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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
Feb 1, 2022 • 20 tweets • 18 min read • Read on X
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Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: The Mafia hires good accountants; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/02/01/col…

#Pluralistic 1/
The Mafia hires good accountants: Honest cheaters enable the mob.

2/
#15yrsago Schoolkids “passing notes” by commenting on random blog-posts web.archive.org/web/2007020304…

#15yrsago 9/11 Commission Report hobbled by #DRM web.archive.org/web/2007020401… 3/
#10yrsago Too Big to Know: @dweinberger explains how knowledge works in the Internet age memex.craphound.com/2012/02/01/too…

#10yrsago @WSJ publishes actual climate scientists’ letter on climate science wsj.com/articles/SB100… 4/
#10yrsago US trade rep and hotel caught lying about confidentiality of secret #ACTA meeting in Hollywood techdirt.com/articles/20120…

#5yrsago Sean Spicer defends handcuffing a 5-year-old American boy for hours at an airport immigration checkpoint independent.co.uk/news/world/ame… 5/
#5yrsago Trump’s war on science, a chronology (Week 1) scienceblogs.com/confessions/20…

#5yrsago Suspecting arson, cops subpoena homeowner’s pacemaker logs, then charge him with multiple felonies csoonline.com/article/316274… 6/
#5yrsago Federal judge orders emergency injunction and restraining order ending Trump’s #muslimban arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

#1yrago Unidirectional entryism pluralistic.net/2021/02/01/din…

#1yrago The good news about vaccination bad news pluralistic.net/2021/02/01/din… 7/
Yesterday's threads: Grappling with Big Wrestling; Podcasting about the copyleft trolls who tried to shake me down; and more!

8/ Image: Nenad Stojkovic (modified) https://commons.wikimedia
My latest book is Attack Surface, a sequel to my bestselling Little Brother books, now in paperback, wherever books are sold.

Signed copies at @darkdel:

darkdel.com/store/p1840/Co… 9/
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… 10/
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/ 11/
Upcoming appearances:

* @boskonenews 59 (Feb 18-20)
boskone.org/program/schedu…

* Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical SF, 1950 to 1985 (@CityLightsBooks), Feb 27
citylights.com/events/dangero…

* Emerging Technologies For the Enterprise, Apr 19-20
2022.phillyemergingtech.com 12/
Recent appearances:

* The End of Uber (@TheWarOnCars)
thewaroncars.org/2022/01/26/the…

* Moral Panic (@Drug_Science Podcast)
drugscience.org.uk/podcast/53-mor…

* @HappenHerePod
iheart.com/podcast/1119-i… 13/
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… 14/
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/2022/02/01/col… 15/
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. 16/
My latest @Medium column is "The Inevitability of Trusted Third Parties"

doctorow.medium.com/the-inevitabil… 17/
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 18/
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… 19/
Today's top sources: @yvessmith (nakedcapitalism.com). 20/

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Mar 3
I get a special pleasure from citing Milton Friedman. I like to imagine that as I do, he groans around the red-hot spit protruding from his jaws, prompting howls of laughter from the demons who pelt him with molten faeces for all eternity.

1/ Oil derricks superimposed against a 'code waterfall' as seen in the credit sequences of the Wachowskis' 'Matrix' movies. In the foreground is Trump's hair.
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/2025/03/03/fri…

2/
If you're lucky enough not to know about Friedman, here's the short version. Friedman was a kind of court sorcerer to Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Augusto Pinochet, and other assorted authoritarian, hard-right leaders who set us on the path to the hellscape we inhabit today.

3/
Read 56 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Feb 20
The commercial surveillance industry is almost totally unregulated. Data brokers, ad-tech, and everyone in between - they harvest, store, analyze, sell and rent every intimate, sensitive, potentially compromising fact about your life.

1/ A towering figure with the head of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey,' surmounted by Trump's hair, wearing a tailcoat with a Google logo lapel pin. It peers through a magnifying glass at a distressed, tiny Uncle Sam figure perched in its monstrous palm. 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/2025/02/20/pri…

2/
Late last year, I testified at a Consumer Finance Protection Bureau hearing about a proposed new rule to kill off data brokers, who are the lynchpin of the industry:



3/pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the…
Read 41 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Feb 18
In 2013, Thomas Piketty had an unexpected bestseller (a 750 page economics book translated from French!) *Capital in the 21st Century*.

1/ A Gilded Age editorial cartoon of a frowning Uncle Sam giving a blood transfusion to a gargantuan business-man whose waistcoat is labeled 'protected monopolies.' The businessman's head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background has been replaced with a halftoned EU flag whose blue field is covered in circuit-board traceries. The floor beneath the figures is an abstract, pinkish pattern. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed....
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/2025/02/18/pik…

2/
It offers a very convincing explanation of our political decay, and it continues to serve this purpose as the decay undergoes alarming acceleration:



3/memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/tho…
Read 62 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Feb 17
Theory-free inference is a hell of a drug. For years, Big Data advocates - the larval form of today's AI weirdos - have insisted that if you have enough data, you can infer causal relationships between complex phenomena without ever having to understand how x causes y.

1/ https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/17/caliper-ai/#racism-machine A phrenological illustration of a man's face in profile, with his skull divided up into sections with illustrations of what each area is meant to govern, e.g., appetite, artistic aptitude, aggression, ardor. A pair of gleaming silver calipers, wielded by the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey,' measures the figure's skull. 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/2025/02/17/cal…

2/
Thus, we can slay the dread "correlation is not causation" beast. This is cousin to Milton Friedman's famous economic catechism:



3/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays_in…
Read 36 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Feb 12
Remember the Tiktok ban? I know, it was ten million years ago (in Musk years, anyway), so it may have slipped your mind, but let me remind you: Congress passed a law saying Tiktok was banned. Trump said he wouldn't enforce the law. The end.

1/ An official portrait of the US Supreme Court, with the justices sitting and standing before a red velvet curtain. Their faces have been replaced with the green 'Mr Yuck' logo. Floating in the middle of the image, obscuring several judges, is the Tiktok logo, with Trump's hair.
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/2025/02/12/you…

2/
No, really. I mean, sure, there's a bunch of bullshit about whether Trump will pick up the ban again after Tiktok's grace period ends, depending on whether they sell themselves to his creepy wax museum pal Larry Ellison. Maybe he will.

3/
Read 39 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Feb 11
Let me tell you about the most wasteful US federal government spending I know about. It's a humdinger. You and everyone you know are mired in it for weeks, or perhaps months, every year.

1/ A halftoned 2025 IRS 1040 form. To the left is a bloated billionaire figure in top hat, white gloves and tux, with the pouting face of Elon Musk. With one hand, he is yanking on a lever made out of a gilded dollar-sign. With the other hand, he contemptuously dangles a street urchin. The podium to which the lever is attached bears the Turbotax logo, a white checkmark in a red circle. To the left is a cascade of gold coins, falling out of an upended sack. Image: Wcamp9 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk_-_March_28,_2024_%28cropped%29.jpg CC BY 4.0 https://creative...
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/2025/02/11/dou…

2/
It will cost you, personally, thousands of dollars over your lifetime. I'm talking about filing your taxes.

Not *paying* your taxes. Paying your taxes is fine.

3/
Read 29 tweets

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