Their instas, their twitches, their lit tiktok apps;
And mamma in her Pinterest, and I in my LinkedIn,
Had just settled down (the edible had kicked in)
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the tweets
Not a user was stirring, not even in fleets
The drafts were all scheduled for the a.m. with care
In hopes that virality soon would be there
Their instas, their twitches, their lit tiktok apps;
And mamma in her Pinterest, and I in my LinkedIn,
Had just settled down (the edible had kicked in)
I cursed the doorbell stream app I'd deleted for 'Among Us'
Plus the wi-fi was down, so I leapt from my bed
Flung open the window and lifted it over my head.
Snowblinded by moonlight, climate change is no hoax
When what to my furious eyes did appear?
The outline of a sleigh, and eight tiny... I wanna say, deer?
It was either St. Nick or a damn YouTube stunt.
More rapid than retweets, they came on like vandals
And he whistled and shouted and called out their handles
Usernames Comet, and Cupid, and BlitzenNoScope69!
Fly higher, and higher, raise up your domes!
It's a block of apartments, millennials can't afford homes!"
With an online presence to show they weren't losers;
So quick to the building rooftop they flew
With a sleigh full of toys, and #SantaClaus too--
The telltale ping of connected bluetooth.
As I drew in my head, I heard a sound at the door
(We haven't had a chimney since 2004)--
His clothes were all tarnished, but wait, was that loot?
Yes! A bundle of toys! my brain was a schism!
Were these to be free? That sounded like socialism!
So no surprise there, the snowfall was thicc!
His droll little mouth was tied up like a bow
And the beard on his chin told me he was a bro;
Okay boomer, I thought, give vaping a try
He had a broad face, and # NoFiltered white hair
A round little belly, a body-positive bear
I lol'd when I saw him, he was too bootylicious!
A wink of his eye! To him this was usual
Soon gave me to know that he was a mutual;
More from Twitter
So regarding to my "bombshell"...it's perhaps a bit less dramatic than many presumed, yet it still troubles me a lot, to the point that I wondered whether I should stop posting on certain things
You see, I realized in the last few months that, by translating information and news related to one of the fastest growing spaceflight powers of the world...I inadvertently became a spreader of PRC propaganda.
And with me exactly 180 degrees away from them, I feel scared.
It actually started a few years ago - it's not hard to meet Chinese Twitter users interested in spaceflight, either those living overseas or find a way to climb over the wall. Not surprisingly, many of these S/F enthusiasts are interested in their own military too.
This steadily grew with my followers' count until the flagship Chinese spaceflight missions of 2020 (Chang'e 5 especially but also many others) brought in dozens of them liking/re-tweeting my info tweets sometimes, and similar no. of such followers every month.
I do casually check these new followers/users sometimes. To my horror, far too many of them routinely insults, attacks, mocks others who they see as "anti-China" or spread potential mis-information, even blatant attacks, that started off w/ their state media/spokesperson.
I'm going to make a bomb shell statement here around the turn of the year, something so risky that I face prospects of the Twitter account being attacked or even banned.
— Cosmic Penguin (@Cosmic_Penguin) December 31, 2020
It's about my very uneasy Twitter experience over the past 2-6 months, the worst I could ever remember.
You see, I realized in the last few months that, by translating information and news related to one of the fastest growing spaceflight powers of the world...I inadvertently became a spreader of PRC propaganda.
And with me exactly 180 degrees away from them, I feel scared.
It actually started a few years ago - it's not hard to meet Chinese Twitter users interested in spaceflight, either those living overseas or find a way to climb over the wall. Not surprisingly, many of these S/F enthusiasts are interested in their own military too.
This steadily grew with my followers' count until the flagship Chinese spaceflight missions of 2020 (Chang'e 5 especially but also many others) brought in dozens of them liking/re-tweeting my info tweets sometimes, and similar no. of such followers every month.
I do casually check these new followers/users sometimes. To my horror, far too many of them routinely insults, attacks, mocks others who they see as "anti-China" or spread potential mis-information, even blatant attacks, that started off w/ their state media/spokesperson.
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).
