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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
Aug 13, 2021 • 25 tweets • 22 min read • Read on X
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Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Smart cities are neither, 2021 edition; End of the line for Reaganomics; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/pos…

#Pluralistic

1/
I'm a guest of honor and keynote speaker at Salt Lake City's Quills Conference on writing, Aug 12-15:

quillsconference.com

2/
Smart cities are neither, 2021 edition: "Whose Streets? Our Streets! (Tech Edition)."

hhttps://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1426195851056058370

3/
End of the line for Reaganomics: The OG antitrust is back, baby!



4/
#20yrsago "State-of-the-industry" letter from the year 2021 web.archive.org/web/2001082201…

#20yrsago Our faulty intuition about open systems ft.com/content/641671…

#15yrsago NBC: Hair-gel terrorists posed no risk last week web.archive.org/web/2006081319…

5/
#15yrsago Defending against the last plot won’t save us from the next one schneier.com/blog/archives/…

#15yrsago RIAA to grieving family: We depose your children in 60 days recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2006/08/riaa-w…

6/
#10yrsago AT&T merger leak: it’s all about raising prices and reducing competition dslreports.com/shownews/Leake…

#10yrsago Doctor tried to "cure" homosexuality by tasping gay man while he had sex with female sex worker web.archive.org/web/2011100408…

7/
#10yrsago My panel with Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf and Al Gore at Mexico City’s Campus Party

#10yrsago 1968: when Britain’s Daily Mirror tried to overthrow Parliament bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurt…

8/
#10yrsago Stasi spywear: the inept art of commie disguise web.archive.org/web/2011080210…

#5yrsago How removing headphone jacks opens the door to DRM (and how to close the door) fastcompany.com/3062741/the-ip…

10/
#5yrsago Cash grants to people with unexpected bills successfully prevents homelessness science.sciencemag.org/content/353/63…

#5yrsago Forget Skynet: AI is already making things terrible for people who aren’t rich white dudes nytimes.com/2016/06/26/opi…

11/
#1yrago Trump's Solicitor General says bribery is legal pluralistic.net/2020/08/12/fai…

#1yrago Payday lenders are CFPB's pandemic aid pluralistic.net/2020/08/12/fai…

#1yrago Sorting machines snatched from post offices pluralistic.net/2020/08/12/fai…

#1yrago Failed State pluralistic.net/2020/08/12/fai…

12/
#1yrago Mexico's terrible copyright is in trouble pluralistic.net/2020/08/12/fai…

#1yrsago Florida sheriff bans masks pluralistic.net/2020/08/13/bet…

#1yrago My origin story pluralistic.net/2020/08/13/bet…

13/
Wednesday's threads: Canada's got the world's worst internet ideas; IRS leaks reveal billions reaped through ultra-wealthy lobbying on the tax bill; and more!



14/
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…

15/
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…

16/
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/

17/
Upcoming appearances:

* Launch for @Ben_Rosenbaum's The Unraveling, Aug 23 (@Booksoup)
booksoup.com/event/benjamin…

* From Wayback to Way Forward: The @InternetArchive turns 25, Oct 21
eventbrite.com/e/from-wayback…

18/
Recent appearances:

* Privacy Without Monopoly (@Defcon)


* Building the Digital Commons (@moneyontheleft)
moneyontheleft.org/2021/08/01/bui…

* Reset the Internet? (Project Syndicate)
project-syndicate.org/podcasts/reset…

19/
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 @MCRockefeller. It's the monster book I dreamt of reading to my own daughter.

pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poe…

20/
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/2021/08/13/pos…

21/
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.

