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- Pluralistic: Criticizing the everything machine (06 Jun 2026)
- Sat, 06 Jun 2026 18:00:00 +0000
Today's links Criticizing the everything machine: It slices, it dices, it even makes paperclips! Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Parliament v DRM; Colbert's commencement; Counterfeiting x luxury goods; Joule thief; Lean-back media. Upcoming appearances: Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Criticizing the everything machine (permalink) "Gish Gallop" is the debating term for an opponent who makes so many claims that "it's impossible to address them in the time available" (it's named for Creationist Duane Gish, who was notorious for this tactic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop I think about the Gish Gallop whenever I'm asked to comment on AI. Here's a recent example: last week, I had a pre-interview call with a radio producer who wanted me to come on a 13-minute segment to discusses "whether there's a problem with AI governance?" I asked what the show meant by that: was it whether regulation of AI in commercial or public sector decision-making needed more oversight? Was it that the siting and provisioning of data-centers needed more democratic accountability? Was it that workers deserved more of a say in AI's impact on labor markets? Was it that customers and/or audiences should be able to opt out of AI customer service and AI slop? Was it about whether we needed some kind of system to prevent "runaway AI," in the event that we teach so many words to the word-guessing program that it wakes up, becomes God, and turns us all into paperclips? "Oh," the producer said, "all of that." In 13 minutes. You see the problem, right? The AI industry has made so many claims about its past, present and future that it's almost impossible to have a reasonable critical conversation about it: https://bsky.app/profile/petermiles.eurosky.social/post/3mnffjqczjs2t Shortly after I did the radio show, a newspaper editor who'd heard my segment got in touch to ask me if I'd write an 800-word op-ed about the subject, and also, could I address claims that "AI is the next Industrial Revolution?" In 800 words: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/04/ai-is-the-greatest-money-wasting-scheme-humanity-has-ever-i/ I keep finding myself on stages or panels where an AI-struck person says something like, "AI is the next industrial revolution. It will change everything we do. It will let anyone create important works of art. It will cure cancer. It will take us to space. It will solve the climate crisis." Or sometimes it's an AI critic, but that person's criticism is really more "criti-hype," which is when you accept tech industry hype claims at face value, and then criticize them rather than questioning them: https://peoples-things.ghost.io/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype/ AI criti-hype might ask what we'll do once AI takes all our jobs, or what we'll do when AI replaces the government or teachers or doctors, or what we'll do when AI can bypass our critical faculties and brainwash us or drive us all mad. What do you say to that? I usually start by talking about whether there's any economic basis for keeping the AI servers running. AI is – by far – the money-losingest venture in human history, and it's practically impossible to overstate just how bad the AI business is. Not only does AI have terrible unit economics, those unit economics are getting worse over time: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/26/the-ai-will-continue/#until-morale-improves AI's happiest customers cite cost-benefit calculations that depend on truly unimaginable subsidies from the AI companies, who are basically selling $100 bills for $5 apiece. It would be pretty amazing if you couldn't find people who'd extol the virtues of this arrangement. But when AI companies try to raise the price of those $100 bills to, say, $20 apiece, those ecstatic customers fly into a rage and start loudly proclaiming that AI is so inefficient that they will lose money on this arrangement: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/uber-ceo-says-other-execs-are-lying-about-ai-they-say-it-ll-be-fine-publicly-but-privately-admit-millions-of-jobs-are-gone/ar-AA1Z9QMv Now, it shouldn't fall to me, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, to point out that capitalist enterprises require profits to be sustainable. You can't keep a business afloat by selling $100 bills for $5, nor for $20. You can't even make a profit selling $100 bills for $100 apiece! For a company to succeed, it needs to take in more than it expends. AI is a money-furnace, and AI hustlers are clearly on the hunt for a way to force all of us to feed every dime we've got to it. Elon Musk's (now scuttled) gambit to make every pension saver in America bail out Grok (and Twitter, but at a mere $44b, the losses from Twitter are dwarfed by the titanic losses from Grok) was the most ambitious and shameless population-scale bag-holder scheme, but it's not the only one: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/sp-global-keeps-fast-entry-proposal-unchanged-spacex-listing-looms-2026-06-04/ So before we ask about the capabilities AI will acquire in the future, we should at least give some consideration to the question of whether anyone will be willing to fund the development of those capabilities, and if so, where the money would come from? Likewise, before we ask whether AI can perform adequately in a job, we should at least consider the possibility that the company that sells that AI tool will be bankrupt in a year or two. When we fight about data-center buildout, we mostly talk about the (considerable) environmental downsides to them – but what about the question of what we will do with these data-centers after their owners go bankrupt, possibly even before they can be provisioned with electricity? How many laser-tag arenas do we actually need? This is just one example of the questions that you could spend days unpacking, which make many of the other questions about AI a little silly. Like, even if you think there are limitless returns to scale for creating new AI capabilities, which means that if we keep the money-furnace burning it's only a matter of time until it powers a cure for cancer and the end of the climate emergency, how much money do we need to shovel into the furnace before that happens, and where will it come from? There are plenty of cancer researchers who have promising approaches they haven't been able to pursue due to funding shortfalls. Unless there's some way to estimate how much money we have to give to AI companies before they cure cancer, we should at least consider the possibility that the true sum is "more money than exists now and that will ever exist." We should also consider that whatever benefits to cancer research that AI might deliver could come with a higher price-tag than the promising cancer research we're dropping because we can't find far more modest sums. Likewise, it may be that the amount of CO2 that AI will generate atmosphere before it "solves climate change" will render Earth permanently unfit for humans, consuming the only habitable planet capable of sustaining human life in the known universe. I mean, I suppose that's one way to "solve" climate change, but it's a pretty drastic solution. My next book (out later this month) is The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI. I wrote it because I was frustrated by other people demanding that I talk to them about AI, and then handing me 800 words or 13 minutes to address fifty nebulous, poorly supported claims about AI: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/ Shortly after writing it, I turned it into a lecture: https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop-that-bubble/#u-washington Now that I'm about to go out on the road with the book, I find myself frustrated anew by the need to try and pull together a compact way to address the broad, incoherent claims the industry uses to keep its bubble inflated and the money furnaces roaring. The series of essays I've developed here on Pluralistic are part of that effort: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/27/unnecessariat/#rubbuts-stole-my-jerb But it occurred to me that this whole enterprise of making sense of AI needs to be framed in the context of the messiness of AI itself, and AI boosters' overwhelming, promiscuous and disjointed Gish Gallop. Hey look at this (permalink) What happens when your phone is confiscated at the airport https://www.theverge.com/report/944076/cbp-airport-phone-searches-seizure-minneapolis-activists A Billionaire Explains Why American Business Now Feels like the Mafia https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/a-billionaire-explains-why-american These Republican Lawmakers Challenged Abortion Bans. Then They Faced Backlash. https://www.propublica.org/article/republicans-face-backlash-after-challenging-abortion-bans Debbie Downer https://prospect.org/2026/06/05/debbie-downer-wasserman-schultz-florida-house-races/ Mechanical Pencil https://mechanical-pencil.com/ Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago UK Parliament report damns DRM, calls for limits https://web.archive.org/web/20060615115510/http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2006/06/05/launch-of-the-apig-report-on-drm/ #20yrsago Colbert’s Knox College commencement speech https://web.archive.org/web/20111228135413/http://departments.knox.edu/newsarchive/news_events/2006/x12547.html #15yrsago Counterfeiting can be good for luxury goods sales https://web.archive.org/web/20110602061646/http://www.slate.com/id/2294927/ #15yrsago HOWTO make a Joule Thief and get all the power you’ve paid for https://www.instructables.com/Make-a-Joule-Thief/ #15yrsago School suspends student for refusing to remove personal animation from YouTube, threatens other students for petitioning on his behalf https://web.archive.org/web/20110603041200/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/student-cites-freedom-of-speech-after-suspension-for-online-videos/article2043954/ #5yrsago Recommendation engines and "lean-back" media https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/05/lean-back/#lean-forward Upcoming appearances (permalink) Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: TBA, Jun 23 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) Cory Doctorow's digital jail-break (DW In Focus) https://www.dw.com/en/cory-doctorows-digital-jail-break/audio-77414035 Why the Internet Got Worse and What to Do About It (Jim Rutt) (RIP) https://www.jimruttshow.com/cory-doctorow-3/ On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Refining humanity (05 Jun 2026)
- Fri, 05 Jun 2026 20:49:39 +0000
Today's links Refining humanity: What our technology is shows us what we're not. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: GNU Radio; France v "follow us on Twitter"; Aaronsw vindicated; Capitalism's crooked refs. Upcoming appearances: Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Refining humanity (permalink) One of the best ways to evaluate your own understanding of a subject is to attempt to explain it to someone else. Through explaining things, we discover how much of the "totally obvious" world is actually full of ambiguity, mystery and contradiction. There's a great bit in Rowan Atkinson's historical sitcom Blackadder that illustrates this principle. In "Ink and Incapability" Blackadder and friends have accidentally burned the only copy of Samuel Johnson's original dictionary of the English language. To cover up their mistake, they decide that they will recreate the dictionary themselves. However, they founder on the first word they try to define, "A": Blackadder: Let's start at the beginning, shall we? First: 'A.' How would you define 'A'? Prince George: Ohh…'A' (continues this in background). Oh, I love this! I love this! Quizzies! Erm, hang on, it’s coming. Ooh, crikey, erm, oh yes, I’ve got it! B: What? PG: Well, it doesn’t really mean anything, does it? B: Good. So we're well on the way, then. "'A'; impersonal pronoun; doesn't really mean anything." I mean, what does "A" mean? The Oxford English Dictionary has more than a dozen definitions, and just the first one runs to more than 1,500 words: https://archive.org/details/the-oxford-english-dictionary-all-volumes_202208/The%20Oxford%20English%20Dictionary%20Volume%201%20-%20A%20to%20B/page/n25/mode/2up Now, normal life involves a lot of explaining things to other people. You have to explain your problems to customer service reps, who have to explain why they can't solve those problems to you. You need to explain to your loved ones why you want to leave your toothbrush in the shower, and they have to explain why they hate having your toothbrush in the shower. These explanation-exchanges teach you as much as they teach the person you're locked in dialog with. The reasons for leaving your toothbrush in the shower may seem totally obvious to you, and your partner's inability to understand this reveals the assumptions you've never even considered. For the past four decades, an increasing proportion of the population have spent an increasing proportion of their lives explaining things to machines that have no assumptions or shared context: computers. What we call "programming a computer" is really "breaking down a thing that seems obvious to you into increasingly simple instructions that will be followed to the letter." Computers are like the genies of legend, bloody-minded literalists who will do exactly what you say, in the way that is perversely furthest from what you mean. To get a computer to do anything, you must first understand it to a degree that far exceeds the understanding needed to explain something to any other human, even a small child. To take just one example: yesterday, I was on a plane, and the seatback video started cycling through its video-on-demand offerings. All of the movie titles that began with "the" were rewritten to put "the" at the end of the title (for example, "The Sting" was written as "Sting, The"). It's obvious why the system's designer had done this: we expect to find movies whose titles begin with "The" alphabetized under their second word ("The Sting" should appear between "Star Wars" and "Story of a Love Affair"; not between "The Godfather" and "The Untouchables"). I remember when I learned this from my elementary school's teacher-librarian, when I was seven and my class got a tutorial on the school library's card catalog. The librarian explained this principle to us in a matter of minutes, as part of a longer set of instructions, and still, it stuck with me forever. But here we are, 48 years later, and we still haven't standardized a way to get computers to grasp this foundational principle of alphabetization. Many different databases handle this, to be sure, but it's so inconsistent across so many platforms that someone at the head-end of the video distribution system that feeds American Airlines' VOD system decided, "Fuck it, I'm just gonna put the 'The' at the end of these titles." Computers are stupid, in other words, which means that the people who program them have to have smarts enough for both of them. Unfortunately for our entire species and civilization, the software industry has historically valued skill at writing efficient and reliable software over writing software that adequately reflects reality. There is an entire genre of lists that illustrate the problem with this; the "falsehoods programmers believe" lists: https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood From "names of people" and "street addresses"; from "prices" to "time"; from "email addresses" to "phone numbers"; the "awesome falsehoods" lists are awesome because they reveal how much subtlety and complexity is lurking in these seemingly simple and intuitive concepts. This subtlety and complexity might never emerge through the process of trying to teach a person about them, but when you try to teach a computer about them, you have to confront them in all their awesome fuggliness. That's because humans have context, agency and flexibility. Sure, the person who designs a form with a blank for "name" might never have met a Malagasy person whose first name is Randriamananjararadofabesata, but in the pre-digital world, when Madagascar Slim met a public official who had to transcribe his name onto a paper form, that official could simply draw an arrow in the margin next to the "name" blank, turn the form over, and write out all 28 characters on the reverse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Slim Computers can't do this. If the programmer doesn't know about Malagasy first names, the computer doesn't know about them either, and the only person who can "teach" the computer about these names is a programmer with access to the code for the database, who has to manually alter the code, compile it, and distribute it to everyone who uses it. This is partly why digitization has been accompanied by a rise in people asserting that they exist on spectrums rather than in binaries. There were always people whose names, genders, races, and other biographic "immutables" changed, or failed to fit within the blanks on the forms. When those people's realities ran up against failures in the system's abstractions, they could petition a bureaucrat to turn the paper over and write an explanatory note, or to write really small to fill in a blank: https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/02/nonbinary-families/#red-envelopes Getting a human official to turn the paper over and write something that didn't fit in the blank is a personal challenge. It requires that a subject convince the person who controls the form to make an exception. This isn't always easy, but officials on the front lines necessarily deal with reality, and they can't get their jobs done unless they're capable of interpreting the necessarily incomplete procedures they operate under to fit things as they really are. But a computer doesn't have any agency or context or flexibility. If the computer says your name isn't valid, you can't argue the computer into accepting it. The only way to get a digital world to acknowledge your existence is to campaign for systemic change. A trans person might (with great difficulty, to be sure) convince the regional registrar to white-out an old X on one "gender" box and mark a new X in the other box. But the only way to make that change in a software system that has been programmed to treat the "gender" field as immutable is to change society itself. In this way, computers are machines for teaching us what we don't know about ourselves. They require that we interrogate and faithfully recreate our personal tacit knowledge, and they require that our societies interrogate their tacit presumptions as well. When you are forced to turn your tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, you're also forced to confront how many broken assumptions lurk inside your reasoning. At best, it's a clarifying process. Computers don't just clarify what we know and how we organize our society: they also clarify what we are. There are lots of things that we have supposed that a computer would never do, because we believed that these things required something that only humans could do. Take chess: there are more possible chess games than there are hydrogen atoms in the universe, so brute-forcing chess by running all possible games is a technological impossibility. The best human chess players do something we don't quite understand, mixing their recollections of previous games with rules-of-thumb about the best strategies, with "creativity" (whatever that is) that lets them spontaneously develop new strategies. We can easily get a computer to memorize all the known-good chess sequences and all the rules of thumb, but we don't know what "creativity" is, so we can't encode it as a series of instructions. But thanks to breakthroughs in machine learning and its successor, "deep learning," we have created chess-playing software that can beat every human, partly by assaying gambits that we would term "creative" if they originated with a human player. What we make of this new fact is controversial. For many people (myself included), this is a refinement: it tells me that behaviors that are indistinguishable from "creativity" can, at least some of the time, be created by mechanical processes, and the mere fact that a machine does something that appears "creative" doesn't mean that machines are human. For others, the fact that a mechanical system can evince a behavior that we would call "creative" in a human doesn't mean that we defined "creativity" too broadly, it means that we defined "human" too narrowly, and now we have made a machine that is, at least partially, a person. I think this is the wrong conclusion to draw, for reasons that Ted Chiang sets out with luminous brilliance in a recent Atlantic article entitled "No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious": https://www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2026/06/no-artificial-intelligence-is-not-conscious/687378/ (If you're hitting the paywall on that one and you're on Firefox, you can try my favorite trick: switch to "Reader Mode" and hit "reload" – your mileage may vary.) For all the reasons Chiang articulates, I think that drawing the "personhood" line to include machines is a technical mistake, but it's worse than that. Admitting machines to the "personhood" club is a tactical mistake, on par with the mistake we made when we admitted corporations to the personhood club. We should absolutely consider expanding personhood to incorporate living things, including animals and ecosystems, but at the same time, we must purge these dead, artificial constructs from the club: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#moral-consideration There is a way in which the recognition of new capabilities in machines parallels the recognition of new capabilities in animals other than ourselves. When those animals manage to do things that we once thought were the exclusive province of humans, we (should) take that as an opportunity to refine our conception of humanity. We're not "the animals that use tools" or "the animals that make plans" or "the animals that recognize themselves in mirrors," because there are other animals that do those things. We are an "animal that uses tools"; not the animal that does so. Likewise, if we thought that some activity was unique to humans, or to living beings, and we manage to get a machine to replicate that activity, we should revise our view of the activity – not our view of the machine. Creative breakthroughs in chess are not "a thing that requires a human mind," they're "things that can be done by human minds and by machines." Edsger Dijkstra once famously asked "can a submarine swim?" https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD898.html Submarines and fish and humans and dolphins all propel themselves through water by different means. But when an animal swims, it does something that is different from what a submarine does. The submarine has no intention, while (complex multicellular) animals swim to pursue goals. Building machines that propel themselves through water is very useful, but it's not the same thing as creating life. In some ways, it's better than creating life: for one thing, we owe other living things moral consideration that is not due to machines. Harnessing a machine to accomplish our own goals is more morally clear than controlling living things to achieve those goals. By the same token, creating machines that can do some of the tasks that we ask of other humans can be the superior moral course. I'd rather have a machine remove mines from a minefield than getting humans to do it. But beyond this moral relief, creating machines is a fantastic way to learn more about ourselves – making explicit our tacit knowledge, our implicit social assumptions, and the limitations of our conception of what sets us apart from the rest of the universe. One way in which AI is exceptional is in how it undermines this principle. Conventional software techniques struggled to produce a program that could identify objects in photographs. It turns out that defining all the visual correlates of "cat" is even harder than defining the letter "A." Deep learning techniques solved this previous insoluble problem by relieving us of the job of making explicit all the implicit factors that we deploy when distinguishing an image of a "cat" from an image of a "dog" or a "tiger" (or a "tractor"). Instead of forcing humans to engage in introspection until we'd made a list of every factor we use to identify cat pictures, we simply identified pictures of cats and fed them to a program that tried to find the commonalities among them. The more pictures we fed to that program, the better it got at identifying cats. Today, we have programs that can reliably distinguish an image of a cat from an image of a tiger cub! This represents a major breakthrough in the power of computers to perform useful work for us, but it's also a huge regression in computers' role in forcing us to make our tacit thought processes explicit through systematic introspection. That's probably fine: we didn't create computers to make us introspect, we created them to do useful work for us. All things considered, it might be better to have genies who grant our wishes according to the spirit of our words, not their letter. AI may not force us to render our implicit thoughts as explicit instructions, but it absolutely forces us to reconsider and narrow the realm of the numinous. Our own creativity is still delightful and important, but the fact that this squishy, amazing process can (sometimes) be replicated by procedural machines changes the definition of living things. We're "a thing that can produce creative outcomes" but not "the things that can produce creative outcomes." The machines aren't being creative (any more than a submarine is swimming) but they're outputting things that we used to only achieve by means of creativity. An AI that does something that used to require creativity is fulfilling my favorite of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies: "Be the first person to not do something that no one else has not done before": https://stoney.sb.org/eno/oblique.html Just as bosses fantasize about AI bringing about a worksite without workers, and Zuckerberg is trying to build social media without socializing, and politicians want a bureaucracy without bureaucrats, we can sometimes use AI to produce creative outcomes without creativity: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/27/unnecessariat/#rubbuts-stole-my-jerb That isn't to say that AI art is any good. AI may produce things that are aesthetically interesting, but it can't produce things that mean anything: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/02/must-we-pretend/ But art isn't the only realm that we apply creativity to. There are plenty of outcomes that we've always believed we couldn't bring about without applying creativity. AI – like all software – is making us realize that an ingredient we once deemed uniquely essential turns out to have substitutes. AI can sometimes accomplish things without us explaining how we do them. That relieves us of a useful but difficult chore – but in so doing, it forces us (yet again!) to revisit what sorts of things are needed to do the things that matter to us, and therefore, what makes us special. Hey look at this (permalink) EU plots long game against US digital supremacy https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-plots-long-game-against-us-digital-supremacy/ Open World Map: Digital Sovereignty for Game Creators https://luma.com/8nvmyatm Enshittifier — replace AI with 💩 https://enshittifier.wells.ee/ AI is the greatest money-wasting scheme humanity has ever invented https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/04/ai-is-the-greatest-money-wasting-scheme-humanity-has-ever-i/?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_tw_post_scheme-humanity-has-ever-i/ Enshittification, Despotification, and the Open Internet https://www.liberalism.org/p/enshittification-despotification-and-the-open-internet Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago GNU Radio: the universal, software-defined radio https://web.archive.org/web/20060613062355/https://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70933-0.html #15yrsago France bans “follow us on Twitter” from newscasts https://web.archive.org/web/20110606035424/http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/france-bans-facebook-and-twitter-from-radio-and-tv/1559 #5yrsago Aaron Swartz, vindicated https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/04/aaronsw/#cfaa #5yrsago Capitalism's crooked refs https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/04/aaronsw/#crooked-ref Upcoming appearances (permalink) Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: TBA, Jun 23 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) Cory Doctorow's digital jail-break (DW In Focus) https://www.dw.com/en/cory-doctorows-digital-jail-break/audio-77414035 Why the Internet Got Worse and What to Do About It (Jim Rutt) (RIP) https://www.jimruttshow.com/cory-doctorow-3/ On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Delusion as a service (04 Jun 2026)
- Thu, 04 Jun 2026 06:42:39 +0000
Today's links Delusion as a service: Destructive diagnostics. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Gay Days at Disney World; Parametric 3D printable key; Fine against sculpture for "storing bike on public property"; TPP is a wash; Reagan was Trump; Steampunk roadster; "Every Heart a Doorway"; Shoplifters x Tumblr; Amazon v mass arbitration; Driver-owned Uber alternative; Censorware censors criticism of censorware; 3 strikes copyright termination is illegal; Replacing al Qaeda bomb recipes with cakes; $10m grilled cheese platform; Dick van Dyke x Bernie; Efficiency is inefficient; I quit. Upcoming appearances: Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Delusion as a service (permalink) In 2003, Disney opened a new Epcot ride, "Mission: Space." Formally, it was a space travel sim that used a giant, high-intensity centrifuge to simulate gee stresses; practically, it turned out to be the most efficient machine ever created for surfacing previously undiagnosed heart defects in extremely dramatic and potentially lethal ways. It turned out that a small number of people have these heart defects, and that the defects themselves are quite harmless, provided that you are never put in a giant, high-intensity centrifuge. Given that most of us will never be put in one of these centrifuges, it is quite possible to live your whole life without ever knowing that you have this lurking vulnerability. But once you build one of these machines and start shoving millions of people through it, you're bound to catch some of those rare people, and they will have cardiac episodes that are scary at a minimum, and are at the worst fatal. For me, the lesson isn't that Disney did something wrong by building a giant cocktail shaker for human bodies. I'm not a thrill-ride guy, but lots of people like 'em and the machines themselves are benign for nearly everyone who puts their bodies into them. Rather, I think the lesson here is that there are rare pathologies lurking in all of us, vulnerabilities that may never surface – until we come into the presence of a novel stimulus that unlocks them. There's an analogy here to technology debt: technologically unsophisticated people think of software as a machine that never wears out and has no incremental usage costs (apart from electricity). In this framing, software is the perfect asset, one that never depreciates. But the reality is that software is a liability, not an asset: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/06/1000x-liability/#graceful-failure-modes Software exists in a system, and while software might function perfectly under the conditions in which it is first created and deployed, there are continuous changes to all the technology that is upstream, downstream and adjacent to the software, which means that systems that are robust and secure at the time of deployment can become brittle and dangerous, even though the software doesn't change at all: https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/24/automation-is-magic/ There's another analogy here, to utopianism. A "utopia" can't just be a place where everything works perfectly. Even the most well-functioning, orderly and prosperous system is beset on all sides by exogenous shocks: belligerent neighbors, tsunamis, zoonotic plagues, even asteroid strikes. You don't perfect your society just by making it work well. You have to make it fail well. A utopia isn't a society where nothing goes wrong – it's a society where things go wrong all the time, but we're able to fix them: https://www.wired.com/2017/04/cory-doctorow-walkaway/ The point being that things that work fine may still fail badly when they are exposed to unanticipated external stimuli, and the one thing we can absolutely anticipate is that the future will have many unanticipated stimuli in it. If Mission: Space is a machine for surfacing unsuspected anatomical vulnerabilities, the internet is a machine for surfacing and exploiting all kinds of unsuspected psychological vulnerabilities. Note that I'm not claiming that the internet drives everyone crazy – rather, that the internet can locate and exacerbate vulnerabilities, including vulnerabilities that might have lain dormant for your whole life, but for the fact that the internet exposed you to such a wide spectrum of stimuli. This wide, internet-delivered spectrum of stimuli is mostly good. The internet can expose you to art, culture, ideas and people that you would never have run into in the pre-internet days, which end up enriching you in a million ways. Some of my best friends are internet friends. Some of the music and books I love most in the world were brought into my orbit by the internet. Many of my most ardently held beliefs were acquired through internet-based discussion. All that is true, and it's true that the internet can one-shot you with a stimulus that makes you feel very bad, which you would never have encountered in a pre-internet world. The spectrum of stimulus in the whole wide world is very broad, and one person's innocuous distraction is another person's downfall. Let's make this concrete. All throughout history, people have suffered from paranoid delusions. These can be ruinous, isolating you from friends and family, destroying your professional life and so on. Paranoid delusions often take on details from the sufferer's milieu: if you live in a society where evil witches are accepted as a fact, then witches might well creep into your delusions, too. If your society is all a-chatter about the NSA's mass internet surveillance, then your delusions might incorporate elaborate narratives about the NSA's use of the internet to target and torment you, personally. So there will always be a "local character" to the paranoid delusions, grounded in the sufferer's era and location. But the internet adds a new, very bad dimension to this dynamic: the internet makes it much easier for deluded people to find each other. Paranoid delusions are – thankfully – rare, and in the absence of the internet, you might never encounter another sufferer. But thanks to the internet, sufferers can form communities that reinforce their delusions, with disastrous consequences. Take "Morgellon's Disease," the paranoid delusion that you have wires growing under your skin. Morgellon's sufferers pick at their skin, creating open sores, which form a sticky trap for random bits of fluff and loose threads that sufferers interpret as evidence of these "wires." It's a horrible mental illness, and it's hard enough to treat even in the absence of the internet (the name "Morgellon's Disease" refers to a 17th century case-report). But when you add the internet to Morgellon's, you get online communities where people suffering from the delusion help each other come up with rationales to explain away the disconfirming evidence that they get from therapists and loved ones who are trying to help them recover. These communities egg each other on, isolating their members from treatment. There are lots of pathological mental conditions that the internet can supercharge, from "pro-ana" communities that encourage eating disorders to communities for people with pedophilic urges that attempts to normalize and justify acting on those urges. But it's especially bad for paranoid delusions, such as "gang-stalking delusion," which is the delusional belief that nearly everyone you meet is part of a conspiracy to torment you. People with GSD see evidence of this conspiracy in the lyrics of random songs, snatches of overheard conversations, the phrasing of bus-shelter ads, and the sort-order of search engine results: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/12/normal-technology/#bubble-exceptionalism It's a near-totalizing belief, and sufferers find it hard to recover because their delusion tells them that the therapists and family members who try to help them are in on the conspiracy. Then we add in the internet, and with it, the ability to locate and join communities of other GSD sufferers. Do this, and your delusions need not be limited to your own imaginative capacity to find conspiratorial explanations of the random things you find in the world. Now you are part of a kind of delusional improv troupe, whose members "yes-and" your delusions, finding new ways to terrorize you and alienate you from your surroundings. This is bad enough when it's a regular conspiratorial community, one that feeds on trauma, like Qanon or anti-vax communities whose members have been failed by the system, making them susceptible to conspiratorial accounts of how society really runs. But the combination of conspiratorial communities with the kind of mental illness that causes conspiratorial beliefs to surface in your mind without any external stimulus creates a brutal positive feedback loop that spins faster and faster until the people trapped in it are flung off into space. Which brings me to AI and "AI psychosis," the social phenomenon that sees people falling down chatbot-assisted rabbit holes that convince them that they have invented perpetual motion, uncovered the secrets of the universe, or – in some tragic instances – that they should kill themselves and/or others. For someone with GSD or another paranoid delusion or pathological belief, AI provides a reinforcement system that is even more efficient than these online communities. If you have GSD and your loved ones have finally got you wondering if you should get treatment, you don't have to post on a forum and hope that someone else comes along before you give in to the impulse to get help. Your delusional chatbot co-pilot is always there to tell you that it's a trap. The nature of "AI psychosis" is hotly contested. The big question, of course, is whether chatbots are giving people delusions, or whether chatbots are amplifying those delusions: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1353-the-naked-emperor/episode/16218103-e3-ai-psychosis I think it's both. I think that, for people with GSD or other delusional beliefs, AI provides delusional reinforcement as a service, on tap, 24/7. The combination of a delusion and a machine that will tirelessly play yes-and with you at any time, demanding nothing from you, is a novel and terrible development for people with some mental illnesses. But I also think that chatbots are a bit like Mission: Space: a machine for surfacing previously undiagnosed psychological vulnerabilities, and that in some cases, these vulnerabilities may never have been triggered, save for the chatbot. Just as doubtlessly there were people who had pathological relationships to gambling before the development of slot machines, scratch-and-wins and roulette wheels, but there are also people who might have lived their whole lives without ever having a gambling problem except that they encountered one of these machines, exposing billions of people to sycophantic chatbots has surfaced rare, latent vulnerabilities that might have stayed latent forever, with terrible consequences. Most people who rode the original Mission: Space had a fantastic time. But a lot of people rode that ride, and a very small percentage of a very large number of people can still be a substantial number, and as the reports of people stepping off the ride, clutching their chests and collapsing spread, Disney understood that they had to retool the ride. Today, riders on Mission: Space choose whether they want to ride on a simulator that spins, or one that merely tilts and pitches without simulating gee-stresses. And even if you pick the spicier version of the ride, it goes more slowly and exerts less stress than the original ride. Even if you accept the AI companies' argument that they aren't inducing AI psychosis in their users, but rather, only surfacing latent vulnerabilities that were there all along, that shouldn't be the end of the story. Even if only a small percentage of the people who use your product experience harm as a result, if your product is intended for widespread deployment (as chatbots are), you will end up harming a lot of people unless you take measures to counteract even those rare events. Hey look at this (permalink) Hell is other people – so billionaires are using AI to replace them https://www.thenerve.news/p/cory-doctorow-column-ai-inconvenient-humans-billionaires-sam-altman-bezoz-migrants The Manhattan Institute Helped Kill DEI. Now It’s Coming for Protests https://www.wired.com/story/the-manhattan-institute-helped-kill-dei-now-its-coming-for-protests/ Remote Work Leaves Younger Workers Sidelined https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/06/remote-work-leaves-younger-workers-sidelined/ Zerowriter https://zerowriter.ink/ Good Reason to Kill #79: Disputed Seating at Kindergarten Graduation https://www.loweringthebar.net/2026/05/good-reason-to-kill-79-disputed-seating.html Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago Gay Days at Disney World draws 140,000 participants https://web.archive.org/web/20060626125509/http://gaydays.com/calendar/ #20yrsago Blue Coat censorware company blocks Boing Boing for criticizing censorware https://memex.craphound.com/2006/06/03/blue-coat-censorware-company-blocks-bb-for-criticizing-censorware/ #15yrsago UN report says 3 Strikes copyright termination is illegal https://web.archive.org/web/20110605030049/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5834/125/ #15yrsago Wisconsin GOP plotting to nominate spoiler Democratic candidates in recall elections https://web.archive.org/web/20110604111734/http://www.politicususa.com/en/secret-tape-wisconsin-gop #15yrsago MI6 hackers replace al Qaeda bomb recipes with pirated cake recipes https://web.archive.org/web/20110603115453/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/8553366/MI6-attacks-al-Qaeda-in-Operation-Cupcake.html #15yrsago $10,000,000 in venture capital for grilled-cheese sandwich “platform” https://venturebeat.com/technology/the-melt-flip-sequoia #15yrsago Walled gardens vs makers https://web.archive.org/web/20150723092624/http://makezine.com/2011/06/01/walled-gardens-vs-makers/ #15yrsago Keyboard whose keys are raised in proportion to their frequency of use https://web.archive.org/web/20110604155657/https://itp.nyu.edu/~mk3321/itp_blog/?p=779 #15yrsago 3D model for reproducing house-keys https://www.science.org/content/article/experimental-error-fetus-dont-fail-me-now #15yrsago Toronto artist turns abandoned bike into sculpture, City threatens fine for “storing bike on public property” https://web.archive.org/web/20110604181734/http://blogthegood.tumblr.com/post/6039831308/re-cycling #10yrsago DoD public relations’ highest-ranking civilian gets community service for stealing license plates and harassing neighbor’s nanny https://web.archive.org/web/20160603071800/https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-warning-left-on-a-nannys-car-license-plates-stolen-and-a-top-pentagon-official-in-big-trouble/2016/06/01/50699a3a-2816-11e6-a3c4-0724e8e24f3f_story.html #10yrsago US government agency’s own numbers predict virtually no gains from TPP https://www.techdirt.com/2016/06/02/official-us-international-trade-commission-predicts-negligible-economic-benefits-tpp/ #10yrsago EFF: FBI & NIST’s tattoo recognition program exploited prisoners, profiled based on religion, gave sensitive info to private contractors https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/tattoo-recognition-research-threatens-free-speech-and-privacy #10yrsago Ronald Reagan was Donald Trump, until he was president https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/05/ronald-reagan-was-once-donald-trump.html #10yrsago The Steampunk Roadster: Jake von Slatt’s final steampunk project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpI4GT4sTAY #10yrsago Every Heart a Doorway: Seanan McGuire’s subversive, gorgeous tale of rejects from the realms of faerie https://memex.craphound.com/2016/06/02/every-heart-a-doorway-seanan-mcguires-subversive-gorgeous-tale-of-rejects-from-the-realms-of-faerie/ #10yrsago Prestigious Pets of Dallas wants $1M from customers who said they overfed a fish https://web.archive.org/web/20160603133604/http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/1-star-yelp-review-on-gordy-the-pet-fish-being-overfed-nets-1m-lawsuit/ #10yrsago Airport security officer was alleged war criminal, arrested for lying about participation in “genocidal acts” https://www.loweringthebar.net/2016/06/war-criminal-resume.html #10yrsago In 1977, the CIA’s top lawyer said Espionage Act shouldn’t be applied to press leaks https://web.archive.org/web/20160609234545/https://s3.amazonaws.com/static.history.state.gov/frus/frus1977-80v28/pdf/frus1977-80v28.pdf #10yrsago Tumblr’s shoplifting community is organized, politically conscious, and at war with weightlifters https://www.good.is/issue-37-we-r-cute-shoplifters/ #10yrsago Canada Post drops legal claim over crowdsourced postal code database https://web.archive.org/web/20160603185742/http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2016/06/crowdsourcedpostalcodelawsuit/ #10yrsago History podcasters occasionally mention women, butthurt dudes complain it’s “all women” https://web.archive.org/web/20190411115710/https://www.iheart.com/podcast/stuff-you-missed-in-history-cl-21124503/ #10yrsago Corbyn pledges to kill TTIP if elected https://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/06/02/jeremy-corbyn-i-would-kill-ttip #10yrsago Democratic “superdelegates” endorse Bernie https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/06/bernie-sanders-superdelegates-223824 #10yrsago Dick Van Dyke, 90: Bernie Sanders is the best candidate for seniors https://web.archive.org/web/20210725072638/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/why-bernie-sanders-is-best-898479/ #10yrsago Flintnation: 33 US cities caught cheating on municipal water lead tests https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/02/lead-water-testing-cheats-chicago-boston-philadelphia #10yrsago Defense lawyers: the FBI made us use a copy-shop that made secret copies for the government https://web.archive.org/web/20160604065222/https://www.floridabulldog.org/2016/06/u-s-attorneys-office-fbi-accused-of-spying-on-defense-in-fraud-case/ #5yrsago How the Dutch helped CBS cheat on its taxes https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/02/arbitrary-arbitration/#dutch-treat #5yrsago Amazon running scared from arbitration at scale https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/02/arbitrary-arbitration/#petard #5yrsago Efficiency is very inefficient https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/03/jitters/#brittleness #5yrsago I quit https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/03/i-quit/ #5yrsago NYC's driver-owned Uber alternative https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/02/arbitrary-arbitration/#gig-no-more Upcoming appearances (permalink) Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: TBA, Jun 23 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) Why the Internet Got Worse and What to Do About It (Jim Rutt) (RIP) https://www.jimruttshow.com/cory-doctorow-3/ On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: The tedious power of storytelling (02 Jun 2026) must-we-pretend
- Tue, 02 Jun 2026 09:18:16 +0000
