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Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

I have to say there is something slightly uncanny about a tweet chain that starts with a criticism of 'chokepoint capitalism' in the first person seamlessly transitioning into an ad for the book itself, stickers and pins with a broken link and weird marketing language that's clearly not coming from Doctorow, it's like that Metal Gear 2 ending when the Colonel starts to speak in gibberish

I remember Baudrillard being angry about his books being featured in the Matrix, because he thought the Matrix was the exact kind of movie that the Matrix itself would make. This is the kind of energy that Doctorow, Naomi Klein (No Logo) etc. have

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The tweet chain clearly explains what the book is about, and it is not a criticism of capitalism as a whole (as valid as that may be). It is a criticism of large publishers exploiting people who actually make things.

>It is a criticism of large publishers exploiting people who actually make things.

if that is what it was you wouldn't be able to order the thing on Amazon. So potent is his criticism of Audible, Amazon is actually willing to deliver it straight to your door.

No, what it really is is more perverse, resistance repackaged as consumption itself, keeping up the illusion that you're doing something meaningful by buying that book. This is of course the dominant mode now in the #resistance genre (of all political or ideological colors)

He clearly explains the difference between Amazon-the-internet-book-shop and Audible, i.e. the first doesn't force DRM on its ebooks, the second does.

This is called recuperation, and it's fairly common. Rather than censoring ideas, capitalism just turns them into another commodity and dilutes their potency.

The Black Mirror episode Fifteen Million Merits shows exactly how it works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics)

Subscribe to Netflix to find out more about it. You really can't get away from it.

I mean, you can always sail the seven seas, amirite?

The guy has turned into a composer of polemics. [1]

[1]: e.g. https://mobile.twitter.com/doctorow/status/14664570728711249...

This is completely unrelated to what is under discussion and an extreme-right dogwhistle besides. Surely you can do better?

I'm suggesting his new book is also probably full of polemics.

I used to like him when I was younger, and have fond memories of reading one of his novels (Little Brother [1]) as a teenager.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_(Doctorow_nov...

The (bias) issues with crime statistics are well-documented and well-understood (even within actual police and secret service agencies). This is not polemic - what is polemic is how to fix that (and whether or not we should, given that the police is generally of the opinion that "it works acceptably so we should not fix it further"), which this chain doesn't really touch upon.

The polemic part is that he's says driving as a non-white person is a de facto crime in the US, which is of course utterly untrue. As a non-white person, I'm sure I would've known if that was the case.

(Also, I had linked to the wrong tweet in the thread. I've corrected it now.)

I don't see anything controversial with that statement. I think that you are mixing de jure and de facto.

No, I'm not. It's clearly not a de facto crime. How many non-white Americans get sentenced merely because of driving?

De Facto describes situations that exist in reality (in fact), even if they are not legally recognised. Sundown towns exist in reality regardless of the law, and non-whites driving through them can face harassment and even arrest or prosecution for no other reason than being non-white while driving. The reason given for the arrest or prosecution will be a book crime, but that's not the actual factual (de facto) reason for it happening.

> driving through them can face

As De Facto as getting hit by lightning. Let's leave the polemics out.

> How many non-white Americans get sentenced merely because of driving?

Arresting non-white Americans merely for driving isn't de jure but your question presuppose that it is or that someone her is claiming that it is(nobody is). Can't get any more obvious that you are mixing de jure and de facto.

I like Cory, he isn't just a leftist but what I would call sjw light so I usually take everything coming from him with a big chunk of salt

> and an extreme-right dogwhistle besides

What do you mean? Why extreme right, and what, exactly, is a dogwhistle (i.e. the code word/phrase) in the parent comment?

You say that like it's a bad thing.

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