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.
Pretty cool read. The material bill has been a big focus of environmentally conscious critics of the solar rollout, so it’s nice to hear that the mineral footprint won’t be as large as some of the initial estimates.
As always the
in the room and the locked in warming are going to be the biggest obstacles to our solarpunk future but maybe the plummeting cost and DIY-friendliness will outrun the former.Cory doctorow is a reddit-tier shitlib whose opinion on any topic should not be taken seriously.
His enshittification book is neolib-techie western-supremacist trash, which takes no time in denouncing “authoritarian countries” and prefers western democracy as superior. The first third of the book just gets lost in US legal cases, and the entire book has no materialist analysis whatsoever. It’s honestly kinda sad that he’s famous in any way.
Thanks for sharing!
