Pluralistic: Doctors' union may yet save the NHS from Palantir (12 Feb 2026) # Today's links * [Doctors' union may yet save the NHS from Palantir][1]: There is power in the union. * [Hey look at this][2]: Delights to delectate. * [Object permanence][3]: Premature internet activists; Privacy Without Monopoly; "Broad Band"; Yazidi supersoldiers; I was a Jeopardy! clue. * [Upcoming appearances][4]: Where to find me. * [Recent appearances][5]: Where I've been. * [Latest books][6]: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Upcoming books][7]: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Colophon][8]: All the rest. [A haunted, ruined hospital building. A sign hangs askew over the entrance with the NHS logo over the Palantir logo. Beneath it, a cutaway silhouette reveals a blood-spattered, scalpel-wielding surgeon with a Palantir logo over his breast, about to slice into a frightened patient with an NHS logo over his breast. Looming over the scene are the eyes of Peter Thiel, bloodshot and sinister.] # Doctors' union may yet save the NHS from Palantir ([permalink][9]) If you weren't paying close attention, you might think that the most grotesque and indefensible aspect of Keir Starmer's Labour government turning over NHS patient records to the American military contractor Palantir is that Palantir are Trumpist war-criminals, "founded to kill communists": [https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2026/01/07/palantir-kill-communists/][10] And that is indeed grotesque and indefensible, and should have been grounds for Starmer being forced to resign as PM long before it became apparent that he stuffed his government with Epstein's enablers and chums: [https://www.thenational.scot/news/25451640.streeting-defends-peter-mandelsons-relationship-jeffrey-epstein/][11] But it's actually *much worse* than that! It's not just that Labour hand over Britain's crown jewels to rapacious international criminals who are deeply embedded in a regime that has directly threatened the sovereignty of the UK. They also passed up a proven, advanced, open, safe, British alternative: the OpenSAFELY initiative, developed by Ben Goldacre and his team at Jesus College Oxford: [https://www.opensafely.org/][12] OpenSAFELY is the latest iteration of Goldacre's Trusted Research Environment (TRE), arguably the most successful patient record research tool ever conceived. It's built atop a special server that can send queries to each NHS trust, without ever directly accessing any patient data. Researchers formulate a research question – say, an inquiry into the demographics of the comorbidities of a given disease – and publish it using a modified MySQL syntax on a public git server. Other researchers peer-review the query, assessing it for rigour, and then the TRE farms that query out to each NHS trust, then aggregates all the responses and publishes it, either immediately or after a set period. This is a fully privacy-preserving, extremely low-cost, rapid way for researchers to run queries against the full load of NHS patient records, and holy *shit* does it ever work. By coincidence, it went online just prior to the pandemic, and it enabled an absolute *string* of blockbuster papers on covid, *dozens* of them, including several in leading journals like *Nature*: [https://www.digitalhealth.net/2022/04/goldacre-trusted-research-environments/][13] This led HMG to commission Goldacre to produce a report on the use of TREs as the permanent, principal way for medical researchers to mine NHS data (disclosure: I was interviewed for this report): [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/better-broader-safer-using-health-data-for-research-and-analysis][14] This is a near-miraculous system: an ultra-effective, ultra-*cost*-effective, Made-in-Britain, open, transparent, privacy-preserving, rigorous way to produce medical research insights at scale, which could be perfected in the UK and then exported to the world, getting better every time a new partner signs on and helps shoulder the work of maintaining and improving the free/open source software that powers it. OpenSAFELY was the obvious contender for NHS research. But it wasn't the only one: in the other corner was Palantir, a shady American company best known for helping cops and spies victimise people on the basis of dodgy statistics. Palantir blitzed Westminster with expensive PR and lobbying, and embarked on a strategy to "hoover up" every small NHS contractor until Palantir was the last company standing. Palantir UK boss Louis Moseley called it "Buying our way in": [https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/01/the-palantir-will-see-you-now/#public-private-partnership][15] It worked. First, Palantir got £60m worth of no-bid contracts during the acute phase of the pandemic, and then it bootstrapped that into a £330m contract to handle *all* the NHS England data: [https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/palantir_wins_nhs_contract/][16] It was a huge win for corruption over excellence and corporate surveillance over privacy. At the same time, it was a terrible blow to UK technological sovereignty, and long-term trust in the NHS. But that's not where it ended. Palantir continued its wildly profitable, highly public programme of collaborating with fascists – especially Trump's ICE kill/snatch-squads – further trashing its reputation around the world. It's now gotten so bad that the British Medical Association (BMA) – a union representing more than 200,000 UK doctors – has told its members that they should not use the Palantir products that the NHS has forced onto their practices: [https://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj.s168/rr-2][17] In response, an anonymous Palantir spokesperson told *The Register* that Britons should trust its software because the company is also working with British police forces: [https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/11/bma_palantir_nhs/][18] The BMA is a very powerful, militant union, and it has already run successful campaigns against Starmer's government that forced Labour to shore up its support for the NHS. The fact that there's a better, cheaper, more effective, technologically sovereign tool that HMG has already recognised only bolsters the union's case for jettisoning Palantir's products altogether. (*Image: [Gage Skidmore][19], [CC BY 2.0][20], modified*) # Hey look at this ([permalink][21]) * Open Letter to Tech Companies: Protect Your Users From Lawless DHS Subpoenas [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/open-letter-tech-companies-protect-your-users-lawless-dhs-subpoenas][22] * Auspicious Omens and Excellent Insubordination [https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/auspicious-omens-and-excellent-insubordination/][23] * Olympic Spirits on ICE [https://prospect.org/2026/02/11/feb-2026-magazine-sports-olympic-spirits-on-ice-los-angeles/][24] * Bracing for the Enshittification of Embodied AI and Robotics [https://sites.google.com/view/bracing-for-enshittification][25] * Joshua Idehen – Once in a lifetime (Talking Heads/Angélique Kidjo) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQG5zN8QOAs][26] [A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'] # Object permanence ([permalink][27]) #20yrsago Google Video DRM: Why is Hollywood more important than users? [https://memex.craphound.com/2006/02/13/google-video-drm-why-is-hollywood-more-important-than-users/][28] #20yrsago Phishers trick Internet “trust” companies [https://web.archive.org/web/20060222232249/http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/02/the_new_face_of_phishing_1.html][29] #15yrsago With a Little Help: first post-publication progress report [https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/cory-doctorow/article/46105-with-a-little-help-the-early-returns.html][30] #15yrsago Nokia’s radical CEO has a mercenary, checkered past [https://web.archive.org/web/20100608100324/http://www.siliconbeat.com/2008/01/11/microsoft-beware-stephen-elop-is-a-flight-risk/][31] #15yrsago Scientology’s science fictional origins: thesis from 1981 [https://web.archive.org/web/20110218045653/http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/opendissertations/126/][32] #10yrsago I was a Jeopardy! clue [https://memex.craphound.com/2016/02/13/i-was-a-jeopardy-clue/][33] #10yrsago Liberated Yazidi sex slaves become a vengeful, elite anti-ISIS fighting force [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-yazidi-sex-slaves-take-up-arms-for-mosul-fight-to-bring-our-women-home-a6865056.html][34] #10yrsago Listen: a new podcast about science fiction and spectacular meals [https://www.scottedelman.com/2016/02/10/the-first-episode-of-eating-the-fantastic-with-guest-sarah-pinsker-is-now-live/][35] #10yrsago Politician given green-light to name developer’s new streets with synonyms for greed and deceit [https://web.archive.org/web/20160213001324/http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2016/02/8590908/staten-island-borough-president-gets-approval-name-new-streets-gre][36] #5yrsago $50T moved from America's 90% to the 1% [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/13/data-protection-without-monopoly/#inequality][37] #5yrsago Broad Band [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/13/data-protection-without-monopoly/#broad-band][38] #5yrsago Privacy Without Monopoly [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/13/data-protection-without-monopoly/#comcom][39] #1yrago Premature Internet Activists [https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/13/digital-rights/#are-human-rights][40] # Upcoming appearances ([permalink][41]) [A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.] * Salt Lake City: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18 [https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/][42] * Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24 [https://fedimtl.ca/][43] * Oslo (remote): Seminar og lansering av rapport om «enshittification» [https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/digital/seminar-og-lansering-av-rapport-om-enshittification/][44] * Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5 [https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/][45] * Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27 [https://conference.bioneers.org/][46] * Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 [https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow][47] * Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 [https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html][48] * Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 [https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2][49] [A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.] # Recent appearances ([permalink][50]) * Panopticon :3 (Trashfuture) [https://www.patreon.com/posts/panopticon-3-150395435][51] * America's Enshittification is Canada's Opportunity (Do Not Pass Go) [https://www.donotpassgo.ca/p/americas-enshittification-is-canadas][52] * Everything Wrong With the Internet and How to Fix It, with Tim Wu (Ezra Klein) [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html][53] * How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo][54] * Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline): [https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/][55] [A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..] # Latest books ([permalink][56]) * "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 * "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/][57] * "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][58]). * "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][59]). * "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][60]). * "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 ([http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org][61]). Signed copies at Book Soup ([https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245][62]). * "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][63]. * "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][64] [A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.] # Upcoming books ([permalink][65]) * "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 * "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][66]) 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 (1006 words today, 27741 total) * "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/][67] 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][68] Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://pluralistic.net/plura-list][69] Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic][70] Medium (no ads, paywalled): [https://doctorow.medium.com/][71] Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://twitter.com/doctorow][72] Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic][73] "*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 [1]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#robo-mengele [2]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#linkdump [3]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#retro [4]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#upcoming [5]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#recent [6]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#latest [7]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#upcoming-books [8]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#bragsheet [9]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#robo-mengele [10]: https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2026/01/07/palantir-kill-communists/ [11]: https://www.thenational.scot/news/25451640.streeting-defends-peter-mandelsons-relationship-jeffrey-epstein/ [12]: https://www.opensafely.org/ [13]: https://www.digitalhealth.net/2022/04/goldacre-trusted-research-environments/ [14]: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/better-broader-safer-using-health-data-for-research-and-analysis [15]: https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/01/the-palantir-will-see-you-now/#public-private-partnership [16]: https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/palantir_wins_nhs_contract/ [17]: https://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj.s168/rr-2 [18]: https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/11/bma_palantir_nhs/ [19]: [20]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en [21]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#linkdump [22]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/open-letter-tech-companies-protect-your-users-lawless-dhs-subpoenas [23]: https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/auspicious-omens-and-excellent-insubordination/ [24]: https://prospect.org/2026/02/11/feb-2026-magazine-sports-olympic-spirits-on-ice-los-angeles/ [25]: https://sites.google.com/view/bracing-for-enshittification [26]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQG5zN8QOAs [27]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#retro [28]: https://memex.craphound.com/2006/02/13/google-video-drm-why-is-hollywood-more-important-than-users/ [29]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060222232249/http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/02/the_new_face_of_phishing_1.html [30]: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/cory-doctorow/article/46105-with-a-little-help-the-early-returns.html [31]: https://web.archive.org/web/20100608100324/http://www.siliconbeat.com/2008/01/11/microsoft-beware-stephen-elop-is-a-flight-risk/ [32]: https://web.archive.org/web/20110218045653/http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/opendissertations/126/ [33]: https://memex.craphound.com/2016/02/13/i-was-a-jeopardy-clue/ [34]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-yazidi-sex-slaves-take-up-arms-for-mosul-fight-to-bring-our-women-home-a6865056.html [35]: https://www.scottedelman.com/2016/02/10/the-first-episode-of-eating-the-fantastic-with-guest-sarah-pinsker-is-now-live/ [36]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160213001324/http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2016/02/8590908/staten-island-borough-president-gets-approval-name-new-streets-gre [37]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/13/data-protection-without-monopoly/#inequality [38]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/13/data-protection-without-monopoly/#broad-band [39]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/13/data-protection-without-monopoly/#comcom [40]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/13/digital-rights/#are-human-rights [41]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#upcoming [42]: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/ [43]: https://fedimtl.ca/ [44]: https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/digital/seminar-og-lansering-av-rapport-om-enshittification/ [45]: https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/ [46]: https://conference.bioneers.org/ [47]: https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow [48]: https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html [49]: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 [50]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#recent [51]: https://www.patreon.com/posts/panopticon-3-150395435 [52]: https://www.donotpassgo.ca/p/americas-enshittification-is-canadas [53]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html [54]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo [55]: https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/ [56]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#latest [57]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ [58]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels [59]: http://thebezzle.org [60]: http://lost-cause.org [61]: http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org [62]: https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245 [63]: http://redteamblues.com [64]: https://chokepointcapitalism.com [65]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#upcoming-books [66]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#bragsheet [67]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [68]: http://pluralistic.net [69]: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list [70]: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic [71]: https://doctorow.medium.com/ [72]: https://twitter.com/doctorow [73]: https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/

Pluralistic: Europe takes a big step towards a post-dollar world (11 Feb 2026) # Today's links * [Europe takes a big step towards a post-dollar world][1]: Recapturing $24t worth of transactions from Visa/Mastercard. * [Hey look at this][2]: Delights to delectate. * [Object permanence][3]: API for Congress; Steampunk fetish mask; Hillary x AOL login screen; Suffragist Valentines; Musk x Intuit vs the American people. * [Upcoming appearances][4]: Where to find me. * [Recent appearances][5]: Where I've been. * [Latest books][6]: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Upcoming books][7]: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Colophon][8]: All the rest. [An old-fashioned credit-card imprinter; its handle is a cracked and dirty American flag. Under the slip is a gold Trump Card. Looming over the imprinter is the top half of Trump's face, brooding and squint-eyed; it has been altered to increase its orangeness, to add bloodshot sclera to his eyes, and to add liver spots. At its bottom, the face merges with a bubbling, hellish cauldron of smoke and flame.] # Europe takes a big step towards a post-dollar world ([permalink][9]) There's a reason every decentralized system eventually finds its way onto a platform: platforms solve real-world problems that platform users struggle to solve for themselves. I've written before about the indie/outsider author Crad Kilodney, who wrote, edited, typeset and published chapbooks of his weird and wonderful fiction, and then sold his books from Toronto street-corners with a sign around his neck reading VERY FAMOUS CANADIAN AUTHOR BUY MY BOOKS (or, if he was feeling spicy, simply: MARGARET ATWOOD): [https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#intermediation][10] Crad was a hell of a writer and a bit of a force of nature, but there are plenty of writers I want to hear from who are never going to publish their own books, much less stand on a street-corner selling them with a MARGARET ATWOOD sign around their necks. Publishers, editors, distributors and booksellers all do important work, allowing writers to get on with their writing, taking all the other parts of the publishing process off their shoulders. That's the value of platforms. The *danger* of platforms is when they grow so powerful that they usurp the relationship between the parties they are supposed to be facilitating, locking them in and then extracting value from them (someone should coin a word to describe this process!): [https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/07/usurpers-helpmeets/#disreintermediation][11] Everyone needs platforms: writers, social media users, people looking for a romantic partner. What's more, the *world* needs platforms. Say you want to connect all 200+ countries on Earth with high-speed fiber lines; you can run a cable from each country to every other country (about 21,000 cables, many of them expensively draped across the ocean floor), or you can pick one country (preferably one with both Atlantic and Pacific coasts) and run all your cables there, and then interconnect them. That's America, the world's global fiber hub. The problem is, America isn't just a platform for fiber interconnections – it's a Great Power that uses its position at the center of the world's fiber networks to surveil and disrupt the world's communications networks: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden][12] That's a classic enshittification move on a geopolitical scale. It's not the only one America's made, either. Consider the US dollar. The dollar is to global commerce what America's fiber head-ends are to the world's data network: a site of essential, (nominally) neutral interchange that is actually a weapon that the US uses to gain advantage over its allies and to punish its enemies: [https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/10/weaponized-interdependence/#the-other-swifties][13] The world's also got about 200 currencies. For parties in one country to trade with those in another country, the buyer needs to possess a currency the seller can readily spend. The problem is that setting up 21,000 pairwise exchange markets from every currency to every other currency is expensive and cumbersome – traders would have to amass reserves of hundreds of rarely used currencies, or they would have to construct long, brittle, expensive, high-risk chains that convert, say, Thai baht into Icelandic kroner to Brazilian reals and finally into Costa Rican colones. Thanks to a bunch of complicated maneuvers following World War II, the world settled on the US dollar as its currency platform. Most important international transactions use "dollar clearing" (where goods are priced in USD irrespective of their country of origin) and buyers need only find someone who will convert their currency to dollars in order to buy food, oil, and other essentials. There are two problems with this system. The first is that America has never treated the dollar as a neutral platform; rather, American leaders have found subtle, deniable ways to use "dollar dominance" to further America's geopolitical agenda, at the expense of other dollar users (you know, "enshittification"). The other problem is that America has become steadily *less* deniable and subtle in these machinations, finding all kinds of "exceptional circumstances" to use the dollar against dollar users: [https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/26/difficult-multipolarism/#eurostack][14] America's unabashed dollar weaponization has been getting worse for years, but under Trump, the weaponized dollar has come to constitute an existential risk to the rest of the world, sending them scrambling for alternatives. As November Kelly says, Trump inherited a poker game that was rigged in his favor, but he still flipped over the table because he resents having to pretend to play at all: [https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/26/i-dont-want/#your-greenback-dollar][15] Once Trump tried to steal Greenland, it became apparent that the downsides of the dollar far outweigh its upsides. Last month, Christine Lagarde (president of the European Central Bank) made a public announcement on a radio show that Europe "urgently" needed to build its own payment system to avoid the American payment duopoly, Visa/Mastercard: [https://davekeating.substack.com/p/can-europe-free-itself-from-visamastercard][16] Now, there's plenty of reasons to want to avoid Visa/Mastercard, starting with cost: the companies have raised their prices by more than 40% since the pandemic started (needless to say, updating database entries has not gotten 40% more expensive since 2020). This allows two American companies to impose a tax on the entire global economy, collecting swipe fees and other commissions on $24t worth of the world's transactions every year: [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/europe-banks-launching-product-break-101215642.html][17] But there's another reason to get shut of Visa/Mastercard: Trump controls them. He can order them to cut off payment processing for any individual or institution that displeases him. He's already done this to punish the International Criminal Court for issuing a genocide arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, and against a Brazilian judge for finding against the criminal dictator Jair Bolsonaro (Trump also threatened to have the judge in Bolsonaro's case assassinated). What's more, Visa/Mastercard have a record of billions (trillions?) of retail transactions taking place between non-Americans, which Trump's officials can access for surveillance purposes, or just to conduct commercial espionage to benefit American firms as a loyalty bonus for the companies that buy the most $TRUMP coins. Two days after Lagarde's radio announcement, 13 European countries announced the formation of "EuroPA," an alliance that will facilitate regionwide transactions that bypass American payment processors (as well as Chinese processors like