BC HISTORY
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

Arbitration was created to allow giant companies with equal bargaining power to settle disputes without incurring expensive court battles. So, when IBM and AT&T struck a deal, they'd agree that instead of going to court, they'd hire a neutral person to decide who was right.

1/

 But in the 21st Century, a string of Supreme Court rulings have paved the way for "forced arbitration" - when a company tells its customers or workers that as a condition of doing business, they must give up all the legal protections that come with the right to sue.

2/
Once you've been bound over to arbitration, a company can maim, cheat or murder you and your only recourse is to ask a corporate judge, on the company's payroll, to decide whether you are entitled to compensation.

3/
You will not be surprised to learn that arbitrators overwhelmingly find in favor of the companies that pay their invoices.

4/
We've experienced a quiet epidemic of binding arbitration. Your dentist or physiotherapist probably expects you to sign one. So does your kid's piano teacher. Your ISP. And, of course, your boss.

5/
Corporate America have been plumbing the depths of this accountability-ducking get-out-of-court-free card for years, sneaking arbitration into terms of service and other documents no one ever, ever (ever) reads.

6/
But, at last, we've found the bottom of this pit of despair. Massachusetts's highest court has ruled that a small-print notice that says, "By signing up you agree to the terms and conditions" does not constitute an agreement to arbitrate disputes.

https://t.co/5vV1OGd1TW

7/
The case concerns Christopher Kauders, who is blind and was illegally denied rides by Uber drivers. Uber's arbitration waiver forces riders to concede to the fiction that drivers are independent contractors, so Uber said Kauders needed to sue the drivers, not Uber.

8/
The court rejected this theory because Uber didn't force Kauders to go to the page with the Terms and Conditions (that no one ever, ever, ever reads) before clicking "I agree."

And yes, that is a VERY small win, but seriously, at least we've found the bottom.

9/
One of Lenny Bruce's most famous bits is "Eat, Sleep and Crap," which identifies the origin of civilization in the creation of agreements:

https://t.co/j9TRvgLAi3

10/
"Let's see. I tell you what we'll do. We'll have a vote. We'll sleep in Area A. Is that cool?"

"OK, good."

"We'll eat in Area B. Good?"

"Good."

"We'll throw a crap in area C. Good?"

11/
The idea that we negotiate the rules by which we conduct our affairs - rather than having them crammed down our throats - is the cornerstone of what it means to be in a free society.

12/
Democratically elected legislators create the rules by which we live: you can't sell poison as food, or maim people through negligence or malice.

13/
Binding arbitration yanks those rules out from under us: "By being stupid enough to click this link, you agree that I'm allowed to come over to your house, punch your grandmother, wear your underwear, make long distance calls and eat all the food in your fridge."

14/
The normalization of binding arbitration - the normalization of surrendering your legal rights in favor of a corporate judge who always sides with the house - is a grotesque, slow-motion train wreck for the very idea of a free and just society.

eof/

More from Cory Doctorow #BLM

Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
It's been twenty years, to the day, since I published my first blog-post.

I'm a blogger.

Blogging - publicly breaking down the things that seem significant, then synthesizing them in longer pieces - is the defining activity of my days.

https://t.co/lksXhU6HKM

1/


Over the years, I've been lauded, threatened, sued (more than once). I've met many people who read my work and have made connections with many more whose work I wrote about. Combing through my old posts every morning is a journey through my intellectual development.

2/

It's been almost exactly a year I left Boing Boing, after 19 years. It wasn't planned, and it wasn't fun, but it was definitely time. I still own a chunk of the business and wish them well. But after 19 years, it was time for a change.

3/

A few weeks after I quit Boing Boing, I started a solo project. It's called Pluralistic: it's a blog that is published simultaneously on Twitter, Mastodon, Tumblr, a newsletter and the web. It's got no tracking or ads. Here's the very first

I don't often do "process posts" but this merits it. Here's how I built Pluralistic and here's how it works today, after nearly a year.

I get up at 5AM and make coffee. Then I sit down on the sofa and open a huge tab-group, and scroll through my RSS feeds using @newsblur.

