YunoBlog

Author: tio

  • Judge blocks RFK Jr’s changes to US childhood vaccine schedule

    Kennedy had slashed the number of recommended vaccines from 17 to 11, sparking a backlash from health experts.

  • Pluralistic: William Gibson vs Margaret Thatcher (17 Mar 2026)

    Today’s links


    Two boxers squaring off. One (with blue gloves) has the head of William Gibson. The other (red gloves) has the head of Margaret Thatcher. The background is an engraving of a 16th century complex machine.

    William Gibson vs Margaret Thatcher (permalink)

    William Gibson is one of history’s most quotable sf writers: “The future is here, it’s not evenly distributed”; “Don’t let the little fuckers generation-gap you”; “Cyberspace is everting”; and the immortal: “The street finds its own uses for things”:

    https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Gibson

    “The street finds its own uses” is a surprisingly subtle and liberatory battle-cry. It stakes a claim by technology’s users that is separate from the claims asserted by corporations that make technology (often under grotesque and cruel conditions) and market it (often for grotesque and cruel purposes).

    “The street finds its own uses” is a statement about technopolitics. It acknowledges that yes, there are politics embedded in our technology, the blood in the machine, but these politics are neither simple, nor are they immutable. The fact that a technology was born in sin does not preclude it from being put to virtuous ends. A technology’s politics are up for grabs.

    In other words, it’s the opposite of Audre Lorde’s “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” It’s an assertion that, in fact, the master’s tools have all the driver-bits, hex-keys, and socket sets needed to completely dismantle the master’s house, and, moreover, to build something better with the resulting pile of materials.

    And of course the street finds its own uses for things. Things – technology – don’t appear out of nowhere. Everything is in a lineage, made from the things that came before it, destined to be transformed by the things that come later. Things can’t come into existence until other things already exist.

    Take the helicopter. Lots of people have observed the action of a screw and the twirling of a maple key as it falls from a tree and thought, perhaps that could be made to fly. Da Vinci was drawing helicopters in the 15th century:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo%27s_aerial_screw

    But Da Vinci couldn’t build a helicopter. No one could, until they did. To make the first helicopter, you need to observe the action of the screw and the twirling of a maple key, and you need to have lightweight, strong alloys and powerful internal combustion engines.

    Those other things had to be invented by other people first. Once they were, the next person who thought hard about screws and maple keys was bound to get a helicopter off the ground. That’s why things tend to be invented simultaneously, by unrelated parties.

    TV, radio and the telephone all have multiple inventors, because these people were the cohort that happened to alight upon the insights needed to build these technologies after the adjacent technologies had been made and disseminated.

    If technopolitics were immutable – if the original sin of a technology could never be washed away – then everything is beyond redemption. Somewhere in the history of the lever, the pulley and the wheel are some absolute monsters. Your bicycle’s bloodline includes some truly horrible ancestors. The computer is practically a crime against humanity:

    https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/24/the-traitorous-eight-and-the-battle-of-germanium-valley/

    A defining characteristic of purity culture is the belief that things are defined by their origins. An artist who was personally terrible must make terrible art – even if that art succeeds artistically, even if it moves, comforts and inspires you, it can’t ever be separated from the politics of its maker. It is terrible because of its origins, not its merits. If you hate the sinner, you must also hate the sin.

    “The street finds its own uses” counsels us to hate the sinner and love the sin. The indisputable fact that HP Lovecraft was a racist creep is not a reason to write off Cthulhoid mythos – it’s a reason to claim and refashion them:

    https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/09/the-old-crow-is-getting-slow/#i-love-ny

    The claim that sin is a kind of forever-chemical contaminant that can’t ever be rinsed away is the ideology of Mr Gotcha:

    We should improve society somewhat.

    Yet you participate in society. Curious!

    https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

    In its right-wing form, it is Margaret Thatcher’s “There is no alternative”:

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/15/piketty-pilled/#tax-justice

    Thatcher demanded that you accept all the injustices and oppressions of capitalism if you enjoyed its fruits. If capitalism put a roof over your head and groceries in your fridge, you can’t complain about the people it hurts. There is no version of society that has the machines and practices that produced those things that does not also produce the injustice.