Alipay): [https://news.europawire.eu/european-payment-leaders-sign-mou-to-create-a-sovereign-pan-european-interoperable-payments-network/eu-press-release/2026/02/02/15/34/11/168858/][18] As *European Business Magazine* points out, EuroPA is the latest in a succession of attempts to build a European payments network: [https://europeanbusinessmagazine.com/business/europes-24-trillion-breakup-with-visa-and-mastercard-has-begun/][19] There's Wero, a 2024 launch from the 16-country European Payments Initiative, which currently boasts 47m users and 1,100 banks in Belgium, France and Germany, who've spent €7.5b through the network: [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/europe-banks-launching-product-break-101215642.html][20] Wero launched as a peer-to-peer payment system that used phone numbers as identifiers, but it expanded into retail at the end of last year, with several large retailers (such as Lidl) signing on to accept Wero payments. Last week, Wero announced an alliance with EuroPA, making another 130m people eligible to use the service, which now covers 72% of the EU and Norway. They're rolling out international peer-to-peer payments in 2026, and retail/ecommerce payments in 2027. These successes are all the more notable for the failures they follow, like Monnet (born 2008, died 2012). Even the EPI has been limping along since its founding, only finding a new vigor on the heels of Trump threatening EU member states with military force if he wasn't given Greenland. As *EBM* writes, earlier efforts to build a regional payment processor foundered due to infighting among national payment processors within the EU, who jealously guarded their own turf and compulsively ratfucked one another. This left Visa/Mastercard as the best (and often sole) means of conducting cross-border commerce. This produced a "network effect" for Visa/Mastercard: since so many Europeans had an American credit card in their wallets, European merchants had to support them; and since so many EU merchants supported Visa/Mastercard, Europeans had to carry them in their wallets. Network effects are pernicious, but not insurmountable. The EU is attacking this problem from multiple angles – not just through EuroPA, but also through the creation of the Digital Euro, a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Essentially, this would give any European who signs up an account with the ECB, the federal bank of the Eurozone. Then, using an app or a website, any two Digital Euro customers could transfer funds to one another using the bank's own ledgers, instantaneously and at zero cost. *EBM* points out that there's a critical difficulty in getting EuroPA off the ground: because it is designed to be cheap to use, it doesn't offer participating banks the windfall profits that Visa/Mastercard enjoy, which might hold back investment in EuroPA infrastructure. But banks are used to making small amounts of money from a *lot* of people, and with the Digital Euro offering a "public option," the private sector EuroPA system will have a competitor that pushes it to continuously improve its systems. It's true that European payment processing has been slow and halting until now, but that was when European businesses, governments and households could still pretend that the dollar – and the payment processing companies that come along with it – was a neutral platform, and not a geopolitical adversary. If there's one thing the EU has demonstrated over the past three years, it's that geopolitical threats from massive, heavily armed mad empires can break longstanding deadlocks. Remember: Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the end of Russian gas moved the EU's climate goals in ways that beggar belief: the region went from 15 years behind on its solar rollout to ten years *ahead* of schedule in just a handful of months: [https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#this-too-shall-pass][21] This despite an all-out blitz from the fossil fuel lobby, one of the most powerful bodies in the history of civilization. Crises precipitate change, and Trump precipitates crises. # Hey look at this ([permalink][22]) * Killing in the name of… nothing [https://www.theverge.com/policy/849609/charlie-kirk-shooting-ideology-literacy-politics][23] * Best gas masks [https://www.theverge.com/policy/868571/best-gas-masks][24] * As Was The Style At The Time: How We Became Cruel [https://www.oblomovka.com/wp/2026/02/09/as-was-the-style-at-the-time-how-we-became-cruel/][25] * Remove Your Ring Camera With a Claw Hammer [https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/remove-your-ring-camera-with-a-claw][26] * The truth about covering tech at Bezos’s Washington Post [https://geoffreyfowler.substack.com/p/washington-post-layoffs-bezos-tech-reporting][27] [A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'] # Object permanence ([permalink][28]) #15yrsago Realtime API for Congress [https://web.archive.org/web/20110211101723/http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2011/the-real-time-congress-api/][29] #15yrsago Steampunk fetish mask with ear-horn [https://bob-basset.livejournal.com/156159.html][30] #10yrsago Facebook’s “Free Basics” and colonialism: an argument in six devastating points [https://web.archive.org/web/20160211182436/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/facebook-and-the-new-colonialism/462393/][31] #10yrsago UK surveillance bill condemned by a Parliamentary committee, for the third time [https://web.archive.org/web/20250523013320/https://www.wired.com/story/technology-ip-bill-surveillance-committee/][32] #10yrsago Haunted by a lack of young voter support, Hillary advertises on the AOL login screen [https://web.archive.org/web/20160211080839/http://www.weeklystandard.com/hillary-reaches-base-with-aol-login-page-ad/article/2001023][33] #10yrsago Celebrate V-Day like an early feminist with these Suffragist Valentines [https://web.archive.org/web/20160216100606/https://www.lwv.org/blog/votes-women-vintage-womens-suffrage-valentines][34] #10yrsago Elements of telegraphic style, 1928 [https://writeanessayfor.me/telegraph-office-com][35] #10yrsago Disgraced ex-sheriff of LA admits he lied to FBI, will face no more than 6 months in prison [https://web.archive.org/web/20160211041117/https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ex-l-a-county-sheriff-baca-jail-scandal-20160210-story.html][36] #5yrsago Apple puts North Dakota on blast [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/11/rhodium-at-2900-per-oz/#manorial-apple][37] #5yrsago Catalytic converter theft [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/11/rhodium-at-2900-per-oz/#ccscrap][38] #5yrsago Adam Curtis on criti-hype [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/11/rhodium-at-2900-per-oz/#hypernormal][39] #5yrsago Dependency Confusion [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/11/rhodium-at-2900-per-oz/#extra-index-url][40] #1yrago Musk steals a billion dollars from low-income Americans and sends it to Intuit [https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/11/doubling-up-on-paperwork/#rip-freefile][41] # Upcoming appearances ([permalink][42]) [A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.] * Salt Lake City: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18 [https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/][43] * Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24 [https://fedimtl.ca/][44] * Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5 [https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/][45] * Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27 [https://conference.bioneers.org/][46] * Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 [https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow][47] * Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 [https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html][48] * Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 [https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2][49] [A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.] # Recent appearances ([permalink][50]) * Panopticon :3 (Trashfuture) [https://www.patreon.com/posts/panopticon-3-150395435][51] * America's Enshittification is Canada's Opportunity (Do Not Pass Go) [https://www.donotpassgo.ca/p/americas-enshittification-is-canadas][52] * Everything Wrong With the Internet and How to Fix It, with Tim Wu (Ezra Klein) [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html][53] * How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo][54] * Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline): [https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/][55] [A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..] # Latest books ([permalink][56]) * "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 * "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/][57] * "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][58]). * "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][59]). * "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][60]). * "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 ([http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org][61]). Signed copies at Book Soup ([https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245][62]). * "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][63]. * "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][64] [A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.] # Upcoming books ([permalink][65]) * "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 * "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][66]) 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 (1027 words today, 26735 total) * "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/][67] 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][68] Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://pluralistic.net/plura-list][69] Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic][70] Medium (no ads, paywalled): [https://doctorow.medium.com/][71] Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://twitter.com/doctorow][72] Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic][73] "*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 [1]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#de-dollarization [2]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#linkdump [3]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#retro [4]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#upcoming [5]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#recent [6]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#latest [7]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#upcoming-books [8]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#bragsheet [9]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#de-dollarization [10]: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#intermediation [11]: https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/07/usurpers-helpmeets/#disreintermediation [12]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden [13]: https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/10/weaponized-interdependence/#the-other-swifties [14]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/26/difficult-multipolarism/#eurostack [15]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/26/i-dont-want/#your-greenback-dollar [16]: https://davekeating.substack.com/p/can-europe-free-itself-from-visamastercard [17]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/europe-banks-launching-product-break-101215642.html [18]: https://news.europawire.eu/european-payment-leaders-sign-mou-to-create-a-sovereign-pan-european-interoperable-payments-network/eu-press-release/2026/02/02/15/34/11/168858/ [19]: https://europeanbusinessmagazine.com/business/europes-24-trillion-breakup-with-visa-and-mastercard-has-begun/ [20]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/europe-banks-launching-product-break-101215642.html [21]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#this-too-shall-pass [22]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#linkdump [23]: https://www.theverge.com/policy/849609/charlie-kirk-shooting-ideology-literacy-politics [24]: https://www.theverge.com/policy/868571/best-gas-masks [25]: https://www.oblomovka.com/wp/2026/02/09/as-was-the-style-at-the-time-how-we-became-cruel/ [26]: https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/remove-your-ring-camera-with-a-claw [27]: https://geoffreyfowler.substack.com/p/washington-post-layoffs-bezos-tech-reporting [28]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#retro [29]: https://web.archive.org/web/20110211101723/http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2011/the-real-time-congress-api/ [30]: https://bob-basset.livejournal.com/156159.html [31]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160211182436/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/facebook-and-the-new-colonialism/462393/ [32]: https://web.archive.org/web/20250523013320/https://www.wired.com/story/technology-ip-bill-surveillance-committee/ [33]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160211080839/http://www.weeklystandard.com/hillary-reaches-base-with-aol-login-page-ad/article/2001023 [34]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160216100606/https://www.lwv.org/blog/votes-women-vintage-womens-suffrage-valentines [35]: https://writeanessayfor.me/telegraph-office-com [36]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160211041117/https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ex-l-a-county-sheriff-baca-jail-scandal-20160210-story.html [37]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/11/rhodium-at-2900-per-oz/#manorial-apple [38]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/11/rhodium-at-2900-per-oz/#ccscrap [39]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/11/rhodium-at-2900-per-oz/#hypernormal [40]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/11/rhodium-at-2900-per-oz/#extra-index-url [41]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/11/doubling-up-on-paperwork/#rip-freefile [42]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#upcoming [43]: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/ [44]: https://fedimtl.ca/ [45]: https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/ [46]: https://conference.bioneers.org/ [47]: https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow [48]: https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html [49]: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 [50]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#recent [51]: https://www.patreon.com/posts/panopticon-3-150395435 [52]: https://www.donotpassgo.ca/p/americas-enshittification-is-canadas [53]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html [54]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo [55]: https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/ [56]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#latest [57]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ [58]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels [59]: http://thebezzle.org [60]: http://lost-cause.org [61]: http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org [62]: https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245 [63]: http://redteamblues.com [64]: https://chokepointcapitalism.com [65]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#upcoming-books [66]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/#bragsheet [67]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [68]: http://pluralistic.net [69]: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list [70]: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic [71]: https://doctorow.medium.com/ [72]: https://twitter.com/doctorow [73]: https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/post-dollar-world/

Pluralistic: The Nuremberg Caucus (10 Feb 2026) # Today's links * [The Nuremberg Caucus][1]: What do Democrats have to lose? * [Hey look at this][2]: Delights to delectate. * [Object permanence][3]: Bradbury x LA monorails; Red Cross vs first aid kits; Wyden on CIA Senate spying; Coates x Sanders; Nerdy Valentines; Duke U, trademark troll; "The Murder Next Door." * [Upcoming appearances][4]: Where to find me. * [Recent appearances][5]: Where I've been. * [Latest books][6]: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Upcoming books][7]: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Colophon][8]: All the rest. [A famous 1961 photo of Adolf Eichmann on trial in Jerusalem; Eichmann's face has been replaced with the face of Stephen Miller.] # The Nuremberg Caucus ([permalink][9]) America's descent into authoritarian fascism is made all the more alarming and demoralizing by the Democrats' total failure to rise to the moment: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KADW3ZRZLVI][10] But what would "rising to the moment" look like? What can the opposition party do without majorities in either house? Well, they could start by refusing to continue to fund ICE, a masked thug snatch/murder squad that roams our streets, killing with impunity: [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-passes-sprawling-spending-package-democrats-split-ice-funding-rcna255273][11] That's table stakes. What would a *real* political response to fascism look like? Again, it wouldn't stop with banning masks for ICE goons, or even requiring them to wear QR codes: [https://gizmodo.com/dem-congressman-wants-to-make-ice-agents-wear-qr-codes-2000710345][12] Though it should be noted that ICE hates this idea, and that ICE agents wear masks because they fear consequences for their sadistic criminality: [https://archive.is/0LNh8][13] This despite the fact that the (criminally culpable) Vice President has assured them that they have absolute impunity, no matter who they kill: [https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/08/politics/ice-immunity-jd-vance-minneapolis][14] The fact that ICE agents worry about consequences despite Vance's assurances suggests ways that Dems could "meet the moment." I think Dems should start a Nuremberg Caucus, named for the Nazi war-crimes trials that followed from the defeat of German fascists and the death of their leader: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials][15] What would this caucus do? Well, it could have a public website where it assembled and organized the evidence for the trials that the Democrats could promise to bring after the Trump regime falls. Each fresh outrage, each statement, each video-clip – whether of Trump officials or of his shock-troops – could be neatly slotted in, given an exhibit number, and annotated with the criminal and civil violations captured in the evidence. The caucus could publish dates these trials will be held on – following from Jan 20, 2029 – and even which courtrooms each official, high and low, will be tried in. These dates could be changed as new crimes emerge, making sure the most egregious offenses are always at the top of the agenda. Each trial would have a witness list. The Nuremberg Caucus could vow to repurpose ICE's $75b budget to pursue Trump's crimes, from corruption to civil rights violations to labor violations to environmental violations. It could announce its intent to fully fund the FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division to undertake scrutiny of all mergers approved under Trump, and put corporations on notice that they should expect lengthy, probing inquiries into any mergers they undertake between now and the fall of Trumpism. Who knows, perhaps some shareholders will demand that management hold off on mergers in anticipation of this lookback scrutiny, and if not, perhaps they will sue executives after the FTC and DoJ go to work. While they're at it, the Nuremberg Caucus could publish a plan to hire thousands of *IRS* agents (paid for by taxing billionaires and zeroing out ICE's budget) who will focus exclusively on the ultra-wealthy and especially any supernormal wealth gains coinciding with the second Trump presidency. Money talks. 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. 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][16] 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/][17] 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. Dems have to pick a side. That means being against anyone who is for fascism – including other Dems. The Nuremberg Caucus should denounce the disgusting child abuse perpetrated by the Trump regime: [https://www.propublica.org/article/life-inside-ice-dilley-children][18] But they should also denounce Democrats who vote to fund that abuse: [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/fetterman-shutdown-dhs-ice-senate-b2916350.html][19] The people of Minneapolis (and elsewhere) have repeatedly proven that we outnumber fascists by a huge margin. Dems need to stop demoralizing their base by doing nothing and start demonstrating that they understand the urgency of this crisis. # Hey look at this ([permalink][20]) * Prescription: Social Media [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7_GTts4XTY&t=114s][21] * ENIAC Day Celebration [https://www.helicoptermuseum.org/event-details/eniac-day-celebration][22] * Matrix is quietly becoming the chat layer for governments chasing digital sovereignty [https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/09/matrix_element_secure_chat/][23] * The Children of Dilley [https://www.propublica.org/article/life-inside-ice-dilley-children][24] * Martin Shkreli Had a Point [https://lpeproject.org/blog/martin-shkreli-had-a-point/][25] [A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'] # Object permanence ([permalink][26]) #20yrsago Ray Bradbury: LA needs monorails! [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-feb-05-op-bradbury5-story.html][27] #20yrsago How statistics caught Indonesia’s war-criminals [https://web.archive.org/web/20060423232814/https://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70196-0.html][28] #20yrsago Canadian Red Cross vows to sue first aid kits, too [https://memex.craphound.com/2006/02/10/canadian-red-cross-vows-to-sue-first-aid-kits-too/][29] #20yrsago Sports announcer traded for Walt Disney’s first character [https://web.archive.org/web/20060312134156/http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-nbc-michaels&prov=ap&type=lgns][30] #15yrago Government transparency doesn’t matter without accountability [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2011/feb/10/government-data-crime-maps][31] #10yrsago Hackers stole 101,000 taxpayers’ logins/passwords from the IRS [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/irs-website-attack-nets-e-filing-credentials-for-101000-taxpayers/][32] #10yrsago CIA boss flips out when Ron Wyden reminds him that CIA spied on the Senate [https://www.techdirt.com/2016/02/10/cia-director-freaks-out-after-senator-wyden-points-out-how-cia-spied-senate/][33] #10yrsago Ta-Nehisi Coates will vote for Bernie Sanders, reparations or no reparations [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSJmxN-L300][34] #10yrsago Gmail will warn you when your correspondents use unencrypted mail transport [https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/gmail/making-email-safer-for-you-posted-by/][35] #10yrsago Detoxing is (worse than) bullshit: high lead levels in “detox clay” [https://www.statnews.com/2016/02/02/detox-clay-fda-lead/][36] #10yrsago Nerdy Valentines to print and love [https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2016/valentines-4/][37] #5yrsago A criminal enterprise with a country attachedhttps://pluralistic.net/2021/02/10/duke-sucks/#openlux #5yrsago Tory donors reap 100X return on campaign contributions [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/10/duke-sucks/#chumocracy][38] #5yrsago Duke is academia's meanest trademark bully [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/10/duke-sucks/#devils][39] #5yrsago Crooked cops play music to kill livestreams [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/10/duke-sucks/#bhpd][40] #1yrago Hugh D'Andrade's "The Murder Next Door" [https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/10/pivot-point/#eff][41] # Upcoming appearances ([permalink][42]) [A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.] * Salt Lake City: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18 [https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/][43] * Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24 [https://fedimtl.ca/][44] * Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5 [https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/][45] * Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27 [https://conference.bioneers.org/][46] * Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 [https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow][47] * Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 [https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html][48] * Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 [https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2][49] [A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.] # Recent appearances ([permalink][50]) * America's Enshittification is Canada's Opportunity (Do Not Pass Go) [https://www.donotpassgo.ca/p/americas-enshittification-is-canadas][51] * Everything Wrong With the Internet and How to Fix It, with Tim Wu (Ezra Klein) [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html][52] * How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo][53] * Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline): [https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/][54] * Why Big Tech is a Trap for Independent Creators (Stripper News) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0][55] [A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..] # Latest books ([permalink][56]) * "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 * "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/][57] * "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][58]). * "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][59]). * "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][60]). * "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 ([http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org][61]). Signed copies at Book Soup ([https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245][62]). * "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][63]. * "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][64] [A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.] # Upcoming books ([permalink][65]) * "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 * "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][66]) 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 (1007 words today, 25708 total) * "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/][67] 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][68] Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://pluralistic.net/plura-list][69] Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic][70] Medium (no ads, paywalled): [https://doctorow.medium.com/][71] Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://twitter.com/doctorow][72] Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic][73] "*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 [1]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#denazification [2]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#linkdump [3]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#retro [4]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#upcoming [5]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#recent [6]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#latest [7]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#upcoming-books [8]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#bragsheet [9]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#denazification [10]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KADW3ZRZLVI [11]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-passes-sprawling-spending-package-democrats-split-ice-funding-rcna255273 [12]: https://gizmodo.com/dem-congressman-wants-to-make-ice-agents-wear-qr-codes-2000710345 [13]: https://archive.is/0LNh8 [14]: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/08/politics/ice-immunity-jd-vance-minneapolis [15]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials [16]: https://www.nj.com/politics/2026/02/top-senate-republican-rejects-trumps-shocking-election-plan-i-think-thats-a-constitutional-issue.html [17]: 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/ [18]: https://www.propublica.org/article/life-inside-ice-dilley-children [19]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/fetterman-shutdown-dhs-ice-senate-b2916350.html [20]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#linkdump [21]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7_GTts4XTY&t=114s [22]: https://www.helicoptermuseum.org/event-details/eniac-day-celebration [23]: https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/09/matrix_element_secure_chat/ [24]: https://www.propublica.org/article/life-inside-ice-dilley-children [25]: https://lpeproject.org/blog/martin-shkreli-had-a-point/ [26]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#retro [27]: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-feb-05-op-bradbury5-story.html [28]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060423232814/https://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70196-0.html [29]: https://memex.craphound.com/2006/02/10/canadian-red-cross-vows-to-sue-first-aid-kits-too/ [30]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060312134156/http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-nbc-michaels&prov=ap&type=lgns [31]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2011/feb/10/government-data-crime-maps [32]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/irs-website-attack-nets-e-filing-credentials-for-101000-taxpayers/ [33]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/02/10/cia-director-freaks-out-after-senator-wyden-points-out-how-cia-spied-senate/ [34]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSJmxN-L300 [35]: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/gmail/making-email-safer-for-you-posted-by/ [36]: https://www.statnews.com/2016/02/02/detox-clay-fda-lead/ [37]: https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2016/valentines-4/ [38]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/10/duke-sucks/#chumocracy [39]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/10/duke-sucks/#devils [40]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/10/duke-sucks/#bhpd [41]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/10/pivot-point/#eff [42]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#upcoming [43]: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/ [44]: https://fedimtl.ca/ [45]: https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/ [46]: https://conference.bioneers.org/ [47]: https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow [48]: https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html [49]: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 [50]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#recent [51]: https://www.donotpassgo.ca/p/americas-enshittification-is-canadas [52]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html [53]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo [54]: https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/ [55]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0 [56]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#latest [57]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ [58]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels [59]: http://thebezzle.org [60]: http://lost-cause.org [61]: http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org [62]: https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245 [63]: http://redteamblues.com [64]: https://chokepointcapitalism.com [65]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#upcoming-books [66]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#bragsheet [67]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [68]: http://pluralistic.net [69]: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list [70]: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic [71]: https://doctorow.medium.com/ [72]: https://twitter.com/doctorow [73]: https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/

Pluralistic: The Epstein class and collapse porn (09 Feb 2026) # Today's links * [The Epstein class and collapse porn][1]: Buy the dip! * [Hey look at this][2]: Delights to delectate. * [Object permanence][3]: Web 1.0 logos; Legality of printing Catan tiles; Hamster strandbeest; Pactuator; Michican bans oral; Blooks; Yours is a very bad hotel; Yippie Disneyland invasion model; Floppy toccata; Happy Birthday trolls owe $14m; Jughead is ace; Snowden for teens. * [Upcoming appearances][4]: Where to find me. * [Recent appearances][5]: Where I've been. * [Latest books][6]: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Upcoming books][7]: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Colophon][8]: All the rest. [A detail of a US $100 bill. Jeffrey Epstein's mugshot has been overlaid over Benjamin Franklin's portrait. Peter Thiel's portrait has been swapped for the US Dept of Treasury seal. Trump's signature has been swapped for the US Treasurer's signature. The line of zeroes after the 100, top and bottom, has been extended to the edge of the image. The image has been roughed up and recolored in a hellish mix of reds and yellows.] # The Epstein class and collapse porn ([permalink][9]) It's hard to talk about the Epstein class without thinking about "The Economy" – "The Economy" in the sense of a kind of mystical, free-floating entity whose health or sickness determines the outcomes for all the rest of us, whom we must make sacrifices to if we are to prosper. As nebulous as "The Economy" is as an entity, there's an economic priesthood that claims it can measure and even alter the course of the economy using complex mathematics. We probably won't ever understand their methods, but we can at least follow an indicator or two, such as changes to GDP, an aggregated statistic that is deceptively precise, given that it subsumes any number of estimates, qualitative judgments and wild-ass guesses, which are all disguised behind an official statistic that is often published to three decimal places. There's plenty to criticize about GDP: a healthy GDP doesn't necessarily mean that the average worker is better off. When your rent goes up, so does GDP. Same with your salary going down (provided this results in more spending by your boss). GDP isn't really a measure of the health of "The Economy" – it's a measure of the parts of "The Economy" that make rich people (that is, the Epstein class) better off. But what if there was a way to make money from calamitous collapses in GDP? What if the wealthy didn't just win when "number go up," but also when "number eat shit?" The latest batch of Epstein emails includes a particularly ghoulish exchange between Epstein and his business partner, the anti-democracy activist and billionaire Peter Thiel: [https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00824843.pdf][10] The email is dated 26 Jun 2016, right after Brexit, and in it, Epstein writes: > return to tribalism . counter to globalization. amazing new alliances. you and I both agreed zero interest rates were too high, as i said in your office. finding things on their way to collapse , was much easier than finding the next bargain This is a perfect example of what Naomi Klein calls "disaster capitalism." It's been the norm since the crash of 2008, when bankers were made whole through public bailouts and mortgage holders were evicted by the millions to "foam the runway" for the banks: [https://wallstreetonparade.com/2012/08/how-treasury-secretary-geithner-foamed-the-runways-with-childrens-shattered-lives/][11] The crash of 2008 turned a lot of people's homes – their only substantial possessions – into "distressed assets" that were purchased at fire-sale prices by Wall Street investors, who turned around and rented those homes out to people who were now priced out of the housing market at rents that kept them too poor to *ever* afford a home, under slum conditions that crawled with i and black mold: [https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/01/housing-is-a-human-right/][12] Note here that economic collapse helps the Epstein class only if society has no social safety net. If Obama had supported homeowners instead of banks, there wouldn't have been a foreclosure crisis and thus there wouldn't have been any "distressed assets" flooding the market. So it's no surprise that the Epstein class are also obsessed with austerity. Peter Mandelson (British Labour's "Prince of Darkness") is a close ally of Epstein's, and also a key figure in the crushing austerity agenda of Blair, Brown and Starmer. He's a machine for turning Parliamentary majorities into distressed assets at scale. Same for Steve Bannon, another close Epstein ally, who boasts about his alliances with far-right figures who exalt the capital class and call for deregulation and the elimination of public services: Le Pen, Salvini, Farage. Combine that with Epstein and Thiel's gloating about "finding things on their way to collapse…much easier than finding the next bargain," and it starts to feel like these guys are even happier with "number eat shit" than they are with "number go up." Trump is the undisputed king of the Epstein class, and he seems determined to drive "The Economy" over a cliff. Take his tariff program, modeled on the McKinley tariffs of 1890, which led to the Panic of 1893, a financial crisis that saw one in four American workers forced into unemployment and 15,000 businesses into bankruptcy (that's a lot of distressed assets!): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893][13] Then there's Trump's mass deportation program, which will force lots of businesses (farms, restaurants, etc) into bankruptcy, creating another massive pool of distressed assets. Trump's given ICE $75b, while the DoJ Antitrust Division and FTC (which protect Americans from corporate scams) have seen their budgets take a real-terms cut. The majority of DoJ lawyers and FBI agents are working on immigration cases (against workers, not employers, mind!). The Antitrust Division has $275m to fight all of America's corporate crime: [https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/white-collar-crime-enforcement-in][14] I'm not saying that Trump is *trying* to induce another massive economic crash. I'm saying, rather, that within his coalition there is a substantial bloc of powerful, wealthy people who are on the hunt for "things on their way to collapse," and who are doubtless maneuvering to frustrate other Trump coalition members who are solely committed to "number go up." Even the collapse of crypto creates lots of opportunities to "buy the dip." Not the dip in crypto (crypto's going to zero), but the dip in all the *real* things people bought with *real* money they got by borrowing against their shitcoins. The thousand-plus children that Epstein lured to his island rape-camp were often "distressed assets" in their own right: Julie K Brown's groundbreaking reporting on Epstein for the *Miami Herald* described how he sought out children whose parents were poor, or neglectful, or both, on the grounds that those children would be "on their way to collapse," too. The Epstein class's