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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
Mar 11, 2023 • 20 tweets • 18 min read • Read on X
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Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Excuseflation; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/03/11/pri…

#Pluralistic 1/ An old general store. Inste...
Excuseflation: Monopolists will never let a good emergency go to waste.

2/ Image
Hey look at this

* Letter from Daniel Ellsberg, diagnosed with terminal cancer ceasefire.ca/wp-content/upl… (h/t Gord Doctorow) 3/ Image
#20yrsago @mkapor quits #Groove board, reportedly over Total Info Awareness nytimes.com/2003/03/11/bus…

#15yrsago @lessig publicly humiliates Andrew Keen web.archive.org/web/2008031321… 4/ Image
#15yrsago New-old stock of Bell Labs’s cardboard teaching computer, the #CARDIAC web.archive.org/web/2008040406…

#15yrsago HOWTO Be blogged web.archive.org/web/2008031315… 5/ Image
#10yrsago Inside the awful world of #RATters – the men who spy on people through their computers with “remote administration tools” arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

#10yrsago New Brazilian environmental political party based on social networking globalvoices.org/2013/03/09/for… 6/ Image
#5yrsago RIP #KateWilhelm, science fiction great and co-founder of the Clarion Workshop facebook.com/richard.wilhel… 7/ Image
#5yrsago Singapore, where the government owns most of the land and housing and a stake in most business is the American right’s “capitalist ideal” peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/03/09/how…

#1yrsago The SEC must not legitimize fake "#CarbonOffsets" pluralistic.net/2022/03/11/a-m… 8/ Image
Yesterday's threads: The Right accuses their critics of the conspiracy they themselves engage in; and more!

9/ Image: Jack Chick https://...
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… 10/
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… 11/
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/ 12/ Image
Upcoming appearances:

* @Ostrom_Workshop: Beyond the Web Speaker Series, 3/20
events.iu.edu/ostromworkshop…

* @iftf Changing the Register, 3/22
iftf.zoom.us/webinar/regist… 13/ Image
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Antitrust and Competition Conference - Beyond the Consumer Welfare Standard (#Chicago), 4/20-21
chicagobooth.edu/research/stigl…

* Red Team Blues event with @TimHarford (#Oxford), 5/29
eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctoro… 14/ Image
Recent appearances:

* @RuBlackListNET Privacy Day


* Factually With @adamconover:
stitcher.com/show/factually…

* Making Big Tech Better vs Making it Smaller (@BruxConf2023):
15/ Image
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/2023/03/11/pri… 16/
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’re still trying to ban cryptography"

doctorow.medium.com/theyre-still-t… 17/
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 18/
Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? You can read my work elsewhere, but it is now a #TwitterCrime to tell you how. Please visit my site, pluralistic.net, for links to find me on less-unhinged places (I can only imagine that my days here are numbered). 19/
Today's top sources: David Callahan. 20/ Image

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 23
> A COMPUTER CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE
>
> THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST NEVER MAKE A MANAGEMENT DECISION

Supposedly, these lines were included in a 1979 internal presentation at IBM; screenshots of them routinely go viral:



1/ An EU flag made up of circuit tracery. In the foreground is a huge figure in a top hat, with a sour expression, peering through a magnifying lens. In the figure's palm is a man on a pennyfarthing bike with a courier backpack. Behind them, the EU flag is disintegrating to reveal a code waterfall as seen in the credit sequences of the Wachowskis' 'Matrix' movies. In the opposite corner, a cyclist is entering the frame: she wears Victorian garb, and her head is a 'hacker in a hoodie' cliche image. Image: EFF (modified) https://www.eff.org/files/issues/eu-flag-11_1.png CC BY 3.0 http://creati...
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/2024/11/23/hac…

2/
The reason for their newfound popularity is obvious: the rise and rise of algorithmic management tools, in which your boss is an app.

