Guelph Lecture—On Being

Presented by ArtsEverywhere Festival The 2026 Guelph Lecture—On Being will be presented by Cory Doctorow on the “enshittification” of the internet.

River Run Centre (riverrun.ca)

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Here's today's edition: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/05/three-is-a-magic-number/

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* 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

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* #Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19
https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html

* #HayOnWye: 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

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* #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

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https://craphound.com/shop/

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Just a moment...

(us.macmillan.com)

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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:

Just a moment...

(us.macmillan.com)

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Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr)

Attached: 1 image Today's threads (a thread) Inside: Demand destruction vs fuel-superceding infrastructure; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/04/hope-in-the-dark/ #Pluralistic 1/

Mamot - Le Mastodon de La Quadrature du Net (mamot.fr)

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#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

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#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

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#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

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* 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/

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Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr)

Attached: 1 image Political change is downstream of coalition building, and coalitions are fragile, 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. -- 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/2026/05/05/three-is-a-magic-number/#coalitions 1/

Mamot - Le Mastodon de La Quadrature du Net (mamot.fr)

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Guelph Lecture—On Being

Presented by ArtsEverywhere Festival The 2026 Guelph Lecture—On Being will be presented by Cory Doctorow on the “enshittification” of the internet.

River Run Centre (riverrun.ca)

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