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bonefall · 1 year

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Thistle Law

The most extreme, violent interpretation of the Warrior Code, initially founded by Thistleclaw near the end of the Campaign Era, with its first implementation defining the beginning of the Slash-and-Burn Period.

One of three distinct Clan ideologies, next to Fire Alone and Traditionalism.

A guide to its origin, the parable associated with it, its principles, and most importantly, my authorial intentions with it in the Bonefall Rewrite. Seen a couple of questions about it, so I think this’ll help clarify.

Origin

Extreme interpretations of the Code go back as far as the founding of the clans themselves, but the roots of Thistle Law trace back to the Exile of SkyClan. Justifying the loss of an entire clan included cracking down on medicine cats and quashing a rebellion, and the ‘clan pride tide‘ added FOUR new laws to the Warrior Code.

The following wars and conflicts in the Chivalric Period further contributed to xenophobic sentiment in the Clans, with each one vying for supremacy over the others, branching out to attack non-Clan cats when there were brief stints of ‘peace’. Thistleclaw merely gave these ideas a name while educating his apprentice, using thistles as a metaphor.

Tigerclaw then went on to tell the story to his clanmates, to his own apprentices, and at gatherings to his future allies who told it to their own clanmates. Though the details of the story changed at times, the takeaway is constant;

Other cats must die, so yours can stay strong.

The Parable of the Thistle

The story goes that Thistleclaw brought Tigerpaw out to a massive, thorny bull thistle. He pointed out that the other plants were dying around it, but the flowers stood tall and proud. Thistleclaw explained the thistle was killing the plants around it to have more room to grow, and then cruelly commanded that Tigerpaw try to destroy it.

By the time it was done, Tigerpaw was covered in scratches and the sun was setting. All the way home, he tried to shake the thistlefluff out of his fur and forget the painful experience. The seasons turned, and one year later when Tigerclaw was a young warrior, Thistleclaw led him down a path lined with young, thorny leaves.

There, in a sea of green spikes, the thistle was standing as tall and as proud as the day Tigerpaw shredded it.

In killing every other plant in the area, the thistle had given itself room to come back stronger. The fluff that clung to Tigerpaw’s fur became new growth. Around them was an entire clearing of thistles, ready to burst into a wall of flowers and seeds.

Thistleclaw asked if Tigerclaw would dare to try again, and remembering how his last battle with the weed ended with scratches as deep as claw marks, admitted that he would rather be a thistle than fight one.

(Little did Ivypaw know, the beautiful field in which she meets Hawkfrost was completely strangled by flowering thistles.)

Principles

Depending on the exact time period and the cat it takes root in, Thistle Law can look different. For examples, Brokenstar’s goal was to drive every Clan out of the forest except ShadowClan, where Tigerstar’s aim was to annex every clan into TigerClan and enforce a standard of purity.

Incarnations of Thistle Law tend to share these principles,

The Code Hardens The calling card of Thistle Law is a stricter, more violent interpretation of the Warrior Code. The harsher laws are emphasized, such as the Law of Loyalty and the Right of the Challenge, while softer ones are downplayed or dropped entirely, like the Law of Honor and the Queen’s Rights.

Extreme Xenophobia Against outsiders, against cats of other clans, against half-clan cats. Thistle Law sets itself apart from Traditionalism for becoming willing to enforce some sort of purity.

Hierarchy Becomes Rigid The social power of medicine cats, deputies, and elders is suppressed. The leader is raised as the ultimate authority, even if that leader isn’t the Clan’s -star.

There Is No ‘Pointless’ Death The Clans are a battle culture, but a good battle is still fought for a reason. When tides turn to Thistle Law, fighting is the goal AND the means. To live is to battle, to kill is to win, and a warrior’s purpose is to die at war.

Each incarnation likely contains each point in varied amounts and tosses other ideas into the mix, but the name of the game remains the same-- and it springs from the taproot of Thistle Law.