Today's links The tedious power of storytelling: "Excitement" is to art as "falsifiablilty" is to science. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Lost Marx Bros musical; USPTO v Drumpf trademark; 3D scans v copyright; Giving worse internet to people with bad credit ratings; Class action over royalty theft; Trusbusting Prime; Trustbusting Google. Upcoming appearances: London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. The tedious power of storytelling (permalink) Yesterday, I attended a Brian Eno talk about the nature of creativity and art based on What Art Does, the short book he published with Bette Adriaanse last year: https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571395514-what-art-does-an-unfinished-theory/ I haven't read the book (yet – I just ordered a copy), but the talk really got me fizzing. The subject matter (not just what art does, but also what art is) is one I've given a lot of thought to, and Eno's characteristic mix of gnomic koans and deceptively plainspoken assertions brought me along to some realizations of my own. For Eno, art is "everything you don't have to do." You have to wear clothes to protect yourself from the elements, but you don't need to adorn those clothes. You need to speak to make yourself understood by the people around you, but you don't have to sing or write poetry or make up stories. This is a really critical point, and I think it can be further refined by this: "Art is intended to make other people feel something." This distinguishes "art" from "beauty." A sunset can be beautiful, but no one intends anything by it. An artist who takes a photo or paints a picture of a sunset does so in the hopes that it will make you feel something, but the sun and the atmosphere and the Earth's curvature and rotation don't hope anything, because they are inanimate. This distinction has lately become far more significant, thanks to the rise of images and words that have the seeming of intent, but who don't have an intender. When you paint a painting, every brushstroke conveys an intent, even if you can't point at an individual brushstroke and articulate its purpose. The same is true of prose: every word and punctuation mark is there for a reason, and "being good at writing" (like "being good at painting") is how we describe someone who has practiced so much that these reasons can be infused into each micro-decision on a near-totally subconscious level. Contrast this with AI: when you prompt an AI to generate words or pixels, you are conveying some intent about the feeling you want the people who experience the model's output to experience. The problem is that the AI doesn't have any intent of its own – it just has statistical predictions, based on other people's intent, which it has analyzed through its training data. So when the AI expands the three sentences in your prompt into 100,000 words or 1,000,000 pixels, it isn't adding any of its intention to the finished work, it's diluting the intention you fed to it. Three sentences divided by one million pixels yields an image that has an average intentionality that's so low that it's practically homeopathic. Until recently, we weren't accustomed to encountering coherent strings of words or polished images that had no intender, so we imputed the existence of that intender to them, and we did what we always do when we encounter a work of art: we tried to mentally materialize a facsimile of the feeling the artist experienced while creating the work. Because the intention of these works was so dilute, we ended up hallucinating an intent. We made up an imaginary artist who meant something by every choice in the work, and experienced an emotional affect that we ourselves had created out of (nearly) whole cloth. As a species, we've been through this before. Think back to those sunsets. There was a time when we all thought of sunsets as being explicitly created by another being, who was in communication with us through the natural environment (some people still believe this). Looking at a sunset was an exercise in asking yourself, "If I were God, what would I be trying to say to me with this sunset?" just as looking at one of my photos of a sunset would be an exercise in asking yourself, "If I were Cory, what would I be trying to say to me with this photo of a sunset?" The rise of materialism and scientific rationalism is sometimes called a "disenchantment" and indeed, there's a sense in which a sunset that we know to have no intender is no longer "enchanted." The experience of a sunset becomes something like, "Those colors and their interplay with the physical world is very beautiful." It might even be, "How could I capture that beauty in a painting or a photo or a description so that I could communicate it to someone else?" But it's not, "I wonder what God wants me to feel when I look at this sunset?" So for many of us, the experience of AI "art" went from, "Wow, there's a person in the machine that's trying to tell me something," to "Wow, that is an impressive feat of software design, but it doesn't say anything to me." Maybe some of us think, "Huh, I could take some element of this, refine it with my own brushstrokes or words, and make something out of it." That's like thinking about turning a sunset into a painting: the sunset is striking and maybe beautiful, but it doesn't become art until you work at it, in order to make it communicate something: https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/25/communicative-intent/#diluted Mark Fisher describes the "seeming of an intent without an intender" as "eerie." It's true: when the door slams in the night and there's no one else in the house, it's eerie. But eeriness is easily dispelled: once you locate the open window that's creating the draft that's blowing the door closed, the eeriness regresses swiftly to the mean: https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand Banishing eeriness may be straightforward, but preventing eeriness is much harder. We are prone to imputing intent to the things we see in the world. In "Genesis," an essay from EL Doctorow's (no relation) collection The Creationists, Doctorow describes the origins of the Babylonian creation story (which the Hebrews ripped off for Genesis 1:1-29 – Genesis is Babylonian fanfic). The Babylonians made up this story about how God created the heavens and Earth and so forth, and this story was so cool that they couldn't believe that they had just made it up, so they concluded that God must have put it in their minds: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/41520/creationists-by-e-l-doctorow/ Back to Eno: central to his talk was the "theory of mind." To have a theory of mind is to be able to impute someone else's intent. It's when you ask yourself, "What does that person mean by the thing they just said or did?" Because art is a process by which an artist tries to get you to feel something, it requires that the artist have a theory about your mind. And because experiencing art is a process of trying to figure out what the artist wanted you to feel when you experienced their work, experiencing art also requires a theory of mind. From time to time, I teach fiction writing workshops, and one of the lectures I always give is about how stories are a "fuggly hack": https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-stories-are-a-fuggly-hack/ It's very weird that storytellers can trick our brains into experiencing emotions based on empathy for "people" whom we know to be imaginary. Romeo and Juliet are made up, they never lived, they never died, and so, objectively speaking, their deaths are less tragic than the death of the yogurt you ate for breakfast. That yogurt was alive and now it's dead, after all. And yet, we weep for Romeo and Juliet. Our automatic "theory of mind" processes create empathy for stuff even when we know that stuff is inanimate. But the purpose of narrative isn't getting you to experience empathy with an imaginary person. The purpose of narrative is to get you to experience that empathy so that you will feel something. In other words, the storyteller who describes a character who is swept away by the beauty of a sunset is trying to get you to feel "swept away" not "empathy for someone who is swept away." There's lots of art that skips the step in which you are asked to first experience empathy for an imaginary person in order to arrive at some feeling. A lot of music, visual art, dance, and poetry seeks to evince that feeling in you directly. When this works, it's profound. I think about this a lot in terms of built environments, specifically Disney themepark rides. When I started hanging around with Imagineers (the multidisciplinary artists who design and execute these rides), I noticed that they made frequent reference to the role of narrative storytelling in their ride designs, which was weird, because the very best Disney rides do not use narrative to evince a feeling. Think of two Disney rides: Snow White's Enchanted Wish (1955); and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure (2011). In Snow White, riders follow a track through a series of animated vignettes with UV-fluorescing painted backdrops and an orchestral soundtrack. There are almost no words spoken in the soundtrack. The ride's vignettes recreate scenes from the 1937 animated film, but they don't make any attempt to explain the plot of the movie. A rider who'd never seen Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs could not recount the plot of the movie to you. However, that rider could absolutely convey the emotional affect of every scene in the film. It is a near-perfect transmission of the feelings evinced by the movie, notwithstanding that it bypasses recounting the film's narrative. By contrast, The Little Mermaid ride is what's sometimes pejoratively called a "book report ride." The scenes are full of dialog, and they explicitly re-create the storyline of the 1989 film. These scenes are well-executed, with lots of clever mechanical effects and skillfully painted and sculpted scenes and robots. A rider who never saw the film could give you a scene-by-scene breakdown of it – but they could not tell you about any of the emotional beats of the film. For all that the ride faithfully recreates the story of the film, it does so at the expense of the purpose of the film, the feeling the film is designed to evince from its audience. As a novelist, I find it natural that someone trying to build a Little Mermaid ride would start from the premise that it should explicitly retell the story of the film. If you want an audience member to experience a feeling, narrative gives you the opportunity to explicitly describe the feeling you want the audience member to experience. You can situate a character on a lonely beach at sunset and tell the reader how that character feels. The problem is that while this has an increased likelihood of being high-fidelity way of transmitting a feeling, it also has an increased likelihood of being a low-intensity way of conveying that feeling. When you tell someone about what's going on in another person's mind (including an imaginary person's mind), it doesn't fire up the theory-of-mind machine in the way that asking someone to infer the state of someone else's mind from implicit cues does. This is why fiction writers are exhorted to "show, not tell." Dramatic, implicit evocations of an emotion are intrinsically more interesting than explicit statements about emotions. That's not to say that exposition can't evince an emotion – it can and does. It's just harder to do this with exposition than it is to do it with dramatization: https://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-favorite-bit/my-favorite-bit-cory-doctorow-talks-about-the-bezzle/ In his talk yesterday, Eno discussed abstract art, and the way that it evinces feelings in the viewer directly, without ever telling you what to feel. This is in keeping with much of Eno's own art (he recently told me that when he writes lyrics, he never uses the words "I," "me," "you," or "love"). In this theory I'm developing here, we could say that the more abstract a work is, the harder it is to evince a specific feeling with high fidelity, but the more likely it is that the feelings it does evince will be intensely felt. When your aesthetic sense resonates with a Henry Moore bronze or an Eno ambient track, the thrum is deep and strong. Key to this theory is that it's about how hard it is for an artist to evince a feeling and how hard it is for the artist to make that feeling intense. Abstract art is more likely to be misunderstood (or not understood) than explicit narratives, but lots of abstract art is very well understood by people for whom it resonates. Explicit narratives are more likely to have a flatter affect than work that attempts to skewer your emotions directly, but plenty of explicit narratives make you feel the most profound emotions you're capable of feeling. Imagine a 2×2 grid with "intensity" on one axis and "fidelity" on the other. It's easier to evince an intense feeling when you are more abstract, but it's harder to control what that feeling will be. These are works that operate on an implicit theory of mind ("I think I know what you'll feel when you see this"). It's easier to control the feeling you're evincing when you are more concrete, but it's harder to make that feeling an intense one ("I will tell you what someone else is feeling using this work"). None of this is to establish a hierarchy of art. As Eno says, the value of art is in whether it makes you feel something and what it makes you feel – not how that feeling is drawn forth. In What Art Does, Eno describes both art and science as an extension of our natural, in-born tendency to play. The difference is that we judge the success of science based on whether we can validate its conclusions, while we judge the success of art based on whether it excites us: 'Excitement' is to art as 'falsifiability' is to science. (With thanks to Brian Eno.) Hey look at this (permalink) Meta legal action forces Facebook whistleblower to sit in silence at Hay festival https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/31/meta-legal-action-forces-facebook-whistleblower-to-stay-silent-at-hay-festival EU Wants To Break Up With US Tech https://www.barrons.com/news/eu-wants-to-break-up-with-us-tech-5a8da16b The rise of the McModern https://web.archive.org/web/20201013161651/https://archive.curbed.com/2017/6/30/15893836/what-is-mcmansion-hell-modern-suburbs-history Merchandizing the Void https://dilettantearmy.com/articles/merchandizing-the-void Hundreds of prolific Wikipedia editors are threatening to go on strike https://www.theverge.com/report/939442/wikipedia-editors-protest-wikimedia-layoffs-strike Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago IRS insider accuses agency of giving archives to lowest bidder https://web.archive.org/web/20060614142129/http://wftm.diaryland.com/060601_71.html #20yrsago Telemedicine rigs coming to all Virgin jets https://web.archive.org/web/20060616063357/http://europetravelnews.com/2006_05/844_virgin-atlantic-life-saving-technology/ #15yrsago Con artists caught tricking med-students into helping with high-tech entrance exam cheat https://web.archive.org/web/20110603051231/https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/05/31/bc-high-tech-mcat-scam.html #10yrsago How a “lost” Marx Brothers musical found its way back to the stage https://web.archive.org/web/20160602114803/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/how-a-lost-marx-brothers-musical-found-its-way-back-onstage #10yrsago How security and privacy pros can help save the web from legal threats over vulnerability disclosure https://iapp.org/news/a/how-you-can-help-white-hat-security-researchers #10yrsago US Patent and Trademark Office refuses to issue “Drumpf” trademark https://www.worldipreview.com/trademark/drumpf-trademark-application-refused-by-uspto-10210 #10yrsago How an engineer/public health whistleblower led the citizen scientists who busted Flint’s water crisis https://web.archive.org/web/20160604112755/https://www.wired.com/2016/06/flint-water-marc-edwards/ #10yrsago Why 3D scans aren’t copyrightable https://web.archive.org/web/20160605140300/https://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/25599-new-whitepaper-on-3d-scanning-and-the-lack-of-copyright.html #10yrsago Cable One used customers’ credit scores to decide how good their internet would be https://wetmachine.com/tales-of-the-sausage-factory/broadband-privacy-can-prevent-discrimination-the-case-of-cable-one-and-fico-scores/ #10yrsago Class action: publishers paid writers “sale” royalties on ebooks whose fine-print says they’re “licensed” https://www.copylaw.org/2016/05/simon-schuster-hit-with-ebook-royalties.html #5yrsago The antitrust case against Prime https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#prime-facie #5yrsago Google cheats on location privacy https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#goog #5yrsago Canadian telco monopolists run the show https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#crtc Upcoming appearances (permalink) SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: TBA, Jun 23 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Molly Crabapple's 'Here Where We Live Is Our Country' (01 Jun 2026)
- Mon, 01 Jun 2026 09:25:48 +0000
Today's links Molly Crabapple's 'Here Where We Live Is Our Country': An essential book for this moment and for the moments that led to it. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Home chemistry sets in danger; Every pirate wants to be an admiral; Painful computer workarounds; JPEG patent invalidated; UBS whistleblower v USA (x USA); David Foster Wallace x tennis; Who cares about "bandwidth hogs?" Upcoming appearances: London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Molly Crabapple's 'Here Where We Live Is Our Country' (permalink) Molly Crabapple's Here Where We Live Is Our Country is one of the most important, timely and salient works of history I've ever read. It's a history of the Jewish Labor Bund, a socialist, internationalist organization that once dominated Jewish political identity: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646320/here-where-we-live-is-our-country-by-molly-crabapple/ In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were hundreds of thousands of Bund members, both in the Pale of Settlement (the rural regions of the Russian empire that the Tsar confined most Jews to) and in diasporic centers like New York City. The Bund played an important role in the Russian Revolution and in the resistance to the rise of European fascism, and fought valiantly in the antifascist underground guerrilla bands in Nazi-occupied territories. Despite this faded prominence, the Bund is all but unknown today. I was only vaguely aware of it, even though I attended seven years' worth of Yiddish classes at the Workmen's Circle, a Bund-originated socialist fraternal organization, and was bar-mitzvahed at a Workmen's Circle hall. It wasn't until I read about the Bund in Naomi Klein's essential 2023 book Doppelganger that I first caught a glimmer of its significance: https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine The thesis of Doppelganger is that the world is full of "mirror world" pairs with opposite political valences. For example, the mirror world version of the health justice movement is MAHA. Both MAHA and health justice share many commonalities (such as a skepticism of Big Pharma and its captured regulators), but arrive at totally different conclusions. Health justice demands universal access to medical care, compulsory licenses and patent reform for life-saving medicines, and systemic interventions to address discrimination against gender minorities, women, and racialized people. MAHA starts from the same diagnosis, but arrives at a totally different prescription: "eating clean," buying unregulated supplements from grifters, rejecting vaccines, attributing chronic health problems to personal moral failings, along with a conspiratorial rejection of life-saving medication. Mirror worlds are everywhere. One chapter of Klein's work deals with the "mirror worlds" of Jewish identity and what radical Jews once called "the Jewish question": https://ernestmandel.org/english/works/Jewish-Question-Since-World-War-II In the 19th century, antisemitism was often described as "the socialism of fools." In the real world, we observe the dominance of parasitic finance capital over productive labor and embark upon a great class struggle to seize the means of production. In the mirror world, antisemites observe this same fact, combine it with the fact that some of these bankers are Jewish, and embark on a genocidal program of antisemitic violence. But antisemites weren't the only mirror-world pairing with a view on "the Jewish question." Early 20th century Jews also lived on either side of the political looking-glass. On one side, you had the Bundists, whose motto (and the title of Crabapple's book) was "Here, where we live, is our country." For Bundists, Jews belonged everywhere Jews were. As the Jewish socialist Meyer London wrote, "Thousands of Jewish boys and girls pray to God not to lead them again out of Egypt, but to help them free Egypt." The Bund saw its struggle as just one aspect of the universal struggle for liberation. They understood that persecuted minorities everywhere labored under the double bind of racist and class oppression (and further, that women labored under gender oppression), but they also understood that these identity markers were tactical facts about how these workers should set about freeing themselves. They didn't mistake identity for a strategic difference: the goal was always universal liberation, and the reason to consider identity-based oppression was to ensure that every comrade was brought along in the struggle. As Crabapple writes, the Bund more-or-less invented intersectional analysis, and they practiced it with an eye to all the struggles of the world. Bund newspapers (even those published by the Bund underground in the Warsaw Ghetto) closely tracked the struggles of Black workers in the Jim Crow south, just as the Black radical press of the day reported closely on antisemitic lynchings in Europe. The Bund underground even managed to send telegrams of support to Gandhi from Nazi-occupied Poland. On the other side of the Jewish mirror was (of course) Zionism. Zionism and the Bund were founded in the same year, in response to the same events. The Bund was founded in secret by exiled radical Jews in Vilna whom the Tsar had banished for their resistance activities. Zionism was founded in Geneva by Theodor Herzl, who sheltered Jews who had fled Tsarist Russia to escape antisemitic violence. Where the Bund called for universalism and solidarity with all workers to keep Jews safe in every place where Jews lived, Zionists dreamed of a Jewish homeland, a stronghold to which Jews could retreat from the world. Where the Bund fought antisemites who would banish or exterminate Jews, Zionist leaders were willing to align themselves with antisemites, finding common cause in the idea that European Jewry should abandon Europe in favor of Palestine. Indeed, the Balfour Declaration – which established a plan for the UK handing over its occupied territories in Palestine to create a Jewish homeland – was fomented by vicious antisemites as part of a plan to ethnically cleanse the UK of all Jews: https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/232119 As Crabapple documents in detail, in the ensuing decades of struggle that followed, Zionist leaders repeatedly entered into alliances with antisemitic politicians, even those who presided over (and sometimes directed) campaigns of racist terror against Jews. Despite their mutual hatred, they shared a common goal: terrorizing Europe's Jews out of Europe and into Palestine. Meanwhile, Bundists never wavered from their rejection of antisemites. In the Bundists' socialist, internationalist program, the pursuit of a Jewish homeland merely dangled the possibility of Jewish liberation – at the expense of Palestinians, and without having anything to offer to all the other oppressed peoples of the world. While I discovered the Bund through reading Naomi Klein, many others learned about it from Crabapple's widely circulated 2018 New York Review of Books article, "My Great-Grandfather the Bundist": https://archive.is/20260518010455/https://www.nybooks.com/online/2018/10/06/my-great-grandfather-the-bundist/ Predictably, Crabapple's article provoked attacks from Zionists who told Crabapple they blamed the Bund for its own extermination. In their telling, the Bund's stubborn refusal to confront antisemitism as "history's oldest hatred" was a suicidal delusion that led their members into the Nazis' mass graves. But for many Jews, Crabapple's article was a revelation about a different way to be Jewish, an identity that rejected the Apartheid state of Israel (South African Apartheid and the state of Israel share a birth year, and Apartheid South Africa and Israel carried on a robust program of mutual trade in arms and surveillance tools): https://imeu.org/resources/key-issues/fact-sheet-an-overview-apartheid-south-africa-israel/275 This revelation only gained salience and prominence after October 7, 2023, when Israel responded to a massacre perpetrated by Hamas by embarking on a years-long program of genocide and extraterritorial aggression. Zionists have defended these crimes against humanity as inseparable from Jewish identity and the only plausible answer to "the Jewish question." Israel's defenders insist that even naming the genocide in Palestine (let alone opposing it) is inherently antisemitic. Ironically, Israel's loudest cheerleaders are the millions of antisemitic evangelical Christian Zionists who vastly outnumber Jewish Zionists, who support Israel in hopes of bringing about a Biblical prophecy in which Christ returns and every Jew is cast down to Hell. In the years since, Crabapple's work to revive the Bund has only gained adherents, especially among Jews who refuse to accept that their safety can only be secured through mass slaughter and imperial conquest. Crabapple's response to this burgeoning movement is this book, a massive, heroic, brilliant, and pitiless history of the Bund that proposes its own answer to "the Jewish question." Beyond its political importance, Here Where We Live Is Our Country is a remarkable scholarly and artistic achievement. Crabapple taught herself to speak and read Yiddish so that she could consume primary sources, and she crisscrossed the globe to see and research the key sites of Jewish oppression and the Jewish liberation struggle. It's a monumental book. Thanks to Crabapple's voluminous research, Here Where We Live delivers a blow-by-blow look at the Bund's rise and its triumphs, but even more importantly, the tactical disagreements, factional disputes, and personal animus that too often snatched defeat from the jaws of victory for these committed revolutionaries. At times, Crabapple's tick-tock of these fights seems to embody the wry maxim: "Two Jews, three arguments." But the point of all this nuanced, textured detail isn't to rehash the tittle-tattle of the previous century, nor is it to show off Crabapple's prowess as a researcher. Rather, in rehearsing these fights, Crabapple shows how reasonable these disputes seemed at the time, and how terrible the consequences were for all concerned. In this mode, Crabapple manages the admirable achievement of being both sympathetic and pitiless. Crabapple, after all, is a veteran political activist who has traveled extensively to active war-zones to document atrocities and offer mutual aid to those fighting for justice. She's endured every failure that radical politics can manifest, sat through every kind of bad meeting, and she recognizes in these disputes the same personalities and personal failings that have broken her heart a hundred times. She understands why these people are this way – but she can also see, with perfect hindsight, the ghastly horrors that followed, which swamp any matter of principle these people might have stood on. There's plenty of this sympathetic pitilessness to go around, and it's not just the Bund or Jews who come in for it. Every factionalist blunder in pre-Revolutionary Russia, in the Soviet Union, in interwar Poland, and in occupied Poland comes in for examination – as do every imprisonment, maiming, rape and death that these blunders opened the door to. Crabapple's heroes are principled, but they are imperfect, and sometimes foolish, and sometimes self-deluding (for example, the Palestinian leader who insists that his rank-and-file fighters want to establish a multi-ethnic democracy, despite the undeniable presence in their number of people who want to banish all Jews from Palestine). The twentieth century was a charnel house, and so the cost of these mistakes is high. Often, these mistakes lead to mass graves, with these mistake-makers tangled among the bodies. They never had the chance to learn from their mistakes. But, through Crabapple's work, we might. It is in the postscript to this book that its true message lands. After 480 pages, we arrive at Crabapple's conclusion. In reflecting on these people, who died in their millions and whose memory was all but erased, she asks, "Did the Bund fail?" Her answer is a resounding no. The Bund lost, but it did not fail. The Bund was failed, as were the Zionists, the Roma, European socialists, disabled and queer people – everyone the Nazis burned, gassed, or buried alive. These people cried out to the rest of the world – to America, to Canada, to the UK, to all the places that were not under Nazi occupation – and begged for help, for safe passage, for rescue. The world slammed its doors. Even after they joined the war, they refused to admit Jews and other victims of Nazi genocide. They refused visas, closed borders, turned back boats of escapees, sometimes sending them back to occupied Europe to be slaughtered. In his review in the New York Review of Books, historian Adam Hochschild writes: Imagine that the United States had not passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which essentially slammed the door on almost all newcomers for more than forty years. Without it, Jewish immigration to the US would surely have soared during the 1920s and 1930s. Some 2.5 million Jews, most of them hoping for a better life than they had in tsarist Russia, had already come here between 1880 and 1924. Then, even in the decade before Hitler took power, Jews still had many reasons to leave Europe. Poland, whose Jewish population of 2.8 million was the continent’s largest, was a cauldron of antisemitism between the wars, with outbreaks of deadly violence, segregated seating and de facto quotas in many universities, and numerous other humiliations. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2026/05/28/a-dream-of-a-socialist-commonwealth-the-jewish-bund/ No one who's paid attention during this century's xenophobic policies and attacks on refugees can fail to see the parallels. And no one who's paid attention to the genocide in Gaza and the official response in the "free" world to Palestinian solidarity movements can fail to see those parallels, either. For the Jews who are told – by Zionists, including the millions of American gentile Zionists who outnumber Jewish Zionists 30:1 – that all this is being done for us, that our continued existence requires it, Crabapple's history of the Bund shows us what's on the other side of the mirror. As NYT editor Max Strasser writes in his review of Here Where We Live: [The Bund was] the kind of movement leftists today dream about — political party, social movement, mutual aid group — with tens of thousands of members. The Bund published newspapers and ran soup kitchens and summer camps; its athletes competed in a socialist version of the Olympics. Bund activists organized across Eastern Europe and beyond — they helped elect a congressman on the Lower East Side. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/books/review/here-where-we-live-is-our-country-molly-crabapple.html The politics we dream of isn't a fantasy. It's the politics our grandparents lived – a politics that wasn't lost, but rather, erased. Erased by Nazis and Stalinists, who committed wholesale slaughter of Bundists. But that politics was also erased by Zionists, who swept through the Displaced Persons' camps of post-war Europe, imposing a draft on the Jews who'd been penned in those stinking camps by a world that refused to welcome Jews, even after the horrors of the death-camps were widely known. Zionists bullied and coerced these Jews – including Bundists who rejected their cause – to serve as foot-soldiers in the Israeli army, even beating elderly parents until their sons and daughters agreed to fight. Bundists always rejected all forms of ethno-nationalism. As Jews, they had lived in the violence and oppression that always attended every ethno-nationalist program. They never imagined that Israel would escape this fate. As the Bundist leader Henryk Erlich wrote in 1933: "We are not a chosen people. Our nationalism is just as ugly, just as harmful as the nationalisms of all the other nations." Crabapple has done heroic and important work in excavating this history. She has vindicated the sacrifices made by the Bundist archivists who smuggled their papers out of Nazi occupation and gave their lives to ensure that some day their story could be told. In so doing, she has also vindicated her own great-grandfather, Sam Rothbort, a Bundist who fled the Pale of Settlement for New York City, whose art-practice traveled to Crabapple through her mother, who is also a painter. It wasn't just the art-practices that traveled – it was also the art, and it was one of Rothbort's paintings ("Itka, the Bundist," depicting a girl throwing a rock through a window) that set her on this journey. This volume is also graced by Crabapple's own art, stark monochrome ink-washes in her characteristic style, which bring these long-dead people to vivid life. They're a reminder of the role that culture plays in every radical movement, of the ways that the Bund welcomed its members to live a radical life through sport and song and picnics, and not just meetings and street-demonstrations. Even before this book, Crabapple had made a mark through her paintings and writings. But with Here Where We Live Is Our Country, Crabapple has given us a magnum opus, a book that might help us turn the tide of history. Hey look at this (permalink) What Is a Dickover? https://daringfireball.net/2026/05/what_is_a_dickover Inventing ELIZA: How the First Chatbot Shaped the Future of AI https://sites.google.com/view/elizaarchaeology/book Inside Graham Platner’s Plan To Wield Power https://www.levernews.com/graham-platners-power/ mcmodernslopcore https://www.tumblr.com/mcmansionhell/817896092499869696/mcmodernslopcore Locus Award for Best Non-fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_Award_for_Best_Non-fiction Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago Sign a letter supporting the BBC’s online archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060704182401/http://www.freeculture.org.uk/letters/CreativeArchiveLetter #20yrsago Home chemistry under assault https://web.archive.org/web/20060603021709/http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/chemistry_pr.html #20yrsago Cliches to avoid when writing about women and video-games 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forever https://web.archive.org/web/20160530145354/https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/octopuses-may-indeed-be-your-new-overlords/ #10yrsago When Brad Birkenfeld blew the whistle on UBS, the US government paid him $104M and sent him to jail https://web.archive.org/web/20160602152611/http://fullmeasure.news/news/politics/the-whistleblower-05-23-2016 #10yrsago The last time there were this many unsold $100M+ homes on the market, the world economy imploded https://web.archive.org/web/20160529040314/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/business/a-worrisome-pileup-of-100-million-homes.html #10yrsago David Foster Wallace’s essays on tennis, finally collected between one set of covers https://www.csmonitor.com/Arts-Culture/Books/2016/0530/String-Theory-gathers-the-brainy-witty-tennis-writing-of-David-Foster-Wallace #10yrsago United Arab Emirates hacked UK journalist https://citizenlab.ca/research/stealth-falcon/ #10yrsago Internet economics 101: “bandwidth hogs” considered harmless https://web.archive.org/web/20160530155601/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/should-broadband-data-hogs-pay-more-isp-economics-say-no/ Upcoming appearances (permalink) SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: TBA, Jun 23 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Carneyism without Carney (30 May 2026)
- Sat, 30 May 2026 09:31:41 +0000
Today's links Carneyism without Carney: Eh? Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Replacing pharma patents with bounties; USTR v cheap leukemia meds; Plutocrats x wealth segregation; Anonymous Analytics; Scott Walker sells off donors; Anonymization v metadata; Probably; Amazon warehouse workers are the future of Amazon coders; Warcraft eggs; Brainwashing school; People who don't know The Onion is satire; "Company Town"; America is a scam. Upcoming appearances: London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Carneyism without Carney (permalink) The "Third Way" in liberal politics involves saying things that working people love, but doing things that sociopathic plutocrats love. It works …right up until voters notice that you're not doing the things. That realisation breeds cynicism and fury and paves the way for fascist strongmen. It's really ugly, and no one does it uglier than Canada's Liberal Party. Remember that time Prime Minister Justin Trudeau marched with Greta Thunberg to protest Canada's shitty, planet-wrecking climate policies? https://globalnews.ca/news/5959371/election-campaign-climate-march/ Gee, Justin – it sure would be great if you could have a word with the fella who decided to bail out America's doomed tar sands pipeline and vowed to pump and torch 173,000,000,000 barrels of Canadian oil: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/no-country-173-billion-barrels-203807530.html Trudeau's "Third Way" eventually proved so unpopular that he opened the door to an authoritarian takeover of Canada by an otherwise totally unelectable, Trump-aligned far-right maniac. The only thing that saved Canada from a fate dumber than Trump was Trump himself, who wouldn't stop promising to make Canada the 51st state, an idea that was even more repellent to Canadians than five more years of Third Way bullshit: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/pierre-poilievre-joe-rogan-podcast-143318576.html And boy did Canadians find a Third Way bullshitter to move into 24 Sussex Drive: Mark Carney, an austerity-crazed central banker who will endorse incredibly progressive policies…provided he never has to do any of them. When it comes to championing working Canadians while royally screwing them, Carney is the only Canadian politician capable of out-Trudeauing Trudeau. But we shouldn't reject Carneyism due to the mere fact that Carney refuses to deliver Carneyism. The problem with Carneyism isn't Carneyism itself – the problem with Carneyism is Mark Carney. Take Carney's policy promise to charge US tech giants a 3% tax, a move that would defeat their incredibly clever gambit of pretending to be Irish and thus not owing any tax, anywhere: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/17/erin-lets-go/#circumvention-haven That was a good policy! So was Carney's "elbows up" policy of sticking it to America in retaliation for Trump's flagrant violation of CUSMA, the free trade agreement negotiated by (checks notes) one Donald J Trump: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/06/trump-carney-meeting-canada-tariffs-trade Unfortunately, Mark Carney didn't get the memo from (checks notes) Mark Carney, and the very instant Trump arranged his face into his trademarked confused scowl, Carney dropped the tax, apologising profusely: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/06/canada-rescinds-digital-services-tax-to-advance-broader-trade-negotiations-with-the-united-states.html In the last days of the Trudeau government, the Liberals passed a bill that transformed Canada's Competition Bureau from the weakest antitrust regulator in the world into one of the strongest (on paper, at least): https://competition-bureau.canada.ca/en/how-we-foster-competition/education-and-outreach/guide-june-2024-amendments-competition-act It's impossible to overstate how useless the Competition Bureau was before this bill passed. In its entire history, the Bureau had only challenged three mergers, and had never successfully challenged a merger. Canada's do-nothing competition enforcers allowed the country to be captured by Made-in-Canada oligarchs whose ripoffs and abuses would make the Hudson's Bay Company blush: https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/05/ted-rogers-is-a-dope/#galen-weston-is-even-worse If Canada was ever going to be a real country (and not just two monopolists and a mining company in a trenchcoat) it needed a serious competition enforcer. Nominally, it has one, thanks to the 2024 Competition Act. The only problem was Carney, who made sweeping real-terms cuts to the Bureau's funding. Thanks to Carney, Canada has a Competition Bureau with all the powers it needs to save Canada from its oligarchs – but it can't afford to do any of that stuff. Monopolists rip Canadians off like crazy. We even have a guy who mistook Les Miz for an HBR case-study, and embarked upon the country's worst-ever price-fixing campaign, gouging the country on bread prices: https://www.donotpassgo.ca/p/the-bread-price-fixing-scandal-is You don't have to be a monopolist to steal from Canadians. Ripping off Canadians is the game everyone can play! Consumer protection agencies are incredible value for money, saving the public hundreds for every dollar that we spend on them. Guess who just eliminated Canada's consumer protection agency? https://www.donotpassgo.ca/p/carney-government-slashes-consumer Oh, to be a scammer in Mark Carney's Canada! Whatever Galen Weston doesn't steal is yours for the taking! But again, the problem isn't Carneyism – the problem is Carney. Carneyism is great. Carneyism gave us that remarkable speech at Davos, where Mark Carney declared a "rupture" in the US-dominated global system of trade and politics, promising a future of "minilateralism" in which "middle powers" like Canada band together for mutual prosperity: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/01/davos-2026-special-address-by-mark-carney-prime-minister-of-canada/ If only Mark Carney had been there to hear those stirring words! He might have understood what a fucking insane idea it is to turn over Canada's military to Palantir, the company that, more than any other, has fused itself with the Trump regime's domestic program of ethnic cleansing and its international program of extraterritorial aggression: https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/canadas-deal-with-us-data-giant-palantir-is-legitimate-defence-minister-says/article_e49b9c32-8f76-466c-86ed-36a4110ba45a.html Carneyism isn't merely a rejection of the old international order. Domestically, Carneyism promises technocratic excellence, skilled leadership that delivers first-class services for the Canadian people. This is a great pitch! It got Mamdani elected, and Mamdani's sincere pursuit of governmental excellence thrills New Yorkers in new ways every day: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/24/mamdani-thought/#public-excellence Here, too, Carneyism is entirely sound – the problem is Carney's vicious anti-Carneyism and his plan to fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with AI chatbots. It's not just that chatbots are terrible substitutes for skilled public officials, they're also controlled by US corporations that are entirely beholden to the Trump regime: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/carney-artificial-intelligence-strategy-9.7213733 Unlike Mark Carney, I support Carneyism. Carneyism promises protection for Canadians, from monopolists and mad emperors, petty thieves and potholes. But Carney himself ardently opposes these policies. This will only get worse when the AI bubble pops and vaporises a third of the US stock market, spreading contagion to global capital markets. That will be Carney's cue to roll out his favourite go-to tactic: austerity. We cannot afford this. Austerity is how we lose the country. Austerity – more than any other force – drives working people into the arms of fascists: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/12/always-great/#our-nhs The thing is, Mark Carney has shown his political opponents how to beat him: just embrace Carneyism. The things Carney says are incredibly popular. Now we just need to elect someone who'll do them. Hey look at this (permalink) Websites have a new way to spy on visitors: analyzing their SSD activity https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/05/websites-have-a-new-way-to-spy-on-visitors-analyzing-their-ssd-activity/ Cory Doctorow on Why the Internet Feels So Broken https://thewalrus.ca/cory-doctorow-on-why-the-internet-feels-so-broken/ AI sticker shock hits corporate America https://www.axios.com/2026/05/28/ai-spending-roi-enterprise-costs A Fran Lebowitz Sampler https://jonwinokur.substack.com/p/a-fran-lebowitz-sampler Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back their AI jobs apocalypse prophecies as they eye blockbuster IPOs https://fortune.com/2026/05/26/sam-altman-dario-amodei-walking-back-ai-jobs-apocalypse-prophecies-ipo/ Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago World of Warcraft Easter eggs https://web.archive.org/web/20060614223838/http://www.wow-europe.com/en/contests/noblegarden/winners.html #15yrsago Bernie Sanders introduces anti-pharma-patent bill, aims to replace drug monopolies with prizes https://web.archive.org/web/20110528053922/http://keionline.org/node/1147 #15yrsago Life at a brainwashing “school for troubled teens” https://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/hk0xy/a_gay_teen_describes_her_experience_at_a_utah/ #15yrsago Facebook updates from people who don’t know The Onion is a humor site https://literallyunbelievable.tumblr.com/ #10yrsago Untangling the Web: the NSA’s supremely weird, florid guide to the Internet https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/27/nsas-guide-to-internet-is-weirdest-thing-youll-read-today/ #10yrsago Company Town: Madeline Ashby’s tale of sex and Singularity cults is a locked-door mystery at sea https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/28/company-town-madeline-ashbys-tale-of-sex-and-singularity-cults-is-a-locked-door-mystery-at-sea/ #10yrago US trade rep threatens Colombia’s peace process over legal plan to offer cheap leukemia meds https://web.archive.org/web/20160725174757/https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2016/05/26/bernie-sanders-novartis-patent/ #10yrsago Security researcher discovers glaring problem with patient data system, FBI stages armed dawn raid https://dailydot.com/politics/justin-shafer-fbi-raid #10yrsago Wealthy families are most responsible for American wealth segregation https://web.archive.org/web/20160530195842/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/10/the-incredible-impact-of-rich-parents-fighting-to-live-by-the-very-best-schools/ #10yrsago Someone just snuck warrantless email access into the Senate’s secret intelligence bill https://web.archive.org/web/20160526201753/https://theintercept.com/2016/05/26/secret-text-in-senate-bill-would-give-fbi-warrantless-access-to-email-records/ #10yrsago Wells Fargo, who preyed on black borrowers, sponsors Black Lives Matter luncheon https://web.archive.org/web/20160527184755/https://theintercept.com/2016/05/27/wells-fargo-sponsorship-of-black-lives-matter-panel-draws-scorn/ #10yrsago Anonymous Analytics: self-proclaimed Anon “faction” that tanks companies through stock reports https://web.archive.org/web/20160527155031/https://news.softpedia.com/news/anonymous-hackers-turned-stock-analysts-are-targeting-us-chinese-corporations-504495.shtml #10yrsago Scott Walker, saddled with $1.2m debt from failed presidential bid, pawns his own donors https://ghanasoccernet.com/uk/2016/05/24/scott-walker-rents-out-donor-list-to-pay-campaign-debt/ #10yrsago Study shows detailed, compromising inferences can be readily made with metadata https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1508081113 #10yrsago EFF fights order to remove public records documents detailing Seattle’s smart-meters https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2016/may/26/court-grants-temporary-restraining-order-forcing-r/ #5yrsago Probably https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/27/probably/ #1yrago AI turns Amazon coders into Amazon warehouse workers https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/27/rancid-vibe-coding/#class-war #1yrago America is a scam https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/28/cheaters-ever-prosper/#caveat-america Upcoming appearances (permalink) SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: TBA, Jun 23 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Hold on for dear life (28 May 2026)
- Thu, 28 May 2026 11:24:23 +0000
Today's links Hold on for dear life: Not your keys, not your wallet, entirely your problem. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Who owns "Web 2.0"; EFF saves bloggers' sources; Non-porn porn; Redaction fails; Canadian Tories say markets, not government, will help flood victims; Forced gold-farming; Walkaway cover; Oracle eats shit in Java API case; Captain America was a Nazi spy; Who Broke the Internet? (Pt IV). Upcoming appearances: London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Hold on for dear life (permalink) From the earliest days of technopolitics, the role of technology in resisting authoritarianism was unclear. On the one hand, there's the indisputable fact that modern cryptography, properly implemented, can deliver a degree of privacy that is proof against all technological attacks. That is to say, if you pull out your distraction rectangle, fire up the camera, and tap the shutter button, in the ensuing eyeblink instant the image you've captured will be scrambled so thoroughly that it could never be unscrambled without the secret key unlocked by your passphrase or biometrics. Even if every hydrogen atom in the universe were converted into a computer, and even if all those computers spent all the time between now and the end of the universe trying to guess what the key was, we would run out of universe and time long before we ran out of possible keys. What's more, this extremely robust form of scrambling and descrambling can be combined with other techniques to block tampering with the encrypted data, and to allow parties to reliably identify who scrambled the data and also to restrict who may unscramble it. These remarkable technological facts have inspired many excited debates about what they mean for our politics, most notably among a group of people who called themselves "cypherpunks": https://web.archive.org/web/20151102012232/https://www.wired.com/1993/02/crypto-rebels/ One cypherpunk faction believed that modern cryptography could enable a kind of technological secession: by allowing ordinary people to communicate, transact and collaborate without the possibility of state interception or control, crypto could make states themselves obsolete. But another faction pointed out that no amount of mathematics could help you if an agent of the state – or a criminal the state failed to protect you from – tortured you until you revealed the secret passphrase needed to unlock your secrets. This was (ironically) called "rubber hose cryptanalysis" (as in "Tell me your passphrase or I'll hit you with this rubber hose again"). Later, this became known as a "wrench attack" after a famous XKCD comic about $1m worth of security technology being defeated by hitting someone with a $5 wrench until they divulged the password: https://xkcd.com/538/ Once you stipulate to the problem of wrench attacks and rubber-hose cryptanalysis, it becomes apparent that your cryptography is only as good as your physical defenses. What's more, the most effective physical defenses we have come from a strong rule of law, because even the thickest safe door benefits from the threat of prison for anyone who breaks into the safe, and the most effective tool for preventing a cop from hitting you with a rubber hose is the existence of a judge who can send that cop to prison for abusing your civil rights. But what do you do if you already live under tyranny? The rule of law is a great defense, but cryptography alone can't bring about the rule of law. What is the role of technology in this foundational struggle? My technopolitics faction – the faction associated with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where I've worked for a quarter-century – has an answer: the role of encryption is to provide a measure of privacy and security that is best used to organize political struggles to demand the rule of law and respect for human rights. Encryption isn't proof against rubber hoses, but it is effective against many other forms of state repression, and it can provide a technical edge for those engaged in a political struggle. Another faction – the faction most associated with bitcoin and subsequent cryptocurrency projects – rejects the role of the state altogether, and seeks to replace states (and state-regulated institutions like courts and banks) with mathematics. Rather than asking courts to interpret contracts, we can put our trust in self-executing "smart contracts," and rather than asking banks to safeguard our financial integrity, we can use cryptographic software to ensure that money only moves when the person it belongs to tells it to. This has many problems. Smart contracts are slow, expensive, and unreliable. The number of people who understand contracts is small, the number of people who understand the software that embodies smart contracts is likewise small, and the Venn intersection of the two is more of a sphincter. What's more, there is irreducible ambiguity in all but the simplest of contracts, which means that even a "self-executing" contract ends up relying on a human adjudicator (an "oracle") who can be bribed or intimidated into cheating: https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/14/externalities/#dshr And when it comes to transactions, crypto proves to be unwieldy, expensive and complex, so that nearly all crypto users end up directing an intermediary (like Coinbase) to hold and move their cryptographic assets for them. The upshot is that cryptocurrency mostly replaces banks – imperfect, but heavily regulated and insured – with unregulated tech platforms with murky ownership and often defective security procedures, who may or may not be insured (or even locatable) in the event of a collapse or a breach. Consequently, cryptocurrency has become a scam magnet of unprecedented and unstoppable power, and hardly a day goes by without people being ripped off in the most ghastly ways imaginable: https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/ For bitcoin maxis and other anti-state cypherpunks, this is just a skill issue. Anyone who doesn't understand how to manage their own keys and turns to a platform to hold and move their crypto is getting what they deserve. As the maxim goes, "Not your keys, not your wallet," which is cypherpunkspeak for "caveat emptor." That's where the wrench attacks come in. Because if you are in possession of keys that can be used to irreversibly and instantaneously steal large sums of money and move it to jurisdictions where the perpetrators are beyond any legal or physical recourse (e.g. North Korea), then there is a massive incentive for your adversaries to kidnap you and hit you with a wrench or a rubber hose. That's precisely what's going on. People with substantial cryptocurrency holdings face grave personal danger, and the physical attacks on their person grow bolder, more violent, and more sadistic by the day: https://github.com/jlopp/physical-bitcoin-attacks/blob/master/README.md As crypto critic David Rosenthal writes, this problem is even worse than it seems at first blush: https://blog.dshr.org/2026/05/wrench-attacks.html For one thing, cryptocurrencies depend on "public ledgers" that indelibly, publicly record every transaction in the network. Cryptocurrency is nothing without these ledgers, and they have to be immutable and public to work. This is very bad news for anyone who relies on anonymity as their defense against physical attacks. That's because "reidentification attacks" (where an anonymous person in a dataset is positively identified) get easier to perform over time. You might be represented in a database of hospital prescribing activities by a random number, and that number might be hard to associate with your real identity…at first. But with every subsequent release of data – whether in the form of an anonymized data-set or a breach – it gets easier to cross-reference the facts associated with your record with other facts from other records, such that a detailed, identifying picture of you emerges one fact at a time. For example, if the taxi company you use suffers a breach that reveals journeys associated with every doctor's appointment at the hospital, now an attacker can pick out the home or work address of the single person who visited the hospital just before you received your prescription. The longer an "anonymized" data-set sits around in public view, the easier it gets to de-anonymize it: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10933-3 Combine the fact that permanent ledgers make it progressively easier to identify people whom you can torture into revealing their crypto keys with the irreversible, instantaneous nature of crypto transfers and you get some very juicy targets indeed. "Not your keys, not your wallet" means it's "not anyone else's problem" when you get robbed. You can't ask the bank to interdict or reverse the transaction. Rosenthal provides a litany of the escalating security measures crypto holders are turning to as this problem goes progressively more dangerous and terrifying. There's the guy who splits his keys up in four physical vaults at four separate locations, whose management is instructed to make him wait a minimum of seven days when he asks to retrieve them. Despite all this, he keeps his identity secret: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-19/crypto-conferences-up-security-after-attacks-scams Rosenthal quotes Nicholas Weaver, who asks what kind of "internet of money" bitcoin can be if it can't be safely stored on a computer connected to the actual internet: https://doi.org/10.1145/3208095 But an equally valid question is, what kind of escape from tyranny is it that requires you to hide your identity at all times lest you be snatched off the street and brutally tortured? What kind of "liberty" requires you to spend $860,000 armoring your two top execs' personal vehicles to protect them from gunfire and light artillery? https://www.ft.com/content/71d7486d-89b5-48ac-8f94-857578c0a03b It costs $6.2m/year to protect Coinbase's CEO – "more than the combined amount that JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Nvidia Corp. spent on their respective CEOs": https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-18/crypto-high-rollers-go-big-on-bodyguards-to-deter-kidnappers Crypto true believers exhort one another to "HODL" (hold on for dear life). Selling your crypto during downturns is considered a moral failing. But now, crypto holders – especially those who manage their own keys – are literally holding on for dear life, as they are hunted by crime syndicates and state actors alike. It's a good reminder of how badly crypto has failed on its own terms, delivering its biggest users into an existence of fear and physical peril that rivals the plight of even the most hunted dissidents in the most repressive societies. Worse: as cryptocurrency lobbyists have fused crypto with the world's largest and most corrupt governments (especially the Trump regime), crypto now has all the exposure to state coercion that made banks so unsuitable, but without the (inconstant, insufficient) protections offered by traditional banking. And that's before we talk about the energy consumption problems, the scams enabled by crypto, and the rampant human trafficking that those scams necessitate: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-human-trafficking-victims-are-forced-to-run-pig-butchering-investment-scams People in my technopolitical faction have a saying of our own: "'Crypto' means cryptography." Cryptography plays a hugely important role in protecting people from crime and state repression. It is no substitute for the rule of law and democracy, but it remains a key tool for securing and defending both: https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/27/the-best-defense-against-rubber-hose-cryptanalysis/ Cryptocurrency, on the other hand? That's the worst of all worlds. Hey look at this (permalink) Un internet post americano, resistente a la mierdificación https://supernovainterna.substack.com/p/traducir-sin-ia-mi-interpretacion Best sketches from SNL season 51 https://a.wholelottanothing.org/best-sketches-from-snl-season-51/ Revenge of The Business Idiot https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-revenge-of-the-business-idiot/ Uber, Lyft drivers in Massachusetts form first US ride-share union https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/uber-lyft-drivers-massachusetts-form-first-us-ride-share-union-2026-05-26/ Star Trek Title Card Generator https://trek.epicrandomness.com/ Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago Can anyone own “Web 2.0?” https://memex.craphound.com/2006/05/26/can-anyone-own-web-2-0/ #20yrsago iRiver gives customers the choice of switching off DRM https://web.archive.org/web/20060619150812/http://www.iriver.com/mtp/ #20yrsago EFF scores win against Apple: bloggers’ sources are protected https://web.archive.org/web/20060602020337/http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/index.blog?entry_id=1489151 #15yrsago Anonymous pre-paid credit-cards and money-laundering https://web.archive.org/web/20110529001021/https://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/05/23/technology-lt-fea-plastic-money-laundering_8481416.html #15yrsago More incompetence revealed on the part of France’s “three-strikes” copyright enforcer https://web.archive.org/web/20120520073256/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/french-three-strikes-anti-piracy-software-riddled-with-flaws/ #15yrsago Montage: Non-pornographic scenes from pornographic movies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVBhVDXLpaI #15yrsago Improper court record redaction: a study https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2011/05/25/studying-frequency-redaction-failures-pacer/ #15yrsago Texas anti-TSA-grope bill killed by threat to shut down all Texas airports https://www.texastribune.org/2011/05/24/fed-threat-shuts-down-tsa-groping-bill-in-texas/?r #15yrsago Canadian Tories refuse to send soldiers to help flood victims because they’d compete with the private sector https://web.archive.org/web/20110527053822/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec/ottawa-initially-refuses-request-for-more-troops-to-aid-quebec-flood-victims/article2033562/ #15yrsago Gold-farming in a Chinese forced-labor camp https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam #10yrsago Edward Snowden performs radical surgery on a phone to make it “go black” https://web.archive.org/web/20160527125043/https://www.wired.com/2016/05/snowden-vice-cell-phone-hack/ #10yrsago FBI is investigating copyright trolls Prenda Law for fraud https://web.archive.org/web/20160526005012/https://popehat.com/2016/05/25/fbi-actively-investigating-prenda-law-team-for-fraud/ #10yrsago How a pharma company made billions off mass murder by faking the science on Oxycontin https://web.archive.org/web/20160524112437/http://static.latimes.com/oxycontin-part1/ #10yrsago GOP officials won’t let the FEC stop bosses from forcing employees to give to PACs https://web.archive.org/web/20160526114245/https://prospect.org/blog/checks/fec-deadlocks-over-employer-political-coercion #10yrsago Undetectable proof-of-concept chip poisoning uses analog circuits to escalate privilege https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2016/papers/0824a018.pdf #10yrsago “Pickup artist” douche uses copyright to sue Youtube critics, fans raise $100K defense fund https://www.gofundme.com/f/h3h3defensefund #10yrsago The best thing you will read about the revelation that Captain America was a Nazi spy https://web.archive.org/web/20160623131614/https://storify.com/rahaeli/captain-america #10yrsago Revealed: the amazing cover for Walkaway, my first adult novel since 2009 https://reactormag.com/cover-reveal-walkaway-cory-doctorow// #10yrsago Tor Project is working on a web-wide random number generator https://blog.torproject.org/mission-montreal-building-next-generation-onion-services/ #10yrsago Jury hands Oracle its ass, says Google doesn’t owe it a penny for Java https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/eff-applauds-jury-verdict-favor-fair-use-oracle-v-google #10yrsago Arcade cabinet enthusiasts discover trove of 50+ games in ship, derelict for 30 years https://arcadeblogger.com/2016/05/06/arcade-raid-the-duke-of-lancaster-ship/ #5yrsago Monopolists are winning the repair wars https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/26/nixing-the-fix/#r2r #1yrago Who Broke the Internet, Part IV https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/26/babyish-radical-extremists/#cancon Upcoming appearances (permalink) SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: TBA, Jun 23 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: TBA, Jun 25 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: AI and a world without migrants (27 May 2026)
