Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr Profile picture
Author/activist/journalist. New novel: THE BEZZLE, a Martin Hench thriller about hi-tech fraud and the Shitty Tech Adoption Curve https://t.co/4ZExCQHv6q
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Mar 14 28 tweets 8 min read
A key requirement for being a science fiction writer without losing your mind is the ability to distinguish between science fiction (futuristic thought experiments) and *predictions*. SF writers who lack this trait come to fancy themselves fortune-tellers who SEE! THE! FUTURE!

1 A Mobius strip made of shiny metal posed on a 'code waterfall' background as seen in the credit sequences of the Wachowskis' 'Matrix' movies.   Image: Plamenart (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double_Mobius_Strip.JPG  CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en  If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on , my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:



2/pluralistic.net
pluralistic.net/2024/03/14/14/…
Mar 13 53 tweets 12 min read
Bruce Schneier coined the term "feudal security" to describe Big Tech's offer: "move into my fortress - lock yourself into my technology - and I will keep you safe from all the marauders roaming the land":



1/ pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/bat…
A fortress with a drawbridge. On the drawbridge stands a beckoning military figure with a demon's head. Through the portcullis gate we see a mousetrap against a backdrop of books.   Image: Skelanard (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Entrance_to_the_Belgrade_Fortress.jpg  CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on , my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:



2/pluralistic.net
pluralistic.net/2024/03/13/hey…
Mar 12 83 tweets 18 min read
A characteristically brilliant @kashhill story for @NYTimes reveals a characteristically terrible fact of modern life: your car secretly records telemetry and sells it to data-brokers, who sell it to insurers, who use it to gouge you on premiums:



1/ nytimes.com/2024/03/11/tec…
The interior of a luxury car. There is a dagger protruding from the steering wheel. The entertainment console has been replaced by the text 'You wouldn't download a car,' in MPAA scare-ad font. Outside of the windscreen looms the Matrix waterfall effect. Visible in the rear- and side-view mirror is the driver: the figure from Munch's 'Scream.' The screen behind the steering-wheel has been replaced by the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.   Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommon... 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/2024/03/12/mar…
Mar 8 39 tweets 8 min read
Capitalism's Big Lie in four words: "There is no alternative." Looters use this lie for cover, insisting that they're hard-nosed grownups living in the reality of human nature, incentives, and facts (which don't care about your feelings).

1/ A haunted, ruined hospital building. A sign hangs askew over the entrance with the NHS logo over the Palantir logo. Beneath it, a cutaway silhouette reveals a blood-spattered, scalpel-wielding surgeon with a Palantir logo over his breast, about to slice into a frightened patient with an NHS logo over his breast. Looming over the scene are the eyes of Peter Thiel, bloodshot and sinister.  Image: Gage Skidmore (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Thiel_(51876933345).jpg  CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on , my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:



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pluralistic.net/2024/03/08/the…
Mar 6 42 tweets 8 min read
When hydrocarbon barons torch the Earth with fossil fuels, they call *us* dreamers. They insist that there's a hard-nosed reality - humanity needs energy - and they're the ones who live in it while we're in a fairyland running on sunshine and virtuous thoughts.

1/ Image 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/2024/03/06/exx…
Mar 1 58 tweets 12 min read
For the pro-monopoly crowd that absolutely dominated antitrust law from the Carter administration until 2020, Amazon presents a genuinely puzzling paradox: the company's monopoly power was *never* supposed to emerge, and if it did, it should have crumbled immediately.

1/ Hieronymus Bosch's painting The Conjurer. The head of the conjurer has been replaced with Jeff Bezos's grinning head. There's an Amazon logo on his table, and another overhead. The cups from his cup-and-ball game have been replaced with inverted Amazon cartons. Every hand visible in the image has had numerous extra fingers painstakingly manually added to it in the hopes of goading a moralizing scold into complaining that this image is AI generated so that I can make fun of them. Image: Doc Searls (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/4863121221/  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommo... 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/2024/03/01/man…
Feb 28 72 tweets 13 min read
As someone who writes a lot of fiction about corporate crime, I naturally end up spending a lot of time being *angry* about corporate crime. It's pretty goddamned enraging.

