Today's threads (a thread)
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#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
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Saturday's threads: Making sense of Trump's unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire; and more!
Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr)
Attached: 1 image Today's threads (a thread) Inside: Making sense of Trump's unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/16/technopoly/ #Pluralistic 1/
Mamot - Le Mastodon de La Quadrature du Net (mamot.fr)
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Saturday's threads: Making sense of Trump's unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire; and more!
Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr)
Attached: 1 image Today's threads (a thread) Inside: Making sense of Trump's unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/16/technopoly/ #Pluralistic 1/
Mamot - Le Mastodon de La Quadrature du Net (mamot.fr)
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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:
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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:
15/
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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:
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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:
15/
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."
16/
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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."
16/
Upcoming appearances:
* #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* #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-b3c4a90117/
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Upcoming appearances:
* #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* #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-b3c4a90117/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #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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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #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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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: 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-wales19/
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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: 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-wales19/
Recent appearances
* 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-disruptor20/
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Recent appearances
* 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-disruptor20/
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/2026/05/19/shes-dead-of-course/
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21/
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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/2026/05/19/shes-dead-of-course/
--
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:
21/
I'm also on Bluesky. Read today's thread there at:
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) (@doctorow.pluralistic.net)
"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. 1/
Bluesky Social (bsky.app)
22/
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I'm also on Bluesky. Read today's thread there at:
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) (@doctorow.pluralistic.net)
"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. 1/
Bluesky Social (bsky.app)
22/
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:
eof/
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There's no such thing as "age verification": The foreseeable and foreseen consequences of "something must be done"/"there, I've done something."
Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr)
Attached: 1 image "Object permanence": the ability to understand that things still exist, even if you can't see 'em. Kids acquire a thorough sense of object permanence by the age of two. But when it comes to technopolitics, object permanence eludes full-grown lawmakers. These motherfuckers would lose a game of peek-a-boo. - If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read/share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/19/shes-dead-of-course/#consensus-hallucination 1/
Mamot - Le Mastodon de La Quadrature du Net (mamot.fr)
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@pluralistic Seems like a bitter one today. What a lamentable thing it is to be in the power of those who persist in folly; I suppose we'll never be free of it. But it's important to remember that we can... do... something? Hang on, my instruments are detecting some form of irony here.
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Hey look at this
* 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/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feeds
* 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
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@pluralistic "Thought leadership" immediately puts me in mind of Mr Wolf from Pulp Fiction. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/characters/nm0000172/?item=qt0447154&ref_=ext_shr_lnk
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@pluralistic Seems like a bitter one today. What a lamentable thing it is to be in the power of those who persist in folly; I suppose we'll never be free of it. But it's important to remember that we can... do... something? Hang on, my instruments are detecting some form of irony here.
@fool @pluralistic Bertrand's birthday would have been yesterday, we could all take a cue from him. What you describe is real but surmountable.
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Hey look at this
* 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/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feeds
* 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
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@pluralistic The ox video is interesting, but idk, I think the vidsmith should be docked brownie points for not citing any sources on a post-Plagiarism-and-You(Tube) platform. Bars like 'feudalism is just a supply chain with a crown' had to be remixed from somewhere
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R relay@relay.mycrowd.ca shared this topic
