Cory Doctorow

But try and imagine a different set of social relations for the technologies around us now, using futuristic parables.

We're not so much interested in what the gadget does, but who it does it for and who it does it to.

And I'm of the opinion that we could have friends on the internet without Mark Zuckerberg listening in on our conversations.

And that we could have phones that worked without Tim Cook deciding which apps we can use and charging everyone who makes an app that we love 30 cents out of every dollar we spend.

And then we can search the web without Satya Nadella or Sundar Pinchai knowing what color underwear we're wearing, right?

That we can like cleave off the parts that we don't like.

We can take this disgusting pre-feast menu that's got 18 courses that even a dog wouldn't eat.

And we can throw them away and make an a la carte offer where we just take the two things that we like and get rid of all the crap that tech bosses want us to like.

and anyone who's got like a one favorite, it's, it's a little, it's always a little sketchy.

Usually the one favorite book is like the Bible or Atlas Shrugged or Mein Kampf.

So I'm, I'm a, I'm not like a one book guy.

You can see behind me.

I made many thousands of books, guys, but, um,

If you want a very prescient book about the way we're relating to technology today, there's a wonderful old novel from, I believe, the early 90s by Bruce Sterling called Distraction about high-tech networked politics in the age of...

kind of crazy performative politicians.

And Bruce is just an incredible writer.

But he is, in this book, like on fire.

So Distraction by Bruce Sterling.

And it's Sterling like Sterling Silver, S-T-E-R-L-I-N-G.

He's a great guy.