Inside: Privacy Without Monopoly; Broad Band; $50T moved from America's 90% to the 1%; and more!
Archived at: https://t.co/QgK8ZMRKp7
#Pluralistic
1/
This weekend, I'm participating in Boskone 58, Boston's annual sf convention.
https://t.co/2LfFssVcZQ
Tonight, on a panel called "Tech Innovation? Does Silicon Valley Have A Mind-Control Ray, Or a Monopoly?" at 530PM Pacific.
2/
Privacy Without Monopoly: A new EFF white paper, co-authored with Bennett Cyphers.
https://t.co/TVzDXt6bz6
3/
Broad Band: Claire L Evans's magesterial history of women in computing.
https://t.co/Lwrej6zVYd
4/
$50T moved from America's 90% to the 1%: The hereditary meritocracy is in crisis.
https://t.co/TquaxOmPi8
5/
Inside: Privacy Without Monopoly; Broad Band; $50T moved from America's 90% to the 1%; and more!
Archived at: https://t.co/QgK8ZMRKp7
#Pluralistic
1/
This weekend, I'm participating in Boskone 58, Boston's annual sf convention.
https://t.co/2LfFssVcZQ
Tonight, on a panel called "Tech Innovation? Does Silicon Valley Have A Mind-Control Ray, Or a Monopoly?" at 530PM Pacific.
2/
Privacy Without Monopoly: A new EFF white paper, co-authored with Bennett Cyphers.
https://t.co/TVzDXt6bz6
3/
Today, @EFF published "Privacy Without Monopoly: Data Protection and Interoperability," a major new paper by Bennett Cyphers and me. https://t.co/Ma2FE2vZ9u
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) February 13, 2021
1/ pic.twitter.com/RzCkQdQRxy
Broad Band: Claire L Evans's magesterial history of women in computing.
https://t.co/Lwrej6zVYd
4/
One of the most Monkey's Paw things about my life is my relationship to books. When I was a teenager, I read all the way through the school and public libraries, spent everything I had on books, and still couldn't get enough and dreamt of more.
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) February 13, 2021
1/ pic.twitter.com/Lgkdk5a7YA
$50T moved from America's 90% to the 1%: The hereditary meritocracy is in crisis.
https://t.co/TquaxOmPi8
5/
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.
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) February 13, 2021
1/ pic.twitter.com/BUFyq9H2n4
Today's threads (a Twitter thread).
Inside: Twitter's Project Blue Sky; Brazil's world-beating data breach; Evictions and utility cutoffs are covid comorbidities; "North Korea" targets infosec researchers; and more!
Archived at: https://t.co/eCzogk14kg
#Pluralistic
1/
Join me this Thursday for the launch of the print edition of my 2020 book HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM!
https://t.co/8Op6IEocPB
2/
Twitter's Project Blue Sky: Fix the internet, not the platforms.
https://t.co/KoZNABMJrE
3/
Brazil's world-beating data breach: More than 100% of the population doxed.
https://t.co/6tcbcX2gQ6
4/
Evictions and utility cutoffs are covid comorbidities: 143,000 covid deaths due to economic precarity.
https://t.co/pZM80W5DuR
5/
Inside: Twitter's Project Blue Sky; Brazil's world-beating data breach; Evictions and utility cutoffs are covid comorbidities; "North Korea" targets infosec researchers; and more!
Archived at: https://t.co/eCzogk14kg
#Pluralistic
1/
Join me this Thursday for the launch of the print edition of my 2020 book HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM!
https://t.co/8Op6IEocPB
2/
Twitter's Project Blue Sky: Fix the internet, not the platforms.
https://t.co/KoZNABMJrE
3/
It's been more than a year since @jack announced Project Blue Sky, inspired by @mmasnick's "Protocols, Not Platforms," paper - a critical work explaining how walled gardens can be transformed into open protocols.https://t.co/1yDSNJehRP
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) January 26, 2021
1/ pic.twitter.com/xwDIErMFLJ
Brazil's world-beating data breach: More than 100% of the population doxed.
https://t.co/6tcbcX2gQ6
4/
Brazil's public health agency has suffered what is arguably the worst data-exposure in world history, losing 243m+ records in a country of 211m people (the excess represents dead peoples' records).https://t.co/VsQUtIEnC7
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) January 26, 2021
1/ pic.twitter.com/DV6k2NfvHW
Evictions and utility cutoffs are covid comorbidities: 143,000 covid deaths due to economic precarity.
https://t.co/pZM80W5DuR
5/
"Public health" isn't just about vaccinations, clinics and urgent care: it's a holistic discipline that encompasses all the contributors to health outcomes, which include things like housing, employment, transportation, pollution and more.