5/
CULTURE
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
When a new president is sworn in, they gets told a lot of secret stuff - launch codes, backup plans, etc. But one of the best-kept presidential secrets is the "Enemies Briefcase," a collection of "presidential emergency action documents" (PEADs).

https://t.co/A6Jh3Gkip7

1/


These aren't just revelations about the fallback plans for things like a nuclear strike - they are a meticulously maintained collection of emergency authorities that the administrative branch claims it is entitled to.

2/

These authorities are analyzed in legal memos that give the president to unilaterally declare an emergency "imposing martial law, suspending habeas corpus, seizing control of the internet, imposing censorship, and incarcerating so-called subversives."

3/

The PEADs were incredibly well-kept secrets, known only through fragmentary redaction failures, appropriaions and declassifications...Until Trump starting bragging on 'em:

"I have the right to do a lot of things that people don’t even know about." -Donald J Trump

4/

PEADs are particularly ominous given how many non-secret emergency powers the president has - more than 100 powers granted by Congress and never rescinded, dating back to the Civil War, from freezing bank accounts to deploying troops domestically.

5/
SOCIETY
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Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
If you think "It's not censorship unless the government does it," I want to change your mind.

It's absolutely true that the First Amendment only prohibits government action to suppress speech based on its content, but the First Amendment is not the last word on censorship.

1/


Here are some kinds of private speech-suppression that I think most of us can agree are censorship: when the John Birch Society burned mountains of rock records and novels - or when Tipper Gore's PMRC pressured record stores to drop punk, metal and rap albums.

2/


Or the Comics Code Authority, which signed up all comics publishers and retailers to block comics if they contained anything unfit for small children, which stunted American comics for generations while their European counterparts created entire sophisticated genres.

3/


Or MPAA ratings, in which a secret group of censors (falsely described as frequently rotated, randomly selected parents - really they're long-serving studio insiders) decides whether movies get NC-17 ratings and thus be blocked from nearly every screen in the country.

4/


(You can learn more about this from Kirby Dick's unmissable doc, "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," which documents both how the MPAA misleads the public about ratings, and uses them to block LGBTQ
HISTORY
Cory Doctorow RIGHT-CLICKING WORDCEL MENTALITY
Cory Doctorow RIGHT-CL...
@doctorow
I've just read one of the most lucid, wide-ranging, cross-disciplinary critiques of cryptocurrency and blockchain I've yet to encounter. 1/


It comes from David "DSHR" Rosenthal, a distinguished technologist whose past achievements including helping to develop X11 and the core technologies for Nvidia.

https://t.co/tkAMShno4k 2/

Rosenthal's critique is a transcript of a lecture he gave to Stanford's EE380 class, adapted from a December 2021 talk for an investor conference. 3/

It is a bang-up-to-date synthesis of many of the critical writings on the subject, glued together with Rosenthal's own deep technical expertise. He calls it "Can We Mitigate Cryptocurrencies' Externalities?"

The presence of "externalities" in Rosenthal's title is key. 4/

Rosenthal identifies blockchainism's core ideology as emerging from "the libertarian culture of Silicon Valley and the cypherpunks," and states that "libertarianism's attraction is based on ignoring externalities."

This is an important critique of libertarianism. 5/
CRYPTO
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
2022 is shaping up to be a bloodbath. The Trump census cooked the numbers to advantage Republicans, and GOP statehouses are poised to redistrict in ways that will hand potentially permanent minority rule to the GOP in Congress.

1/


There's a potential way out: #HR1, an omnibus bill of electoral reforms that would create durable, structural protections for voting rights and a level playing field for campaigning.

2/

To get a sense of how urgent the looming crisis is - and of how important HR1 is - listen to @ryangrim interviewing @schwarz and Rep @JohnSarbanes [D-MD] on this week's

In theory, HR1 could be blasted through - Dems control the Senate, Congress, and the White House, and the future of the party depends on it, but I'm far from confident that they'll find the discipline and political will to make it happen.

4/

The Democrats keep squandering their majorities and wasting opportunities to make real change - changes that are must-haves, not nice-to-haves; changes needed to head off existential threats to the nation itself.

