Today's links
- Podcasting "Hope, Not Optimism": A theory of change based on truth, not fiction.
- This day in history: 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016, 2020
- Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading
Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
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Email could be the last federated internet technologyâââbut it isnât.
It feels like only yesterday that we were living through the Substack bubble, as mailing lists enjoyed a new renaissance (rebranded as ânewslettersâ), a tangible expression of the techlash and our collective disgust with the platforms and their attempts to enclose the internet and convert it to âfive giant websites, each filled with screenshots of text from the other four.â
In the abstract, mailing lists/newsletters represent the promise of a return to a Jeffersonian internet, where each of us can garden own little patch, not subject to the whims of third parties. That, after all, is the original design brief of the internet, to be an âend-to-end networkâ where any party can connect to any other party without needing permission from anyone else.
Iâve been an activist all my lifeâââliterally, I attended my first demonstrations in a strollerâââand thatâs reflected in my work, from the essays and blog posts Iâve published for 20 years to the dozens of books Iâve written, both fiction and nonfiction.
To be an activist is to want to change the world. To change the world, you need two things: first, an understanding of whatâs wrong with it, and second, a theory of how to make it better.
Much of my work focuses on the former: documenting, analyzing, and tracking injustices, dysfunctions, and emergenciesâââmy essays are a form of public note-taking that helps me break down and understand complex phenomena.