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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Over the weekend, I did an interview about my forthcoming book The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (a book about being a better AI critic), and the interviewer said she was surprised that I wasn't an AI booster, based on my demographics and work history:
I could see where she was coming from. I encountered computers in the mid-seventies, as a small child. My first computer was a CARDIAC, a working, Turing-complete, mechanical computer made entirely of cardboard, that I spent endless hours with:
Then I graduated to a teletype terminal and acoustic coupler connected to a minicomputer at the University of Toronto. My mom, a kindergarten teacher, used to smuggle home 1,000' rolls of paper towel from the kids' bathroom. I'd get 1,000' feet of computing up one side, then another 1,000' down the other side, then I'd carefully re-roll the paper towel so she could put it back in the bathroom for the kids to dry their hands on.
After that, I got an Apple ][+ in 1979, and shortly thereafter acquired a modem, and that was it: I was hooked for life. I became an amateur programmer, then a professional programmer. I hosted forums on dial-up BBSes where I distributed software and offered support to strangers who wanted to connect their computers to the internet. I got a job as a gopher developer, then a web developer, then a CIO-for-hire, helping wire up small businesses and connect them to the net. Eventually, I co-founded a free/open source software startup, before transitioning to 25 years as a digital rights activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. And for most of that time, I was energetically writing science fiction, eventually becoming associated with a school sometimes called "post-cyberpunk":
The force that energized all this work was a dialectical one, the contradiction that powered cyberpunk literature itself. For all that cyberpunk was undeniably enamored with the coolness and combustibility of new technology, it was also terrified of how technology could be a force for oppression, surveillance and control. As William Gibson says, "cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion."
Gibson's more famous quote, of course, is "the street finds its own use for things." In Gibson's novels (and in my own life in technology) all the most interesting things happen when users of technology (often without formal training or credentials) find ways to adapt the technology they use to suit their needs:
This is why I remain an ardent fan of Hypercard, Scratch and other meta-tools that are designed to allow non-programmers to write software that exactly conforms to their desires. Whatever the apps produced by these tools lack in sophistication and efficiency is more than offset by the fact that they give everyday people the power to directly control the tools they rely upon.
If "epistemic humility" means anything, it means acknowledging that no amount of "requirements gathering" can capture the needs of people totally unlike yourself as faithfully as those users can capture their own needs. Giving people the tools to produce their own software is always going to make tools â vernacular, idiosyncratic, homespun â that are more suited to their own hands and minds than anything a technologist working on their behalf could make.
The ancient dictum of "nothing about us without us" â born in 16th century Poland and taken up by the modern disability rights movement â asserts the right of people to control their own living conditions, and also the unique capacity of people to understand their own needs. You know what's even better than being consulted on the design of the technology you use? Having direct control over that technology!
This is why I was so suspicious of the iPad. The iPad's much-lauded "ease of use" was entirely about how easy it was to use an iPad to consume technology. But the iPad remains the single most user-innovation-hostile technology in modern history, a device designed to make it impossible to produce technology without permission from a remorseless multinational corporation. This is cyberpunk as a demand, not a warning:
The technology I've championed all my life is technology that gives more control to its users. One of my immutable precepts is that people who are different from me know things I can't know, and the only way I can get the benefit of their unique knowledge and perspective is if they are free to make and share things that matter to them. As Dan Gillmor said, back when he was inventing the study of citizen journalism, "My readers know more than I do":
And while I am broadly very skeptical of AI, and deeply alarmed by the proliferation of "vibe coded" software in production environments, vibe coding for personal projects is a useful and exciting addition to the lineage of tools that let computer users decide how their computers will work. For people making personal projects, vibe coding extends the power of shell scripting, cron jobs, Applescript, and other desktop automation tools to a wider audience.
One of the journalists I spoke to last week about my book described how he had vibe coded an app that showed him an alert every time a plane flew over his house, giving the tail number and other details of the flight. This is information that I have no need for, no interest in, and that I'm therefore excited to learn about, because its very existence affirms that the world is full of people who are delightfully, irreducibly, amazingly different from me, and moreover, that their unique needs can be directly met using their imaginations and their personal computers.
I recently sat down with my colleague Naomi Novik, a brilliant author who also co-founded Archive of Our Own. Naomi demoed her followup to AO3 for me: Wreccer, a system to help you find small groups of people with taste similar to your own, in order to facilitate media recommendations within that group â a kind of personal, relationship-driven alternative to massive, centralized, monolithic algorithmic recommendation systems:
https://github.com/wreccer
Naomi told me that Wreccer was being built using the same design ethos that the original Twitter embraced. When Twitter launched, it was an API first, and the official Twitter front end was built on that API â but anyone could build their own front end for Twitter that worked in the way they wanted it to. Now, the word "anyone" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, because most people don't even know what an API is, and of the people who do, most of them were not capable of writing their own software front end for Twitter.