- Wed, 27 May 2026 07:57:41 +0000
Today's links AI and a world without migrants: It's solipsism all the way down. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Manuscript rabbits; "What Will Come After"; Pastejacking; Terrorism phrenology; Vaccine waivers were promised 20 years ago. Upcoming appearances: London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. AI and a world without migrants (permalink) I don't care who you are, there will always be times when hell is other people. Not because other people are horrible – quite the opposite! Other people are wonderful, but boy are they ever stubborn. From boardgames to romance, team sports to movement politics, business ideas to construction projects, there's so much important, enjoyable and essential stuff you can't do alone. But other people insist on having their own priorities and goals, and they mulishly refuse to organize their lives to suit your priorities. Our species has put a lot of work into resolving this conundrum. Not only did we evolve a whole brain structure – the neocortex – that helps us understand others' perspectives, but we also evolved many social structures (like laws and teams and governments and families and committees and bureaucracies) to help us coordinate with others to do superhuman things (that is, things that exceed the capacity of a single human). These structures are imperfect, but they're better than the alternative: coercion. Persuading others is not without its pitfalls, but compared to forcing others to bend to your will, "persuasion" is the hands-down favorite. Not for everyone, though. There has always been a group of people who refused to acknowledge that other people have perfectly valid reasons for wanting to pursue their own goals rather than yours. We call most of those people "toddlers" and devote sizable social effort to helping them outgrow this belief. But there's another group of people who carry this belief into adulthood. If they're of regular means, we call those people "bullies." However, if they're sufficiently wealthy, we call them "billionaires" (this is the same force that allows money to transmute a "hoarder" into a "collector"). Just lately though, we've come up with a new solution to the problem of hell being other people. Rather than coercing other people into arranging their affairs to suit our needs, we've devoted trillions of dollars to replacing people with pliant chatbots, in the hopes that these chatbots can be made so effective that we can just dispense with other people altogether. Many everyday people have replaced their romantic partners with chatbots ("AI boyfriends"/"AI girlfriends"), and they've formed active communities to revel in the delights of pursuing love with someone who demands no moral consideration or compromise, glorying in a world of love without lovers: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1353-the-naked-emperor/episode/16215328-e1-love-bots There's a whole community of people who have stopped listening to music created by people in favor of made-to-order slop, exulting in a world of music without musicians: https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/937059/nobody-wants-to-tell-me-why-they-only-listen-their-own-suno-slop These are foundationally solipsistic exercises, fantasy worlds in which you are the only real person and everyone else is a bot, an NPC, a phantom. AI has democratized solipsism, a privilege that was once the exclusive purview of billionaires, whose belief that most other people weren't fully real let them inflict the kind of mass pain on millions that is a prerequisite for amassing a truly vast fortune: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/18/seeing-like-a-billionaire/#npcs No surprise then that billionaires were easy marks for AI hustlers, who promised the possibility of a world without people, where an army of "agents" could do the jobs that presently demand the contributions of unreasonable human beings who refuse to acknowledge that your priorities trump theirs. Jeff Bezos built the world's most advanced automated warehouses, and the workers in those warehouses are seriously injured at 300% of the national rate, and they are not allowed pee breaks (nevertheless, these workers unreasonably insist on metabolizing fluids and expelling the waste). The automation and the injuries aren't unrelated facts. The inhumane treatment is caused by the automation, because when you commit hundreds of billions to automation capex, you need to work those assets to recoup the investment. In a human/machine collaboration, humans will always be the bottlenecks. To maximize return on automation, you need to drive the human peripherals that serve the machines at the absolute limit of human endurance. Jeff Bezos's machines don't just use humans, they use them up: https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/27/rancid-vibe-coding/#class-war Billionaires poured trillions into AI because they are obsessed with the fantasy of a world without people. Mark Zuckerberg would like to replace your on-platform friends with chatbots. Sure, your friends are the reason you're stuck on his platforms, but your friends are stubborn and thus suboptimal. Remember: hell is other people, so while your friends unreasonably refuse to leave Facebook with you and follow you to another platform (this is bad for you, but good for Zuck), they also refuse to organize their social media lives to "maximize your engagement" and thus the number of ads you see (which is bad for Zuck). By replacing your friends with chatbots, Zuck hopes to reinvent social media without the socializing: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/17/for-youze/#forever Billionaires are betting that bosses (and other would-be billionaires) will spend trillions buying AI products, captured by the fantasy of a workplace without workers. They think AI could be the remedy for the ancient, nameless dread that bosses experience every time they contemplate the fact that if they don't show up for work, everything hums along fine; whereas if the workers don't show up, the whole enterprise collapses. Secretly, bosses are haunted by the fear that they're not driving the car, they're strapped into the back seat, amusing themselves with a toy steering-wheel: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/05/fisher-price-steering-wheel/#billionaire-solipsism That's what the Hollywood strikes were about: studio bosses' fantasy of movies without actors and screenplays without screenwriters. Since the invention of the studio system itself, studio bosses have wrestled with the fact that talented people who are beloved by audiences have bargaining leverage, which they use to demand better outputs and higher wages (this is the same conundrum faced by hospital administrators confronting nurses and doctors, college administrators confronting faculty, etc): https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/20/i-would-prefer-not-to/#i-cant-do-that-boss This solipsistic drive is what powers investment in AI "persuasion" technologies, making billions for latter-day Cambridge Analyticas who peddle the outlandish tale of having built a mind-control ray. It's a winning sales-pitch because it plays into the fantasy of a world where customers do as they're told, organizing their lives according to your priorities, at the expense of their own wellbeing: https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/07/rah-rah-rasputin/#credulous-dolts It's not just captains of industry who are occupied with furious, all-consuming fantasies of a world without people. Dictators, autocrats and technocrats in the political world love AI because it dangles the possibility of a world without bureaucrats and public officials. If the civil service can be replaced with chatbots, then the will of the dictator can be translated directly into policy without any tedious negotiations with experts who understand how things work and have deep moral commitments to the public good: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/13/vibe-governance/#k-hole A world without people is especially attractive to politicians presiding over aging, declining nations whose most ardent voters have been convinced that migrants are a threat to their nation (rather than its salvation). Objectively speaking, the only way that a rich country with an aging workforce can remain wealthy and powerful is by wooing working-age people from elsewhere to migrate to that country. Even if every tradwife is kept in a state of continuous gestation courtesy of a fertility-obsessed natalist, there's still going to be decades during which your wealthy, aging population will need young, skilled people to do all the essential labor. From picking crops, to staffing hospitals, to building homes, to filing lawsuits, to preparing tax-returns, your quiverfull child army will be too young to take over for years to come. Trapped in the political impossibility of a country whose productive activities are absolutely reliant on young, strong, resourceful, skilled migrants, and a xenophobic political movement that scapegoats these migrants and revels in the spectacle of ethnic cleansing, politicians see AI as a way out of their double-bind. If migrants can be replaced with AI, then you can satisfy the racist sadism of your most ardent voters without shutting down the country for lack of workers. In other words: in feeding the fantasy of a world without people, AI serves the fantasy of a world without migrants. Unlike gastarbeiters, bracero fruit-pickers and Saudi quasi-slaves, AI makes no demands, requires no moral consideration, and does not attempt to germinate a culture, a cuisine, or a language in your sacred soil. This grotesque fantasy has always lurked in the subtext of the automation story. The plot of Disney's Big Hero 6 boils down to: "In future-America/Japan, it will be more politically possible to have robots look after our aging parents than it will be to welcome the millions of skilled health-workers in the Pacific Rim who are eminently qualified to do the job." Big Hero 6 is the solution to the problem of building a nursing home without nurses. The wealthy have always dreamed of transforming the proletariat into the precariat: desperate workers who do as they're told. But in the automation story of which AI is the latest chapter (and purportedly the climax), the precariat becomes the unnecessariat: workers who are surplus to requirements and can be vaporized or liquidated or warehoused or simply ignored. In the fantasy world of total automation, the owners of AI can make the world go around without any of us, which means that we will exist solely at their sufferance, and will therefore have to act like the NPCs they half-believe we are already, organizing everything we do around their priorities. This is the foundation of Sam Altman's obsession with a biometrically controlled universal basic income. Altman can't stop fantasizing about a world in which all the productive work is done by his software, and the state's sole purpose is to supply us – the unnecessariat – with vouchers we can only redeem for services provided by Altman's robot army. It's charter schools for everything, with Altman at the top, all wrapped up in a layer of dystopian retinal scanning: https://www.wired.com/story/worldcoin-sam-altman-orb/ Billionaires and would-be billionaires are absolute suckers for this solipsistic bullshit, because they genuinely don't think other people are real. They love "effective altruism" because it counsels them to make as much money as possible, without regard to how many people they cheat, hurt, or kill…provided that they pledge to use these ill-gotten gains to improve the lives of 10^53 imaginary artificial people who will come into existence in 10,000 years. After all, the total benefit of even the most infinitesimal welfare gains experienced by 10^53 people vastly exceeds all the pleasures that all eight billion actual, living people are capable of experiencing: https://www.semafor.com/article/11/21/2023/how-effective-altruism-led-to-a-crisis-at-openai It all makes perfect sense – provided you don't believe that other people are really, truly real. Hey look at this (permalink) EU's digital sovereignty boo-boo may be the best thing to ever happen to the project https://www.theregister.com/systems/2026/05/26/eus-digital-sovereignty-boo-boo-may-be-the-best-thing-to-ever-happen-to-the-project/5244715 Revealed: Palantir’s NHS tech is ten times slower than current system https://democracyforsale.substack.com/p/revealed-palantirs-nhs-tech-is-ten-times-slower-than-nhs-thiel-trump The human cost of governing by spreadsheet https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/21-05-2026/the-human-cost-of-governing-by-spreadsheet Canadian prime minister Mark Carney is not the climate guy you thought https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/21/mark-carney-climate-canada It's time to talk about my writerdeck https://veronicaexplains.net/my-first-writerdeck/ Object permanence (permalink) #15yrsago California prison overcrowding, in photos https://web.archive.org/web/20110525171353/https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/california-prison-overcrowding-photos #15yrsago What Will Come After: the sweet melancholy of the zombie apocalypse https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/25/what-will-come-after-the-sweet-melancholy-of-the-zombie-apocalypse/ #10yrsago If Donald Trump ever talks to a real journalist, these are the questions he should answer https://www.nationalmemo.com/21-questions-for-donald-trump #10yrsago Norwegian Consumer Council broadcasts live, marathon reading of app Terms of Service https://web.archive.org/web/20160526145553/https://www.forbrukerradet.no/vilkar-og-personvern-minutt-for-minutt/ #10yrsago Pastejacking: using malicious javascript to insert sneaky text into pasted terminal commands https://github.com/dxa4481/Pastejacking #10yrsago Why medieval monks filled manuscript margins with murderous rabbits https://web.archive.org/web/20160614000551/https://jonkanekojames.com/2015/05/02/why-are-there-violent-rabbits-in-the-margins-of-medieval-manuscripts/ #10yrsago Students: court orders government agencies to offer educational discount on FOIA requests https://web.archive.org/web/20160525155102/https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160521/16031934508/appeals-court-tells-government-it-must-extend-educational-institution-foia-fee-price-break-to-students.shtml #10yrsago The euphemisms news reporters use when a sports figure injures his penis and testicles https://web.archive.org/web/20160525125452/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/media-groin-draymond-green-steven-adams/ #10yrsago Company says facial features reveal terrorists and pedophiles 80% of the time https://web.archive.org/web/20160525130941/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/05/24/terrorist-or-pedophile-this-start-up-says-it-can-out-secrets-by-analyzing-faces/ #5yrsago We promised this vaccine waiver 20 years ago https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/25/the-other-shoe-drops/#quid-pro-quo Upcoming appearances (permalink) SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: TBA, Jun 23 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: TBA, Jun 25 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: The AI bubble isn't like the internet bubble (26 May 2026)
- Tue, 26 May 2026 09:45:37 +0000
Today's links The AI bubble isn't like the internet bubble: No one had to force-feed the web to workers. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Website graveyard; Anti-librarian witch-hunt; Denmark v Marmite; The unnecessariat. Upcoming appearances: London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. The AI bubble isn't like the internet bubble (permalink) One of the surprise breakout software products of the early web was Lotus Notes, a kind of primitive precursor to all-in-one office productivity suites like GDocs, Office365, etc. It was so important that its creator, Ray Ozzie, was promoted to Microsoft's Chief Software Architect, succeeding Bill Gates himself: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wharton-podcast/the-man-who-would-change-microsoft-ray-ozzies-vision-for-connected-software/ People who remember Notes tend to deride it for its clunky user interface and demi-functional administrative tools. But what made Notes so central to Microsoft wasn't its polish – it was the fact that Notes represented a brokered peace between IT managers, who wanted mainframe-like control over everything their users could do with business equipment, and the users themselves – workers who kept smuggling internet-based tools into the enterprise network on the very sensible grounds that they had a job to do, and these were the best tools to do it. The arrival of internet-based tools – especially ones that ran in browsers – represented a major challenge to IT departments, who had been long accustomed to dictating terms to their users. If the IT manager and the compliance department decided that the best way to manage disclosure and leak risks was to block all email attachments for outside users, then that was that: no one could send those attachments. But after the internet arrived on the corporate desktop, employees who needed to get documents to supply chain partners and customers could treat these IT policies as damage and route around them. Just fire up your Hotmail or Yahoo mail window, or hop on MSN Messenger or ICQ or AIM, or drop the file on an anonymous FTP server and send the link to your counterparty. Job done! IT managers hated this, and to be fair to them, they weren't (always) wrong. These outside tools came from a variety of untrustworthy sources, including malicious sites that pushed virus-infected versions to their users. Also, by evading firewall rules with these tools, users made it impossible to achieve the compliance goals that IT had been charged with enforcing, and it was IT's asses on the line if the company got in trouble as a result. Foundationally, IT was being asked to do two irreconcilable things: they were supposed to be enabling workers to get their jobs done, and they were supposed to be stopping those workers from doing things that could harm the business. This can't be done, because the only way to eliminate the possibility that a worker will take an action that harms the business is to gag that worker and lock them in a dungeon. Workers need flexibility and freedom to achieve business goals, and that flexibility and freedom means that those workers might (deliberately or accidentally) thwart the business's goals. What's more, workers will always run into situations that were not anticipated by policy, and if they are denied any agency or initiative, they will fail to get their jobs done. In work, the exception is the rule, hence the importance of "process knowledge" (all the implicit knowledge shared among workers across the firm and its suppliers and customers, which cannot be captured or recorded): https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/08/process-knowledge/#dance-monkey-dance Indeed, there's a form of labor action called a "work to rule," in which workers only do the things dictated by their rulebooks, without taking any of the routine additional measures dictated by process knowledge. Merely by following every rule to the letter, workers can grind a shop to a halt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule Since the dawn of personal computers, workers and IT departments have come into conflict, as workers literally smuggled technology into the business that could do things the IT department had (often arbitrarily and capriciously) prohibited. When Visicalc emerged as the killer app for the Apple ][+, workers snuck these computers into work and used them to sort spreadsheets in ways that IT had declined to permit. They didn't do this to cheat or steal from the company – the whole point was to do a better job. So it was with the early web: workers discovered a myriad of new capabilities in the free-to-use world of web-based tools and realized how these tools would make them much more effective at their jobs. The fact that IT wouldn't let them do these things was just more evidence that IT – and the managers who set IT's agenda – didn't understand the business as well as workers. It didn't help that IT managers' first line of defense was the high-tech version of abstinence-only education: "You only think you need your work computers to do this, but really, you don't, so stop trying": https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/jun/16/computer-security-abstinence Abstinence-only education never works, but where "you only think you need this" failed, Lotus Notes succeeded. Lotus Notes provided a whole suite of tools that largely (if imperfectly) replaced the universe of free tools that workers were using to evade their IT departments' edicts, so they could get their jobs done. At the same time, Lotus Notes provided a set of management tools that let IT fine-tune how these tools worked, giving them (some) of the controls they needed to achieve their compliance goals. Like all brokered peace settlements, Lotus Notes left both sides feeling like they'd made a compromise they could live with, giving up some of their goals, but keeping the things that really mattered to them. It's impossible to overstate how important Lotus Notes and similar products were, because workers demanded the right to use the web on their work computers, and they made those demands so forcefully that managers had to completely re-do their IT policies, lest those workers treat them as damage and route around them. Back then, the tech press was full of stories about these conflicts, as workers insisted that the new technology that was sweeping the nation was so foundational and transformative that they had to be allowed to use it. What we never saw back then were stories about how managers had to monitor workers to ensure that they were using the web as much as possible. No one had to force workers to find ways to integrate the web into their workflows. In other words, the story of the web at work was the opposite of the story of AI at work. Today, you can't turn around without reading a story about bosses who are threatening to fire workers if they don't increase their AI usage: https://www.businessinsider.com/boss-track-ai-use-career-2025-8 Virtually every major company now has a program to force workers into using AI: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/05/ai-use-work-employee-monitoring-tech-surveillance.html It's conceivable that over the past quarter-century, bosses have become technophiles while workers have fallen prey to superstitious technophobia, but it hardly seems likely. Historically, workers have always been enthusiastic about tools that let them do a better job – indeed, it's a truism that labor-led automation produces improvements in quality, while capital-driven automation increases throughput (often at the expense of quality). Workers aren't the only typical early adopters who find AI lacking. As a group, teenagers and young adults hate AI: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/style/gen-z-ai-gallup-study.html That's not what it was like during the early web days. Back then, young people entering the workforce were passionate devotees of the web, to the point where the business press routinely ran articles asking how today's workplaces were going to adapt to the demands of these webbed-up workers. https://www.nber.org/digest/apr03/internet-changes-labor-market AI boosters insist that the deficits we see in AI – its lack of profitability, its primitive and error-riddled outputs – are no different from the shakedown problems of the early web (and we know how the web turned out!). But this is a profoundly flawed comparison: the early web and AI are very different from one another. For one thing, the early web may have lost money, but it had great unit economics. Every new web user brought the web closer to profitability, as did every new use of the web, and every new generation of web technology. By contrast, AI has – in the memorable phrasing of Ed Zitron – "dogshit unit economics." Every new AI user makes AI less profitable, as does every new use for AI, and each generation of AI loses more money than the last. AI is the money-losingest endeavor in human history: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/econopocalypse/#subprime-intelligence In other words, the early web was a technology that grew more profitable every day, which workers and young people had to force on their bosses – and AI is a technology that grows less profitable every day, and bosses have to force it on workers and young people. Now, it's true that some workers don't have to be forced to use AI. Workers who enjoy a high degree of autonomy (that is to say, workers who are positioned to ignore workplace coercion) can adopt AI in ways that they feel suited to, just as those early web users and Visicalc smugglers did. They can fulfill the maxim that labor-driven automation improves quality, while resisting capital's insistence that automation be used to increase throughput at quality's expense. They can act as centaurs (workers assisted by technology), not as reverse-centaurs (workers who are recruited to serve as peripherals for machines). As with all technology questions, what the technology does is nowhere near as important as who the tech does it for and who the tech does it to: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/11/vulgar-thatcherism/#there-is-an-alternative And there's another group of workers who adopt AI voluntarily: workers who see that AI can do a lot of work that they view as dull and unimportant for them. These workers might be right – there are plenty of bullshit jobs out there: https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/20/david-graebers-bullshit-jobs-why-does-the-economy-sustain-jobs-that-no-one-values/ But it's also possible that they're wrong, and they're substituting AI for something that really should be done by a person. But on the plus side, at least no one has to force them to adopt AI. Hey look at this (permalink) CBC/Radio-Canada secures second consecutive Broadcaster of the Year honour at NYF Radio Awards https://broadcastdialogue.com/cbc-radio-canada-secures-second-consecutive-broadcaster-of-the-year-honour-at-nyf-radio-awards/ State of Local AI https://llmrequirements.com/state-of-local-ai/ Private Equity Blocked from Buying Homes. Mostly. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-private-equity Gratitude – Aid Coordination https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/gemma-4-good-hackathon/writeups/gratitude-aid-coordination Is AI Profitable Yet? https://isaiprofitable.com/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Website graveyard https://web.archive.org/web/20010516224100/http://www.disobey.com/ghostsites/ #20yrsago Canadian students ask govt to save them from copyright https://web.archive.org/web/20060629014007/https://action.web.ca/home/cfs/en_alerts.shtml?x=88910&AA_EX_Session=d56bebd39174d9839ec3ee5fa6fe93a4 #20yrsago Lifespan of best-sellers falls 6/7ths in 40 years https://web.archive.org/web/20060601231943/https://www.lulu.com/static/pr/05_19_06.php #15yrsago Sarkozy’s false-flag E-G8 attracts withering scorn https://web.archive.org/web/20121109010803/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/france-attempts-to-civilize-the-internet-internet-fights-back/ #15yrsago Tool reveals ISP traffic-shaping https://web.archive.org/web/20120514151210/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/new-shaperprobe-tool-detects-isp-traffic-shaping/ #15yrsago Falun Gong sues Cisco over complicity in China’s “Golden Shield” – allege torture, murder https://web.archive.org/web/20110524065718/http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20065219-93.html #15yrsago Scenes from Los Angeles’s teacher-librarian witch-hunt https://mizzmurphy.blogspot.com/2011/05/message-received.html #15yrsago Denmark bans Marmite https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/may/24/uk-should-ban-sandi-toksvig #10yrsago As mobile carriers ramp up bribery program, Internet coalition says no to “zero rating” https://web.archive.org/web/20160524233609/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/medium-mozilla-and-kickstarter-signed-a-letter-against-zero-rating #10yrsago Philippines’ new “dictator” will give a hero’s burial to Ferdinand Marcos https://web.archive.org/web/20160526135257/http://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/world/philippine-dictator-marcos-to-get-heros-burial-duterte/ar-BBtnPJH #10yrsago Judge handcuffs public defender for speaking out in court https://web.archive.org/web/20160525151444/http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/las-vegas-judge-handcuffs-public-defender-courtroom #10yrsago Sanders donors flock to Tim Canova’s campaign against DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz https://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/23/politics/debbie-wasserman-schultz-primary-opponent-fundraising/index.html #10yrsago Algorithmic risk-assessment: hiding racism behind “empirical” black boxes https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing #10yrsago Plagiarism detection app vs Russia’s elites: 1-2 fake PhDs discovered every day https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/05/the_thriving_russian_black_market_in_dissertations_and_the_crusaders_fighting.html #10yrsago Technology’s “culture of compliance” must be beaten back in the name of justice https://bb9.berlinbiennale.de/all-problems-can-be-illuminated-not-all-problems-can-be-solved/ #10yrsago Grass in the park at the center of San Francisco gentrification debate is now for rent https://sfist.com/2016/05/23/rec_parks_pilot_program_allows_you/ #10yrsago Lawsuit: Texas’s largest jail is full of people who are locked up for being poor https://web.archive.org/web/20160524134738/https://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/05/23/3781076/texas-bail-lawsuit/ #10yrsago After the precariat, the unnecessariat: the humans who are superfluous to corporations https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/ #5yrsago Watomatic, for lower Whatsapp switching costs https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/24/how-about-nah/#comcom Upcoming appearances (permalink) SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: TBA, Jun 23 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: TBA, Jun 25 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: No honor among (ad-tech) thieves (25 May 2026)
- Mon, 25 May 2026 08:21:45 +0000
Today's links No honor among (ad-tech) thieves: Including "and" and "the." Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Budweiser nunchuks; GOP vote-suppressor voted illegally; Airbnb enshittifies; Oculus enshittifies; Nintendo copyfrauds its fans; Meritocracy to eugenics pipeline; Ultima Online crisis management; SNES cartridge urinal; JJ Abrams x Axanar, "Sex Criminals"; Beating school filters for fun; Orphan works; Japanese ATM heist; How the Sacklers rigged the game. Upcoming appearances: London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. No honor among (ad-tech) thieves (permalink) It shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that a company that uses dishonest tactics to spy on you for profit will also use dishonest tactics to sell the resulting surveillance data. The only reason this wouldn't be obvious is if you've fallen into the trap of thinking "if you're not paying for the product, you're the product." Companies that cheat when the opportunity arises will cheat everyone: customers, users, regulators, suppliers and employees. You're the product if the company can get away with making you the product: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar The digital surveillance swindle is a con from top to bottom: it's not just that they spy on you, it's also that they lie to you about how and why and where they spy on you and what happens to the data they swindle out of you. They're not just cheats, in other words – they're also liars. Of course they're liars! If their terms of service were honest, they'd say something like, "By being desperate enough to use this product, you 'agree' that we're allowed to come over to your house and punch your grandmother, wear your underwear, make long-distance calls and eat all the food in your fridge." So they lie like crazy. But they don't just lie to us: they lie to the people they sell our surveillance data to as well. Of course they do! Those people are the ones giving them the money! By tricking the people paying for the product, these surveillance swindlers can get them to pay more! This is the basis of Tim Hwang's essential 2020 book Subprime Attention Crisis: https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/05/florida-man/#wannamakers-ghost Core to Hwang's thesis is that these ads aren't just dangerous, they're also ineffective. The danger of these ads is the erosion of privacy and the mobilization of private data for state repression and fraud, but not particularly for persuasion. The idea that ad-tech companies have realized the ancient dream of building a mind-control ray via the novel technique of "hacking your dopamine loop" is a story that the ad-tech swindlers cooked up to help them sell ads: https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/30/dont-believe-the-criti-hype/#ordinary-mediocrities Critics who repeat these outlandish claims are helping these companies sell ads to credulous advertisers, who are getting robbed to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. This is the process that Lee Vinsel calls "criti-hype," which is when you "take the sensational claims of boosters and entrepreneurs, flip them, and start talking about 'risks'": https://peoples-things.ghost.io/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype/ Criti-hype is satisfying because the hype itself is so fantastically overblown. These companies claim they're going to save/destroy/conquer the world, transform the very nature of humanity, etc, and so critics who repeat those claims (brackets derogatory) can style themselves as defenders of the world and humanity itself. This is also a very profitable style of criticism: there's a huge commercial market for people who claim to be defending the world from conquest by evil dopamine-hacking sorcerers and/or superintelligent paperclip-maximizers that can chatbot you into killing yourself and/or voting for Trump (brackets derogatory). The opposite of criti-hype is materialistic criticism, grounded in independently verifiable claims about how these scams work. To be a good tech critic, you need to start by assuming that a company that lies to its users about what it's doing is perfectly capable of lying to its customers and investors about what it's doing (that is, "even if you're paying for the product, you're still the product"). That's demonstrably, verifiably true of the commercial surveillance industry. Commercial spies lie to their customers like crazy, and always have. Think of the department store magnate John Wannamaker's famous quip that "half my advertising dollars are wasted, I just don't know which half." Man, did someone ever do a sell-job on old Wannamaker: imagine believing that only half of your advertising dollars are wasted. Today, thanks to creepy ad-tech analytics, we know that the true figure is around 99%. Hwang's book documents lots more ad-tech fraud that's every bit as audacious as the Wannamaker-era con-jobs. For example, there's the fact that when Procter and Gamble zeroed out its $200m/year surveillance advertising program, they saw a zero percent drop in sales because (to a first approximation) all $200m of that annual spend was disappearing down the fraud-hole. There's been plenty more examples since, rivaling previous eras for audacity and outlandishness. In 2023, Mozilla Labs investigated the ways that modern cars spy on their drivers and concluded that, when it came to privacy, cars were "the worst product category" they had ever evaluated, and recommended that you not buy any of the cars currently offered for sale: https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/ Mozilla's report investigated two things: which data your car was collecting and selling about you (lots) and what data your car company claimed it had collected about you and was offering for sale (way, way more). For example, Nissan and Kia claimed that they had data about your sex life, a thing that cannot be reasonably inferred from the sensors in your car (unless you have a highly specific sex life). Six car companies claimed they had your genetic data (again, not a thing that any of the sensors in your car can know about). What's more, all of these scams have only gotten worse in the intervening three years: https://cleantechnica.com/2026/05/22/mozilla-foundation-condemns-data-collection-by-cars/ These companies are spying on you, and lying to you about how much they respect your privacy, and lying to their commercial customers about all the fiendish ways they've cooked up for invading your privacy. Everyone in the ad-tech sector is lying to everyone else in the ad-tech sector, in other words. It's your basic hive of scum and villainy. Back in 2023, Cox Media – part of the sprawling media conglomerate that includes Cox Cable – told advertisers that they had a new product called "Active Listening" that recorded and transcribed all the conversations you have around your smart speakers, smart TVs, smart watches and phones: https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/ It was a lie. There are plenty of ways that these devices spy on you, of course. Your smart TV is a cesspool of surveillance and data-exfiltration, but that data doesn't include your conversations: https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/03/painful-burning-dribble/#law-of-intended-consequences Same for your smart speaker, which not only gathers tons of information about you for sale and targeting, but also leaks your voice data all the time, whenever you utter any of its "trigger words," which include over 1,000 phrases that sound like its trigger words: https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/02/big-river/#triggered Cox, in other words, was running the same equal-opportunity scam that your auto-maker runs: deceiving you about how little data they were stealing from you, and deceiving their customers about how much data they were gathering on you. That said, there was something remarkable and unique about Cox's fraud: because they were ripping off other (better-connected) fraudsters, their lies triggered an investigation by Donald Trump's FTC, who never met a scammer they wouldn't defend (from another scammer): https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/marketer-that-claimed-it-could-tap-devices-for-ad-targeting-will-pay-880k-settlement/ Still, there are limits to this "honor among thieves" business. The settlement Trump's FTC extracted from Cox for lying to other liars is less than $1m – basically, change that Cox can find down the back of its sofa: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/marketer-that-claimed-it-could-tap-devices-for-ad-targeting-will-pay-880k-settlement/ Still, the Cox settlement is a great criti-hype object lesson, a reminder that these creepy, lying companies lie to everyone, including their customers, which means that even if you're paying for the product, you're still the product. Hey look at this (permalink) Hating AI is good, actually https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/hating-ai-is-good-actually The Labour Party’s Main Problem Isn’t Losing Voters to Reform https://jacobin.com/2026/05/uk-elections-labour-reform-greens Flipper One — we need your help https://blog.flipper.net/flipper-one-we-need-your-help/ London mayor Sadiq Khan blocks £50m Met police deal with Palantir https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/may/21/london-mayor-sadiq-khan-blocks-met-police-deal-with-palantir Do AI Risks Require Extraordinary Government Intervention? https://www.normaltech.ai/p/do-ai-risks-require-extraordinary?hide_intro_popup=true Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Best email disclaimer award https://web.archive.org/web/20010526174903/http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/35/19057.html #25yrsago Kaycee hoax FAQ https://web.archive.org/web/20010629212706/https://rootnode.org/article.php?sid=26 #25yrsago Crisis management in Ultima Online https://web.archive.org/web/20010605015828/http://www.newyorker.com/FACT/ #25yrsago E3 is all softcore porn now https://web.archive.org/web/20010702122044/https://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/05/22/e3_2001/print.html #25yrsago Canadian payphone infinite long distance glitch https://web.archive.org/web/20010608183145/https://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,43967,00.html #20yrsago Kids make a sport out of outsmarting school web-filters https://web.archive.org/web/20060821224237/http://news.com.com/Kids+outsmart+Web+filters/2009-1041-6062548.html #20yrsago Orphan works legislation https://web.archive.org/web/20060531135239/http://www.copybites.com/2006/05/chairman_lamar_.html #20yrsago U. Florida cops ask fiction writer for fingerprints, DNA https://memex.craphound.com/2006/05/22/u-florida-cops-ask-fiction-writer-for-fingerprints-dna/ #20yrsago HDMI, the Manchurian DRM – a Broadcast Flag dormant until 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20060523193853/https://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060521-6880.html #15yrsago The Filter Bubble: how personalization changes society https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/22/the-filter-bubble-how-personalization-changes-society/ #15yrsago Last decade’s English libel legal sharks poised to make a new fortune on stupid privacy lawsuits and superinjuctions https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/22/last-decades-english-libel-legal-sharks-poised-to-make-a-new-fortune-on-stupid-privacy-lawsuits-and-superinjuctions/ #15yrsago RIAA boss takes home $3 mil+ https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2011/05/21/another-member-of-the-overpaid/ #15yrsago Vindictive game company invites employees to pan reviewer’s novel after bad review https://maroonersrock.com/2011/05/conduit-2-developer-calls-for-internal-retaliation-against-author-of-negative-joystiq-review/ #15yrsago France lobbies G8 for Internet control and censorship https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2011/05/20/frances-g8-focuses-on-control-and-restrictions-to-online-freedoms/ #15yrsago Budweiser nunchuks: American Ninja https://web.archive.org/web/20110701153712/http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/2011/05/19/american-ninja/ #15yrsago GOP legislative aide works on punitive voter ID bill, boasts of illegally voting in another district https://web.archive.org/web/20110522014606/http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/article_ede5d49e-8272-11e0-a6e0-001cc4c03286.html #15yrsago Raising a kid without disclosing their sex https://web.archive.org/web/20110523180952/http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/babiespregnancy/babies/article/995112–parents-keep-child-s-gender-secret #15yrsago Byron Sonne: Canadian security geek jailed for taunting G20 security theatre https://web.archive.org/web/20110518195236/http://www.torontolife.com/daily/informer/from-print-edition-informer/2011/05/03/how-byron-sonne’s-obsessions-with-the-g20-security-apparatus-cost-him-everything/ #15yrsago HOWTO make a SNES cartridge urinal https://blog.pricecharting.com/2011/05/how-to-build-video-game-urinal.html #15yrsago German police raid German Pirate Party’s servers two days before election https://web.archive.org/web/20120516010632/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/german-police-seize-pirate-party-servers-looking-at-anons-toolkit/ #10yrsago JJ Abrams urges Paramount to drop its lawsuit over fan Star Trek movie https://web.archive.org/web/20160522121940/https://deadline.com/2016/05/star-trek-axanar-lawsuit-ending-jj-abrams-paramount-1201760721/ #10yrsago Pat Buchanan on the Republican Party’s historical opposition to free trade deals https://web.archive.org/web/20160521162845/http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/free-trade-vs-the-republican-party/ #10yrsago United offered men-only “executive” flights until 1970 https://viewfromthewing.com/united-airlines-men-only-executive-service/ #10yrsago Elderly man kills wife because they couldn’t afford her medicine https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/us/florida-man-says-he-killed-sick-wife-because-he-couldnt-afford-her-medicine-sheriffs-say.html?_r=0 #10yrsago Sex Criminals: Robin Hood bank robbers who can stop time when they orgasm https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/21/sex-criminals-robin-hood-bank-robbers-who-can-stop-time-when-they-orgasm/ #10yrsago Airbnb stealth-updates terms of service, says it’s not an insurer and requires binding arbitration https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/20/airbnb-stealth-updates-terms-of-service-says-its-not-an-insurer-and-requires-binding-arbitration/ #10yrsago Oculus breaks promise, uses DRM to kill app that let you switch VR systems https://web.archive.org/web/20160520161939/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/new-oculus-drm-cross-platform #10yrsago Nintendo claims ownership over fans’ Minecraft/Mario mashups https://web.archive.org/web/20160521193334/http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/nintendo-issues-copyright-claims-on-mario-themed-minecraft-videos/ #10yrsago Paypal refuses to deliver online purchases to UK addresses containing “Isis” https://b2fxxx.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-tyranny-of-algorithm-yet-again.html #10yrsago 30 students debate mass surveillance on Capitol Hill https://web.archive.org/web/20160521000031/https://theintercept.com/2016/05/20/high-school-debaters-bring-surveillance-encryption-arguments-to-capitol-hill/ #10yrsago What the NSA’s assault on whistleblowers taught Snowden https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/22/how-pentagon-punished-nsa-whistleblowers #10yrsago Massive, coordinated ATM heist in Japan nets $12.7 million (¥1.4 billion) https://web.archive.org/web/20160523102154/http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160522/p2g/00m/0dm/044000c #5yrsago How the Sacklers rigged the game https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/23/a-bankrupt-process/#sacklers #5yrsago Consent theater https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/20/consent-theater/ #5yrsago Debunking the arguments for vaccine apartheid https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/21/wait-your-turn/#vaccine-apartheid #5yrsago How the filibuster dies https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/22/not-with-a-bang/#theory-of-change #1yrago Strange Bedfellows and Long Knives https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/21/et-tu-sloppy-steve/#fractured-fairytales #1yrago The meritocracy to eugenics pipeline https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/20/big-cornflakes-energy/#caliper-pilled Upcoming appearances (permalink) SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: TBA, Jun 23 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: TBA, Jun 25 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Shopping isn't politics (21 May 2026)
