Cory Doctorow

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)
@doctorow.

Archived at pluralistic.net

I post long threads. If you don't like these in your timeline but want to read them, I suggest unfollowing me here and subscribing to my RSS, or my newsletter, or any of my various long-form feeds. Links at https://pluralistic.net.

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Last Notes

2026-08-08 09:11:57 UTC

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Today, Mamdani is at the vanguard of an army of proud sewer socialists, who say that once you deliver for people in their day-to-day existence, they will trust you and back you when you fight for deep, structural changes (and the corollary: if you *can't* deliver for people in their daily lives, why should they trust you when you claim that you'll make everything better?):
https://prospect.org/2026/04/10/zohran-mamdani-getting-new-york-city-believe-in-government/
33/

2026-08-06 10:26:00 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Eternal Sloptember; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/06/sin-is-when/
#Pluralistic
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2026-08-01 13:01:10 UTC

Today's thread2s (a thread)
Inside: Why businesses lie about AI; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/01/dare-snot/
#Pluralistic
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2026-08-01 12:31:38 UTC

Neoclassical econ assumes rationality. The corollary of, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" is "you're rich, so you must be very smart!" Thus it is that many people assume that if powerful, well-compensated CEOs insist "AI is changing everything," well then, *AI must be changing everything*.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/01/dare-snot/#i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again
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2026-07-29 08:11:27 UTC

It's safe to say that the past couple of years have been good ones for me publishing-wise, thanks to a string of international bestsellers, both novels (*Picks and Shovels*) and nonfiction (*Enshittification*, *Reverse Centaur*), as well as plenty of awards and accolades:
https://craphound.com/shop
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/29/la-la-la-la-la/#its_all_around_the_world
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2026-07-27 10:53:24 UTC

The "Serenity Prayer" (*Serenity to accept things I can't change/Courage to change the things I can/Wisdom to know the difference*) is usually cited as pop psychology or addiction recovery advice, but I think there's a place for it in policymaking.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/27/eucd-6/#and-the-wisdom-to-know-the-difference
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2026-07-27 05:31:18 UTC

in 2019, there were more people in America struck by lightning than consumers who got monetary awards from an arbitration panel.
Matt Stoller
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-how-to-stop-the

2026-07-24 10:29:26 UTC

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AI is even worse than vagina-rocks, of course. When the bubble bursts, when the seven AI companies that make up 35% of the S&P 500 tank, when a third of the US stock market is vaporized overnight, our governments will reflexively turn to austerity, the go-to response to every financial crisis. Austerity is fascism's best recruiting tool:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/12/always-great/#our-nhs
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2026-07-24 10:29:13 UTC

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Likewise, you don't have to believe that Gwyneth Paltrow can help women "regulate their periods" and "correct their hormonal imbalances" by selling them rocks to stuff in their vaginas. You just have to believe that between patriarchy-induced body shame and patriarchy-driven medical neglect, there's an army of desperate women out there who will buy those rocks and risk their lives by sticking them inside their bodies:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181225035739/https://www.vogue.com/article/goop-jade-yoni-egg-lawsuit-gwyneth-paltrow-vaginal-pelvic-floor-health
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2026-07-24 10:22:57 UTC

As a *technology*, AI isn't exceptional. It's not exceptionally wicked. It's not exceptionally good. Take away the accompanying, galactic-scale stock-swindle, and we'd call AI's applications "plug-ins" and we'd use them and abuse them in the same way that we've used every other technology:
https://www.normaltech.ai/
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2026-07-23 15:18:44 UTC

A useful hack!
For 10,000,000 years, I've had a scan of my sig on my computer. When I get sent a form for a signature, I open it in the GIMP, open the signature JPG, paste the latter into the former, set the layer to "multiply" and align it.
This morning, I pasted that same JPG as a *brush*. Now I just select that brush and click once on the signature line!
This is incredibly obvious, but it never occurred to me, and maybe it's useful for you, too.

