Five years ago, the science fiction writer Cory Doctorow published a short story whose plot might seem eerily similar to followers of the past few weeks’ news.
In Radicalized, one of four novellas comprising a science fiction novel of the same name, Doctorow charts the journey of a man who joins an online forum for fathers whose partners or children have been denied healthcare coverage by their insurers after his wife is diagnosed with breast cancer and denied coverage for an experimental treatment. Slowly, over the course of the story, the men of the forum become radicalized by their grief and begin plotting – and executing – murders of health insurance executives and politicians who vote against universal healthcare.
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https://bookshop.org/p/books/preferred-risk-frederik-pohl/11965396?ean=9781515403289
1955 novel about insurance companies taking over the world.
Just read the whole novel in less than 24 hours. My god it is good.
The story's themes are:
- Enshitification and product subscriptions
- Police brutality and racism
- Radicalization over medical costs
- Doomsday prepping
Cliche, but I could not put it down.