- Thu, 21 May 2026 15:03:37 +0000
Today's links Shopping isn't politics: The personal isn't political. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Neither arphid nor RFID; Gor novel sex slave cult; Violent economist sex criminals; Vade et caca in pilleum et ipse traheatur super aures tuo; "We Stand on Guard"; Healthy FLOSS; Lawsuits 2.0; CDC v zombie apocalypse; Gandhi's speeches; Apple v games about Palestine; Second Life chuds v Bernie; UK was never a "white" country; Dead, broke; Who Broke the Internet? (III) Upcoming appearances: Hay-on-Wye, London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Shopping isn't politics (permalink) I've written before about the futility of "voting with your wallet." Billionaires love it when you try to vote with your wallet, because while billionaires only represent 0.00004% of the population, their wallets are 100,000 times larger than average, which means that when we vote with wallets, a billionaire's vote counts 100,000 times more than yours: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/13/consumption-choices/ The idea of voting with your wallet is fundamentally antiprogressive, and not only because wallet-voting favors the wealthy. The ideological basis for voting with your wallet is the belief that politics are slow and unresponsive, while markets dynamically optimize for human wellbeing. By voting with your wallet, you are supposedly injecting information about your preferences and dispreferences into a vast, distributed computer we call "the market," which uses "demand signals" to decide how we live our lives. This belief is incompatible with the idea of politics – that is, the idea that our lives can be shaped by representative democracy, deliberation, and/or solidarity. It's a nihilistic view that insists that the only nice things we can have are the things that "the market" chooses for us. If "the market" doesn't decide to swap out fossil fuels for cleantech, then that's that – any attempt to draw down our carbon emissions through regulation will only "distort the market." If you're roasting in a drought, drowning in a flood, or being incinerated by a wildfire, your only move is to go shopping and hope that by buying a Tesla, you will emit a "demand signal" that "tips the market equilibrium" to "not killing you and everyone you love." Shopping isn't politics. Politics are politics, and shopping is shopping. This isn't to say shopping can't improve your life! I am a materialist, and having nice things is nice. If there's a lovely independent coffee shop in your neighborhood where the baristas are treated well and the coffee is delicious and the vibes are impeccable, then by all means, get your coffee there. If you love the staff and selections at your neighborhood indie bookstore, then you should buy your books there. If you love the discourse on Mastodon or Bluesky and find yourself feeling sick and angry when you use Twitter or Facebook, then ditch the legacy social media and take up residence in the Fediverse and/or Atmosphere. But don't kid yourself that this is politics. No matter how indie your coffee, books and social media, your consumption choices will not have a material impact on Starbucks, Amazon or Twitter. Going vegan won't make the meat industry treat animals better. Taking the bus won't induce improvements to your town's public transit network. Having nice things is nice, and the more nice things you have – good food, good health, good books, good coffee, good social media and good transit – the more space and energy you'll have to devote to politics. But what about boycotts? Surely the Montgomery bus boycott, the anti-Apartheid boycott, the California grape boycott and the BDS movement were politics, right? They sure were. But they weren't shopping. The Montgomery bus boycott lasted 382 days, during which time organizers worked with bus riders, cab drivers, the UAW and community groups to provide material and legal support and alternatives like car pools, all while communicating about their specific demands. After 382 days, the courts ruled in their favor, their demands were met, and Montgomery's buses desegregated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_bus_boycott That wasn't "shopping." The bus boycott didn't consist of a bunch of individual choices to walk to work, repeatedly made by a city full of Black people and their allies. The shopping part was the least important part of the whole matter, and the meaningful part of the shopping was never individual. If the boycott was nothing more than shopping, it would have broken as soon as individual people found themselves unable to convince their bosses to tolerate their late, sweaty arrival at work, day after day. The boycott worked because it was politics. And because the boycott was politics, it left behind a movement: the boycott brought people into solidarity with each other, and when they comprehensively defeated their political adversary – National City Lines – they went on to form the backbone of the civil rights movement, going from strength to strength. Of course, shopping is part of a boycott. It's the individual part that each participant in the boycott undertakes. But without the collective, organized part, shopping is no way to effect change. Is voting politics? Well, sure, but voting is to politics as shopping is to boycotts. For several decades now, most voters have been asked to chose the lesser of two evils (and now they're asked to choose the significantly lesser of two evils). Voting can change things, when there's something good to vote for, or something very bad to vote against, and when lots of people show up at the polls. But to make voting effective, you have to do politics. You have to get involved in the primary races that select the candidate. You have to go to candidates' meetings and ask tough questions. You have to ring doorbells for your chosen candidate, volunteer to take your neighbors to the polls and volunteer to defend the polls from chuds and ICE fascists. The part of voting that takes place in the booth is the least important part of politics. It's obvious why we might prefer to substitute voting or shopping for politics: they're activities you do alone. You don't have to find anyone else to do them with you. You don't have to convince anyone else to do them with you. You don't have to argue about them or justify them. They are zipless fucks, a source of satisfaction without connection, compromise or complication. Of course, that's also why voting and shopping make a poor substitute for politics. All the retail therapy in the world can't lift your spirits the way that solidarity and community will. Doing politics creates solidaristic ties with the people around you, who might help you if you lose your job and can't buy groceries, or break your leg and can't get to the grocery store, or if ICE fascists try to kidnap you while you're out shopping. Solidarity gets you through times of no money way better than money gets you through times of no solidarity – just ask the psycho billionaires who wanted Doug Rushkoff to invent a system of bomb-collars that would keep their post-apocalyptic mercenaries from whacking them and stealing their bunkers: https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn Last weekend, I walked through a crowd of tens of thousands of coked-up fascists in central London on my way to meet up with 250,000 comrades marching for an end to genocide in Palestine and a new British social compact based on mutual aid, pluralism, and care. Walking through those flag-draped chuds was incredibly demoralizing: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2026/05/cokeheads-and-christians-a-day-at-tommy-robinsons-rally But when I got off the tube at South Kensington and found there were so many of us we were backed up all the way from the every street entrance to the bottom of the escalators, my morale surged. Hours later, when we all reached Pall Mall together, I was ready to take on the world. That's what politics does for you: it makes you feel like you belong to a polity and that together, you can really change the world. Politics runs on solidarity, but shopping destroys it. Individual consumption choices don't change the world, but if you've been convinced that the only way to change the world is by voting with your wallet then when the world stays terrible, you can only conclude that your friends and neighbors have ruined by things by voting (shopping) wrong. In politics, we build bonds of mutual regard and understanding that we use to navigate our differences. But when you vote with your wallet, all that's left is the endless policing of your allies' consumption choices, endless scolding for their failure to leave Twitter, or give up meat, or eschew chatbots. Shopping for change ends up replacing politics with petty snooping and endless sniping and attempts to bully or shame people into consuming different things. If "the personal is political," then every political disappointment in your life is down to your friends' personal defects. If you let yourself get tricked into organizing your life around "living your politics" – that is, giving up on nice things in the hope that this will make politics change, and then getting mad at people who consume different things from you – then you will end up sucked into the stupidest fights imaginable with the people you need to get along with in order to do politics. Once again, this isn't to say that you shouldn't choose to have nice things. Buy stuff you like, shop at places you like. And when circumstances allow all of us to start making consumption choices in unison – as when Comrades Trump and Putin stage an orgy of demand-destruction for fossil fuels, catapulting the world into the Gretacene – then by all means, take the win. That is one of the rare instances in which we can do political change with consumption! https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/04/hope-in-the-dark/#hormuzed-into-the-gretacene And there definitely are times where a single individual can intervene in the system in a powerful way that really fucks up the worst actors in our society: https://www.theverge.com/tech/931532/bambu-agpl-pawel-jarczak-open-source-threat-dmca-github These usually involve using technology to "move fast and break things," which is fine, actually! It's fine to move fast and break things belonging to Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg or some other monster. Indeed, it's practically a moral imperative: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/30/zucksauce/#gandersauce But even in those highly leveraged, highly individualized opportunities to make a dent in the universe, you'll make a bigger dent, and have more fun, if you do it as politics, with a big group of people, in bonds of solidarity. Hey look at this (permalink) The Workers Who Defy Gravity https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/05/20/ai-companies-organized-labor-actors-fight-back/ Messages of Solidarity https://movement.wwwrise.org/solidarity The Enshittification of History https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2026/05/the-enshittification-of-histor.html Europe’s big tech bet is only as safe as its democracy https://defenddemocracy.eu/eu-tech-democracy/ Iran demands Big Tech pay fees for undersea Internet cables in Strait of Hormuz https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/iran-demands-big-tech-pay-fees-for-undersea-internet-cables-in-strait-of-hormuz/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Software-based antennas https://web.archive.org/web/20010518225333/http://www.etenna.com/ #25yrsago Aimster loses trademark to AOL https://web.archive.org/web/20010523001415/http://msnbc.com/news/575492.asp?cp1=1 #25yrsago House to ban online anonymity https://web.archive.org/web/20010526220254/https://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,43938,00.html #20yrsago Lawsuits of Web 2.0 https://web.archive.org/web/20060528001734/http://www.fuckedsuit.com/ #20yrsago Is one month’s piracy worth more than France’s GDP? https://decordove.com/one-month-of-torrents-is-worth-more-than-the-gdp-of-france-riaa-rant.php #20yrsago Audio from Bruce Sterling’s “Neither Arphid nor RFID” rant https://web.archive.org/web/20060614140414/https://dev1.manme.org.uk/~luke/Sterling_SPACE_160506.mp3 #20yrsago Cops raid “sex slave cult” based on science fiction novels http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4996410.stm #15yrsago Legal rebuttal: “vade et caca in pilleum et ipse traheatur super aures tuo” https://newyorkpersonalinjuryattorneyblog.com/2011/05/joseph-rakofsky-i-have-an-answer-for-you.html #15yrsago List of economists involved in violent sex crimes, for Ben Stein https://blog.xkcd.com/2011/05/18/answering-ben-steins-question/ #15yrsago MAFIAA wants warrantless searches of CD and DVD factories https://web.archive.org/web/20110520232527/https://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/riaa-warrantless-seizures/ #15yrsago CDC explains how to prepare for a zombie apocalypse https://web.archive.org/web/20110519201602/http://emergency.cdc.gov/socialmedia/zombies_blog.asp #10yrsago 129 of Gandhi’s speeches on India and self-rule https://archive.org/details/HindSwaraj?and[]=subject%3A"Post+Prayer+Speech" #10yrsago A backer message as Earth leaves beta and goes 1.0 https://web.archive.org/web/20160521054706/http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v533/n7603/full/533432a.html #10yrsago EFF files Chelsea Manning appeal on hacking conviction https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-asks-court-reverse-chelsea-mannings-conviction-violating-federal-anti-hacking-law #10yrsago Apple rejects game about Palestine because political messages disqualify games from consideration https://web.archive.org/web/20160520111154/https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/apple-says-game-about-palestinian-child-isnt-a-game/ #10yrsago Nerdcore rapper Sammus’s amazing OSCON keynote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELczJ07XPnw #10yrsago Everything is a Remix on “The Force Awakens” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKvsc6a03Es #10yrsago Angry dudes are downranking woman-oriented TV shows on review sites https://web.archive.org/web/20160519014153/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/men-are-sabotaging-the-online-reviews-of-tv-shows-aimed-at-women/ #10yrsago Second Life’s Trump army lays siege to Bernie Sanders’s virtual HQ with swastika cannons https://web.archive.org/web/20160428093534/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/second-life-donald-trump-bernie-sanders #10yrsago Xenophobic UK politician ranting about “political correctness” gets a public spanking from an historian https://web.archive.org/web/20160520224731/http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/ukip-councillor-attempts-to-blast-bbc-for-historical-inaccuracy-gets-destroyed-by-actual-historian–ZyZAasU2fb #10yrsago A look at digital habits of 13 year olds shows desire for privacy, face-to-face time https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2016/04/18/the-class-living-and-learning-in-the-digital-age/ #10yrsago Big Vitamin bankrolls naturopaths’ attempts to go legit and get public money https://web.archive.org/web/20160520123659/https://www.statnews.com/2016/05/17/naturopaths-go-mainstream/ #10yrsago We Stand on Guard: in 100 years, America seizes Canada for its water https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/18/we-stand-on-guard-in-100-years-america-seizes-canada-for-its-water/ #5yrsago Apple's complicity in Chinese state oppressionhttps://pluralistic.net/2021/05/18/unhealthy-balance-sheet/#think-manorialism #5yrsago Community Health Services sued its way through the pandemic https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/18/unhealthy-balance-sheet/#health-usury #5yrsago What Would Open Source Look Like If It Were Healthy https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/18/unhealthy-balance-sheet/#user-personas #5yrsago Dead, broke https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation #1yrago Who Broke the Internet? Part III https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/19/khan-thought/#they-were-warned Upcoming appearances (permalink) Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: TBA, Jun 23 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: TBA, Jun 25 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: There's no such thing as "age verification" (19 May 2026)
- Tue, 19 May 2026 07:17:09 +0000
Today's links There's no such thing as "age verification": The foreseeable and foreseen consequences of "something must be done"/"there, I've done something." Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Apple Stores exist; Responsible spam; Australia loves Hollywood('s copyright); TCP over Syrian donkey; Icelandic Pirate get funded; Algorithmic cruelty; Trump loves data brokers; Douglas Adams, vindicated; Blog history; Sex names; Flickr's Gamma; "Fuzzy Nation"; The Intercept publishes Snowden docs; Software version of CIA sabotage manual; Who owns covid vaccines? Anal clenching v depression; Web is 10; Danish birds x ringtones; Office-supply X-wing; Nintendo 3DS license sucks is unbelievably bad; Public Interest Internet. Upcoming appearances: Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. There's no such thing as "age verification" (permalink) "Object permanence" is the ability to understand that even if you can't see something, it still exists. Most toddlers acquire a thorough sense of object permanence by the age of two. But when it comes to technopolitics, object permanence eludes even full-grown lawmakers. These motherfuckers would lose a game of peek-a-boo. Over and over again, politicians are warned about the ways that their pet policies will a) produce enormous collateral damage, and; b) be easily evaded by the people they're seeking to control, giving rise to a cascade of ever-more extreme measures. And yet, they swallow a spider to catch a fly and then act baffled and hurt when we tell them it's their own damn fault that they now have to swallow a bird to catch the spider: https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/13/wanting-it-badly/#is-not-enough The foreseeable and foreseen consequences of bad technopolicy are all around us, but in the eternal now of a politics utterly devoid of object permanence, no one is allowed to remember what happened the last time we did something stupid, especially not when we're on the verge of doing that same stupid thing again, only worse: https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/07/foreseeable-outcomes/#calea Technopolitics are defined by Bruce Schneier's "security syllogism," which goes, "Something must be done! There, I've done something." "Something" doesn't have to fix the problem, and "something" doesn't have to anticipate what will happen next. So long as "something" is done, the issue is resolved and the politician can chalk up a win. This gives rise to some genuinely bizarre consensus hallucinations, in which we pretend that the reality decreed by policy matches up with actual reality. Take "streaming." There is no such thing as "streaming." A "stream" is just "a download that is transmitted to an application that doesn't have a 'Save As…' button": https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/01/fulu/#i-am-altering-the-deal Once you decree that there is such a thing as a stream, you must bend heaven and earth to ensure that no "Save As…" buttons are added to the "streaming" program. You have to pass laws that make it illegal to inspect code. To modify code. To report on defects in code. To index information about defects in code. To index information about mods. To link to indices that compile defects and mods. You have to swallow the fly, the spider, the bird, the cat, the dog, and the whole damned horse: https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/ Then there's that perennial fave, "bans on working cryptography." To ban working cryptography, you have to outlaw free/open source software. You have to inspect every device that comes into your country. You have to erect a Great Firewall that blocks every site that might carry working cryptography. You make it impossible to reliably update the software in pacemakers, anti-lock brakes and nuclear power plants, and you make it easy for identity thieves, foreign powers and corporate spies to raid your government, your corporations, and your households – and it still won't work! https://memex.craphound.com/2018/09/04/oh-for-fucks-sake-not-this-fucking-bullshit-again-cryptography-edition/ The latest consensus hallucination to take over our political classes is "age verification," a thing that manifestly does not exist. You can't "verify the age" of an internet user – you can only attempt to attribute every byte that traverses the entire internet to affirmatively identified persons: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-think-of-the-cryptographers This comes at enormous cost. It is a gift to every future dictator, every identity thief, and every would-be sexual exploiter of children, who will have access to the hacked, leaked, and badly secured troves of data that this doomed effort produces. Yes, doomed. Because even when it comes to kids, "age verification" is just a way of convincing young people to familiarize themselves with VPNs. This was entirely obvious from the very instant that "age verification" was mooted, and yet our policymakers pretended they couldn't hear the chorus of people who pointed it out to them. When cornered on the issue, they were affronted: "Can't you see that something must be done? How dare you attempt to stop me from doing something?" And now, every single one of these chucklefucks is proposing bans on VPNs, from Utah: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/utahs-new-law-regulating-vpns-goes-effect-next-week To the UK: https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/05/18/mozilla-warns-uk-breaking-vpns-will-not-magically-fix-britains-age-check-mess/5241770 They were warned that this would happen. We told them not to swallow that fly. Now we're telling them not to swallow whole bucketloads of spiders. I fully expect that next year, they'll be telling us that once they swallow this herd of horses, it will all be OK. (Image: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos, https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html, modified) Hey look at this (permalink) November Reign https://theneedlenews.com/2026/05/november-reign/ The Filipino virtual assistants behind LinkedIn's "thought leadership" content mill https://restofworld.org/2026/virtual-assistant-linkedin-engagement/ rip.so https://rip.so/ On the Media: American Emergency https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/american-emergency-movement-kill-fema DMA: The FSFE intervenes against Apple before European Court of Justice for the second time https://fsfe.org/news/2026/news-20260519-01.en.html The Ox That's Breaking Your Fantasy Map https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIqpvpNS5pI Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago The Hubble Constant is 42 https://web.archive.org/web/20010607103335/http://www.best.com/~sirlou/42.html #25yrsago The history of weblogs http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html #25yrsago Head-shaver’s FAQ https://web.archive.org/web/20010616023912/http://www.geocities.com/shaverg/ #25yrsago "Sex" in your surname https://web.archive.org/web/20010830005021/http://bissex.net/paul/profanity.gif #25yrsago Apple announces retail stores https://web.archive.org/web/20010521193320/http://www.apple.com/retail/ #25yrsago ISOC standard for "responsible" spam https://web.archive.org/web/20030923030913/ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3098.txt #25yrsago Anal clenching v depression https://web.archive.org/web/20011201070537/http://members.aol.com/nishigaki3/index.htm?mtbrand=AOL_US #25yrsago The Web is 10 https://www.w3.org/Talks/C5_17_May_91.html #25yrsago Danish birds imitate ringtones https://web.archive.org/web/20010603204210/http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_288774.html?menu #20yrsago Wired News publishes damning docs from EFF vs AT&T https://web.archive.org/web/20060602044459/http://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70908-0.html #20yrsago Canadian privacy commissioners against DRM https://web.archive.org/web/20060530122338/https://www.intellectualprivacy.ca/ #20yrsago How the RIAA’s suit against XM came from Napster, MP3.com and Grokster https://web.archive.org/web/20060524092537/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004679.php #20yrsago Gmail downgraded, no longer cracks PDFs https://web.archive.org/web/20060603055956/https://akira.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/andreas/blog/archives/2006/05/gmail-cripples-drmed-pdf-files-view-as-html-functionality.html #20yrsago Australia puts out for Hollywood with new copyright law https://web.archive.org/web/20060520192521/https://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives//004567.html #20yrsago FeedRinse: filters for your RSS and a happier Internet https://web.archive.org/web/20060915062158/http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/archives/003114.html #20yrsago Flickr goes Gamma https://web.archive.org/web/20081219225627/http://blog.flickr.net/en/2006/05/16/alpha-beta-gamma/ #15yrsago UK copyright reforms sound sane, useful https://web.archive.org/web/20160724041821/https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/may/17/copyright-law-overhaul-for-uk #15yrsago Life with Ubuntu and a ThinkPad https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/17/computing-opensource #15yrsago Scalzi’s Fuzzy Nation: a masterful, likable reboot of one of the great sf classics https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/16/scalzis-fuzzy-nation-a-masterful-likable-reboot-of-one-of-the-great-sf-classics/ #15yrsago Piracy sends “Go the Fuck to Sleep” to #1 on Amazon https://web.archive.org/web/20110516023258/http://www.baycitizen.org/books/story/go-f-sleep-case-viral-pdf/ #15yrsago Serendipity, the net and cities: are we living in bubbles? Do we have to? https://ethanzuckerman.com/2011/05/12/chi-keynote-desperately-seeking-serendipity/ #15yrsago Texas close to banning TSA searches, TSA invents desperate new constitutional interpretations https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/05/14/in-public-statement-tsa-lies-about-the-constitution/ #15yrsago Syrian dissidents use donkeys to smuggle videos to Jordan https://web.archive.org/web/20110518132126/http://www.dbune.com/news/world/6097-donkeys-take-over-from-dsl-as-syria-shuts-down-internet.html #15yrsago Walter Jon Williams uses pirate ebooks to rescue his backlist https://www.walterjonwilliams.net/2011/05/crowdsource-please/ #15yrsago Chicago water boss: if we took the sewage out of the Chicago River, people might swim and drown! https://web.archive.org/web/20110516121105/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chibrknews-official-cleaning-chicago-river-a-waste-of-money-20110513,0,7553787.story #15yrsago HOWTO Make an office-supply X-Wing Fighter https://www.instructables.com/X-Wing-Fighter-from-Office-Supplies/ #15yrsago Yale opens up image library, starts with 250,000 free images https://web.archive.org/web/20110514111440/https://opac.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=8544 #15yrsago Nintendo 3DS license: We’ll brick your device if we don’t like your software choices, you have no privacy, we own your photos https://web.archive.org/web/20110518014329/https://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/227957/nintendo_3ds_targeted_in_antidrm_campaign.html #10yrsago Copyright trolls Rightscorp are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy https://web.archive.org/web/20160518103417/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/anti-piracy-firm-rightscorps-q1-financials-read-like-an-obituary/ #10yrsago Trump campaign cancels interview after overhearing reporter speaking in Spanish https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adriancarrasquillo/trump-campaign-canceled-a-reporters-interview-after-they-hea#.ul9L3rXy8 #10yrsago Phoenix airport threatens to kick out TSA, hire private (unaccountable) contractors https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2016/0514/Is-Phoenix-airport-opting-out-of-the-TSA #10yrsago US Gov’t survey: Half of Americans reluctant to shop online due to privacy & security fears https://www.ntia.gov/federal-register-notice/2016/request-comments-benefits-challenges-and-potential-roles-government-fostering-advancement-internet #10yrsago Iceland’s Pirate Party to receive millions in election funding https://web.archive.org/web/20160514102817/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/icelands-pirate-party-secures-more-election-funding-than-all-its-rivals-as-it-continues-to-top-polls-a7027606.html #10yrsago Nebula Award swept by record number of women writers https://gizmodo.com/women-swept-the-2015-the-nebula-awards-1776706665 #10yrsago Algorithmic cruelty: when Gmail adds your harasser to your speed-dial https://web.archive.org/web/20160515184025/https://blog.lizdenys.com/2016/05/14/inboxs-accidentally-abusive-algorithm/ #10yrsago Transport for London blames Tube delays on “wrong type of sun” https://web.archive.org/web/20160516133847/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/london-underground-blame-too-much-sunshine-for-tube-delays-a7031986.html #10yrsago The Intercept begins publishing Snowden docs https://web.archive.org/web/20160516172510/https://theintercept.com/snowden-sidtoday/ #10yrsago A software developer’s version of the CIA’s bureaucratic sabotage manual https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/05/updating-a-classic.html #5yrsago Who owns the covid vaccines? https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/16/entrepreneurial-state/#patient-zero-money #5yrsago Big Pharma's vicious battle against universal covid vaccination https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/15/how-to-rob-a-bank/#roll-the-dice #5yrsago The S&L crisis perfected finance crime https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/15/how-to-rob-a-bank/#crimogenics #5yrsago Newsom's California fiber dream https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/15/how-to-rob-a-bank/#fiber-now #5yrsago The Public Interest Internet https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/17/disgracenote/#enclosure #5yrsago Paygo, false consciousness and the IRS https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/17/disgracenote/#false-consciousness #1yrago Trump's CFPB kills data broker rule https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/15/asshole-to-appetite/#ssn-for-sale Upcoming appearances (permalink) Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: TBA, Jun 23 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: TBA, Jun 25 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Making sense of Trump's unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire (16 May 2026)
- Sat, 16 May 2026 08:35:41 +0000
Today's links Making sense of Trump's unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire: Don't mistake "powerful" for "durable." Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Copyrighted law; Viral videos v cops; Crooked banker v tiny bat; "Infested"; Can the means of computation be seized? Upcoming appearances: Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, LA, Menlo Park, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Making sense of Trump's unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire (permalink) For generations, the American empire was the most powerful force on earth, and so we tended to assume that it was the most durable force on earth – surely anything so powerful must also be eternal? But power and durability aren't the same thing, as Le Guin reminded us with her oft-quoted maxim that "We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings": https://www.ursulakleguin.com/nbf-medal Monarchs may be powerful, but that power is derived from a manifestly incorrect belief in special blood, a belief that requires monarchs to inbreed. At best, this produces heads of state who can't stop bleeding and also can't tell you if their blood is blue or red; at worst, it yields heads of state who can't speak intelligibly, much less produce another generation of royals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain Oligarchy also produces a sequence of progressively weirder and more terrible rulers who rely on a mix of lies, flattery, coercion and personal cult nonsense to hold their coalition together in the face of mounting evidence for the system's bankruptcy. Thus Reagan begat GW Bush, who begat Trump, whose potential successors are a kennel of the least-charismatic chud podcasters ever to curse an RSS feed. Trump's second term has resulted in a rapid, unscheduled, mid-air disassembly of the American empire. As Baldur Bjarnason writes, under Trump, America "first turned on their trading partners, then their allies in Europe, and then they delivered one of this century’s biggest economic and energy crises to their allies in Asia": https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/the-old-world-of-tech-is-dying/ The line comes from an excellent post entitled "The old world of tech is dying and the new cannot be born," about the impact of Trump's de-Americanization of the world on the US tech industry, and thus the world's relationship to tech more broadly. As Bjarnason writes, Trump's tech giants dominate the world because America dominates the world. It's not because the world likes American tech. As Bjarnason writes: They are, more often than not, about as popular and respected as tobacco or pharmaceutical companies – some of them and their products are polling in terms of public sentiment in ranges similar to child molesters or authoritarian immigration enforcement entities – and their CEOs are some of the more despised public figures in recent history. These very, very unpopular tech companies dominate because American trade policy insists that they must. They are allowed to violate local laws because stopping them from doing so would result in trade sanctions. It's true that US tech companies face fines abroad from time to time, but these are "the price list for inflicting societal suffering. Pick the one that suits your business model." US trading partners haven't really attempted to extinguish the unlawful conduct of US tech companies. All of that is up for grabs now, thanks to Trump's uncontrollable compulsion to repeatedly hormuz himself (and America) in the foot. But – as Bjarnason writes – this didn't start with Trump. As ever, Trump is as much an effect as a cause, and the most important cause of Trump is the conversion of America into a financial economy, which started under Reagan, but was only finalized by Obama, who let the Wall Street looters who destroyed the world economy walk away unscathed, even as they stole the homes of millions of Americans: https://web.archive.org/web/20170130083243/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/16/how-barack-obama-paved-way-donald-trump-racism Financial economies "suck the air out of the rest of the economy and make it less competitive." Keeping billionaires in megayachts comes at the expense of "research, education, infrastructure, and healthcare." Countries that financialize lag behind countries where the economy is based on making things, not extracting or financing things. Generations of both imperial looting and domestic investment made America the richest country on earth. That wealth cushioned America's transition to oligarchy: for a while, the country could survive both "finance and billionaire parasites sucking its blood" and continue to invest in itself. But while you can double the wealth of a billionaire at the expense of a town or two, doubling the wealth of a centibillionaire requires the destruction of whole regions. As America looted itself into irrelevance, China – a very different kind of autocracy – invested in domestic capacity and domestic consumption. China's hardly a well-run place: like any autocracy, it functions according to the whims of extremely fallible officials, which produces real-estate bubbles and other crises of production (to say nothing of the demographic crisis of the One Child policy) and necessitates steadily increasing oppression, from online surveillance to concentration camps in Xinjiang. Bjarnason writes about how this Chinese/US world presents a "double bind" for the EU. Siding with the US is increasingly untenable: the EU exists in large part to promote its domestic industries, but the US is no longer content to leave these alone. As Bjarnason says, US economic policy is now, "whatever our oligarchs want to steal this month, they get." US tech has extended so many tendrils into so many sectors that it's not possible to defend any industrial sector without impinging on the "technopoly," where "the only ideas and thoughts that have social and cultural legitimacy are those that support, are supported by, and are mediated through technology." This means that continuing to work within the American system means a steady transfer of economic and political control of every aspect of your life to the US, a decaying empire ruled over by a mad king. Nevertheless, there is a strong, vestigial reflex to protect American tech in the EU, which leaves European power-brokers scrambling to come up with reasons that the EU should confine its tech regulation to empty symbolic gestures, while avoiding meaningful action at all costs: https://cerre.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CERRE_Horizontal-Interoperability-of-Social-Networking-Services.pdf But the American tech sector relies on the other sources of American power – the ones that Trump is so bent on destroying. Trump's de-dollarization of the world economy is pushing the world away from using American tech for payment processing and networking. The American empire created the form of the US tech sector. As Bjarnason writes, "without the weight of the US political empire behind it – if Airbnb or Uber had been local startups – much fewer countries in the world would have loosened their regulations and consumer protections to accommodate them to the point where they prospered as they did." Trump isn't the first US leader to make a strategic blunder (the US has lost every war it's fought since WWII, after all). But Trump's blunders are different in that they "deliberately signal the end [the US] empire." Hormuz and tariffs have driven people away from the US dollar, and everyone knows who to blame for the senseless deaths in the Gulf and the global privation caused by oil rationing. That's bad news for a software industry that "shifted its entire value proposition from 'we make tools that help you make or save money' to using political clout and the dollar hegemony to capture, control, and loot entire sectors of the various economies of the world. That strategy only works when you’re in charge." DOGE wiped out the health systems of the global south, and now Trump's trade negotiators are demanding that these countries promise to keep their hands off of US tech in exchange for reinstating a small trickle of the aid they lost. These countries are rejecting those demands: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/zambia-says-us-health-deal-must-be-uncoupled-minerals-access-2026-05-04/ It's all up for grabs, in other words. The post-American internet is being born in a post-American world, and the shape of both is impossible to determine from this side of the veil. Bjarnason quotes Gramsci: "the old is dying and the new cannot be born." I hold out high hopes for a world of international digital public goods: free and open software that replaces America's extractive, defective black boxes with transparent, auditable, trustworthy alternatives that are under the control of the people who use them: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/16/pascals-wager/#doomer-challenge But – as Bjarnason says – even the intellectual property framework that the free/open source movement relies on to make its licenses enforceable is an artifact of the collapsing American empire. If the global copyright system collapses with America, there won't be any impediments to reverse-engineering and improving the tech around us – but there also won't be any way to enforce the free software licenses that keep that software open: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/02/limited-monopoly/#petardism The whole essay is very good and – like so many great essays – it raises more questions than it answers. It's also full of standout one-liners like this one: How do LLMs affect productivity and quality? (Much like leaded petrol. There’s some potential benefit for individual users with literally decades of expertise, provided nobody else uses LLMs. The results are catastrophic when everybody is using them.) Consider moving it to the top of your weekend reading. Hey look at this (permalink) Your Power Tools Got Worse On Purpose https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-power-tools-got-worse-on-purpose The privilege of bad writers https://coreyrobin.com/2026/05/15/the-privilege-of-bad-writers/ AI as the new avatar of American capitalism https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-as-the-new-avatar-of-american Cucked Internet Theory https://www.tikviewer.com/video/7639554103340698912 Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/05/bill-to-keep-online-games-playable-clears-key-hurdle-in-california/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Is the law copyrighted? https://web.archive.org/web/20010519134232/http://www.uniontrib.com/news/uniontrib/sun/news/news_1n13own.html #15yrsago Canadian copyright collective wants a music tax on memory cards https://web.archive.org/web/20110517205114/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5798/125/ #10yrsago FBI Director: viral videos make cops afraid to do their jobs https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/us/comey-ferguson-effect-police-videos-fbi.html?_r=2 #10yrsago Banker implicated in one of history’s biggest frauds says boss beat him with a tiny baseball bat https://web.archive.org/web/20160516173952/http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/barclays-banker-accused-rigging-libor-rate-hit-assistant-baseball-bat-1559792 #10yrsago Infested: an itchy, fascinating natural history of the bed bug https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/14/infested-an-itchy-fascinating-natural-history-of-the-bed-bug/ #5yrsago A weapon of mass financial destruction https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/14/billionaire-class-solidarity/#club-deals #1yrago Are the means of computation even seizable? https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/14/pregnable/#checkm8 Upcoming appearances (permalink) Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: No one wants a permanent gerontocracy (15 May 2026)
- Fri, 15 May 2026 12:38:04 +0000
Today's links No one wants a permanent gerontocracy: The one policy everyone agrees on. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Wolfengitmo; Facebook condemns Google privacy invasion; Michael Moore on bin Laden; TSA v babies; Tendril perversion; "Buy now"; Uber Ch(eats); Who Broke the Internet (II)? Upcoming appearances: Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. No one wants a permanent gerontocracy (permalink) Perhaps the most demoralizing part of Trumpismo is the fear that the people around you are so cruel and senseless that they approve of the violence, the racism, the pig-ignorant lies and rampant theft: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/08/who-goes-maga/ One of the things keeping me going in these dark days is the pollster G Elliot Morris, whose "Strength in Numbers" newsletter is a reliable, robust and nuanced source of information about the way other people – including Trump's base – feel about him from moment to moment. Reading items like "A reminder: Very few people support Donald Trump's presidency" make it easier to get through the day: https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/a-reminder-very-few-people-support It's a very good piece, breaking down the collapse in support for Trumpismo and confidence in Trump's mental health, even among the people who have historically stood by him, even though – incredibly! – about a third of Americans still support him and believe in his fitness to rule. But the most interesting part of this post is the eye-popping poll result on a question that is only incidentally about Trump: the extremely broad, bipartisan support for both age limits and term limits for the House, the Senate, the Presidency and the Supreme Court. How broad and bipartisan are these results? 80% of Americans want age limits in the House and Senate (D78%, R83%; I79%); Most Americans want age limits for the presidency (R73%, I61%) (the most popular age limit is 79); Most Americans (65%) want an 18-year term limit for Supreme Court justices; Most Americans (79%) want age limits for Supreme Court justices. As Morris writes, this represents "a level of cross-partisan agreement that’s almost unheard of on a high-salience issue." There are different ways to parse this out. The past decade has shown that, in the absence of a hard rule to the contrary, incumbents will stay in office long after it's obvious they should step down. That was true of Biden, who continued to campaign for a presidential term long after it was obvious that he was no longer physically and mentally capable of doing the job. It was true of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg, whose commitment to the symbolic value of having her successor appointed by the first woman president allowed Trump to appoint the monstrous Amy Coney Barrett to a lifetime on the Supreme Court, which could well last another 30 years. It was true of Antonin Scalia, who would have handed a Supreme Court pick to the Obama administration if it wasn't for Mitch McConnell's willingness to steal a seat for Neal Gorsuch. It's true of Kay Granger, a sitting congresswoman whose staff hid the fact that her dementia had progressed to the point that she had to be moved to an assisted living facility – while still holding office: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/14/kay-granger-dementia-dc-media-00210317 It was true of Gerry Connolly, who insisted that he – not AOC – should be the head of the Oversight Committee, despite the fact that he was dying of cancer: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/rep-gerry-connolly-announces-return-of-cancer-steps-down-as-top-oversight-democrat It was true of Dianne Feinstein, who continued to serve in the Senate despite having advanced dementia: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/04/sen-dianne-feinsteins-saga-is-a-very-public-example-of-a-national-crisis/ These politicians are wed to a system of seniority and patronage that insists that everyone who "pays their dues" should get a turn. It's a system that relies on politicians banking favors from their peers and then paying them back by anointing successors, thus requiring politicians to serve until they are ready to choose that successor. We have created a system in which no one dares to hand over power, because to do so is to unilaterally disarm, while the other side keeps their permanent gerontocrats in positions of authority. Not only does this system starve the pipeline of young politicians who can progress to fill those new roles, it also exposes each party to significant risk. If your majority rests on a handful of seats and your caucus includes a dozen people who are actuarially certain to die soon, then the whole system could be upended by a couple of highly likely blood-clots: https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/01/designated-survivors/ It's not that every politician over the age of 70 (or 80, or 85) is incapable of doing the job: it's that a system that runs on a mix of incumbency advantage, seniority, patronage and hubris is a bad system and the only fix for it is to put hard limits on terms – both based on how many years you hold office, and how many years you walk the earth. The system where everyone who pays their dues gets a turn was never going to work, and that should have been especially obvious to the system's longest-tenured participants, who've had decades to notice how long-lived their colleagues are, and to compare those lifespans to the number of committee chairs, senate seats and other treasures there are to be had in the halls of power. There are lots of good ideas – like abolishing the Electoral College or limiting political spending – that are popular with a majority of Americans, but these ideas are often very unpopular with conservatives: https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/18/the-people-no/#tell-ya-what-i-want-what-i-really-really-want But this is a realm in which – as Morris says – there is "almost unheard-of…cross-partisan agreement." It's the one idea that all Americans – including older Americans (at least the ones who aren't in the House, Senate or Oval Office; or on the Supreme Court) agree on: rule by permanent gerontocracy is bad, and should end. In not so many months, both parties are going to have to pick their next presidential candidates (in the case of Republicans, it may be sooner, depending on Trump's cheeseburger intake). Those primary contests are going to implicitly raise the issue of whether we should be ruled according to the principle of "everyone who pays their dues gets a turn." But a shrewd politician could win a lot of favor among voters (and fury among their colleagues) by campaigning on age- and term-limits for high office. (Image: Pacamah, CC BY-SA 4.0, modified) Hey look at this (permalink) Internet of Shit: AI Poop Analysis App Offered to Sell Me Database of Its Users' Poops https://www.404media.co/ai-poop-analysis-app-offered-to-sell-me-access-to-its-users-poops/ How companies weaponize the terms of service against you https://www.theverge.com/podcast/930342/brendan-ballou-companies-courts-forced-arbitration-lawsuits-scalia UK begins antitrust inquiry into Microsoft's business software ecosystem https://www.theregister.com/oses/2026/05/14/uk-begins-antitrust-inquiry-into-microsofts-business-software-ecosystem/5240452 Meta’s New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale https://www.wired.com/story/meta-layoffs-bad-vibes-mark-zuckerberg-ai/ Verity MCP https://www.iccl.ie/digital-data/verity-mcp/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago The life of a celeb PA https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/may/14/highereducation.comment #20yrsago DOJ moves in dark of night to quash EFF wiretapping lawsuit https://web.archive.org/web/20060524092447/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004659.php #20yrsago WolfenGitmo: Guantanamo Bay mod for Castle Wolfenstein https://web.archive.org/web/20060520203517/https://a.parsons.edu/~evan/school/?q=node/29 #20yrsago Where does booing come from? https://web.archive.org/web/20181215223044/https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/05/where-do-hecklers-come-from.html #15yrsago Steven Levy on Facebook’s ironic privacy charge against Google https://web.archive.org/web/20110514121727/https://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/05/facebook-privacy-problems/ #15yrsago Michael Moore’s “Some Final Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden” https://web.archive.org/web/20110513181408/https://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/some-final-thoughts-on-death-of-osama-bin-laden #15yrsago DHS’s “Secure Communities” program will deport battered woman for calling 9-1-1 on her abuser https://web.archive.org/web/20110514142235/https://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2011/05/isaura_garcia_battered_secure.php #15yrsago TSA: we’ll search your baby and it will make the country safer https://www.loweringthebar.net/2011/05/tsa-says-baby-frisking-justified.html #10yrsago Telcoms companies try to rescue TV by imposing Internet usage caps on cord-cutters https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/13/isps-are-now-forcing-cord-cutters-to-subscribe-to-tv-if-they-want-to-avoid-usage-caps/ #10yrsago The weird, humiliating nicknames George W Bush gave to everyone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_George_W._Bush #10yrsago “Tendril perversion”: when one loop of a coil goes the other way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendril_perversion #10yrsago Clicking “Buy now” doesn’t “buy” anything, but people think it does https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2778072 #5yrsago Uber (Ch)eats https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/13/uber-cheats/#50-companies #5yrsago The Democratic establishment https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/13/uber-cheats/#party-bosses #1yrago Who Broke the Internet? Part II https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/13/ctrl-ctrl-ctrl/#free-dmitry Upcoming appearances (permalink) Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Kickstarting "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI" (14 May 2026)
