Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 17, 2022 32 tweets 29 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Private equity health-care monopolies are on a profitable killing spree; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/11/17/the…

#Pluralistic 1/ A hospital Emergency Room parking lot. In the center of the
Hey #DC! There's a *very special* invite-only book party for "Chokepoint Capitalism" tonight (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 (11/17), I'm part of a @library_futures webinar:
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regist…

Tomorrow (11/18), I'm in Baltimore at @thePeale Museum:
thepeale.org/event/book-tal…

Fri (11/19), I'm at Sky Live in London:
news.sky.com/bigideaslive 3/
Private equity health-care monopolies are on a profitable killing spree: And you thought it was bad before.

4/  Image: Rae Allen (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/r
Hey look at this

* Libraries Are Launching Their Own Local Music Streaming Platforms vice.com/en/article/5d3… (h/t Slashdot)

* Fantastic Medieval Campaigns traversefantasy.itch.io/fmc (h/t Vintage RPG)

* @LocusMag's first crowdfunding campaign! indiegogo.com/projects/locus… 5/
#20yrsago Visa claims to own dictionary definition of “visa” web.archive.org/web/2002111811…

#20yrsago Hacker R0TC latimes.com/archives/la-xp…

#15yrsago Korea’s Internet “addiction” boot-camps nytimes.com/2007/11/18/tec… 6/
#15yrsago House keeps AT&T on the hook for spying on America, Senate next? eff.org/deeplinks/2007…

#15yrsago Infringement Nation: we are all mega-crooks web.archive.org/web/2007112701…

#10yrsago Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore: The perfect nerdish fantasy memex.craphound.com/2012/11/16/mr-… 7/
#10yrsago What do we do about untrustworthy Certificate Authorities? nature.com/articles/49132…

#10yrsago Taliban uses CC instead of BCC, exposes identity of 400+ contacts observer.com/2012/11/taliba… 8/
#10yrsago House Republicans release watershed copyright reform paper techdirt.com/2012/11/16/hou…

#5yrsago Outstanding rant about the surreal design ethos of The Cheesecake Factory 9/
#5yrsago Poor Detroit neighborhoods, abandoned by telcos and the FCC, are rolling out homebrew, community mesh broadband vice.com/en/article/kz3…

#5yrsago 70% of poor people on broadband subsidy will lose their connections thanks to Trump’s FCC arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20… 10/
#5yrsago The 0.2% of Americans exempted by the GOP estate-tax plan (including the Trump cabinet) have never paid tax on their millions and never will nytimes.com/2017/11/16/bus… 11/
#5yrsago Donald Trump will re-legalize importing endangered elephants’ ivory and severed heads newscientist.com/article/215368…

#5yrsago Navy admits its pilot sky-wrote a giant cloud-wiener krem.com/article/news/l… 12/
#5yrsago Pentagon mass surveillance slurped up the world’s social media traffic; then they dumped it on a publicly accessible Amazon cloud server upguard.com/breaches/cloud… 13/
#5yrsago Web analytics companies offer “replay sessions” that let corporations watch every click and keystroke for individual users wired.com/story/the-dark… 14/
#5yrsago Trump’s top economic advisor asks CEOs to raise hands if they’re going to use tax cuts to invest, boggled by no one raising hands washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2… 15/
#5yrsago Study finds that people vote for strongman “dominance” leaders when they they feel out of control of their lives scientificamerican.com/article/explai… 16/
#5yrsago Hackers can freeze the camera that lets you know whether your “Amazon Key” equipped door is locked and who is using it wired.com/story/amazon-k… 17/
#5yrsago The Internet of Shit is so manifestly insecure that people are staying away from it in droves www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/De…

#5yrsago “Economic murder”: Senior UK public health researchers say 120,000 people died under Tory austerity independent.co.uk/news/health/to… 18/
#1yrago What Police Get When They Get Your Phone pluralistic.net/2021/11/16/cop…

#1yrago Live Nation is to blame for the Astroworld deaths pluralistic.net/2021/11/17/do-…

#1yrago Aspiration's comprehensively deceptive greenwashing pluralistic.net/2021/11/17/do-… 19/
Tuesday's threads: Tracers in the Dark; and more!

