Recently, I’ve been thinking about Jacques Ellul’s image/word dichotomy as more broadly applicable than to media—as applicable to the whole technical phenomenon that he criticizes. That is, by virtue of its seeming objectivity, the technical phenomenon enjoys trust that is not warranted when one digs into the details and sees the fuzziness and subjectivities and artifice that prop the whole thing up. Doctorow’s critique here seems firmly in that vein.

This piece hits hard.

I definitely don’t agree with everything in here, but it made me think in productive ways, and that’s important.

Doctorow has some helpful perspectives here.

I have tried not to think too much about AI bubbles, and Doctorow captures exactly why that is in this essay.

I’ve felt for a long time that “what if AI gets sentient and does irreparable harm” is 100% the wrong way of framing things, and Doctorow knocks that argument out of the park here.

Doctorow has been arguing for a post-American internet/tech industry for a while, but this passage really landed for me:

If Trump wants to steal Greenland, he doesn’t need tanks or missiles. He can just tell Microsoft and Oracle to brick the entire Danish state and all of its key firms, blocking their access to their email archives, files, databases, and other key administrative tools. If Denmark still holds out, Trump can brick all their tractors, smart speakers, and phones. If Denmark still won’t give up Greenland, Trump could blackhole all Danish IP addresses for the world’s majority of transoceanic fiber. At the click of a mouse, Trump could shut down the world’s supply of Lego, Ozempic, and delicious, lethally strong black licorice.

Didn’t expect from the headline that this would turn into an essay on copyright, but I’m glad it did:

Expanding copyright will gain little for creative workers, except for a new reason to be angry about how our audiences experience our work. Expanding labor rights will gain much, for every worker, including our audiences. It’s an idea that our bosses – and AI hucksters – hate with every fiber of their beings.

I have largely abstained from the “AI misses the point of writing” discourse, but Cory knocks it out of the park here.

Some real cathartic rage in here.

Good connection of the worrying story about removing anti-ICE apps to bigger problems in tech.

Some Ellulian vibes in here.

Some good things to think about right here.

I’ve been trying to figure out how angry to be about this move from Amazon, and Doctorow’s thinking is helpful: Very angry. (I don’t own and would never own an Echo, but it still makes me mad).

I don’t think I’ve ever been more angry about the gig economy than when reading this post.

Some more reflection by Doctorow on Bluesky and Mastodon.

Like anyone who’s read Cory Doctorow’s Radicalized (now free to read here, and you should go read it), I’ve thought a lot recently about its central conceit of an online message board where people stiffed by insurance radicalize each other into gruesome acts of violence. The story is hard to read: It’s vicious in its implied critique of U.S. healthcare companies, but the people being radicalized are also ugly in their response to those companies’ callousness.

Some interesting reflections (and reasons to up one’s baseline existential terror) in here.

I appreciate these thoughts from Doctorow. I understand the excitement around Bluesky, I’m happy to follow people there, and I will likely lean into it more as a POSSE vector. That said, I still don’t know that it’s what I want the future of social media to look like.

RSS forever! I love RSS, I love Cory Doctorow, and I love this post.

Compelling metaphor.

I’ve only skimmed this, but I’m posting it as a reminder to myself that everything I said about Disney yesterday also applies to Apple, and that I need to find ways of extracting myself from their ecosystem, as hard as it may be.

I’ve been thinking recently that I need to reread Doctorow’s The Lost Cause (about beating back the climate catastrophe), so this blog post was welcome. Doctorow’s hopefulness—all while rejecting naïve optimism—is what I needed to read this morning.

Compelling essay about vain hopes for the future.

I’ve been waiting for Doctorow’s take on this, and it’s good. I’m an Apple user, but Doctorow’s criticisms all ring true to me.