3/
Read 42 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 21
Since Trump hijacked the Supreme Court, his backers have achieved many of their policy priorities: legalizing bribery, formalizing forced birth, and - with the *Loper Bright* case, neutering the expert agencies that regulate business:



1/ jacobin.com/2024/07/scotus…A pair of balance scales high over the US Capitol Building. On one platform is a shouting banker holding a money-bag. On the other is a lap technician holding a giant testube larger than his torso, filled with various electronic gadgets. He uses tongs to hold a giant atomic motif over the tube's mouth. From behind the Capitol emerges an elephant in GOP logo livery, with the hair of Donald Trump. On the right is a gigantic telescoping platform terminating in a high-tech command chair from which a man observes the balance scales. Behind them is the DC cityscape, stretching off to the horizon.
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/2024/11/21/pol…

2/
What the Supreme Court began, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are now poised to finish, through the "Department of Government Efficiency," a fake agency whose acronym ("DOGE") continues Musk's long-running cryptocurrency memecoin pump-and-dump.

3/
Read 61 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 15
When the GOP trifecta assumes power in just a few months, they will pass laws, and those laws will be terrible, and they will cast long, long shadows.

1/ https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/14/radical-extremists/#sex-pest An e-waste dump. In the foreground are two waste-barrels. A limp Canadian flag emerges from the left barrel; the nude head and shoulders of a grinning Tony Clement emerge from the right barrel. Image: JeffJ (modified) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tony_Clement_-_2007-06-30_in_Kearney,_Ontario.JPG CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ -- Jorge Franganillo (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duga_radar_system-_wreckage_of_electronic_devices_(37885984654).jpg CC BY 2.0 https://creat...
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/2024/11/15/rad…

2/
This is the story of how another far-right conservative government used its bulletproof majority to pass a wildly unpopular law that continues to stymie progress to this day.

3/
Read 57 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 4
Science fiction isn't collection of tropes, nor is it a literary style, nor is it a marketing category. It can *encompass* all of these, but what sf really is, is an *outlook*.

1/ The Harpercollins cover for Neal Stephenson's 'Polostan.'
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/2024/11/04/bom…

2/
At the core of sf is an approach to technology (and, sometimes, science): sf treats technology as a kind of crux that the rest of the tale revolves around.

3/
Read 39 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 1
"Switching costs" are one of the great underappreciated evils in our world: the more it costs you to change from one product or service to another, the worse the vendor, provider, or service you're using today can treat you without risking your business.

1/ A painting of Moses parting the Red Sea, with taerrified and grateful Israelites around his feet and an onrushing army of charioteers in pursuit. Moses has been replaced with a vintage editorial cartoon depicting Uncle Sam as a stern cop holding out a billyclub, on his breast is the crest of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. The roiling Red Sea has been overlaid with a US $100 bill.
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/2024/11/01/ban…

2/
Businesses set out to keep switching costs as high as possible. Literally. Mark Zuckerberg's capos send him memos chortling about how Facebook's new photos feature will punish anyone who leaves for a rival service with the loss of all their family photos.

3/
Read 43 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Oct 29
I think it behooves us to be skeptical of stories about AI driving people to believe wrong things and commit ugly actions. Not that I like the AI slop that is filling up our social media, but when we look at the ways that AI is harming us, slop is pretty low on the list.

1/ A man lying in a hospital bed, wearing a sinister mind-control helmet. His hands are clenched into fists and he is grimacing. Through a hole in the wall we see a prancing vaudevallian, whose head has been replaced with the head of Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse avatar. Behind this figure is the giant red eye of HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' At the end of the bed stand a trio - Mom, Dad and daughter - in Sunday best clothes, their backs to us, staring at the mind-controlled man's face. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC ...
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/2024/10/29/hob…

2/
The real AI harms come from the actual things that AI companies sell AI to do. There's the AI gun-detector gadgets that the credulous Mayor Eric Adams put in NYC subways, which led to 2,749 invasive searches and turned up *zero* guns:



3/cbsnews.com/newyork/news/n…
Read 57 tweets

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