Radicalized: Four Tales of Our Present Moment

by Cory Doctorow

the paranoid little gadget would assume that Salima was in that class of nefarious fraudsters who bought a discounted Boulangism toaster and then tried to renege on her end of the bargain by inserting unauthorized bread, which had consequences ranging from kitchen fires to suboptimal toast

This was the antidote, she realized, to the feeling of distant people whom she’d never meet who held the power of everything over her. To be able to control the computers around her, rather than being controlled by them.

The sense of hopelessness at being surrounded by sensors and devices that were designed to push her around was transformed into a sense of inevitable triumph over the fools who thought they could make that work.

“I’ve been looking. There’s a lot of advice, and it all contradicts itself. I can’t tell what works.” “Yeah, that sounds like online tech advice all right.”

only fools believed in foolproof tricks)

Boredom was unquestionably the worst part of the end of the world.