
“Affordances,” a science-fiction story by Cory Doctorow - jrepinc
https://slate.com/technology/2019/10/affordances-cory-doctorow-sf-story-algorithmic-bias-facial-recognition.html
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swayvil
I want to read it but the site is obnoxious. Anybody got an EPUB?

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got an epub
[http://www.filedropper.com/affordances](http://www.filedropper.com/affordances)

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petre
Oh, thank you.

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userbinator
When I think about "technologies of oppression" the first thing that came to
mind was not AI, but encryption in the form of DRM and walled gardens --- of
which Doctorow has written a lot about already.

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xhkkffbf
I think encryption and DRM are complex. For some odd reason, Doctorow hates
DRM even though it essentially empowers artists to control people who want to
steal from them. He seems to hate the idea that artists may want to sell their
art directly and only embraces ideas where artists do things like sell tickets
to concerts.

My feeling is that DRM is just encryption for artists. If you think that
encryption and privacy are good things that empower people, I don't know why
you would want to disempower artists.

But he thinks differently.

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zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
Primarily, he seems to think that totalitarianism is not an acceptable
solution to any problem. I happen to agree.

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xhkkffbf
No. He's the totalitarian. No DRM lover is forcing anyone to use DRM. Anyone
can release their own work for free. Anyone can put their own work in the
public domain. DRM just gives artists the ability to sell their work -- if
they so choose. But Doctorow hates it when others make different decisions.
He's the totalitarian.

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zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
So, what, in your mind, qualifies something as totalitarian?

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wizzwizz4
This reminds me of Meditations on Moloch.
[https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-
moloch/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/) (HN
thread
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19756487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19756487))

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malvosenior
I find it a bit odd that Doctorow talks about the technology of oppression yet
lately he's been using his own substantial voice to claim people who don't
think Epstein killed himself are "conspiracy theorists":

[https://boingboing.net/2019/08/13/malice-vs-
incompetence.htm...](https://boingboing.net/2019/08/13/malice-vs-
incompetence.html)

From his article:

> _The point isn 't that it's inconceivable that Epstein died as the result of
> a conspiracy, but the conspiracy theories that say that it has to be a setup
> because it's so implausible that prison authorities would be so totally
> useless are thoroughly disconnected from reality._

That's a complete strawman of what people are saying. No one thinks it's
inconceivable that the prison system is incompetent. They _do_ think the
highest profile prisoner on the planet with ties to the most powerful people
on the planet killing himself in a prison that hasn't had a suicide in 21
years looks like a conspiracy. I agree.

That seems very much like siding with the establishment to me.

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SECProto
> I find it a bit odd that Doctorow talks about the technology of oppression
> yet lately he's been using his own substantial voice to claim people who
> don't think Epstein killed himself are "conspiracy theorists"

He is completely correct here. I mean, just look up the definition of
"conspiracy theory"[1] - It is literally what people claim (Epstein didn't
kill himself, i.e. he was killed as a result of some secret or covered up
plot).

You may be taking offence because "conspiracy theorist" has negative
connotations (eg black helicopters, chemtrails, 9/11 inside job, jfk shooter,
deep state, illuminati...). But there are conspiracy theories that pen out to
be true in the long run - NSA surveillance revelations post-Snowden certainly
fulfill many conspiracy theories of a decade ago.

All that said, I don't particularly care about Epstein. Your entire post just
attacks the messenger for a single view you disagree with, rather than the
content at hand. You don't have to agree with a person all the time or none of
the time, there are options in between.

[1] [https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/conspiracy%20theo...](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/conspiracy%20theory)

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AndrewBissell
I wouldn't really consider "JFK shooter" a negative connotation, although it's
interesting you bring it up given that Kennedy's assassination marked the
initial deployment of the term "conspiracy theory" to try and discredit
questioning of or alternatives to flimsy official narratives.

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Tomte
[I was wrong]

Real title: "Affordances". Don't editorialize, please.

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Mathnerd314
That's the title of the story, but the Slate metadata has "Cory Doctorow on
Reclaiming Technologies of Oppression" as og:title and twitter:title. The
conclusion is that Slate prefers the longer title be shown in links to the
story.

