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A fireside with Dr. Fei-Fei Li on June 16, 2025 at AI Startup School in San Francisco.Dr. Fei-Fei Li is often called the godmother of AI—and for good reason....
As fascism burns across America, it's important to remember that Trump and his policies are *not popular*. Sure, the racism and cruelty excites a minority of (very broken) people, but every component of the Trump agenda is *extremely* unpopular with the American people, from tax cuts for billionaires to kidnapping our neighbors and shipping them to concentration camps.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Keeping this fact in mind is essential if we are to nurture hope's embers, and fan them into the flames of change. Trumpism is a coalition of people who hate each other, who agree on almost nothing, whose fracture lines are one deft tap away from shattering:
Take noncompete "agreements": contractual clauses that ban workers from taking a job with any of their employers' competitors for *years*. One in 18 Americans has been captured by a noncompete, and the median noncompete victim is a minimum-wage fast-food worker whose small business tyrant boss wants to be sure that she doesn't quit working the register at Wendy's and start making $0.25/hour more flipping burgers at McDonald's.
The story of noncompetes is bullshit from top to bottom. The argument goes, "Your boss invests heavily in training you, and lets you in on all his valuable trade-secrets. When you walk out the door and go to work for a competitor, you're *stealing* all that training and knowledge. Without noncompetes, no boss will invest in the knowledge-intensive industries that are the future of our economy."
Now, like I said, the *vast* majority of people under noncompetes are working low-waged, menial jobs with little to no training, and no proprietary trade secrets to speak of. Which makes sense: workers with less bargaining power end up signing worse contracts. That's half the case against noncompetes.
Here's the other half: the *most* IP-intensive, profitable, knowledge-based industries in America operate without *any* noncompetes.
California's state constitution *bans* noncompetes, which means that every worker in Hollywood *and* Silicon Valley is free to quit their job and walk across the street and join a rival.
If Hollywood and tech are examples of industries that "can't attract investment," then we should be shooting for every sector of the American economy to be so starved for capital.
Silicon Valley's origin story is based on the ability of key workers at knowledge-intensive firms to quit their jobs and go to work for a direct competitor: the first Silicon Valley company was Shockley Semiconductors, founded by William Shockley, who won the Nobel Prize for inventing silicon transistors.
Shockley literally put the "silicon" in Silicon Valley, but he never shipped a working chip, because he was a deranged, paranoid eugenicist who ran such a dysfunctional company that eight of his top engineers quit to found a rival company, Fairchild Semiconductor. Then two of the "Traitorous Eight" quit the Fairchild to start Intel, and the year after, another Fairchild employee quit to start AMD:
This never stopped. Woz quit HP and Jobs quit Atari to start Apple and the tradition of extremely well-capitalized companies being founded by key employees who quit market-leading firms to compete with their old bosses continues to this day. There are many things we can say about AI, but *no one* will claim that AI companies - especially not those in California, where noncompetes are banned - have trouble attracting investment.
Half of the leading AI companies were founded by people who couldn't stand working for Sam Altman at Openai and quit to found a competitor. Just last week, Altman flipped out because Mark Zuckerberg poached his key scientists to work on competing products at Meta:
You know who understands this? The lawyers who draw up employment contracts with noncompete clauses in them: the American Bar Association bans noncompetes for lawyers! *Every law firm in America operates without noncompetes!*
Everyone hates noncompetes. They are *bullshit*, and only get worse with time, as the largest companies in America metastasize into sprawling conglomerates, they compete with *everyone*. Who isn't a competitor of Amazon's?
Biden's antitrust enforcers hated noncompetes, too. Former FTC chair Lina Khan held listening tours and solicited comments to hear workers stories about noncompetes, developing a record that she used to create a rule that banned noncompetes nationwide:
America's oligarchs weren't happy. They sued to overturn the rule, and got a nationwide injunction (you know, those things that Trump's illegitimate Supreme Court claims are unenforceable) that suspended the FTC rule pending a full hearing.