    The technological version of this is the one that tech bosses peddle: If you enjoy talking to your friends on Facebook, you can’t complain about Mark Zuckerberg listening in on the conversation. There is no alternative. Wanting to talk to your friends out of Zuck’s earshot is like wanting water that’s not wet. It’s unreasonable.

    But there’s a left version of this, its doppelganger: the belief that a technology born in sin can never be redeemed. If you use an LLM running on your computer to find a typo, using an unmeasurably small amount of electricity in the process, you still sin – not because of anything that happens when you use that LLM, but because of LLMs’ “structural properties,” “the way they make it harder to learn and grow,” “the way they make products worse,” the “emissions, water use and e-waste”:

    https://tante.cc/2026/02/20/acting-ethical-in-an-imperfect-world/

    The facts that finding punctuation errors in your own work using your own computer doesn’t make it “harder to learn and grow,” doesn’t “make products worse,” and doesn’t add to “emissions, water use and e-waste” are irrelevant. The part that matters isn’t the use of a technology, it’s the origin.

    The fact that this technology is steeped in indisputable sin means that every use of it is sinful. The street can find as many uses as it likes for things, but it won’t matter, because there is no alternative.

    When radical technologists scheme to liberate technology, they’re not hoping to redeem the gadget, they’re trying to liberate people. Information doesn’t want to be free, because information doesn’t and can’t want anything. But people want to be free, and liberated access to information technology is a precondition for human liberation itself.

    Promethean leftists don’t reject the master’s tools: we seize them. The fact that Unix was born of a convicted monopolist who turned the screws on users at every turn isn’t a reason to abandon Unix – it demands that we reverse-engineer, open, and free Unix:

    https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/20/capitalist-unrealism/#praxis

    We don’t do this out of moral consideration for Unix. Unix is inert, it warrants no moral consideration. But billions of users of free operating systems that are resistant to surveillance and control are worthy of moral consideration and we set them free by seizing the means of computation.

    If a technology can do something to further human thriving, then we can love the sin, even as we hate the sinners in its lineage. We seize the means of computation, not because we care about computers, but because we care about people.

    Artifacts do have politics, but those politics are not immutable. Those politics are ours to seize and refashion:

    https://faculty.cc.gatech.edu/~beki/cs4001/Winner.pdf

    “The purpose of a system is what it does” (S. Beer). The important fact about a technology is what it does, not how it came about. Does a use of a technology harm someone? Does a use of a technology harm the environment?

    Does a use of a technology help someone do something that improves their life?

    Studying the origins of technology is good because it helps us avoid the systems and practices that hurt people. Knowing about the monsters in our technology’s lineage helps us avoid repeating their sins. But there will always be sin in our technology’s past, because our technology’s past is the entire past, because technology is a lineage, not a gadget. If you reject things because of their origins – and not because of the things they do – then you’ll end up rejecting everything (if you’re honest), or twisting yourself into a series of dead-ends as you rationalize reasons that the exceptions you make out of necessity aren’t really exceptions.

    (Image: Dylan Parker, CC BY-SA 2.0, modified)

    Hey look at this (permalink)


    A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

    Object permanence (permalink)

    #25yrsago Prison for spamming https://it.slashdot.org/story/01/03/15/1325251/spammers-face-jail-time

    #25yrsago 1040 for laid-off dot com workers https://web.archive.org/web/20010603113932/http://www.girlchick.com/erin/Pics/DotCom1040.jpg

    #25yrsago Sony ships a PalmOS device https://web.archive.org/web/20010331181042/http://www.sony.co.jp/sd/CLIE/index_pc.html

    #25yrsago “You Own Your Own Metadata” https://www.feedmag.com/templates/default_a_id-1648

    #20yrsago Action-figures made from Ethernet cable https://basik.ru/handmade/2066/

    #15yrsago Poor countries have more piracy because media costs too much — report https://web.archive.org/web/20110310042425/http://piracy.ssrc.org/the-report/

    #15yrsago Bahrain’s royals declare martial law https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/15/bahrain-martial-law-protesters-troops

    #15yrsago Libel reform in the UK: telling the truth won’t be illegal any longer? https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/mar/15/libel-law-reforms

    #15yrsago My weird femur printed in stainless steel https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/tags/femur

    #15yrsago War on the PC and the network: copyright was just the start https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/15/computers-incorporate-spyware-dangers