2026-07-23 10:32:01 UTC

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For example, when Apple offered iPhone owners a one-click option to block Facebook from spying on them, 96% of iPhone owners clicked the button:
https://applescoop.org/story/facebook-must-inflict-pain-on-apple-says-mark-zuckerberg
Indeed, given this fact, one wonders why Apple bothers with the "don't spy on me" button at all. Why not have a "*do* spy on me" button that is unchecked by default, and leave users to dig through their settings to find the option to opt in to being surveilled?
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2026-07-23 10:31:49 UTC

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Implementing DROP is nowhere near as good as banning data brokers. The idea that data brokers should be able to collect, retain and process your data unless you tell them not to implies that everyone starts off wanting to be spied on, and therefore data brokers should assume that unless they hear otherwise, we're delighted to be the subject of commercial surveillance. This is an incredibly stupid supposition, contradicted by all available evidence.
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2026-07-23 09:48:18 UTC

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@nprofile…f50z @nprofile…vrsc Spotting paragraphs in a document where I forgot to put a period at the end doesn't make me less creative. It doesn't damage my reasoning ability.
This is a very weird thing to believe.
Can you explain to me how you think using a spellchecker makes me a worse writer?
Is that only true if the spellchecker uses this form of statistical inference? Or have all the spellcheckers I've used to write 30+ books also make me worse at writing?

2026-07-23 08:34:17 UTC

Apropos this post:
https://mastodon.social/@ratsnakegames/116968283287133635
No, this is obviously wrong. When I buy a plane ticket, I send a clear signal that the world needs more plane journeys and finance their provisioning.
When I run software on my own computer, I send no signal to any company (including the company that made the software), nor do I provide any material benefit to people who create more capacity.

2026-07-23 06:48:52 UTC

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@nprofile…f50z @nprofile…vrsc
A model that I run on my laptop that doesn't even trigger my fan when it executes is definitionally not "a waste of energy." I consume more CPU when I do a gaussian blur in the Gimp.

2026-07-22 09:18:59 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Trump's America can't even win a rigged game; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/22/table-flipper/
#Pluralistic
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2026-07-21 08:51:40 UTC

One of 2026's better tech-related coinages is "dickover," John Gruber's term for
> a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, deliberately obscuring its own content to frustrate the user with an unwanted, unnecessary, mandatory interaction; e.g. asking the user to accept “cookies”, subscribe to a newsletter, install the website’s mobile app, agree to terms of service, or anything else that the user couldn’t give two shits about.
https://daringfireball.net/2026/05/what_is_a_dickover
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2026-07-16 18:15:53 UTC

Market theory goes like this: even the best of us can fall prey to selfishness and rationalization, so let's arrange society so that people acting on their most selfish impulses end up producing benefit for all of us. That'll be easier and more reliable than convincing everyone to be more generous.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/16/lucky-orifices/#invisible-hands
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2026-07-14 11:15:37 UTC

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Of course, the only reason I need a literary executor is that my kid is only 18. At 18, she's a remarkable, level-headed, ethical young person, but she's not yet fully formed. Literary history is filled with descendants who take over a literary estate and run it in terrible ways. The most notorious example here is Stephen Joyce, grandson of James Joyce and a colossal asshole:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_James_Joyce
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2026-07-14 11:14:53 UTC

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I'm 55. 20 years ago, it was unusual for just one of my peers to die in a given year; now I lose a couple *every* year. It could be me next (my doctor just informed me that I am cancer free, following excision, radiotherapy and immunotherapy). Anyone who pretends this isn't true is setting themselves and the people around them up for terrible things.
8/

2026-07-14 11:12:50 UTC

The "designated survivor" is one of the weirder aspects of America's (very, very weird) political system.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/14/designated-survivor/#actuary-incoherence
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2026-07-11 08:57:29 UTC

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In America, Congress and state legislatures have created a system that allows restaurateurs to transfer this risk onto their employees: the "tipped minimum wage." Federally, the minimum wage for tipped employees is only *$2.13/hour*, with the caveat that employees are obliged to "top up" their workers' pay if the tips from their shift don't add up to $7.25/hour. So if you work five hours and don't wait on a single table, your boss has to pay you $36.25 ($7.25/hour * 5 hours).
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2026-07-08 06:58:20 UTC

"What do we learn from all this? Mostly the same thing we learned when the crypto bros repeatedly rediscovered financial fraud, or when effective altruists decided the most effective altruism was to buy themselves a castle, or when ride share companies kept accidentally reïnventing the bus. If you start by ignoring everything that we already know, the best you can ever hope for is to accidentally rediscover the already-known."
- Rusty Foster, Over Leveraged
https://www.todayintabs.com/p/over-leveraged

2026-07-03 15:00:46 UTC

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@nprofile…rldd Which link?

