Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jul 7, 2022 27 tweets 24 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Countervaling power; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/07/07/col…

#Pluralistic 1/ A mountain village that is being trampled under the feet of
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/
Countervaling power: Finding the hairball's loose ends.

3/
Hey look at this

* Companies Are Hacking Their Way Around the Chip Shortage wired.com/story/chip-sho…

* Nick Robinson speaks to Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT union bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

* Journey Back Into Imagination …urneybackintoimagination.blogspot.com (h/t Wil Wheaton) 4/
#20yrsago The 1997 prototype for parasitic computing web.archive.org/web/2001060502…

#20yrsago The difference between OS X and Linux web.archive.org/web/2002070919…

#20yrsago Michael Jackson: music industry is a racist conspiracy to steal from artists billboard.com/music/music-ne… 5/
#20yrsago More sharp notes on Palladium web.archive.org/web/2002080214…

#10yrsago The UK has spent more money bailing out its banks in the past 12 months than it has spent on science since the time of Christ bbc.com/news/av/uk-pol… 6/
#10yrsago Def Leppard cuts off Universal Music, re-records “forgeries” of its own hits hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-n…

#10yrsago My stupidest moment as a customer, ever memex.craphound.com/2012/07/06/my-…

#10yrsago Mitt Romney doesn’t know how Venn diagrams work thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012… 7/
#10yrsago Just Do It doc on direct-action environmentalists now available as free, CC-licensed BitTorrent download web.archive.org/web/2012062908…

#10yrsago Austerity creates an organlegging bubble nytimes.com/2012/06/29/wor… 8/
#10yrsago Rand and Ron Paul denounce net neutrality and the public domain techdirt.com/2012/07/05/ron…

#10yrsago Scientology memo asks members to censor critical web comments with trumped up “code of conduct” complaints news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/… 9/
#10yrsago John @Scalzi profiled in the NYT nytimes.com/2012/07/07/boo…

#5yrsago Theresa May says she won’t address climate change at the G20 summit independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi… 10/
#5yrsago Networks hide badly rated shows by misspelling their names in Nielsen submissions cnet.com/culture/entert…

#5yrsago Under Trumpcare, surviving a gunshot wounds gives you a “pre-existing condition” bloomberg.com/news/articles/… 11/
#5yrsago The W3C has overruled members’ objections and will publish its DRM for videos eff.org/deeplinks/2017…

#5yrsago How to write pulp fiction that celebrates humanity’s essential goodness locusmag.com/2017/07/cory-d… 12/
#5yrsago America is starting to realize that “liberal/conservative” labels exclude the left nytimes.com/2017/07/05/mag…

#1yrsago Quantifying copyright reversion: The first-of-its-kind dataset of creators who took back their rights pluralistic.net/2021/07/06/bac… 13/
#1yrago Comic book store files comic-book lawsuit: Third Planet Comics has already won its case…in my heart pluralistic.net/2021/07/07/ins…

#1yrago Biden delivers Right to Repair via executive order pluralistic.net/2021/07/07/ins… 14/
#1yrago Technological self-determination: Competition is a means, not an end pluralistic.net/2021/07/07/ins… 15/
Tuesday's threads: "The Swerve"; and more!

16/
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… 17/
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/ 18/
Upcoming appearances:

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

* @DEFCON 30 (Las Vegas), Aug 13
defcon.org/html/defcon-30… 19/
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… 20/
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… 21/
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/2022/07/07/col… 22/
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. 23/
My latest @Medium column is "Shovel-Ready: A half-to-three-quarters-baked idea to fix capitalism"

doctorow.medium.com/shovel-ready-3… 24/
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 25/
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… 26/
Today's top sources: @YvesSmith (nakedcapitalism.com). 27/

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More from @doctorow

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
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
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
Jun 20
Private equity firms are the demon princes of the hellspace that is the imploding, life-destroying, plutocrat-generating American economy.

1/ A billionaire in a tuxedo with dollar-sign cufflinks, stands at a podium, yanking a lever shaped like a gilded dollar sign with one gloved hand. From the other hand, he contemptuously dangles a bloody corpse. His head has been replaced with the head of a doctor in a surgeon's blue cap, with red, glaring eyes. The background is the text of Oregon's new Corporate Practice of Medicine law, in blown-out, red type.
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/2025/06/20/the…

2/
Their favorite scam, the "leveraged buyout" is a mafia bustout dressed up in respectable clothes, and if you mourn a beloved, failed business, chances are that an LBO was the murder weapon, and PE was the killer:



3/pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spi…
Read 44 tweets
May 27
On a recent This Machine Kills episode, guest Hagen Blix described the ultimate form of "AI therapy" with a "human in the loop":



1/ soundcloud.com/thismachinekil…A magnified image of the inside of an automated backup tape library, with gleaming racks of silver tape drives receding into the distance. In the foreground is a pile of dirt being shoveled by three figures in prisoner's stripes. Two of the figures' heads have been replaced with cliche hacker-in-hoodie heads, from which shine yellow, inverted Amazon 'smile' logos, such that the smile is a frown. The remaining figure's head has been replaced with a horse's head. Behind the figure is an impatiently posed man in a sharp business suit, frowning at his watch. His head has been replaced with the ...
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/2025/05/27/ran…

2/
> One actual therapist is just having ten chat GPT windows open where they just like have five seconds to interrupt the chatGPT. They have to scan them all and see if it says something really inappropriate. That's your job, to stop it.

3/
Read 98 tweets

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