Intentions

Thistle Law is what fascism looks like in Clan culture. I approach this using Umberto Eco’s 1995 essay Ur-Fascism as my primary reference. Ur-fascism is a ‘fuzzy‘ concept that looks very different depending on the exact society it springs from, mixing and matching several symptoms in varying degrees of severity.

So, in adapting this, I had to simplify a very complicated topic. I wanted to keep the antifascist theory recognizable, while still following canon events and creating an engaging rewrite.

So for simplicity sake, even if a clan might have technically called their own version of Thistle Law something else, I use this name to address it.

#tw fascism #fascism #politics #Bonefall Rewrite #Thistle Law #Thistleclaw #Tigerpaw #As a side note I really gotta finish this post I have about locations in the Dark Forest #Because I actually plan to make it the inverse of StarClan territory where all the BAD landmarks end up there #Like how StarClan still has fourtrees? The DF has the bonehill #And the thistle field #And the 5th oak #And the old river but the water is always flooded #Hope this clarifies btw feel free to @me with any other questions about thistle law this doesn't make clear #I don't want to get into MORE theories on fascism though btw unless you have a specific rewrite event suggestion #I like Eco's essay because it's easy to reference #I would prefer to spend my time reading more terrible cat books and visit theory at my own pace lmao

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hanzajesthanza · 7 months

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combining (one of my) favorite short story with (some of my) favorite characters ❤️

#i want sigrdrifa to show up and yennefer to be like ‘oh. hey i didn’t think we were friends’#and the priestess turns her face towards her with molten-gold eyes and goes ‘hello yennefer’ and yen gets full body chills lol #female friendship is when [checks notes] the patron goddess of motherhood grants you her boon and shows you your imminent immense suffering #too many marriage comedies where the groom has no friends. what about the friendless bride who never got along with the rest of the girls #to be fair geralt’s party isn’t really ‘the guys’ it’s like one guy one woman one [lazy hand gesture that says ‘behold!’]#i would say ‘and the kidnapper of his daughter’ but i think cahir is in the audience for this he has like son-in-law status not groomsman #angoulême is in the audience striking up a best friendship with torque who decided to show up too #txt #f: a hansa’s a hansa #headcanons #story: something ends something begins #the witcher books #geralt of rivia #yes this is (checks timestamps) two months old but its still good #s: you’ve condemned yourself to me #and yes the vampire that yarpen throws garlic at is regis why not. or vereena if she regenerated and just wanted to show up bc #she and nivellen got back together because that dumb son of a bitch forgave her for the horrors

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just-an-enby-lemon · 1 year

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Sometimes I think I should do a Scriddler fanfic for the only reason I never saw people writing their dinamic as Cecilos but fucked up and evil.

I need my Riddler with weird radio host vibes who is a genius but on a unconvencional way and manipulate people in a whim but it's really bad with other people secrets and my Scarecrow to be the socially ackward overly curious scientist who loves his work to obcessive levels, is convencionaly smart, mesures all his worlds and is very confused by this guy who is super vocal about his crush on him.

I want Eddie destroying the life of a random hairdresser because they gave Jon a bad haircurt and how dare they do that with Jon's perfect hair (and since I want Eddie to have Cecil's obcession but Jon to not be convencionally atractive like Carlos is this will make Jon rly confused because Edward was the only person who thought his hair was perfect to beging with). I want Jon to talk about how sometimes you spend a lot of time thinking someone has bad intentions when they are actually genuine as his declaration.

I want them to be apart and Jon to lie about how he got it worse to spare Eddie's feelings while Eddie goes into a depressive episode because he is alone (or Cecil learning to not be codependent, Carlos learning to be more open and me learning that I rly love angst).

I want Edward having to face the fact that there are parts of Jonathan live he doesn't know and will never know as he finds bits of the reasons Jon came to Gotham until his digging causes their first major fight.