It's clear that Trump's FTC is going to walk away from this fight and let the rule die. Trumpism is wildly unpopular, and this is no exception.
Americans overwhelmingly support banning noncompetes, but Trump's richest donors are terrified of another Great Resignation and want to keep us indentured to their shitty companies, so Trump's FTC will sell us all out.
But that's not the end of things. As David Dayen writes for *The American Prospect*, states and local governments can pass their own noncompete bans, and they are:
Take NYC mayor-in-waiting Zohran Mamdani: unlike Trump (and the Democratic Party's billionaire wing), Mamdani campaigned by offering to create policies that are *popular*, including a ban on noncompetes. New York City has two distinct groups of workers who are screwed over by noncompetes.
One of those groups is Wall Street finance bros, who work for some of the most legendarily toxic assholes to ever draw breath, and are overwhelming bound by noncompetes that will all become null and void the day Mamdani dons his sash.
The other group of workers Mamdani will liberate are those at the very bottom of the income distribution, from fast food workers to gig workers to doormen, who are victims of some of the dirtiest noncompete clauses in America, including "bondage fees":
Big cities are filled with workers who are getting screwed by noncompetes and every city government has it in their power to liberate every one of those workers (who are also voters).
States can do even better. There are already four states that ban noncompetes, two of them blood red: California, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Oklahoma. Other states place significant restrictions on noncompetes, including Washington, Colorado, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine.
Nevada bans noncompetes for hourly workers, Idaho only allows them for "key employees"; Louisiana limits noncompetes to two years, and NJ bans noncompetes for domestic workers.
Up and down the country, in states blue and red, noncompetes are unpopular, and banning noncompetes is popular:
Oregon just banned noncompetes for doctors and other health workers, as part of a sweeping, bipartisan law that banned the "corporate practice of medicine":
Lina Khan's FTC developed an irrefutable record about the abusive nature of noncompetes, proving industries can attract capital and field successful companies without them. States have it in their power to step in where Trump has betrayed American workers. This isn't the most efficient way to protect workers - that would be a federal ban on noncompetes - but it will still get the job done, and it will weaken the Trump coalition, which is barely holding together as it is.
“Data scientist”
is a weird term.
We *are* biology.
Made from the building blocks of chemistry.
Observing the laws of physics.
These domains are ontological.
But data is something we made. We chose what to measure.
interestingly, in Germany non-competes are totally legal. But with a simple change: the employers needs to pay for the time of the non-compete (at least 50% of the pay). This makes them much less interesting, but still available
How did you vote *extremely unpopular* Trump back into office then? How did he get 50%+ of votes in general election? How are his approval rates *extremely low* when they dropped from 52% to say around 47%? How is 47% *extremely unpopular* ?
WFTU Working Women Committee realized a virtual seminar on June 27th, on the subject of ILO Convention 190/2019 on the elimination of violence and harassment in the workplace.
An Israeli strike hit a tent in the al-Mawasi area, west of Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, killing 13 people, including a couple and their four children.
Another attack targeted the Mustafa Hafez School, sheltering displaced people west of Gaza City, killing 11 people.
Note: I wrote this poem yesterday in the haiku style of poetry and published it for the first time today, the 3rd of July, 2025. You came here to be human so be true to your humanity.
Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 07/03/25: US Spent $1.25 Billion on THAADs Defending Israel, Israel Kills Gaza Hospital Director, and More youtube.com/watch?v=FKsUwXIy8s…
Contact the White House: https://whitehouse.gov/contact/Support the show: Antiwar.com/donatePhone bank for Defend the Guard: https://defendtheguard.us/phoneb...
This was the hardest one to find out of the three I bought. I had to go onto like the tenth search page to find a website that was run by a singular Japanese dude who seems to have every out of print figure ever. I even searched the website name to make sure it was legit, it was way too convenient.
