[Plura-list] Thinking the unthinkable

[Cory Doctorow]

Read today's issue online at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/19/just-stop-putting-that-up-your-ass/

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On September 24th, I'll be speaking in person at the Boston Public Library!

https://bpl.bibliocommons.com/events/66cf2d8bf520192f005fcc50

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The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865946/thelostcause

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Today's links

* Thinking the unthinkable: At a certain point, we have to admit that the correct amount of radium in your suppository is zero.

* Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.

* This day in history: 2004, 2014, 2023

* Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.

* Recent appearances: Where I've been.

* Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.

* Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.

* Colophon: All the rest.

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📍 Thinking the unthinkable

Time and again, I find myself thinking about radium suppositories: specifically, I get to thinking about the day that the consensus shifted from "radium suppositories are great" to "stop putting radioisotopes up your ass."

The thing is, people *really* liked radium-based quack remedies. They drank radium-infused water, smeared radium cream on their faces and bodies, and yes, rammed radium suppositories up their assholes:

https://maximumfun.org/episodes/sawbones/radium-girls/

The fact that this made whatever ailed you sicker didn't deter the radium true believers: if you're getting sicker, then you must need *more* radium.

When I think about the debate over radium, I imagine that the people who understood that radium was really bad for you must have run up against critics who told them they were being unreasonable. "You can't tell people to *stop* using radium. Tell them to use suppositories with *less* radium. Tell them to use them less frequently. But you can't just tell people, 'stop putting radium up your asshole.' They won't take you seriously."

About 20 years ago, I started pitching various institutions that reviewed consumer tech policy on the idea that they should reject any product that had DRM. After all, DRM didn't just restrict how you used a gadget *today*, it provided a facility for nonconsensually, irreversibly field-updating that gadget to add *new* restrictions tomorrow. How could a reviewer in good conscience say, "Go ahead and buy this device if you need this feature," if they knew that at any time in the future, the gadget's maker could take that feature away and leave the buyer with no recourse?

Here's the warning I (half-seriously) suggested magazines run alongside such products:

> WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS. 

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

No one took me up on my offer. Over and over again, magazine editors, managers of nonprofit review outlets, and indie gadget reviewers told me that it was unrealistic to publish a roundup of, say, this year's portable music players with the recommendation, "Just don't buy any of these. None of them are fit for purpose."

In other words: No one wanted to publish, "The correct amount of radium to stuff up your asshole is *zero*."

But the correct amount of rectal radium for you to administer is "none" and the correct car for you to buy today is *none of the cars*:

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/

This isn't the first time the correct automotive recommendation was "don't buy any of these cars." Back before seatbelts came standard in cars, the correct car was "don't buy a car." Sometimes, the correct answer is "none of the above." Even if that makes you sound unserious, the alternative is that you counsel people to put radium up their asses in a bid to seem "reasonable."

Today, DRM-infected products are routinely downgraded and bricked:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/5/24236237/ftc-software-tethering-letter-consumer-reports-ifixit

Even when companies face public uproar over these disastrous decisions and vow to reverse them, they can't, because these downgrades are one way:

https://www.stereocheck.com/news/music/unfortunately-you-cant-revert-to-the-old-sonos-app-anymore/

That's bad enough when it's your smart speakers, but what about when the company bricks your wheelchair:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/when-drm-comes-your-wheelchair

Or your $100,000 exoskeleton:

https://paulickreport.com/news/people/paralyzed-jockey-michael-straight-wants-to-keep-walking-but-manufacturer-wont-repair-exoskeleton

The reality is that we're living at the end of a catastrophic experiment in deregulation and its handmaidens, corruption and regulatory capture, and there are lots of "normal" things that we just need to stop doing. Not do less of them - just *stop*.

