Cory Doctorow's Blog, page 30
July 15, 2019
Podcast: Occupy Gotham
In my latest podcast (MP3), I read my essay Occupy Gotham, published in Detective Comics: 80 Years of Batman, commemorating the 1000th issue of Batman comics. It’s an essay about the serious hard problem of trusting billionaires to solve your problems, given the likelihood that billionaires are the cause of your problems.
A thousand issues have gone by, nearly 80 years have passed, and Batman still hasn’t cleaned up Gotham. If the formal definition of insanity it trying the same thing and e...
July 12, 2019
I appeared on Nanowrimo’s awesome Write-Minded podcast to talk about Radicalized
Today’s dystopian fiction seems to be closer to reality than the dystopian fiction of the past. Brooke and Grant explore this new reality with Cory Doctorow, whose socially conscientious science fiction novels delve into topics of political consequence. From the ways in which anxieties fuel science fiction writers to how fiction has the power to change the way we think and operate in the world, today’s episode emphasizes the importance of dystopian fiction for its...
Where to catch me at San Diego Comic-Con!
I’m headed back to San Diego for Comic-Con next weekend, and you can catch me on Friday, Saturday and Sunday:
Friday, 5PM: Signing in AA04
Saturday, 5PM: Panel: Writing: Craft, Community, and Crossover (with James Killen, Seanan McGuire, Charlie Jane Anders,, Annalee Newitz, and Sarah Gailey), Room 23ABC
Sunday, 10AM: Signing and giveaway for Radicalized, Tor Booth, #2701.
I hope to see you there!
July 9, 2019
Steering with the Windshield Wipers
In my latest podcast (MP3), I read my May Locus column: Steering with the Windshield Wipers. It makes the argument that much of the dysfunction of tech regulation — from botched anti-sex-trafficking laws to the EU’s plan to impose mass surveillance and censorship to root out copyright infringement — are the result of trying to jury-rig tools to fix the problems of monopolies, without using anti-monopoly laws, because they have been systematically gutted for 40 years.
A lack of competition r...
July 2, 2019
Fake News is an Oracle
In my latest podcast, I read my new Locus column: Fake News is an Oracle. For many years, I’ve been arguing that while science fiction can’t predict the future, it can reveal important truths about the present: the stories writers tell reveal their hopes and fears about technology, while the stories that gain currency in our discourse and our media markets tell us about our latent societal aspirations and anxieties.
Fake news is another important barometer of our societal pressure: when we t...
July 1, 2019
“Fake News is an Oracle”: how the falsehoods we believe reveal the truth about our fears and aspirations
For many years, I’ve been arguing that while science fiction can’t predict the future, it can reveal important truths about the present: the stories writers tell reveal their hopes and fears about technology, while the stories that gain currency in our discourse and our media markets tell us about our latent societal aspirations and anxieties. In Fake News is an Oracle, my latest Locus Magazine column, I use this tool to think about the rise of conspiratorial thinking and ask what it says abo...
June 27, 2019
Houston! Come see Hank Green and me on July 31
I’m coming to Houston on July 31 to appear with Hank Green at an event for the paperback launch of his outstanding debut novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing: we’re on a 7PM at Spring Forest Middle School (14240 Memorial Drive, Houston, TX 77079); it’s a ticketed event and the ticket price includes a copy of Hank’s book. Hope to see you there! (Images: Vlogbrothers, Jonathan Worth, CC-BY)
June 26, 2019
Podcast number 300: “Adversarial Interoperability: Reviving an Elegant Weapon From a More Civilized Age to Slay Today’s Monopolies”
I just published the 300th installment of my podcast, which has been going since 2006 (!); I present a reading of my EFF Deeplinks essay Adversarial Interoperability: Reviving an Elegant Weapon From a More Civilized Age to Slay Today’s Monopolies, where I introduce the idea of “Adversarial Interoperability,” which allows users and toolsmiths to push back against monopolists.
Facebook’s advantage is in “network effects”: the idea that Facebook increases in value with every user who joins it...
June 25, 2019
Join me today at 12PM Pacific for a New York Times/Periscope livestream about my “op-ed from the future”
Yesterday, the New York Times published my “op-ed from the future,” an essay entitled “I Shouldn’t Have to Publish This in The New York Times,” which tried to imagine what would happen to public discourse if the Big Tech platforms were forced to use algorithms to police their users’ speech in order to fight extremism, trolling, copyright infringement, harassment, and so on.
In just a couple hours — 12PM Pacific, 3PM Eastern — I’ll be doing a Periscope livestream for the Times to discuss the...
June 24, 2019
“I Shouldn’t Have to Publish This in The New York Times”: my op-ed from the future
I was honored to be invited to contribute to the New York Times‘s excellent “Op-Eds From the Future” series (previously), with an op-ed called “I Shouldn’t Have to Publish This in The New York Times,” set in the near-future, in which we have decided to solve the problems of Big Tech by making them liable for what their users say and do, thus ushering in an era in which all our speech is vetted by algorithms that delete anything that looks like misinformation, harassment, copyright infringeme...