#i stopped the post in this point because even though i'm following the recent wtnv episodes now I want to rewatch the old ones #i miss old woman josie #has been years and I still miss her #wtnv #cecilos #scriddler #edward nygma #riddler #jonathan crane #scarecrow #also i need to read more cecilos fanfic #specially cecil angst and hurt/confort #also this post made me realize that the reason i ship scriddler is the fucked up and evil cecilos potential no one else sees #i mean i already knew I shipped them for the potential dinamics and not for the cannon ones #as most of my ships are based on potential dinamics and transformative work #specially in comic books #where nothing is consistent and eternal as it is something wrote by multiple people over multiple years in different medias #and for different audiences #cannon is rly more of a recomendations guide than a law to abide by #super hero comics are one of the best spaces for transformative work because of that

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moregraceful · 8 months

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feeling uncooperative with the prompts in the meme. between cheech and old pat which one would survive a joint venture into a thrift store? and which of them would you convert into a minor league baseball player if you had a magic wand

God yeah I reblogged that list and then read the questions and was like...this list is wack lol. Anyway THANK YOU these questions are much more important and gets really into the Hearts and Minds of these men.

Who survives a joint venture to the thrift store: Old Pat. It's Old Pat. Man has looked 40 years old since he hit puberty and has just kept growing older. Old man is in his element with the real senior citizens. However it is very important to me to mention that they're going to a bespoke thrift store for like farm and cowboy shit. Cheech could handle normal thrifting. Cheech would be great at normal thrifting. But take him to a store where it's JUST vintage farming equipment and cowboy leather shit and that city boy is going to panic. Old Pat is having a blast looking at pieces of metal that clearly spark joy in his construction worker heart but make NO sense to Cheech, son of academics, WHL overager. Cheech agreed to come to the store to push the cart but now he is manfully deep breathing while Old Pat examines a metal thing with rings. Is it for horses? Is it for wearing? Is it a BDSM thing? Do you put it on a tractor? Cheech is scared. (It is literally just a beval bit.) These stores don't exist in the Bay Area but maybe they do in idk Manitoba or Michigan or whatever. Or Gilroy, where all our dreams come true.

Minor league baseball player: the thing is, we're on Sieloff Watch (KING. ANNOUNCE YOUR RETIREMENT OR SIGN SOMEWHERE BEFORE I THROW UP) and Cheech is having his hot girl summer. So I'm inclined to say Cheech, just bc I think he has a shot in hell of making it OUT of minor league baseball. Also he is handsome like a baseball player. He has the looks for it. Not that you have to be handsome to be a baseball player but it helps. Can you imagine that man in the humid outfield of some nameless town in the San Joaquin Valley, fighting for his life in the game, the top three buttons of his jersey are undone, his curls are wilting, the uhhhh idk Fresno Nightcrawlers, AA for some cursed af West Coast team, are down 9-7 in the 8th, when the skies open up and it starts pouring...the stands, already two-thirds empty on a Tuesday night clear, while the teams run for cover under the downpour. Nick stands in the outfield and tilts his head toward the sky, feeling, for a moment, relief and peace.

#this was soooo fun thank you #i unpacked 21 boxes of books. i need to organize since the categorization is loose but at least there are no longer 24 boxes in that room #there is a box of comics i don't want and two boxes of cookbooks for the kitchen #idk what to do with the comics. the part of my life where i was an issue by issue reader of comics is over #tempted to loosely inventory and sell on ebay like here for $50 all these doa indies can be YOUR problem #i'm also missing a whole chunk of my tkams but my mom says she saw a box of them in another room #which is good bc i would literally go insane if i were truly missing any of my intl copies of tkam some of that shit was SO hard to aquire #anyway i just remembered what i was going to say which is that in the cuda frontier town au in my shower thoughts #siels is the washer woman. he runs a laundry. employs robbie (too small to ride horses) and weather (doesn't want to be a cowboy)#cheech comes from way out of town bc he's on the run from the LAW (shot a man in manitoba but the other guy had it coming)#he lives in old pat's house above the laundry. shares a bedroom with robbie. siels teaches him how to get the blood off of leather #siels falls in love but the LAW catches up with cheech and he has to run further west and old washerwoman pat and his boys stonewall the LA #siels thinks of him still on cold nights. when he can hear his boarders laughing through the walls as they play cards #what life must be like to be young and in love..... (he is literally 28)#also henry is the one room school teacher #cage replies #anon #i love this ask lol thank you so much 🙏😌

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cosettepontmercys · 9 months

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this whole interview sure is. interesting.