@Ronnie21093 Figure-rise Standard Umamusume Pretty Derby Tokai Teio? That one is still available for around 60 leaf buxs at one of my local plastic crack(Gundam) dealers
The Figure-rise Standard Umamusume: Pretty Derby Tokai Teio model kit represents a character from the popular multimedia franchise "Umamusume: Pretty Derby," which features anthropomorphized versions of real-life racehorses portrayed as "horse girls.
@poopernova @Ronnie21093 I almost gave up and ordered the small pop up parade Mcqueen with the normal school uniform. Luckily I decided to keep searching.
An investigation by The Guardian revealed that the Israeli military used a powerful 500-pound bomb, likely an MK-82, in its attack on Al-Baqa café by the #Gaza seaside.
This bomb, caused a massive explosion and scattered shrapnel over a wide area, leaving a large crater at the site. The use of such a weapon may amount to a war crime.
Of course it is a war crime. the whole thing is a string of war crimes. they have no shame. they kill for eradication and pleasure. They are a sick nation. Only the murderers, thieves and religious extremists will stay behind when this is over. Any decent Israeli or Jew will leave the country asap. Many are leaving by boat as I speak. Jews are decent people but for the zionists. Wake up!
Every single European country with exception of Spain and Norway, standing firm behind this out if control lunacy driven fascist society we call Israel today.
Evil can not prevail if decent people stay silent.
Majority of the world is chosing to ignore these atrocities.
For some very very strange reason. Maybe racism is much much deeper in the mindset of the world than I ever imagined.
"Christianity is at the root of the evil that has corrupted the West. This is the truth, and it does not admit uncertainty. In its frenetic subversion of every hierarchy, in its exaltation of the weak, the disinherited, those without lineage and without tradition; in its call to "love", to "believe", and to yield; in its rancor toward everything that is force, self-sufficiency, knowledge, and aristocracy; in its intolerant and proselytizing fanaticism, Christianity poisoned the greatness of the Roman Empire. Enemy of itself and of the world, this dark and barbarous wave remains the principal cause of the West's decline." - Julius Evola
@relentless_eduardo@freeatlantis.co The Church had yet to corrupt the inner metaphysical values of the European at that time (the Rosicrucians, Knight's Templar, etc had more Pagan elements internally than Christian).
the greatest period of Spanish expansion to spread Christianity was about 1500 - 1800
so could we say the entire conquest of latin america by spain and the almost entire conquest of north america by the northern europeans were both symptoms of decline?
Reprinted from CommonDreams. The attack by Israel and the U.S. on Iran had two significant effects. First, it once again exposed the root cause of turmoil in the region: Israel’s project to “reshape the Middle East” through regime change, aimed at ma…
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If the music's gotten boring, it's because of the people Who want everyone to sound the same Who drive the bright people out of our so-called scene Till all that's left is just a meaningless fad
If the music's gotten boring, it's because of the people Who want everyone to sound the same Who drive the bright people out of our so-called scene Till all that's left is just a meaningless fad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E0MdKJreSE
Casual thoughts about memory and our misconceptions about it, based on the last few weeks of seeing a LOT of lay mental models about memory and cognition:
- it is well known in the psychological and cognitive sciences that memory is not like a man-made recording device. Your memory is not a tape recorder, or analogous to computer memory. Nevertheless people will insist on constantly using computer metaphors for memory. Just know this is widely regarded as inaccurate
hey thanks so much I've been using computer/organic machine/input/output analogies for 30+ years while also understanding the limitations of such purposeful analogies, and this is the first time I've seen a fellow scientist scold the subject. Congrats, really! We are so, so, so much more than organic computers, yes. Obviously.