commitment to destroying "The Economy" makes sense when you understand that trashing civilization is "much easier than finding the next bargain." They want to buy the dip, so they're creating the dip. They don't need the *whole* number to go up, just theirs. They know that inclusive economies are more prosperous for society *as a whole*, but it makes criminals and predators worse off. The New Deal kicked off a period of American economic growth never seen before or since, but the rich despised it, because a prosperous economy is one in which it gets harder and harder to find "things on their way to collapse," and thus nearly impossible to "find[] the next bargain." (*Image: [Gage Skidmore][15], [CC BY-SA 3.0][16]*) # Hey look at this ([permalink][17]) * RIP, Dave Farber [https://seclists.org/nanog/2026/Feb/18][18] * Outlier and collapse: The enron corpus and foundation model training data [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20539517261421474][19] * You're Doing It Wrong: Notes on Criticism and Technology Hype [https://peoples-things.ghost.io/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype/][20] * How Big Cloud becomes Bigger: Scrutinizing Google, Microsoft, and Amazon's investments [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5377426][21] * Go Left, Young Writers! [https://jacobin.com/2026/02/new-masses-proletarian-literature-wright-gold/][22] [A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'] # Object permanence ([permalink][23]) #25yrsago Yours is a very bad hotel [https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/yours-is-a-very-bad-hotel/34583][24] #20yrsago Kids refuse to sell candy after completing health unit [https://web.archive.org/web/20060223010123/http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5600588,00.html][25] #20yrsago Disneyland model recreates Yippie invasion of 1970 [https://web.archive.org/web/20051228122604/http://dannysland.blogspot.com/2005/12/great-moments-in-disneyland-history.html][26] #20yrsago Canadian Red Cross wastes its money harassing video game makers [https://web.archive.org/web/20060221020835/https://www.igniq.com/2006/02/canadian-red-cross-wants-its-logo-out.html][27] #20yrsago How Yahoo/AOL’s email tax will hurt free speech [https://web.archive.org/web/20060213175705/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004398.php#004398][28] #20yrsago Adbusters and the Economist have the same covers [][29] #20yrsago Head of British Vid Assoc: Piracy doesn’t hurt DVD sales [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4691228.stm#6][30] #20yrsago Countries around the world rebelling against extreme copyright [https://web.archive.org/web/20060629232414/http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1095][31] #20yrsago Web 1.0 logo-mosaic [https://web.archive.org/web/20060506074530/https://www.complexify.com/buttons/][32] #15yrsago Is it legal to print Settlers of Catan tiles on a 3D printer? [https://web.archive.org/web/20110131102845/https://publicknowledge.org/blog/3d-printing-settlers-catan-probably-not-illeg][33] #15yrsago UK Tories get majority of funding from bankers [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/feb/08/tory-funds-half-city-banks-financial-sector][34] #15yrsago Colorado Springs school bans kid who takes THC lozenges for neuro condition from attending because of “internal possession” [https://www.coloradoindependent.com/2011/02/07/teens-medical-marijuana-fight-escalates-as-school-says-he-cannot-come-back-to-class-after-going-home-for-medicine/][35] #15yrsago Hamster-powered strandbeest walker [https://crabfuartworks.blogspot.com/2011/02/hamster-powered-walker.html][36] #15yrsago Daytripper: wrenching existential graphic novel [https://memex.craphound.com/2011/02/08/daytripper-wrenching-existential-graphic-novel/][37] #15yrsago Pactuator: a mechanical, hand-cranked Pac-Man [https://upnotnorth.net/projects/pac-machina/pactuator/][38] #15yrsago Floppy drive organ plays toccata www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmoDLyiQYKw #15yrsago Mike Mignola talks setting and architecture [https://www.bldgblog.com/2011/02/ruin-space-and-shadow-an-interview-with-mike-mignola/][39] #15yrsago BBC to delete 172 unarchived sites, geek saves them for $3.99 [https://web.archive.org/web/20110210152012/https://bengoldacre.posterous.com/nerd-saves-entire-bbc-archive-for-399-you-can][40] #10yrsago Australia, the driest country on Earth, eliminates basic climate science research [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/australia-cuts-110-climate-scientist-jobs/][41] #10yrsago Copyright trolls who claimed to own “Happy Birthday” will pay $14M to their “customers” [https://web.archive.org/web/20160210091717/http://consumerist.com/2016/02/09/happy-birthday-song-settlement-to-pay-out-14-million-to-people-who-paid-to-use-song/][42] #10yrsago Eviction epidemic: the racialized, weaponized homes of America’s cities [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/08/forced-out][43] #10yrsago Association of German judges slams US-EU trade deal for its special corporate courts [https://www.techdirt.com/2016/02/09/top-german-judges-tear-to-shreds-eus-proposed-tafta-ttip-investment-court-system/][44] #10yrsago A digital, 3D printed sundial whose precise holes cast a shadow displaying the current time [https://www.mojoptix.com/fr/2015/10/12/ep-001-cadran-solaire-numerique/][45] #10yrsago Jughead is asexual [https://www.themarysue.com/jughead-asexuality/][46] #10yrsago Vtech, having leaked 6.3m kids’ data, has a new EULA disclaiming responsibility for the next leak [https://web.archive.org/web/20160210092704/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/hacked-toy-company-vtech-tos-now-says-its-not-liable-for-hacks][47] #10yrsago How America’s presidents started cashing out [https://web.archive.org/web/20160208210036/https://theintercept.com/2016/02/08/taxpayers-give-big-pensions-to-ex-presidents-precisely-so-they-dont-have-to-sell-out/][48] #10yrsago Bill criminalizing anal and oral sex passes Michigan Senate [https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2016/02/michigan_senate_passes_bill_saying_sodomy_is_a_felony/][49] #10yrsago Hacker promises dump of data from 20K FBI and 9K DHS employees [https://web.archive.org/web/20160208214013/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/hacker-plans-to-dump-alleged-details-of-20000-fbi-9000-dhs-employees][50] #10yrsago Blooks: functional objects disguised as books [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/30/blook-madness-inside-the-world-of-bogus-books][51] #10yrsago Indian regulator stands up for net neutrality, bans Facebook’s walled garden [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/facebooks-free-internet-app-banned-by-indias-new-net-neutrality-rule/][52] #10yrsago British spies want to be able to suck data out of US Internet giants [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-british-want-to-come-to-america–with-wiretap-orders-and-search-warrants/2016/02/04/b351ce9e-ca86-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html][53] #5yrsago Fleet Street calls out schtum Tories [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/permanent-record/#foia-uk][54] #5yrsago The ECB should forgive the debt it owes itself [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/permanent-record/#ecb][55] #5yrsago Favicons as undeletable tracking beacons [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/permanent-record/#supercookies][56] #5yrsago Snowden's young adult memoir [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/permanent-record/#ya-snowden][57] # Upcoming appearances ([permalink][58]) [A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.] * Salt Lake City: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18 [https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/][59] * Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24 [https://fedimtl.ca/][60] * Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5 [https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/][61] * Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27 [https://conference.bioneers.org/][62] * Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 [https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow][63] * Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 [https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html][64] * Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 [https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2][65] [A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.] # Recent appearances ([permalink][66]) * Everything Wrong With the Internet and How to Fix It, with Tim Wu (Ezra Klein) [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html][67] * How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo][68] * Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline): [https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/][69] * Why Big Tech is a Trap for Independent Creators (Stripper News) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0][70] * Enshittification (Creative Nonfiction podcast) [https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/][71] [A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..] # Latest books ([permalink][72]) * "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 * "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/][73] * "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][74]). * "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][75]). * "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][76]). * "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 ([http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org][77]). Signed copies at Book Soup ([https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245][78]). * "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][79]. * "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][80] [A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.] # Upcoming books ([permalink][81]) * "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 * "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][82]) 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 ( words today, total) * "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/][83] 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][84] Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://pluralistic.net/plura-list][85] Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic][86] Medium (no ads, paywalled): [https://doctorow.medium.com/][87] Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://twitter.com/doctorow][88] Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic][89] "*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 [1]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#mckinley-fanfic-panic [2]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#linkdump [3]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#retro [4]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#upcoming [5]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#recent [6]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#latest [7]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#upcoming-books [8]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#bragsheet [9]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#mckinley-fanfic-panic [10]: https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00824843.pdf [11]: https://wallstreetonparade.com/2012/08/how-treasury-secretary-geithner-foamed-the-runways-with-childrens-shattered-lives/ [12]: https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/01/housing-is-a-human-right/ [13]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 [14]: https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/white-collar-crime-enforcement-in [15]: [16]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en [17]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#linkdump [18]: https://seclists.org/nanog/2026/Feb/18 [19]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20539517261421474 [20]: https://peoples-things.ghost.io/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype/ [21]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5377426 [22]: https://jacobin.com/2026/02/new-masses-proletarian-literature-wright-gold/ [23]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#retro [24]: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/yours-is-a-very-bad-hotel/34583 [25]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060223010123/http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5600588,00.html [26]: https://web.archive.org/web/20051228122604/http://dannysland.blogspot.com/2005/12/great-moments-in-disneyland-history.html [27]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060221020835/https://www.igniq.com/2006/02/canadian-red-cross-wants-its-logo-out.html [28]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060213175705/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004398.php#004398 [29]: https://pieratt.com/odds/adbusters_vs_theeconomist.jpg [30]: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4691228.stm#6 [31]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060629232414/http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1095 [32]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060506074530/https://www.complexify.com/buttons/ [33]: https://web.archive.org/web/20110131102845/https://publicknowledge.org/blog/3d-printing-settlers-catan-probably-not-illeg [34]: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/feb/08/tory-funds-half-city-banks-financial-sector [35]: https://www.coloradoindependent.com/2011/02/07/teens-medical-marijuana-fight-escalates-as-school-says-he-cannot-come-back-to-class-after-going-home-for-medicine/ [36]: https://crabfuartworks.blogspot.com/2011/02/hamster-powered-walker.html [37]: https://memex.craphound.com/2011/02/08/daytripper-wrenching-existential-graphic-novel/ [38]: https://upnotnorth.net/projects/pac-machina/pactuator/ [39]: https://www.bldgblog.com/2011/02/ruin-space-and-shadow-an-interview-with-mike-mignola/ [40]: https://web.archive.org/web/20110210152012/https://bengoldacre.posterous.com/nerd-saves-entire-bbc-archive-for-399-you-can [41]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/australia-cuts-110-climate-scientist-jobs/ [42]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160210091717/http://consumerist.com/2016/02/09/happy-birthday-song-settlement-to-pay-out-14-million-to-people-who-paid-to-use-song/ [43]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/08/forced-out [44]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/02/09/top-german-judges-tear-to-shreds-eus-proposed-tafta-ttip-investment-court-system/ [45]: https://www.mojoptix.com/fr/2015/10/12/ep-001-cadran-solaire-numerique/ [46]: https://www.themarysue.com/jughead-asexuality/ [47]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160210092704/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/hacked-toy-company-vtech-tos-now-says-its-not-liable-for-hacks [48]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160208210036/https://theintercept.com/2016/02/08/taxpayers-give-big-pensions-to-ex-presidents-precisely-so-they-dont-have-to-sell-out/ [49]: https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2016/02/michigan_senate_passes_bill_saying_sodomy_is_a_felony/ [50]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160208214013/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/hacker-plans-to-dump-alleged-details-of-20000-fbi-9000-dhs-employees [51]: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/30/blook-madness-inside-the-world-of-bogus-books [52]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/facebooks-free-internet-app-banned-by-indias-new-net-neutrality-rule/ [53]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-british-want-to-come-to-america--with-wiretap-orders-and-search-warrants/2016/02/04/b351ce9e-ca86-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html [54]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/permanent-record/#foia-uk [55]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/permanent-record/#ecb [56]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/permanent-record/#supercookies [57]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/permanent-record/#ya-snowden [58]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#upcoming [59]: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/ [60]: https://fedimtl.ca/ [61]: https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/ [62]: https://conference.bioneers.org/ [63]: https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow [64]: https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html [65]: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 [66]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#recent [67]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html [68]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo [69]: https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/ [70]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0 [71]: https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/ [72]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#latest [73]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ [74]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels [75]: http://thebezzle.org [76]: http://lost-cause.org [77]: http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org [78]: https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245 [79]: http://redteamblues.com [80]: https://chokepointcapitalism.com [81]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#upcoming-books [82]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/#bragsheet [83]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [84]: http://pluralistic.net [85]: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list [86]: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic [87]: https://doctorow.medium.com/ [88]: https://twitter.com/doctorow [89]: https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/09/sloppy-steve/

Pluralistic: End of the line for video essays (07 Feb 2026) # Today's links * [End of the line for video essays][1]: America's worst copyright law keeps getting even worse. * [Hey look at this][2]: Delights to delectate. * [Object permanence][3]: Payphone phaseout; Nvidia sock-puppets; Love picking; Fake locksmiths. * [Upcoming appearances][4]: Where to find me. * [Recent appearances][5]: Where I've been. * [Latest books][6]: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Upcoming books][7]: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Colophon][8]: All the rest. [An image of a static-filled TV; centered in it is a distorted Youtube logo with the wordmark replaced by the word 'FairUse.'] # End of the line for video essays ([permalink][9]) What if there was a way for a business to transform any conduct it disliked into a felony, harnessing the power of the state to threaten anyone who acted in a way that displeased the company with a long prison sentence and six-figure fines? Surprise! That actually exists! It's called Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the "anticircumvention" clause, which establishes five-year sentences and $500k fines for anyone who bypasses an "effective access control" for a copyrighted work. Let's unpack that: every digital product has a "copyrighted work" at its core, because software is copyrighted. Digital systems are intrinsically very flexible: just overwrite, augment, or delete part of the software that powers the device or product, and you change how the product works. You can alter your browser to block ads; or alter your Android phone to run a privacy-respecting OS like Graphene; or alter your printer to accept generic ink, rather than checking each cartridge to confirm that it's the original manufacturer's product. However, if the device is designed to prevent this – if it has an "access control" that restricts your ability to change the software – then DMCA 1201 makes those modifications into crimes. The act of providing someone with a tool to change how their own property works ("trafficking in circumvention devices") is a felony. But there's a tiny saving grace here: for DMCA 1201 to kick in, the "access control" must be "effective." What's "effective?" There's the rub: no one knows. The penalties for getting crosswise with DMCA 1201 are so grotendous that very few people have tried to litigate any of its contours. Whenever the issue comes up, defendants settle, or fold, or disappear. Despite the fact that DMCA 1201 has been with us for more than a quarter of a century, and despite the fact that the activities it restricts are *so* far-reaching, there's precious little case law clarifying Congress's vague statutory language. When it comes to "effectiveness" in access controls, the jurisprudence is especially thin. As far as I know, there's just one case that addressed the issue, and boy was it a weird one. Back in 2000, a "colorful" guy named Johnny Deep founded a Napster-alike service that piggybacked on the AOL Instant Messenger network. He called his service "Aimster." When AOL threatened him with a trademark suit, he claimed that Aimster was his daughter Amiee's AOL handle, and that the service was named for her. Then he changed the service's name to Madster, claiming that it was *also* named after his daughter. At the time, a lot of people assumed he was BSing, but I just found his obituary and it turns out his daughter's name was, indeed, "Amiee (Madeline) Deep": [https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Madster-creator-Cohoes-native-who-fought-record-11033636.php][10] Aimster was one of the many services that the record industry tried to shut down, both by filing suit against the company and by flooding it with takedown notices demanding that individual tracks be removed. Deep responded by "encoding" all of the track names on his network in pig-Latin. Then he claimed that by "decoding" the files (by moving the last letter of the track name to the first position), the record industry was "bypassing an effective access control for a copyrighted work" and thus violating DMCA 1201: [https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=108454&page=1][11] The court didn't buy this. The judge ruled that pig Latin isn't an "effective access control." Since then, we've known that at least *some* access controls aren't "effective" but we haven't had any clarity on where "effectiveness" starts. After all, there's a certain circularity to the whole idea of "effective" access controls: if a rival engineer can figure out how to get around an access control, can we really call it "effective?" Surely, the fact that someone figured out how to circumvent your access control is proof that it's *not* effective (at least when it comes to that person). All this may strike you as weird inside baseball, and that's not entirely wrong, but there's one unresolved "effectiveness" question that has some very high stakes indeed: is Youtube's javascript-based obfuscation an "effective access control?" Youtube, of course, is the internet's monopoly video platform, with a commanding majority of video streams. It was acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.65b. At the time, the service was hemorrhaging money and mired in brutal litigation, but it had one virtue that made it worth nine figures: people liked it. Specifically, people liked it in a way they didn't like Google Video, which was one of the many, many, many failed internally developed Google products that tanked, and was replaced by a product developed by a company that Google bought, because Google sucks at developing products. They're not Willy Wonka's idea factory – they're Rich Uncle Pennybags, buying up other kids' toys: [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/google-ai-chatbots-microsoft-bing-chatgpt/673052/][12] Google operationalized Youtube and built it up to the world's most structurally important video platform. Along the way, Google added some javascript that was intended to block people from "downloading" its videos. I put "downloading" in scare-quotes because "streaming" is a consensus hallucination: there is no way for your computer to display a video that resides on a distant server without downloading it – the internet is not made up of a cunning series of paper-towel rolls and mirrors that convey photons to your screen without sending you the bits that make up the file. "Streaming" is just "downloading" with the "save file" button removed. In this case, the "save file" button is removed by some javascript on every Youtube page. This isn't hard to bypass: there are dozens of "stream-ripping" sites that let you save any video that's accessible on Youtube. I use these all the time – indeed, I used one last week to gank the video of my speech in Ottawa so I could upload it to my own Youtube channel: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZxbaCNIwg8][13] (As well as the Internet Archive, natch): [https://archive.org/details/disenshittification-nation][14] Now, all of this violates Youtube's terms of service, which means that someone who downloads a stream for an otherwise lawful purpose (like I did) is still hypothetically at risk of being punished by Google. We're relying on Google to be reasonable about all this, which, admittedly, isn't the best bet, historically. But at least the field of people who can attack us is limited to this one company. That's good, because there's *zillions* of people who rely on stream-rippers, and many of them are Youtube's most popular creators. Youtube singlehandedly revived the form of the "video essay," popularizing it in many guises, from "reaction videos" to full-fledged, in-depth documentaries that make extensive use of clips to illuminate, dispute, and expand on the messages of other Youtube videos. These kinds of videos are allowed under US copyright law. American copyright law has a broad set of limitation and exceptions, which include "fair use," an expansive set of affirmative rights to access and use copyrighted works, *even against the wishes of the copyright's proprietor*. As the Supreme Court stated in *Eldred*, the only way copyright (a government-backed restriction on who can say certain words) can be reconciled with the First Amendment (a ban on government restrictions on speech) is through fair use, the "escape valve" for free expression embedded in copyright: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft][15] Which