- Thu, 14 May 2026 11:04:43 +0000
Today's links Kickstarting "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI": How to be a better AI critic. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: RIP Douglas Adams; R2-trashcan; EFF v W3C; RIP shonky Disneyland; Stolen oligarch forks; Anal fisting site breached; "Reading With Pictures"; "Napier's Bones"; Trump v his base's welfare. Upcoming appearances: Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Kickstarting "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI" (permalink) My next book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, will be out in about a month – and (once again) Amazon's monopoly audiobook platform refuses to carry it, and so (once again) I'm pre-selling the audio, ebook and print edition in a Kickstarter campaign that proves that DRM-free isn't just the right way to reach an audience, it's also the best way to reach them: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai Reverse Centaur is a book about the realpolitik and the political economy of AI, written by a tech critic (me!) who is sick to the back teeth of hearing about AI. Central to the book's thesis: The AI bubble is exceptionally bad and dangerous: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/07/dump-the-pumpers/#alpo-eaters-anonymous The AI bubble is part of a lineage of pump-and-dump swindles created by monopolists who are desperate to convince investors that they can continue to grow even after they've saturated their markets: https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/06/privacy-last/#exceptionally-american In service to that stock swindle, AI companies have cooked up all kinds of ways to "juke the stats" to paint a false picture of AI adoption: https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/02/kpis-off/#principal-agentic-ai-problem AI is a normal technology, and in the absence of the bubble, we'd call this collection of technically interesting, sometimes useful tools "plug-ins": https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/19/now-we-are-six/#stock-buyback A chatbot can't do your job, but an AI salesman can absolutely convince your boss to fire you and replace you with a chatbot that can't do your job: https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/18/asbestos-in-the-walls/#government-by-spicy-autocomplete Despite the fact that the AI can't do your job, there are many ways that AI can be used to erode your wages and working conditions: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/06/empiricism-washing/#veena-dubal The workers who say that their jobs are worse and the things they produce are much worse as a result of AI are correct; but the workers who say their work is much better thanks to AI are also correct. This only seems like a riddle until you understand that the most important fact about any technology (including AI) isn't what it does, but who it does it for and who it does it to: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/11/vulgar-thatcherism/#there-is-an-alternative When a boss fires a worker and gives their jobs to an AI, it usually means that they don't care if that job is done well, which is why customer service jobs are being handed over to AI: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/06/unmerchantable-substitute-goods/#customer-disservice Bosses also love firing coders and replacing them with AI – first, because bosses are really angry about the decades when tech workers were in short supply and bosses had to pretend to like them, and second, because if you're selling AI as a way to replace workers, what better way to convince a potential customer than to fire the workers your own company depends upon? (All that said, the coders who are excited about their new AI coding tools have a point – when a worker is in charge of their work and thus when and how they use a tool, we should defer to their own experience): https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/05/ex-princes-of-labor/#hyper-criti-hype Artists are also a favorite target of AI bosses, which is weird, because the wages of creative workers add up to a total that rounds to zero when compared with the unimaginably large sums AI companies will have to take in if they are to pay back the trillions they've spent to date (let alone the trillions more they're proposing to spend in the near term). All of this raises a foundational question: can AI "art" ever be good? (Spoiler: probably not): https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/25/communicative-intent/#diluted Media companies say they have the answer to the AI art question: they'll create (or assert) a copyright that lets them control AI training. This is an incredibly transparent ruse: media companies are artists' class enemies, and if we get a new right to control AI training, our bosses will demand that we sign it away to them as part of their non-negotiable, one-sided standard contracts: https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/18/rights-without-power/#careful-what-you-wish-for For creative workers, the answer to these new would-be tech bosses isn't asserting a new right that will be expropriated by the old media bosses who've been ripping us off forever. Our salvation lies in leaning into the US Copyright Office's interpretation that holds that AI-generated works can't be copyrighted, because copyright is only for human creations. That means that the only way our bosses can get a copyright over the things they want to sell is to pay us to make them: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/03/its-a-trap-2/#inheres-at-the-moment-of-fixation Many of the seemingly urgent AI questions that people won't shut up about are distractions, because they assume that AI will lastingly infiltrate every part of our society. In reality, the AI companies are losing unimaginable amounts and have no path to profitability: https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/30/accounting-gaffs/#artificial-income The only jobs that AI can do better than humans are jobs that shouldn't exist, like figuring out how to maximize undetectable wage-theft: https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/18/loose-flapping-ends/#luigi-has-a-point AI is also really good at figuring out how to do individualized price-gouging, another thing that shouldn't exist: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/21/cod-marxism/#wannamaker-slain Despite AI's manifest unsuitability to do jobs that should exist, bosses keep firing people and replacing them with chatbots that do their jobs very badly. This allows bosses to indulge their solipsistic fantasy of a world without people, in which customers, workers and suppliers are statistical artifacts and bosses are unitary geniuses who simply imagine a product or service and then it is delivered, without any ego-shattering confrontations with people who know how to do things: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/05/fisher-price-steering-wheel/#billionaire-solipsism This is catastrophic, and not just for the parties involved today. The AI bubble will pop, and when it does, the chatbots that do these jobs (badly) will be switched off. Meanwhile, the workers those chatbots replaced will have retrained, retired, or become "discouraged." No one will be around to do those (necessary) jobs. AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our civilization and our descendants will be digging it out for generations: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/econopocalypse/#subprime-intelligence The real existential AI threat isn't that we'll accidentally teach the word-guessing program so many words that it awakens and becomes a vengeful god. The real risk is that when the bubble bursts we'll indulge the ruling class's reflex to austerity, and that this will continue the decades of mass economic traumatization that makes people into easy marks for fascists: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/12/always-great/#our-nhs But when the AI bubble pops, that won't be the end of AI – it will be the end of the bubble. When the AI bubble pops, we'll have mountains of GPUs at fire-sale prices, skilled workers liberated from the imperative to help their bosses promote their stock swindle, and open source models that will yield tremendous dividends to anyone who sets out to optimize them: https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/16/post-ai-ai/#productive-residue As you can see from the links above, I developed The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI in the same way that I developed Enshittification: in public, through a series of essays, which I periodically synthesized into major, widely shared speeches: https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop-that-bubble/#u-washington Making my working notes public is a hugely effective way of producing and refining critical work, and it's been my method for 25 years now: https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/ It's a method that's let me produce a string of international bestsellers, published by some of the largest publishers in the world. Nevertheless, Amazon refuses to carry my audiobooks: https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff That's because I have an iron-clad requirement that my work be sold in open formats, without the "digital rights management" that blocks you from moving the books you bought on Amazon to someone else's apps. Digital rights management (DRM) enjoys bizarre legal protections so that it's a felony for me to give you the tools you need to move the books I wrote out of an Amazon app and into a competitor's app: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/14/sole-and-despotic/#world-turned-upside-down What's more, these outrageous legal rights extend around the world, because the US Trade Representative spent decades bullying America's trading partners into passing laws that criminalize the act of fixing the defects in America's tech exports, which is why farmers can't fix their John Deere tractors, hospitals can't fix their Medtronic ventilators, and no one can sell you an app that stops Apple and Google from spying on your phone: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition Amazon's Audible controls 90% (!) of the audiobook market, and they will not sell any book unless they can permanently lock it to their platform. That means that every time a writer sells you an audiobook on Audible, they create a "switching cost" that stops you from leaving Audible for a competitor. Not only is this fundamentally unjust, it's also terrible for creators: if our audiences can't leave Amazon, then we can't leave Amazon either, which means Amazon can (and does!) steal millions of dollars from writers without losing our business: https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audiblegate Which is where these Kickstarter campaigns come in. Whenever I sell a new book to a publisher, I arrange to make my own independent audiobook for it, which I sell everywhere except the platforms that have mandatory DRM: Audible, Apple and Audiobooks.com. There are some very good DRM-free audiobook stores, notably Libro.fm and Downpour.com (Google Play also sells audiobooks without DRM). But most people have never heard of these, so it wasn't until I started pre-selling my audiobooks on Kickstarter that I was able to make my stubborn refusal to sell out to Audible into a paying proposition. My agent tells me that if I'd sold out to Audible, I'd have paid off my mortgage and I'd be able to give my kid a full ride through a fancy US college. I don't make that kind of money from these Kickstarters, but they do very well nevertheless, and they're a critical part of my family's finances. The Kickstarter is live for the next three weeks: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai You can pre-order print copies of Reverse Centaur, as well as DRM-free ebooks and audiobooks (narrated by me!) for Reverse Centaur and Enshittification. Normally, I offer custom-signed copies of the print books, but Enshittification was so successful that I haven't stopped touring it and I'm in a new city every couple of days, so there's no way I can reliably get into a warehouse to sign the latest batch of orders. Instead, I'll be posting the contact details for every bookstore that's hosting me on my tours (US in June, UK in September) and you can order signed copies from them, which I'll personalize after my events there so they can ship them to you. I've also decided to raise money for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), the nonprofit I've worked at for nearly 25 years. EFF is the oldest, best and most effective tech rights organization in the world, and its mission has only gotten more important over the years. EFF's outreach folks are offering a special membership package for backers of the Kickstarter, which includes an EFF hat and stickers, as well as an Enshittification pin and two Enshittification stickers: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/24/poop-emoji-plus-plus/#devin-washburn The audiobook is fully recorded and finalized and you can listen to the first hour of it here: https://archive.org/details/reverse-centaur-audio-sample It came out great (as always!), thanks to the terrific direction of Gabrielle De Cuir of Skyboat Media and editing from Wryneck Studios' John Taylor Williams. Gabrielle's directed all my audiobooks since 2017, and John's been mastering my podcasts since 2006 (!!), so we constitute a very well-oiled machine. Working out my ideas in public allows me to produce my Pluralistic newsletter, and with it, a large volume of free, high-quality work that's licensed under a generous Creative Commons license that lets anyone reproduce, translate, redistribute and even sell my articles. If you've enjoyed that work, I hope you'll consider backing the campaign! Selling books is how I pay the bills and keep the lights on, and as ever, this is the only way you can get a major publisher's ebooks and audiobooks with no DRM and no "terms of service." These are truly ebooks and audiobooks that you own. You can sell them, give them away, or lend them out – so long as you don't violate copyright law, we're all cool: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai Hey look at this (permalink) Pee To Melt ICE Free Urinal Stickers https://peetomeltice.com/ We Are Crashing Into the Future (Or It Is Crashing Into Us) https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/we-are-crashing-into-the-future/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago RIP, Douglas Adams http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1326657.stm #20yrsago Douglas Coupland models his life & books on net rumors about him https://web.archive.org/web/20060515220320/https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/posts.html?pg=6 #15yrsago Vindictive lumber baron’s far-flung heirs inherit, 91 years after his death https://abcnews.com/Business/lumber-barons-descendants-receive-inheritance-92-years-death/story?id=13569633 #15yrsago R2D2 trashcan https://web.archive.org/web/20171208014511/https://i.imgur.com/x3w0I.jpg #15yrsago Napier’s Bones: math and mysticism make for great international adventure https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/12/napiers-bones-math-and-mysticism-make-for-great-international-adventure/ #15yrsago China’s shonky Disneyland-a-like park closed https://web.archive.org/web/20110515073221/https://thedisneyblog.com/2011/05/13/fake-disney-theme-park-in-china-forced-to-close/ #10yrsago Open letter to from EFF to members of the W3C Advisory Committee https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/open-letter-members-w3c-advisory-committee #10yrsago Gallery show of forks stolen from rich people, sealed to preserve crumbs & saliva https://web.archive.org/web/20160505183026/https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/apr/27/crumbs-and-all-prince-harry-hillary-clinton-and-julia-gillard-have-cutlery-swiped-for-exhibition #10yrsago German publishers owe writers €100M in misappropriated royalties https://uebermedien.de/4444/schoener-verlegen-mit-dem-geld-anderer-leute/ #10yrsago Chinese state-backed corporations beat US lawsuits with sovereign immunity https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-usa-companies-lawsuits-idUSKCN0Y2131/ #10yrsago Anal fisting site breached: 100K passwords, usernames, email addresses and IPs extracted https://web.archive.org/web/20160511121337/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/rosebuttboard-ip-board #10yrsago Reading With Pictures: awesome, classroom-ready comics for math, social studies, science and language arts https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/12/reading-with-pictures-awesome-classroom-ready-comics-for-math-social-studies-science-and-language-arts/ #5yrsago Crooked Timber's Ministry for the Future Seminar https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/12/seminar-for-the-future/#imaginations #1yrago Trump can't do ANYTHING for his base https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/12/greased-slide/#greased-pole Upcoming appearances (permalink) Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Billionaire solipsism, dictator solipsism, AI, and the fascist paradigm (13 May 2026)
- Wed, 13 May 2026 15:47:35 +0000
Today's links Billionaire solipsism, dictator solipsism, AI, and the fascist paradigm: AGI works best in a K-hole. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Woz's remotes; Furbeowulf; Vinge on AR; Oligarch buys FSU; DNC x GOP megadonors; John Key v Panama Papers; Two elevators, one shaft; Save Firefox! "Cyclopedia Exotica"; Eat the brood. Upcoming appearances: Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Billionaire solipsism, dictator solipsism, AI, and the fascist paradigm (permalink) With great power comes great solipsism: the more power you wield over other people, the less real they become to you. To rule is to see people as aggregates, statistical artifacts, as a means to an end. It's how people seem when you're at the bottom of a k-hole. Per Granny Weatherwax, this is the root of all evil: "Sin is when you treat people like things": https://brer-powerofbabel.blogspot.com/2009/02/granny-weatherwax-on-sin-favorite.html The problem (for powerful people) is that other people aren't things; they're people, with stubborn attachments to their own priorities and needs. This is a huge problem for social media bosses, since the force that keeps you stuck to their platforms is your love of your friends, which sucks (for social media bosses), because your friends refuse to organize their interactions with you to "maximize engagement." There is a group of platform users who are dedicated to maximizing your engagement: performers (which is why legacy social media platforms have reduced the quantum of your feed given over to your friends to a bare minimum and swapped in the amateur dramatics of theater kids). But even "influencers" demand treatment as people, not things (which is why legacy social media is squeezing out performers in favor of slop): https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/17/for-youze/#forever Running a social media service is especially solipsism-inducing, since the back-end of a social media service always reduces people to statistical artifacts to be steered, thwarted, or rewarded based on the degree to which they are "maximizing engagement." No wonder zuckermuskian social media bosses mythologize themselves as dopamine-hacking wizards who've built a mind-control ray. Skinnerism and solipsism fit together very neatly, seducing you into the belief that everyone else is a stimulus-responding automaton, programmed to think they have free will: https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/07/rah-rah-rasputin/#credulous-dolts (Of course, the AI boss version of this is the belief that everyone else is a "stochastic parrot":) https://xcancel.com/sama/status/1599471830255177728 But in truth, any corporate boss is prone to solipsism. To maximize corporate profits, you must view other people – employees, suppliers and customers – as inconvenient problems to be solved, not true people with feelings and needs that are co-equal with your own. This is why AI is so attractive to the ruling class. For corporate leaders, the fantasy of your own worth is always dangerously close to collapsing, due to the haunting knowledge that if you don't show up for work, everything continues as per normal; while if your workers don't show up for work, the shop closes down and stays closed. Bosses really want to be in the driver's seat, but ultimately they know that they're strapped into the back seat, playing with a Fisher Price steering wheel. AI is a way to wire that toy steering wheel directly into the drive-train: it's the fantasy that a boss can have an idea and the corporation will execute it, without any messy human needs or demands getting in the way: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/05/fisher-price-steering-wheel/#billionaire-solipsism Solipsism is why bosses fetishize IP and ignore process knowledge. IP is the part of the job that the worker can explain (and that you can train an AI model on). Process knowledge is the part of the job that can't be abstracted, alienated or commodified. The very existence of process knowledge is the major impediment to de-skilling workers so they can be interchanged with other, more desperate, more timid workers (or with sycophantic AI): https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/08/process-knowledge/#dance-monkey-dance Of course, there's a whole group of powerful people outside of the political world who are gripped by solipsistic AI fantasies: politicians. Like social media bosses, politicians deal with people as statistical artifacts who respond to policy inputs with semi-predictable outputs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State And of course, politicians have their own detested class of workers whom they fantasize about replacing with chatbots: bureaucracies. When Trump et al bemoan the "deep state," they are engaged in the politicians' version of the corporate boss's solipsism: "I make policies, but to enact them, I have to convince civil servants to turn my agenda into action. This sucks. Can't we just have an all-powerful executive who decides on things and then those things just happen?" Writing for Columbia's Knight First Amendment Institute, political scientist Henry Farrell and statistician Cosma Rohilla Shalizi have produced the definitive account of how AI psychosis has infected our political classes: https://knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-as-social-technology Farrell and Shalizi use this political AI psychosis to explain DOGE, framing DOGE as a project where politicians and their loyal vassals cut a deep wound in the administrative state on the basis that general AI was about to emerge. With godlike AI around the corner, these bureaucrats – who insist on having opinions based on long experience and ethical sensibilities – could be replaced with sycophantic chatbots who'd turn the will of the unitary executive into policy without any filtration through unreliable, squishy humans. This is a political version of my maxim that "the fact that an AI can't do your job doesn't stop an AI salesman from convincing your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job." Private sector bosses are easy marks for AI salesmen, and not just because they want to reduce their wage bills, but also because it will fulfill the solipsist's fantasy of a corporation that turns the singular genius of the boss into a product without any messy demands from workers (and, if you're Zuckerberg and convinced that you've created a mind-control ray, your product can be rolled out without any messy demands from your customers, either, since you've hypnotized them into doing as they're told). The public sector version of this is the fantasy that you can eliminate the civil service and use an army of chatbots to do the job – not merely as a way of slashing the federal budget, but also as a way of purifying the transfer of the leader's will to the people without any intervening loss of fidelity resulting from the need to have your policies interpreted (and willfuly misinterpreted) by bureaucrats. This is a very important framing, and it explains why fascists like Trump and dead-eyed technocrats like Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney are hell-bent on gutting their countries' civil service and replacing it with chatbots: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2026/04/carney-ai-government-risks/ This is how Muskism and DOGE connect to Trumpism and AI: Musk doesn't believe other people are real. He calls them "NPCs" (non-player characters). He wants to put a microchip in your head so he can "replace your bad programming": https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/21/torment-nexusism/#marching-to-pretoria It's the fascist paradigm: the idea that people are incapable of self-rule, save for a very small number of singular geniuses who should be put in a position of absolute authority over all of us, to keep us safe from our own foolish impulses: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/12/donella-meadows/#paradigmatic The Technocrats – a protofascist Italian movement that once captured the imagination of Musk's great-grandfather, and now are frequently quoted and alluded to by the likes of Mark Andreessen – were addicted to the quantitative fallacy that infects economics and other disciplines. That's the idea that every social process can be expressed as a mathematical model, which can then be optimized. The problem, of course, is that much of the real world is qualitative, and the act of quantizing those qualia is a very lossy process. To quantize a qualitative question is to incinerate all the qualitative aspects and then do mathematics on the dubious quantitative ash that is left behind: https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-qualia/ In their paper, Farrell and Shalizi cite Ben Recht's maxim that "you can’t optimize a trade-off": https://www.argmin.net/p/are-there-always-trade-offs But of course, we optimize trade-offs all the time. That's what being a boss means, and it's also at the very core of self-determination: the right to decide what trade-offs you want to make. What Recht means is "you can't optimize a trade-off for everyone else." Those stubborn not-quite-people – customers, workers, bureaucrats – insist that they want different trade-offs. In translating the will of a supreme leader to policy without any intervening need for buy-in by humans, fascist projects like DOGE seek to optimize trade-offs according to the preferences of the supreme leader. AI in government is grounded in the idea that a sufficiently deserving leader can be trusted to vibe-code the entire apparatus of state, checked only by his own sense of rightness: https://thehill.com/policy/international/5680714-trump-morality-international-law/ Farrell and Shalizi forcefully make the point that statecraft is not a set of discrete problems with provably correct answers that must be solved. Government is a matter of making choices between mutually exclusive policies that have benefits and costs, and those costs and benefits fall upon different groups differently. The idea that you can simply feed every fact about a society into a chatbot and order it to "solve" the nation reveals a profound ignorance about the nature of political contests. There's no empirical way of deciding whose priorities deserve to be realized and who must be disappointed. There isn't even an empirical way to compare the benefits that one group receives to the costs another group pays. What's more, any system that uses LLMs to make high-stakes tradeoffs between different societal priorities will be relentlessly targeted by the groups that stand to win or lose based on those decisions, and by bureaucrats whose careers depend on making the number go up. They will poison the LLMs' training data, and figure out how to trick it into deceiving their bosses about the situation on the ground. Back in 2018, Yuval Harari predicted that LLMs would supercharge dictatorships by overcoming "authoritarian blindness" – when the suppression of political opinion is so effective that the first sign that a dictator has of his waning support is a mob that burns the presidential palace down. This prediction failed, because people who live under dictators have switched all the energy they used to use to put on a good show for the secret police into putting a good show on for the chatbots: https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/26/dictators-dilemma/#garbage-in-garbage-out-garbage-back-in Meanwhile, the "variability" introduced by bureaucrats who adapt political policies is a feature, not a bug. When a long-tenured public official receives a directive from on-high that they know will be a disaster if implemented unchanged, they can tweak the policy so that it is at least partially successful. Fire that bureaucrat and hand the policy to a rigidly loyal LLM that will not deviate from its strict instructions and you will end up with nothing (rather than a perfect policy implementation). Indeed, you may end up with less than nothing, as resentful local populations sabotage your agenda. Both Hayek and Marx agreed that people at the very periphery of the system have insights into local conditions that no boss/central planner can know (though they disagreed about what that fact implied). An LLM is the ultimate micro-manager, and government by Computer Says No would only work if the person writing the system prompt knew everything about everyone everywhere. As Farrell and Shalizi write, The frustrations of actually existing bureaucracy do not merely arise from inept or technically-inadequate solutions to the principal-agent problem. They emerge too from the collision of multiple incommensurable demands, each with its own problems and benefits, so that there are no optimal design solutions. Those who build or reform bureaucracies, like those who build other artifacts, need to satisfice across multiple intersecting needs and pathologies. Designs that neatly address one kind of problem may radically worsen others. Actually-existing AI has its own imperfections, some of which are endemic. Grafting AI systems onto existing bureaucracies will solve some problems but will worsen others and make altogether new ones. It will not eliminate the political difficulties of mediating across different, often non-commensurable, goals. Imagining replacing bureaucracy wholesale with AI is only plausible if one waves away the actual difficulties associated with real social technologies. Hey look at this (permalink) The Surveillance Economy Is Here. This Is How We Fight Back. https://jacobin.com/2026/05/surveillance-consumer-worker-protection-levine A Cyberdeck That Runs Linux…in An Altoids Tin https://hackaday.com/2026/05/12/a-cyberdeck-that-runs-linux-in-an-altoids-tin/ Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/05/canadas-bill-c-22-repackaged-version-last-years-surveillance-nightmare When It Comes to Data Privacy, Consumers Must Be in the Driver’s Seat: Attorney General Bonta, Partners Secure $12.75 Million General Motors Privacy Settlement https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/when-it-comes-data-privacy-consumers-must-be-driver’s-seat-attorney-general Britain pays Starlink millions despite Musk's calls to overthrow UK government https://www.theregister.com/networks/2026/05/12/britain-pays-starlink-millions-despite-musks-calls-to-overthrow-uk-government/5238122 Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Woz's programmable remotes https://web.archive.org/web/20010603184833/http://www.celadon.com/Industrial/PIC200/pic200oem.html #25yrsago Furbeowulf http://www.trygve.com/furbeowulf.html #20yrsago Diebold voting machines can be 0wned in minutes https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2006/05/11/report-claims-very-serious-diebold-voting-machine-flaws/ #20yrsago British farmer supplies gallows to totalitarian governments http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk/4754515.stm #20yrsago Proposed law requires schools to censor MySpace, LJ, blogs, Flickr https://web.archive.org/web/20060521054806/http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/learning.now/2006/05/new_federal_legislation_would_1.html #15yrsago Vernor Vinge on the promise, progress and threats of Augmented Reality https://www.ugotrade.com/2011/05/10/interview-with-vernor-vinge-smart-phones-and-the-empowering-aspects-of-social-networks-augmented-reality-are-still-massively-underhyped/ #15yrsago American oligarch buys the right to hire professors at Florida State U https://web.archive.org/web/20110511210435/https://www.tampabay.com/news/business/billionaires-role-in-hiring-decisions-at-florida-state-university-raises/1168680/ #15yrsago National Jukebox: public domain music archive from the Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/collections/national-jukebox/about-this-collection/ #15yrsago America’s net censorship bill is back and worse than ever https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/revised-net-censorship-bill-requires-search-engines-to-block-sites-too/ #10yrsago DNC Host Committee composed of GOP megadonors, Net Neutrality haters, fracking boosters and anti-Obamacare lobbyists https://web.archive.org/web/20160511160814/https://theintercept.com/2016/05/11/lobbyists-dnc-2016-convention/ #10yrsago Minnesota lawmakers propose bizarre, dangerous PRINCE law https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/minnesota-legislators-go-crazy-pushing-dangerous-prince-act #10yrsago NZ Prime Minister John Key ejected from Parliament over Panama Papers rant https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/prime-minister-john-key-thrown-out-of-debating-chamber-by-speaker/A5LQPMGB56QXTGE2ZFIK2MSRPE/?c_id=1&objectid=11637448 #10yrsago Putting two elevators in one shaft https://web.archive.org/web/20160512013856/https://www.wired.com/2016/05/thyssenkrup-twin-elevator/ #10yrsago Germany will end copyright liability for open wifi operators https://torrentfreak.com/germany-to-rescind-piracy-liability-for-open-wifi-operators-160511/ #10yrsago Save Firefox: The W3C’s plan for worldwide DRM would have killed Mozilla before it could start https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/save-firefox #5yrsago Let's eat all the cicadas https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/11/uniboob/#eat-the-brood#5yrsago #5yrsago Cyclopedia Exotica https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/11/uniboob/#one-eye-and-three-dot-dot-dot Upcoming appearances (permalink) Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: A fascist paradigm (12 May 2026)
- Tue, 12 May 2026 07:22:17 +0000
Today's links A fascist paradigm: The change that changed everything. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Openstreetmap x Isle of Wight; Found grocery lists; Mayor wants to pray away potholes; Designing a D120; "Too Like the Lightning." Upcoming appearances: Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. A fascist paradigm (permalink) Yesterday, I attended a workshop on systems thinking and political change, which included a presentation on the work of Donella Meadows, whose Thinking in Systems is a canonical work on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_In_Systems:_A_Primer "Systems thinking" is an analytical framework that treats the world as a mesh of interconnected, nonlinear components and relationships that can't be easily understood or steered. A complex system isn't merely "complicated." A mechanical watch is complicated, in that it has many parts that work together in ways that require training and specialized knowledge to understand. But it isn't "complex" because each part has a specific function that can be understood and adjusted. In a complex system – say, an ecosystem – the parts are meshed in a web of unobvious relationships that make it difficult to predict what effect will follow from a given perturbation. When a blight kills off a plant species, the soil stability declines, resulting in landslides during the rainy season, changing the mineral content of nearby waterways, which creates microbial blooms or fish die-offs in a distant, downstream lake. But systems thinking isn't a counsel of despair that insists that you shouldn't do anything because you can never predict what will come of your actions. In Thinking in Systems, Meadows presents a hierarchy of leverage points for changing a system, ranked from least effective ("Constants, numbers, parameters") to most ("The power to shift paradigms to deal with new challenges"): https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/55264856861/ In all, Meadows theorizes 12 different "places to intervene in a system." The least effective of these – constants like taxes and standards, negative and positive feedback loops – are the sites of most of our political fights, and rightly so. They are the fine-tuning knobs of the system that adjust its margins. Once you have the rule of law ("the rules of the system"), you can drive change by amending, repealing or passing a law: https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/ But when you're confronted with a system that is significantly, persistently dysfunctional, you will likely have to work at sites that are further up the hierarchy, such as "the distribution of power over the rules of the system" or "the goals of the system"; or the most profound of all, "the paradigm out of which the system — its goals, power structure, rules, its culture — arises." Thinking about paradigms is a form of "meta-cognition," which is to say, "thinking about how you think." Your paradigm encompasses all your assumptions, including your assumptions about how to proceed from your other assumptions: "if x, then y" is a paradigm. The workshop where we were discussing all of this is part of a group whose goal is reversing the antidemocratic movement in our society and the climate emergency that is its backdrop. But as I listened to the speaker and the ensuing discussion, it occurred to me that Meadows' theoretical work was a very good way of describing the successes of the fascist movement in the UK and around the world. Fascists like Farage and Trump are, at their root, anti-democratic. Their pitch is that the people are incapable of self-determination (as Peter Thiel puts it, "democracy is incompatible with freedom"). They want us to think that all our neighbors are irrational and foolish, and that we, too, are irrational and foolish, and that our safety and prosperity can only be safeguarded if we seek out those few people who are born to rule and liberate them from the petty niceties and regulations that democracy and the rule of law demand. In other words, the paradigm of democracy is that all of us are capable of both wise self-governance and self-rationalized misgovernance, and each of us has a useful perspective to contribute. The fascist paradigm is that we can't be trusted to rule ourselves, and only the people who are born with "good blood" are capable of directing our lives: https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/20/big-cornflakes-energy/#caliper-pilled This is the theory behind "race realism" and "human diversity" and all the other polite names the modern fascist uses to obscure the fact that they're reviving eugenics. It explains the panic over DEI, a panic driven by the belief that lesser people are being elevated to positions of rule and authority that they are genetically incapable of carrying out. That's why, whenever a disaster arises, fascists demand to know the gender, race and sexual orientation of the pilot, the ship's captain, or the official in charge. If the person who crashed the cargo ship into the bridge has brown skin, we can add another line to the ledger of costs associated with the doomed project to put people who were born to be bossed around in the boss's seat (of course, if the pilot turns out to be a white guy, that proves nothing, except that mistakes sometimes happen). The revival of fascism in this century has been scarily effective, and at times it can feel unstoppable. Meadows' work on systems thinking provides an explanation for that efficacy – and suggests a theory of change for dispatching fascism back to the graveyard of history. Fascists have made changes to things like laws and feedback loops, rules and distribution of power, but this all stems from a more profound alteration to the system, at the level of the paradigm. Which suggests that the real fight we have is over that paradigm: we have to convince our neighbors that they are smart enough to rule themselves, and so are we, and so is everyone else. We have to convince them that even the smartest and wisest person (including us, including them) is capable of folly and needs to have checks on their (our) authority. We need to attack the theory of the "unitary executive" and every other autocratic ideology head on. We have to insist that these aren't just unconstitutional, but that they are ideologically catastrophic. "No kings," because even an omnibenevolent king isn't omniscient, and that means that omnipotence is always omnidestructive in the long run. The fascist revival has been scarily effective and resilient – and systems thinking offers an explanation for both that efficacy and that resiliency. Hey look at this (permalink) I knew my writing students were using AI. Their confessions led to a powerful teaching moment https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/may/10/fiction-writing-professor-ai Reporters at McClatchy withhold bylines in dispute over AI content https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/may/01/reporters-at-mcclatchy-withhold-bylines-in-dispute/ Someone Built an App to Fight Surveillance Pricing With a Flipper Zero… for Research Purposes https://gizmodo.com/someone-built-an-app-to-fight-surveillance-pricing-with-a-flipper-zero-for-research-purposes-2000755224 Life without US tech https://www.ft.com/content/4c3aad70-e0cb-46a2-95d5-15d11b6bf818?accessToken=zwAAAZ4VoJdukc9MOq1w4MtGotOV1RXRG2v4GA.MEQCIFXG2BBi81XpJ8D4_1uEUIencLlX2h_fjR9DN9YSKjmdAiA9W8XTlEm0uuh0SQioErfqHFu5R_9gkFTD4L54Bmg-cQ&sharetype=gift&token=3519ae98-a671-4dbe-9058-4ebf21385c9a&syn-25a6b1a6=1 What Challenging a Bowling Monopoly Says About America https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-what-challenging The Oligarchs Are Starting to Lose Their Grip on Power https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/opinion/hollywood-merger-fear-paramount-warner-bros.html Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago First aid for the dying dotcom http://modernhumorist.com/mh/0010/dotcom/ #20yrsago OpenStreetMap maps Isle of Wight, Manchester next https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapchester_Mapping_Party_2006 #20yrsago Fueling model rockets with Oreo fillings https://web.archive.org/web/20060616192646/https://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/600152d7d441b010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html #20yrsago Legal guide for podcasters https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Welcome_To_The_Podcasting_Legal_Guide #20yrsago Collection of 1100+ found grocery lists https://grocerylists.org/ #10yrsago Mayor of Jackson, MS: “I believe we can pray potholes away” https://www.wjtv.com/news/jackson-mayor-tony-yarber-we-can-pray-potholes-away/ #10yrsago What’s the best way to distribute numbers on the faces of a D120? https://web.archive.org/web/20160510182023/https://www.wired.com/2016/05/mathematical-challenge-of-designing-the-worlds-most-complex-120-sided-dice/ #10yrsago Billionaire Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel will be a California Trump delegate https://web.archive.org/web/20160510155226/https://www.wired.com/2016/05/investor-peter-thiel-will-california-delegate-trump/ #10yrsago McClatchy newspapers’ CEO pleased to announce that he’s shipping IT jobs overseas https://web.archive.org/web/20160510102956/https://www.computerworld.com/article/3067304/it-careers/newspaper-chain-sending-it-jobs-overseas.html #10yrsago Peace in Our Time: how publishers, libraries and writers could work together https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-peace-in-our-time/ #10yrsago Too Like the Lightning: intricate worldbuilding, brilliant speculation, gripping storytelling https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/10/too-like-the-lightning-intricate-worldbuilding-brilliant-speculation-gripping-storytelling/ #5yrsago LA traveling toward free public transit https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/10/comrade-ustr/#get-on-the-bus #5yrsago Biden's shift on vaccine patents is a Big Deal https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/10/comrade-ustr/#vaccine-diplomacy Upcoming appearances (permalink) Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: 2024 (apart from the obvious) (11 May 2026)
- Mon, 11 May 2026 09:43:59 +0000
Today's links 2024 (apart from the obvious): Some unforced errors. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Denmark legalizing music trading; Babysuit; Patent Office invites "peer review"; DRM protest at the Bastille; Scientology's "super powers"; Banana Dalek; Florida v pediatricians' gun safety advice; Copyright filters and wage theft; "Who Broke the Internet?" Vatican astronomer v Creationism; Teens, privacy and Facebook; Čapek's graveside robot; Save iTunes; NZ laundered money for Latinamerica's looters; Memex Method. Upcoming appearances: Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. 2024 (apart from the obvious) (permalink) Just as Hillary Clinton positioned her run as a third term for Obama ("America is already great"), so did Biden (and then Harris) position their campaigns as a second Biden term. As Biden said (in 2019): "Nothing would fundamentally change": https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/ So a vote for Biden would be a vote for another four years of forceful, material support for genocide; another four years of compromise with the Democratic establishment on student debt and healthcare gouging; and another four years of a president who was obviously in mental decline. Harris's campaign was, "A vote for me is a vote for all of the above (minus the cognitive decline)." Actually, it was worse: by conspicuously failing to campaign on the Biden administration's record on reining in corporate power, a vote for Harris was "A vote for all of the above, minus the mental decline and the antitrust." Whereas a vote for Trump was a vote for change, a vote to give the establishment a black eye. It was also a vote for genocide and racist pogroms and gangster kleptocracy, which is why many voters stayed home, casting a ballot for America's all-time favorite candidate, "None of the above," while any number of furious people and/or vicious racists turned out for Trump. There's one book that crystallizes my thoughts on this better than any other: Naomi Klein's 2023 Doppelganger, which analyzes our politics in terms of (warped) "mirror images." One of the mirror world pairings that Klein analyzes is the progressive movement, a coalition of liberals and leftists (led by liberals). Like every coalition, the two main groups that constitute "the progressives" do not agree on many important issues, though they do have common goals. Both groups support equality for people of all genders and races, but for liberals, an equal world is one that fixes the problem that 150 straight white men own everything by replacing 75 of them with racialized people, women and queer people (whereas the leftist fix is abolishing the system in which 150 people own everything). Biden set himself up as a peacemaker for this coalition, and his "unity task force" divided up the appointments in his administration between the Warren-Sanders leftists and liberals, including those who clearly belonged to the Manchin-Sinematic universe. This meant that his administration worked at cross-purposes to itself, neutering its boldest initiatives, rendering them impotent. Take Biden's plan to finally allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharma companies, a move that was very long overdue. Before this, the way the system worked was: pharma companies named a price – any price! – and then Uncle Sucker paid it. No other country in the world operates this way, and, of course, the lion's share of pharma R&D costs are already borne by the American public (or they were, until Musk DOGEd the US research budget to death). So the American public pays more than anyone else in the world to develop these drugs, and then they pay more than anyone else in the world to buy these drugs. This is madness, and putting an end to it is an obvious political win. But Biden found a way to do it that "balanced" the leftist principle of protecting people from capitalist exploitation with the liberal principle of protecting businesses lest the essential function of developing life-saving drugs become a state activity (rather than a market one). Biden's solution? A "Build Back Better" plan that would allow the federal government to negotiate up to ten drug prices (and as few as zero drug prices), but the new prices would only kick in after the 2024 election, so no one would see the benefit of this in time for the next general election: https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/18/bipartisan-consensus/#corruption This is a solution that pleases no one – and that's the point. Biden and his team viewed the presidency as an institution for making sure everyone was equally unhappy, a philosophy that Anat Shenker-Osorio calls "pizzaburger politics." This is named for a thought-experiment in which half your family wants pizza and the other half wants burgers, so you serve them "pizzaburgers" and make everyone miserable and declare yourself to have the fair-handed wisdom of Solomon (yes, I'm aware that this analogy has a fatal flaw in that pizzaburgers actually sound delicious, but work with me here). Biden prided himself on running a pizzaburger presidency, in which every move that satisfied the left of his party was neutralized by a concession to the party's right wing establishment: https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/29/sub-bushel-comms-strategy/#nothing-would-fundamentally-change (Trump enacted a mirror-world version of Biden's pharma price controls: TrumpRx, a program that claims to lower drug prices while those prices actually go up): https://democrats-energycommerce.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-energycommerce.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/e-c-democrats-trumprx-big-talk-little-savings.pdf Biden's pizzaburger compromises made everyone unhappy. He appointed generational talents like Lina Khan, Jonathan Kanter and Rohit Chopra to run key agencies charged with crushing corporate power, and then gave lifetime appointments to corporate-friendly judges who blocked their rulemakings and penalties: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/11/us-judge-turns-down-challenge-to-microsoft-merger-with-activision Of course, it wasn't just Biden's own judicial appointees who stood in his way; from the Supreme Court on down, on issues from student debt cancellation to noncompetes, judges blocked the Biden administration. When this happened, Biden somehow couldn't find his way to his bully pulpit. Rather than working the refs – the way Trump does, in ways that energize his base, stiffens his legislators' resolve and intimidates other judges – Biden tinkered in the margins to find ways to advance half-measures and stayed mum in public. This compromise-oriented meekness carried over into Biden's relationship with Democratic lawmakers who sold out the American people. Rather than campaigning for the primary opponents of monsters like Fetterman, Sinema and Manchin, Biden worked behind the scenes to broker compromises, delivering yet another inedible pizzaburger (and acting hurt and bewildered when no one thanked him for it). The alternative? Constitutional hardball: https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/18/states-rights/#cold-civil-war It's not clear whether Harris's abbreviated campaign could have made the public case that she would govern in a more muscular fashion as befitted the polycrisis facing the nation, but she didn't even try. A couple Democratic Party insiders of my acquaintance tell me that Biden only agreed to step aside on the condition that Harris not criticize his record. I don't know if that's true, but even within that hypothetical constraint, Harris hardly presented herself as an avatar of change. She carried on Biden's tradition of conspicuously failing to campaign on the significant achievements of Biden's own trustbusters, and put her brother-in-law, the lawyer who helped Uber crush labor rights in California, in charge of her campaign: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/04/us/politics/kamala-harris-tony-west.html The point of all this is that the American people have, on two occasions, comprehensively rejected the "America is already great"/"Nothing would fundamentally change" politics of a liberal-dominated left/liberal progressive coalition. The senior partners in that coalition have driven the country into a ditch, letting Trump stage a fascist takeover that has us fighting not to win another election, but just to have another one. Americans are sick of being told that their politicians can't do anything because "they're not the Green Lantern:" https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge America isn't already great. If we are to have more elections – much less win them – we will need to mobilize millions of people. You don't do that by telling them to oppose Trumpismo – you get them out in the streets by giving them something to support. That was Mamdani's winning message: "I know what a politician can do, and I will do it": https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/24/mamdani-thought/#public-excellence Hey look at this (permalink) taken. https://sinceyouarrived.world/taken Big Finance Might Be Dooming the SPLC — Even Before Its Day in Court https://theintercept.com/2026/05/08/splc-donations-banks-censorship/ Four Theses on the Conservative Legal Movement https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/four-theses-on-the-conservative-legal Hearts and Minds: An Ambivalent Review of “Project Hail Mary” https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=11659 Meta Is Dying. It’s About Time. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/opinion/meta-facebook-zuckerberg.html Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Denmark plans to legalize music trading https://edition.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/05/07/denmark.downloads.idg/index.html #20yrsago Babysuit https://web.archive.org/web/20060513013815/https://www.gildlilies.com/pop_ups/phillip_toledano_kaleidoscope.htm #20yrsago Patent office will ask the public to “peer review” inventions https://web.archive.org/web/20060512051743/http://www.dotank.nyls.edu/communitypatent/ #20yrsago Report from France’s DRM protest at Place de la Bastille https://web.archive.org/web/20170902135411/https://tofz.org/?dir=Paris%2Fevents%2FMarch #20yrsago Interactive maps show your city’s floodline when the sea rises https://flood.firetree.net/ #20yrsago Scientology to open “Super Power” training center in FL https://web.archive.org/web/20060522112457/http://www.sptimes.com/2006/05/06/Tampabay/Scientology_nearly_re.shtml/ #20yrsago Homemade radios http://www.duntemann.com/radiogallery.htm #20yrsago Vatican astronomer denounces Creationism as “paganism” https://web.archive.org/web/20060517013332/http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=674042006 #20yrsago Canada’s New Democratic Party embraces copyfighting musicians https://web.archive.org/web/20060520024734/http://www.ndp.ca/page/3713 #15yrsago Teens and privacy online: using Facebook is compatible with valuing privacy https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/05/09/how-teens-understand-privacy.html #15yrsago Ann Arbor library acquires lending, sharing and copying rights to Creative Commons music catalog https://annarborchronicle.com/2011/04/28/ann-arbor-library-signs-digital-music-deal/ #15yrsago Tin robot on Karel Čapek’s grave https://www.gilesorr.com/travels/Prague2011/BestPrague.20110421.6142.GO.CanonSX10.html #15yrsago Just look at this banana Dalek. https://web.archive.org/web/20110716022131/https://www.daleksoftheday.com/2011/05/banana-dalek.html #15yrsago NRA and Florida gag pediatricians: no more firearm safety advice for parents https://www.npr.org/2011/05/07/136063523/florida-bill-could-muzzle-doctors-on-gun-safety #10yrsago Conservative economics: what’s happened to the UK economy after a year of Tory rule https://web.archive.org/web/20160509113126/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/what-has-happened-to-the-economy-under-the-tories-in-six-charts-a7017131.html #10yrsago Save iTunes: how the W3C’s argument for web-wide DRM would have killed iTunes https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/save-itunes #10yrsago America’s courts are going dark https://www.justsecurity.org/30920/courts-going-dark/ #10yrsaogo Australian government issues report calling for copyright and patent liberalisation https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/australian-productivity-commission-slams-protectionist-copyright-and-patent-laws #10yrsago Panama Papers: New Zealand is the go-to money launderer for crooked Latin Americans https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/panama-papers/303356/nz-at-heart-of-panama-money-go-round #10yrsago Safe Patient Project: searchable spreadsheet tells Californians whether their doc is on probation, and why https://web.archive.org/web/20160507002350/http://consumersunion.org/research/california-doctors-on-probation/ #5yrsago The Memex Method https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/ #5yrsago How copyright filters lead to wage-theft https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/08/copyfraud/#beethoven-just-wrote-music #1yrago Who broke the internet? https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/08/who-broke-the-internet/#bruce-lehman Upcoming appearances (permalink) Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Trump's fruitless search for a goreable ox (09 May 2026)
