Cory Doctorow, or “Stallmanization vs Enshittification”
The ease with which journalists create new heroes, who happen to always be journalists, is an integral part of the Cagnara Project. There is always the hero journalist, whom everyone wants to silence because he says uncomfortable things. As it happens, billions of people read it, their censored book can be found in all bookstores, and uncomfortable things are so uncomfortable that half the world parrots them.
Before I talk about Cory Doctorow's cataclysmic whirlwind of bitches, I'd like to introduce two neologisms. One he invented (nothing makes you sound more expert than talking about things you invented: you automatically become the top global authority), the other he doesn't, and I don't think Cory Doctorow will like it.
Cory Doctorow has coined the term Enshittification to indicate the fact that any (in his opinion) social network becomes a shit pit, proving that he doesn't know terms like "Eternal September", proving that he has never used Usenet in his life, and proving that he never seen anything like mySpace, and don't know what 4Chan is.
The term Stallmanization has an uncertain coinage, and is still relegated to slang. Indicates the process by which an excess of purity and a fundamentalist approach lead a theme (all things considered very sensible) to become disliked by the masses. It comes from Richard Stallmann, director of that institution in which Cory Doctorow, coincidentally, was a journalist.
Let's start with the topic for a moment. Cory Doctorow, like all hero journalists who are heroes because other journalists (or themselves) say so, has written a book where he explains the fact that Facebook (and other social networks) are seas of shit, adding Amazon to the list as well which is not a social network (but all right), for a very simple reason, never heard before, of a devastating novelty that is alien to being vaguely politicized:
According to Cory Doctorow, the fault lies (hear, hear) with capitalism.
An unheard-of, original analysis, never heard before, not even a little obvious and absolutely unpredictable. Who has ever heard before that capitalism is to blame?
It's a bullshit book, mind you. The first surprising thing (but not really surprising, we know that type of "journalist" well) is the intensity of Cherry Picking.
Let's take the world's all-time best example of Enshittification: 4Chan, and the *Chan world in general. This is the absolute pinnacle of this phenomenon, and the /pol (Politically Incorrect) bulletin board is a pure distillation of the phenomenon that Doctorow intends to explain.
It's not even mentioned in his book. And there's a reason: 4Chan reaches source levels of the purest shit (much of the shit we find on mainstream social media is born right there), without being a monstrous moloch of capitalism. A clear demonstration of how much Doctorow's theses are a pile of smoking shit. The dialogue should go like this:
- Doctorow: It is capitalism that turns any giant web monopolist into a shit pit.
- Anyone: 4Chan, bulletin board /pol
- Doctorow: I'm going to commit suicide because I'm an asshole.
There have been, and still exist, social networks that have surpassed the Enshittification level of Facebook, Twitter & co, starting with 4Chan and the entire *Chan universe, and small others such as LinkExpats.com, but Ask.fm had also reached levels such shit as to cause teenage suicide. And they were (and are) VERY far from being giants of capitalism.
But as hero journalists do, obviously in their “investigations” a reference sample NEVER appears, and cases that contradict the original thesis never appear.
Let's forget the thesis of Enshittification from gabidalismoh, and let's talk about stallmanization.
As I wrote, Stallmanization occurs when an overall just and rational theme is represented by individuals in the grip of the virus of purity. When this happens, the "right" theme becomes unlistenable, and is abandoned even by people who – in their rational mind – think that in the end they are saying the right things.
To give examples:
- I find femicide to be a horrible thing. Then I read the SCUM manifesto (the Stallmanization of the feminist movement), and postpone until tomorrow.
- And in general I think that the issue of equality between men and women is a fair issue, including the issue of representativeness: but then I listen to Elly Schlein speak, and I think that in the future I will only vote men for power. HAIRY men.
- Just as I think homosexual people should be able to start families, raise children and everything. But then Vendola speaks, and reference to tomorrow.
- Ditto for climate change, on which I agree on the need to act. But then I hear Greta speak, and I want the death of a whale more than Captain Ahab.
A very just idea can die because enunciating the idea and bringing it to consensus are two different skills. Often, even opposite.
If the Swiss had sent Marx instead of Lenin to Moscow, history would have turned out very differently. Also because, with the corpse of a philosopher you do little.
But to get to the point of Stallmanization you need to understand one thing: often the leader's fault is not to become a purist and thus induce vomiting. Often the leader's fault is that of not fighting purism and fundamentalism, and producing those sycophants who then lead the world to hate certain ideas.
In the examples I cited above,
- the SCUM manifesto itself is just a feminist version of Mein Kampf. If I didn't hear it mentioned by the feminism sycophants, I'd probably file it under the heading "mountain of shit". But when you meet a radical feminist, you wonder what you would do if you were Stalin and had ten million of them in your country.
- Elly Schlein doesn't talk much in the media, and it's easy enough to avoid her. The trouble is that his sycophants are everywhere, and when you talk to us, you decide that the PD doesn't need leaders without showy Giuseppe Acciaio moustaches.
- Same for homosexual people. These are people you don't normally distinguish from anyone else, and not listening to Vendola is relatively simple> but when you meet certain sycophants of the GLBTqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm,./;'[] movement, you think you wouldn't even give them permission to go by bike.
- Finally, for climate change, the problem is chemical and physical, and scientists would be more than sufficient to explain it. After all, Greta isn't difficult not to listen to, since she doesn't appear too much in the media. The trouble is that one day you go to work and you have to stand in line for two hours, with the engine running, because there are four idiot sycophants blocking the road. Well then, give me a whale to kill!
- The #metoo movement in itself is not something I would be inclined to attack: the problem is that Asia Argento then opens her mouth.
Much of the Stallmanization of an idea or ideology does not come from the leader himself (not always), but more often the antipathy comes from the leader's sycophants.
What does this have to do with Doctorow?
It has to do with Doctorow being a sycophant of Stallman's. By itself, listening to Stallman, other than noticing his asperger's, it's not that annoying. Many of the things he says are also acceptable, and I agree.
The real problem is simple:
Doctorow was born as Stallman's sycophant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow
If you try to resist his biography without a very powerful desire for the Führer, because his biography is so Nicky Vendoliana that hemorrhoids come already halfway through, you immediately notice his nature as an unpleasant, anti-political, militant badass with purity in mind, heart, ass. And note his militancy in the EFF.
But there's an even more important thing you'll notice: technologically, he's a user. Its place in the food chain is what the carrot has in nature. Nothing, in his studies, talks about the internet, information technology, anything.
He talks about it as a journalist, or as an incompetent.
This figure, in a certain sense, is typical: journalism has noticed that, whatever issue is addressed, the population is incompetent, in principle. And that therefore it is easier for the masses to identify with an incompetent than with an expert…. oops. I just rewrote Doctorow's book, pointing to the real causes of enshittification.
Ultimately, if you've been in the IT world for a long time, and you're still technical, you have a very strong character trait. Believe in competence.
Reading Doctorow's book will irritate you all the time, because everything in the book is about INcompetence.
And since it is easier for the masses to identify with an incompetent than with an expert, the result is that Doctorow's book will be successful because it speaks to the incompetent, as an incompetent, and having self-appointed a hero then it also has that touch of epic that appeals to both teenagers and adults.
Incompetent, adolescents, adults. This is Doctorow's audience.
For me, however, it makes me want to call IT and have windows installed on my work laptop. With the Facebook ADS on it in the file manager.