2026-07-03 09:11:17 UTC

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Automated code - whether from an LLM, View Source, Stack Overflow, or macro recorders - is the top of a funnel. Many (most) of the people who enter the funnel won't slip further down the abstraction chute. They'll solve their problem (a virtue unto itself!) and move on. But the more people we put at the top of the funnel, the more chances our civilization gets to produce another skilled artisan who understands and can improve, iterate and repair the code the rest of us use.
eof/

2026-07-03 09:10:48 UTC

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The more automated code you generate - macros, pasted Javascript, Minecraft blocks - the greater the likelihood that you will be failed by a readymade, prefab component. At that point, you have means, motive and opportunity to open the membrane and start tinkering with the internals, and every time you do, you have a better chance of making a realization that improves your grasp on the whole system.
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2026-07-03 09:05:35 UTC

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Not long after my CARDiac,, my dad brought home an Apple ][+, which came with a schematic that revealed the inner workings of the machine in ways that I found visually striking, if significantly less accessible than the CARDiac:
https://downloads.reactivemicro.com/Apple%20II%20Items/Hardware/II_&_II+/Schematic/Apple%20II%20Schematics.pdf
(For me, at least. For the legendary hardware hacker Andrew "bunnie" Huang, it was the start of a journey that turned him into one of the world's virtuoso reverse-engineers and science communicators):
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/09/quantity-break/#so-many-chips
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2026-07-03 09:05:20 UTC

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(This is one of the things that makes *Science Comics Computers: How Digital Hardware Works* such an amazing kids' book! By illustrating how a computer's operations are built up from simple boolean logic that can be represented as physical switches, the comic performs that same legibilizing magic that I got from the CARDiac:)
https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/05/xor-xand-xnor-nand-nor/#brawniac
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2026-07-03 09:05:06 UTC

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There's something very reassuring about this imagery. No matter how many levels of abstraction sit between me and the nanoscale transistors ranked in their billions beneath my fingertips, they are all undertaking those familiar operations I painstakingly performed on my child's desk all those years ago.
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2026-07-03 09:04:54 UTC

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Though the computing we performed was sub-trivial (adding one and one was a major undertaking!), the physical performance of that computing imbued me with *Fingerspitzengefühl* ("fingertip feeling"):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerspitzengef%C3%BChl
This stood me in great stead in the years to come. To this day, when I think about my computer, I sometimes imagine those little cardboard tokens, shuffling in and out of the slits in my paper CARDiac.
7/

2026-07-02 10:30:29 UTC

Well, this is exciting.
https://static.mamot.fr/media_attachments/files/116/849/907/046/045/858/original/54fcbd5885b3d1a3.png

2026-07-01 15:21:03 UTC

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There's no better time to make the switch: with RAM and storage prices through the ceiling and OSes growing ever-more bloated with AI and spyware (but I repeat myself), this is *the* moment to rehabilitate that old computer with Linux:
https://www.fosslinux.com/158206/linux-on-older-hardware-revival-guide.htm
The alternative is to be tormented by crabs no matter what you're trying to do or where you're trying to get to.
eof/

2026-07-01 13:21:23 UTC

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@nprofile…dz5q As I often say, even if you think the only role for the state is enforcing contracts, the state still needs to be more powerful than the parties to that contract (the ref has to be able to give orders to the players), so the smallest government you can have is determined by the largest corporations you're willing to tolerate.

2026-07-01 10:29:19 UTC

Cory Doctorow's new book about life after AI tops the Canadian bestseller list for nonfiction https://www.cbc.ca/books/cory-doctorow-s-new-book-about-life-after-ai-tops-the-canadian-bestseller-list-for-nonfiction-9.7253926

2026-06-30 19:17:13 UTC

Just got word that The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, my book that was released last week, is the #1 bestselling paperback nonfiction book among Canada's 400 independent bookstores!

