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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
Dec 5, 2022 • 21 tweets • 21 min read • Read on X
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Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Monopoly's event-horizon; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/12/05/eld…

#Pluralistic 1/ A NASA rendering entitled 'Neutron Stars Rip Each Other Apar
It's @EFF Power Up Your Donation Week! Through tomorrow, 12/6, online donations to EFF get an automatic 2X match. I'm a donor!

eff.org/power-up 2/
Today (Dec 5) at 18hET, I'll be at @Northeastern's @BurnesCenter in #Boston to talk about @RGibli's and my book *Chokepoint Capitalism* with the @NU_CAMD:

eventbrite.com/e/chokepoint-c…

It's also a webcast:

northeastern.zoom.us/webinar/regist… 3/
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:

goodreads.com/giveaway/show/… 4/
Monopoly's event-horizon: The true capitalist singularity.

5/ Image: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (modified) CC BY
Hey look at this

* Cory Doctorow Wants You to Know What Computers Can and Can’t Do newyorker.com/culture/the-ne…

* Hoarding Center Clutter Image Rating hoardingdisordersuk.org/wp-content/upl… (h/t Tom Whitwell)

* Credit cards as a legacy system bam.kalzumeus.com/archive/credit… 6/
#20yrsago Stupid copyright claims? Just ask web.archive.org/web/2003022309…

#20yrsago 20k-50k WiFi hotspots coming web.archive.org/web/2002120602…

#20yrsago @ShermanOakes1 on ICANN’s corruption web.archive.org/web/2002121918…

#15yrsago @SFWA’s farting rainbows tee whatever.scalzi.com/2007/12/05/sff… 7/
#10yrsago Translating plutocrat economic campaign-speak into plain English nakedcapitalism.com/2012/12/the-ob…

#10yrsago Major studios send legal threats to Google demanding removal of links to their own Facebook pages and more torrentfreak.com/movie-studios-… 8/
#10yrsago Computer classes should teach regular expressions to kids theguardian.com/technology/201…

#10yrsago UN’s International Telecommunications Union sets out to standardize bulk surveillance of Internet users by oppressive governments cdt.org/insights/adopt… 9/
#10yrsago Open, CC-licensed photo course draws up to 35,000 students bbc.com/news/in-pictur…

#1yrsago When you hear "one size fits all," think "universal": The origins and expansion of a right-wing shibboleth pluralistic.net/2021/12/05/uni… 10/
Saturday's threads: The urinary tract infection business-model; and more!

11/ Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wi
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… 12/
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… 13/
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/ 14/
Upcoming appearances:

* Chokepoint Capitalism: A Conversation/@Northeastern/@BurnesCenter/@NU_CAMD (Boston/webcast), 12/5
eventbrite.com/e/chokepoint-c… 15/
* Library Learning Experience/@ALALibrary (New Orleans), 1/27-30
2023.alaliblearnx.org/cory-doctorow

* Chokepoint Capitalism: Can It Be Defeated? (@UCLLaws), 2/1
ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/20…

* @Aus_Digital Copyright Forum (Canberra), 2/17:
digital.org.au/2022/11/08/doc… 16/
Recent appearances:

* @BridgeTales (with @seananmcguire)
talesfromthebridge.buzzsprout.com/1795352/117887…

* @if_this_goes_on
itgodp.libsyn.com/chokepoint-cap…

* @NewBooksNetwork
newbooksnetwork.com/chokepoint-cap… 17/
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/2022/12/05/eld… 18/
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 "Yes, It’s Censorship: Stop picking that nit, it’ll never heal."

doctorow.medium.com/yes-its-censor… 19/
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 20/
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… 21/

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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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