1/ A black and white photo of an old hospital ward. A bright red river of blood courses between the beds. Dancing in the blood is Monopoly's 'Rich Uncle Pennybags.' He has removed his face to reveal a grinning skull. 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/2024/02/28/500…
Feb 27 49 tweets 10 min read
You can barely turn around these days without being warned of the risks of AI disinformation in coming elections. But as a recent episode of @MachineKillsPod reminds us, these are *hypothetical* risks, and there's no shortage of *real* AI harms:



1/ soundcloud.com/thismachinekil…
A board room table surrounded by serious-looking, middle-aged white corporate executives. Their attention is focused on a trio - a family of a man, woman and small girl, seen from behind. In one corner of the image is a giant, floating head whose eyes are replaced with the glaring red eyes of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The disembodied head is projecting a red beam over the trio.  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 , my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:



2/pluralistic.net
pluralistic.net/2024/02/27/ai-…
Feb 26 31 tweets 7 min read
You know "horseshoe theory," right? "The left and theright, rather than being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear continuum of politics, closely resemble each other, analogous to the way that the opposite ends of a horseshoe are close together":



1/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe…
A group of women's May Day marchers from the 1900 May Day labor march, dressed in period costume. In the foreground are two horizontally flipped images of a furious, hair-pulling Tweedledum as depicted by Tenniel. The left one is colored red and wears a sign that reads WRONG WAY GO BACK. The right one is colored green and wears a sign that reads NO STOPPING PLEASE PULL FORWARD. 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/2024/02/26/hor…
Feb 24 36 tweets 8 min read
Vice died the way it lived: being suckered in by smarter predators, even as it trained its own predatory instincts on those more credulous than its own supremely gullible leadership. RIP, we hardly knew ye.

1/ Piles of magazines in boxes. The top two magazines' covers have been replaced with faked up Vice covers. On one, a man's shoe is about to be punctured by a nail sticking up out of a board left on the ground. On the other, a rotary saw blade has amputated several fingers from someone's hand. 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/2024/02/24/ant…
Feb 21 50 tweets 9 min read
A funny thing happened on the way to the enshittocene: Google - which astonished the world when it reinvented search, blowing Altavista and Yahoo out of the water with a search tool that seemed *magic* - suddenly turned into a pile of shit.

1/ A picture postcard of a idyllic small town main street. Looming over the scene is a hypersaturated can of Spam. In the foreground is a sleeping German shepherd with Google logos over its eyes. It sports a dream-bubble with a lunging attack dog. 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/2024/02/21/im-…
Feb 16 63 tweets 11 min read
Capitalism is a vibes-based system. Sure, we all know about Keynes's "Animal Spirits" that see "bulls" and "bears" vying to set the market's future, but beyond that, there's just a hell of a lot of *narrative*.

1/ A 19th-century oil painting of a granny reading a bedtime story to a young girl in a four-poster bed. The image has been altered: the girl's face has been replaced with that of a grinning early 20th century newsboy; he looks foolish and beguiled. The granny's head has been replaced by a 19th century caricature of Uncle Sam, who is grinning wolfishly. The bed's curtains are overlaid with blown-up images of a US $100 bill. The book that granny is reading has been replaced with Atlas Shrugged. The brick granny's foot is resting upon has been replaced with a gold brick. 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/2024/02/16/nar…
Feb 15 65 tweets 12 min read
I was on a book tour the day my editor called me and told me, "From now on, your middle name is 'Cory.'"

"That's weird. Why?"

"Because from now on, your first name is '*New York Times* Bestselling Author.'"

1/ A faded, pixelated front page of the NYT. In front of it is a copy of Chris Dixon's 'Read Write Own,' alongside an image of WC Fields playing a hat-waving, open-mouthed carny barker. 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/2024/02/15/you…
Feb 14 64 tweets 12 min read
Here's how the shitty technology adoption curve works: when you want to roll out a new, abusive technology, look for a group of vulnerable people whose complaints are roundly ignored and subject them to your bad idea. Sand the rough edges off on their bodies and lives.

1/ The Minnesota state flag (two solid masses in different shades of blue, with a white star on the left). The white star has been replaced with an illustration from the cover of the Tor Books edition of 'The Bezzle': a silhouetted male figure in a suit, behind bars, on a bright yellow background. 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/2024/02/14/min…
Feb 7 105 tweets 15 min read
There's this great line in *Sneakers*, where Dan Aykroyd, a conspiracy-addled hacker/conman, feverishly tells Sydney Poitier (ex-CIA spook) about a meeting Eisenhower/aliens meeting where Ike said, "look, give us your technology, and we'll give you all the cow lips you want."

