Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK's Threads

Nov 15 • 57 tweets • 10 min read

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.

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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…

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Nov 4 • 39 tweets • 7 min read

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*.

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Nov 1 • 43 tweets • 9 min read

"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.

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Oct 29 • 57 tweets • 12 min read

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.

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Oct 26 • 53 tweets • 10 min read

Two decades ago, I was part of a group of nerds who got really interested in how each other managed to do what we did. The effort was kicked off by @mala, who called it "Lifehacking" and I played a small role in getting that term popularized:

1/ craphound.com/lifehacksetcon…

Oct 24 • 32 tweets • 7 min read

A paradox: in 1970, most Americans found it relatively easy to afford a house, and the average US house cost 5.9x the average US income. In 2024, Americans find it nearly impossible to afford a house, and the average American house costs...5.9x the average American income.

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Oct 23 • 42 tweets • 8 min read

If Trump's norm-breaking is a threat to democracy (and it is), what should Democrats do? Will breaking norms to defeat norms only accelerate the collapse of norms, or do we fight fire with fire, breaking norms to resist the slide into tyranny?

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Oct 21 • 86 tweets • 16 min read

One of the most consequential series of investigative journalism of this decade was the @Propublica series that @eisingerj helmed, in which Eisinger and colleagues analyzed a trove of leaked IRS tax returns for the richest people in America:

1/ propublica.org/series/the-sec…

Oct 18 • 33 tweets • 6 min read

Nothing's more frustrating that watching the GOP smash norms and decency to advance policies that harm millions of Americas, unless it's that, plus Democratic officials stamping their feet and saying, "C'mon guys, *play fair*."

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Oct 15 • 42 tweets • 9 min read

Billionaires are *pretty confident* that they can't be taxed - not just that they *shouldn't* be taxed, but rather, that it is *technically impossible* to tax the ultra-rich. They're not shy about explaining why, either - and neither is their army of lickspittles.

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Oct 12 • 47 tweets • 11 min read

It's Saturday and any fule kno that this is the day for a linkdump, in which the links that couldn't be squeezed into the week's newsletter editions get their own showcase. Here's the previous 23 linkdumps:

1/ pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Oct 3 • 24 tweets • 15 min read

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

NOTE: I DID NOT BUY A BLUE TICK. IT WAS NONCONSENSUALLY ADDED TO MY ACCOUNT.

Inside: Prime's enshittified advertising; and more!

Archived at:

#Pluralistic

1/ pluralistic.net/2024/10/03/mot…

.@TorBooks has just published two new, free "Little Brother" stories: "Vigilant," about creepy surveillance in distance education:

reactormag.com/spill-cory-doc…

And "Spill," about oil pipelines and indigenous landback:

reactormag.com/vigilant-cory-…

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Oct 2 • 55 tweets • 11 min read

Epic Systems makes the dominant electronic health record (EHR) system in America; if you're a doctor, chances are you're *required* to use it. For each hour a doctor spends with a patient, they spend *two* hours on clinically useless bureaucratic data-entry on an Epic EHR.

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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/2024/10/02/upc…

Oct 1 • 56 tweets • 11 min read

The American Dream, such as it is, used to be *two* dreams, one based on work and solidarity, the other on asset appreciation and disconnected individualism. We killed the first one.

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Sep 27 • 35 tweets • 8 min read

Denise Prudhomme's bosses at Wells Fargo insisted that the in-person camaraderie of their offices warranted a mandatory return-to-office policy, but when she died at her desk in her Tempe, AZ office, no one noticed for four days.

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Sep 26 • 36 tweets • 7 min read

In Canto 20 of *Inferno*, Dante confronts a pit where the sinners have had their heads twisted around backwards; they trudge, naked and weeping, through puddles of cooling tears.

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Sep 23 • 75 tweets • 12 min read

Terminal-stage capitalism owes its long senescence to its defensive mechanisms, and it's only by defeating these that we can put it out of its misery. "The Shield of Boringness" is one of the necrocapitalist's most effective defenses, so it behooves us to attack it head-on.

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Sep 9 • 46 tweets • 9 min read

Broadly speaking, the role of an establishment economist is to come up with new ways of saying, "actually, your boss is right."

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Aug 19 • 37 tweets • 8 min read

*Corporate Bullshit: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America* is @NickHanauer, @joanwalsh and @donaldrcohen12's 2023 book on the history of corporate apologetics; it's great:

1/ thenewpress.com/books/corporat…

Aug 17 • 204 tweets • >60 min read

Last weekend, I was at @Defcon 32, where I had the privilege of giving a talk: "Disenshittify or die! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification."

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Aug 16 • 68 tweets • 14 min read

Once you learn about the "collective action problem," you see it everywhere. Democrats - including elected officials - wanted Biden to step down, but no one wanted to be the first one to take a firm stand, so for months, his campaign limped on: a collective action problem.

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