2026-06-29 16:50:57 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Gemini is better than search because Google enshittified search; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/29/arsonist-firefighters/
#Pluralistic
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2026-06-27 11:23:10 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Zuckerberg's increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/27/zuckerstreisand/
#Pluralistic
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2026-06-27 11:15:37 UTC

More than a decade ago, a group of young, internet-connected Belarusian dissidents launched a series of increasingly high-stakes, increasingly surreal confrontations with the corrupt, authoritarian government of Alexander Lukashenka, a man who is often called "the last Soviet dictator."
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/27/zuckerstreisand/#autodisparagement
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2026-06-23 11:42:42 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Spying on kids to save kids from spying is very, very stupid; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/23/destroy-the-village/
#Pluralistic
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2026-06-23 11:32:24 UTC

The literature on harms to kids from online platforms is complex and nuanced, rife with people citing small, ambiguous studies as iron-clad evidence that kids are being destroyed by the internet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ype6c6DdHQY
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/23/destroy-the-village/#to-save-it
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2026-06-22 17:35:15 UTC

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That meant that every solar installer I talked to was more interested in swindling me by putting solar on my roof that *they* would own than they were in selling me a system I owned outright. Financializing America's rooftop solar conjured up a vast army of scammers and hustlers who screwed the majority of people they sold solar to, and my installers, Solaredge, were no exception:
https://www.propublica.org/article/missouri-pace-loans
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2026-06-20 16:15:17 UTC

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Then I read a little more carefully and realized *they* - these billionaires and their lickspittles! - wanted *me* to pay *them*, *thousands of dollars*, so that I could shlep my ass to some luxury resort in order to have the *privilege* of speaking to them.
5/

2026-06-20 16:14:02 UTC

Perhaps you've encountered the stories about Dialog, an extremely weird secret society associated with Peter "Antichrist" Thiel, whose membership data and details have leaked this week:
https://www.wired.com/story/how-peter-thiels-private-dialog-club-secretly-ranks-its-members/
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/20/any-club-that-would-have-me/#monologue
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2026-06-19 21:05:43 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: The Big Con; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/19/too-big-to-fact-check/
#Pluralistic
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2026-06-19 20:58:31 UTC

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Rather than going to jail, DeVos and Van Andel became morbidly wealthy, and used their stolen money to found and fund the Heritage Foundation (yes, *that* Heritage Foundation).
America's political class are pyramid scheme swindlers, funded by pyramid scheme money. They're running a big con on all of us. That's true of the Trumps, who've excreted a diarrhoeic slurry of shitcoins that have made them billions - and lost billions for their "investors":
https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-106/
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2026-06-19 20:57:58 UTC

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One of the most destructive pyramid schemes in American history is Amway. The FTC was about to shut Amway down in the mid-1970s, but then Nixon resigned and Ford became president. Ford had been the Congressman to Amway's founders Jay Van Andel (then the head of the US Chamber of Commerce, which is to say, America's most powerful business lobbyist) and Dick DeVos (yes, *that* DeVos). Ford and the Amway swindlers were thick as thieves, and so Ford called off the FTC.
8/

2026-06-19 20:57:48 UTC

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The situation that people suffering from GSD hallucinate is actually happening to people ensnared in a big con...and pyramid schemes are a big con. What's more - as Read's book makes clear - you can't understand modern American politics without understanding pyramid schemes.
7/

2026-06-19 20:56:57 UTC

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That's to say, the hustlers who spent thousands on Mary Kay, Herbalife and Amway have failed to move any of their product (beyond a statistically insignificant number of sales to friends and family who quickly tire of being hustled and stop buying this substandard, overpriced junk). But *none* of these "entrepreneurs" knows it, or admits it to anyone - not their "downlines" (friends they've lured into the swindle), nor their "uplines" (friends who recruited *them* into the con).
2/

2026-06-19 20:56:16 UTC

Partway through Bridget Read's unmissable chronicle of pyramid ("multi-level marketing") schemes, *Little Bosses Everywhere*, there comes a dual revelation: no one is selling any product to end-users *and* no one knows it:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/05/free-enterprise-system/#amway-or-the-highway
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/19/too-big-to-fact-check/#amwaynomics
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2026-06-18 23:01:29 UTC

🚨 Bill C-22 would force every Canadian internet provider, messaging app, and cloud service to build surveillance backdoors & store a year of your private data. Foreign state hackers exploited similar legislation in the US — compromising up to a million people. Tell your MP: https://openmedia.org/StopC22-mast #BillC22 #cdnpoli @OpenMediaOrg

2026-06-17 18:32:02 UTC

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We *could* do "AI cancer research" by producing tools that automate gnarly multivariant analysis problems for cancer researchers. But what we're *actually* doing is defunding cancer research (especially any research into "systemic" cancer because studying systemic things is "woke") to free up fiscal space so we can build data-centers and make Musk into a trillionaire.
That's not just a *dead* economy - it's one that'll kill everyone you love and everything that matters.
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2026-06-17 18:29:33 UTC

