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Brings to mind the book Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. I far prefer non-DRM media and avoid buying books with it. TOR publishes some non-DRM books, for one.

Brings to mind the book Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. I far prefer non-DRM media and avoid buying books with it. TOR publishes some non-DRM books, for one. There is DRM on public library ebooks, fine for now, but it feels like a symptom of a flawed system. Assuming most people want to live with a sense of purpose, and some find that purpose in making art (stories in whatever form), I'd rather a system in which we're more-free to follow a creative path and the barriers to learning from those stories is lower. Might be that a healthy baseline is small communities making art together (think hunter-gatherer community singing, dancing, playing instruments, making sculpture, drawing, and telling stories, no busking and no locked doors, unless an unwelcome stranger comes along). What would it look like to maintain some level of global electronic connectedness and significantly lower the barrier to accessing art? Is the current public-library model in the USA enough? From my experience with low-income high-school students afraid to enter a library because their parents borrowed a bunch of materials on the student card and racked up hundreds in late fees, there's room for improvement. And then there's the question of what's a healthy balance between work and leisure? We're riding a wonderful wave of petroleum for now, and I'm really enjoying keeping up with distant friends via co-op videogames, but I accept that it's icing on the cake of life. Sitting around a handmade wooden table in a makeshift shack playing chess by firelight is a few layers back down to earth.

naikrovek 4y ago
Cory is the most "foam-at-the-mouth" person I have ever even heard of. Cory reads about something, stops at the very first hint of something that would inhibit his freedom, and writes extremely long and completely misguided manifestos that go directly away from the conclusion he would reach if he had even partial understanding of the situations he writes about. the very worst thing about him is that he sounds hinged, people read his stuff, when he is in fact very much unhinged almost all of the time. i dislike DRM too, a lot, but it exists for very good reasons. the public has repeatedly and strenuously shown every single company that produces anything that can be copied that large armies of people will do the copying and take the content without paying even a single penny. 25% of all PC video game players have pirated more than 50 games. approximately 1/3 of all PC gamers pirate games (as of 2016)[0]. Reminder that the video game market is larger than the movie and music industries combined, and that market does not include the games that are pirated. [0] https://www.pcgamer.com/pc-piracy-survey-results-35-percent-of-pc-gamers-pirate/ https://www.pcgamer.com/pc-piracy-survey-results-35-percent-...
astrange 4y ago
Tor publishes exclusively trashy sci-fi - Honor Harrington, which has the most confused politics I’ve ever read, is probably one of their best written ones. I hope that’s not the only kind of book you’re letting yourself read.
- poofsoda 4y ago
  Doesn’t TOR also publish works by Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, Douglas Adams, Philip K. Dick, and others? I wouldn’t agree with characterizing those authors as “exclusively trashy sci-fi..” I am not sure if your comment means “of the sci fi they publish, it is all trashy” (implying they publish some non-sci fi that is not necessarily trashy) or “the only works they publish are sci fi and all of said sci fi is trashy”. Either way, I would bet most readers wouldn’t consider these authors to be trashy. I think the original point that one can obtain enjoyable reads in DRM-free form from TOR still stands, even if not all books they publish are exemplary.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Wait, I was thinking of Baen. Robert Jordan is trashy fantasy though, yes. Once you figure out what his fetishes are you can see how much of the stuff in Wheel of Time is secretly a sex thing. (Several of the magic techniques are BDSM, the Aes Sedai "pillow friends", any time anyone uses compulsion, the weird amounts of women talking about spanking each other…) Brandon Sanderson didn't do any of that when he took over, I guess he didn't notice it.

naikrovek 4y ago

Cory is the most "foam-at-the-mouth" person I have ever even heard of. Cory reads about something, stops at the very first hint of something that would inhibit his freedom, and writes extremely long and completely misguided manifestos that go directly away from the conclusion he would reach if he had even partial understanding of the situations he writes about. the very worst thing about him is that he sounds hinged, people read his stuff, when he is in fact very much unhinged almost all of the time. i dislike DRM too, a lot, but it exists for very good reasons. the public has repeatedly and strenuously shown every single company that produces anything that can be copied that large armies of people will do the copying and take the content without paying even a single penny. 25% of all PC video game players have pirated more than 50 games. approximately 1/3 of all PC gamers pirate games (as of 2016)[0]. Reminder that the video game market is larger than the movie and music industries combined, and that market does not include the games that are pirated. [0] https://www.pcgamer.com/pc-piracy-survey-results-35-percent-of-pc-gamers-pirate/ https://www.pcgamer.com/pc-piracy-survey-results-35-percent-...

astrange 4y ago

Tor publishes exclusively trashy sci-fi - Honor Harrington, which has the most confused politics I’ve ever read, is probably one of their best written ones. I hope that’s not the only kind of book you’re letting yourself read.

poofsoda 4y ago
Doesn’t TOR also publish works by Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, Douglas Adams, Philip K. Dick, and others? I wouldn’t agree with characterizing those authors as “exclusively trashy sci-fi..” I am not sure if your comment means “of the sci fi they publish, it is all trashy” (implying they publish some non-sci fi that is not necessarily trashy) or “the only works they publish are sci fi and all of said sci fi is trashy”. Either way, I would bet most readers wouldn’t consider these authors to be trashy. I think the original point that one can obtain enjoyable reads in DRM-free form from TOR still stands, even if not all books they publish are exemplary.
- astrange 4y ago
  Wait, I was thinking of Baen. Robert Jordan is trashy fantasy though, yes. Once you figure out what his fetishes are you can see how much of the stuff in Wheel of Time is secretly a sex thing. (Several of the magic techniques are BDSM, the Aes Sedai "pillow friends", any time anyone uses compulsion, the weird amounts of women talking about spanking each other…) Brandon Sanderson didn't do any of that when he took over, I guess he didn't notice it.