I was reared on cyberpunk fiction, I ended up spending 25 years at my @eff day-job working at the weird edge of tech and human rights, even as I wrote sf that tried to fuse my love of cyberpunk with my urgent, lifelong struggle over who computers do things *for* and who they do them *to*.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/17/panama-papers-fanfic/#the-1337est-h4x0rs
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Cory Doctorow
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That makes me an official "post-cyberpunk" writer (TM). Don't take my word for it: I'm in the canon:
https://tachyonpublications.com/product/rewired-the-post-cyberpunk-anthology-2/
One of the editors of that "post-cyberpunk" anthology was John Kessel, who is, not coincidentally, the first writer to expose me to the power of literary criticism to change the way I felt about a novel, both as a writer and a reader:
https://locusmag.com/2012/05/cory-doctorow-a-prose-by-any-other-name/
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Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology - Tachyon Publications
Tachyon PublicationsCory Doctorow
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It was Kessel's 2004 *Foundation* essay, "Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality," that helped me understand litcrit. Kessel expertly surfaces the subtext of Card's *Ender's Game* and connects it to Card's politics. In so doing, he completely reframed how I felt about a book I'd read several times and had considered a favorite:
https://johnjosephkessel.wixsite.com/kessel-website/creating-the-innocent-killer
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Creating the Innocent Killer | kessel-website
kessel-websiteCory Doctorow
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This is a head-spinning experience for a reader, but it's even wilder as a *writer*. Thankfully, the majority of literary criticism about my work has been positive, but even then, discovering something that's clearly present in one of my novels, but which I didn't consciously include, is a (very pleasant!) mind-fuck.
A recent example: @blair_fix's review of my 2023 novel *Red Team Blues* which he calls "an anti-finance finance thriller":
https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/
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Red Team Blues: Cory Doctorow's Anti-Finance Thriller – Economics from the Top Down
Blair Fix (Economics from the Top Down)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Avviso contenuto: Long thread/5
Fix - a radical economist - perfectly captures the correspondence between my hero, the forensic accountant Martin Hench, and the heroes of noir detective novels. Namely, that a noir detective is a kind of unlicensed policeman, going to the places the cops can't go, asking the questions the cops can't ask, and thus solving the crimes the cops can't solve.
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Cory Doctorow
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What makes this *noir* is what happens next: the private dick realizes that these were places the cops *didn't want to go*, questions the cops *didn't want to ask* and crimes the cops *didn't want to solve* ("It's Chinatown, Jake").
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Cory Doctorow
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Marty Hench - a forensic accountant who finds the money that has been disappeared through the cells in cleverly constructed spreadsheets - is an unlicensed *tax inspector*. He's finding the money the IRS can't find - only to be reminded, time and again, that this is money the IRS *chooses not to* find.
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Cory Doctorow
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This is how the tax authorities work, after all. Anyone who followed the coverage of the big finance leaks knows that the most shocking revelation they contain is how *stupid* the ruses of the ultra-wealthy are. The IRS *could* prevent that tax-fraud, they just choose not to. Not for nothing, I call the Martin Hench books "Panama Papers fanfic."
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Cory Doctorow
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I've read plenty of noir fiction and I'm a long-term finance-leaks obsessive, but until I read Fix's article, it never occurred to me that a forensic accountant was actually squarely within the noir tradition. Hench's perfect noir fit is either a happy accident or the result of a subconscious intuition that I didn't know I had until Fix put his finger on it.
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Cory Doctorow
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The second Hench novel is *The Bezzle*. It's been out since February, and I'm *still* touring with it (Chicago tonight! Then Turin, Marin County, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, etc). It's paying off - the book's a national bestseller.
Writing in his newsletter, @henryfarrell connects Fix's observation to one of his own, about the nature of "hackers" and their role in cyberpunk (and post-cyberpunk) fiction:
https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-accountant-as-cyberpunk-hero
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Today's hackers wear green eyeshades, not mirrorshades
Henry Farrell (Programmable Mutter)Cory Doctorow
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Farrell cites Bruce Schneier's 2023 book, *A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules and How to Bend Them Back*:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/06/trickster-makes-the-world/
Schneier, a security expert, broadens the category of "hacker" to include anyone who studies systems with an eye to finding and exploiting their defects.