- a key principle of much of the memory that we're concerned with in casual conversations (how we learn, retrieve information for large and complex tasks, "meaning" memory) is that we store information in relationship with the previous information and organization of our memories. Over and over, research has found that we are much more "active" participants in this process rather than "passive recorders"
With this knowledge in hand, we start to understand illusions of learning, e.g.:
"Conscientiously taking verbatim notes or reading to-be-learned content over, if it is done in a passive way, is not an efficient way to learn"
- Bjork, R. A., Dunlosky, J., & Kornell, N. (2013). Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and illusions. Annual review of psychology, 64(1), 417-444.
From what I understand, human memory is pretty shit. It gets processed through our imagination and we only remember the story we told ourselves, not the actual facts.
I would absolutely love to watch a seminar on "how to study" and "how to learn" that's pitched to students starting high school, and again when staring university. "What we know works" would be just such an incredible asset for students, teachers, parents, everyone.
Casual thoughts about memory and our misconceptions about it, based on the last few weeks of seeing a LOT of lay mental models about memory and cognition:
- it is well known in the psychological and cognitive sciences that memory is not like a man-made recording device. Your memory is not a tape recorder, or analogous to computer memory. Nevertheless people will insist on constantly using computer metaphors for memory. Just know this is widely regarded as inaccurate
My favorite quick example of this is this simple game:
"Hey computer, here's twenty random things. Memorize them." "Okay." "Recite them forwards." "Okay." "Recite them backwards." (flips the sign of one counter increment) "Okay."
"... hey human, here's twenty random things. Memorize them." "Okay." "Recite them forwards." "Okay." "Recite them backwards." head explodes
People can train themselves to be better at this, but most people don't have sequence-flipping of unpatterned data come naturally to them, and with computers it's almost exactly as easy as forward readout.
And of course the computational theory of mind has achieved a pretty dominant position in philosophy of mind. Since the Enlightenment and the ascendence of scientism we homo sapiens have had a weakness for interpreting things through the framework of our shiniest, most advanced technology. A few hundred years ago the universe was thought of as a great clockwork. Today we understand things as computers. We keep making the same mistakes, don't we?
I really found the historical perspective on this (i.e. technology serves as the metaphor for intelligence) fascinating: aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does…
In Our Own Image (2015) by George Zarkadakis is a great read as well.
"the Mandela effect" should be an opportunity to explore how fallible human memory is, and how it can interact with group dynamics, leading to things like widespread memories of events that never happened. Instead it's a basis for people who are certain their memories are 100% digitally accurate to unmoor themselves from reality and start rambling about parallel universes while fashioning tinfoil hats for themselves.
SANAA, July 02 (YPA) - A Yemeni researcher interested in tracking and monitoring smuggled Yemeni antiquities, Abdullah Mohsen, revealed on Tuesday that "Israel" was negotiating to obtain a bronze statue from Yemen.in a post on X, Mohsen confirmed tha
"Ich bin Antizionistin - auf jeden Fall." Ein Interview mit Esther Bejarano, an alle heuchlerischen "Linken", die Esther eigentlich bei jeder Gelegenheit feiern und dennoch Antizionist*innen als Antisemit*innen brandmarken. 🖕🏽 jungewelt.de/beilage/art/27802…
Gespräch mit Esther Bejarano. Über den Rechtsruck in Europa, die jüdische »Welt von Gestern«, Zionismus und Israel heute, das Großmachtstreben Deutschlands und seine neuen Kriege
My initial reaction: "These people honestly think someone committed suicide just because they put a picture from a bridge? That's so stupid" Went to Twitter to check on the profile for myself.... literally every single one of their last few posts reads as: "the last things I want to say before I off myself". Huh... Maybe I was too rash to criticize. I guess people did do their homework before celebrating the death of a person they don't know.
@alyx This isn't the first time someone has posted a picture from a bridge with an ominous message, plus they've likely physically mutilated themselves which further fucks with their mental state. Poor bastards
Why people are killing themselves for something they cannot change or influence is beyond me
Perhaps the book im reading on Stoicsm is finally bearing its fruits because i see no logical reason to end yourself because of something that you cannot influence or change.
