m of care – oct 3 24
Enshittification; Was There Ever an Old, Good Internet? / Cory Doctorow [https://museum.care/events/there-was-never-a-west-dicsussion-with-cory-doctorow/]:
cory doctorow.. cory on internet con.. cory on pirates.. cory on ai
part of ultimate hidden truth talks
In this session of “The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World…” reading group ( OCTOBER 3 / 2024, 8 pm GMT), we will be joined by Cory Doctorow and discuss Enshittification.
Enshittification: Was There Ever an Old, Good Internet?
It sure feels like the internet used to be good. What made it good? Was it better people? Better companies? Better technology? What historical forces transformed the old, good internet into today’s enshitternet of five giant websites, each filled with text from the other four. More importantly, what can we do to transform that enshitternet to an unfortunate transitional phase en route to a new, good internet?nah.. net yet.. because .. berners-lee everyone law.. et al..techno society et al..
how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us.. ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental expo labeling).. to facil a legit global detox leap.. for (blank)’s sake.. and we’re missing it
ie: imagine if we listened to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & used that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)
need to try the unconditional part of left to own devices ness.. ie: a sabbatical ish transition
Cory Doctorow
View the full program of “The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World…” reading group here.
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. His latest book, CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM (with Rebecca Giblin), is a nonfiction book about creative labor markets and monopoly. His latest novel is ATTACK SURFACE, a standalone adult sequel to LITTLE BROTHER. He is also the author of HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM, a nonfiction work about conspiracies and monopolies; RADICALIZED and WALKAWAY, science fiction for adults; a YA graphic novel called IN REAL LIFE; and young adult novels like HOMELAND, PIRATE CINEMA, and LITTLE BROTHER.
attack surface.. little brother.. cory on surveil capital.. walkaway..
His first picture book was POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER (Aug 2020). In 2023/4, Tor Books will publish two more science fiction novels for adults: RED TEAM BLUES and THE LOST CAUSE; and Verso will publish THE INTERNET CON, a nonfiction book about monopoly and radical interoperability. He maintains a daily blog at Pluralistic.net, works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is an MIT Media Lab research affiliate, visiting professor of computer science at Open University, visiting professor of practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science, and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
internet con.. interoperability.. www
notes/quotes from meeting:
nika: this is a talk about tech and social relationship.. never was a west.. cory best person to talk about this.. specifically the internet that not long ago promised us new world of connections and turned out diff
cory: day job – eff – defend digital human rights – but not speaking on their behalf today.. there was an old/good internet.. not perfect.. but good.. want to talk about what i mean by that.. what happened.. and then what we can do
cory: on google.. recently convicted of being illegal monopolist.. back in time when things got magically easy to find on internet.. google did some interesting tech things to make that happen .. 1\ citation anal.. people on web make links to other’s web pages.. academic publishing works by measuring impact factor ie: how many times gets sited.. measure whether they’re changing world.. whether it mattered..
cory: google found you a lot of authentic stuff.. spammers noticed how rankings worked.. so google had to armor itself against spammers.. fought a good fight.. today.. google sucks.. despite having a lot more money/engineers.. cozier relationships to govt.. access.. yet google’d results are just terrible..
cory: google’s growth hasn’t come from products it’s manufactured on own.. ie: google search: mail.. everything else bought from someone else.. server, docs, maps, video,.. so really a buying things company – not a making things company
cory: they made sure you didn’t use anything that wasn’t google as year.. single largest check apple receives is bribe it gets to not get another search when turn on phone.. didn’t matter how good search engine if no one gets to use it.. so this is the crime got convicted of..
cory: when this monopoly has control of market.. it weeps because no more places to grow.. had to grow out of making lines of business it already had.. we have a reflexive distaste for continued growth.. but there’s a reason beyond ideology co’s like google want to grow.. google uses stock to pay ie: engineers and has as much stock as it needs.. instead of money.. provided the share price is going up.. so not just the ideology of cancer.. there’s a rational material reason .. so can pay its workers in funny money instead of actual money that is hard to get
cory: majority of google’s planning is in form of memo.. ed zitrain.. started combing thru these docs.. shed a lot of light on what happened to old/good google.. 2019 .. growth from search slowed down.. so google couldn’t grow .. only by finding a way to make money
cory: how to make more money on search – if it’s not reliable.. doubles traffic.. decide to enshittify search.. and that’s why google sucks since 2019
cory: why did they do it in 2019?.. enshitification: google makes things worse for end users.. then for everybody.. to make it work.. have to turn site into an ad..
cory: 4 forces that stop enshitification: 1\ competition 2\ regulation 3\ interoperability 4\ workforce
cory: on ways to make the world better thru tech.. appealing to someone’s sense of mission: vocational awe.. when convince them it matters.. vulnerable to exploitation.. terrible work conditions in order to succeed.. by appealing to sense of mission
cory: google employees worked non stop in their (haven) factories.. i think that’s why google didn’t do the enshit stuff before 2019..
cory: labor power can’t arise from scarcity.. only from solidarity..
cory: google is a body 1/2 wants to enshitify and 1/2 doesn’t.. today we are living in the result of failure to discipline.. i recommend gabriella coleman if you like david’s work and want to see it related to tech workers..
cory: new good net.. couldn’t have had occupy w/o web 2.0.. bad net.. want to tell you can’t have one people can use.. thatcher ness: there is no alt.. the lie: have to accept all bad with good
cory: on how we’re getting better at regulating globally (and other 3 controllers)
oi.. fuller too much law et al
algos of oppression et al
cory: we’re seeing tech workers wake up and realize they aren’t temporarily embarrassed workers.. so seeing historic rises of tech worker movements
cory: so david says there wasn’t a west.. i think there was a revisionist history about net.. problem wasn’t that we didn’t try something toward human thriving.. problem was we didn’t go far enough
problem deep enough.. via a sabbatical ish transition
cory: i hope you’ll join me in promoting idea of a new/good internet..
nika: what are practical things we can do to help
cory: so long as market/state dynamic.. improved w competition
yeah.. need a nother way beyond market/state ness.. beyond any form of m\a\p
cory: i’m skeptical of claims in behavioral econ.. but true that if i’m trying to eat better.. put healthy food in my house.. if someone brings a cake.. have that.. so definitely.. out of sight out of mind.. if selling ability to persuade people.. as critics have to be careful.. don’t know if true.. but gross that they’re doing this.. way market is org’d is not innumerable to individual solutions.. way you make a diff is not by finding people who want to use behavioral sci for good.. but way is to find way to leverage it to become part of a movememnt.. so trade unions.. activist groups..
nika in chat: Amazing article by Cory https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/
nika in chat: There probably no time for my question, so I will write it more like a comment: At one point the state regulated big corporations until they grew big enough to regulate it themselves. I don’t think that has happened and that you can stop it by lobbying for a good regulation.
I really like your article about the luddites because I hope that hope is in a large movement of modern luddites who can reorganize technology along with our social order
nonjudgmental expo labeling via sabbatical ish transition
cory: every convo starts w linguistic purity before he wants to go on (on richard stallman).. i don’t think morality is a ledger.. if sins outnumber good et al.. they just exist side by side.. that’s how i think about everyone who has flawed but also done good in world
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be you. 