    #15yrsago Poe’s Detective: audio editions of Poe’s groundbreaking detective stories https://memex.craphound.com/2011/03/15/poes-detective-audio-editions-of-poes-groundbreaking-detective-stories/

    #15yrsago New York slashes hospital spending, but can’t touch multimillion-dollar CEO paychecks https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/nyregion/16about.html?_r=1&hp

    #10yrsago Leaked memo: Donald Trump volunteers banned from critizing him, for life https://web.archive.org/web/20160315161328/http://www.dailydot.com/politics/donald-trump-volunteer-contract-nda-non-disparagement-clause/

    #10yrsago Open letter from virtually every leading UK law light: Snooper’s Charter not fit for purpose https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/mar/14/investigatory-powers-bill-not-up-to-the-task

    #10yrsago Life inside God’s customer service prayer call-centre https://web.archive.org/web/20160317153851/http://www.tor.com/2016/03/15/your-orisons-may-be-recorded/

    #10yrsago The post-Snowden digital divide: the ability to understand and use privacy tools https://journal.radicallibrarianship.org/index.php/journal/article/view/12/27

    #10yrsago Some future for you: the radical rise of hope in the UK https://thebaffler.com/salvos/despair-fatigue-david-graeber

    #10yrsago America’s universities: Hedge funds saddled with inconvenient educational institutions https://web.archive.org/web/20160309093147/https://www.thenation.com/article/universities-are-becoming-billion-dollar-hedge-funds-with-schools-attached/

    #10yrsago Office chairs made out of old Vespa scooters https://belybel.com/

    #5yrsago STREAMLINER https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/15/free-markets/#streamliner

    #5yrsago Free markets https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/15/free-markets/#rent-seeking

    #5yrsago Making Hay https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/15/free-markets/#making-hay

    #1yrago Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/altering-the-deal/#telescreen

    Upcoming appearances (permalink)

    A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.


    A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

    Recent appearances (permalink)


    A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

    Latest books (permalink)


    A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

    Upcoming books (permalink)

    • “The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to AI,” a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/)

    • “Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It” (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

    • “The Post-American Internet,” a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

    • “Unauthorized Bread”: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2027

    • “The Memex Method,” Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027


    Colophon (permalink)

    Today’s top sources:

    Currently writing: “The Post-American Internet,” a sequel to “Enshittification,” about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America (1018 words today, 50532 total)

    • “The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to AI,” a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

    • “The Post-American Internet,” a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

    • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

    This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

    Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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    “When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla” -Joey “Accordion Guy” DeVilla

    READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies (“BOGUS AGREEMENTS”) that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

    ISSN: 3066-764X

  • Why I’m Not Paying My Federal Taxes This Year

    Why I’m Not Paying My Federal Taxes This Year

    Like many Americans, I filed my taxes this month. This time, I only paid some of them.

  • Malaysian Businessman Denounces Raid in ‘Corporate Mafia’ Probe

    Malaysian businessman Victor Chin Boon Long on Tuesday denounced a police raid on his home tied to an expanding investigation into alleged “corporate mafia” activities, saying the move was unjustified because he had already cooperated with authorities. Chin said police and securities officials seized three company vehicles and other valuables during the March 13 search, which he described as heavy-handed.

    The raid is part of a high-profile multi-agency probe into alleged corporate manipulation that has reportedly drawn in police, the Securities Commission, and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission. The case gained wider attention after Bloomberg reported in February that a group of businessmen had allegedly worked with anti-corruption officials to pressure corporate figures during company takeovers, claims that MACC chief Azam Baki has denied and is now suing over.

  • Premier League Hands Chelsea Record Fine for Abramovich-Era Financial Deception

    Chelsea FC has been hit by the Premier League with a 10.75 million pounds ($14.35 million) fine and transfer restrictions for what the body described as “obvious and deliberate” financial breaches orchestrated under the club’s former owner, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

    The financial penalty is the largest ever levied by England’s top soccer division. The club was also handed an immediate nine-month academy transfer ban and a suspended one-year ban on first-team player transfers.

    The sanctions are the culmination of a three-and-a-half-year investigation that uncovered a vast shadow payroll system, the Premier League said Monday. It found that between 2011 and 2018, third parties associated with the club made millions in undisclosed payments to players, unregistered agents, and other figures to bypass the league’s strict financial reporting and investment rules.

