Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jul 5, 2022 31 tweets 31 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: "The Swerve"; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/07/05/gra…

#Pluralistic 1/ A broken bridge over a mysterious chasm.
Sponsor me for the @ClarionUCSD Write-A-Thon! I'm writing 10,000 words on my prison-tech thriller "Some Men Rob You With a Fountain Pen" and raising scholarship money for the Clarion SF/F workshop, which I graduated from in 1992.

clarionwriteathon.com/members/profil… 2/
"The Swerve": My Locus column on hope in the dark.

3/
Hey look at this

* How to save lives and avoid privacy apocalypse ft.com/content/fa2683… (h/t @TimHarford)

* Craft beer uses recycled sewage theguardian.com/world/2022/jul… (h/t my mom)

* Valedictorian Rips Into Erosion Of Public Education popularresistance.org/lausd-high-sch… (h/t my dad) 4/
#20yrsago Themepark queues and traffic-shaping web.archive.org/web/2002071313…

#20yrsago Parasitic computing proof uses JavaScript to compel computation web.archive.org/web/2003120303…

#20yrsago Shredding Hollywood’s digital television FUD web.archive.org/web/2002070814… 5/
#20yrsago What is Palladium? What is the area of a Moebius Strip? web.archive.org/web/2002090315…

#20yrsago @therealjanisian vs the RIAA web.archive.org/web/2002080208…

#15yrsago RIP, Fred Saberhagen locusmag.com/2007/2007NewsA… 6/
#15yrsago @lewisshiner’s short fiction online for free lewisshiner.com/liberation/man…

#15yrsago Me on CBC, talking Universal v. iTunes web.archive.org/web/2007072911… 7/
#10yrsago Meet the legions of wingnuts who think Andy Griffith was a communist and want him to burn in hell theblaze.com/tag/report-and…

#10yrsago Team Human: a high-school vampire novel doesn’t suck (it rocks) memex.craphound.com/2012/07/03/tea… 8/
#10yrsago Karl Marx on a MasterCard npr.org/sections/money…

#10yrsago Fretting about Facebook, 17th century style tomstandage.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/the…

#10yrsago @TheWELL users pledge more than $100K to community buyout nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2012/07/wi… 9/
#10yrsago @MrChuckD’s rules for the music business craphound.com/images/ChuckDs…

#10yrsago @EFF weighs in on Charles Carreon’s latest dumb stunt eff.org/deeplinks/2012…

#10yrsago Charles Carreon: “Mission accomplished” arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20… 10/
#10yrsago Chinese-built ghost town in Angola – the first of many to come? bbc.com/news/world-afr…

#10yrsago #ACTA IS DEAD (ish) (for now) web.archive.org/web/2012070703…

#10yrsago Why we still fight about music and copyright on the Internet locusmag.com/2012/07/cory-d… 11/
#5yrsago AT&T: it’s not “forced arbitration” because no one forced you to have broadband arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

#5yrsago California has so much solar power it has to pay Arizona to use its excess energy latimes.com/projects/la-fi… 12/
#5yrsago Now any Floridian can ask to have public schools’ science and literary curriculum censored web.archive.org/web/2017050100…

#5yrsago A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: DNA, individuals, and species memex.craphound.com/2017/07/03/a-b… 13/
#5yrsago Celebrate Independence Day with @mc_frontalot’s nerdcore rap about free software vs open source

#5yrsago Dominic Cummings thought up the Brexit Bus and its NHS lie, now says referendum was a “dumb idea” independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi… 14/
#5yrsago Vidangel is a stupid censorship service and we should welcome it anyway wired.com/story/vidangel…

#5yrsago For sale: any Australian’s full health record for a mere $22 theguardian.com/australia-news… 15/
#5yrsago Bloomberg: Middle-class Americans were “fleeced” by neoliberalism bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

#5yrsago In the 1990s, a Serbian biology textbook used a still from Raising Arizona for its cover art avclub.com/nicolas-cage-w… 16/
#5yrsago Mom feared being beaten by United crew, so she didn’t complain when her son’s seat was given away hawaiinewsnow.com/story/35811846…

#5yrsago Debullshitifying the free speech debate about CNN and Trump’s alt-right wrestling GIF popehat.com/2017/07/05/cnn… 17/
#1yrago Podcasting "Self Publishing": My column on monopolism, publishing, and the fortunes of authors pluralistic.net/2021/07/05/ide…

#1yrago Conspiracy fantasy: The political significance and personal appeal of conspiratorialism pluralistic.net/2021/07/05/ide… 18/
#1yrago The future is symmetrical: Broadband netizens vs asymmetrical mouse-potatoes pluralistic.net/2021/07/03/bea…

#1yrago Biden admin orders an end to surprise ER billing pluralistic.net/2021/07/02/spo… 19/
Friday's threads: After inflation, the whip-crack; and more!

20/ Image: Lars Frantzen (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.or
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… 21/
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… 22/
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/ 23/
Upcoming appearances:

* A New @HOPEconf (NYC), Jul 24
hope.net

* @DEFCON 30 (Las Vegas), Aug 13
defcon.org/html/defcon-30… 24/
Recent appearances:

* @CMAgovUK Data, Technology and Analytics Conference:


* Supp-Lie Demand (Bad Faith with @briebriejoy):
patreon.com/posts/67550669

* The Sci-Fi Feedback Loop: Mapping Fiction’s Influence on Real-World Tech
csi.asu.edu/calendar/event… 25/
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… 26/
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/2022/07/05/gra… 27/
If you're a @Medium subscriber, you can read these essays - as well as previews of upcoming magazine columns and early exclusives on doctorow.medium.com. 28/
My latest Medium column is "Shovel-Ready: A half-to-three-quarters-baked idea to fix capitalism"

doctorow.medium.com/shovel-ready-3…

29/
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

30/
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…

eof/

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More from @doctorow

Aug 16
When LLM users describe their experience with their chatbots, the results are so divergent that it can sound like they're describing two completely different products.

1/ A vintage photo of two men in front of a slot machine. The men's heads have been replaced by the heads of hooded figures wearing Guy Fawkes mask. The image is sepia toned: the only color is the pay-line of the slot-machine, which is showing three glaring red eyes of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The slot machine has a sign over the rotor-window that displays the Openai logo and wordmark.   Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en  --  Frank Schwichtenberg (modified...
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/2025/08/16/jac…

2/
Previously, I've hypothesized that this is because there are two distinct groups of *users*: "centaurs" (people who are assisted by a machine - in this case, people who get to decide when, whether and how to integrate an LLM into their work)...

3/
Read 27 tweets
Aug 13
It's not just that Texas DA Gocha Ramirez charged a woman with murder for having an abortion (not t allowed even in Texas). It's that Ramirez paid for his mistress's abortion, after he impregnated her while having an affair with her *and* her sister:



1/ archive.is/20250812192203…A red, angry mushroom cloud. Sitting atop it, surrounded by blue skies and fluffy clouds, is a smirking business-suited man reclining in an armchair. He wears a MAGA hat and reads a magazine turned to a page showing Donald Trump's face.
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/2025/08/13/the…

2/
This is perfect Magaism, as captured by Wilhoit's Law:

> Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.



3/crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/lib…
Read 52 tweets
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
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
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
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

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