20/
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… 21/
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… 22/
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/ 23/
Upcoming appearances:

* @library_futures Webinar, 11/17
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regist…

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

* Big Ideas Live (London), 11/19
news.sky.com/bigideaslive 24/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Kim Stanley Robinson's Gold Coast (California Book Club), Nov 22
altaonline.com/california-boo…

* Conversation with @Superwuster, #Informed22/@knightfdn (Miami), 11/30:
informed22.interkinnect.com 25/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* @Aus_Digital Copyright Forum (Canberra), 2/17:
digital.org.au/2022/11/08/doc… 26/
Recent appearances:

* @teamhumanshow interview
teamhuman.fm/episodes/229-c…

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

* Copyright Waffle (@UKCopyrightLit)
soundcloud.com/user-243274189… 27/
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/2022/11/17/the… 28/
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 "They Want to Kill Libraries"

doctorow.medium.com/they-want-to-k… 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… 31/
Today's top sources: @YvesSmith (nakedcapitalism.com). 32/

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More from @doctorow

May 17
As a science fiction writer, I find it weird that some sf tropes - like space colonization - have become culture-war touchstones. You know, that whole "we were promised jetpacks" thing.

1/ A cartoon image of a jetpack-flying man waves hello at a gap-toothed, awed young boy. Beneath them in the corner, a sinister figure with huge, hypnotic-spiral eyes works the switches on an imposing control panel. On his desk is a copy of Amazing Stories with the same rocketeer. In the image background is a faded, halftoned image of the NYC 1964 World's Fair.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on , my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:



2/pluralistic.net
pluralistic.net/2024/05/17/fak…
I confess, I never looked too hard at the practicalities of jetpacks, because they are so obviously either used as a visual shorthand (as in the Jetsons) or as a metaphor.

3/
Read 49 tweets
May 13
When it comes to AI art (or "art"), it's hard to find a nuanced position that respects creative workers' labor rights, free expression, copyright law's vital exceptions and limitations, and aesthetics.

1/ An old woodcut of a disembodied man's hand operating a Ouija board planchette. It has been modified to add an extra finger and thumb. It has been tinted green. It has been placed on a 'code waterfall' backdrop as seen in the credit sequences of the Wachowskis' 'Matrix' movies.
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2/pluralistic.net
pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spo…
I am, on balance, opposed to AI art, but there are some important caveats to that position. For starters, I think it's unequivocally wrong - as a matter of law - to say that scraping works and training a model with them infringes copyright.

3/
Read 98 tweets
May 11
Like Oscar Wilde, "I can resist anything except temptation," and my slow and halting journey to adulthood is really just me grappling with this fact, getting temptation out of my way before I can yield to it.

1/ A complex control panel whose knobs have all been replaced with the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' A skeletal figure on one side of the image reaches out a bony finger to twiddle one of the knobs.  Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en  --  djhughman https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Modular_synthesizer_-_%22Control_Voltage%22_electronic_music_shop_in_Portland_OR_-_School_Photos_PCC_%282015-05-23_12.43.01_by_djhughman%29.jpg  CC BY 2.0 https://cr...
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2/pluralistic.net
pluralistic.net/2024/05/11/for…
Behavioral economists have a name for the steps we take to guard against temptation: a "Ulysses pact." That's when you take some possibility off the table during a moment of strength in recognition of some coming moment of weakness:



3/archive.org/details/decent…
Read 86 tweets
May 9
Fun fact: "The Tragedy Of the Commons" is a hoax created by the white nationalist Garrett Hardin to justify stealing land from colonized people.

1/ A lonely mud-brick well in a brown desert. It has been modified to add a 'caganar' - a traditional Spanish figure of a man crouching down and defecating - perched on the edge of the well. The caganar's head has been replaced with the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The sky behind this scene has been blended with a 'code waterfall' effect as seen in the credit sequences of the Wachowskis' 'Matrix' movies.  Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en  --  Cathe...
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2/pluralistic.net
pluralistic.net/2024/05/09/shi…
The "Tragedy" hoax said that moving land from collective ownership "rescued" it from the inevitable tragedy by putting it in the hands of a private owner, who cared for it properly, thanks to "rational self-interest":



3/pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/ana…
Read 50 tweets
May 6
Amazon is very good at everything it does, including being very bad at the things it doesn't want to do. Take signing up for Prime: nothing could be simpler. The company has built a greased slide from Prime-curiosity to Prime-confirmed that is the envy of every UX designer.

1/ A hand depositing a ballot in a perspex ballot box on a black background. The box is full of yellow-green piss and the ballot features an angry robot made from Amazon boxes and the phrase 'I am not a robot.' The box has an Amazon logo across its top.   Image: Isabela.Zanella (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ballot-box-2.jpg  CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on , my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:



2/pluralistic.net
pluralistic.net/2024/05/06/one…
But *unsubscribing* from Prime? That's a fucking *nightmare*. Somehow the company that can easily figure out how to sign up for a service is totally baffled when it comes to making it just as easy to leave.

3/
Read 49 tweets
May 4
Director Irvin Kershner posing with Darth Vader, IG-88 and Boba Fett gameraboy2.tumblr.com/post/749583586…
Image
1956 American Motors Astra-Gnome concept car, designed by Richard Arbib. humanoidhistory.tumblr.com/post/749579045…
Image
Read 10 tweets

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