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Quiggin declares that this is the era in which "financial markets fail in the task of valuing assets accurately," and "the institutional structures that are supposed to make them work have given up trying." Nor did this start with the Spacex IPO.
3/

2026-06-17 18:28:38 UTC

Here's a fun fact about Elon Musk: in 2020, his (nominal) net worth was $20b, and today it's $1t (nominally). But *that's* not the fun fact; *this* is: everything he's done since 2020 was a flop.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/17/its-the-stupid-economy-stupid/#trillionairitis
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2026-06-16 13:53:33 UTC

Gotta say, the fact that Kaiser Socal has ended its policy of validating your parking when you go in for cancer therapy is some genuine, grade-a, nickel-and-dime bullshit.

2026-06-15 15:47:54 UTC

Over the weekend, I did an interview about my forthcoming book *The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI* (a book about being a better AI critic), and the interviewer said she was surprised that I wasn't an AI booster, based on my demographics and work history:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/15/vernacular/#hypercardian
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2026-06-13 19:33:51 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Shareholder supremacy and the precog CEO; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/13/minority-shareholder-report/
#Pluralistic
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2026-06-12 22:52:49 UTC

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My ebooks and audiobooks (from FSGxMCD, Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."
https://craphound.com/shop/
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2026-06-12 22:52:35 UTC

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My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels
--
My latest nonfiction book is the internationally bestselling "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
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2026-06-12 22:52:14 UTC

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Yesterday's threads: The world has moved on; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116732569585675070
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2026-06-12 22:51:56 UTC

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#10yrsago How to be less wrong about the First Amendment https://web.archive.org/web/20160611221927/https://popehat.com/2016/06/11/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-the-first-amendment/
#10yrsago Mounties used Stingrays to secretly surveil millions of Canadians for years https://web.archive.org/web/20160610182607/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-rcmp-surveilled-thousands-of-innocent-canadians-for-a-decade
#5yrsago Privacy Without Monopoly, EU edition https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/11/technological-self-determination/#dma
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2026-06-12 22:51:37 UTC

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#20yrsago Images from anti-DRM protest at the San Fran Apple Store https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinn/tags/drmprotest/
#15yrsago Reasons people were arrested at the Toronto G20 https://memex.craphound.com/2011/06/11/reasons-people-were-arrested-at-the-toronto-g20/
#15yrsago Paul Krugman: Rule by rentiers favors billionaires, Chinese bond-holders over jobs and homeowners https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/opinion/10krugman.html?_r=1
#15yrsago Ontario publicly funded Catholic school bans rainbows, appropriates student donations for LGBT cause and gives them to Catholic charity https://web.archive.org/web/20110610125236/https://www.xtra.ca/public/Toronto/Rainbows_banned_at_Mississauga_Catholic_school-10262.aspx
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2026-06-12 22:51:14 UTC

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Hey look at this
* Jane Yolen, 1939-2026 https://floggingbabel.blogspot.com/2026/06/jane-yolen-1949-2026.html
* Enshittification Merch That Actually Fights Enshittification https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/enshittification-merch-actually-fights-enshittification
* Amy Casey https://www.amycaseypainting.com/
* CrankGPT https://squeezlabs.github.io/handcrank/
* Barns. Also, "Barns." https://rickperlstein.substack.com/p/barns-also-barns
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2026-06-12 22:50:55 UTC

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Google's new remote attestation scheme is every bit as terrible as its old remote attestation scheme: Not even a QR code can produce a kissable pig.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116739103217721750
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2026-06-12 22:50:08 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Google's new remote attestation scheme is every bit as terrible as its old remote attestation scheme; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/12/compelled-speech/
#Pluralistic
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2026-06-12 20:49:11 UTC

Long before "agentic AI," we had the idea that software was your agent on the internet. That's why the technical term for a browser is a "user agent." Your browser acts on your behalf to retrieve information and then show it to you, in the format you choose. It's your agent:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/12/compelled-speech/#quishing
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2026-06-11 17:07:36 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: The world has moved on; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/11/lapsarianism/
#Pluralistic
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2026-06-11 16:08:23 UTC

Douglas Adams wrote, "Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you’re 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're 35 is against the natural order of things."
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2026-06-11 13:02:13 UTC

World Cup fans are apparently lousy tippers?
https://static.mamot.fr/media_attachments/files/116/731/604/136/081/652/original/fa8f8dbeba4133e3.jpg