But Wreccer is being designed for the age of vibe coding, and the API will really allow anyone who uses the service to design their own interface to the system, one that elevates and centers the features they find useful and tucks away the ones they're not interested in. Your personal, custom front end could also bring in other data-sources â pulling in your Mastodon messages, for example, or even showing you an alert with the tail-number of any plane flying over your home.
This is the part of vibe coding that I'm quite excited about, but it's not the part the industry focuses on. Instead of hearing about how personal, homemade software utilities can be an end unto themselves, we hear about vibe coded projects as prototypes for commercial production code. We hear about clueless bosses vibe coding software products and services that run fine for one user on a siloed desktop computer, and then demanding to know why it takes 50 engineers a year to make the same thing work for millions of users on the public internet. We hear about people who vibe code and submit patches to free/open-source software projects with millions of users, overwhelming project maintainers with slop code that is riddled with security vulnerabilities.
Of course, there's an obvious reason why the industry wants to focus on the potential for vibe coded software to replace production code. The AI bubble has burned up $1.4t to date, while bringing in mere tens of billions of dollars per year, even as its unit economics grow steadily worse:
To keep the bubble inflated, AI hucksters must promise massive economic returns to the technology. They want investors to believe that vibe code is about to replace working programmers, who are skilled, high-waged, high-demand workers. Their pitch is that for every million dollars' worth of programmers that an AI salesman and a boss conspire to fire, half a million dollars will go to the AI company whose bots shit out that vibe code.
That's par for the course with the AI bubble, whose focus is entirely on how AI can centralize, control and homogenize our lives. Whereas early desktop publishing, web publishing and social media gave us a glorious higgledy-piggledy of chaotic, weird and transgressive hobbyist media and retina-searing designs, AI art and design are instantly recognizable at a thousand yards, and it all looks the same, boring, and washed:
AI companies have released open weight/open source models that can run on your own computer, but these are treated as side-shows and toys and demos. The real action, we're told, is in "frontier models," which is industry-speak for "a piece of software whose running costs exceed the GDP of most countries":
Perhaps this is why the dynamics of AI are so different from the early dynamics of the web. Early web users were workers, who demanded that their bosses allow them to use the web and so devolve more power to people doing their jobs. By contrast, today's most ardent AI boosters are bosses, who threaten workers who don't use AI enough in the course of their duties:
Where we do see idiosyncrasy emerging from AI usage, it's often terrible. AI can help you create a folie-a-un in which you and a chatbot team up to reinforce your delusions and drive you deeper into a world of dangerous mirage:
There's a (false) story that's told about people who championed the early internet: that we were blithely certain that technology could only be a force for good, and negligently disinterested in the possibility that technology could control, extract and harm. That's demonstrably untrue: recall cyberpunk's dualism of "the street finds its own use for things" and "cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion."
More true is to say that early internet champions were alive to the importance of the internet, and therefore both excited about the possibilities of the internet to deliver a world of connection, idiosyncrasy, love and solidarity; and about the danger of the internet as a dystopian system of surveillance and manipulation:
History isn't finished. Long after the AI bubble pops, there will be local models and people vibe coding homemade software that respond directly to their needs. The stuff we make on our own computers, for ourselves, is deplatformed from its inception. It's part of the life we can build in technology's "shadowy corners" that we used to just call "technology." The fact that this stuff is utterly unsuited to be production code makes it inherently unmonetizable. It's how the street finds its own use for things:
For all that cyberpunk was undeniably enamored with the coolness and combustibility of new technology, it was also terrified of how technology could be a force for oppression, surveillance and control. As William Gibson says, "cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion."
"This is why I was so suspicious of the iPad. The iPad's much-lauded "ease of use" was entirely about how easy it was to use an iPad to consume technology. But the iPad remains the single most user-innovation-hostile technology in modern history, a device designed to make it impossible to produce technology without permission from a remorseless multinational corporation."
its so awkward when people ask me why i dropped out and i have to be like "inadequate disability support" bc no one wants to hear this. they're always like i thought they had to provide that though isn't it the law? girl you might want to sit down i have some bad news about the litigation-based enforcement of the americans with disabilities act
then if i do say that theyre like, couldnt you sue? well theoretically maybe but not without spending more money than i have and putting myself through absolute hell. so no. no i can't.
