'Little Brother' and What Orwell Got Wrong - Cory Doctorow

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2010/05/18/Cory_Doctorow_For_the_Win

Boing Boing co-editor and sci-fi author Cory Doctorow explains the idea behind his novel Little Brother, which he describes as "related" to George Orwell's 1984 in that both explore similar themes of technology and control. Although Doctorow argues that Orwell may have underestimated the ability of technology to empower individuals, he warns that future technologies may allow governments more control over their citizens -- and parents more control over their children -- than ever before.

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Millions of people play multiplayer online games, battling to win virtual "gold," jewels, and precious artifacts. Meanwhile, others seek to exploit this vast shadow economy, running electronic sweatshops in the world's poorest countries, where "gold farmers," harvest virtual treasure for their employers to sell to First World gamers who spend real money to skip to higher levels.

In rural India, Mala's leadership skills in virtual combat have earned her the title of "General Robotwalla." In Shenzen, Matthew is building his own successful gold-farming team. Leonard lives in Southern California but spends his nights fighting virtual battles alongside his buddies in Asia. They will all become entangled with Big Sister Nor, who will build them into a movement that can challenge the status quo.

The forces arrayed against them are willing to use any means to protect their power -- including blackmail, extortion, infiltration, violence, and even murder. To survive, Big Sister's people must outthink the system. This will lead them to devise a plan to crash the economy of every virtual world at once -- a scheme that ends up being the most fun game of all. - Books Inc

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing (boingboing.net), and a contributor to Wired, Popular Science, Make, the New York Times, and many other newspapers, magazines and websites. A visiting senior lecturer at the Open University, he was formerly Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties. In 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.

His novels are published by HarperCollins UK and simultaneously released on the Internet under Creative Commons licenses that encourage their re-use and sharing, a move that increases his sales by enlisting his readers to help promote his work. He has won the Locus and Sunburst Awards, and been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• 1984
• privacy
• state
• government
• national
• security
• control
• private
• free
• information
• status
• quo
• fora.tv
• foratv
• fora
• tv

[nyomythus]

Doctorow may not understand the depths of the powerless classes.

[death9719]

that would be Orwell's communism wanting to find the powerful taking out the weak

[mellifiedman23]

@chao1212

Two sides of a coin really... Depends presumably on where your values rest... One side is comfort and security, the other side is life & chance. I suppose it's all a matter of what the individual perceives as being more important to themselves. All I can say is if the government wants to get to know you, they will... Bones & all.

[mellifiedman23]

As a former civilian employee of the US government, I can honestly say that this gentleman has no idea what tech & tac both government branch and private industrial militia sectors are utilising in their "war against terror". Your liberty is a lie, and you're only allowed to chance.

[MarmaladeINFP]

@djdanno13 My analysis above was limited. I don't have a clear opinion. I do think there are problems with our present system, but I wouldn't claim to have any solutions. On a basic level, I do think the economy needs to be brought down to the level of intrinsic value. Intrinsic value backing money. Intrinsic value of work and ownership. I'm attracted to anarcho-syndicalism. As for gold, here is a more recent analysis:

benjamindavidsteele.wordpress. com/2010/09/05/us-currency-gol­d-guns/

[djdanno13]

@MarmaladeINFP

as well as being a finite resource. The government then backs their notes with this resource without changing the ratio. This prevents the government from making money by just printing it. The US government currently has no limiting factor on how much they can spend. The gold standard is there to limit the amount of dollars a country can spend. If you want to know more just email me.

[djdanno13]

@MarmaladeINFP

Your ideas are sound except for the fact that 1. It's is highly improbable that a vast gold resource would suddenly be found on the level of billions, also the fact that one entity can never control the entire gold market. It's been tried before, and failed horribly. Also gold has forever held intrinsic value. But ultimately you're missing the point of a gold standard. It doesn't have to be gold, or silver or whatever. It has to be SOMETHING that holds intrinsic value

[MarmaladeINFP]

@tubub The problem with having a single resource backing our money is that such resources are constantly changing in value. Backing our money with gold doesn't solve any problems unless you can control the value of the gold which can only be done by controlling the resource. For example, diamonds are expensive because one company controls most of the world's diamond market. If we discovered vast deposits of gold & the market wasn't controlled, would gold-backed money suddenly become worthless?

[tubub]

@MarmaladeINFP

True, yet why not make it an iron or a steel standard then? Why does it need to be the "Gold Standard"? And, even in light of history's perspective on fiat money, don't the facets of our complex civilization compensate for past botches in fiat money? Yet, most importantly, if we were to revert to the gold standard, how can we assure foreign nations to consistently supply us with the gold to support our growing economy? It's basically trading one big problem with another.

[DaedalusReturned]

@oiuoiu988 & @MarmaladeINFP

God damn, that has to be the most epically long discussion I've ever seen on YouTube.  You two should just write papers for publish in some scholarly journal than duking it out here on YouTube, haha.