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Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

16 Feb

In late 2020, a coalition of predatory, money-losing, private-equity backed companies ran a $200m disinformation campaign that resulted in the passage of California's #Prop22, legalizing worker misclassification and mass-scale labor law violations.

pluralistic.net/2020/10/14/fin…

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Almost immediately, the passage of #Prop22 led to the loss of unionized jobs paying a living wage and offering basic worker protections, especially for people of color - only to have them replaced by "gig work" that lacked any of the above.

pluralistic.net/2021/01/05/man…

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One of the primary funders - and beneficiaries - of Prop 22 was Uber, which pioneered worker misclassification. Uber is now pushing the EU to "harmonize" its regulations in a game of transatlantic pingpong where each volley makes things worse.

cnbc.com/2021/02/15/ube…

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Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

15 Feb

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: ADT insider threat; Billionaires think VR stops guillotines; Privacy Without Monopoly; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2021/02/15/uly…

#Pluralistic

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This Wednesday, I'm giving a talk called "Technology, Self-Determination, and the Future of the Future" for the Purdue University CERIAS Program:

cerias.purdue.edu/news_and_event…

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https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1361365103795335169

ADT insider threat: If you build it they will spy.

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1361365103795335169

Read 17 tweets

Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

15 Feb

@EFF

This week on my podcast, a spoken-word version of "Privacy Without Monopoly: Data Protection and Interoperability," a major new white-paper that Bennett Cyphers and I co-authored for @EFF.

craphound.com/news/2021/02/1…

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It’s a paper that tries to resolve the tension between demanding that tech platforms gather, retain and mine less of our data, and the demand that platforms allow alternatives (nonprofits, co-ops, tinkerers, startups) to connect with their services.

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I read the first half of it this week - about 40 minutes' worth - and I'll finish it next week. If you don't want to wait, you can dive in with the written version straightaway:

eff.org/wp/interoperab…

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Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

15 Feb

The pandemic has afforded all of us a refresher course on the five stages of grief, a theoretical and controversial framework for describing how people cope with tragedy: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stag…

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A far slower-moving unfolding of these stages can be seen in the reactions of the super-wealthy to the breakdown in neoliberal orthodoxy, the tale that says that inequality results from meritocracy, and makes us all better off:

pluralistic.net/2021/02/13/dat…

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Denial came out in the "rationalist" view: the world is better off than ever - richer, less violent, healthier, and any discontent you feel with your plummeting fortunes and the contracting possibilities for your kids is just your tunnel vision. Lack of perspective.

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Read 10 tweets

Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

15 Feb

Self-control isn't merely a matter of eliminating your own weaknesses. Self control is primarily about compensating for those weaknesses. When you go on a diet, you don't just commit yourself to eating well - you also throw away the Oreos so you won't be tempted.

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This manoeuvre has a name: a Ulysses Pact, named for the passage in the Odyssey in which Ulysses pilots his ship through the sirens' sea, eschewing wax-stoppered ears so that he could hear their song, protecting himself by lashing himself to the mast.

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Ulysses knew he would face a moment of weakness in the future, so he used his strength in the moment to guard against his future self.

Tech was built on a Ulysses Pact: the irrevocable free software license: once a hacker applies the GPL, they can't unchoose it.

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Read 17 tweets