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@creatingblackcharacters I found a doll line with natural hair! It's called Naturalistas, founded by DeeDee Wright-Ward. I thought it was really cool and wanted to share it with you. I ended up buying one (the Liya in pink) bc I like her and I wanted to support the business.
I didnt take a picture of them, but they sell more detailed outfits for the dolls too!
Very generally speaking, when you see a black man in a piece of media, be it tv show, movie, video game, etc. thereâs something you often see a lot of writers do. To go against the stereotype of black men (and black people in general) being dumb and lazy, youâll see this black male character being smart and an achiever. ďżź
The Black Nerd. A common character type, the nerd will always be very interested in all things nerdy: science, video games, mathematics, etc. In an continued effort to combat stereotypes, the Black Nerd will be lack athleticďżźism, probably being asthmatic (the nerdiest of conditions). The Black Nerd will dress smartly, suspenders and bow ties. Theyâll always talk smart too, using proper English with complex words.
Now, I donât have a problem with a black character being a nerd, indeed black people are a people; we arenât all the same and we all have varying personalities. The problem I have is that too often we see a distinct disconnect between Blackness and the Black Nerd. The Black Nerd doesnât listen to hip hop or rap, only classical music. The Black Nerd only has white friends, the only other black characters are into not nerdy stuff. The Black Nerd never ever uses AAVE at any time in any context.
And again I must say that Black people, not being a monolith, there are no hard fast rules to being Black. Iâm more than sure there are Black people like what Iâve described above, Iâm not saying itâs impossible; what Iâm getting at is that the only Black Nerd we see. There are Black Nerds that play basketball, that bump Kendrick Lamar, and use AAVE since itâs an ever changing dialect. Iâm just saying thereâs no one way of being a nerd and no one way of being Black.
[waving] Hi, hello, it's me, the person in the OP's screenshot! Is this a thing we're doing now?
Let's talk about why you see those checkmarks and why I don't hide them.
Mostly, you can read it here.
I understand we like to hunt people who express cringe ideas for sport, because it's a great 30-second sop to mop away the powerlessness that we all feel in modern late stage capitalism. That's a fantastic way to end up bitter, alone, and hollow - I've sure seen that play out over the years.
The current owner of tumblr sure seems to me to be a slop-addled egomaniac who's increasing irrelevance in the world of tech is eroding the myth that most tech ceo's have propped their egos up with - which wouldn't matter if the fallout didn't happen to land on so many people (and so many of those disproportionately trans). The best damning endorsement I can give is that he's a social network CEO that isn't throwing nazi salutes at fascist rallies or gutting public policy that will kill millions more or inciting racist pogroms, all as part of trying to find relevance. It sure puts a dirty fucking smog over all of this.
But also, you don't have tumblr at home. You don't have it anywhere else. Separate from what you may think of the owner of this site, it's a fucking wonder and miracle that this weird funky garden still exists at all in the endless suburban hell of green monoculture lawns on all side. And when it gets paved over for shareholder reasons or some other bullshit, there's not gonna be anything on the sides or periphery that will re-seed it elsewhere.
The days where another social network site that will let even half the shit we yell about here, with any reasonable large group interaction, are over.
I haven't grabbed any new checkmarks in a couple of years. But I'm not deleting them either, because this is all we really have left. I remember the boxed in and narrow fucking world before the internet, before dial up BBS's. Nobody knew shit about fuck, and it sucked and that's where we're getting herded in the direction of.
Figure out the right direction to throw a punch, for fuck's sake.
[small, tentative voice] I... think it's good actually? If people come back here from Twitter? And new people show up? Maybe it's awesome that more people want to be gremlins again? And... maybe more people will pay money to keep the hellsite going?
Maybe don't be dicks about it? Let people come in, and give them a little raccoon mask and teach them how to have grubby little raccoon paws.
Except for the brands. We will absolutely play hopscotch in their chest cavities.
Awright. So, I don't pull the "I'm old and I've seen shit so shut up and listen" card very often, but...
[text from Twitter user evacide: "Some of you have never had your home on the internet crumble beneath you like chalk, and it shows."]
You will realize that there are people you only know in a online space, and you will realize it when that space goes dark. You won't know the size and shape of space it takes up in your head and heart until it vanishes. Those little interactions on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even occasional basis mean nothing until they're gone, and suddenly there's a weird fucking hollow space when an icon on the other end of a screen just isn't there anymore - and not just one, but multitudes are gone.
You won't understand how you're mourning just a silly website, until you realize the way your day or week flowed around it like water around a boulder in a stream. Is it better or worse? That's not the question - how different is it? And how does that difference feel?
The first time a BBS I dialed into went dark, I realized there were people I enjoyed talking with that I would never chat with again. It's like they fell off the earth. "Were they friends" is not the question - suddenly there was a thunderclap of silence because people who had been there were suddenly gone, and I knew I would never ever talk with them again.
