Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
May 3, 2022 25 tweets 23 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: The Democrats' self-immolating fetish for means-testing; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/05/03/uto…

#Pluralistic 1/ A portly business-man in a ...
This weekend (May 6-8), I'm Guest of Honor at the @DemiConDM 33 science fiction convention in #DesMoines:

demicon.org/33/programming… 2/ Image
The Democrats' self-immolating fetish for means-testing: How to lose an election...and a nation.

3/ Image: https://commons.wiki...
Hey look at this

* Reminder: safe and effective medication for having an abortion is available via the mail. "Even in states with the strictest abortion laws, pregnant people have a safe, inexpensive option to terminate their pregnancies." 4/ Image
#20yrsago Court Orders ReplayTV to Spy on Customers for Movie Studios web.archive.org/web/2002060115…

#15yrsago New #AACS crack “can’t be revoked” arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/0…

#15yrsago Students petition USC film-school for the right to use @creativecommons web.archive.org/web/2007070615… 6/ Image
#15yrsago AACS vows to fight people who publish the key news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technolog…

#15yrsago @EdFelten explains the AACS revolt freedom-to-tinker.com/2007/05/03/why…

#15yrsago Canada’s copyright czar lied about money from entertainment execs web.archive.org/web/2007050710… 7/ Image
#15yrsago Congresscritters take money from RIAA/MPAA, then threaten universities on their behalf web.archive.org/web/2007050503…

#15yrsago Obama wants @creativecommons licensed Presidential debates web.archive.org/web/2007050322… 8/ Image
#10yrsago Lehman Bros document trove online: childish hubris, laughable idiocy from today’s Senior Policy Advisor at US Treasury ritholtz.com/2012/04/the-le…

#10yrsago When copyright term-extension meets infinite life-extension sfsite.com/fsf/2012/pdf12… 9/ Image
#5yrsago @GreatDismal rewrote the sequel to The Peripheral after the 2016 election theverge.com/2017/5/3/15530…

#5yrsago The @CANADALAND Guide to Canada (Published in America) memex.craphound.com/2017/05/03/the… 10/ Image
#5yrsago Automatically generate datasets that teach people how (not) to create statistical mirages autodesk.com/research/publi…

#5yrsago Coal execs’ pay rises and rises, while miners’ wages stagnate nytimes.com/2017/05/02/cli… 11/ Image
#1yrago Dishwashers have become Iphones: Meet the Bob Cassette Rewinder pluralistic.net/2021/05/03/cas… 12/ Image
Yesterday's threads: Podcasting "Revenge Of the Chickenized Reverse Centaurs"; and more!

13/ Image: Cryteria (modified) ...
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… 14/
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… 15/ Image
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/ 16/ Image
Upcoming appearances:

* @DemiConDM 33 (Des Moines), May 6-8
demicon.org/33/programming…

* Sci-Fi Feedback Loop: Mapping Fiction’s Influence on Real-World Tech (@imaginationASU), May 12
asu.zoom.us/webinar/regist… 17/ Image
Upcoming appearances:

* @openjsf Keynote (Austin), Jun 8
events.linuxfoundation.org/openjs-world/p…

* @CMAgovUK Data Technology/Analytics (London), Jun 15-16
eventbrite.co.uk/e/cma-data-tec…

* A New @hopeconf (NYC), Jul 22-24
hope.net 18/ Image
Recent appearances:

* A Little Patience and a Lot of Tape (@TWiT)
twit.tv/shows/this-wee…

* Blockchain, Crypto & Web3 (@forlifeitself podcast)


* Launch for @Egangoonsquad's "Candy House" (@VPL)
19/ Image
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/ Image
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/2022/05/03/uto… 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.

My latest Medium column is "End-To-End Encryption is Too Important to Be Proprietary"

doctorow.medium.com/end-to-end-enc… 22/
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 23/
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… 24/
Today's top sources: @yvessmith (nakedcapitalism.com). 25/ Image

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More from @doctorow

Jan 26
The best summary of Trump's trade "philosophy" comes from Trashfuture's November Kelly, who said that Trump is flipping over the table in a poker game that's rigged in his favor because he resents having to pretend to play the game at all.