#rwrb spoilers #anti rwrb #if you are sooo sensitive to criticism maybe you should've stuck to the book better and not perpetuated harmful stereotypes #“i dont want to give each of them half a meal” (re: cutting out june and keeping nora) and where was nora's “meal” ???#“ i want it to be focused on henry ” WHEN THE MAIN CHARACTER IS ALEX ???#“nora has a real presence in the film” WHERE?#alex has to be older bc he's in law school? WHEN WAS HE IN LAW SCHOOL? WE DIDNT SEE THAT IN THE MOVIE? and also you can be older and #still figuring out your sexuality (not that 23 is old)#post: personal #im mad

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alter-koker · 5 months

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it's also interesting that entrance of the grail marks a descent into unreality for anyone who knows of it. the first description of the grail is from a waking vision of sir percival. then all the knights begin hallucinating/having visions of the grail which set them on their quest. they all have allegorical dreams which have to be explained to them by holy men, but also these waking visions, it's a wonder they know whats real and whats not all this point. even actions they take in waking life will be explained to them by these hermits, priests, holy men, and reclusive women who are suddenly everywhere in narrative, to have some allegorical meaning. sir percival saved and lion and slew a snake and he's told the lion represented the new law, the church, and the snake was the old law (the jewish tradition). the story goes from being fairly grounded, to not at all

#le morte d'arthur #also yes the old law being jewish and the book being antisemitic about it is not a big surprise... it's medieval literature duh...#still very uncool but whatever!

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r2y9s-notartblog · 6 months

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if my dad is trying to chase all his kids out of the house he's doing a damn good job of it

#personal log #stardate: i just want to do laundry man #wtf does peak hours have to do with it it's one damn load #and then he has no respect for belongings that aren't specifically his #he threw my old books in the garage in the trash #AND THEN fuckin asked if i still wanted those books #asshole made me dig through the fuckin trash for my star trek novels #maybe ask me before u throw shit away fuckin hell #i'm so angry and if i could afford 2.5k a month rent to get out of here i fuckin would #i'm taking my dog and my birb #and my car #see if i come back to help u take care of ur mother in law #he got angry at my brother for trying to wash the driveway during peak hours #can't do anything in this damn house

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disneydatass · 1 year

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Everytime a YouTuber/streamer/someone buys and or plays the hogwarts game they should immediately donate at least a $100 to a trans person

#sorry i don’t make the rules #it’s law #I hate seeing these millionaires or even ppl make thousand of dollars off such a bigot #like it’s not like she’s just being ignorant she straight up finds anti trans legislation #same w the chik fil a guys y’all will still eat those nuggets bc your gay friend worked their once #and the ceo actively funds conversion therapy you all disgust me #anygays…#you can like the Harry Potter movies and old books but quit actively buying merch theme parks and future media #that supports her when you know where it’s going!!#like we didn’t know as kids now we do

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zarafey · 1 year

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Austria coming in with another masterful execution of law!

Now that the covid mask mandate isn't valid anymore we revert back to a law that got approved in 2019 I think... Its a law that prohibits you from masking your face! (literally just made bc of Islamophobia)... So now it's illegal in Austria to wear a mask in public! But also at the same time required to wear a mask if you tested positive! And when your in like a hospital and retirement homes! So now if you wanna wear a mask you need a doctor's note so that you are allowed to in public! :D

