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Inequality requires narrative stabilizers. When you have too little and someone else has more than they can possibly use, simple logic dictates that you should take what they have.
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I. The incentive to make us all better off,
II. a reward for doing so, and
III. proof they earned it.
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You didn't strike it rich because you just weren't the right person to lead in your time and place.
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https://t.co/E5gmKwaAxq
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"The US trailed the rest of the advanced world in life expectancy since the 1980s... it's 3.4 years shorter than other G7 countries."
https://t.co/hztUHZZktC
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https://t.co/Vp54rsP7F1
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https://t.co/VjYSYUnIPD
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eof/
https://t.co/aISucm6SxH
More from Cory Doctorow #BLM
* being spied on all the time means that the people of the 21st century are less able to be their authentic selves;
* any data that is collected and retained will eventually breach, creating untold harms;
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* data-collection enables for discriminatory business practices ("digital redlining");
* the huge, tangled hairball of adtech companies siphons lots (maybe even most) of the money that should go creators and media orgs; and
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* anti-adblock demands browsers and devices that thwart their owners' wishes, a capability that can be exploited for even more nefarious purposes;
That's all terrible, but it's also IRONIC, since it appears that, in addition to everything else, ad-tech is a fraud, a bezzle.
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Bezzle was John Kenneth Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." That is, a rotten log that has yet to be turned over.
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Bezzles unwind slowly, then all at once. We've had some important peeks under ad-tech's rotten log, and they're increasing in both intensity and velocity. If you follow @Chronotope, you've had a front-row seat to the
The numbers are all fking fake, the metrics are bullshit, the agencies responsible for enforcing good practices are knowing bullshiters enforcing and profiting off all the fake numbers and none of the models make sense at scale of actual human users. https://t.co/sfmdrxGBNJ pic.twitter.com/thvicDEL29
— Aram Zucker-Scharff (@Chronotope) December 26, 2018
Inside: Criti-Hype; Right to Repair is back for 2021; The free market and rent-seeking; and more!
Archived at: https://t.co/pXnzoWKJn2
#Pluralistic
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Criti-Hype: Tech bros will settle for "evil genius."
https://t.co/OyiM1vUS8Y
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There's a Yom Kippur joke I love: the rabbi and the richest man in town are praying, "Oh Lord, I am nothing, I am nothing!"
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) February 2, 2021
The synagogue's janitor sees them and joins in: "I am nothing!"
The richest man says to the rabbi: "Look who thinks he's nothing."
1/ pic.twitter.com/kHFKcNAnC4
Right to Repair is back for 2021: Will Apple sabotage this one too?
https://t.co/3gcyEZQWfk
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2018 was almost the year we won the #RightToRepair.
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) February 2, 2021
Instead, 2018 turned out to be the year we lost #R2R: 20 bills defeated in 20 state houses, and it was mostly @apple's fault.
1/ pic.twitter.com/oDYM17e22b
The free market and rent-seeking: Unauthorized bread and poor doors.
https://t.co/7Ob6AdmkDz
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When you hear the phrase "free market," you probably think of "a market that is free from regulation" but that's the opposite of the phrase's original meaning!
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) February 2, 2021
1/ pic.twitter.com/QNAuJhMNWI
#10yrsago Diane Duane’s crowdfunded publishing experiment finally concludes https://t.co/qsRnZxiL8b
#10yrsago Inside Sukey, the anti-kettling mobile app https://t.co/puGNKw5XgF
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Inside: Thinking through Mitch McConnell's plea for comity; Further, on Mitch McConnell and comity; Understanding the aftermath of r/wallstreetbets; and more!
Archived at: https://t.co/1rRmrJa4FK
#Pluralistic
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Thinking through Mitch McConnell's plea for comity: A thoughtful analysis.
https://t.co/2T74ykb3Ws
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Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha https://t.co/ARlJ7vGOev
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) January 29, 2021
Further, on Mitch McConnell and comity: I thought about it some more.
https://t.co/mTQ225Lr3X
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Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha https://t.co/2T74ykb3Ws
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) January 29, 2021
Understanding the aftermath of r/wallstreetbets: Even if there's no angels, there's still a path to glory.
https://t.co/x7BaqUQ0hj
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A couple days back, I wrote up my best understanding of what happened with /r/wallstreetbets and meme stocks like Gamestop, trying to show how all the different, seemingly contradictory takes on the underlying financial stuff could all be true.https://t.co/xWzre4r0Yj
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) January 30, 2021
1/ pic.twitter.com/p4oiq2TdSg
#10yrsago Morrow’s Diviner’s Tale is a tight, literary ghost story https://t.co/XFW0AGFwhI
#10yrsago ATM skimmer that doesn’t require any modifications to the ATM
More from Culture
This is ridiculous. Students were asked for their views on this example and several others. The study findings and conclusions were about student responses not the substance of each case. Could\u2019ve used hypotheticals. The responses not the cases were the basis of the conclusions.
— Eric Kaufmann (@epkaufm) February 17, 2021
Here is the incident Kaufmann incorporated into his study, as told by a Cardiff professor who was there. As you can see, the incident involved the university intervening to *uphold* free speech principles:
The UK govt\u2019s paper on free speech in Unis (with implications for Wales) is getting a lot of attention.
— Richard Wyn Jones (@RWynJones) February 16, 2021
Worth noting then that an important part of the evidence-base on which it rests relates to (demonstrably false) claims about my own institution
1/https://t.co/buoGE7ocG7
Here is the first mention of the Greer at Cardiff incident in Kaufmann's report. It refers to the "concrete case" of the "no-platforming of Germaine Greer". Any reasonable reader would assume that refers to an incident of no-platforming instead of its opposite.
Here is the next mention of Greer in the report. The text asks whether the University "should have overruled protestors" and "stepped in...and guaranteed Greer the right to speak". Again the strong implication is that this did not happen and Greer was "no platformed".
The authors could easily have added a footnote at this point explaining what actually happened in Cardiff. They did not.
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Here's how I'd measure the health of any tech company:
— Jeff Atwood (@codinghorror) October 25, 2018
How long, as measured from the inception of idea to the modified software arriving in the user's hands, does it take to roll out a *1 word copy change* in your primary product?
Hiring efficiency:
How long does it take, measured from initial expression of interest through offer of employment signed, for a typical candidate cold inbounding to the company?
What is the *theoretical minimum* for *any* candidate?
How long does it take, as a developer newly hired at the company:
* To get a fully credentialed machine issued to you
* To get a fully functional development environment on that machine which could push code to production immediately
* To solo ship one material quanta of work
How long does it take, from first idea floated to "It's on the Internet", to create a piece of marketing collateral.
(For bonus points: break down by ambitiousness / form factor.)
How many people have to say yes to do something which is clearly worth doing which costs $5,000 / $15,000 / $250,000 and has never been done before.