Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jun 9, 2023 19 tweets 21 min read Read on X
Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Capitalists hate capitalism; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/06/09/com…

#Pluralistic

1/ A caricature of a businessm...
Capitalists hate capitalism: Merck's version of "market pricing" is "whatever we ask for."



2/  Image: Flying Logos (modif...
Hey look at this

* Some #blogging myths jvns.ca/blog/2023/06/0… (h/t @kottke)

* #OpenAI Sued for Libel After ChatGPT Allegedly Hallucinates Man Into Lawsuit gizmodo.com/chatgpt-openai…

* Eli Lilly Unveils Insulin That Doesn’t Work On Poor People theonion.com/eli-lilly-unve…

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#20yrsago #Biopiracy: a new colonialism web.archive.org/web/2003062501…

#20yrsago @EdFelten explains why “black box” DRM tech is bad for society onlisareinsradar.com/archives/00135…

#20yrsago Encrypted AIM web.archive.org/web/2003080107…

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#15yrsago Virgin Media UK working with record industry to spy on and threaten downloaders independent.co.uk/tech/virgin-wa…

#15yrsago Broadcasters fight hard against public use of blank #spectrum arstechnica.com/uncategorized/…

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#15yrsago #Kucinich begins impeachment process for ##GWBush web.archive.org/web/2008061014…

#15yrsago My new graphic novel for sale and as a free, remixable, shareable download archive.org/details/CoryDo…

#10yrsago #NSA whistleblower goes public

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#10yrsago New NSA leak: #BOUNDLESSINFORMANT documents the extent of NSA spying around the world theguardian.com/world/2013/jun…

#10yrsago What #Prism slide-presentation means by “direct access” to Internet giants’ servers techdirt.com/2013/06/08/mor…

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#10yrsago #Beastles are back: double-album of Beastie Boys/Beatles mashups imminent web.archive.org/web/2013061305…

#10yrsago PRISM and Canada: what are the north-of-the-border implications of American spooks gone wild? web.archive.org/web/2013061119…

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#10yrsago PRISM and denials, what’s going on? engadget.com/2013-06-07-new…

#10yrsago Another Top Secret leak: Obama’s cyber-war hit-list theguardian.com/world/2013/jun…

#5yrsago The BBC warns that new EU copyright rule will break the internet bbc.com/news/technolog…

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#5yrsago Anti-piracy group’s study reveals that pirates are mostly people who couldn’t afford, find, or use a commercial version torrentfreak.com/pirates-are-va…

#1yrago Powered wheelchairs and #RightToRepair pluralistic.net/2022/06/08/cha…

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Wednesday's threads: To save the news, repeal the app tax; and more!



12/  Image: EFF https://www.eff...
My latest novel is Red Team Blues, available wherever books are sold!

Signed copies at @DarkDel (US):

darkdel.com/store/p2873/We…

and @ForbiddenPlanet (UK):

forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-tea…

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My latest nonfiction 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…

14/
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/

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Recent appearances:

* How To Save News Media From Our Tech Overlords (@CANADALAND)
canadaland.com/podcast/888-ho…

* Most AI is not artificial or intelligent (with @jamesbridle)


* @machinekillspod
soundcloud.com/thismachinekil…

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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/2023/06/09/com…

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If you're a @Medium subscriber, you can read these essays - and previews of upcoming columns and exclusives on doctorow.medium.com.

My latest Medium column is "Ayyyy Eyeee: The lie that raced around the world before the truth got its boots on"

doctorow.medium.com/ayyyyyy-eyeeee…

18/
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: mail.flarn.com/mailman/listin…

19/
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).

eof/

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More from @doctorow

Jul 22
Ever notice how many right wing influencers are on the grift?

1/ A carny barker at a podium, gesticulating with a MAGA cap. He wears a Klan hood, and his podium features products from Nu-skin, Amway and Herbalife. Behind him is an oil-painted scene of a steamship with a Trump Tower logo, at a pier in flames.
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/2025/07/22/all…

2/
Like Alex Jones - that guy is basically Gwyneth Paltrow for conservative bros, selling the same "wellness" crap to a male audience (and not for nothing, Paltrow's victims are reliable boosters for RFK Jr's MAHA movement):



3/theweek.com/speedreads/709…
Read 66 tweets
Jul 3
As fascism burns across America, it's important to remember that Trump and his policies are *not popular*.

1/ A kneeling figure, shackled hand-and-foot with ball-and-chains at his ankles. His face is that of a turn-of-the-century newsie, grinning broadly under a torn cloth cap. Behind him is a heavily halftoned neon HELP WANTED sign, askew over a indistinct black hellscape ganked from the third panel of Boschs's 'Garden of Earthly Delights.'
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/2025/07/03/sta…

2/
Sure, the racism and cruelty excites a minority of (very broken) people, but every component of the Trump agenda is *extremely* unpopular with the American people, from tax cuts for billionaires to kidnapping our neighbors and shipping them to concentration camps.

3/
Read 42 tweets
Jul 1
If there's one are where tech has shown a consistent aptitude for innovation, it's in accounting tricks that make money-losing companies appear wildly profitable. And AI is the greatest innovator of all (when it comes to accounting gimmicks).

1/ A carny barker waving his top-hat and selling tickets from a roll; his head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background is a magnified, halftoned detail from a US$100 bill.   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/2025/06/30/acc…

2/
Since the dotcom era, tech companies have boasted about giving stuff away but "making it up in volume," inventing an ever-sweatier collection of shell-games that let them hide the business's true profit and loss.

3/
Read 42 tweets
Jun 28
In 2014, I read a political science paper that nearly convinced me to quit my lifelong career as an activist: "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," published in *Perspectives on Politics*:



1/ cambridge.org/core/journals/…An inflatable pig balloon against a blue sky, bearing the Zohran for Mayor logo. The Chrysler Building sits to one side.  Image: Frank Vincentz (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Geeste_-_Biener_Stra%C3%9Fe_-_Speicherbecken_-_Drachenfest_38_ies.jpg  Petri Krohn https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysler_building-_top.jpg  CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/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/2025/06/28/mam…

2/
The paper's authors are Martin Gilens, a UCLA professor of Public Policy; and Northwestern's Benjamin Page, a professor of Decision Making. Gilens and Page studied a representative sample of 1,779 policy issues.

3/
Read 49 tweets
Jun 24
When a company sells you something for $2 that someone else can buy for $1, they're revaluing the dollars in your pocket at half the rate of the other guy's.

1/ A busy 1950s grocery store. The scene has been altered: the massive, menacing, glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' hovers over the store, shooting red beams into the cash register. The store -- but not the shoppers at its front -- is suffused with red light.  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/2025/06/24/pri…

2/
Economists praise "price discrimination" as "efficient." That's when a company charges different customers different amounts based on inferences about their willingness to pay.

3/
Read 50 tweets
Jun 20
Private equity firms are the demon princes of the hellspace that is the imploding, life-destroying, plutocrat-generating American economy.

1/ A billionaire in a tuxedo with dollar-sign cufflinks, stands at a podium, yanking a lever shaped like a gilded dollar sign with one gloved hand. From the other hand, he contemptuously dangles a bloody corpse. His head has been replaced with the head of a doctor in a surgeon's blue cap, with red, glaring eyes. The background is the text of Oregon's new Corporate Practice of Medicine law, in blown-out, red type.
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/2025/06/20/the…

2/
Their favorite scam, the "leveraged buyout" is a mafia bustout dressed up in respectable clothes, and if you mourn a beloved, failed business, chances are that an LBO was the murder weapon, and PE was the killer:



3/pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spi…
Read 44 tweets

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