#Public includes stuff like trains and busses. University. Most Workplaces.#Not like it's still also a good idea to wear a mask even if you just have a cold or sth so you don't infect ppl etc #It's literally so dumb... Like last year it was still 'its illegal to not wear a mask' now it's illegal to do that?? What???#The law was a dumb law from the start they should have just removed it or at least work on removing it #I really hope the votes next year get our politics more normal again bc it was just absolute chaos the last few years #One dude tried to sell Austria to the Russians or sth like that and then that other dude took over and #Then ppl said that dude is also corrupt so there was an investigation and stuff so someone else took over #And then I think they didn't find something so a few other parties called to get him out of office and then he just quit I think or was #Bullied out and then we had a vote again but the other parties all had shit candidates for chancellor #And I think in the meantime we changed chancellor again as well??? Like I literally have no idea who was chancellor since Kurz (2nd dude)#And then in the middle of covid our health minister also quit I think? 😂😂#Oh and also a satire party (the beer party!) was really popular as well and that dude (Marco pogo) ran for president #Like he didn't get it but still he got like 3rd place with 8% of all votes #It's just all a fkn mess #OH RIGHT and then there was also a thing with an old Nazi song book that was used in the youth group of one party or sth like that #But I honestly can't remember if that was pre or post the Ibiza incident (selling to Russia thing)#Also I haven't fact checked anything in these notes. Be aware that it's 3am and I've been awake for 22 hours at this point.#And that my memory is bad so I might be conflating some stuff or miss remembering

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blunderpuff · 1 year

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an old lady came in today, followed by a frantic and hovering younger woman

Old Lady (to my coworker): “Can you see about a book I had placed on reserve?”

Younger Woman (to OL): “Ma’am, are you sure you’re alright?”

OL (to coworker): “I think it was in last week, but I didn’t get a phone call...”

YW (to OL): “I have my insurance card in my truck, are you sure you’re okay?”

OL (to coworker): “Oh, do you have a paper towel? I’ve gotten mud on your counter... I just got hit by a car.”

Me and my coworker, who had been trying to parse this relationship: “?!?!?!?!?!!?”

The Younger Woman had side-swiped the Older Lady in the parking lot and knocked her down, and the Older Lady’s priority was literally the book she put on hold. O_O

#library #the Older Lady had been walking a straight line towards the library and the truck was cruising next to her #but the OL stepped to the side to avoid slush/snow chunk in the parking lot and walked into the broad side of the YW's truck #the OL seemed to be okay but shaken and we kind of bullied her into sitting in a chair and telling us her dtr's phone number #so we called and texted the dtr who luckily lives in town and got there in about 20 minutes #and my supe called the 911 dispatch and i guess absolutely nothing else was happening in town bc the ambo was there in literally 1 minute #and fire came too (they like to feel useful) and a police traffic officer came to get statements and stuff #the OL was like 'i'll drive myself home' and i was like 'I WILL DRIVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL MYSELF'#the paramedics were absolutely wonderful with this lady. they were so gentle and kind (she was easy to be kind to... but still.)#and after all that?? the OL's book and come and gone but the phone notifications glitched last week and didn't alert anyone #so that poor OL didn't even have a book to read in the emergency room (her dtr and son-in-law came to get her)#my brother (also a paramedic) once ran a call for an older lady who was having chest pain and was afraid she had a heart attack #it turns out she did NOT have a heart attack-- she had been scrubbing her bathtub and the pressure from leaning on the side of the tub #LITERALLY BROKE ONE OF HER RIBS and she didn't know it until later that evening when it started hurting to breathe #so even though our Old Lady today didn't think anything was broken... :| she's 81. so yeah we harangued her into going to the hospital #'what did you do today merry?' 'i bullied an old woman into going to the hospital'#long tags

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a-nam · 2 years

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I love reading reviews for books I like the ppl are like "it's about someone who is realising how disconnected they are from the people around them" like yeah:) I picked up on the theme too

#its specially in the context of Irish generational trauma #takes place in dublin/wexford late 90s #the guys dad and all his relatives were in the revolutionary and civil wars #and when he grows up there's still war but its out of sight out of mind #in the book hes a member of one of the worst political parties in Ireland and hes an old man enforcing encredibly catholic anti female laws #hes also a bad husband and father #but when i read him im like hes just like me i also feel incredinly isolated in myself and divorced from the consequences of my actions #i hate him i love him i cry for him if he was real i would assassinate him #so many people are still like him but his type is no longer as mainstream i hope

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notmoreflippingelves · 5 months

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After reminding myself yet again, that contrary to my wishes, Cosmo Brown/Lina Lamont ( both from Singin' in the Rain) does not in fact exist., my brain has frantically and bizarrely decided that it needs to find a way to make Perry Mason/Lina Lamont work.