    According to a sanctions notice published by the league, the off-the-books payments totaled 47.5 million pounds ($63.3 million).

    This illicit funding enabled Chelsea to acquire star players who became instrumental to the club’s dominance during the 2010s, including Belgian forward Eden Hazard and Brazilian international Willian.

    The investigation also revealed that undisclosed payments were routed to key backroom figures, including Piet de Visser, a renowned Dutch scout credited with bringing top talent to Stamford Bridge, and Frank Arnesen, the club’s former sporting director.

    The Premier League concluded that these payments were made using funds controlled by or associated with Abramovich and were executed with the knowledge and approval of former senior officers and directors. The breaches, the league stated, “involved deception and concealment in relation to financial matters.”

    The league’s findings mirror several transactions first brought to light in a 2023 investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). That investigation revealed how Chelsea-related payments were channelled through Abramovich’s own companies to artificially reduce costs, possibly subverting the league’s spending limits and giving the club an unfair competitive advantage.

    In 2022, the U.K. government imposed severe financial sanctions on Abramovich following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions forced the billionaire to sell the club he had transformed into a global powerhouse.

    In May 2022, a consortium led by Todd Boehly, Clearlake Capital, Mark Walter, and Hansjörg Wyss acquired Chelsea. Upon taking control, the new ownership group voluntarily self-reported the potential historical violations to the Premier League.

    The club has been paying for the Abramovich era’s financial maneuvering ever since. In 2023, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) fined Chelsea 10 million euro ($11.5 million) for submitting incomplete financial information during the 2010s. England’s Football Association (FA) issued its own charges against the club last September regarding payments to unregistered agents. That disciplinary process remains ongoing.

    In a statement released Monday, Chelsea noted that it was pleased to reach a settlement regarding the historical, self-reported regulatory matters. The club emphasized that it had fully cooperated with all regulators and maintained that, even with the hidden payments, there was no scenario in which it would have breached the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules during the seasons in question.

  • Why is MenB vaccine not given to teenagers in UK and should they be offered it?

    Students and older teens have not been vaccinated against the strain that has caused the outbreak of cases in Kent.

  • Sanctioned Iranian Banker Owns Luxury Spanish Villa via UK Company

    A sanctioned banker accused of financing Iran’s Revolutionary Guard owns a luxury villa in Marbella through the Spanish subsidiary of a U.K. company, records show.

    The U.K. sanctioned Ali Ansari last year for allegedly “financially enabling the work of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),” which has committed widespread abuses while enforcing the rule of Iran’s theocratic government. 

    Ansari’s lawyer, Roger Gherson, did not answer questions about Ansari’s villa in Marbella, a city on Spain’s southern Costa del Sol, but he dismissed accusations that his client had links to the IRGC.

    “Mr Ansari, in response to damaging allegations in the international media, vehemently denies any financial relationship with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” Gherson said in an emailed response to questions.

    British authorities did not provide details in their sanctions notice supporting their allegation of Ansari bankrolling the IRGC.

    In a March 12 public statement, Ansari noted that Iranian authorities had dissolved a bank he held shares in, and said he was now being unfairly targeted internationally.

    “In the context of intensifying geopolitical tensions between Iran and the United States, efforts are underway in the United Kingdom and certain other countries to impose restrictions and sanctions against me without the presentation of credible evidence,” he said.

    Ansari added that he had instructed his lawyers to “initiate formal proceedings” against sanctions imposed by the U.K.

    British authorities allege that Ansari “funds the work of the IRGC,” which it called “one of the most powerful military organisations in Iran, reporting directly to the Supreme Leader.”

    Aside from its military role, the IRGC has extensive business interests that have been widely reported and include telecommunications, transport, oil, and construction. An article published by the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a U.S. research institution, called the IRGC “the most powerful controller of all important economic sectors across Iran.”

    While Gherson denied that his client had any links to the IRGC, Ansari said in his public statement that actions taken by Iranian authorities against him amounted to evidence that the British allegations are false. 

    Ansari cited the dissolution of Ayandeh Bank, which he held shares in. Iran’s Central Bank saved the lender from collapse in October 2025, ordering its merger with state-owned Melli Bank.

    “I was subjected to extensive legal and regulatory pressures — a process that ultimately led to the bank’s dissolution,” he said. “It is self-evident that had there been any organized relationship or special political backing, such an outcome would not have occurred.”

