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Cory Doctorow

15 May, 20 tweets, 17 min read

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Newsom's California fiber dream; The S&L crisis perfected finance crime; Big Pharma's vicious battle against universal covid vaccination; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2021/05/15/how…

#Pluralistic

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@ryersoncfe

Next Weds (5/19), I'm doing a talk called "Seize the Means of Computation," at the @ryersoncfe:

cfe.ryerson.ca/events/how-des…

And on Thu (5/20), I'm doing a keynote called "Privacy Without Monopoly," for the @NorthSec_io conference:

nsec.io/speaker/cory-d…

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https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1393272080989233156

Newsom's California fiber dream: 100gbs symmetrical to every home in the state or bust!

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1393272080989233156

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1393599337922318341

The S&L crisis perfected finance crime: The best way to rob a bank is to own one.

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1393599337922318341

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1393616530793852928

Big Pharma's vicious battle against universal covid vaccination: Ghost-writing memos for GOP "public servants."

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1393616530793852928

#20yrsago Vegas outcall services phreak each others' phoneshttps://www.securityfocus.com/news/205

#15yrsago Gmail downgraded, no longer cracks PDFs web.archive.org/web/2006060305…

#10yrsago Walter Jon Williams uses pirate ebooks to rescue his backlist walterjonwilliams.net/2011/05/crowds…

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#5yrsago Algorithmic cruelty: when Gmail adds your harasser to your speed-dial lizdenys.com/journal/articl…

#1yrago Tear gas ice-cream pluralistic.net/2020/05/15/out…

#1yrago Whistleblower warns of massive mortgage fraud pluralistic.net/2020/05/15/out…

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#1yrago A people's vaccine pluralistic.net/2020/05/15/out…

#1yrago Google's GDPR reckoning pluralistic.net/2020/05/15/out…

#1yrago Understanding Qanon pluralistic.net/2020/05/15/out…

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https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1393242448336277504

Yesterday's threads: A weapon of mass financial destruction; and more!

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1393242448336277504

@washingtonpost

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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My book "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism" is a critique of Big Tech connecting conspiratorial thinking to the rise of tech monopolies (proposing a way to deal with both) is now out in paperback:

onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy…

Signed copies here:
darkdel.com/store/p2024/Av…

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@torbooks

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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@RyersonCFE

Upcoming appearances:

* Seize the Means of Computation, @RyersonCFE, May 19, cfe.ryerson.ca/events/how-des…

* Privacy Without Monopoly, @NorthSec_io , May 20, nsec.io/speaker/cory-d…

* In conversation with @ddayen (Second Life Book Club), Jun 4, draxtor.com/sl-book-club-c…

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@mamohanraj

Recent appearances:

* @mamohanraj and @ben_rosenbaum Are Humans
open.spotify.com/episode/01dGJO…

* Can Antitrust Laws Destroy Surveillance Capitalism? (@majorityfm)

* In conversation with John @Scalzi at the @GburgBookFest

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@MCRockefeller

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 @MCRockefeller. 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/2021/05/15/how…

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@Medium

If you're a @Medium subscriber, you can read these - as well as previews of upcoming magazine columns and early exclusives on doctorow.medium.com.

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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: Naked Capitalism (nakedcapitalism.com).

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow

@doctorow

17 May

John Steinbeck diagnosed an important American pathology in 1966 when he called the US a nation of "temporarily embarrassed capitalists" - people who see themselves as the wealthy-in-waiting and therefore fight policies that reduce the power that comes from wealth.

1/

It's a restatement of Engels' idea of "false consciousness," and it's the result of a deliberate strategy on the part of wealthy people - many of whom believe that they were literally genetically destined to be wealthy - to convince the rest of us that "anyone can succeed."

2/

Part of the false consciousness program is the money story that goes like this: the US government takes away "taxpayers' money" from "makers" to fund "programs," the bulk of which go to the "lazy takers," who experience the "moral hazard" of subsidized unemployment.

3/

Read 48 tweets

Cory Doctorow

@doctorow

16 May

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Who owns the covid vaccines; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2021/05/16/ent…

#Pluralistic

1/

@RyersonCFE

This Weds (5/19), I'm doing a talk called "Seize the Means of Computation," at the @RyersonCFE:

cfe.ryerson.ca/events/how-des…

And on Thu (5/20), I'm doing a keynote called "Privacy Without Monopoly," for the @NorthSec_io conference:

nsec.io/speaker/cory-d…

2/

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1393960274256822273

Who owns the covid vaccines: Socializing risk and privatizing gain for fun and profit.

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1393960274256822273

Read 19 tweets

Cory Doctorow

@doctorow

16 May

A key idea from sf is "all laws are local, and no law knows how local it is." Prisoners of our own time and place, it's hard not to feel like we're living in the only possible world, is if everything around us is inevitable and natural - and any change is "unnatural."

1/

(If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:)

pluralistic.net/2021/05/16/ent…

2/

But anyone who's ever dabbled in multi-agent modeling (sims where "individuals" each have their own goals and aversions) knows there are LOTS of stable configurations that a big, complex system can fall into, and re-rerunning the same sim produces WILDLY different outcomes.

3/

Read 39 tweets

Cory Doctorow

@doctorow

15 May

Last week, the Biden administration broke with decades of US policy when it supported a patent waiver on covid vaccines. It was the first time in generations that the US Trade Rep acted on behalf of the people, rather than corporate greed.

pluralistic.net/2021/05/10/com…

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Taking steps to make vaccines universally and immediately available isn't just the right thing to do - #VaccineApartheid is slow-motion genocide - it's also the smart thing to do. Billions of unvaccinated people present quadrillions of chances for the virus to mutate.

2/

Don't listen to the unscientific claims that viruses "tend to become less virulent" over time. Remember, the mechanism by which super-lethal strains go extinct is that they KILL ALL THEIR HOSTS (that's us, folks).

3/

Read 20 tweets

Cory Doctorow

@doctorow

15 May

When the Great Financial Crisis hit, suddenly there was a lot of talk about the Savings & Loan crises of the 1980s and 90s. I was barely a larvum then, and all I knew about S&Ls I learned from half-understood dialog in comics like Dykes to Watch Out For and Bloom County.

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@michaelwhudson

As the GFC shattered the lives of millions, I turned to books like @michaelwhudson's THE MONSTER to understand what was going on, and learned that the very same criminals who masterminded the S&L crisis were behind the GFC gigafraud:

memex.craphound.com/2011/03/07/the…

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Hudson's work forever changed my views of Orange County, CA, a region I knew primarily through Kim Stanley Robinson's magesterial utopian novel PACIFIC EDGE, not as the white-hot center of the global financial crime pandemic.

memex.craphound.com/2015/01/15/pac…

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Read 31 tweets