#as if we needed any more proof that i am secretly a seventy-year-old trapped in a millenial's body #i'm most familiar with the perry mason books tbh and most of them are set in like 1930s-1940s so it could work out timeline wise #the part where lina is like 'i could sue you for the whole studio' well...that but the lawyer she hires is perry mason #cause even tho he's more of criminal law attorney; she will only have the BEST in los angeles and he is undeniably the best #also she was probably like the way i was treated is a CRIME so imma find the guy who knows about crimes #also would not put it past the studio head to be doing something uber shady; i mean he is inspired by l b mayer after all #so perry mason can discover the actual crimes as well #della street and/or paul drake are welcome to get in on this too #or even hamilton burger for that matter #cosmo and cathy are also welcome but only after they call don out on his shit first #perry mason #singin' in the rain #singing in the rain #lina lamont #i just think it would be nice if the smartest man in fictional los angeles helped lina realize that she's actually rather smart too #even if everyone writes her off as the dumb blonde with the annoying voice #still annoyed that only one (1) cosmo/lina fic exists #i mean i get it; cosmo/don/cathy is practically canon so ofc it gets the most love from the tiny fandom #but like...have you considered that don's only redeeming quality is gene kelly's face?#and cathy/lina/cosmo is the ot3 that we all actually deserve

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mostlysignssomeportents · 9 months

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Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

My next book is The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation: it’s a Big Tech disassembly manual that explains how to disenshittify the web and bring back the old good internet. The hardcover comes from Verso on Sept 5, but the audiobook comes from me — because Amazon refuses to sell my audio:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation

Amazon owns Audible, the monopoly audiobook platform that controls >90% of the audio market. They require mandatory DRM for every book sold, locking those books forever to Amazon’s monopoly platform. If you break up with Amazon, you have to throw away your entire audiobook library.

That’s a hell of a lot of leverage to hand to any company, let alone a rapacious monopoly that ran a program targeting small publishers called “Project Gazelle,” where execs were ordered to attack indie publishers “the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle”:

https://www.businessinsider.com/sadistic-amazon-treated-book-sellers-the-way-a-cheetah-would-pursue-a-sickly-gazelle-2013-10

[Image ID: Journalist and novelist Doctorow (Red Team Blues) details a plan for how to break up Big Tech in this impassioned and perceptive manifesto….Doctorow’s sense of urgency is contagious -Publishers Weekly]

I won’t sell my work with DRM, because DRM is key to the enshittification of the internet. Enshittification is why the old, good internet died and became “five giant websites filled with screenshots of the other four” (h/t Tom Eastman). When a tech company can lock in its users and suppliers, it can drain value from both sides, using DRM and other lock-in gimmicks to keep their business even as they grow ever more miserable on the platform.

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

[Image ID: A brilliant barn burner of a book. Cory is one of the sharpest tech critics, and he shows with fierce clarity how our computational future could be otherwise -Kate Crawford, author of The Atlas of AI”]

The Internet Con isn’t just an analysis of where enshittification comes from: it’s a detailed, shovel-ready policy prescription for halting enshittification, throwing it into reverse and bringing back the old, good internet.