- Sat, 09 May 2026 12:51:02 +0000
Today's links Trump's fruitless search for a goreable ox: You can keep billionaires happy, or you can fight the cost of living crisis, but not both. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Typewriter bust; Phrack's new issue; Panama Papers whistleblower speaks; The PRO Act; Zuck's new mind-control ray. Upcoming appearances: Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Trump's fruitless search for a goreable ox (permalink) I've got good news and bad news for Trump. The good news: you can get elected by promising to do something about the cost of living crisis, and the president actually has a lot of ways to improve people's daily costs. The bad news: everything you could do to fix working people's cost of living will make an oligarch worse off. This is the essential conundrum of Trumpismo: to keep his base happy, he needs to make their lives better; but to make their lives better, he'll have to make oligarchs angry. The oligarchs' wealth bonanza caused the cost of living crisis. Oligarchs' pleasure causes our suffering, so alleviating our suffering will reduce their pleasure. This means that while Trump can promise help with prices, all he can deliver is union-busting, ICE lynchings, and pointless wars, none of which have any hope of materially improving the lives of working people. Indeed, all of this stuff makes working people materially worse off, as wages fall, crops rot in the fields, and gas prices shoot through the roof. Trump would dearly love to find an ox he can safely gore, but all the good oxen are owned by his oligarch chums. Trump can't punish Ticketmaster, because the billions Ticketmaster steals from the WWE, F1 and football fans in his base all land in the pocket of oligarchs who own stock in Ticketmaster, and Trump can't afford to upset those oligarchs: https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/03/aoi-aoi-oh/#concentrated-gains-vast-diffused-losses Indeed, I can't think of a single corrupt racket that Trump can afford to do something about. Not even the only cost of living metric that can approach gas prices in the hierarchy of American electoral salience: grocery prices. Your grocery bill went up because oligarchs price-gouge you. Eggflation was caused by Cal-Maine, the monopolist that owns every brand of eggs in your grocer's fridge, who jacked up prices because they knew they could: https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/10/demand-and-supply/#keep-cal-maine-and-carry-on Pepsi and Walmart conspired to force every retailer to jack up the prices of all Pepsi products (including Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Aquafina, etc) at every retailer's store, so that Walmart could also jack up their prices and still undersell their competition (naturally, Trump let them get away with it): https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/secret-documents-show-pepsi-and-walmart This stuff isn't exactly a secret. Grocery store owners hold earnings calls with their investors where they boast about the fact that they can raise their prices far in excess of their increased costs, and blame it on inflation: https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/11/price-over-volume/#pepsi-pricing-power They boast about their "personalized pricing" swindles, whereby they use surveillance data to figure out how desperate you are and jack up the prices you see in their apps: https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/11/nothing-personal/#instacartography Trump has the power to put a stop to all of this, but still, he can't, because his oligarch pals would squeal, and when they squeal, Trump jumps. In theory, Trump has lots of power, but in practice, Trump can't do anything. Which brings me to the cost of meat. Meat inflation has raced ahead of other forms of food inflation, even as the payments to ranchers and other producers fell sharply, leading to waves of bankruptcies: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/beef-is-expensive-so-why-are-cattle Partly, that's because meat processing is controlled by cartels, with 85% of all the beef being processed by four packers, and nearly every chicken going through one of four poultry processors. These middlemen jack up prices to grocers while colluding to push down the payments to their suppliers. How do they rig those prices? After all, it's very illegal for these four companies to get together around a table to rig prices. Instead, they use a "price consultancy" called Agri Stats that does the price-rigging for them. Every week, the packers send a detailed list of all their costs and prices into Agri Stats, and Agri Stats "advises" them all to raise all their prices at once, and anyone who doesn't play along is pushed out of the Agri Stats cartel. Everyone wins – except families paying for groceries: https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy Agri Stats has been doing this since the Reagan years, but they grew steadily more brazen, until, back in 2023, Biden's DOJ brought history's most obvious, easily won antitrust case against them: https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/29124-doj-sues-agri-stats-for-complicity-in-meat-market-manipulation And wouldn't you know it, Trump just settled that case, in a way that will make Agri Stats much, much richer and give them far more opportunities to rig prices: https://prospect.org/2026/05/08/meat-industry-agri-stats-department-of-justice-price-fix-trump/ Under the terms of the settlement, Agri Stats must "allow" restaurants, farmers, and other parts of the supply chain to pay it for the data it consolidates. This will allow more parties to collude to rig prices, and provide more income to Agri Stats. As David Dayen writes in The American Prospect, they've been "sentenced to make money." Agri Stats isn't the only "price consultancy" that is used to launder a price-fixing cartel that's driving up the cost of living for all Americans, including Trump's base, in order to make oligarchs better off. Companies like Realpage do the same thing for residential rents: https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/11/nimby-yimby-fimby/#home-team-advantage Trump can't do anything about any of these scams, not without goring some oligarch's precious ox. But, as Dayen points out, there are dozens of Democratic state Attorneys General who can kill Trump's sweetheart deal for Agri Stats using the Tunney Act, which gives them standing to sue to force a federal judge to review the settlement and determine whether it is fair. Whether any AG will seize the moment remains to be seen, of course, but it would be very good politics to do so – after all, the path to political power in America runs through credible promises to do something about the cost of living crisis. Hey look at this (permalink) The simple statistical error Republican Supreme Court justices used to gut the VRA https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-05-08-simple-math-error-scotus-callais-vra Message to Congress on Curbing Monopolies. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/message-congress-curbing-monopolies The Scam Artistry of the Right’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels https://jacobin.com/2026/05/peterson-musk-tate-right-victimization Ploopy Bean Pointing Stick https://ploopy.co/shop/bean-pointing-stick/ 'The Biggest Student Data Privacy Disaster in History': Canvas Hack Shows the Danger of Centralized EdTech https://www.404media.co/the-biggest-student-data-privacy-disaster-in-history-canvas-hack-shows-the-danger-of-centralized-edtech/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago A dotcom founder's tale (funny) https://features.slashdot.org/story/01/05/04/1541239/the-worst-of-times #20yrsago Shell UK abandons chip-and-pin after £1M fraud https://web.archive.org/web/20060508044110/https://www.snakeoillabs.com/2006/05/07/shell-stops-accepting-chip-and-pin-in-fraud-fiasco-bp-to-follow/ #15yrsago Typewriter bust: Grandfather https://web.archive.org/web/20110511033756/http://jemayer.tumblr.com/post/5260317696 #10yrsago Kobo “upgrade” deprives readers of hundreds of DRM-locked ebooks https://www.teleread.com/drm-nightmare-after-recent-upgrade-kobo-customers-report-losing-sony-books-from-their-libraries/ #10yrsago Venerable hacker zine Phrack publishes its first issue in four years https://phrack.org/issues/69/1 #10yrsago Panama Papers whistleblower issues statement, naming and shaming failed states and institutions https://web.archive.org/web/20160506180902/https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160506-john-doe-statement.html #5yrsago The FTC's (kick-ass) Right to Repair report https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/07/pro-act-class-war/#we-fixit #5yrsago The PRO Act and worker misclassification https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/07/pro-act-class-war/#sectoral-balances #1yrago Mark Zuckerberg announces mind-control ray (again) https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/07/rah-rah-rasputin/#credulous-dolts Upcoming appearances (permalink) Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Lee Lai's "Cannon" (08 May 2026)
- Fri, 08 May 2026 12:19:36 +0000
Today's links Lee Lai's "Cannon": A beautiful, subtle, long-lingering tale of duty, sex, and working for a shitty restaurant boss. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Ebay paying to run newspaper classifieds; Chuck Tingle v Sad Puppies; FBI v TOR; Daycare v Goldman Sachs; Scammers re-used covid nose-swabs; "The Adventures of Mary Darling." Upcoming appearances: Guelph, Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Lee Lai's "Cannon" (permalink) Lee Lai's Cannon is an extraordinary graphic novel that turns out a beautifully told, subtle and ambiguous tale about Lucy (Lucy -> "Loose" -> "Loose Cannon" -> "Cannon"), a queer Chinese-Canadian chef at a Montreal restaurant whose messy family, work, personal and sex life are all falling apart in ways that are powerfully engrossing: https://drawnandquarterly.com/books/cannon/ This is the second outing from Lee Lai, whose debut, Stone Fruit, swept many of the field's awards and won major critical acclaim. When a debut comes out that strong, it's sometimes followed with the dread "second book syndrome" in which a creator who has poured everything they ever thought about putting in a book now has to write another book, from scratch. But Cannon avoids any hint of that second book malaise; rather, it is jammed with dense and densely connected ideas, character beats and graphic signifiers that are brilliant in so many ways: https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/stone-fruit Cannon is a thirtysomething chef in a Montreal restaurant run by Guy, an instantly recognizable hustler who praises Cannon for her culinary abilities and her pliability, talks over her, demands the impossible from her kitchen colleagues and periodically breaks out into soliloquies about his own martyrdom to the hardships of entrepreneurship. Cannon cares for her grandfather, who has been abandoned by her mother, who has been traumatized by the abuse he meted out to her during her upbringing. Now in decline and unable to care for himself, Cannon's grandfather continues his abusive ways, scaring off all of his home help, which means Cannon must devote even more time to him (she can't bring herself to put him in a care facility that will inevitably be full of white people who don't speak Chinese). These familial duties leave Cannon isolated, with only one important friendship: Trish, an up-and-coming novelist whom Cannon has known since their school days in Montreal's suburban Eastern Townships, where they were the only queer Chinese girls either of them knew. Trish owes her professional acclaim to her own neurotic social instincts, which she polishes on the page with the help of an old writing teacher who serves as her mentor. Trish may be Cannon's oldest and best friend, but she's not actually a very good friend, and now that they're both in their 30s, neither Cannon nor Trish is entirely sure where they'd make new friends. This is where Cannon starts, as Cannon tries to resolve all these bad situations, each of which is only worsening. Trish disapproves of Cannon's sexual affair with the new front-of-house woman at the restaurant – even as Trish begins a friends-with-benefits arrangement with a guy from her fitness club who clearly wants more than the odd tumble. Guy the restaurateur positions Cannon as his hatchet-woman and confidante, driving conflict in the kitchen that she is meant to hold the bag for. Her grandfather enters a terminal decline, and still her mother won't answer her calls and texts about it. And then, Cannon discovers that Trish has violated her in a way that is intimate and appalling. These may sound like the beats that you'd find in a melodramatic soap opera, but Cannon's affect is so stoic, and her interiority is so beautifully and inventively depicted – Lai deploying the unique strengths of the graphic novel form here with total virtuosity – that the vibe is more David Lynch than Dallas. The result is something that's beautiful, sharp, critical and lingering. Long after I closed the cover, I found myself mulling over the delicate ways that Lai raised the contradictions, sorrows and beauty of queer love, racial identity, camaraderie, self-control, and self-indulgence. Lai's characters have no answers, only questions that can never be fully resolved. Instead, these questions are the defining puzzles, defeats and triumphs of their lives. It's a magnificent, sensitive and innovative work of storytelling. Hey look at this (permalink) Here’s Every Single Death Linked to Immigration Enforcement Since Trump’s Raids Began in 2025 https://lataco.com/ice-death-tracker We only win when we’re singing https://www.absurdintelligence.com/we-only-win-when-were-singing/ Native Apps Should Be Avoided Whenever Possible https://nooneshappy.com/article/native-apps-should-be-avoided-whenever-possible/ The Last Comic https://www.thelastcomic.com Heartland Institute Podcast Questions Whether All Americans ‘Should Have the Right to Vote’ https://www.desmog.com/2026/05/05/heartland-institute-limiting-voting-rights-lee-zeldin/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Ebay paying newspapers to run listings in the classifieds section https://web.archive.org/web/20010506063910/http://www.business2.com/news/2001/05/ebaypapers.htm #20yrsago Airline spoons of the world photo-gallery https://www.flickr.com/photos/airlinespoons #20yrsago Coach passengers arrested for moving to first class http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/4980364.stm #15yrsago Hidden cognitive costs of doing stuff https://web.archive.org/web/20110507154653/https://us.lifehacker.com/5798202/the-cognitive-cost-of-doing-things #15yrsago Syria’s man-in-the-middle attack on Facebook https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/syrian-man-middle-against-facebook #10yrsago Weird erotica author who was dragged into Hugo Awards mess pulls off epic troll https://web.archive.org/web/20160506175535/http://www.dailydot.com/lol/chuck-tingle-trolling-hugo-zoe-quinn-genius/ #10yrsago FBI has been harassing a Tor developer since 2015, won’t tell her or her lawyer why https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-harassment.html #10yrsago 2,000 US doctors endorse Sanders’ single-payer healthcare proposal https://web.archive.org/web/20160506095034/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/05/2000-doctors-say-bernie-sanders-has-the-right-approach-to-health-care/ #10yrsago Community college evicts daycare center to make room for Goldman Sachs https://www.golocalprov.com/news/daycare-center-being-moved-out-of-ccri-for-goldman-sachs #10yrsago Data-driven look at America’s brutal, racist debt-collection machine https://www.propublica.org/article/so-sue-them-what-weve-learned-about-the-debt-collection-lawsuit-machine #10yrsago Homeland Security wants to subpoena Techdirt over the identity of a hyperbolic commenter https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/06/homeland-security-wants-to-subpoena-us-over-clearly-hyperbolic-techdirt-comment/ #5yrsago NY AG attributes Net Neutrality fraud to telcos https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/06/boogeration/#pais-lies #5yrsago Ed-tech apps spy on kids https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/06/boogeration/#i-spy #5yrsago Scammers recycled covid nose-swabs https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/06/boogeration/#up-your-nose #1yrago The Adventures of Mary Darling https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/06/nevereverland/#lesser-ormond-street Upcoming appearances (permalink) Guelph: Musagetes Lecture, May 8 https://riverrun.ca/whats-on/guelph-lecture-on-being-2026/ Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Bubbles are REALLY evil (07 May 2026)
- Thu, 07 May 2026 08:08:49 +0000
Today's links Bubbles are REALLY evil: Bernie Ebbers got what was coming to him. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Mozilla v DHS wiretaps; Judge v FCC's internet wiretaps; Foxconn workers must promise not to kill themselves; "Shannon's Law"; How to password; Stimmies killed the McJob; "Little Bosses Everywhere." Upcoming appearances: Guelph, Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Bubbles are REALLY evil (permalink) I am on record as saying that every economic bubble is terrible, but some bubbles do at least leave behind a salvageable productive residue while others leave behind nothing but ashes; indeed, this is the thesis of my next book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/ Here's a historical comparison that's illuminating: Enron vs Worldcom. Both were monumental frauds, the CEOs of both companies died shortly after the frauds were discovered, but they have very different legacies. Enron – a scam that pretended to secure billions of dollars' worth of new efficiencies through "energy trading" but was actually just engineering rolling blackouts in order to jack up energy prices – left behind nothing. Well, not quite nothing. Enron did leave behind a little useful residue after it burned to the ground: a giant repository of emails. You see, after Enron went bust, it was sued by its creditors, who demanded access to relevant emails from the company's Outlook server. But the company execs decided they didn't want to spend the money to weed out the irrelevant emails before the court-mandated disclosure, so instead they published all the emails ever sent or received by anyone at Enron, including tons of extremely private, personal, sensitive information relating to Enron's employees and customers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_Corpus This became the "Enron Corpus" and it was the first large tranche of emails that were in the public domain and available to researchers. As a result, it became the gold standard dataset for researchers investigating social graphs, natural language, and many other subjects that subsequently became very important computer science fields and commercial applications. As legacies go, the Enron Corpus is pretty small ball, and even so, it is decidedly mixed, both because the Enron Corpus constitutes a gross, ongoing privacy violation for a huge number of people; and because a lot of that social graph and natural language work that it jumpstarted has been put to deeply shitty purposes. Then there's Worldcom: also a gigantic fraud, Worldcom falsified billions of dollars' worth of orders for new fiber optic lines, and it then dug up streets all over the world and installed them. When Worldcom went bankrupt, all that fiber stayed in the ground, and many people are still using it today. My home in Burbank has a 2GB symmetrical fiber connection through AT&T that runs on old Worldcom fiber that AT&T bought up for pennies on the dollar. So while you have to squint really hard to find any benefit that can be salvaged from Enron, it's really easy to point at Worldcom's productive residue – it's a ton of fiber and conduit running under the streets of major cities around the world, ready to be lit up and bring the people nearby into the 21st century. Fiber, after all, is amazing, literally thousands of times better than copper or 5G or Starlink: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/07/swisscom/#stacked Even though Enron's CEO Ken Lay and Worldcom's CEO Bernie Ebbers both received prison sentences after their fraud was revealed, the bubbles never stopped, and indeed, they only got worse. AI is the biggest bubble in human history, worse even than the South Sea Bubble: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company And like those earlier bubbles, some of our modern bubbles will leave behind nothing, while others will leave behind some productive residue. Take the cryptocurrency bubble. Crypto will go to zero, and when it does, all it will leave behind is shitty monkey JPEGs and even worse Austrian economics: https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/ As with Enron, you can find some productive residue from cryptocurrency if you look hard enough. A lot of programmers have had a heavily subsidized education in Rust programming and cryptographic fundamentals, both of which are unalloyed goods in our otherwise very insecure digital world. Some of the underlying mechanisms from crypto are useful, even without blockchains. Take Metalabel, a system that lets collaborators on creative projects automate how they handle revenues from those projects by plugging DAO-like logic into traditional, dollar-based bank accounts. They're recycling some of the tooling from the crypto bubble to create a very useful utility, without the crypto: https://www.metalabel.com/ But, as with the Enron Corpus, this is pretty small ball. The world has flushed away hundreds of billions to get paltry millions' worth of value out of crypto – the rest of that value disappeared into the pockets of crooked insiders who defrauded the public into parting with their savings. If crypto will be Enron-like in its post-bubble life, what about AI? I think AI is more like Worldcom: there's a bunch of useful stuff that AI can do, after all. Take away the bubble and we'd call the things AI can do "plug-ins" and some people would use them, and others wouldn't, and some of those uses would be productive, and others would be foolish, but we wouldn't bet the world's economy on them, nor would we squander our last dribbles of potable water to cool their data centers. After the AI bubble pops, there will be a lot of durable residue. The data centers will still stand. The GPUs will still be there, and if we don't "sweat the assets" by running them as hot and hard as they can tolerate, they won't burn out in 2-3 years. There will be lots of applied statisticians, skilled data-labelers, etc, looking for work. And there will be lots of open source models that have barely been optimized (why make an open source model more efficient when you're raising capital based on the promise of outspending everyone else in order to dominate a world of ubiquitous, pluripotent, winner-take-all centralized AI?): https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/16/post-ai-ai/#productive-residue That's a situation not unlike the post-dotcom bubble of the early 2000s. Almost overnight, the legion of humanities undergrads who'd been treated to subsidized training in perl, Python and HTML found themselves looking for work. Servers could be purchased in bulk for pennies on the dollar (with user data still on them!). I bought a "dining room set" of six $1,000+ fancy office chairs for $50 each (still wrapped in plastic!) from a dotcom founder who was selling them on the sidewalk out front of his failed startup's office in the Mission. He offered to sell me ten lifetime's supply of branded t-shirts for $20. I turned him down. That was the birth of Web 2.0. All of a sudden, people who wanted to make real things that were good could do so, because they could find skilled workers, hardware, and office space at such knock-down prices that they could be funded out of pocket or put on a credit card. People got to pursue the web they wanted, free from asshole bosses and VCs. Not everything that got built in those heady days was good, but many good things got built. I can easily imagine that the post-bubble AI scene will produce benefits comparable to Web 2.0 – projects built by and for people who want to do useful and fun things, without being distracted by the mirage of illusory billions promised by the stock swindlers who created the bubble. I can easily imagine that I will find some of those post-bubble tools useful, and that in 20 years I will still be using them, just as today, I am still using some of those early post-dotcom bubble services and tools. And despite all that, IT IS NOT WORTH IT. The residue that is left behind by every bubble is subsidized, but that subsidy doesn't come from the deep-pocketed investors who are gripped by "irrational exuberance." It comes from mom-and-pop, normie, retail investors who have been tricked into giving their money to the insiders who inflated the bubble. From Worldcom to Enron, from crypto to AI, the point of the bubble wasn't ever the residue or lack thereof – it was a transfer from working people to crooks. Bubbles are a system for moving the painfully sequestered life's savings of people who do things to people who steal things. Since the Carter years, workers have been forced to flush their savings into the stock market, after the traditional "defined benefits pension" (that guarantees you an inflation-adjusted sum every month until you die) was replaced with 401(k)s and other "market-based pensions" (where you only get to survive after retirement if you bet correctly on the movement of stocks): https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/29/against-cozy-catastrophies/ Despite this having all the appearances of a rigged game – finance industry insiders are always going to be better at betting on stocks than teachers, nurses, janitors and other productive workers – proponents of this system always insisted that workers weren't really the suckers at the table. But the stock market is like Kalshi or Polymarket in that one bettor's losses are another bettor's gains, and in those markets, nearly all the money is harvested by less than 1% of bettors: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/04/29/a-tiny-group-is-winning-on-polymarket-as-under-1-of-wallets-take-half-the-profits Somehow, supposedly, we could beat those insiders and survive into our old age without having to eat dog food or become a burden on our kids by betting on the whole market, through index-tracker funds: https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/17/shareholder-socialism/#asset-manager-capitalism Supposedly, this would "diversify" our portfolios, which would insulate us from risks we could not understand, much less estimate. But thanks to private equity and the AI bubble, betting on "the whole market" is basically "betting on AI." 35% of the S&P 500 is tied up in seven AI companies, who are engaged in the obviously fraudulent (and Worldcom-adjacent) practice of passing the same $100b IOU around really quickly and pretending it's in all their bank accounts at once: https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/11/05/ai-growth-stocks-is-there-still-room-to-run/ When the AI bubble pops, it will vaporize (at least) 35% of the US stock market and wipe out everyday savers who have been swindled into betting their futures on AI, based on the fraudulent representations of AI pitchmen. Millions of people who worked hard all their lives and deprived themselves of small comforts in order to save for their retirement will be wiped out. They will be made dependent on the Social Security system that Republicans are determined to starve into bankruptcy and then turn into (yet another) "market based system" that you will be required to convert into chips at the stock market casino where you're up against professional players who hold all the cards: https://www.newsweek.com/major-social-security-change-proposed-to-build-wealth-11727844 Annihilating a third of the stock market will have severe knock-on effects, even though the median US worker only has $955 saved for retirement: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/955-saved-for-retirement-millions-are-in-that-boat-150003868.html Because wiping out the life's savings of everyone else will tank consumption for a generation. Retirees who have to sell their family homes to pay their medical bills won't be buying breakfast at the local diner or catching a Tuesday night movie. They won't be indulging their grandkids with nice birthday presents or helping their own kids buy their first home. Worse still: the only thing our society knows how to do about economic catastrophe (for now, anyway) is to impose brutal austerity, and austerity drives voters into the arms of fascist strongmen, who blame all their woes on a scapegoated minority in order to win office, and then steal everything that's not nailed down: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/12/always-great/#our-nhs Which is all to say, there's a world of difference between recognizing that the AI bubble is the superior sort of bubble in that it will leave a productive residue, and endorsing the AI bubble as a productive or morally acceptable way to produce that residue. It's one thing to anticipate salvaging something useful out of a catastrophe, and another thing altogether to deliberately induce or prolong that catastrophe so as to maximize the amount of salvage. The swindlers who created this bubble are crooks who have set out to destroy the futures of a generation of savers. They are monsters, and their bubble needs to be popped as quickly as possible. Hey look at this (permalink) Appearing Productive in The Workplace https://nooneshappy.com/article/appearing-productive-in-the-workplace/ Unsolicited https://www.jennyvolvovski.com/category/unsolicited Half of Labour’s Voters Set to Abandon Party in England as Keir Starmer’s ‘London Wall’ Crumbles https://bylinetimes.com/2026/05/06/exclusive-poll-half-of-labours-voters-set-to-abandon-party-in-england-as-keir-starmers-london-wall-crumbles/ Am I Meant To Be Impressed? https://www.wheresyoured.at/am-i-meant-to-be-impressed/ Froth is a small live lexical language for programmable devices https://frothlang.org/ Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago Judge mocks FCC’s legal argument for wiretapping VoIP https://web.archive.org/web/20060512141440/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004638.php #20yrsago Podcasting saved from the UN — for now https://web.archive.org/web/20060603152220/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004637.php #15yrsago Two billion people and the royal wedding: pretty damned unlikely https://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2011/05/06/2-billion-viewers/ #15yrsago Mozilla tells DHS: we won’t help you censor the Internet https://torrentfreak.com/homeland-security-wants-mozilla-to-pull-domain-seizure-add-on-110505/ #15yrsago Foxconn workers forced to sign promise not to commit suicide due to working conditions https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/05/foxconn-workers-forced-to-sign-promise-not-to-commit-suicide-due-to-working-conditions/ #15yrsago Shannon’s Law: a story about bridging Faerie and the mundane world with TCP-over-magic https://reactormag.com/shannons-law/ #15yrsago Green Army men with PTSD https://www.wearedorothy.com/collections/artworks/products/casualties-of-war #10yrsago Deep Insert skimmers: undetectable, disposable short-lived ATM skimmers https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/05/crooks-go-deep-with-deep-insert-skimmers/ #10yrsago How standardizing DRM will make us all less secure https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/standardized-drm-will-make-us-less-safe #10yrsago Excellent advice for generating and maintaining your passwords https://www.wired.com/2016/05/password-tips-experts/ #10yrsago Amid education funding emergency, Washington State gives Boeing, Microsoft $1B in tax breaks https://jeffreifman.com/2016/05/05/forget-boeing-microsofts-tax-break-costs-776-million/ #5yrsago MRNA vaccines and Clarke's Law https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/05/clarkes-third-law/#indistinguishable-from-magic #5yrsago Stimmies killed the McJob https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/05/clarkes-third-law/#precariat-nostalgia #1yrago Bridget Read's 'Little Bosses Everywhere' https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/05/free-enterprise-system/#amway-or-the-highway Upcoming appearances (permalink) Guelph: Musagetes Lecture, May 8 https://riverrun.ca/whats-on/guelph-lecture-on-being-2026/ Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: In praise of vultures (06 May 2026)
- Wed, 06 May 2026 10:15:36 +0000
Today's links In praise of vultures: They screw you because they can. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Linus v MSFT; Argentina v MSFT; Danny Hillis on theme parks v games; Smartfilter v Distributed Boing Boing; Rental laptops filled with spyware; Torture didn't help capture bin Laden; Massively parallel Apple //e; Stephen Harper v election law; John Deere v Iowa cartoonist; Qualia. Upcoming appearances: Guelph, Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. In praise of vultures (permalink) One of my bedrock beliefs is that capitalists really hate capitalism. They may name their beloved institutes after the likes of Adam Smith, but they ignore everything Smith had to say about the necessity of competition to keep markets from turning into monopolies: https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/09/commissar-merck/#price-giver The theory of capitalism holds that markets are a kind of distributed computer that aggregates trillions of decisions from billions of market participants in order to optimize production and distribution of goods and services, creating a "Pareto-optimal" world where no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off. Whether or not you believe that this computer exists and functions as predicted, one indisputable fact about it is that it requires the freedom to choose in order to work. The point of market-as-computer is that it aggregates decisions, so it can only work if everyone is as free as possible to decide. But that's not the world capitalists want. For capitalists, the point is to restrict other people's choices in order to maximize your own freedom. That's how we get economic doctrines like "revealed preferences": the idea that if a person says they want one thing, but does another thing, then you can tell what they really prefer by looking at the latter and disregarding the former. This is the kind of doctrine you can only fully embrace after sustaining the kind of highly specific neurological injury that is induced by taking an economics degree, an injury that makes you incapable of perceiving or reasoning about power. Under the doctrine of revealed preferences, someone who sells their kidney to make the rent has a revealed preference for only having one kidney: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/30/players-of-games/#know-when-to-fold-em Capitalism is supposed to run on risk: the risk of being overtaken by a competitor drives businesses to deliver better services more efficiently, thus producing a bounty for all. But capitalists really hate risk, hence the drive to monopoly: Mark Zuckerberg admitted, in writing, that he only bought Instagram so that he wouldn't have to compete with it ("It is better to buy than to compete" -M. Zuckerberg): https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/20/if-you-wanted-to-get-there/#i-wouldnt-start-from-here Capitalists hate capitalism, but they love feudalism. Feudalism is like capitalism, in that you have a ruling class that creams off the surplus generated by labor; but under feudalism, society is organized to protect rents (money you get from owning stuff) over profits (money you get from doing stuff). The beauty of rents is that they are insulated from risk: if you own a coffee shop, you're in constant danger of being put out of business by a better coffee shop. But if you own the building and your coffee shop tenant goes under, well, you've still got the building, and hey, now it's on the same hot block as the amazing new cafe that's driving its competitors out of business: https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital Douglas Rushkoff calls this "going meta": don't drive a taxi, rent a medallion to a taxi driver. Don't rent a medallion, start a ride-hailing app company. Don't start a ride-hailing company, invest in the company. Don't invest in the company, buy options on the company's shares. Each layer of indirection takes you further from the delivery of a useful service – and insulates you further from risk: https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn Monopoly is to capitalism as gerrymandering is to democracy, a way to strip out any meaningful choice. Think of the two giant packaged goods companies that fill your grocery aisles: Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Practically everything on your grocer's shelves is made by a division of one of these two massive conglomerates. If you try to "vote with your wallet" by buying a low-packaging version of a product, it's going to be sold to you by the same company that sells the high-packaging version. If you switch to an artisanal brand of cookies made by a local family business, Unilever or P&G will buy that company and issue a press release declaring that they made the acquisition because they know "their customers value choice": https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/18/market-discipline/#too-big-to-care Gerrymandering strips your vote of any impact on political outcomes. Monopoly strips your purchases of any ability to influence economic outcomes. Wrap both of them in "revealed preferences" and you get a system that endlessly narrates its ability to deliver choice, and then blames your misery on your having chosen badly. This is the method of the entire conservative project. As Dan Savage says: the thing that unites conservative assaults on voting, birth control, abortion and no-fault divorce is the stripping away of choice. Conservatives are trying to create a world populated by husbands you can't divorce, pregnancies you can't prevent or terminate, and politicians you can't vote out of office. Add to that Trump's assault on the National Labor Relations Board, his reversal of the FTC's ban on noncompetes, and his protection of "TRAP" agreements that force employees to pay thousands of dollars if they quit their jobs, and you get "jobs you can't quit": https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/09/germanium-valley/#i-cant-quit-you Conservative strongmen like Trump and Musk exalt the value of self-determination – for themselves, at everyone else's expense. Trump's ability to stiff the contractors that built his hotels and Musk's ability to rain flaming rocket debris down on the people who live near his company town require that everyone else be stripped of protections. They get to determine their own course in life by taking away your ability to determine your own. Their right to swing their fists ends two inches past your nose: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/21/torment-nexusism/#marching-to-pretoria Cheaters and bullies hate the rule of law, hence Trump's endless repetition of Nixon's mantra: "When the president does it, that means it is not illegal." But not everyone can be president, and the world is full of would-be Trumps in positions of power who would like to be able to commit crimes without fear of legal repercussions. For these people, we have something called "binding arbitration." "Binding arbitration" is a widely used contractual term that forces you to surrender your right to sue a company that wrongs you. Instead of suing, binding arbitration forces you to take your case to an "arbitrator"; that is, a lawyer who is paid by the company that cheated you or maimed you or killed your loved one. The arbitrator decides whether their client is guilty, and, if so, how much that client owes you. The entire process is confidential and it is non-precedential, meaning that if a company rips off millions of people in the same way, each of them has to arbitrate their claims separately, and people who are successful can't share their tactical notes with the people who are next in line to plead for justice. That makes binding arbitration another key weapon in the conservative movement's war on choice: not just jobs you can't quit and politicians you can't vote out of office, but also companies you can't sue. Binding arbitration is a creation of the Federalist Society and their champion Antonin Scalia, who authored a series of Supreme Court dissents and (ultimately) decisions that opened the door for binding arbitration everywhere: https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/27/shit-shack/#binding-arbitration Given the Fedsoc's role in shoving binding arbitration down every worker and shopper's throat, it's decidedly odd that they invited Ashley Keller to be their keynote debater in 2021, where he argued that "concentrated corporate power is a greater threat than government power": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY5MrHGjVT8 Keller is a powerhouse lawyer, and an avowed conservative, who has pioneered many tactics for overcoming binding arbitration clauses. He helped create "mass arbitration," bringing thousands of arbitration cases on behalf of Uber drivers who'd had their wages stolen by the company. Since Uber has to pay the arbitrators in each of those cases, they faced a much larger bill than they would face in any possible class action suit: https://www.reuters.com/article/otc-uber-frankel-idUKKCN1P42OH/ Mass arbitration cases spread to all kinds of large firms that used petty grifts to steal from thousands or even millions of people, like Intuit, who deceive – and rip off – millions of Americans every year with their fake Turbotax "free file" system: https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/24/uber-for-arbitration/#nibbled-to-death-by-ducks Mass arbitration worked so well that Amazon actually revised its terms of service to remove binding arbitration from their terms of service, because they realized that they'd be better off facing class action suits: https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/02/arbitrary-arbitration/#petard Of course, the point of binding arbitration was never to create a streamlined system of justice – it was to bring about a world of no justice, where you have no right to sue. It's part of the decades-old "tort reform" movement that the business lobby has used to take away your right to sue altogether. Any time you hear about a seemingly crazy lawsuit (like the urban legends about the McDonald's "hot coffee" case), you're being propagandized for a world without legal consequences for companies that defraud you, steal from you, injure you, or kill you: https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/hot-coffee/#mcgeico That's why companies (like Bluesky) are now trying terms of service that also ban you from mass arbitration, while retaining the right to consolidate claims into a mass arbitration case if that's advantageous to them: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/15/dogs-breakfast/#by-clicking-this-you-agree-on-behalf-of-your-employer-to-release-me-from-all-obligations-and-waivers-arising-from-any-and-all-NON-NEGOTIATED-agreements But Keller keeps finding creative ways around binding arbitration. He's currently bringing thousands of arbitration claims against Google, on behalf of advertisers whom Google stole from (Google is a thrice-convicted monopolist, and they lost a case last year over their monopolization of ad-tech, where they were found to have defrauded advertisers). He also just argued before the Supreme Court in a case against Monsanto over the company's attempt to escape liability for causing cancer in farmworkers with their Roundup pesticide: https://www.npr.org/2026/04/27/nx-s1-5793804/supreme-court-monsanto-roundup-arguments Keller appears in the latest episode of the Organized Money podcast, for a fascinating interview about his work and outlook, and how he reconciles his work fighting corporate power with his identity as a movement conservative: https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/the-conservative-who-torments-big Keller's first big, important point is that (basically), capitalists hate capitalism (see above). He cites Milton Friedman, who "always said that the tort system is the best way to ensure that companies behave and follow the rules." For Keller (and Friedman) the alternative to private litigation against bad businesses is "government regulation and the alphabet soup of Washington, DC agencies [that] try and police these companies." But, of course, the businesses that want binding arbitration and tort reform (so they can't be sued) also want to "dismantle the administrative state" (so they can't be regulated). They're the impunity movement, the "when the president does it, that means it is not illegal" movement, the "heads I win, tails you lose" movement. They're the caveat emptor movement, the "that makes me smart" movement: https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/04/its-not-a-lie/#its-a-premature-truth They don't want efficient markets, with the ever-present threat of a better competitor putting them out of business. They want feudalism. They want to go meta. They want to have the kind of self-determination you can only achieve by taking away everyone else's self-determination. I was very struck by Keller's claim to be engaged in an exercise that Milton Friedman identified as the best one for making markets work. One of Keller's most forceful points is that class action suits are especially important for reining in petty, recurrent grifts, the junk fees that are the hallmark of enshittification. He quotes his old boss, the archconservative judge Richard Posner, who said "Only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $20." But if you multiply a $20 junk fee by ten million purchases, a company can use that fact to make hundreds of millions of dollars. That's real folding money, which is why every company has figured out a way to whack you for a $20 junk fee. There are two ways to end this racket: one is litigation, the other is regulation, and the capitalism-hating-capitalists who run the world want to kill both. That's why the business lobby smears lawyers like Keller as being "vultures." But as Matt Stoller says, "vultures look aggressive and whatnot, but when you actually get rid of vultures out of an ecosystem, all sorts of things go haywire." I love this point. Vultures live off the disgusting, rotting crap that would otherwise pile up around us, breeding disease and emitting an unbearable stench. If plaintiff-side, no-win/no-fee lawyers are vultures, then junk fees, wage theft, and the million petty frauds they fight are the disgusting, rotting crap that vultures feed off of – and the harder we make it for our noble vulture lawyers, the more disgusting, rotting crap we have to live with, hence the unbearable stench that is all around us. Listening to Keller was a fascinating exercise. I thoroughly disagree with him about many things – the way he characterized Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act couldn't have been more wrong – but it's quite bracing to hear a capitalist who doesn't hate capitalism defend it against the vast majority of capitalists, who hate capitalism more than any socialist ever did. Hey look at this (permalink) Why Reddit blocked my daily visit to its mobile website https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/05/why-reddit-blocked-my-daily-visit-to-its-mobile-website/ "The Score Is Four/and Next Time More" https://rickperlstein.substack.com/p/the-score-is-fourand-next-time-more Bodyform | Never Just a Period https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpFYcj2sJ3A Getting Digital Fairness Right: EFF's Recommendations for the EU's Digital Fairness Act https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/dos-and-donts-eus-digital-fairness-act-effs-recommendation-regulating-digital DHS Demanded Google Surrender Data on Canadian’s Activity, Location Over Anti-ICE Posts https://www.wired.com/story/dhs-demanded-google-surrender-data-on-canadians-activity-location-over-anti-ice-posts/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Torvalds responds to Microsoft's Craig Mundie https://web.archive.org/web/20011019132822/http://web.siliconvalley.com/content/sv/2001/05/03/opinion/dgillmor/weblog/torvalds.htm #25yrsago Bankrupt Argentina considers banning proprietary code and switching to free software https://web.archive.org/web/20010614131152/https://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,43529,00.html #20yrsago Danny Hillis on how games are(n’t) like a theme park https://web.archive.org/web/20060513182649/https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/disney.html #20yrsago Mission Impossible opening marked by anti-Scientology flyover https://web.archive.org/web/20060514000636/http://hailxenu.net/ #20yrsago SmartFilter targets Distributed Boing Boing – how to defeat it https://memex.craphound.com/2006/05/04/smartfilter-targets-distributed-boing-boing-how-to-defeat-it/ #15yrsago John Ashcroft assumes charge of “ethics and professionalism” for Blackwater https://web.archive.org/web/20110507103749/https://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/blackwaters-new-ethics-chief-john-ashcroft/ #15yrsago Rumsfeld and other US officials say torture didn’t help catch bin Laden https://web.archive.org/web/20110505012303/https://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/surveillance-not-waterboarding-led-to-bin-laden/ #15yrsago Rental laptops equipped with spyware that can covertly activate the webcam and take screenshots https://web.archive.org/web/20110506130156/http://www.ajc.com/business/pa-suit-furniture-rental-933410.html #15yrsago Parallel machine made out of 17 stitched-together Apple //e’s https://web.archive.org/web/20110504194313/http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/AppleCrateII.html #15yrsago Sarah Palin and James Lankford: giving $4 billion of taxpayer money to oil companies doesn’t matter https://web.archive.org/web/20110505220640/https://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/03/palin-lankford-oil-subsidies/ #15yrsago Stephen Harper violated election laws https://web.archive.org/web/20110701000000*/http://www.examiner.com/canada-headlines-in-canada/stephen-harper-breaks-election-rules-campaigns-on-radio-on-election-day #15yrsago History and future of bin Ladenist extremism https://www.juancole.com/2011/05/obama-and-the-end-of-al-qaeda.html #10yrsago Belushi widow & Aykroyd produce Blues Brothers animated series https://deadline.com/2016/05/the-blues-brothers-animated-comedy-series-dan-aykroyd-1201748389/ #10yrsago Chinese censorship: arbitrary rule changes are a form of powerful intermittent reinforcement https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/04/why-growing-unpredictability-chinas-censorship-is-feature-not-bug/ #10yrsago US government and SCOTUS change cybercrime rules to let cops hack victims’ computers https://www.wired.com/2016/05/now-government-wants-hack-cybercrime-victims/ #10yrsago After advertiser complaints, Farm News fires editorial cartoonist who criticized John Deere & Monsanto https://web.archive.org/web/20160505042150/https://www.kcci.com/news/longtime-iowa-farm-cartoonist-fired-after-creating-this-cartoon/39337816 #10yrsago Outstanding rant about establishment pearl-clutching over Trump https://web.archive.org/web/20160505033357/https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/george-will-is-a-haughty-dipshit-1774449290 #10yrsago The Planet Remade: frank, clear-eyed book on geoengineering, climate disaster, & humanity’s future https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/04/the-planet-remade-frank-clear-eyed-book-on-geoengineering-climate-disaster-humanitys-future/ #5yrsago Qualia https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/04/law-and-con/#law-n-econ #5yrsago Whales decry the casino economy https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/04/law-and-con/#all-bets-are-off Upcoming appearances (permalink) Guelph: Musagetes Lecture, May 8 https://riverrun.ca/whats-on/guelph-lecture-on-being-2026/ Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: The three armies fighting for the post-American world (05 May 2026)
