel interests and
short-termism from business, finance, and politics" with divestiture by
banks and universities.

Mazzucato reminds us that radical change is coming, and the choice is
whether or not we manage that change.

Mazzucato made her reputation with her 2013 book "The Entrepreneurial
State," which documents the extent to which private-sector innovations
are nothing but repackaged, publicly funded work - work that,
ironically, business is anxious to de-fund.

https://marianamazzucato.com/entrepreneurial-state/

She's had quite a storied career, as the New York Times documented in a
fantastic profile in 2019:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/business/mariana-mazzucato.html

For an even better introduction to her work, check out "Rethinking
Capitalism," her open access lecture series for University College
London, which has been called "The Feynman Lectures for Economics."

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/basc/study/current-students/degree-pathways/rethinking-capitalism

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🥩 Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy Day in Trump's America

There are many recurring riffs in Ruben Bolling's long-running,
award-winning Tom the Dancing Bug strip, but my favorite by far are his
riffs on Richard Scarry's Busytown, which work both as at-a-glance
laughs and also contain numerous tiny jabs that reward close attention.

Today's strip, "Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy Day in Trump's America," is
a great example of the form:

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/23/richard-scarrys-busy-busy-day-in-trumps-america.html

I love the page-spanning gags like the contrasting "innocent red state
victim" of a hurricane and the "blue state moocher" cowering from
wildfires being put out by a "slave labor prisoner."

And also the dense tableaux in the middle of the panel, like the
"Youtube enthusiast" heading into the pizza parlor, the "bankers" going
into the food bank, the unmarked van, and the "overly exuberant youth"
murdering a protester.

If you like Bolling's work, you can support it by joining The Inner
Hive, with bonus materials and early access to his strips.

https://gocomics.typepad.com/tomthedancingbugblog/2015/05/join-the-proud-and-mighty-inner-hive.html

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🥩 This day in history

#10yrsago Contrastive reduplication: do you LIKE IT like it?
https://web.archive.org/web/20101115013138/http://rabnett.posterous.com/contrastive-reduplication-the-salad-salad-pap

#10yrsago Brighton, England town council says that councillor is
violating copyright law by youtubing the council meetings
https://web.archive.org/web/20100926175545/http://jim.killock.org.uk/blog/brighton-tries-to-use-copyright-to-censor-councillor.html

#5yrsago It’s surprisingly easy to set up a convincing, highly regarded
fake online business
https://splinternews.com/i-created-a-fake-business-and-bought-it-an-amazing-onli-1793850918

#5yrsago Don’t discuss the environment if you’re brown and British
(Ahmed Mohamed with UK characteristics)
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/sep/22/school-questioned-muslim-pupil-about-isis-after-discussion-on-eco-activism

#5yrsago VW con produced as much extra air pollution as all UK power
generation, industry, ag & vehicles
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/22/vw-scandal-caused-nearly-1m-tonnes-of-extra-pollution-analysis-shows

#5yrsago McDonald’s Japan’s straws: designed to mimic experience of
nursing at your mother’s breast
https://soranews24.com/2015/09/22/mcdonalds-japans-straws-are-designed-to-mimic-the-experience-of-drinking-breast-milk/

#5yrsago How to save online advertising
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/23/how-to-save-online-advertising

#5yrsago Why biometrics suck, the Office of Personnel Management edition
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/09/23/opm-now-says-more-than-five-million-fingerprints-compromised-in-breaches/

#5yrsago HOWTO make a physical, papercraft GPG box
https://github.com/shiromarieke/shiro_tutorials/blob/master/gpgboxENG.pdf

#5yrsago Happy Birthday is in the public domain
https://web.archive.org/web/20150923021134/http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4ef3d7182b7e44eb81ccd1b75593ae82/federal-judge-rules-happy-birthday-song-public-domain

#1yrgo Bernie Sanders promises to zero out all US medical debt and end
medical bankruptcies
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/21/sanders-unveils-plan-wipe-out-all-medical-debt-us-declaring-very-concept-should-not

#1yrago Sarah Pinsker’s “Song for a New Day”: outstanding dystopian
rock-and-roll novel of rebellion and redemption
https://memex.craphound.com/2019/09/23/sarah-pinskers-song-for-a-new-day-outstanding-dystopian-rock-and-roll-novel-of-rebellion-and-redemption/

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🥩 Colophon

Today's top sources: David Callahan, 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: 501 words (64369
total).

Currently reading: Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

Latest podcast: IP https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/09/14/ip/

Upcoming appearances:

* Cornell Tech Digital Life Seminar, Sept 23,
https://www.dli.tech.cornell.edu/seminars/Oligarchy-and-Technology

* Stanford Human-Computer Interaction Seminar, Sept 25,
https://hci.stanford.edu/courses/cs547/speaker.php?date=2020-09-25

* Writing into an Uncertain Future, Afterwords Festival, Oct 1,
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/writing-into-an-uncertain-future-tickets-115378329690

* 3 Big Ideas To Fix the Internet, Oct 7,
https://www.nycmedialab.org/upcoming-events/summit2020

Recent appearances:

* Little Brother vs. Big Audiobook (Techdirt podcast):
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200922/12403045358/techdirt-podcast-episode-256-little-brother-vs-big-audiobook-with-cory-doctorow.shtml

* Control, Power and Resistance in the 21st Century (Novara Media):
https://youtu.be/aKOe20vqc6I

* Tech, surveillance & more (Marco Montemagno):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMxNcSNDzLI

Latest book:

* "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.

Upcoming books:

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

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

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