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) January 26, 2021
1/ pic.twitter.com/UQRgLVoczQ
This is why I'm not a critic of "cancel culture." It's crucial to impose social costs for the breech of key social norms. The lesson of overreaction is that we need to recalibrate judgment to get it right next time, not that we need a lot more bad judgment in the other direction.
Obviously, people will disagree about which norms are important, about how bad it is to violate them, and thus about how severe the social cost ought to be. That's just pluralism, man, and it's good.
It's important to openly talk through these substantive differences, which is why derailing these conversations with hand-waving moral panic about "cancel culture" is obnoxious and illiberal.
Screaming "cancel culture!" when somebody pays a social costs other people have been fighting hard to get others to see as necessary is often just a way to declare, with no argument, that the sanction in question was not only unnecessary but in breach of a more important norm.
It's impossible to uphold social norms without social sanctions, so obviously anti-cancelers are going to want to impose a social cost on people they see as imposing unjustly steep social costs on others.
Every single critic of "cancel culture" just thinks the wrong people are getting canceled. pic.twitter.com/DDIVccj8zV
— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) February 2, 2021
Obviously, people will disagree about which norms are important, about how bad it is to violate them, and thus about how severe the social cost ought to be. That's just pluralism, man, and it's good.
It's important to openly talk through these substantive differences, which is why derailing these conversations with hand-waving moral panic about "cancel culture" is obnoxious and illiberal.
Screaming "cancel culture!" when somebody pays a social costs other people have been fighting hard to get others to see as necessary is often just a way to declare, with no argument, that the sanction in question was not only unnecessary but in breach of a more important norm.
It's impossible to uphold social norms without social sanctions, so obviously anti-cancelers are going to want to impose a social cost on people they see as imposing unjustly steep social costs on others.
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“We don’t negotiate salaries” is a negotiation tactic.
Always. No, your company is not an exception.
A tactic I don’t appreciate at all because of how unfairly it penalizes low-leverage, junior employees, and those loyal enough not to question it, but that’s negotiation for you after all. Weaponized information asymmetry.
Listen to Aditya
And by the way, you should never be worried that an offer would be withdrawn if you politely negotiate.
I have seen this happen *extremely* rarely, mostly to women, and anyway is a giant red flag. It suggests you probably didn’t want to work there.
You wish there was no negotiating so it would all be more fair? I feel you, but it’s not happening.
Instead, negotiate hard, use your privilege, and then go and share numbers with your underrepresented and underpaid colleagues. […]
Always. No, your company is not an exception.
A tactic I don’t appreciate at all because of how unfairly it penalizes low-leverage, junior employees, and those loyal enough not to question it, but that’s negotiation for you after all. Weaponized information asymmetry.
Listen to Aditya
"we don't negotiate salaries" really means "we'd prefer to negotiate massive signing bonuses and equity grants, but we'll negotiate salary if you REALLY insist" https://t.co/80k7nWAMoK
— Aditya Mukerjee, the Otterrific \U0001f3f3\ufe0f\u200d\U0001f308 (@chimeracoder) December 4, 2018
And by the way, you should never be worried that an offer would be withdrawn if you politely negotiate.
I have seen this happen *extremely* rarely, mostly to women, and anyway is a giant red flag. It suggests you probably didn’t want to work there.
You wish there was no negotiating so it would all be more fair? I feel you, but it’s not happening.
Instead, negotiate hard, use your privilege, and then go and share numbers with your underrepresented and underpaid colleagues. […]