5/
TRUMP

More from History

Fidato
Fidato
@tequieremos
“Thread: History of Valentines Day”

Ancient historical sources have claimed the existence of several saints by the name of St.Valentines who died on Feb 14. Among them, two were executed during the reign of Roman Emperor Claudius Gothicus in 269-270 A.D.
#valentinesday2021

[1]


It was the time when the Christian persecution was common. Another legendary account states that under the rule of Claudius II, Rome was involved in the bloody campaigns, therefore, to maintain a strong army, Claudius II banned all marriages and engagements in Rome.

[2]


The reason of forbidding marriages was forced by the reluctance of people to join military because of their strong attachment to their wives. But St. Valentine defied the orders of the Emperor Claudius II Gothicus and married couples secretly to spare the husbands from war.

[3]


A few claims have reported that St.Valentine endorsed illegal relationships which could end up into a marriage. When it was discovered by the emperor, St. Valentine was arrested and condemned to have his head cut off.

[4]


An order of Belgian monks spent almost three centuries to explore the lives of saints by the name of St.Valentines from archives around the world. Bollandists suggested, that there weren’t actually two decapitated Valentines, but the two different versions of one saint’s...

[5]
HISTORY
Ruth H. Hopkins, B.S., M.S., J.D.
Ruth H. Hopkins, B.S.,...
@Ruth_HHopkins
Today is the 130th anniversary of the #WoundedKneeMassacre. On December 29, 1890, the 7th Cavalry surrounded a peaceful encampment of Lakota with Hotchkiss guns and slaughtered ~300. They were mostly women and children.


Those killed at Wounded Knee were led by Mniconjou Chief Spotted Elk, who was ill. Many were followers of Hunkpapa Chief Sitting Bull who was assassinated 14 days prior. They were invited to seek refuge with Oglala Chief Red Cloud at Pine Ridge. They were hungry, tired & cold.

The soldiers weren’t satisfied with gunning down the encampment. They chased down those who escaped, including little children & their grandmothers, for miles. Some ran all the way back to the Cheyenne River Reservation, through the night in the freezing cold, with bullet wounds.

Charles Eastman, the 1st western educated Oceti Sakowin (Dakota Sioux) physician, was at Pine Ridge during the #WoundedKneeMassacre. It was right after Christmas. A banner hanging over the wounded said, ‘Peace on Earth.’ The horrors Dr. Eastman saw that day changed him forever.


Those massacred at Wounded Knee were callously thrown into a mass grave. Soldiers proudly posed for photos with their corpses. They were awarded Medals of Honor for their part in the slaughter. Those Medals have never been rescinded, despite public outcry.
HISTORY
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Marina Amaral
Marina Amaral
@marinamaral2
Rio de Janeiro, 1920. 🇧🇷


São Paulo, 1910. 🇧🇷


“Arpoador”, Rio de Janeiro, 1900. 🇧🇷


“Avenida Paulista”, São Paulo, 1902. 🇧🇷


Recife, 1885. 🇧🇷
HISTORY
V\u0936\u0941\u0926\u094d\u0927\u093f
Vशुद्धि...
@V_Shuddhi
Princes of Orissa (1870)

https://t.co/lU805fGjwH
HISTORY
Incunabula
Incunabula
@incunabula
The greatest treasure looted from the Ethiopian people at Maqdala in 1868 isn't in the BL or V&A. The Kwer'ata Re'esu, the most sacred icon of the Ethiopian people, was stolen by a representative of the Queen, later sold by his heirs & remains hidden in a bank vault today. 1/10


The original painting, by an unknown Renaissance master, was brought to Ethiopia in the 16th century and became the talismanic icon of the Ethiopian people, a symbol of Imperial authority. Oaths were sworn on it & it was carried into battle at the head of the Emperor’s army. 2/10

Copes of the Kwer'ata Re'esu icon are ubiquitous in early Ethiopian art - here is one painted in the so-called Second Gondarene style in a late 17th century manuscript. 3/10


Its importance to the Ethiopian people is incalculable. In 1744 it was captured in a battle with Sudanese Muslims & later returned on payment of a ransom. James Bruce, a visitor to Ethiopia in 1768, wrote: "all Gondar was drunk with joy" on the return of the "quarat rasou”. 4/10


After the Siege of Maqdala it was stolen from the Emperor Tewodros' palace by Sir Richard Rivington Holmes of the BM, later the Royal Librarian at Windsor Castle, who took the painting - not for the British Museum or the Royal Collection - but for his own private collection. 5/10
HISTORY

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Did you know?