- Tue, 05 May 2026 12:31:41 +0000
Today's links The three armies fighting for the post-American world: Hippies, investors and hawks. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: NK dictator's son v Tokyo Disneyland; Mainstream press and Bushies v Colbert; Taliban v Pakistan's first McDonald's; Norwegian sovereign wealth fund v exec compensation; Copyright v cheerleader uniforms; Dishwashers are Iphones. Upcoming appearances: Guelph, Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. The three armies fighting for the post-American world (permalink) Political change is downstream of coalition building, and coalitions are fragile things, because by definition they are not fully aligned; they share some goals but often violently disagree about others. A coalition forms when groups set aside their differences to pursue the common elements of their agenda. Trump is a master coalition builder. He wouldn't have been able to seize and wield so much power without a coalition that includes people who absolutely hate each other and want each other to die. Let's face it, Nick Fuentes wants to turn Ben Shapiro into a lampshade, but they both sent their followers to the ballot box for Trump. We've all seen those videos of Trump supporters railing against "elites" after watching the richest man on Earth cavorting with Trump while promising to give all of their jobs to AI and robots. This contradiction isn't a bug, it's a feature: the bigger a coalition gets, the more power it has – provided you've got a Trump figure at the top, using his cult of personality to coerce and flatter his coalition members into playing nice with each other. But Trump's incontinent belligerence, his bullying, and his cognitive decline mean that he's conjuring a new anti-Trump coalition into existence: groups of people who don't agree on much, but do agree on fighting Trumpismo and its leader. This is very visible in US domestic politics, where "Never-Trumper" conservatives find themselves on the same side as Democratic Socialists, at least on this narrow issue. The anti-Trump mass mobilizations – the Women's March, the anti-ICE demonstrations, the No Kings rallies – are visibly, palpably coalitional, made up of people carrying signs and banners for groups that are often at odds with one another…except when it comes to Trump. But I'm much more interested in the international coalitions that are forming to fight Trump. It started with my longstanding fight for a good internet, free from surveillance, extraction and manipulation, the three evils inherent to the business models of America's shitty, enshittifying tech companies. Under normal circumstances, you'd expect tech companies in other countries to capitalize on the fact that America exports its obviously defective tech products around the world. As Jeff Bezos often reminds his suppliers: "Your margin is my opportunity." Whether it's Apple taking a 30% margin on iPhone payments, Apple and Meta creaming 51 cents off every ad dollar, Amazon harvesting 50-60% from every platform seller, or inkjet printer companies marking up the colored water you use to print your grocery list by 25 quattuordecillion percent, there's a ton of opportunities to disrupt these comfortable ex-disruptors. But no one does that, because the US Trade Representative bullied every US trading partner into enacting an "anticircumvention" law that makes it a crime to modify America's tech exports. The quid pro quo for this? Free trade with the USA – and tariffs for any country that didn't fall into line. Well, they all fell into line, and Trump tariffed them anyway. That means that America's tech giants' margins are now everyone else's opportunity. The trillions that US tech companies extract could be someone else's billions – all they'd have to do is offer the interoperable goods and services that disenshittify America's tech products. They could sell the tools that let anyone in the world use independent app stores, or fix their cars and tractors, and put generic ink in their printers. A year ago, no country could afford to allow a company headquartered in its borders to get into this business, lest they be clobbered with tariffs. Today, any country that isn't thinking about this is a sucker that will end up buying these tools from another country that gets there first. This means that digital rights hippies like me (who've been banging this drum for 25 years), suddenly have a new ally in the fight against enshittified tech products. Today, there are people who want to help you protect your pocketbook and your privacy, but not because they believe in human rights – rather, because they want to get really, really rich. They see Big Tech's margin as their opportunity. But it's not just entrepreneurs and activists who want a post-American internet – we have a third member of our coalition: national security hawks. Trump wants to steal Greenland. He wants to steal Alberta. He wants to steal all the oil in Venezuela. He wants to interfere in foreign elections to keep his dictator cronies in office, lest they lose power and find themselves facing prison. And when Trump's allies do face justice, he wants to fire the judges who dare hold these corrupt, powerful men to account. So when the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the genocidaire Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump had Microsoft shut down the court's IT systems. The Chief Justice of the ICC lost his Office 365 account, which means he can't access his email archives, his working files, his calendar or his address books. He can't even log in to his non-Microsoft accounts because they're tied to his Outlook email address. The ICC was just a warmup: Trump did the same thing to the Brazilian high court judge who sentenced the dictator Jair Bolsonaro to prison for attempting a coup after he lost his re-election bid, having presided over a term of gross misrule. All of this has inflamed concerns within every (former) US ally's national security establishment. These people all understand that Trump doesn't need to roll tanks to take over their countries: he can just brick their key ministries, major firms, and households. He doesn't need to send an army to steal Greenland, he can just shut down Denmark and cut off the world's supply of Lego, Ozempic and ferociously strong black licorice. Combine the natsec hawks; the economic development wonks, entrepreneurs and investors; and the privacy and digital and human rights activists, and you've got a hell of an anti-Trump coalition around the world, all pulling together to build the post-American internet, a disenshittified and enshittification-resistant internet built on international digital public goods and running on servers outside of the USA: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition But this coalition isn't limited to the post-American internet – you'll find a coalition much like it in every place where Comrade Trump is calling forth a post-American world. That's the shape of the coalition that's winning Trump's war on fossil fuels: climate activists (hippies), electrification manufacturers and installers (businesses) and national security hawks who don't want to get hormuzed: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/04/hope-in-the-dark/#hormuzed-into-the-gretacene I'm not as plugged into the other areas where Trump has dismantled US hegemony, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that a coalition much like this one is popping up in the countries where Trump and Musk doged the public health system into oblivion. The global south is full of countries that signed up to enforce US agricultural and pharmaceutical patents and US restrictions on birth control and abortion in exchange for the food-aid and health-aid that Elon Musk and his merry band of broccoli-haired brownshirts killed. It's easy to imagine that reproductive rights and health justice advocates in those countries are now on the same side as investors who'd like to get into business selling generic pharmaceuticals and agricultural inputs, and that they're being backed by people worried that their country's food and health sovereignty are at risk unless they hasten the transition to a post-American world. I have been an activist all my life, and a digital rights activist for the majority of my adult life. I'm sure there are members of this post-American coalition who want things that are absolutely antithetical to my agenda. That's what makes us a coalition – we disagree about so much, but we all agree on this: it's past time for a post-American world, and Comrade Trump is delivering it. Hey look at this (permalink) Can Investors Trust AI Sales Figures? https://archive.is/20260502194551/https://www.wsj.com/opinion/can-investors-trust-ai-sales-figures-c60c46bf#selection-562.0-562.1 Hysteresis and Selection in the Rise of Fascism: The ‘Ordinary Men’ of the Nazi Party https://www.nber.org/papers/w35120 The Whistleblower Who Uncovered the NSA’s ‘Big Brother Machine’ https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-whistleblower-who-uncovered-the-nsas-big-brother-machine/ Unauthorized Bread graphic novel cover https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/55248071321/in/dateposted/ Aftermath: Oil Execs Thrill to Higher Profits From War https://prospect.org/2026/05/04/aftermath-oil-execs-thrill-to-higher-profits-from-war/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago North Korean dictator's son arrested trying to sneak into Tokyo Disneyland https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/03/world/japan-is-said-to-detain-son-of-north-korean-leader.html #25yrsago Bruce Sterling on good design https://memex.craphound.com/2001/05/03/great-illustrated-bruce-sterling-rant/ #20yrsago Mainstream press: Colbert wasn’t funny at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, so we ignored him https://web.archive.org/web/20070207014019/http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/05/03/correspondents/index_np.html #20yrsago Bush and cronies livid about Colbert’s White House gig https://web.archive.org/web/20060615113045/https://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060501/1whwatch.htm0 #20yrsago Identity thief rips off 3-week-old baby https://abcnews.com/US/story?id=155878&page=1 #20yrsago Network neutrality – why it matters, and how do we fix it? https://web.archive.org/web/20060507215106/http://www.slate.com/id/2140850/ #15yrsago Federal judge: open WiFi doesn’t make you liable for your neighbors’ misdeeds https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/after-botched-child-porn-raid-judge-sees-the-light-on-ip-addresses/ #10yrsago Taliban condemn Pakistan city’s first McDonald’s: “we don’t even consider it as a food.” https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/mcdonald-s-opens-quetta-pakistan-taliban-isn-t-lovin-it-n564651 #10yrsago Norway’s titanic sovereign wealth fund takes a stand against executive pay https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36185925 #10yrsago TSA lines grow to 3 hours, snake outside the terminals, with no end in sight https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/business/airport-security-lines.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0 #10yrsago Inside a Supreme Court case on cheerleader uniforms, a profound question about copyright https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/supreme-court-to-hear-copyright-fight-over-cheerleader-uniforms/ #5yrsago Dishwashers have become Iphones https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/03/cassette-rewinder/#disher-bob Upcoming appearances (permalink) Guelph: Musagetes Lecture, May 8 https://riverrun.ca/whats-on/guelph-lecture-on-being-2026/ Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Demand destruction vs fuel-superseding infrastructure (04 May 2026)
- Mon, 04 May 2026 09:39:28 +0000
Today's links Demand destruction vs fuel-superceding infrastructure: Will Trump hormuz us into the full Gretacene? Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Beck, Scientologist; Citizen journalism; Podcast-killing treaty; US x Kiwi copyright; Apple did a crime; DeCSS v civilian aviation; Navy x SF's queering; Micosoft v FLOSS; Sony-BMG needs a new DRM czar; Lossy copying sculpture; AI and the fatfinger economy. Upcoming appearances: Guelph, Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Demand destruction vs fuel-superceding infrastructure (permalink) No one is better at keeping hope alive than Rebecca Solnit, the historian and essayist whose Hope in the Dark got me through the first Trump administration and whose A Paradise Built In Hell inspired my novel Walkaway: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/301070/a-paradise-built-in-hell-by-rebecca-solnit/ In her latest, "Truth, Consequences, Climate, and Demand Destruction," Solnit is nothing short of inspirational – not because she downplays the horror and misery of Trump and his war of choice in Iran, but because she tells us what we stand to salvage from the wreckage: https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/truth-consequences-climate-and-demand-destruction/ Solnit starts by explaining some of the (many, many) things that Trump doesn't understand. Principally, Trump doesn't understand the concept of "demand destruction," which is what happens when shortages prompt people to make durable, one-way changes in their behavior that permanently reduce the demand for fossil fuels. High prices sometimes create demand destruction: for example, if a transient shortage in eggs pushes prices up, people might discover that they prefer tofu scrambles in the morning, so even when the price of eggs comes back down, they buy two dozen fewer eggs every month, forever. Beyond high prices, shortages and rationing are far more likely to lead to demand destruction. In the 10 years following the 1970s oil crisis, US cars doubled in fuel efficiency, and the gas-guzzler didn't return until car manufacturers exploited the American "light truck" loophole to fill the streets with deadly SUVs: https://medium.com/vision-zero-cities-journal/the-chicken-tax-and-other-ways-the-u-s-government-subsidizes-your-ford-f-150-444a5164c627 But to really max out on demand destruction, you need both rationing and a cheap, easily installed substitute, and that's what the Strait of Epstein crisis, along with solar and batteries, offers the world today. Solar is incredibly cheap, and getting cheaper every day. Batteries are also incredibly cheap, and they're getting cheaper too. For decades, fossil fuel apologists have insisted that we'll never stop setting old dead shit on fire because "the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow," but thanks to battery deployment in China and California (and more places very soon), the sun shines all night long: https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2026/04/Global-Electricity-Review-2026.pdf?ref=meditationsinanemergency.com In starting this stupid, unforgivable war, Trump has vastly accelerated the process of demand destruction. Rather than buying American oil, the whole world has undertaken a simultaneous, rapid, irreversible shift to electrical substitutes for fossil fuel applications, from induction tops to balcony solar to ebikes and EVs: https://thepolycrisis.org/01-demand-destruction-us-oil-is-not-winning-the-iran-war/ As Solnit writes, Trump's stupid war follows on the heels of another unforgivable and cruel blunder: Putin's quagmire in Ukraine, which catapulted Europe into the Gretacene, with a wholesale, continent-wide shift away from fossil fuels to renewables and the devices they power. Now, the rest of the world is following suit. In South Korea, President Lee Jae Myung is leading the charge to transition the country to renewables, framing fossil fuels as an existential geopolitical risk. Trump's demand destruction accelerates Putin's demand destruction: China and India both increased their energy consumption in 2025 – but reduced their fossil fuel consumption over the same period. In 2025, coal accounted for less than a third of the world's energy for the first time in modern history. 2025 was the year that solar and wind overtook coal globally. Meanwhile, Trump and his oil baron buddies keep trying to make fetch happen. On the campaign trail, Trump told the oil industry that if they slipped him a $1b bribe, he would give them anything they wanted, and he's kept his promise. Trump will let Big Oil drill anywhere they like, from sacred sites like New Mexico's Chaco Canyon to the Arctic. He'll even let them take all of Venezuela's oil. The problem is that banks can see the demand destruction writing on the wall, and they are conspicuously declining to loan the oil companies the money they'd need to get that oil. Truly, Trump's a machine for creating stranded assets at scale. As Solnit writes, that's because Trump has no strategic foresight; strategy being "the ability to plan for things to arise that may counter your agenda, so you can continue to pursue your agenda." Trump's a bully, and he's accustomed to intimidating his adversaries into capitulating. That's why Trump keeps making moves without ever thinking about the countermove he might provoke. He can't metabolize the strategic maxim that "the enemy gets a vote." This is the GOP's whole vibe these days: "how dare you do unto me as I have done unto you?" Solnit points to GOP outrage in response to Democratic gerrymandering in blue states, which Democrats undertook in direct, explicit response to shameless gerrymandering in Texas and other red states. Solnit says that the GOP has "confused having a lot of power with having all the power" and is perennially surprised when their attacks on Iran and Minneapolis elicit a reaction from the people in Iran and Minneapolis. This is the defective reasoning that caused Comrade Trump to hormuz the world into the full Gretacene. Whereas once the case for the energy transition was driven by activists who warned people about the future consequences of inaction, Trump has summoned up a new army of people who are worried about the present consequences of inaction: such as not being able to drive your car, use your gas stove, or fertilize your crops. Trump has summoned up another army of people, who are worried about the politics of oil, the fact that oil leads to wars and can be mobilized as a weapon when it is withheld from your country. Activists couldn't deliver the energy transition on their own – but now there's a coalition that's driving rapid, irreversible change: activists concerned about the future of the planet, in coalition with economic actors concerned about the consequences of not being able to cook, heat your home, or keep the lights on; in coalition with national security hawks worried about the geopolitics of oil. That's Comrade Trump's three-part mobilization: human rights, finance, and national security, all insisting that the enemy gets a vote, and voting unanimously for a post-American world. Last week marked the first Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels conference, attended by representatives from 54 countries who sidestepped the US- and China-dominated UN to ratify the Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty Initiative, whose 18 signatories include Colombia, a major oil producer. The world is moving on, and Trump continues to insist that he can roll back history to some imaginary era of a Great America. Every time this fails, he doubles down on his failures and sets the stage for more failure to come. Take Trump's decision to have the US blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Not only is this a powerful force for demand destruction – but, as Trita Parsi writes, it's also poison for Trump's own electoral fortunes in America: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-iran-blockade/ Trump won in 2024 by campaigning to improve Americans' cost of living. This is a powerful campaign strategy, and it's not limited to fascists, as Zohran Mamdani can attest. But for this to work, you actually have to reduce the cost of living once you take office, otherwise you will be hated and rejected and hampered in everything you do. The problem (for Trump – but not for Mamdani!) is that America's high cost of living is driven by corporate profiteering, and the only way to fix it is to make the rich poorer so as to make the poor richer: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/24/mamdani-thought/#public-excellence If Trump had chosen to bullshit his way through the Iranian blockade of the strait, allowing the Iranians to collect a $2m toll per tanker (payable in Chinese renminbi!), well, oil would have gone up in price some, but the coming runaway inflation on food and fuel would have been substantially blunted. Instead, he decided to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" by adding a US blockade, which means that prices in the US are going to skyrocket, making his base furious and driving turnout for Democrats, along with support for more renewables, even among blood-red Republican rural Texas ranchers, who have had enough of "DEI for fossil fuels": https://austinfreepress.org/renewables-are-now-the-costco-of-energy-production-bill-mckibben-says/ The renewables transition is now a self-licking ice-cream cone, a flywheel that only spins faster and faster. As Solnit writes, this is true notwithstanding the concerns by some climate advocates about the materials needed for the transition. Sure, there will be some extraction involved in mass electrification, and if that's done badly, it will involve stealing and destroying more land from poor and indigenous people. But we don't have to do it badly! Meanwhile, not transitioning to renewables absolutely requires an endless cycle of incredibly destructive and genocidal extraction. Remember, fossil fuels are fuels, while renewables are infrastructure. Fuels need to be dug up and destroyed every year for so long as we insist on setting old dead shit on fire to survive. We dig up a lot of fossil fuels. The world consumes seventeen times more fossil fuels in a year than we will require to electrify the planet forever: https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/06/with-great-power/#comes-great-responsibility The infrastructure of renewables – panels, batteries, transmission lines – requires materials that are often scarce and whose processing involves extremely harmful and polluting processes. But those materials are all recyclable: we don't recycle them today because we haven't prioritized doing so, not because it it technologically beyond our reach. In 2024, America saw its first all-solar powered solar panel recycling factory, which reclaimed 99% of the materials in a panel that was 20% efficient, and then used those materials to make two panels that were each 40% efficient: https://interestingengineering.com/energy/solarcycle-to-recycle-10-million-solar-panels-yearly Trump shut that plant down, which means that other countries will get to recycle America's superannuated panels into modern, efficient ones and sell them back to America. America may have blocked any climate reparations for the poor world, but thanks to Comrade Trump, America's still going to end up paying them, in the form of windfall profits for countries whose cleantech economy is racing ahead of America's. Unlike a fossil fuel economy, a cleantech sector does not require that your country have access to some difficult to find, unevenly distributed reservoir of old dead shit or even rare minerals. Not only is lithium far more common than once believed, it's also being phased out for use in batteries and replaced by sodium, the world's sixth-most abundant element: https://cen.acs.org/energy/energy-storage-/Sodium-ion-batteries-Should-believe/103/web/2025/11 Lithium is set to join cobalt, a notorious conflict mineral, in the cleantech revolution's rear-view mirror as a transitional material used in early, primitive batteries and no longer required. A post-carbon future is a post-petrostate future is a post-American future. It will run on solar and wind and batteries, which can be brought online cheaply and quickly, every time demand-destruction surges, using materials that are widely distributed around the world. It won't be a nuclear future, and not just because nuclear materials are (like oil) concentrated according to accidents of geography, nor merely because fissiles are geopolitically catastrophic (like oil). Nuclear plants take at least a decade to bring online, which means that they will always arrive ten years after some future Comrade Trump-type kicks off another orgy of demand destruction, and by the time we turn them on, the world will have already bought, improved and recycled two generations of batteries and panels. (Image: Stefan Müller (climate stuff), CC BY 2.0) Hey look at this (permalink) A Long and Probably Boring Process Post https://dreamcafe.com/2026/05/01/a-long-and-probably-boring-process-post/ The Supreme Court is Corrupt. This is What We Can Do About It. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRzS61buXkQ NHS Goes To War Against Open Source https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/05/nhs-goes-to-war-against-open-source/ An open letter asking NHS England to keep its code open https://keepthingsopen.com/ Top 20 Fiction to Inspire Climate Action https://thebookslist.com/20-fiction-books-to-inspire-climate-action/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Beck dumps Winona and becomes a Scientologist https://web.archive.org/web/20010502151355/http://www.suntimes.com/output/zwecker/zp30.html #25yrsago Fuck San Francisco https://craphound.com/fucksf.html #25yrsago Desktop Linux rant https://web.archive.org/web/20021204051712/http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/3297/1/ #25yrsago History of ASCAP and BMI https://www.woodpecker.com/writing/essays/royalty-politics.html #25yrsago AUSA: If we let you decrypt DVDs, airplanes will start falling out of the sky https://web.archive.org/web/20010504221956/https://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,43485,00.html #25yrsago Microsoft shits on open source https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/03/business/technology-microsoft-is-set-to-be-top-foe-of-free-code.html #20yrsago Dan Gillmor explains “citizen journalism” https://web.archive.org/web/20060512043722/https://sf.backfence.com/bayarea/showPost.cfm?myComm=BA&bid=2271 #20yrsago UN plans a treaty to kill podcasts https://web.archive.org/web/20060512141428/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004619.php #20yrsago Sen Stevens tries to sneak the Broadcast Flag into law https://web.archive.org/web/20060505054724/http://ipaction.org/blog/2006/05/breaking-news-broadcast-flag-is-back.html #20yrago How the US Navy queered San Francisco https://web.archive.org/web/20060504024636/http://ask.yahoo.com/20060502.html #20yrago Help wanted: new DRM czar for Sony-BMG https://web.archive.org/web/20060512063724/http://www.paidcontent.org/sonybmg-director-new-technology-content-protection-nyc #20yrsago Rich Americans as sick as poor Brits https://web.archive.org/web/20060516225807/http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9098&feedId=online-news_rss20 #15yrsago Sculpture embodies lossy copying using much-copied house-key https://web.archive.org/web/20110316215804/http://www.danielbejar.com/Visual_Topography_of_a_Generation_Gap.html #15yrsago Piracy and poor countries: Big Content wants to have its cake and eat it too https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/03/why-poor-countries-lead-world-piracy #15yrsago Brust’s Tiassa: versatile fantasy in three modes https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/02/brusts-tiassa-versatile-fantasy-in-three-modes/ #15yrsago Why New Zealand was dumb to let the USA write its copyright laws https://web.archive.org/web/20110601173727/http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/7615 #15yrsago Canadian neocon Tories take a slim majority in election, pro-Internet New Democrats form the opposition https://web.archive.org/web/20110503041720/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/new-political-era-begins-as-tories-win-majority-ndp-grabs-opposition/article2006635/ #15yrsago Will technology make us freer, and if so, how? https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-techno-optimism/ #15yrsago Wikileaks: America will foot the bill for record company enforcement in NZ if NZ will let America write its laws https://web.archive.org/web/20110502135002/http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5769/125/ #15yrsago Horology considered hazardous: the “German Time Bomb” clock with its deadly mainspring https://web.archive.org/web/20110516102538/https://www.anniversaryclocks.org/aci/haller-gtb.pdf #5yrsago Political economy vs inflation https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/01/mayday/#inflationary-political-economy #1yrago Apple faces criminal sanctions for defying App Store antitrust order https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/01/its-not-the-crime/#its-the-coverup #1yrago AI and the fatfinger economy https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/02/kpis-off/#principal-agentic-ai-problem Upcoming appearances (permalink) Guelph: Musagetes Lecture, May 8 https://riverrun.ca/whats-on/guelph-lecture-on-being-2026/ Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P Do you feel screwed over by big tech? (Ontario Today) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: The prehistory of the Democratic Nuremberg Caucus (02 May 2026)
- Sat, 02 May 2026 11:22:11 +0000
Today's links The prehistory of the Democratic Nuremberg Caucus: Do bounties for ICE whistleblowers next! Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Colbert v GWB; Wallaby milk; Jay Rosen's journalism precepts; Radical Media(TM); What is carried interest? TCP over pigeon; BNL v copyright; RIP Joanna Russ; GOP forcing students to repay scam loans. Upcoming appearances: Berlin, NYC, Barcelona, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. The prehistory of the Democratic Nuremberg Caucus (permalink) Comrade Trump continues his unbroken streak of destroying the American empire's grip on the world, hastening the renewables transition, de-dollarizing global trade, and killing the world's suicidal habit of entrusting its digital life to America's defective, enshittified tech exports: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/20/praxis/#acceleration But Comrade Trump's ambitious praxis knows no bounds. Now, he's helping to remake the Democratic Party as a muscular opposition with a serious commitment to workers' interests over billionaires. It's not merely that Trump has empowered the primary campaigns of leftist Democrats facing down corporate, AIPAC-backed sellouts: https://prospect.org/2026/04/30/palestine-super-pac-new-jersey-12-district-adam-hamawy/ He's also stiffening normie sellout Democrats' spines, forcing them to confront the stark choice between socialism and barbarism! And Dem leaders don't come more normie sellout than Cory "Big Pharma" Booker, a disgrace to Corys everywhere: https://web.archive.org/web/20170112224531/https://theintercept.com/2017/01/12/cory-booker-joins-senate-republicans-to-kill-measure-to-import-cheaper-medicine-from-canada/ Nevertheless, that very same (lesser) Cory has introduced legislation to unwind every illegal, corrupt merger that the Trump administration has waved through: https://www.booker.senate.gov/news/press/booker-introduces-legislation-to-review-and-unwind-anticompetitive-corporate-mergers-approved-under-second-trump-administration Under the Correcting Lapsed Enforcement in Antitrust Norms for Mergers (CLEAN Mergers) Act, any company that was acquired in a deal worth $10b or more will have to break up with its merger partner if it turns out that these mergers were "politically influenced." "Politically influenced" sums up every major merger under the Trump II regime: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/13/khanservatives/#kid-rock-eats-shit You could be forgiven for assuming that this is just about reining in Wall Street greed, but that it isn't an especially political maneuver. That's not true: antitrust is the most consequentially political regulation (with the possible exception of regulations on elections). Every fascist power defeated in WWII relied on the backing of their national monopolists to take, hold and wield power. That's why the Marshall Plan technocrats who rewrote the laws of Europe, South Korea and Japan made sure to copy over US antitrust law onto those statute-books (that's also why the tech antitrust cases brought in Europe could be re-run in South Korea and Japan – their laws are all substantively similar, because they were harmonized with US antitrust in the 1950s): https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/22/autocrats-of-trade/#dingo-babysitter Fascism and monopolies go hand in hand, and smashing monopolies is key to the program of fighting fascism. After defeating fascism in the mid-20th century, the Allies oversaw a program of "denazification," starting with the Nuremberg trials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials Inspired by those trials, I've proposed that Congressional Dems could form a "Nuremberg Caucus" that would publicly promise sweeping plans to denazify America after Trump and his allies have been swept from power: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#denazification The centerpiece of the Nuremberg Caucus playbook is a set of ready-to-file, public indictments against Trump officials who have violated the law, the Constitution, and the rights of the people of the USA. Dems should create and maintain a docket with exhibits and witness lists that gets updated every time one of these crooks runs their big, stupid mouths on Fox News or OANN or Twitter. The Nuremberg Caucus could even set dates for the trials of officials, with judicial calendars for each federal courtroom, starting on January 21, 2029. The idea here is to both demoralize Trump's collaborators and to stiffen the spines of the Democratic base who will have to be convinced that turning out for the coming elections, and defending them, will mean something, delivering the change and hope they've been promised since the Obama campaign, but which has never materialized. While trials and punishment for Trump's fascist goons are at the center of the Nuremberg Caucus plan, that's not all of it. The plan also calls for publicly announcing the intention to unwind every corrupt merger that was consummated under Trump. This serves two purposes: first, it promises the electorate that the monopolists who steal from them will face consequences for their crimes; but second, it also puts investors on notice that any gains from corrupt mergers will turn into massive losses once the next administration orders these companies to unscramble the inedible omelets they're cooking up, no matter what the cost. That's exactly what Booker's CLEAN Mergers Act – cosponsored by Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) – does. I don't think that Booker is listening to me, but I do think that Dems who are willing to introduce this kind of legislation can be cajoled, coerced and sweet-talked into more ambitious Nuremberg Caucus actions. For example, there could not be a better time to announce plans to unrig the Supreme Court, which has just gutted the Voting Rights Act: https://prospect.org/2026/05/01/turning-civil-rights-inside-out-supreme-court-voting-rights/ The Supreme Court's legitimacy has been burned to the ground, and Trump's chud justices are pissing on the ashes. Packing the court is a very good idea: https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/20/judicial-equilibria/#pack-the-court It's also a very popular idea: https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/18/the-people-no/#tell-ya-what-i-want-what-i-really-really-want Which is why I included it in the Nuremberg Caucus plan. But packing the court is just table stakes. In his latest video, Jamelle Bouie lays out a detailed plan for denazifying the Supreme Court: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRzS61buXkQ As Bouie points out, "as long as John Roberts has his majority, nothing the left of center in this country wants to do is safe or stable…We can have democracy and self-government in this country or we can have the Supreme Court as it exists, but we cannot have both." But packing the court – while a good place to start – isn't enough. Per Bouie, the problem isn't just the court's corruption – it's how powerful the court is. Article 3, Section 2 of the Constitution permits Congress to "jurisdiction strip" the Supremes: Congress can pass a law taking voting rights and racial discrimination away from the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. Congress can impose ethics reforms on the court, banning justices from taking bribes (I can't believe I have to type these words). Congress can turn the Supreme Court's current building into a museum and move the Supreme Court back into its original home in Congress's basement. Congress can take away the Supremes' ability to select their clerks or which cases they hear. All the Constitution says is that there must be a Supreme Court, and it must adjudicate "disputes between states, disputes involving ambassadors, impeachments, that kind of thing." Everything else is up to Congress to grant or withhold from SCOTUS. This is very good Nuremberg Caucus stuff. It would be an amazing campaign promise for anyone primarying a shitty normie Dem in the midterms: "Vote for me, and I will be part of the legislative movement to make the Supreme Court weaker and thus more accountable." Now, as much as I like this, I'm really holding out for a Dem to go with my big ICE-melting idea: promising million-dollar bounties for ICE officers who rat out their buddies for violating the law: ICE agents are signing up with the promise of $50k hiring bonuses and $60k in student debt cancellation. That's peanuts. The Nuremberg Caucus could announce a Crimestoppers-style program with $1m bounties for any ICE officer who a) is themselves innocent of any human rights violations, and; b) provides evidence leading to the conviction of another ICE officer for committing human rights violations. That would certainly improve morale for (some) ICE officers. As I wrote in February: Critics of this plan will say that this will force Trump officials to try to steal the next election in order to avoid consequences for their actions. This is certainly true: confidence in a "peaceful transfer of power" is the bedrock of any kind of fair election. But this bunch have already repeatedly signaled that they intend to steal the midterms and the next general election: https://www.nj.com/politics/2026/02/top-senate-republican-rejects-trumps-shocking-election-plan-i-think-thats-a-constitutional-issue.html ICE agents are straight up telling people that ICE is on the streets to arrest people in Democratic-leaning states ("The more people that you lose in Minnesota, you then lose a voting right to stay blue"): https://unicornriot.ninja/2026/federal-agent-in-coon-rapids-the-more-people-that-you-lose-in-minnesota-you-then-lose-a-voting-right-to-stay-blue/ The only path to fair elections – and saving America – lies through mobilizing and energizing hundreds of millions of Americans. They are ready. They are begging for leadership. They want an electoral choice, something better than a return to the pre-Trump status quo. If you want giant crowds at every polling place, rising up against ICE and DHS voter-suppression, then you have to promise people that their vote will mean something. Hey look at this (permalink) “The Mistake Will Not Recur [Until Two Sentences From Now]” https://www.loweringthebar.net/2026/04/the-mistake-will-not-recur.html Why are the Artemis II photos on Flickr? https://www.anildash.com/2026/04/30/artemis-photos-flickr/ Your Dinner Got Worse On Purpose https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-dinner-got-worse-on-purpose Hadopi (2009–2026) https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2026/04/30/hadopi-2009-2026-2/ You’re Not Wrong, Babies Are Getting Worse: Enshittification Comes For A Once-Beloved Classic https://theonion.com/youre-not-wrong-babies-are-getting-worse-enshittification-comes-for-a-once-beloved-classic/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Implementing TCP over pigeon https://blug.linux.no/rfc1149/ #20yrsago Barenaked Ladies frontman on copyright reform https://web.archive.org/web/20060505032617/http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=3367a219-f395-4161-a9b9-95256c613824 #20yrsago Stephen Colbert kills at White House press corps dinner https://web.archive.org/web/20060501114431/http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002425363 #20yrsago Cinema owners try to lure us back to the movies https://web.archive.org/web/20060620140301/https://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/peninsula/14457900.htm?source=rss&channel=mercurynews_peninsula #20yrsago Smithsonian’s sellout to Showtime slammed by Congress https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/28/AR2006042802213_2.html #20yrago Wallaby milk: proof against antibiotic resistant bacteria https://web.archive.org/web/20060429102138/http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=593632006 #20yrsago Documentary on radical free school https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgpuSo-GSfw #15yrsago Facebook celebrates royal wedding by nuking 50 protest groups https://anticutsspace.wordpress.com/2011/04/29/political-facebook-groups-deleted-on-royal-wedding-day/ #15yrsago Jay Rosen: What I Think I Know About Journalism https://pressthink.org/2011/04/what-i-think-i-know-about-journalism/ #15yrsago Companies should release the source code for discontinued products https://makezine.com/article/maker-news/if-youre-going-to-kill-it-open-source-it/ #15yrsago Scratch-built “freedom press” https://makezine.com/article/craft/freedom_press/ #15yrsago HOWTO quilt a 3D Mad Tea Party set https://www.instructables.com/Quilted-Mad-Tea-Party-Set/ #15yrsago Online activism works: Canada delayed US-style copyright bill in fear of activist campaign https://web.archive.org/web/20110501103056/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5763/125/ #15yrsago Ad agency to radicals: “We own radical media(TM)” https://web.archive.org/web/20110503045909/http://radicalmediaconference.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/we-make-radical-media-you-make-adverts/ #15yrsago Troubletwisters: Garth Nix and Sean Williams’ action-packed new kids’ fantasy https://memex.craphound.com/2011/04/30/troubletwisters-garth-nix-and-sean-williams-action-packed-new-kids-fantasy/ #15yrsago RIP, Joanna Russ https://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012974.html#547586 #5yrsago Experian doxes the world (again) https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/30/dox-the-world/#experian #5yrsago Disney's writer wage-theft is far worse than reported https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#pay-the-writer #5yrsago Korea set to break the Samsung dynasty https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#dynasties #5yrsago What the hell is "carried interest" https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#carried-interest #1yrago Mike Lee and Jim Jordan want to kill the law that bans companies from cheating you https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/29/cheaters-and-liars/#caveat-emptor-brainworms #1yrago Republicans want to force students to pay off scam college loans https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/30/trump-u/#i-think-you-know-what-the-trustees-can-do-with-their-suggestions Upcoming appearances (permalink) Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P Do you feel screwed over by big tech? (Ontario Today) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: How not to ban surveillance pricing (30 Apr 2026)
- Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:38:35 +0000