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Pluralistic: Bruce Schneier’s “A Hacker’s Mind” (06 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
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Under this definition, the more fearsome hackers are "working for a hedge fund, finding a loophole in financial regulations that lets her siphon extra profits out of the system." Hackers work in corporate offices, or as government lobbyists.
As Henry says, hacking isn't intrinsically countercultural ("Most of the hacking you might care about is done by boring seeming people in boring seeming clothes").
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Cory Doctorow
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Hacking reinforces - rather than undermining power asymmetries ("The rich have far more resources to figure out how to gimmick the rules"). We are mostly not the hackers - we are the *hacked.*
For Henry, Marty Hench is a hacker (the rare hacker that works for the good guys), even though "he doesn’t wear mirrorshades or get wasted chatting to bartenders with Soviet military-surplus mechanical arms."
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Cory Doctorow
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He's a gun for hire, that most traditional of cyberpunk heroes, and while he doesn't stand against the system, he's not for it, either.
Henry's pinning down something I've been circling around for nearly 30 years: the idea that though "the street finds its own use for things," Wall Street and Madison Avenue are among the streets that might find those uses:
https://craphound.com/nonfic/street.html
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The Street Finds Its Own Ass With Both Hands
craphound.comCory Doctorow
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Henry also connects Martin Hench to Marcus Yallow, the hero of my YA *Little Brother* series. I have tried to make this connection myself, opining that while Marcus is a character who is fighting to save an internet that he loves, Marty is living in the ashes of the internet he lost:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/07/dont-curb-your-enthusiasm/
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Don’t Curb Your Enthusiasm – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
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But Henry's Marty-as-hacker notion surfaces a far more interesting connection between the two characters. Marcus is a vehicle for conveying the excitement and power of hacking to young readers, while Marty is a vessel for older readers who know the stark terror of *being hacked*, by the sadistic wolves who're coming for all of us:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I44L1pzi4gk
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Wolves - Katrina for U.S. Senate
YouTubeCory Doctorow
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Both Marcus and Marty are explainers, as am I. Some people say that exposition makes for bad narrative. Those people are wrong:
https://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-favorite-bit/my-favorite-bit-cory-doctorow-talks-about-the-bezzle/
"Explaining" makes for *great* fiction. As @mariafarrell writes in her @crookedtimber.org review of *The Bezzle*, the secret sauce of some of the best novels is "information about how things work. Things like locks, rifles, security systems":
https://crookedtimber.org/2024/03/06/the-bezzle/
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My Favorite Bit: Cory Doctorow talks about THE BEZZLE
Mary Robinette KowalCory Doctorow
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Where these things are integrated into the story's "reason and urgency," they become "specialist knowledge [that] cuts new paths to move through the world." Hacking, in other words.
This is a theme Paul Di Filippo picked up on in his review of *The Bezzle* for @Locusmag:
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/paul-di-filippo-reviews-the-bezzle-by-cory-doctorow/
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Paul Di Filippo Reviews The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow
Locus OnlineCory Doctorow
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> Heinlein was always known—and always came across in his writings—as The Man Who Knew How the World Worked. Doctorow delivers the same sense of putting yourself in the hands of a fellow who has peered behind Oz’s curtain. When he fills you in lucidly about some arcane bit of economics or computer tech or social media scam, you feel, first, that you understand it completely and, second, that you can trust Doctorow’s analysis and insights.
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Cory Doctorow
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Knowledge is power, and so expository fiction that delivers news you can use is novel that makes you more powerful - powerful enough to resist the hackers who want to hack *you*.
Henry and I were both friends of Aaron Swartz, and the *Little Brother* books are closely connected to Aaron, who helped me with *Homeland*, the second volume, and wrote a great afterword for it (Schneier wrote an afterword for the first book).
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Cory Doctorow
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That book - and Aaron's afterword - has radicalized a gratifying number of principled technologists. I know, because I meet them when I tour, and because they send me emails. I like to think that these hackers are part of Aaron's legacy.