When Saudi Arabia's King visited India in 1955, PM Nehru ordered all the Hindu Temples and Idols of Hindu Deities that came in Saudi King's way to be covered up.
Our temples are the architectural marvels in their own league.


Each of our temples tells the story of our rich history and cultural heritage. Was Nehru that ashamed of his own nation's heritage that he had to cover them up or there was some other reason? The answer would be best known to him only.

PM Nehru invited the then Saudi King Saud bin Abdul Aziz to India who accepted the invitation and planned a 17 day long official visit to India in 1955. Saudi King had brought a large delegation with him and he had to visit various Indian cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Agra,


Aligarh, Shimla, Mysore and Varanasi. However, when Saudi King reached Varanasi, Nehru ordered to cover all the temples and Idols with curtains that came in the way of the Royal Convoy. During his stay in Varanasi, Govt buildings were painted with the words "Kalma Tayyiba".


'Kalma Tayyiba' means 'There is not God but only Allah and Mohammed is his messenger'. In addition to it, Pooja and Aartis were also stopped at temples. I can call it the appeasement politics of the highest order and Nehru was indeed the greatest appeaser of all times.
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On December 25 Mr Pool retweeted August 16 message about the Phoenix and that the worst was still on the horizon to come. 1/*


Maybe now we can assume that November 3 message meant "FUD" nor "FUN". Putting the word in capital letters seems to indicate the aspect the word fud has in our space, FUD. 2/*


Brad started it on December 22 (1/3 posts (Don't say? Sure) = 13 = Plan B). 3/*


And immediately the SEC followed dropping the bomb (1.3 billions (Don't say? Sure) = 13 = Plan B). 4/*


FUD materializes, Bitstamp is one of the first that haltes XRP trading and so on. 5/*
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This is a beautiful story of Guruvayurappan. Once there lived in Guruvayur a poor family. Kitta, his wife & kids were struggling for their daily needs. With only a coconut tree in house, he earned a living by selling coconuts.


Kitta was from a low caste family. He was a great devotee of Guruvayurappan. Everyday before going to work he always prayed infront of a picture of Guruvayurappan in his house. His only wish was to worship at Guruvayur & have annadanam in temple. But he was not allowed there


It was Utsavam time in Guruvayur. From far behind kitta and family worshipped Guruvayurappan. Annadanam was given daily and no one was left empty stomach. Only Kitta didn't receive. That night, it was only Kitta's family who was sleeping without food. After temple nada closed


Shri Krishna, dressed himself as a Brahmin went to temple Kitchen. He packed food and went directly to kitta's house. Reaching Kitta's house, Shri Krishna told he was sent by a cook of Guruvayur temple and gave them the food he packed. Kitta and family was very happy seeing food.


When Kitta finished his food, Brahmin asked it will be better if he get a tender coconut( karikku)to drink. Kitta climbed the tree and gave all coconuts to him. After having 1 tender coconut, the Brahmin asked to bring remaining coconuts to Guruvayur temple the next day.
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BREAKING: @CommonsCMS @DamianCollins just released previously sealed #Six4Three @Facebook documents:

Some random interesting tidbits:

1) Zuck approves shutting down platform API access for Twitter's when Vine is released #competition


2) Facebook engineered ways to access user's call history w/o alerting users:

Team considered access to call history considered 'high PR risk' but 'growth team will charge ahead'. @Facebook created upgrade path to access data w/o subjecting users to Android permissions dialogue.


3) The above also confirms @kashhill and other's suspicion that call history was used to improve PYMK (People You May Know) suggestions and newsfeed rankings.

4) Docs also shed more light into @dseetharaman's story on @Facebook monitoring users' @Onavo VPN activity to determine what competitors to mimic or acquire in 2013.

https://t.co/PwiRIL3v9x
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