1/ A detail from a US $100 bill. The bill has been tinted orange. Ben Franklin's face has been replaced with an indistinct blur surmounted by Trump's hair. The lettering in the scrollwork beneath the portrait reads 'TRUMP.' The '100's have been turned into '000's. The writing 'ONE HUNDRED' now reads 'NONE HUNDRED.' The series issue has been changed to '47.' The Secretary of the Treasury's signature has been replaced with Trump's.
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/2026/01/26/i-d…

2/
After all, the global system of trade was designed and enforced by American officials, especially the US Trade Representative.

3/
Read 84 tweets
Jan 17
Ireland is a tax haven. In the 1970s and 1980s, life in the civil-war wracked country was hard - between poverty, scarce employment and civil unrest, the country hemorrhaged its best and brightest. As the saying went, "Ireland's top export is the Irish."

1/ A green Irish pillarbox, standing before a verdant, rolling Irish countryside. The pillarbox is emblazoned with the poop emoji from the cover of 'Enshittification,' with angry eyebrows and a grawlix-scrawled black bar over its mouth.  Image: Stuart Caie (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double_aperture_Irish_pillar_box_in_Dublin_2008.jpg  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en  --  Sourabh.biswas003 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PXL_20231216_105219694-Ballygalley_Larne_UK-_Irish_Countryside-Northern_Ireland_06.jpg  CC BY-SA 3.0 ht...
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/2026/01/17/eri…

2/
In desperation, Ireland's political class hit on a wild gambit: they would weaponize Ireland's sovereignty in service to corporate tax evasion.

3/
Read 35 tweets
Jan 6
Code is a liability (not an asset). Tech bosses don't understand this. They think AI is great because it produces 10,000 times more code than a programmer, but that just means it's producing 10,000 times more liabilities.

1/ A shredder, shredding a giant US$100 bill. Benjamin Franklin's head has been replaced with a cliched 'hacker in a hoodie' illustration. The machine's faceplate bears the Claude Code wordmark. The background is the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'  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/2026/01/06/100…

2/
AI is the asbestos we're shoveling into the walls of our high-tech society:



Code is a liability. Code's *capabilities* are assets.

3/pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/eco…
Read 48 tweets
Dec 16, 2025
We are about to get a "post-American internet," because we are entering a post-American *era* and a post-American *world*. Some of that is Trump's doing, and some of that is down to his predecessors.

1/ Uncle Sam staring into a funhouse mirror that has made him painfully thin. The reflection is wearing a Trump wig and has orange skin. He stands atop a map of the world that stretches to infinity. In the background is a shantytown with the TRUMP logomark rising in the sky over it.
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/2025/12/16/k-s…

2/
When we think about the American century, we rightly focus on America's hard power - the invasions, military bases, arms exports, and CIA coups.

3/
Read 86 tweets
Dec 13, 2025
Look, I'm not trying to say that new technologies *never* raise gnarly new legal questions. But what I *am* saying is that a lot of the time, the "new legal challenges" raised by technology are somewhere between 95-100% bullshit.

1/ A modified FBI badge. It now reads 'Federal Wallet Investigators.' It is made out to 'Timothy J Shotspotter.' It is held in the three-fingered, gloved grip of a cartoon character. Around its edges, we see a cartoon room from a public domain Betty Boop cartoon.
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/2025/12/13/unc…

2/
It's ginned up by none-too-bright tech bros and their investors, and then swallowed by regulators and lawmakers who are either so credulous they'd lose a game of peek-a-boo, or (likely) in on the scam.

3/
Read 68 tweets
Dec 9, 2025
I have a weird fascination with early-stage Bill Gates, after his mother convinced a pal of hers - chairman of IBM's board of directors - to give her son the contract to provide the operating system for the new IBM PC.

1/ A 1960s ad for IBM mainframes, featuring a woman in an office chair seated at a console, surrounded by large processing and storage units. It has been modified. A man in a business suit, impatiently checking his watch, looms out from between two of the cabinets. His head has been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The woman's head has been replaced with a hacker's hoodie. Both the woman and the man have been tinted red.   Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommon...
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/2025/12/09/tem…

2/
Gates and his pal Paul Allen tricked another programmer into selling them the rights to DOS, which they sold to IBM, setting Microsoft on the path to be one of the most profitable businesses in human history.

3/
Read 36 tweets

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