Today's links How not to ban surveillance pricing: Maryland's new consumer protection law is all loophole. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Google's 8,000 Linux servers; Battleshoe; Knitted potholes; Unpack the court; "Robot Artists and Black Swans"; Enshittifying tech jobs. Upcoming appearances: Berlin, NYC, Barcelona, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. How not to ban surveillance pricing (permalink) If you want to piss me off, it's easy: just breezily assert that our tech regulation problems are the result of the fast pace of technological change racing ahead of the plodding speed of governmental action: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/22/uber-for-nurses/#go-meta While there have been some instances in which this was true, it is far more often the case that there are blindingly obvious answers to tech problems, which our lawmakers and regulators ignore, amidst a rising chorus of warnings about the dire consequences of failing to act. Take the new Maryland bill that (supposedly) outlaws surveillance pricing: this bill is, frankly, a terribly drafted piece of shit. Worse: it's a terribly drafted piece of shit bill that fails to resolve a serious and urgent problem. Even worse: the lawmakers who drafted this piece of shit bill and Maryland Governor Wes Moore were all loudly and repeatedly warned about the problems of this bill, and they did nothing and now the people of Maryland are fucked. So what is surveillance pricing, why is it so dangerous, and what's wrong with Maryland's Protection Against Predatory Pricing Act? Surveillance pricing is when a company spies on you ("surveillance") and uses the resulting dossier to raise its prices to the maximum it calculates you will be willing to pay ("pricing"). With surveillance pricing, a retailer reaches into your bank account and devalues your dollars. If you pay $2 for an apple at the grocery store and the same store only charges me $1 for that apple, then that grocer is telling you that your dollars are worth half as much as mine: https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/24/price-discrimination/ There's a kind of economics brainworm that makes some economists looooove surveillance pricing. They will insist that this is an "efficient" way to price goods, and claim that surveillance pricing isn't just a way to raise prices on people who are willing to pay more, it's a way to lower prices for people who are willing to pay less. What you're supposed to infer from this is that people who can afford more will end up paying more, while people who can afford less will pay less. It's pitched as the Robin Hood of pricing policies, gouging the rich to finance discounts for the poor. But in practice, that's not at all how surveillance pricing works. Instead, surveillance pricing is most often used to levy a "desperation premium" on people who have fewer choices and less leverage. For example, there's a McDonald's investments portfolio company called Plexure that supplies surveillance pricing tools to fast food restaurants. Plexure advertises its ability to use surveillance data to find out when a customer has just gotten a paycheck so that vendors can increase the price of their usual breakfast sandwich order. This isn't aimed at wealthy people – it's explicitly designed to target people who are living paycheck to paycheck. Surveillance pricing is also used to determine how much you get paid; when that happens, we call it "algorithmic wage discrimination." Gig platforms like Uber use surveillance data about their drivers to predict which workers are most desperate, and those drivers are offered less money per mile and per hour, because a desperate worker will take whatever is on offer. Gig work apps for health-care do the same thing to nurses: https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/18/loose-flapping-ends/#luigi-has-a-point Indeed, surveillance pricing represents a kind of cod-Marxism. Instead of "from each to their own ability, to each according to their need," the "efficient" surveillance pricing motto is, "from each according to their desperation, to each according to our power": https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/11/socialism-for-the-wealthy/#rugged-individualism-for-the-poor Surveillance pricing is anything but efficient. Because surveillance pricing is a transfer from consumers to investors, it has the net effect of reducing consumption overall. If your grocer can screw you out of an extra $50/month on your household food bill, that's $50/month you can't spend on a babysitter, a movie, or a couple of nice books for your kid. The American economy runs on consumption, and the American consumer has less discretionary income than they've had in generations. Anything that reduces consumption is a drag on the whole economy. Surveillance pricing is rampant and getting worse all the time. During the Biden administration the FTC held hearings on the practice and developed a detailed, eye-watering record of all the ways that surveillance, combined with digital platforms that can alter prices for every visit by every customer, has resulted in a massive transfer from working people to wealthy investors: https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy Unfortunately – and predictably – Trump's new FTC chairman, Andrew Ferguson, killed off that action, replacing it with an initiative that encouraged FTC officials to anonymously rat each other out for being too "woke": https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/21/trumpflation/#andrew-ferguson He did this even as a whole bunch of surveillance pricing companies were blitzing their clients with messages about the surveillance pricing possibilities created by Trump's tariffs, which would condition buyers to expect higher prices, creating opportunities to smuggle in surveillance-priced premiums: https://pros.com/learn/webinars/navigating-tariff-increases-future-proof-pricing-strategy It's only gotten worse since. Back in January, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that the company had a new plan to make AI profitable: they would supply surveillance prices for sellers who used Google's advertising services. After all, Google spies on more people, more comprehensively, than anyone except Meta and the NSA, and Google has an advanced ad-targeting network and a giant AI arm. Put these three facts together and Google can offer merchants the ability to target you for ads and prices that are calculated, to the penny, to be the most you would be willing to pay: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/21/cod-marxism/#wannamaker-slain All this – rampant, desperation-based price-gouging; federal inaction; a risk to the whole economy – is the backdrop for Maryland's new anti-surveillance pricing bill, which Governor Wes Moore has been trumpeting as the nation's first state bill banning surveillance pricing. This would be very cool – if it was real. But – as the American Economic Liberties Project's Pat Garofalo writes for the Economic Populist – the Protection Against Predatory Pricing Act is so badly drafted that it will have essentially no impact on surveillance pricing. It's positively riddled with loopholes: https://economicpopulist.substack.com/p/gov-wes-moore-claims-maryland-banned The first problem with this bill is its scope: it only regulates surveillance pricing for groceries. It has nothing to say about the use of surveillance data to reprice car rentals, apartments, healthcare, taxi rides, quick-service food, or the thousand other areas where surveillance pricing is already rampant. Worse: it is silent on algorithmic wage discrimination: the use of surveillance data to reprice your wages, penalizing workers for being poor by making them even poorer. Now, helping people with their grocery bills isn't nothing. However, even within that very narrow scope, this bill is a disaster. As Garofalo points out, the bill's first glaring loophole here is how it permits surveillance pricing if a purchaser "consents." This is quite a loophole! After all, we live in an era in which "consent" consists of clicking "I agree" when presented with a gigantic list of terms and conditions, which you cannot negotiate, which are subject to change without notice, and which are so long that it would take 26 hours to review all the "agreements" you "consent" to in any given 24-hour day. So if the company that you use to book your pet's veterinary check-ups is owned by the same company that provides your grocer with its surveillance pricing tools, you might "consent" to having that company jack you on every bag of groceries just by clicking "I agree" when your cat needs a vet appointment. The bill also exempts "promotional offers" and "temporary discounts," suggesting that it was drafted by someone who has never encountered a merchant whose retail premises are always plastered with signs trumpeting the fact that every price in the shop is both "temporary" (ACT NOW!) and "promotional" (SALE! SALE! SALE!). Since the bill doesn't define either of these words, it effectively grants every grocer in the state an easy way to evade the law entirely. Finally, the bill exempts two exceptionally scammy tactics that are already the major vehicle for surveillance price-based gouging: loyalty cards and subscription-based pricing. Loyalty cards are often a total scam: https://consumerlaw.berkeley.edu/news/price-loyalty-how-rewards-programs-trap-consumers-and-how-states-can-take-action-protect-them And subscriptions are a scammer's best friend: https://redrocks.org/financial-education/hidden-charges-and-fake-subscriptions-the-quiet-scam-costing-consumers-millions But even if you are ripped off by a grocer who can't be bothered to call the scam a "sale" or a "temporary offer," who can't be bothered to dress it up as a "loyalty perk" or a "subscription price," you still can't get justice. That's because the Protection Against Predatory Pricing Act excludes the "private right of action," which means that you can't sue a grocer who rips you off. All this bill lets you do is petition the state Attorney General's office to sue the grocer on your behalf, and if the AG doesn't think you deserve justice, you're shit out of luck. And the Protection Against Predatory Pricing Act pre-empts other rights in Maryland's existing Consumer Protection Act, meaning that it actually gives Marylanders fewer rights than they had a month ago, before it was signed into law. Legislation this bad doesn't happen by accident. The omissions and defects in this law aren't there because "technology moves so fast that lawmakers can't make sense of it." This is the result of lobbyists and sellout politicians conspiring to rip off the public, and of a governor who decided to ignore the warnings about the bill in order to get a chance to grandstand on Bill Maher while doing nothing to help Marylanders: https://x.com/BlueGeorgia/status/2047868126365106631 From nurses' wages to your payday breakfast sandwich, surveillance pricing is everywhere, especially in groceries. Every time you use Instacart to shop at Albertsons, Costco, Kroger, and Sprouts Farmers Market, you might be getting ripped off for as much as 23% of the total price: https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/11/nothing-personal/#instacartography This isn't some silly-season fake controversy. It's an existential crisis for America's cash-strapped, heavily indebted households, whose lives have been made immeasurably worse by the inflation from Trump's Strait of Epstein disaster. Maryland had the chance to do something to help these people and instead they squandered it, selling out to lobbyists for companies whose bottom line depends on draining the bank accounts of the most desperate people in the state. (Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified) Hey look at this (permalink) "An Ignorant Population Is Easier to Control" https://rickperlstein.substack.com/p/an-ignorant-population-is-easier Walt Disney Visited a Ford Factory in 1948. What He Witnessed There Laid the Groundwork for What Would Become Disneyland https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/walt-disney-visited-a-ford-factory-in-1948-what-he-witnessed-there-laid-the-groundwork-for-what-would-become-disneyland-180988551/ ‘Stop’: Warning over viral Scientology ‘Speedrun’ trend https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/stop-warning-over-viral-scientology-speedrun-trend/news-story/067ce0336bcf53774b4be682741dd868 Aftermath: China Is Electrifying Freight Trucking https://prospect.org/2026/04/29/aftermath-china-electrifying-freight-trucking/ 2026 Digital Publishing Awards Nominees https://digitalpublishingawards.ca/2026nominees/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Google's now running on 8,000 Linux servers https://web.archive.org/web/20010501043429/http://www.internetweek.com/story/INW20010427S0010 #25yrsago Karl Schroeder’s Ventus in the NYT https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/29/reviews/010429.29scifit.html #20yrsago Sony screwing artists out of iTunes royalties, customers out of first sale https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/technology/cheap-trick-allman-brothers-sue-sony-over-download-royalties.html #20yrsago Robot Lego CD thrower can shatter discs https://www.techeblog.com/hammerhead-the-lego-cd-thrower/ #15yrsago Understanding alternative voting, with coffee and beer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtW3QkX8Xa0 #15yrsago Battleshoe https://philnoto.tumblr.com/post/4613522934/quite-busy-with-work-today-so-heres-a-little #15yrsago Filling Paris’s potholes with knitwork https://www.flickr.com/photos/39380641@N03/albums/72157622189211405/ #15yrsago Pinhole cameras made out of hollow eggs https://www.lomography.com/magazine/71984-the-pinhegg-my-journey-to-build-an-egg-pinhole-camera #15yrsago Canadian pro-Net Neutrality/anti-censorship/anti-surveillance party gaining support https://web.archive.org/web/20110429020845/http://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2011/04/ndp’s-new-status-as-second-runner-holding-april-26-2011/ #15yrsago We Say Gay: Tennessee kids fight bill that would prohibit discussing homosexuality in school https://web.archive.org/web/20110501072834/https://wesaygay.com/ #15yrsago HOWTO build an impossible Escher perpetual motion waterfall https://www.instructables.com/Perpetual-Motion-Machine-The-real-life-version-of/ #15yrsago RIP Keith Aoki, copyfighting law prof, comics illustrator, musician and writer https://www.thepublicdomain.org/2011/04/27/rip-keith-aoki/ #5yrsago Unpack the court with judicial overrides https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/27/bruno-argento/#crisis-of-legitimacy #5yrsago Pharma's anti-generic-vaccine lobbying blitz https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/27/bruno-argento/#pharma-death-cult #5yrsago Klobuchar on trustbusting https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/27/bruno-argento/#klobuchar #5yrsago Robot Artists & Black Swans https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/27/bruno-argento/#fantascienza #1yrago The enshittification of tech jobs https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/27/some-animals/#are-more-equal-than-others #5yrsago Dems want to give $600b to the one percent https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/28/inequality-r-us/#neotrumpism Upcoming appearances (permalink) NYC: Techidemic with Sarah Jeong, Tochi Onyebuchi and Alia Dastagir (PEN World Voices), Apr 30 https://worldvoices.pen.org/event/techidemic/ Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P Do you feel screwed over by big tech? (Ontario Today) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Vicky Osterweil's "The Extended Universe" (28 Apr 2026)
- Tue, 28 Apr 2026 05:57:01 +0000
Today's links Vicky Osterweil's "The Extended Universe": How Disney killed the movies and took over the world. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Zappa v censorship; Chemistry set with no chemicals; Short cons; Mitsubishi's Dieselgate; "Bellwether." Upcoming appearances: Berlin, NYC, Barcelona, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Vicky Osterweil's "The Extended Universe" (permalink) Vicky Osterweil's The Extended Universe: How Disney Killed the Movies and Took Over the World makes the kind of long, polemical, startling and illuminating argument that defines great cultural criticism; it's the sort of book that encapsulates the reasons I read criticism in the first place: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2525-the-extended-universe My first brush with this kind of criticism came more than two decades ago, when I read John Kessel's now-classic "Creating the Innocent Killer," a critique of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, a book I had read and enjoyed enough to re-read several times: https://johnjosephkessel.wixsite.com/kessel-website/creating-the-innocent-killer Kessel's argument is that Card used Ender's Game to smuggle in some very ugly ideas, wrapped in a story that was compelling, even exhilarating. In Ender's Game, we meet Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, a small, physically weak boy possessed of a prodigious intellect and a great deal of sensitivity and empathy. Ender is tormented by an escalating series of aggressors, whom he retaliates against with overwhelming force, first to the point of lethality and then all the way to literal genocide. And here's where Card makes his move: Ender's sensitivity and empathy and intellect tell him that he must respond this way, because he can tell that his aggressors will not back off from their intention to harm him; and because Ender is so small and weak, he has to use whatever tactic his brilliant mind can devise, and if that tactic results in the death penalty for mere bullying, well, that's the bully's fault, not Ender's. Indeed, in dying at Ender's hands, these bullies re-victimize Ender, because Ender is a gentle, smart, wise, weak person, and these inescapable murders that he is goaded into committing are a stain on his soul that he can never wash away. Before reading "Creating the Innocent Killer," I confess I didn't really understand what criticism was for. Like many people, I conflated "criticism" with "reviews," thinking of critical works as a species of inconveniently difficult-to-digest essays that might help me figure out which books to read and which movies to see. Kessel's magnificent essay changed all that, and not in spite of the fact that Kessel had pointed out some very important problems with a book that I loved, but because of that fact. In helping me understand the ugliness hidden within something whose beauty and virtues I saw very clearly, Kessel taught me more about myself – about where my aesthetics and my values overlapped, and where they diverged. It was literally life-changing. Like Kessel, Osterweil's 'Extended Universe' deals with media that I have a great deal of affection for – the products of the Walt Disney Company. Though I'm primarily interested in theme parks – I love a big, ambitious built environment of any description and Disney pursues these with a seriousness that few others can touch – the Disney films (and the films of the studios Disney purchased, like Marvel and Lucasfilm) are obviously intimately bound up in those theme park designs. Osterweil has her own ambivalent affection for these movies. Like so many of us, she's been raised on them, and they've shaped how she sees the world and its stories. But – like me – Osterweil is deeply suspicious of capitalism, American imperialism, and the notion of "intellectual property," and she uses reviews of a dozen Disney films to make the case that Walt Disney and the studio he founded with his brother are standards-bearers for these odious forces, and not just in the overt ways that might immediately spring to mind, but also in subtle ways that can be teased out of a close reading of the films. In so doing, Osterweil also makes a sharp and well-argued case that intellectual property, colonialism and racial oppression are all facets of the same drive, the drive of people who fancy themselves born to rule to dominate others, which requires that those others also be dehumanized and their work denigrated. When Walt Disney insisted that his be the only name associated with "his" movies, he was playing out the same logic that underpinned his virulent opposition to labor unions and his participation in American imperialism in Latin America. As with Kessel, Osterweil's argument is full of surprises and illuminations that are especially vivid for those of us who have great affection for these works. As her chapter on Black Panther shows, this contradiction need not go unresolved. There is plenty of scope for fans to seize the reins of the narrative (and as her chapter on the reactionary backlash to the later Star Wars movies shows, it's not just the forces of progress and anti-racism who can pull off this move). Like the very best criticism, Osterweil's book is more than a way to deepen your understanding of the material she dissects – it's a way to deepen your understanding of the world that produced it, and to deepen your understanding of yourself. Hey look at this (permalink) BRIEF OF PENN & TELLER AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONER https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-6774/400679/20260312113948009_25-6774%20Penn%20and%20Teller%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf Zack Polanski calls for Trump to be 'kicked out' of his Scottish golf courses https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8954xe8yjpo Uncovering Global Telecom Exploitation by Covert Surveillance Actors https://citizenlab.ca/research/uncovering-global-telecom-exploitation-by-covert-surveillance-actors/ What's Missing in the 'Agentic' Story https://www.mnot.net/blog/2026/04/24/agents_as_collective_bargains Licensed to Loot https://static1.squarespace.com/static/65c9daef199ea70aa66592fe/t/69e7b2f2949631007bb3d969/1776792306864/Licenced+to+loot+AI+Data+Centre+Report.pdf Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago Frank Zappa’s anti-censorship letter https://www.flickr.com/photos/mudshark/117551768/in/set-72057594090059726/ #15yrsago Chemistry kit with no chemicals https://web.archive.org/web/20110427212354/http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/04/chemistry-set-boasts-no-chemicals.html #15yrsago Russian corruption: crooked officials steal multi-billion-dollar company, $230M tax refund, then murder campaigning lawyer https://web.archive.org/web/20110426045152/http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/20/russia_s_crime_of_the_century? #15yrsago Golden-age short-change cons https://web.archive.org/web/20110429014539/https://blog.modernmechanix.com/2011/04/26/tricks-of-short-change-artists/ #10yrsago Campaigners search Londoners’ phones to help them understand the Snoopers Charter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szN7DlmMLYg #10yrsago Mitsubishi’s dieselgate: cheating since 1991 https://web.archive.org/web/20160427145038/https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/mitsubishi-cheated-fuel-economy-tests-since-1991/#ftag=CAD590a51e #10yrsago Bellwether: Connie Willis’s classic, hilarious novel about the science of trendiness https://memex.craphound.com/2016/04/26/bellwether-connie-williss-classic-hilarious-novel-about-the-science-of-trendiness/ #5yrsago The Big U https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/26/moolah-boolah/#poison-ivies Upcoming appearances (permalink) NYC: Enshittification at Commonweal Ventures, Apr 29 https://luma.com/ssgfvqz8 NYC: Techidemic with Sarah Jeong, Tochi Onyebuchi and Alia Dastagir (PEN World Voices), Apr 30 https://worldvoices.pen.org/event/techidemic/ Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/ Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Recent appearances (permalink) Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P Do you feel screwed over by big tech? (Ontario Today) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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, April 20, 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: The enshittification multiverse (27 Apr 2026)
- Mon, 27 Apr 2026 08:39:48 +0000
Today's links The enshittification multiverse: It's a useful analogy. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Every complex ecosystem has parasites; Prison for "attempted infringement"; When We Were Robots in Egypt; Golfing in The Blitz; Copyright vs privacy (NZ edn); GOP support for pedophile Hastert; EFF's music license; RIP Jane Jacobs; California is fanfic; DMCA v medical implants; "Burglar's Guide to the City"; Flaming river; Fantasy accounting. Upcoming appearances: Berlin, NYC, Barcelona, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. The enshittification multiverse (permalink) It's official: you have my consent and enthusiastic blessing to apply "enshittification" to things that aren't digital platforms! Semantic drift is good, actually: https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pearl-clutching/#this-toilet-has-no-central-nervous-system With that out of the way, let's talk about how enshittification can be usefully applied to gambits that worsen something in order to shift value from the users of that thing to the person doing the worsening. Here's the crux: in life, there are many zero-sum situations in which others' pain is your profit. The most basic example of this is profit margins: as your profit margin climbs, so do the prices paid by others. The more money a customer gives you for whatever you're selling, the less money that customer has to spend on other things they want. This is the fatal flaw in the economist's justification for surveillance pricing (when the price you're quoted is based on surveillance data about the urgency of your needs and your ability to pay): a seller who commands higher prices from a buyer deprives other sellers of that buyer's money. The airline that knows you can't miss a funeral and also knows how much purchasing power is available on your credit card can charge you every cent you can afford – but that means that the coffee shop owner who normally sells you a latte in the morning will lose out on your business for months while you dig yourself out of that hole. Tim Wu has a good example of this: imagine a world in which electricity utilities were unregulated and got to charge "market rates" for their products. Prior to the current wave of cheap, efficient solar, electrical power was a "natural monopoly." In nearly every circumstance, a given person would end up with just one source of power, and life without power was nearly unimaginable. In that situation, the power company's "rational" decision would be to charge you everything you could afford for the least electricity you could survive on: enough to keep your fridge and a few lights on. That means that you would be deprived of the value of, say, a clock radio and a coffee-maker, and the manufacturers of the clock radio and the coffee-maker would likewise suffer the loss of your business. So the "monopoly" part is key to this story. The more alternatives you have, the harder it is to squeeze you on prices. Airport concessionaires can charge $12 for a Coke on the "clean" side of a TSA checkpoint because realistically you can't leave the airport and get a Coke elsewhere – and if you do, you can't bring it through the checkpoint. Any source of lock-in becomes an invitation to shift value away from your customers and suppliers to yourself. High "switching costs" are always a precondition for enshittification – otherwise the people you're trying to enshittify will simply take their business elsewhere: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs That's why market concentration is so central to the enshittification story: when the number of competitors in a sector dwindles to a cartel (or a duopoly or a monopoly) companies find it easy to fix prices so there's no point in shopping around, and they can capture their regulators and harness the power of the state to block other companies from entering the market with a better deal: https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/small-government/ Now that we understand the role that switching costs, regulatory capture, and market concentration play in enshittification, let's put them together to propose a framework for applying enshittification to things other than digital platforms: Enshittification happens when someone sets out to reduce your choices, and then uses that lock-in to make things worse for you in order to make things better for themself. Note that this definition requires a degree of intent. Enshittification isn't just bargaining hard when you find yourself in a position of strength. It's what happens when you set out to systematically weaken other people's bargaining position in anticipation of a future opportunity to fuck them over in order to improve your own situation. So if the business lobby bribes Republican state legislators to pass "right to work" laws that make it nearly impossible for workers to unionize, and then the businesses involved worsen their workers' pay and conditions, we can call that enshittification. If they can bind workers to noncompete "agreements" that make it illegal for the cashier at Wendy's to get $0.25/h more at the McDonald's, that's even more enshittifying: https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/10/zero-sum-zero-hours/#that-sounds-like-a-you-problem Or if shitty men lobby to end anti-discrimination laws (making it much harder for a single woman to survive on her paycheck) and to end no-fault divorce (to make it much harder for a woman to leave the husband she marries to survive in a world where it's legal to discriminate against her in the workplace), in anticipation of being able to be a shitty husband without losing their wives, they are enshittifying marriage (applying this to the effort to kill the concept of "marital rape" is left as an exercise for the reader). This can also be applied to politics. Restrictions on immigration and out-migration are both preludes to state enshittification, since a population that can't leave for another state will, on average, put up with more abuse from their political classes without leaving. Tying your work visa to your employer is very enshittification-friendly: https://prospect.org/2026/04/22/north-carolina-farm-stole-h-2a-visa-workers-passports-lawsuit-trump-immigration/ One of the questions I get most frequently is "what about AI and enshittification?" This is a complicated question! Obviously, AI is very enshittification-prone: as "black boxes" that do not produce reliable, deterministic outputs, AI products have a lot of intrinsic cover for their enshittifying behavior. If you ask a chatbot to recommend a product and it steers you toward an inferior option that generates a higher commission for the company, who can say whether that was the chatbot cheating, or if it was a "hallucination?" Likewise, if you ask a chatbot to solve your problem and it does so in an inefficient way that burns a zillion tokens (which you have to pay for), is that the chatbot malfunctioning, or is that price-gouging? https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/16/jackpot/#salience-bias Beyond this, AI is very useful for plain old enshittification. Surveillance pricing – changing prices or wages based on the other person's desperation and ability to pay – is something AI is very good at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/21/cod-marxism/#wannamaker-slain And AI companies can enshittify their products in all the traditional ways: after a customer integrates AI in their lives and businesses in ways that are hard to escape, the AI company can raise prices, insert ads, and route queries to cheaper models that cost less to run and produce worse outputs. But here's where there's a critical difference between enshittifying AI and enshittifying a profitable tech business like app stores or search engines. AI is the money-losingest project the human race has ever attempted. At $1.4 trillion and counting, the AI companies and their "frontier models" are so deep in the red that I can't see any way that any of these firms will survive: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/16/pascals-wager/#doomer-challenge So, on the one hand, as these companies find themselves ever-more cash-strapped, they will be severely tempted to enshittify their products. But on the other hand, if these companies are doomed no matter what they do, then the enshittification will take care of itself when they go bankrupt. Hey look at this (permalink) Win a copy of Enshittification signed by Cory Doctorow https://action.openrightsgroup.org/win-copy-enshittification-signed-cory-doctorow-0 The New Credit Union Model: First Expand Members’ Economic Freedom– Then Become their Oppressor https://chipfilson.com/2026/04/the-new-credit-union-model-first-expand-members-economic-freedom-then-become-their-oppressor/ The case for lunar socialism https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/the-case-for-lunar-socialism The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (Signed Edition) https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai-signed-edition-how-to-think-about-artificial-intelligence-before-it-s-too-late-cory-doctorow/bb87965fc9cc08b9?ean=9781472641991 Slightly Drunk on Wonder https://patrickcostello.substack.com/p/new-book-in-the-works Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Jakob Nielsen on reputation managers https://www.nngroup.com/articles/reputation-managers-are-happening/ #25yrsago EFF's sharing friendly music license https://web.archive.org/web/20010429045301/https://www.eff.org/IP/Open_licenses/20010421_eff_oal_pr.html #25yrsago Speedle: what links are forwarded most online? https://web.archive.org/web/20010401084047/http://www.speedle.com/ #20yrsago RIP Jane Jacobs, urban activist https://web.archive.org/web/20061009063708/http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=fe1de18f-6b6e-473d-b0cb-0cc422dcf661&k=25935 #20yrsago Why fan fiction is so important https://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007464.html#007464 #20yrsago California got its name from fanfic https://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007464.html#122035 #20yrsago DMCA revision proposal will jail Americans for “attempting” infringment https://web.archive.org/web/20060502093524/https://ipaction.org/blog/2006/04/bill-hollywood-cartels-dont-want-you_24.html #20yrsago Vista’s endless parade of warnings won’t create security https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/04/microsoft_vista.html #15yrsago Passover poem about robots: “When We Were Robots in Egypt” https://reactormag.com/when-we-were-robots-in-egypt/ #15yrsago Naipaul’s rules for beginning writers https://web.archive.org/web/20110508152004/http://www.indiauncut.com/iublog/article/vs-naipauls-advice-to-writers-rules-for-beginners/ #15yrsago Rules for golfing during the blitz https://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/04/stiff-upper-lip.html #15yrsago New Zealand’s rammed-through copyright law includes mass warrantless surveillance and publication of accused’s browsing habits https://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/4922854/Copyright-change-about-more-than-idle-threats #15yrsago State Dept adding intrusive, semi-impossible questionnaire for US passport applications https://web.archive.org/web/20110427025422/https://www.consumertraveler.com/today/state-dept-wants-to-make-it-harder-to-get-a-passport/ #10yrsago A Burglar’s Guide to the City: burglary as architectural criticism https://memex.craphound.com/2016/04/25/a-burglars-guide-to-the-city-burglary-as-architectural-criticism/ #10yrsago EFF to FDA: the DMCA turns medical implants into time-bombs https://www.eff.org/files/2016/04/22/electronic_frontier_foundation_comments_cybersecurity_in_medical_devices_.pdf #10yrsago James Clapper: Snowden accelerated cryptography adoption by 7 years https://web.archive.org/web/20160425161451/https://theintercept.com/2016/04/25/spy-chief-complains-that-edward-snowden-sped-up-spread-of-encryption-by-7-years/ #10yrsago Australian MP sets river on fire https://web.archive.org/web/20170518083229/https://www.yahoo.com/news/australian-politician-sets-river-fire-protest-fracking-064640159.html #10yrsago Fantasy accounting: how the biggest companies in America turn real losses into paper profits https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/business/fantasy-math-is-helping-companies-spin-losses-into-profits.html #10yrsago Leading Republicans send letters in support of Dennis Hastert, pedophile https://www.chicagotribune.com/2016/04/22/more-than-40-letters-in-support-of-hastert-made-public-before-sentencing/ #5yrsago Guess who's doing a usury in Iowa https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/24/peloton-usury/#going-nowhere-fast #1yrago Every complex ecosystem has parasites https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/24/hermit-kingdom/#simpler-times Upcoming appearances (permalink) NYC: Enshittification at Commonweal Ventures, Apr 29 https://luma.com/ssgfvqz8 NYC: Techidemic with Sarah Jeong, Tochi Onyebuchi and Alia Dastagir (PEN World Voices), Apr 30 https://worldvoices.pen.org/event/techidemic/ Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers// Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Recent appearances (permalink) Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P Do you feel screwed over by big tech? (Ontario Today) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: Ada Palmer's "Inventing the Renaissance" (25 Apr 2026)
- Sat, 25 Apr 2026 11:17:58 +0000
Today's links Ada Palmer's "Inventing the Renaissance": A tour-de-force, a magnum opus, a work of utter brilliance. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Gloating about the dot-bomb; RIAA sues PC-less family; John Deere v infosec; Foxconn v Wisconsin; Copyfraud x torturers' reputations; "Careless People." Upcoming appearances: London, Berlin, NYC, Barcelona, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Ada Palmer's "Inventing the Renaissance" (permalink) Ada Palmer may just be the most bewilderingly talented person I know: a genius sf writer, incredible librettist and singer, wildly innovative educator, and a leading historian of the Renaissance, and last year, she published her magnum opus, Inventing the Renaissance, a stunning book about so much more than history: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo246135916.html All of my friends seem to be writing their magnum opuses these days! When (modern) historian Rick Perlstein and I did an event last year for my Enshittification tour, he told me he'd just finished his 1,000 page (ish? I may be misremembering slightly) history of the American conservative movement. And I recently had dinner with China Mieville, who told me he'd just turned in the manuscript for a novel he'd been trying to figure out how to write all his life. I can't wait to read these books! And I couldn't wait to read Inventing the Renaissance, and I would have been much quicker off the mark but for the exigencies of book tours and books due and so on – but I've been reading it for the past two months or so, and I think I've pitched it about a hundred times to strangers and friends as I savored it, because it's just that good. Inventing the Renaissance isn't a work of history, it's a work of "historiography" – the study of how histories get written and rewritten. Palmer's point here isn't to make us merely understand the Renaissance – she wants us to understand how the idea of a Renaissance, a rebirth out of a "dark age" into a "golden age" – has been used, abused, created and demolished, for centuries and centuries, including during the centuries when the Renaissance was actually underway. Palmer teaches Renaissance history at the University of Chicago, where she is legendary for a unique annual pedagogical exercise in which she leads her students through a weeks-long live-action role-playing game that re-enacts the election of the Medicis' Pope. Every student is given a detailed biography of their character's position, goals, proclivities and history, and for weeks, the students scheme, ally, betray and assassinate each other. At the climax, the students take over the university's faux-Gothic cathedral, dressed in Renaissance drag (Palmer has a Google alert for theater companies that are selling off their costumes, and her tiny office at the university overflows with racks of cardinals' robes and other period garb), and they invest a Pope: https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/17/against-the-great-forces-of-history/ This exercise is nothing short of genius, and the students who experience it often report that it is life-changing. That's because the final candidates are never quite the same, nor are the cardinals who cast votes for the winner. And yet, there are certain bedrocks that never shift, including the fact that Italy is always invaded by some of the factions involved in the election, though which cities burn also changes. The point of this exercise is to expose the students to the power and limits of both "great historical forces" and the human agency that every one of us has within the envelope defined by those forces. Palmer wants her students to get a bone-deep understanding that while every moment has great forces bearing down on it, that the people of each moment have an enormous amount of leeway to channel the floodwaters that history will unleash. From the servant who bears a message from one great power to another, up to those great powers themselves, each person guides the course of history, even if they can't halt some of its outcomes. Though Palmer unpacks this exercise and its meaning and results in the final part of her magnum opus, this message about forces and people is really the key to her historiography. She develops these themes in the most charming, accessible manner imaginable, weaving her own journey into history with her accounts of how different eras consciously created and deployed the idea of "the Renaissance" and how these ideas were bolstered, undermined, or ultimately demolished by new evidence. You could not ask for a better account of why there is not, and can never be, a single, canonical "history" of an era or a moment. There will always be multiple histories, overlapping each other, warring with one another, supplanting each other, or being revived as "lost" histories that reveal a truth that "they" have buried. This is such an ambitious book, and the ambition pays off in so many ways. Take the book's structure: there's a long middle section in which Palmer describes how more than a dozen figures from the Renaissance experienced their era, with many overlapping events and timelines. Palmer's sensitive, beautifully researched and written accounts of the lives of these figures – highborn and lowly, sinister and virtuous – highlights the contradictions of this centuries-long "moment" we call "the Renaissance" and shows us how those contradictions can't ever be resolved, only acknowledged and understood. This is Palmer the novelist, blending seamlessly with Palmer the historian. Palmer is a close literary – and personal – ally of the equally brilliant sf/fantasy writer Jo Walton, whose work has mined classical and Renaissance history to great effect since she and Palmer struck up their friendship. First, there were Walton's "Philosopher Kings" books, a three-book long thought experiment in which every person of every era who ever dreamed of living in Plato's Republic is brought through time and space to the doomed volcanic island that will someday give rise to the story of Atlantis, to try out Plato's ideal society for real: https://memex.craphound.com/2015/01/13/jo-waltons-the-just-city/ Then there was Lent, Walton's story of the fanatical reformer Savonarola, who is forced to re-live his life over and over, with breaks in hell where he is tormented by his failure: https://web.archive.org/web/20190516170659/https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-review-jo-walton-lent-20190516-story.html And this June, she'll bring out Everybody's Perfect, a novel that uses Palmer's trick of telling a story from many viewpoint characters, each of whom perceives the events so differently that their versions can't really be reconciled, except by understanding that there is no one history and there cannot be one history. There are only the histories, ever changing. The omnipotent third person narrator is a lie. I don't know if Palmer got this idea from Walton, or if Walton was inspired by Palmer, but it is a wonderful living example of how intellectual and creative movements (like those that are attributed to the Renaissance) feed one another. One of Palmer's areas of specialty is free speech and censorship. Along with Adrian Johns, we co-taught a grad seminar called "Censorship, Information Control, and Information Revolutions from Printing Press to Internet" that connected Ada's work to the current battles over online speech: https://neubauercollegium.uchicago.edu/research/censorship-information-control-and-information-revolutions-from-printing-press-to-internet Palmer wants us to understand that the majority of censorship is self-censorship – that the Inquisition could only intervene in a tiny minority of cases of prohibited thought and word, and they had to rely on key people – printers, for example – anticipating the Inquisitors' tastes and limiting their speech without an Inquisitorial edict (if this seems relevant to the Trump administration's "war on woke," then you're clearly paying attention): https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/22/self-censorship/#hugos Those correspondences between the deep historical record and our current moment make Inventing the Renaissance extremely important and timely – a book hundreds of years in the making, and bang up to date. Hey look at this (permalink) Coyote vs. ACME | Official Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-43VeYGiPM From the Jew Bill to the Mamdani Act https://coreyrobin.com/2026/04/22/from-the-jew-bill-to-the-mamdani-act/ This Alberta Startup Sells No-Tech Tractors for Half Price https://wheelfront.com/this-alberta-startup-sells-no-tech-tractors-for-half-price/ Half of AI health answers are wrong even though they sound convincing https://theconversation.com/half-of-ai-health-answers-are-wrong-even-though-they-sound-convincing-new-study-280512 Emails show Amazon colluding with other firms to raise prices, California authorities allege https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/apr/20/amazon-sellers-price-raises-california Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Gloating NYT editorial about the dotcom crash https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/23/opinion/editorial-observer-after-the-fall-the-new-economy-goes-retro.html #20yrsago RIAA sues family that doesn’t own a PC https://www.techshout.com/riaa-sues-local-family-without-computer-for-illegal-music-file-sharing/ #15yrsago Righthaven copyright troll loses domain https://web.archive.org/web/20110425035158/http://www.domainnamenews.com/legal-issues/righthavencom-invalid-whois/9232 #15yrsago Steampunk Venetian mask https://bob-basset.livejournal.com/160226.html #5yrsago John Deere's dismal infosec https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#deere-john #5yrsago Foxconn's Wisconsin death-rattle https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#monorail #5yrsago Laundering torturers' reputations with copyfraud https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#dark-ops #1yrago Sarah Wynn-Williams's 'Careless People' https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/23/zuckerstreisand/#zdgaf Upcoming appearances (permalink) London: Resisting Big Tech Empires (LSBU), Apr 25 https://www.tickettailor.com/events/globaljusticenow/2042691 NYC: Enshittification at Commonweal Ventures, Apr 29 https://luma.com/ssgfvqz8 NYC: Techidemic with Sarah Jeong, Tochi Onyebuchi and Alia Dastagir (PEN World Voices), Apr 30 https://worldvoices.pen.org/event/techidemic/ Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/ Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Recent appearances (permalink) Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P Do you feel screwed over by big tech? (Ontario Today) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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
- Pluralistic: A free, open visual identity for enshittification (24 Apr 2026)
- Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:50:06 +0000
Today's links A free, open visual identity for enshittification: No mere poop emoji! Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: RIAA v little girl; Portal turret Easter egg; Atari v indie games; Chabon's Phantom Tollbooth intro; The 0.1%; Well-labeled inns; "More Everything Forever." Upcoming appearances: London, Berlin, NYC, Barcelona, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. A free, open visual identity for enshittification (permalink) To my surprise, my life's work has turned out to be a long series of attempts to get people to engage with the abstract, distant issues of tech policy before it's too late. This is hard, because people naturally devote their attention to things that are concrete and immediate (for very good reasons!). For nearly 25 years, I've worked with my comrades at the Electronic Frontier Foundation to raise the salience of these abstract, technical ideas. I've come up with metaphors, parables, framing devices, narratives, and then…a dirty little word: enshittification. It turned out that this word, and the minor license to vulgarity it confers, was the secret to unleashing a tide of interest in these issues, to my immense surprise and gratification. But I don't confine my efforts to coming up with words to engage people on these matters. For several years now, I have been developing myself as a collagist, combining public domain images with Creative Commons-licensed materials to create several collages every week that aim to illustrate these abstract, technical issues in an engaging, visual way: https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/albums/72177720316719208 This got a lot easier with the 2025 publication of my international bestseller Enshittification, and not just because a lot of people read that book. It was also because the US edition, from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux had a gorgeous cover: https://mpd-biblio-covers.imgix.net/9780374619329.jpg That cover featured a (literally and figuratively) iconic variation of the "pile of poo" emoji, with angry eyebrows and a grawlix-scrawled black censor's bar over its mouth. It was designed by the brilliant Devin Washburn of No Ideas studio: https://www.noideas.website/ Devin's poop emoji became my go-to visual shorthand for illustrating stories about enshittification, an instantly recognizable way to identify my subject matter: https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/54957634601/in/album-72177720316719208 I remixed it over and over: https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/54962122121/in/album-72177720316719208 And over: https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/54992219613/in/album-72177720316719208 I liked it so much I ordered a couple hundred enamel pins and a couple thousand vinyl stickers featuring the design, and handed them out for free to people I met on my 33-city book tour. Everywhere I went – and every time a video went out showing me wearing the pin – I was inundated with requests to buy this stuff. But my pins and stickers weren't merch (stuff you could buy) – they were swag (stuff I gave away). I had no interest in getting into the merch business! But you folks kept asking, and also, I really loved that design, so I offered Devin a cash buyout for the rights to his enshittification poop emoji and then I released it under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license that lets you use it any way you want, including for commercial products, provided you attribute it and link back to the original: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en And I made sure that my EFF comrades had first crack at this design, and they've made merch of it. You can get a $5 sticker: https://shop.eff.org/products/enshittification-sticker Or a $10 pin: https://shop.eff.org/products/enshittification-pin With all proceeds going to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the most profound and powerful disenshittifying force on the planet Earth! But because this is CC licensed, you can make your own merch and swag! I made this great print-on-demand lawn flag my for front garden so I could let my enshittification flag fly: https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/55025045602/ My goal here is to create a free, open, remixable visual language for talking about platform decay, not owned by me or anyone, a part of the commons. Use it to illustrate anything you want, especially if you want to analogize enshittification to other phenomena, like politics or other non-digital phenomena. Semantic drift is good, actually! https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pearl-clutching/#this-toilet-has-no-central-nervous-system You can get the high-rez of Devin's enshittification poop emoji from the internet's three most important repositories of Creative Commons licensed work. There's a copy on Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Enshittification_poop_emoji_logo.png And on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/55225631563/ And of course on the Internet Archive, along with a PSD that includes an ink-density adjustment layer: https://archive.org/details/enshittification-poop-emoji-logo I've supported Creative Commons literally since the very beginning. I worked with Larry Lessig, Aaron Swartz, Matt Haughey and Lisa Rein on the launch of the original licenses in 2002/3, and my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom was the first book released under a CC license: https://craphound.com/down/download/ Creative Commons is one of the most amazing feats of stunt-lawyering ever attempted, and it has been an unmitigated success, with tens of billions of works licensed CC, including all of Wikipedia. Like EFF, CC is a charitable nonprofit that depends on individual donors to keep its work going. The org turned 25 this year (along with my career as a novelist), and they've launched a giant fundraiser to carry their work forward. As my contribution to the fundraiser, I've provided them with 375 signed, numbered copies of Canny Valley, my (otherwise) not-for-sale, extremely limited edition book of my collages, with an intro by Bruce Sterling. The book was designed by type legend John D Berry and printed at Pasadena's Typeworks, a century-old, family-owned print shop, on 100lb Mohawk paper, with a PVC binding that will last for generations: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/10/canny-valley/ CC tells me there's still some copies of Canny Valley left in the fundraiser. If you're intrigued by my collaging and want to own this very strange and beautiful little artifact, here's where to go: https://mailchi.mp/creativecommons/were-turning-25-book-giveaway And if you want to try your own hand at collaging – or making merch (or swag!) – help yourself to Devin's wondrous piece of poo and go to town. Hey look at this (permalink) trying to do something you probably shouldn't https://backofmind.substack.com/p/trying-to-do-something-you-probably What Is the Point of California’s Privacy Laws if Big Tech Ignores Them? https://www.kqed.org/news/12079887/what-is-the-point-of-californias-privacy-laws-if-big-tech-ignores-them An Open Letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr https://chkbal.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-to-fcc-chairman-brendan A Simple Model of Online Platform Enshittification https://apoorvalal.github.io/lalgorithms/eternalizing_septembers At the New School: Against Money https://jwmason.org/slackwire/at-the-new-school-against-money/ Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago Court throws out RIAA attempt to sue little girl https://web.archive.org/web/20060422232323/https://p2pnet.net/story/8603 #15yrsago Android secretly stores location data too — though less of it, and with less detail https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/04/android-phones-keep-location-cache-too-but-its-harder-to-access/ #15yrsago Portal turret Easter egg https://www.flickr.com/photos/57617475@N00/5638462322/ #15yrsago Michael Chabon’s introduction to The Phantom Tollbooth 50th anniversary edition https://web.archive.org/web/20110424055621/http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/apr/21/michael-chabon-phantom-tollbooth-wonder-words/ #10yrsago UK spy agencies store sensitive data on millions of innocent people, with no safeguards from abuse https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/uk-secret-police-surveillance-bulk-personal-datasets/ #10yrsago Zombie company Atari wants exclusive right to make haunted house games https://www.techdirt.com/2016/04/21/ex-game-maker-atari-to-argue-to-us-pto-that-only-it-can-make-haunted-house-games/ #10yrsago Hackers take $81 million from Bangladesh’s central bank by pwning its $10 second-hand routers https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36110421 #10yrsago Forget the one percent, it’s the 0.1% who run the show https://web.archive.org/web/20160416022112/https://www.alternet.org/economy/1-really-problem #10yrsago The quest for the well-labeled inn https://memex.craphound.com/2016/04/22/the-quest-for-the-well-labeled-inn/ #5yrsago EFF sues Proctorio over copyfraud https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/22/ihor-kolomoisky/#copyfraud #5yrsago Fighting FLoC is compatible with fighting monopoly https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/22/ihor-kolomoisky/#not-that-competition #5yrsago Moxie hacks Cellebrite https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/22/ihor-kolomoisky/#petard #5yrsago Banks made bank on covid overdraft charges https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/22/ihor-kolomoisky/#usurers #5yrsago The awesome destructive power of a billionaire https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/22/ihor-kolomoisky/#force-multiplier #1yrago More Everything Forever https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/22/vinges-bastards/#cyberpunk-is-a-warning-not-a-suggestion Upcoming appearances (permalink) London: Resisting Big Tech Empires (LSBU), Apr 25 https://www.tickettailor.com/events/globaljusticenow/2042691 NYC: Enshittification at Commonweal Ventures, Apr 29 https://luma.com/ssgfvqz8 NYC: Techidemic with Sarah Jeong, Tochi Onyebuchi and Alia Dastagir (PEN World Voices), Apr 30 https://worldvoices.pen.org/event/techidemic/ Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/ Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Recent appearances (permalink) Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P Do you feel screwed over by big tech? (Ontario Today) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com 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. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "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. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "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