2026-06-09 16:30:58 UTC

Our junk fee is not a tip
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2026-06-09 13:45:01 UTC

Naomi Kritzer's *Obstetrix* is a new, tense thriller in the mode of Atwood's *Handmaid's Tale* and Alderman's *The Power*; it's a beautifully turned, claustrophobic horror novel about an obstetrician who's been kidnapped by a Christian cult obsessed with fertility:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250423375/obstetrix/
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/09/deliver-us/#kritzer
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2026-06-06 18:17:22 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Criticizing the everything machine; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/06/applied-counterescatology/
#Pluralistic
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2026-06-05 20:51:38 UTC

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.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/05/defining-humanity/#narrowing-the-numinous
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2026-06-04 07:30:17 UTC

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You can follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!
Here's today's edition: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/04/mission-space/
--
If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is ad-/tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🪿". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!
--
You can also get a fulltext RSS feed, licensed CC BY 4.0:
https://pluralistic.net/feed/
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2026-06-04 07:30:11 UTC

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Recent appearances
* 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/
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2026-06-04 07:29:52 UTC

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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #SouthBend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/
* #SouthBend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/
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2026-06-04 07:29:38 UTC

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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #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
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2026-06-04 07:29:07 UTC

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Upcoming appearances:
* #KansasCity: 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
* #MenloPark: 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
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2026-06-04 07:24:45 UTC

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My ebooks and audiobooks (from FSGxMCD, Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."
https://craphound.com/shop/
16/
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2026-06-04 07:22:55 UTC

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2026-06-04 07:12:51 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: AI automates delusional reinforcement; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/04/mission-space/
#Pluralistic
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2026-06-04 07:01:13 UTC

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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).
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2026-06-04 06:58:35 UTC

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But once you build this machine 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.
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2026-06-03 20:22:54 UTC

"The values described in Claude’s constitution sound very nice, but that hardly matters; it’s dishonest to suggest that Claude is capable of moral reasoning, because it’s not."
-Ted Chiang, No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious
https://www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2026/06/no-artificial-intelligence-is-not-conscious/687378/

2026-06-03 13:10:44 UTC

Meta Launches Instagram Plus https://theonion.com/meta-launches-instagram-plus/
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2026-06-03 08:34:58 UTC

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@nprofile…zx6n Ubuntu

2026-06-03 08:20:21 UTC

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@nprofile…zx6n yup, it's on mamot.fr

2026-06-02 10:08:51 UTC

Hey #mastodon devs and hackers (as well as #firefox folks). For at least a week, the pgup/pgdn functions in Mastodon have undergone a substantial regression.
Before, if there was more text in the compose field than would fit on the screen, pgup would move the cursor to the top of the field and pgdn would move the cursor to the bottom, now they do *nothing*.
I don't know if this is a change in Firefox or Masto, but I suspect it's Masto, because pgup/dn work on all other sites for me.

2026-06-02 09:43:53 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: The tedious power of storytelling; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/02/must-we-pretend/
#Pluralistic
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2026-06-02 09:27:52 UTC

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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.
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2026-06-02 09:20:01 UTC

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/
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/02/must-we-pretend/#everything-you-dont-have-to-do
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2026-05-31 12:39:58 UTC

Culprit
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2026-05-31 12:32:47 UTC

Mrs Robinson has had quite enough of your shit.
https://static.mamot.fr/media_attachments/files/116/669/199/483/138/357/original/1ecbcb85621da294.jpg

2026-05-30 09:48:49 UTC

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My next book is *The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI*, out next month. Pre-order it now, including as a DRM-free audiobook or ebook, at my Kickstarter, and help me continue to prove 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
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2026-05-30 09:48:23 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Carneyism without Carney; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/30/rupture/
#Pluralistic
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2026-05-30 09:33:54 UTC

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.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/30/rupture/#deeds-not-words
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2026-05-28 11:32:45 UTC

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.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/28/we-live-in-a-society/#rubber-hose-cryptanalysis
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2026-05-27 08:22:00 UTC

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: AI and a world without migrants; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/27/unnecessariat/
#Pluralistic
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2026-05-26 12:10:37 UTC

ITTIFICATION
https://static.mamot.fr/media_attachments/files/116/640/801/249/032/632/original/225a28bbc6d4ce5d.jpg

2026-05-26 10:04:44 UTC

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The AI bubble isn't like the internet bubble: No one had to force-feed the web to workers.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116640243696727370
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