1/ A US flag superimposed over an Nvidia chip.  Image: Mickael Courtiade (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/197739384@N07/52703936652/  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ 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/2024/02/07/far…
Feb 5 59 tweets 11 min read
I wuz robbed.

More specifically, I was tricked by a phone-phisher pretending to be my bank, and he convinced me to hand over my credit-card number, then did $8,000+ worth of fraud with it before I figured out what happened. And *then* he tried to do it again, a week later!

1/ A credit card. Its background is a 'code waterfall' effect from the credit-sequences of the Wachowskis' 'Matrix' movies. On the right side is a cliche'd 'hacker in a hoodie' image whose face is replaced by the hostile red eye of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Across the top of the card is 'Li'l Federal Credit Union.' The cardholder's name is 'I.M. Sucker.'   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 , my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:



2/pluralistic.net
pluralistic.net/2024/02/05/cyb…
Feb 2 47 tweets 10 min read
The brains behind Trump's stolen #SupremeCourt have detailed plans: they didn't just scheme to pack the court with judges who weren't qualified for - or entitled to - a SCOTUS life-tenure, they also set up a series of cases for that radical court to hear.

1/ The trudging circle of prisoners from Van Gogh's 'The Prisoners.' They have been separated from their background and colorized with bright reds and oranges. In their center is a giant capitalist ogre in a top hat, yanking a lever in the shape of a golden dollar-sign with one white-gloved hand and holding a dangling, upside-down prisoner figure in the other. Behind this tableau and to the left is an editorial cartoon version of Roosevelt as a 'big-stick' swinging trustbuster, taking aim at the ogre. 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/2024/02/02/upw…
Jan 31 36 tweets 8 min read
Living in the age of AI hype makes demands on all of us to come up with smartypants prognostications about how AI is about to change everything forever, and wow, it's pretty amazing, huh?

1/ A science-fiction pulp illustration of a man with a swollen, bald head that has been cut away to reveal its contents. The man's face has been cropped at the bridge of his nose, leaving just the swollen, hollow head, cheekbones, and staring eyes, the last of which have been covered with blue ovals. The hollow head has been filled with the trudging figures from Van Gogh's 'The Prisoners,' marching over a grid of vacuum tubes from an early computer. The background of the image is the wiring from an early mainframe, snarled and dense. 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/2024/01/31/neu…
Jan 30 178 tweets 27 min read
Last night, I gave the annual #MarshallMcLuhan lecture at @transmediale #Berlin. The event was sold out and while there's a video that'll be posted soon, they couldn't get a streaming setup installed in the Canadian embassy, where the talk was held:



1/ transmediale.de/en/2024/event/…
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/2024/01/30/go-…
Jan 27 54 tweets 12 min read
Rooftop solar is the future, but it's also a scam. It didn't have to be, but America decided that the best way to roll out distributed, resilient, clean and renewable energy was to let Wall Street run the show.

1/ An image of a modest house with rooftop solar. Rising over the roof is a picture of WC Fields as a carny barker, waving his hat around and shouting.   Image: Future Atlas/www.futureatlas.com/blog (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/87913776@N00/3996366952  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/  --   J Doll (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_Sky_%28140451293%29.jpeg  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 , my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:



2/pluralistic.net
pluralistic.net/2024/01/27/her…
Jan 26 25 tweets 6 min read
One of the weirdest aspect of #EndStageCapitalism is #auditing's collapse, lynchpin of investing. Auditors - independent pros who sign off on a company's finances - are the only way investors can be sure they're not handing their money over to failing firms run by crooks.

1/ A vintage photo of Wall Street, tinted sepia. It has been altered. A chainlink fence pattern has been overlaid on the scene. A crooked, dirty 'BEWARE OF DOG' sign hangs from the fence, with a line-art drawing of a lunging, snarling German shepherd. Beneath the sign, and behind the chainlink, a small, cute puppy snoozed. In the middle of Wall Street is the 'Charging Bull' bronze statue, standing in a spreading pool of blood. Its eyes glow red.   Image: Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/  Disco Dan (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/danhogbens... 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/2024/01/26/noc…