Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 13, 2022 26 tweets 26 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've ever broken; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/11/13/gra…

#Pluralistic 1/ A disassembled Framework laptop; a man's hand reaches into t
Hey #DC! There's a *very special* invite-only book party for "Chokepoint Capitalism" on Nov 17 and while it's not a public event, there's a limited number of spaces I can distribute on a first come/first serve basis. If you'd like to come, email doctorow@craphound.com! 2/
Today (11/13), I'm presenting at @AaronSwartzDay:
aaronswartzday.org/asd-2022-lives…

11/16, I'm in DC for the Arthur C Clarke Award:
clarkefoundation.org/2022-awards-ev…

11/17, I'm part of a @library_futures webinar:
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regist… 3/
The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've ever broken: If you only pay attention to how things work, you'll be screwed when they fail.

4/
Hey look at this

* It's Not Just You: NYC Has a Serious Dungeon Master Shortage hellgatenyc.com/no-on-wants-to… (h/t @YvesSmith)

* FTC Restores Rigorous Enforcement of Law Banning Unfair Methods of Competition ftc.gov/news-events/ne… (h/t Brooke Fox) 5/
#20yrsago Argentina: stranger than fiction infinitematrix.net/columns/sterli…

#20yrsago Reliable TCP’s weird symbiosis with unreliable IP joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the…

#15yrsago John @Scalzi’s snarky science fiction tour of the Creation Museum whatever.scalzi.com/2007/11/12/you… 6/
#15yrsago Geek Mafia: Mile Zero: nerdy caper novel, the sequel memex.craphound.com/2007/11/12/gee…

#15yrsago A dusty epidemic of cremains at Disneyland web.archive.org/web/2007121302…

#15yrsago JK Rowling sues to stop publication of Potter reference book web.archive.org/web/2007111504… 7/
#15yrsago Gitmo operating manual leak web.archive.org/web/2007121609…

#15yrsago Magic and Showmanship: Classic book about conjuring has many lessons for writers memex.craphound.com/2007/11/13/mag…

#10yrsago UPS to Scouts: no more money until you drop anti-gay policy bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2… 8/
#10yrsago Wall Street is not made up of “numbers guys” scienceblogs.com/principles/201…

#10yrsago Tune: Derek Kirk Kim’s alien abduction romcom memex.craphound.com/2012/11/13/tun…

#10yrsago Ken Macleod on socialism, Singularity, and the rapture of the nerds web.archive.org/web/2013012109… 9/
#10yrsago Super Scratch Programming Adventure! an excellent way to get started in Scratch memex.craphound.com/2012/11/12/sup…

#5yrsago Equifax’s total bill for leaking 145.5 million US records to date: $87.5 million bleepingcomputer.com/news/business/… 10/
#5yrsago One week after release, iPhone X’s Face ID reportedly defeated by a $150 mask theverge.com/2017/11/13/166…

#5yrsago The secretive wealthy family behind the opioid epidemic are using the same tactics to kill public education salon.com/2017/11/15/the… 11/
#5yrsago Bernie Sanders: to fix the Democratic Party, curb superdelegates, make it easier to vote in primaries, and account for funds politico.com/magazine/story… 12/
#5yrsago Watson for Oncology isn’t an AI that fights cancer, it’s an unproven mechanical turk that represents the guesses of a small group of doctors statnews.com/2017/09/05/wat… 13/
#5yrsago Roy Moore’s scandal is just the tip of American evangelical Christianity’s child bride problem web.archive.org/web/2017111904…

#1yrago How to be safe(r) online pluralistic.net/2021/11/13/ops…

#1yrago American corporate criminals in the crosshairs (finally) pluralistic.net/2021/11/12/wit… 14/
Friday's threads: Apple's business model made Chinese oppression inevitable; and more!

15/
My latest book is Chokepoint Capitalism (with @rgibli), nonfiction about monopoly and fairness in creative labor markets.

chokepointcapitalism.com

Signed copies available from @BookSoup:

booksoup.com/book/978080700… 16/
My latest novel 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, @beaconPressBks et al) 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:

* @AaronSwartzDay and International Hackathon, Nov 13:
aaronswartzday.org/asd-2022-lives…

* Arthur C Clarke Award (DC), 11/16
clarkefoundation.org/2022-awards-ev…

* @library_futures Webinar, 11/17
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regist… 19/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Chokepoint Capitalism at @ThePeale Museum (Baltimore), 11/18:
thepeale.org/event/book-tal…

* Big Ideas Live (London), 11/19
news.sky.com/bigideaslive

* Conversation with @Superwuster, #Informed22/@knightfdn (Miami), 11/30:
informed22.interkinnect.com 20/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* @Aus_Digital Copyright Forum (Canberra), 2/17:
digital.org.au/2022/11/08/doc… 21/
Recent appearances:

* How big tech traps consumers and shafts creators (@IrishTimes)
shows.acast.com/inside-politic…

* Copyright Waffle (@UKCopyrightLit)
soundcloud.com/user-243274189…

* Surviving Apocalyptic Economics (@teamhumanshow)
teamhuman.fm/episodes/survi… 22/
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/2022/11/13/gra… 23/
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.

My latest Medium column is "The End of the Road to Serfdom"

doctorow.medium.com/the-end-of-the… 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/

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More from @doctorow

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
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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