Henry argues that the Hench books are "purpose-designed to inspire a thousand Max Schrems - people who are probably past their teenage years, have some grounding in the relevant professions, and really want to see things change."
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Cory Doctorow
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(Schrems is the Austrian privacy activist who, as a law student, set in motion the events that led to the passage of the EU's General Data Privacy Regulation:)
https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/15/out-here-everything-hurts/#noyb
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Pluralistic: 15 May 2020 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
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Henry points out that @GreatDismal's *Neuromancer* doesn't mention the word "internet" - rather, Gibson coined the term *cyberspace*, which, as Henry says, is "more ‘capitalism’ than ‘computerized information'... If you really want to penetrate the system, you need to really grasp what money is and what it does."
Maria also wrote one of my all-time favorite reviews of *Red Team Blues*, also for Crooked Timber:
https://crookedtimber.org/2023/05/11/when-crypto-meant-cryptography/
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When crypto meant cryptography
Crooked TimberCory Doctorow
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In it, she compares Hench to Dickens' *Bleak House*, but for the modern tech world:
> You put the book down feeling it’s not just a fascinating, enjoyable novel, but a document of how Silicon Valley’s very own 1% live and a teeming, energy-emitting snapshot of a critical moment on Earth.
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Cory Doctorow
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All my life, I've written to find out what's going on in my own head. It's a remarkably effective technique. But it's only recently that I've come to appreciate that reading what *other people* write about my writing can reveal things that I can't see.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Avviso contenuto: Long thread/26
I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel *The Bezzle*! Catch me TONIGHT (Apr 17) in CHICAGO, then Torino (Apr 21), Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#bezzle-tour
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Pluralistic: Come see me on tour; How America’s oligarchs lull us the be-your-own-boss fairy tale (16 Feb 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
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Image:
Frédéric Poirot (modified)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fredarmitage/1057613629
CC BY-SA 2.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
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William Gibson, father of 'cyberpunk'
FlickrBill Seitz
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Cory Doctorow
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Bill Seitz
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ClipHead
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Aphrodite ☑️ :boost_ok:
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Funny that right around then (early 2023) I was published and gave my personal definition of a hacker as one who seeks to understand systems: how they work, how they don’t, how to break, how to fix, how to attack, how to defend.
Hacking is a way for me to understand humans & humanity. It’s philosophy with scientific curiosity, rigour, & reproducibility, religion without the metaphysics, myths, & mysticism, still seeking those moments of “wow”.
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techghoul
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http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/SecurityAnalysis
Security Analysis
WebSeitzCory Doctorow reshared this.
fanf42
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ok, wow, thank you to have pointed me to that essay. It explains so well why when I read ender games, it filled me with unease. I wasn't really a teenager anymore, or barely (19?), but also I have the immense, visibly rare luck of having had loving, caring, non abusive parents, who were not perfect but clearly working toward my emancipation with an helping, gentle hand.
And they taught me that intention matters, and yes of course you should aim for good, but actions does matter too, and whatever the intention, you need to own up to what you have done, and it really matters, more than intent. That if you wanted good and the result is that you hurt people, you fucked up and you really need to learn to not do it the next time. And if you do it repeatedly without learning, whatever your intention, you're acting bad.
And for some reason, that connects to an article I read recently about a book and thought, "oh, too bad it's in French, it looks like the kind of stuff Cory could like : https://blogs.mediapart.fr/gilles-rotillon/blog/150424/les-structures-fondamentales-des-societes-humaines-selon-bernard-lahire
The book's name is
"Fondamental structure of human societies" by famous French sociologue Bernard Lahire. The title seems extremely presomptuous, but the article let me think that the book stands for it.
And so, among the nature of human special characteristics, there's the fact not that he is a social animal, a lot of others are, but that he builds his future based on cumulative culture of his past (and that asset accumulates quickly) ; and that the human children is exceptionally vulnerable and for a very long period and thus is exposed early to dependency and submission to power of parents/etc, and unfortunately often for the worst.
And that's the link to ender game analysis.
And sociologue are just litcrit of humanity, and that's the looping back to your thread (see, that was going somewhere), which was as often very nice.
Thanks for the double nice reading this evening.
French sociologist
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Cory Doctorow
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