From the fossil fuel industry’s perspective, the problem with solar isn’t that it’s different from oil and coal. Big Carbon isn’t shy about capex – they’re always blowing millions on cool, eye-wateringly expensive new gadgets for sucking old dead things out of the land and sea.
The problem is that the sun shines everywhere. The fossil fuel industry is many things – ardent génocidaires bent on the extinction of the human race for profit – but what they are above everything else is rent-seekers.
The whole point of an extraction economy is to control a key factor of production so that other people need to come to you in order to do everything else. The ideal oil economy consists of a series of holes in the ground surrounded by people with guns, owned by a cartel that chokes off supply to maximize profits while leaving a highly visible share of the world’s population shivering in the dark as a warning to anyone complaining about their prices.
Fossil fuels are valuable because they are a chokepoint on the entire productive economy. Anyone who’s seen the Mad Max documentaries knows how this goes: even the most mid, paunchy, straw-haired boomer with volcanic acne and shitty dress-sense can seize power over the whole population if he controls the supply of one of life’s essentials.
The fossil fuel industry is a magnet for people who love a chokepoint. These people are born tollboth operators and they never stop hunting for turnpikes.
Is Cory Doctorow cool? I read little brother as a kid, and I know anti-copywright and the enshittification stuff, but I don’t know his wider politics.
I think he’s a member of the DSA, so take that how you will. I think he has really good takes on a lot of things, and I get the sense reading him that he might have more radical views than he publicly articulates.
when he was on QAA the comments were absolutely flooded with shitlibs and I was suprised so I just assumed he was one too and never finish the ep (but will now do that)
i get the same vibe from Ed Zitron. more outwardly lib but hiding power level. he reveals it to get interviews and then becomes the most hostile interviewer imaginable i love it. although his exposure to Robert Fedvans (his boss) is likely sucking the life out of him
I have heard him use the phrase “socialism or barbarism” on several occasions.
He is absolutely not cool. He’s a western supremacist, does zero class analysis, and probably has less of an understanding of class struggle than the least-read person on here. Just read his book enshittification if you want receipts.