Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
May 5, 2022 22 tweets 20 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: A New York law to end to Wall Street's pension ripoff; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/05/05/meg…

#Pluralistic 1/
CORRECTION: Yesterday's thread erroneously claimed Simon Lovell had passed away; I misremembered my contribution to a 2015 medical fundraiser for Mr Lovell as a donation to a funeral fundraiser. My sincere apologies to Mr Lovell (and I'm delighted to learn I was wrong!). 2/
This weekend (May 6-8), I'm Guest of Honor at the @DemiConDM 33 science fiction convention in #DesMoines:

demicon.org/33/programming… 3/
A New York law to end to Wall Street's pension ripoff: The ex-suckers flip the card table.

4/ Image: Ken Lund (modified): https://www.flickr.com/photos/ke
Hey look at this

* How to Get an Abortion in the Age of Surveillance gizmodo.com/how-to-get-an-…

* Hot Banana what-if.xkcd.com/158/ (just look at it)

* Digital Security and Privacy Tips for Those Involved in Abortion Access eff.org/deeplinks/2022… 5/
#20yrsago Shopsin's Restaurant finally allows a review web.archive.org/web/2002042604…

#10yrsago Lost trove of D&D co-creator unearthed, up for auction wired.com/2012/05/geekda…

#10yrsago Jonathan Lethem discusses his tribute to Talking Heads’ Fear of Music wired.com/2012/05/jonath… 6/
#10yrsago Aerial view of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion facade and ride-building …gforgottenhauntedmansion.blogspot.com/2012/05/ghostl…

#10yrsago UK nightclub bouncers demanding access to your Facebook profile as a condition of entry bbc.com/news/newsbeat-… 7/
#10yrsago Tribute to Disneyland’s “secret restroom” secretrestroom.com

#5yrsago Teacher: Jostens Yearbook is a giant scam that stole from our school for years np.reddit.com/r/Teachers/com… 8/
#5yrsago Flint threatens to take away 8,000 families’ homes for failure to pay bills for poisoned water nbc25news.com/news/local/fli…

#5yrsago Michigan students stage sit-in in solidarity with laid-off teachers wxyz.com/news/students-… 9/
#5yrsago My column about @Snowden, surveillance and WALKAWAY in the International Business Times ibtimes.com/unchecked-surv…

#1yrago Stimmies killed the McJob: Job creators hate him pluralistic.net/2021/05/05/cla… 10/
Yesterday's threads: The eye-glazing scam of Medicare drug plans; and more!

11/ Image: Chris Martin (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos
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… 12/
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… 13/
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/ 14/
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… 15/
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 24
hope.net 16/
Recent appearances:

* Revolutionizing Activism — The Power of Utopia (@theC4AA)


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

* Blockchain, Crypto & Web3 (@forlifeitself podcast)
17/
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… 18/
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/2022/05/05/meg… 19/
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… 20/
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 21/
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… 22/

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Keep Current with Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK

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More from @doctorow

Mar 5
You guys, I don't want to bum you out or anything, but I think there's a good chance than some self-described capitalists *aren't really into capitalism*.

Sorry.

1/ A giant, complicated, mechanical printing press. Looming over it is an 18th-century demon from the Compendium Rarissimum Totius Artis Magicae; it is a eating severed human leg, and waving another leg in the air. In the background rise dark red flames. The printer has a Brother logo.
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/2025/03/05/pri…

2/
Take incentives: Charlie Munger, capitalism's quippiest pitchman, famously said, "Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome."

3/
Read 50 tweets
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
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
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
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
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

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