Just accept your situation and move on You choose to be influenced by your fate and situation, you cannot alter fate so stop resisting it right?
Perhaps rational thinking is not on the menu for some of these people 🤔
@xaetacore Well these are not exactly rational people, and a lot of their issues are likely self-inflicted given they've decided to be troons and have likely mutilitated themselves permanently, I don't blame theme for wanting to end it all considering there's no future for them other than as sterile slaves to medication
More sanctions will only ever embolden Russia to keep fighting rather than making peace. Join us on Telegram, Twitter, and VK. Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su Russia can…
Delegates and international activists with the Global March to Gaza, Freedom Flotilla Coalition and Al-Soumoud Convoy met in Tunisia to chart a collective path forward for Palestinian liberation ~ Josie Ó Súileabháin ~ Over the past two weeks, thousa…
Spielen die Leute in Malta, Zypern und Luxemburg eigentlich nur selten Computerspiele? Die Beteiligung bei Stop Destroying Videogames ist abgeschlagen niedrig. citizens-initiative.europa.eu/… Bevor ihr euch fragt, für den Erfolg der Initative muss man in 7 Länder den Schwellenwert überwinden und eine Million Stimmen erreichen. Wer noch nicht abgestimmt hat, kann sogar mit eID abstimmen. Es hat bei mir aber mehrere Versuche gebraucht, bis ich mein Statement of support receipt erhalten habe.
🌟 Narcissism can deeply affect creative collaborations. During brainstorming, a narcissistic individual might dominate the conversation, seeking to overshadow others' ideas rather than build collectively. This can stifle innovation as the space for genuine exchange shrinks. Monopolizing ideas often leads to resentment, reducing trust and teamwork. Awareness of these dynamics helps us foster healthier, more balanced creative environments where every voice matters. 💡🤝 #Narcissism #CreativeCollaboration #MentalHealthMatters
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has issued a decree on the suspension of the country's cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Tasnim news agency reported on Wednesday.
GitHub Archive logs every public commit, even the ones developers try to delete. Force pushes often cover up mistakes like leaked credentials by rewriting Git history. GitHub keeps these dangling commits, from what we can tell, forever.
I've noticed that many former astronauts are exceedingly long-lived. John Glenn was 95yo when he died. Michael Collins was 90yo when he died. Buzz Aldrin is very much still with us at 95yo, as is Jim Lovell (pictured) at 97yo.
I wonder if anyone has researched the reasons for their longevity.
@yngmar @Infoseepage Yes, I'm sure these are very important factors. Although, there are other groups of people who might benefit from the same advantages without reaching the same venerable ages. Olympic athletes, for example.
Peter Putnam was a promising student of John Wheeler who became obsessed with a computational model of the mind, was tormented by a pathological relationship with his wealthy mother, and ended up contributing to community politics while working blue collar jobs.
Science writer Amanda Gefter spent more than a decade tracking down the people who knew him, and diving into a vast store of his unpublished work and private papers.
AP spoke to the two contractors for UG Solutions, an American outfit subcontracted to hire security personnel for the distribution sites. They said bullets, stun grenades and pepper spray were used at nearly every distribution, even if there was no threat.
In one video, what appear to be heavily armed American security contractors at one of the sites in Gaza discuss how to disperse Palestinians nearby. One is heard saying he has arranged for a “show of force” by Israeli tanks.
“I don’t want this to be too aggressive,” he adds, “because this is calming down.” At that moment, bursts of gunfire erupt close by, at least 15 shots. “Whoo! Whoo!” one contractor yelps. “I think you hit one,” one says. Then comes a shout: “Hell, yeah, boy!”
