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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

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Neither the devil you know nor the devil you don’t (pluralistic.net)

submitted 6 months ago by db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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Our path to better working conditions lies through organizing and striking, not through helping our bosses sue other giant mulitnational corporations for the right to bleed us out.

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[–] gnomicutterance@awful.systems 19 points 6 months ago (7 children)

Doctorow's had some pretty bad takes, honestly, for all I agree with him on some things. His review of Naomi Klein's Doppleganger -- a book which explores conspiracy theories and how they capture people -- reduces the entire book, incorrectly, to his own political soapbox:

Fundamentally: Klein is a leftist, Wolf was a liberal.

This is, frankly, juvenile. Not every bad thing in the world can be mapped on to one's particular soapboxes. Treating GenAI as Good because Copyright is Bad is exactly in character for him.

(Also Cory gets smug about releasing his novels CC, as if all working writers can do that, but I'm sure it helps the family finances that his wife is an executive at Disney. It's great to use money from one of copyright's biggest monsters to act self-righteous about other people trying to make a living.)

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (6 children)

his wife is an executive at Disney

Wait. What? Holy shit, every good goddamn thing he's ever released regarding copyright and intellectual property needs a big bold disclaimer about that in front then.

Fucker's talking out both sides of his mouth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Taylor_%28businesswoman%29

In 2017, Disney acquired Makie Labs technology and personnel for an undisclosed figure.

In keeping with the strategic acquisition, Ms Taylor is now the Director, StudioLab at The Walt Disney Studios. In that role she is responsible for ensuring that Disney continues to invest in the intersection between online tech and content distribution.

I'm sorry, in non-executive speak, doesn't that heavily imply that she at least oversees some work on DRM? Any content distribution method Disney touches with a 40-foot pole is going to have DRM methodology.

Motherfucker.

[–] mawhrin@awful.systems 6 points 6 months ago (5 children)

so should he have divorced her in 2017 to prove his ideological purity?

(waves to the local chapter of the leftist circular firing squad)

[–] gnomicutterance@awful.systems 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

To be clear, I was critiquing his smug intolerance to be people who don’t meet his standards of so-called leftist perfection, when he, himself, is as complex as anyone else. I was not critiquing his being married or his living under capitalism.

[–] mawhrin@awful.systems 5 points 6 months ago

fwiw i was mostly annoyed by the “his wife is doing what” in the comment i was answering directly – going after him just because of his wife would be like going after varoufakis just because his wife is supposedly the heroine of blur's “common people”.

and i happily agree that doctorow could dispense with his privilege, tone down the smugness and try for less shallow takes once in a while.

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