Technology

You’re getting downvoted pretty hard, but for what it’s worth that’s broadly the impression I got when I started reading some of his books. I first read Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free and really enjoyed it. As I checked out some other stuff written by him I gradually lost interest. It reminded me of Dave Eggers stuff, starts off strong then gets really preachy and collapses under its own weight.

Doctorow seems like a pretty good sci-fi writer, and extremely knowledgeable on copyright/IP issues. He seems to be a little bit extra though, I mean he pulled a Musk and named his kid “Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow”. Like do you bro, but that’s a lot to saddle a kid with. They might grow up to like it, but naming a kid is by its nature something they can’t consent to, so going that eccentric with it kind of indicates a sense of hubris to me, plus it kind of reads like someone screaming “look at me and what I chose to name my child”. I get that a parent/child relationship is inherently hierarchal to an extent, especially with an infant, but like bro. There’s even and xkcd poking fun at him ffs.

Anyway I kind of read a lot of his more hot take blog posts the same way. It’s like the guy has a solidly grounded world view and personal ethics, but chooses to create intentionally polarizing content and winds up semi-alienating some people who are otherwise ideologically aligned with him. I mean I guess that’s how you hustle as a blogger though?

All that being said, it does seem like his stuff raises awareness of real societal issues for people who otherwise wouldn’t realize they existed, and are usually explained clearly and succinctly enough to make non-technical people understand the technical issues at hand, like with (ugh) “enshittification”. I can’t really hate on the guy if he’s leaving a net positive impact on the world.