This Weds (Nov 30), @superwuster and I are appearing in conversation to discuss monopoly and creative labor markets at the @knightfdn's #Informed22 conference in #Miami:
My publisher @torbooks and @goodreads are drawing for a giveaway of advance copies of my next novel, "Red Team Blues," a Silicon Valley forensic accounting thriller about a cryptocurrency heist - If you're in the US or Canada, enter here to win a copy:
#5yrago Roy Moore is still in the running because “values voters” would support Satan himself if he was anti-abortion and homophobic fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-v… 18/
#5yrsago Citing Trump, Philippines dictator declares himself to be a “fascist” and vows to persecute peaceful left-wing opposition groups telesurenglish.net/analysis/-Dute…
#5yrsago Rightscorp finished Sept 2017 with $3,147 in the bank, warns investors it will likely have to shut down without more cash torrentfreak.com/rightscorp-rev… 21/
#5yrsago A generation after American “libertarians” helped with mass disappearances, torture and murder of left-wing activists, Frente Amplio surge in Chilean elections bloomberg.com/news/articles/… 23/
#5yrsago Investigators claim that Oxbridge and other top UK universities are operating a massive, illegal surveillance dragnet aimed at students/alumni and their friends and families qz.com/1133808/univer… 24/
#5yrsago For the next year, TV, newspapers, and the web will run massive ads from tobacco companies admitting that their products kill people, that they were engineered to be addictive, and that they covered this up abc.net.au/news/2017-11-2… 25/
#5yrsago One of the net’s most important freedom canaries died the day the W3C greenlit web-wide DRM; what can we learn from the fight? eff.org/deeplinks/2017… 26/
#5yrsago Trump appointed a loan-shark fixer as an assistant Attorney General, who then wrote a controversial memo justifying the neutering of the consumer finance watchdog theintercept.com/2017/11/27/whi… 27/
#5yrsago Comcast spams social media with Net Neutrality promises, hopes you won’t notice that they used to promise a LOT more arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20… 28/
#5yrsago Religious fanatics go to the Supreme Court for the First Amendment right to trick women into bearing unwanted children theintercept.com/2017/11/27/the… 29/
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."
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. 41/
My latest @Medium column is "Poe vs. Property: A detective story of shifting rationalizations"
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!
I am an environmentalist, but I'm not a climate activist. I used to be - I even used to ring strangers' doorbells on behalf of Greenpeace.
1/
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:
But a quarter of a century ago, I fell in with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and became a lifelong digital rights activist, and switched to cheering on environmental activists from the sidelines of their fight:
Like you, I'm sick to the back teeth of talking about AI. Like you, I keep getting dragged into AI discussions. Unlike you‡, I spent the summer writing a book on why I'm sick of AI⹋, which @fsgbooks will publish in 2026.
‡probably
⹋"The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI"
1/
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:
A week ago, I turned that book into a speech, which I delivered as the annual Nordlander Memorial Lecture at Cornell, where I'm an AD White Professor-at-Large.
3/
Billionaires don't think we're real. How could they? How could you inflict the vast misery that generates billions while still feeling even a twinge of empathy for the sufferer in your extractive enterprise. No wonder Elon Musk calls us "NPCs":
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:
Ever notice how people get palpably stupider as they gain riches and power? Musk went from a cringe doofus to a world-class credulous dolt, and it seems like he loses five IQ points for every $10b that's added to his net worth.
3/
I'm only a few chapters into Bill McKibben's stupendous new book *Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization* and I already know it's going to change my outlook forever:
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:
McKibben is one of our preeminent climate writers and activists, noteworthy for his informed and brilliant explanations of the technical limits - and possibilities - of various climate interventions, and for his lifelong organizing work.
3/
One of the dumbest, shrewdest tricks corporate America ever pulled was teaching us all to reflexively say, "If a corporation blocks your speech, that doesn't violate the First Amendment and therefore it's not censorship":
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:
Censorship isn't limited to government action: it's the act of preventing a message from a willing speaker from reaching a willing listener. The fact that it's censorship doesn't (necessarily) mean that it's illegitimate or bad.
3/
Conspiratorialism is downstream of the trauma of institutional failures.
Insitutional failures are downstream of regulatory capture.
Regulatory capture is downstream of monopolization.
Monopolization is downstream of the failure to enforce antitrust law.
1/
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:
Start with conspiratorialism and trauma. I am staunchly pro-vaccine. I have had so many covid jabs that I glow in the dark and can get impeccable 5g reception at the bottom of a coal-mine.