![Women mourn their loved ones at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. [Khames Alrefi/Anadolu]](https://friendica.eskimo.com/photo/preview/640/7870409 "Women mourn their loved ones at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. [Khames Alrefi/Anadolu]")
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2025/07/03/sta…
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Pluralistic: Trump’s not gonna protect workers from forced labor (03 Jul 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Keeping this fact in mind is essential if we are to nurture hope's embers, and fan them into the flames of change. Trumpism is a coalition of people who hate each other, who agree on almost nothing, whose fracture lines are one deft tap away from shattering:
pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fra…
The vast unpopularity of Trumpism presents endless opportunities for breaking off parts of his coalition.
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Pluralistic: The true, tactical significance of Project 2025 (14 Jul 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Take noncompete "agreements": contractual clauses that ban workers from taking a job with any of their employers' competitors for *years*. One in 18 Americans has been captured by a noncompete, and the median noncompete victim is a minimum-wage fast-food worker whose small business tyrant boss wants to be sure that she doesn't quit working the register at Wendy's and start making $0.25/hour more flipping burgers at McDonald's.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
The story of noncompetes is bullshit from top to bottom. The argument goes, "Your boss invests heavily in training you, and lets you in on all his valuable trade-secrets. When you walk out the door and go to work for a competitor, you're *stealing* all that training and knowledge. Without noncompetes, no boss will invest in the knowledge-intensive industries that are the future of our economy."
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Now, like I said, the *vast* majority of people under noncompetes are working low-waged, menial jobs with little to no training, and no proprietary trade secrets to speak of. Which makes sense: workers with less bargaining power end up signing worse contracts. That's half the case against noncompetes.
Here's the other half: the *most* IP-intensive, profitable, knowledge-based industries in America operate without *any* noncompetes.
6/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
California's state constitution *bans* noncompetes, which means that every worker in Hollywood *and* Silicon Valley is free to quit their job and walk across the street and join a rival.
If Hollywood and tech are examples of industries that "can't attract investment," then we should be shooting for every sector of the American economy to be so starved for capital.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Silicon Valley's origin story is based on the ability of key workers at knowledge-intensive firms to quit their jobs and go to work for a direct competitor: the first Silicon Valley company was Shockley Semiconductors, founded by William Shockley, who won the Nobel Prize for inventing silicon transistors.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Shockley literally put the "silicon" in Silicon Valley, but he never shipped a working chip, because he was a deranged, paranoid eugenicist who ran such a dysfunctional company that eight of his top engineers quit to found a rival company, Fairchild Semiconductor. Then two of the "Traitorous Eight" quit the Fairchild to start Intel, and the year after, another Fairchild employee quit to start AMD:
pluralistic.net/2021/10/24/the…
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The Traitorous Eight and the Battle of Germanium Valley – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
This never stopped. Woz quit HP and Jobs quit Atari to start Apple and the tradition of extremely well-capitalized companies being founded by key employees who quit market-leading firms to compete with their old bosses continues to this day. There are many things we can say about AI, but *no one* will claim that AI companies - especially not those in California, where noncompetes are banned - have trouble attracting investment.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Half of the leading AI companies were founded by people who couldn't stand working for Sam Altman at Openai and quit to found a competitor. Just last week, Altman flipped out because Mark Zuckerberg poached his key scientists to work on competing products at Meta:
fortune.com/2025/06/28/meta-fo…
Knowledge-intensive industries are provably compatible with a system of free labor where workers can work for anyone they want.
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Meta taps four OpenAI researchers for Superintelligence team
Mark Gurman (Fortune)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
You know who understands this? The lawyers who draw up employment contracts with noncompete clauses in them: the American Bar Association bans noncompetes for lawyers! *Every law firm in America operates without noncompetes!*
Everyone hates noncompetes. They are *bullshit*, and only get worse with time, as the largest companies in America metastasize into sprawling conglomerates, they compete with *everyone*. Who isn't a competitor of Amazon's?
pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its…
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Pluralistic: 02 Feb 2022 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Biden's antitrust enforcers hated noncompetes, too. Former FTC chair Lina Khan held listening tours and solicited comments to hear workers stories about noncompetes, developing a record that she used to create a rule that banned noncompetes nationwide:
pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/cap…
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Pluralistic: Antitrust is a labor issue (25 Apr 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
America's oligarchs weren't happy. They sued to overturn the rule, and got a nationwide injunction (you know, those things that Trump's illegitimate Supreme Court claims are unenforceable) that suspended the FTC rule pending a full hearing.