    In its decision to dissolve Ayandeh, Iran’s Central Bank pointed to years of mismanagement.

    Ayandeh had racked up 5 quadrillion Iranian rials in debt (around $4.67 billion at the time), about double what it held in deposits, according to Hamidreza Ghaniabadi, Director General of Banking Supervision at the Central Bank. He spoke in a video statement published on October 23, 2025, by the state-affiliated Tasnim News Agency.

    Ghaniabadi also told Iran’s state news agency, IRNA, that “more than 90 percent of Ayandeh Bank’s funds were allocated either to parties related to the bank or to projects managed by the bank itself.”

    Continental Properties

    The failure of Ayandeh Bank was part of an economic crisis that sparked the most recent wave of mass protests in Iran. 

    Iranians began taking to the streets at the end of 2025 to demonstrate against soaring inflation and plummeting standards of living. Many protestors soon began calling for the government’s removal.

    The IRGC and other security forces cracked down, carrying out mass arrests, as well as torturing and killing thousands of people, according to rights groups. OCCRP reported that families of people killed during the protests accused authorities of demanding payment to retrieve their bodies.

    In October 2025 — the same month Ayandeh Bank was dissolved, and about two months before the protests erupted — the U.K. slapped sanctions on Ansari. 

    By that time, he had acquired an extensive property portfolio around Europe.

    U.K. authorities have frozen more than 100 million British pounds ($134 million) worth of Ansari’s real estate in that country, according to public statements from government ministers. It is unknown if the frozen properties include a $52.8-million London mansion that OCCRP previously revealed.

    In January, the Financial Times reported that Ansari had acquired hundreds of millions of euros’ worth of commercial real estate in several European countries.

    OCCRP’s discovery of the luxury villa in Marbella adds yet another property to Ansari’s known holdings. 

    Chain of Ownership

    The Spanish villa is not directly owned by Ansari. Reporters had to dig through a chain of corporate links to determine his ownership.

    Using a Cypriot passport, Ansari controls a London firm called Veritas Reales Investment Limited, according to Companies House, the U.K.’s corporate register. The firm was incorporated in 2019 by a U.K. property developer who has since divested. Companies House now lists Ansari as the sole “Person with Significant Control.”

    In its corporate filings, Veritas Reales Investment is described as a company involved in the “buying and selling of own real estate” and the “receiving and lending of money.”

    Records from the Spanish Business Registries show that the London firm controls a local subsidiary, Veritas Reales Marbella SL.

    Veritas Reales Marbella owns the villa and land in Marbella’s exclusive gated community of Altos Reales, or “Royal Heights,” acquired for an undisclosed sum in 2020. 

    Ansari’s lawyer, Gherson, did not answer questions about the U.K. and Spanish firms.

    Reporters were unable to determine the purchase price of the villa and its value today. But an archived webpage from a local real estate agency shows that the property was marketed in 2013 for 15 million euros (around $19.5 million) as an “Outstanding Residence with Spectacular Views.” 

    Photos in the accompanying sales brochure featured a six-bedroom villa with an imposing central tower framed by mountain peaks. A terrace overlooked an outdoor pool, and views of the Mediterranean Sea. Those views match images available on Google Earth 3D. 

    The 2013 listing also noted features including a chandelier “bought from a 15th century church,” as well as “temperature controlled wine cellars and comfortable staff quarters.” 

    According to the U.K.’s Companies House, Veritas Reales Investment Limited’s annual filings are overdue. The firm is facing the prospect of being forcibly dissolved within the next two months, “unless cause is shown to the contrary.”

  • Middle East war risks pushing 45 million more people into acute hunger

    The Middle East war could cause the worst disruption to lifesaving humanitarian work since COVID, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday, as the UN chief again demanded an end to the widening conflict.

  • Nearly 5 million children are still dying annually before their fifth birthday: Here’s why

    An estimated 4.9 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2024, including 2.3 million newborns, according to new United Nations estimates released on Tuesday – highlighting a worrying slowdown in global progress on child survival.

  • World News in Brief: West Bank displacement, Cuba fuel crisis, Sexual abuse safeguards, New ‘humancentric’ AI Advocate

    A new UN human rights report warns that expanding Israeli settlements are driving large-scale displacement of Palestinians across the occupied West Bank.