Like, the correct amount of collusion between realtors representing sellers and realtors representing buyers is *zero*:

https://www.latimes.com/business/real-estate/story/2024-03-19/realtor-rules-just-changed-dramatically-heres-what-buyers-and-sellers-can-expect

We got that one right, but there's plenty more that we're still engaged in this pathetic, denialist bargaining over. What's the correct degree to which White House officials should cycle back into working at the industries they oversaw? Zero. How many times should such a person come back to work at the White House? Again: zero:

https://prospect.org/power/2024-09-19-next-administration-can-stop-ethics-scandals/

When the Biden admin dropped its executive order on ethics just hours after the inauguration, they trumpeted that it "went further than any other towards slowing the revolving door and limiting conflicts of interest while in office":

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-ethics-commitments-by-executive-branch-personnel/

And it did. But it was also full of loopholes, because banning these conflicts of interest altogether was viewed as politically unserious, so the correct amount of radium up the administration's asshole was set at non-zero. The result? Well, it's about what you'd expect:

https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/what-the-hell-is-anita-dunn-even-allowed-to-work-on/

Congress hasn't updated consumer privacy law since 1988, when it took the bold step of...banning video-store clerks from telling the newspapers which VHS cassettes you took home. Since then, a coalition of commercial surveillance companies and the cops and spies who treat their data-lakes as massive, off-the-books anaerobic lagoons of warrantless surveillance data has prevented the passage of any new privacy protections for Americans.

The result? Stalkers, creeps, spies (both governmental and corporate), identity thieves, spearphishers and other villainous scum are running wild, endangering every American's financial, physical and political wellbeing. The correct amount of commercial data-brokerage for America is *zero*:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

In other words, we should order every data-broker, every tech giant, every consumer electronics company and app vendor to delete all their surveillance data. *All of it. The correct amount of radium in that asshole is - as with every other orifice - *zero*:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

 From the perspective of the radium pitchmen, the most shocking thing about the past four years has been antitrust enforcers - like Lina Khan, Rohit Chopra, and Jonathan Kanter - who refused to bargain about how much radium we needed to stick up our butts. Fearless of being branded as "unserious" and "unreasonable," they seriously, reasonably said the right amount is none, actually.

None. Which is why they're so made at Khan and co. Which is why they're so bent on getting Kamala Harris to fire Khan - despite the fact that this would burn precious political capital in the senate. Some people just *love* the feeling they get from a radium suppository - especially the suppository salesmen:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-09-19-lina-khan-doesnt-need-to-be-confirmed-again/


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📍 Hey look at this

*  The Climate Has a Posse – And So Does Political Satire https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/09/climate-has-posse-and-so-does-political-satire

* The Secret That's Driving Up Highway Costs https://boondoggle.substack.com/p/the-secret-thats-driving-up-highway (h/t Naked Capitalism)

* Antitrust Chief Says Economics Has Its Big Tobacco Corruption Moment https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-antitrust-chief

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📍 This day in history

#20yrsago Google building custom Moz browser? https://kottke.org/04/09/more-google-browser

#10yrsago Aaron Swartz’s FBI and Secret Service files https://web.archive.org/web/20140920164325/https://www.theblackvault.com/m/articles/view/Aaron-Swartz

#10yrsago Homeland wins Copper Cylinder award for best Canadian YA sf novel http://coppercylinderaward.ca/2014-copper-cylinder-winners

#10yrsago Reasons (not) to trust Apple’s privacy promises https://ip.topicbox.com/groups/ip/Tb9ed4c6f2e9d715c-M281e958e25f47a4edc087fdc

#1yrago Kashmir Hill's "Your Face Belongs to Us" https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/20/steal-your-face/#hoan-ton-that

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📍 Upcoming appearances

* The Right to Read, Boston Public Library, Sep 24
https://bpl.bibliocommons.com/events/66cf2d8bf520192f005fcc50

* SOSS Fusion (Atlanta), Oct 22
https://sossfusion2024.sched.com/speaker/cory_doctorow.1qm5qfgn

* TusCon (Tucson), Nov 8-10
https://tusconscificon.com/

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📍 Recent appearances

*  Annie's Book Stop Of Worcester
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYM3WOPOMC0

* DEF CON 32 - Disenshittify or die! How hackers can seize the means of computation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EmstuO0Em8

* The Van Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDa_a-NlILs

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📍 Latest books

* The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).

* "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)

* "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

* "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

* "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

* "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 https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "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?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

* "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/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

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📍 Upcoming books

* Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025

* Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025

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📍 Colophon

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

* Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay. Today's progress: 754ecen words (50597 words total).

* A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

* Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025

* Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

* Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

Latest podcast: Anti-cheat, gamers, and the Crowdstrike disaster https://craphound.com/news/2024/09/15/anti-cheat-gamers-and-the-crowdstrike-disaster/

This work - excluding any serialized fiction - is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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