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4 Jan, 18 tweets, 12 min read
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Ad-tech is a bezzle; Google's unionizing; The Data Detective; Damon Knight's Why Do Birds is back; Endorsing the Forward 43 slate; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how…

#Pluralistic

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Ad-tech is a bezzle: The subprime attention crisis is upon us.



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Google's unionizing: Solidarity vs worker misclassification.



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The Data Detective: How to truth with statistics.



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Damon Knight's Why Do Birds is back: Reviving a grand master's comic masterpiece.



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Endorsing the Forward 43 slate: For my California comrades.



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#5yrsago Thomas Piketty on Thomas Piketty crookedtimber.org/2016/01/04/cap…

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December 26th's threads: Email sabbaticals; Chaos Communications Congress; Landmark US financial transparency law; Rogues' Galleries and facial recognition; Jan 1 is Public Domain Day for 1925; and more!



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My latest novel is Attack Surface, a sequel to my bestselling Little Brother books. @washingtonpost called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance."

Get signed books from @DarkDel: darkdel.com/store/p1840/Av…

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I have a (free) new book out! "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism" is an anti-monopolist critique of Big Tech that connects the rise of conspiratorial thinking to the rise of tech monopolies and proposes a way to deal with both:

onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy…

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My ebooks and audiobooks (from @torbooks, @HoZ_Books, @mcsweeneys, and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

craphound.com/shop/

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Upcoming appearances:

* Evening with William Gibson, Jan 25, eventbrite.com/e/william-gibs…

* Keynote, NISO Plus, Feb 22-25, niso.plus/cory-doctorow-…

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Recent appearances:

* Hedging Bets on the Future (Motherboard):
play.acast.com/s/cyber/hedgin…

* Applying the Pandemic Mindset to Climate Change:
hbr.org/podcast/2020/1…

* 2020 Beaverbrook Lectures:


* Bibliotherapy/Shelf Healing:
buzzsprout.com/1509671/6580831

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My first picture book is out! It's called Poesy the Monster Slayer and it's an epic tale of bedtime-refusal, toy-hacking and monster-hunting, illustrated by Matt Rockefeller. It's the monster book I dreamt of reading to my own daughter.

pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poe…

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You can also follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!

Here's today's edition: pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how…

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If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is also ad- and tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "👛". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!

Subscribe here: pluralistic.net/plura-list

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Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? Follow these threads on the #fediverse at @pluralistic@mamot.fr.

Here's today's edition: mamot.fr/@pluralistic/1…

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Today's top sources: Ken Snider (twitter.com/orenwolf), Slashdot (slashdot.org), Margo Rowder (twitter.com/margorowder).

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow #BLM Profile picture
6 Jan
Arbitration was created to allow giant companies with equal bargaining power to settle disputes without incurring expensive court battles. So, when IBM and AT&T struck a deal, they'd agree that instead of going to court, they'd hire a neutral person to decide who was right.

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But in the 21st Century, a string of Supreme Court rulings have paved the way for "forced arbitration" - when a company tells its customers or workers that as a condition of doing business, they must give up all the legal protections that come with the right to sue.

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Once you've been bound over to arbitration, a company can maim, cheat or murder you and your only recourse is to ask a corporate judge, on the company's payroll, to decide whether you are entitled to compensation.

3/
Read 15 tweets
Cory Doctorow #BLM Profile picture
6 Jan
Walt Disney enjoys himself in the 1962 Grand Opening of the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse in Disneyland. adventurelandia.tumblr.com/post/639524861…
Walt Disney enjoys himself in the 1962 Grand Opening of the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse in Disneyland. adventurelandia.tumblr.com/post/639524861…
Walt Disney enjoys himself in the 1962 Grand Opening of the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse in Disneyland. adventurelandia.tumblr.com/post/639524861…
Read 6 tweets
Cory Doctorow #BLM Profile picture
6 Jan
Back in 2009, I found the best technical book about climate change I've ever read: David McKay's SUSTAINABLE ENERGY WITHOUT THE HOT AIR:

memex.craphound.com/2009/04/08/sus…

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McKay's book was a first for me: not a popular SCIENCE book, but a popular ENGINEERING book, one that simply parameterized the way that we create and use energy, inviting the reader to draw their own conclusions about the tradeoffs we'd need to make to save our world.

2/
McKay's figures included things like the total number of solar photons that strike the Earth, the total tide-stresses exerted by the moon, the maximum possible efficiency of a plane-shape cylinder through air, etc.

3/
Read 25 tweets
Cory Doctorow #BLM Profile picture
5 Jan
For 20 years, members of The WELL (the "Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link," an early, influential online community that I've been on since the late 1980s) ring in the new year with the STATE OF THE WORLD discussion, hosted by @jonl and @bruces, with a rotating cast of guest-hosts.

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SOTW runs on the INKWELL forum, which is readable by the general public - not just those with a well.com login. 2021's has been going since Jan 2 with this year's guest, @m_older, an sf writer, sociologist and aid worker.

people.well.com/conf/inkwell.v…

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(Non-WELLbeings who want to post to the forum should email inkwell@well.com with the subject SOTW)

As ever, it's a rollicking, smart, eclectic discussion of a world in flux - and given the craziness of 2020, it's needed more than ever.

3/
Read 9 tweets
Cory Doctorow #BLM Profile picture
5 Jan
Today's threads (a thread).

Inside: My Fellow Americans; Digital manorialism vs neofeudalism; SC GOP moots modest improvements to "magistrate judges"; Pavilions replacing union workers with "gig workers"; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2021/01/05/man…

#Pluralistic

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My Fellow Americans: Audio, text and commentary for every president's inaugural address.



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Digital manorialism vs neofeudalism: Tech companies as warlords with walled gardens.



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Read 17 tweets
Cory Doctorow #BLM Profile picture
5 Jan
#Prop22 was the most expensive ballot initiative in history: "gig economy" companies firehosed $200m over voters, outspending 48/50 state legislative races on a single question.

That question: can employers misclassify workers as contractors and escape legal obligations?

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That's a high-stakes question. US workers spent more than a century fighting for basic rights: the right not the maimed, raped or killed on the job; the right to a living wage; the right to a weekend; the right not to be discriminated against based on race or sex or religion.

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Above all: the right to form a union and bargain collectively with employers who otherwise hold all the negotiating leverage - to pool their resources in the same way that gig economy companies did to fund Prop 22.

3/
Read 14 tweets

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