22/
My latest @Medium column is "Expectations management," part five of a series on themepark design, queing theory, immersive entertainment, and load-balancing.

doctorow.medium.com/expectations-m…

23/
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

24/
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…

25/
Today's top sources: Bruce Schneier (schneier.com).

eof/

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jul 30
Delta's announced new surveillance pricing: they're feeding an AI your nonconsensually harvested personal info that data-brokers and credit bureaux hold to predict the maximum you're willing to pay, and then price their tickets accordingly:



1/ fortune.com/2025/07/16/del…Hieronymus Bosch's 'The Conjurer,' which depicts a sleight-of-hand artist doing a cup-and-balls routine for a group of amazed yokels. It has been altered. The head of the conjurer has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' He wears a Delta Airlines logo over his breast. The table on which the cup-and-balls game is playing out sports a crashed jet in Delta livery, smoke rising from the wreckage. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted 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/2025/07/30/eff…

2/
Data-brokers sell all kinds of data, from the "legitimate" info about everywhere your car's been, to everywhere place the Bluetooth radios on your phone and headphones has been, to everything you've bought, to every sit you've visited and every search you've performed.

3/
Read 61 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jul 22
Ever notice how many right wing influencers are on the grift?

1/ A carny barker at a podium, gesticulating with a MAGA cap. He wears a Klan hood, and his podium features products from Nu-skin, Amway and Herbalife. Behind him is an oil-painted scene of a steamship with a Trump Tower logo, at a pier in flames.
If you'd like an essay-formatted 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/2025/07/22/all…

2/
Like Alex Jones - that guy is basically Gwyneth Paltrow for conservative bros, selling the same "wellness" crap to a male audience (and not for nothing, Paltrow's victims are reliable boosters for RFK Jr's MAHA movement):



3/theweek.com/speedreads/709…
Read 66 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jul 3
As fascism burns across America, it's important to remember that Trump and his policies are *not popular*.

1/ A kneeling figure, shackled hand-and-foot with ball-and-chains at his ankles. His face is that of a turn-of-the-century newsie, grinning broadly under a torn cloth cap. Behind him is a heavily halftoned neon HELP WANTED sign, askew over a indistinct black hellscape ganked from the third panel of Boschs's 'Garden of Earthly Delights.'
If you'd like an essay-formatted 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/2025/07/03/sta…

2/
Sure, the racism and cruelty excites a minority of (very broken) people, but every component of the Trump agenda is *extremely* unpopular with the American people, from tax cuts for billionaires to kidnapping our neighbors and shipping them to concentration camps.

3/
Read 42 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jul 1
If there's one are where tech has shown a consistent aptitude for innovation, it's in accounting tricks that make money-losing companies appear wildly profitable. And AI is the greatest innovator of all (when it comes to accounting gimmicks).

1/ A carny barker waving his top-hat and selling tickets from a roll; his head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background is a magnified, halftoned detail from a US$100 bill. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted 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/2025/06/30/acc…

2/
Since the dotcom era, tech companies have boasted about giving stuff away but "making it up in volume," inventing an ever-sweatier collection of shell-games that let them hide the business's true profit and loss.

3/
Read 42 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jun 28
In 2014, I read a political science paper that nearly convinced me to quit my lifelong career as an activist: "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," published in *Perspectives on Politics*:



1/ cambridge.org/core/journals/…An inflatable pig balloon against a blue sky, bearing the Zohran for Mayor logo. The Chrysler Building sits to one side. Image: Frank Vincentz (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Geeste_-_Biener_Stra%C3%9Fe_-_Speicherbecken_-_Drachenfest_38_ies.jpg Petri Krohn https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysler_building-_top.jpg CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted 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/2025/06/28/mam…

2/
The paper's authors are Martin Gilens, a UCLA professor of Public Policy; and Northwestern's Benjamin Page, a professor of Decision Making. Gilens and Page studied a representative sample of 1,779 policy issues.

3/
Read 49 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jun 24
When a company sells you something for $2 that someone else can buy for $1, they're revaluing the dollars in your pocket at half the rate of the other guy's.

1/ A busy 1950s grocery store. The scene has been altered: the massive, menacing, glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' hovers over the store, shooting red beams into the cash register. The store -- but not the shoppers at its front -- is suffused with red light. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted 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/2025/06/24/pri…

2/
Economists praise "price discrimination" as "efficient." That's when a company charges different customers different amounts based on inferences about their willingness to pay.

3/
Read 50 tweets

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