Cory Doctorow – Little Brother

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist.

Cory is the MIT Media Lab’s Activist in Residence and a special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties.

He also holds an honorary doctorate in computer science from the Open University (UK), where he is a Visiting Professor.

00:00 Trailer.
01:57 Brian’s thoughts on the episode.
04:47 Brian’s Introduction.
05:24 Cory’s observations on the UK and World property market.
10:03 The impact upon the poor of rising property prices.
11:56 Pros and cons of living in Burbank, Los Angeles State.
15:13 View from America of the forthcoming Presidential election.
17:40 Five years on from ‘Trumpism’, what may be happening if we’re not digging through the rubble.
28:10 Cory fears a major risk is people’s nihilism, but the contradictions are not intractable
31:03 What connecting with characters and situations in books and allows people to do.
39:34 Authors and fanfic.
41:00 How Cory started writing and persevering when feeling uninspired.
44.57 How Cory manages to be such a prolific writer.
47:24 Taking a broader vision of what it means to be published.
53:02 Difference between a blog and publishing.
56:00 Publishing, the discipline of doing something for someone else.
58:18 Team building and team performance.
1:01:00 Managing daily family routines around a working couple.
1:02:20 Cory’s role at MIT Media Lab and the Forbidden Research project.
1:14:53 What Aaron Swartz’ suicide has emphasized.
1:22:14 Using the hill climbing algorithm analogy when there seems no way forward.
1:23:38 Cory defines his role as an activist.
1:24:24 The reasons for Cory’s involvement in the SOPA and Mozilla campaigns.
1:34:26 A future world where our assets cease to be ours.
1:35:39 What in future we should be aware of from Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft.
1:39:51 Two fundamental principles for future use of computers and systems.
1:41:48 Which vision of the future are we heading towards, ‘1984’ or ‘Brave New World’?
1:42:32 Cory’s view of the future for social media.
1:48:28 What the future looks like in Cory’s next book ‘Walk Away’.
1:51:19 Burning Man, Black Rock Desert, Nevada.
1:51:28 A post-scarcity society.
1:52:42 What is meant by positional goods.
1:55:45 Example of a post-scarcity world.
1:58:09 Exciting initial response to ‘Walk Away’.
1:58:42 Success Secrets?
1:59:33 Does Cory ever fear for his safety or feel watched?
2:04:07 Phone call to the 20 year old Cory Doctorow.
2:05:13 Best advice ever received.
2:06:04 Advice to young people who don’t want to have privacy issues in later life.
2:09:36 Brian’s summing up.

Cory Doctorow links:
Cory Doctorow website
Cory Doctorow on Twitter
Cory Doctorow Blog
Authors at Google Talk
Cory Doctorow TEDx and here.
Cory Doctorow on Wikipedia

Cory Doctorow Books:
Little Brother
Other books by Cory Doctorow

Topics discussed:
Burbank, California
Overton window
Arab Spring
Muslim Brotherhood
Douglas Adams – A Towel quote
Brexit
Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA)
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)
De-identification
‘The Planet Remade’ by Oliver Morton
‘Make Room! Make Room!’ by Harry Harrison
Sermon on the Mount
‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ by George Orwell
Yes Minister – Big Brother episode
Romeo and Juliet
Fan Fiction
‘Messy’ by Tim Harford
MIT Media Lab
Six Apart
Creative Commons
MIT Forbidden Research Project
‘Nightwork’
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Hill climbing algorithm
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
Mozilla
Digital Economy Act 2010
Digital rights management (DRM)
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
European Copyright Directive 2001 (EUCD)
Netflix
LoveFilm
Radio-frequency identification (RFI:D)
Machine vision
Edible ink printing
Printed circuit board
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
WarGames (film)
‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley
Entertainment law
‘It’s Complicated’ by danah boyd
Craps
‘Capital in the Twenty First Century’ by Thomas Piketty
Burning Man, Nevada
Post-scarcity economy
Napster
BitTorrent
Positional good
Black Lives Matter
Simply Secure
Tor Browser
GnuPG
Signal
Wickr

People mentioned in this episode:
Hillary Clinton
Donald Trump
Hosni Mubarak
Bernie Sanders
Nigel Farage
Robert A Heinlein
Oliver Morton
George Orwell
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Gene Rodenberry
Harry Harrison
Tony Blair
Irvine Welsh
Steven Pressfield
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Tim Harford
Joi Ito
Timothy Leary
Aaron Swartz
Star Simpson
Reid Hoffman
Chelsea Manning
Tim Ferriss
Tim Berners-Lee
Dan Kaminsky
William Blackstone
Danah Boyd
David Graeber
Edward Snowden
Andreas Antonopoulos
Barton Gellman
Steve Martin
Annie Machon
Jesselyn Radack