How do we do that? With interoperability: the ability to plug new technology into those crapulent, decaying platform. Interop lets you choose which parts of the service you want and block the parts you don’t (think of how an adblocker lets you take the take-it-or-leave “offer” from a website and reply with “How about nah?”):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

But interop isn’t just about making platforms less terrible — it’s an explosive charge that demolishes walled gardens. With interop, you can leave a social media service, but keep talking to the people who stay. With interop, you can leave your mobile platform, but bring your apps and media with you to a rival’s service. With interop, you can break up with Amazon, and still keep your audiobooks.

So, if interop is so great, why isn’t it everywhere?

Well, it used to be. Interop is how Microsoft became the dominant operating system:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

[Image ID: Nobody gets the internet-both the nuts and bolts that make it hum and the laws that shaped it into the mess it is-quite like Cory, and no one’s better qualified to deliver us a user manual for fixing it. That’s The Internet Con: a rousing, imaginative, and accessible treatise for correcting our curdled online world. If you care about the internet, get ready to dedicate yourself to making interoperability a reality. -Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine]

It’s how Apple saved itself from Microsoft’s vicious campaign to destroy it:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

Every tech giant used interop to grow, and then every tech giant promptly turned around and attacked interoperators. Every pirate wants to be an admiral. When Big Tech did it, that was progress; when you do it back to Big Tech, that’s piracy. The tech giants used their monopoly power to make interop without permission illegal, creating a kind of “felony contempt of business model” (h/t Jay Freeman).

The Internet Con describes how this came to pass, but, more importantly, it tells us how to fix it. It lays out how we can combine different kinds of interop requirements (like the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Massachusetts’s Right to Repair law) with protections for reverse-engineering and other guerrilla tactics to create a system that is strong without being brittle, hard to cheat on and easy to enforce.

What’s more, this book explains how to get these policies: what existing legislative, regulatory and judicial powers can be invoked to make them a reality. Because we are living through the Great Enshittification, and crises erupt every ten seconds, and when those crises occur, the “good ideas lying around” can move from the fringes to the center in an eyeblink:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/12/only-a-crisis/#lets-gooooo

[Image ID: Thoughtfully written and patiently presented, The Internet Con explains how the promise of a free and open internet was lost to predatory business practices and the rush to commodify every aspect of our lives. An essential read for anyone that wants to understand how we lost control of our digital spaces and infrastructure to Silicon Valley’s tech giants, and how we can start fighting to get it back. -Tim Maughan, author of INFINITE DETAIL]

After all, we’ve known Big Tech was rotten for years, but we had no idea what to do about it. Every time a Big Tech colossus did something ghastly to millions or billions of people, we tried to fix the tech company. There’s no fixing the tech companies. They need to burn. The way to make users safe from Big Tech predators isn’t to make those predators behave better — it’s to evacuate those users:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/18/urban-wildlife-interface/#combustible-walled-gardens

I’ve been campaigning for human rights in the digital world for more than 20 years; I’ve been EFF’s European Director, representing the public interest at the EU, the UN, Westminster, Ottawa and DC. This is the subject I’ve devoted my life to, and I live my principles. I won’t let my books be sold with DRM, which means that Audible won’t carry my audiobooks. My agent tells me that this decision has cost me enough money to pay off my mortgage and put my kid through college. That’s a price I’m willing to pay if it means that my books aren’t enshittification bait.

But not selling on Audible has another cost, one that’s more important to me: a lot of readers prefer audiobooks and 9 out of 10 of those readers start and end their searches on Audible. When they don’t find an author there, they assume no audiobook exists, period. It got so bad I put up an audiobook on Amazon — me, reading an essay, explaining how Audible rips off writers and readers. It’s called “Why None of My Audiobooks Are For Sale on Audible”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

[Image ID: Doctorow has been thinking longer and smarter than anyone else I know about how we create and exchange value in a digital age. -Douglas Rushkoff, author of Present Shock]

To get my audiobooks into readers’ ears, I pre-sell them on Kickstarter. This has been wildly successful, both financially and as a means of getting other prominent authors to break up with Amazon and use crowdfunding to fill the gap. Writers like Brandon Sanderson are doing heroic work, smashing Amazon’s monopoly:

