Today's threads (a thread)

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

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.

Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr)

Attached: 1 image Good news/bad news for Trump. 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. Bad news: everything you do to fix working people's cost of living will make an oligarch worse off. -- 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/2026/05/09/cossie-livvie-crissie/#dont-let-your-meat-loaf 1/

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

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[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

Hey look at this

* 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/

3/

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

#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

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[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

#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

6/

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

Yesterday's threads: Lee Lai's "Cannon"; and more!

Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr)

Attached: 1 image Today's threads (a thread) Inside: Lee Lai's "Cannon"; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/08/gung-gung/ #Pluralistic 1/

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

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[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

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:

Just a moment...

(us.macmillan.com)

--

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)

8/

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

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:

Just a moment...

(us.macmillan.com)

--

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)

9/

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

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/

10/

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

Upcoming appearances:

* #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

11/

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #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

12/

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

Recent appearances:

* 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

13/

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

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14/

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

I'm also on Bluesky. Read today's thread there at:

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) (@doctorow.pluralistic.net)

Good news/bad news for Trump. 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. Bad news: everything you do to fix working people's cost of living maked an oligarch worse off. 1/

Bluesky Social (bsky.app)

eof/

[krazov@mstdn.social]

@pluralistic Yesterday, I've seen the episode of "DoroHedoro" where there was a character called Turkey who had a mask like that.

[hamishb@mstdn.ca]

And there are always the quislings who will argue that making the rich pay will lower stock prices and that will affect everyone's retirement savings. As if there are no solutions to that.

@pluralistic