It's clear that Trump's FTC is going to walk away from this fight and let the rule die. Trumpism is wildly unpopular, and this is no exception.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Americans overwhelmingly support banning noncompetes, but Trump's richest donors are terrified of another Great Resignation and want to keep us indentured to their shitty companies, so Trump's FTC will sell us all out.
But that's not the end of things. As David Dayen writes for *The American Prospect*, states and local governments can pass their own noncompete bans, and they are:
prospect.org/labor/2025-07-02-…
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States Take the Lead on Banning Noncompete Agreements
David Dayen (The American Prospect)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Take NYC mayor-in-waiting Zohran Mamdani: unlike Trump (and the Democratic Party's billionaire wing), Mamdani campaigned by offering to create policies that are *popular*, including a ban on noncompetes. New York City has two distinct groups of workers who are screwed over by noncompetes.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
One of those groups is Wall Street finance bros, who work for some of the most legendarily toxic assholes to ever draw breath, and are overwhelming bound by noncompetes that will all become null and void the day Mamdani dons his sash.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
The other group of workers Mamdani will liberate are those at the very bottom of the income distribution, from fast food workers to gig workers to doormen, who are victims of some of the dirtiest noncompete clauses in America, including "bondage fees":
pluralistic.net/2023/04/21/bon…
Big cities are filled with workers who are getting screwed by noncompetes and every city government has it in their power to liberate every one of those workers (who are also voters).
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Pluralistic: How workers get trapped by “bondage fees”; Red Team Blues Chapter One, part five (21 Apr 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
States can do even better. There are already four states that ban noncompetes, two of them blood red: California, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Oklahoma. Other states place significant restrictions on noncompetes, including Washington, Colorado, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Nevada bans noncompetes for hourly workers, Idaho only allows them for "key employees"; Louisiana limits noncompetes to two years, and NJ bans noncompetes for domestic workers.
Up and down the country, in states blue and red, noncompetes are unpopular, and banning noncompetes is popular:
ipsos.com/en-us/majority-ameri…
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Oregon just banned noncompetes for doctors and other health workers, as part of a sweeping, bipartisan law that banned the "corporate practice of medicine":
pluralistic.net/2025/06/20/the…
Oregon's in good company: noncompetes are banned in the health sector in 32 states, including Arkansas, Indiana and Colorado.
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Pluralistic: Oregon bans the corporate practice of medicine (20 Jun 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Lina Khan's FTC developed an irrefutable record about the abusive nature of noncompetes, proving industries can attract capital and field successful companies without them. States have it in their power to step in where Trump has betrayed American workers. This isn't the most efficient way to protect workers - that would be a federal ban on noncompetes - but it will still get the job done, and it will weaken the Trump coalition, which is barely holding together as it is.
eof/
Jonathan Schofield
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
re “scientists”
mastodon.social/@urlyman/11478…
Jonathan Schofield (@urlyman@mastodon.social)
Mastodonziggy
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Lucinek
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Kuo
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •IF THE MAGA POLICIES ARE NOT POPULAR WHY ARE AMERICANS QUIET.
STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR THE CONSTITUTION, FOR THE LAND OF THE FREE, FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
Ati
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •SouprMatt
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •I believe there is a difference between polling and voting.
During a poll (talking to a human being), people pretend to a better version of themselves. You know, the version who isn’t a racist?
When they secretly vote, they let their true feelings out.
So 45’s policies are more popular than a lot of people admit. Of the 77 million who voted for this, how many did NOT see the “Mass Deportation” signs?
I guess we will find out in 2026 how many of the people being polled now are lying.