It's just a stupid hellsite until you realize it's all people. And you're a human animal who is hardwired to notice the absence of other humans. Capitalism foundationally sucks, but it is the foundation. Good or bad, right or wrong, money goes in and hellsite comes out. If money stops, hellsite goes away. You're looking at one of the last big bastions of old-school weirdness out there. They're not offering participatory monetization like ad-free and blaze to get rich, they're doing it to keep the lights on.
Some of you have never suddenly lost a social network, and it really shows.
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one of the worst things about fandom is when people headcanon a certain character as gay and suddenly that becomes the only valid, practically unofficial-official canon reading of that character's sexuality. gay. just gay. character has shown romantic or sexual desire for women? it's comphet, don't worry, he's still gay. character isn't interested in sex much at all? it's because he hasn't fucked a man, obviously. character has lots of women friends? they are the hags to his fag, he's gay, why are you even trying. and it all seems like a very Transformative and Woke way to read a character until you step back and realize how much biphobia, acephobia, misogyny, and transphobia are baked into the adamant refusal to accept The Character as anything other than gay. it's horrendous, actually. but you will get shot in the streets for this.
not to simp for a corporation but I love my Framework laptop so much. last week I accidentally sat on it and cracked the screen. I went to the manufacturer's website, ordered a new screen for a reasonable price, and when it arrived it took 10 minutes to install. no glue, no "warranty void" tamper seals, just a handful of screws that I only needed one screwdriver to turn. the new screen even came with some fun stickers that say things like "you should be able to fix your stuff". please please buy repair-friendly stuff when you can
March with us at Edinburgh pride 26'. We'll be meeting from 12:15 outside the Holyrood Park information centre.
Reject sex based segregation, join the fight for liberation. The EHRC seeks the social murder of trans people, not only by pushing us out of public life but by barring us from essential services. We must fight it at every turn.
Queer and trans liberation stands alongside and within the fight for racial justice and decolonisation. We reject the pink washing of genocidal states and corporations at home and abroad.
We march to remind those who move against us that they will have to go through us. We remember and recognise the hard fights which brought us what rights we have, and continue that fight for queer power and change.
Palestinians are indigenous to the Levant and the area that is now the state of Israel. They are genetically related to remains found at archeological sites in the area from before the Neolithic and they are related to Jewish populations in the Middle East. They have been there forever. Early Zionist writers acknowledged this. The myth that the Palestinian people are all âArab colonizersâ and therefore do not belong on the land is a convenient myth to villainize them using Islamophobic and racist rhetoric, it goes against scientific and historical fact and their own oral history.
there is no way to argue with zionists in good faith because they have had to turn their brain and critical thinking skills all the way off to maintain their argument. because what the fuck is this bullshit
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When you said in your Katherine Hepburn post that you wonder how many transmasculine people kept their identities close to their chest to be the wife or mother that they were supposed to be, I always think of my neighbor.
I live in an extremely Mormon community in rural Northern Utah. I came out as a trans man as a teenager, about 10 years ago. My neighborâ someone who I had always known as a traditional Mormon woman in her early 40s, a devout housewife, a mother of several children, a valued community member from a very important family in our area (her brother is literally the mayor of our town), and at most SLIGHTLY more reclusive and quiet than most of the bigshots in our communityâ quietly told me on their front porch one evening that they have always seen themself as a man.
They wistfully told me about their college years, where they were involved in the lesbian community, before in their early 20s realizing that it was âmoreâ than that. About how they only moved back home and got married after their college degree because the thought of being a disappointment to their family, and being disowned, felt impossible to cope with. So they got married to a man that they admit they donât feel any ounce of attraction towards, and had several kids, and theyâre not quite the pride to their parents as their siblings (due to being slightly more reclusive, not really having friends to speak of that arenât just church ladies that they work with, and, admittedly, always seeming a bit depressed to me). They said that they were proud of me for doing what I needed to do, though, and they were happy that my family at least wasnât disowning me.
Nobody else in our community knows. Not their family, not their husband, not their kids, not the people they do church outreach with.
And whenever I read stories of forgotten trans men, I always think of them. Theyâre still alive! Theyâre still here! And nobody but me will probably ever know! And if I hadnât come out in this tiny little community, Iâd never know either!
Idk. Sorry for the vent/rant. Thank you for listening. It crushes me to be the only one who knows them as a man, sometimes.
Thank you for sharing. These are the transmasculine stories we need to be telling more and louder.
andulkaphoto
theartofmadeline
titsay
jbbartram-illu