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/guest-editorial-cory-doctorow-is-a-bestselling-author-but-audible-wont-carry-his-audiobooks/

And to be frank, I love audiobooks, too. I swim every day as physio for a chronic pain condition, and I listen to 2–3 books/month on my underwater MP3 player, disappearing into an imaginary world as I scull back and forth in my public pool. I’m able to get those audiobooks on my MP3 player thanks to Libro.fm, a DRM-free store that supports indie booksellers all over the world:

https://blog.libro.fm/a-qa-with-mark-pearson-libro-fm-ceo-and-co-founder/

Producing my own audiobooks has been a dream. Working with Skyboat Media, I’ve gotten narrators like @wilwheaton, Amber Benson, @neil-gaiman and Stefan Rudnicki for my work:

https://craphound.com/shop/

[Image ID: “This book is the instruction manual Big Tech doesn’t want you to read. It deconstructs their crummy products, undemocratic business models, rigged legal regimes, and lies. Crack this book and help build something better. -Astra Taylor, author of Democracy May Not Exist, but We’ll Miss It When Its Gone”]

But for this title, I decided that I would read it myself. After all, I’ve been podcasting since 2006, reading my own work aloud every week or so, even as I traveled the world and gave thousands of speeches about the subject of this book. I was excited (and a little trepedatious) at the prospect, but how could I pass up a chance to work with director Gabrielle de Cuir, who has directed everyone from Anne Hathaway to LeVar Burton to Eric Idle?

Reader, I fucking nailed it. I went back to those daily recordings fully prepared to hate them, but they were good — even great (especially after my engineer John Taylor Williams mastered them). Listen for yourself!

https://archive.org/details/cory_doctorow_internet_con_chapter_01

I hope you’ll consider backing this Kickstarter. If you’ve ever read my free, open access, CC-licensed blog posts and novels, or listened to my podcasts, or come to one of my talks and wished there was a way to say thank you, this is it. These crowdfunders make my DRM-free publishing program viable, even as audiobooks grow more central to a writer’s income and even as a single company takes over nearly the entire audiobook market.

Backers can choose from the DRM-free audiobook, DRM-free ebook (EPUB and MOBI) and a hardcover — including a signed, personalized option, fulfilled through the great LA indie bookstore Book Soup:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation

What’s more, these ebooks and audiobooks are unlike any you’ll get anywhere else because they are sold without any terms of service or license agreements. As has been the case since time immemorial, when you buy these books, they’re yours, and you are allowed to do anything with them that copyright law permits — give them away, lend them to friends, or simply read them with any technology you choose.

As with my previous Kickstarters, backers can get their audiobooks delivered with an app (from libro.fm) or as a folder of MP3s. That helps people who struggle with “sideloading,” a process that Apple and Google have made progressively harder, even as they force audiobook and ebook sellers to hand over a 30% app tax on every dollar they make:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/red-team-blues-another-audiobook-that-amazon-wont-sell/posts/3788112

Enshittification is rotting every layer of the tech stack: mobile, payments, hosting, social, delivery, playback. Every tech company is pulling the rug out from under us, using the chokepoints they built between audiences and speakers, artists and fans, to pick all of our pockets.

The Internet Con isn’t just a lament for the internet we lost — it’s a plan to get it back. I hope you’ll get a copy and share it with the people you love, even as the tech platforms choke off your communities to pad their quarterly numbers.

Next weekend (Aug 4-6), I'll be in Austin for Armadillocon, a science fiction convention, where I'm the Guest of Honor:

https://armadillocon.org/d45/

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/2023/07/31/seize-the-means-of-computation/#the-internet-con

[Image ID: My forthcoming book 'The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation' in various editions: Verso hardcover, audiobook displayed on a phone, and ebook displayed on an e-ink reader.]

#pluralistic #trustbusting #big tech #gift guide #kickstarter #the internet con #books #audiobooks #enshitiffication #disenshittification #crowdfunders #seize the means of computation #audible #amazon #verso

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