is to say that including clips from a video you're criticizing in your own video is canonical fair use. What else is fair use? Well, it's "fact intensive," which is a lawyer's way of saying, "it depends." One thing that is 100% true, though, is that fair use is *not* limited to the "four factors" enumerated in the statute and anyone who claims otherwise has no idea what they're talking about and can be safely ignored: [https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/27/nuke-first/#ask-questions-never][16] Now, fair use or not, there are plenty of people who get angry about their videos being clipped for critical treatment in other videos, because lots of people hate being criticized. This is precisely why fair use exists: if you had to secure someone's permission before you were allowed to criticize them, critical speech would be limited to takedowns of stoics and masochists. This means that the subjects of video essays can't rely on copyright to silence their critics. They also can't use the fact that those critics violated Youtube's terms of service by clipping their videos, because only Youtube has standing to ask a court to uphold its terms of service, and Youtube has (wisely) steered clear of embroiling itself in fights between critics and the people they criticize. But that hasn't stopped the subjects of criticism from seeking legal avenues to silence their critics. In a case called *Cordova v. Huneault*, the proprietor of "Denver Metro Audits" is suing the proprietor of "Frauditor Troll Channel" for clipping the former's videos for "reaction videos." One of the plaintiff's claims here is that the defendant violated Section 1201 of the DMCA by saving videos from Youtube. They argue that Youtube's javascript obfuscator (a "rolling cipher") is an "effective access control" under the statute. Magistrate Judge Virginia K DeMarchi (Northern District of California) agreed with the plaintiff: [https://torrentfreak.com/images/Cordova-v.-Huneault-25-cv-04685-VKD-Order-on-Motion-to-Dismiss.pdf][17] As Torrentfreak reports, this ruling "gives creators who want to sue rivals an option to sue for more than just simple copyright infringement": [https://torrentfreak.com/ripping-clips-for-youtube-reaction-videos-can-violate-the-dmca-court-rules/][18] Remember, DMCA 1201 applies *whether or not you infringe someone's copyright*. It is a blanket prohibition on the circumvention of *any* "effective access control" for *any* copyrighted work, even when no one's rights are being violated. It's a way to transform otherwise lawful conduct into a felony. It's what Jay Freeman calls "Felony contempt of business model." If the higher court upholds this magistrate judge's ruling, then *all* clipping becomes a crime, and the subjects of criticism will have a ready tool to silence any critic. This obliterates fair use, wipes it off the statute-book. It welds shut copyright's escape valve for free expression. Now, it's true that the US Copyright Office holds hearings every three years where it grants exemptions to DMCA 1201, and it has indeed granted an exemption for ripping video for critical and educational purposes. But this process is deceptive! The exemptions that the Copyright Office grants are "use exemptions" – they allow you to "make the use." However, they are not "tools exemptions" – they do not give you permission to acquire or share the tool *needed* to make the use: [https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/28/mcbroken/#my-milkshake-brings-all-the-lawyers-to-the-yard][19] Which means that you are allowed to rip a stream, but you're not allowed to use a stream-ripping service. If Youtube's rolling cipher is an "effective access control" then all of those stream-ripping services are wildly illegal, felonies carrying a five-year sentence and a $500k fine for a first offense under DMCA 1201. Under the US Copyright Office's exemption process, if you want to make a reaction video, then you, *personally* must create your own stream-ripper. You are not allowed to discuss how to do this with anyone else, and you can't share your stream-ripper with anyone else, and if you do, you've committed a felony. So this is a catastrophic ruling. If it stands, it will make the production of video essays, reaction videos, and other critical videos into a legal minefield, by giving everyone whose video is clipped and criticized a means to threaten their critics with long prison sentences, fair use be damned. The only people who will safely be able to make this kind of critical video are skilled programmers who can personally defeat Youtube's "rolling cipher." And unlike claims about stream-ripping violating Youtube's terms of service – which can only be brought by Youtube – DMCA 1201 claims can be brought by *anyone* whose videos get clipped and criticized. Is Youtube's rolling cipher an "effective access control?" Well, *I* don't know how to bypass it, but there are *dozens* of services that have independently figured out how to get around it. That seems like good evidence that the access control is *not* "effective." When the DMCA was enacted in 1998, this is *exactly* the kind of thing experts warned would happen: [https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/13/ctrl-ctrl-ctrl/#free-dmitry][20] And here we are, more than a quarter-century later, living in the prison of lawmakers' reckless disregard for evidence and expertise, a world where criticism can be converted into a felony. It's long past time we get rid of this stupid, stupid law: [https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition][21] (*Image: [Electronic Frontier Foundation][22], [CC BY 4.0][23]*) # Hey look at this ([permalink][24]) * 10 Reasons This Is the Worst Crypto Winter Ever [https://archive.is/U5ede#selection-1246.0-1246.1][25] * The Finance Industry Is a Grift. Let’s Start Treating It That Way. [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/capitalism-industry-financialization.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KFA.Vslp.8Xqe7KWGEwRu&smid=nytcore-ios-share][26] * Ron Wyden Only Talks Like This When The Spies Do Something *Real* Bad [https://www.forever-wars.com/ron-wyden-only-talks-like-this-when-the-spies-do-something-real-bad/][27] * Hollywood Is Losing Audiences to AI Fatigue [https://www.wired.com/story/hollywood-is-losing-audiences-to-ai-fatigue/][28] * Waymo Exec Admits Remote Operators in Philippines Help Guide US Robotaxis [https://eletric-vehicles.com/waymo/waymo-exec-admits-remote-operators-in-philippines-help-guide-us-robotaxis/][29] [A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'] # Object permanence ([permalink][30]) #25yrsago Bellsouth phases out pay-phones [https://web.archive.org/web/20010211165636/http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010202/bs/bellsouth_pay_phones_1.html][31] #20yrsago Man who shattered museum vases asked not to come back [http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-02/07/content_517885.htm][32] #20yrsago Dozens of Web 2.0 companies’ logos [https://flickr.com/photos/torrez/95124293/][33] #20yrsago Did Nvidia hire an army of message-board sock-puppets? [https://web.archive.org/web/20060208045150/https://www.consumerist.com/consumer/evil/did-nvidia-hire-online-actors-to-promote-their-products-152874.php][34] #15yrsago Sarah Palin Circle-R wants a trademark on her name [https://www.loweringthebar.net/2011/02/sarah-palin-tm-having-trouble-with-registration.html][35] #10yrsago Love Picking: Locksport meets love locks [https://toool.us/love-locks/][36] #10yrsago Superb investigative report on the fake locksmith scam [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/business/fake-online-locksmiths-may-be-out-to-pick-your-pocket-too.html?_r=1][37] #5yrsago Klobuchar wants to bust her some fuckin' trusts [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/06/calera/#fuck-bork][38] # Upcoming appearances ([permalink][39]) [A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.] * Salt Lake City: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18 [https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/][40] * Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24 [https://fedimtl.ca/][41] * Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5 [https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/][42] * Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27 [https://conference.bioneers.org/][43] * Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 [https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow][44] * Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 [https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html][45] * Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 [https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2][46] [A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.] # Recent appearances ([permalink][47]) * Everything Wrong With the Internet and How to Fix It, with Tim Wu (Ezra Klein) [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html][48] * How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo][49] * Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline): [https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/][50] * Why Big Tech is a Trap for Independent Creators (Stripper News) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0][51] * Enshittification (Creative Nonfiction podcast) [https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/][52] [A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..] # Latest books ([permalink][53]) * "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 * "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/][54] * "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][55]). * "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][56]). * "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][57]). * "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 ([http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org][58]). Signed copies at Book Soup ([https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245][59]). * "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][60]. * "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][61] [A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.] # Upcoming books ([permalink][62]) * "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026 * "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 * "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026 * "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 # Colophon ([permalink][63]) 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 (1010 words today, 24701 total) * "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/][64] 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][65] Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://pluralistic.net/plura-list][66] Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic][67] Medium (no ads, paywalled): [https://doctorow.medium.com/][68] Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://twitter.com/doctorow][69] Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic][70] "*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 [1]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#effective-means-of-access-control [2]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#linkdump [3]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#retro [4]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#upcoming [5]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#recent [6]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#latest [7]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#upcoming-books [8]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#bragsheet [9]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#effective-means-of-access-control [10]: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Madster-creator-Cohoes-native-who-fought-record-11033636.php [11]: https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=108454&page=1 [12]: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/google-ai-chatbots-microsoft-bing-chatgpt/673052/ [13]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZxbaCNIwg8 [14]: https://archive.org/details/disenshittification-nation [15]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft [16]: https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/27/nuke-first/#ask-questions-never [17]: https://torrentfreak.com/images/Cordova-v.-Huneault-25-cv-04685-VKD-Order-on-Motion-to-Dismiss.pdf [18]: https://torrentfreak.com/ripping-clips-for-youtube-reaction-videos-can-violate-the-dmca-court-rules/ [19]: https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/28/mcbroken/#my-milkshake-brings-all-the-lawyers-to-the-yard [20]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/13/ctrl-ctrl-ctrl/#free-dmitry [21]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition [22]: https://www.eff.org/wp/unfiltered-how-youtubes-content-id-discourages-fair-use-and-dictates-what-we-see-online [23]: https://www.eff.org/copyright [24]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#linkdump [25]: https://archive.is/U5ede#selection-1246.0-1246.1 [26]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/capitalism-industry-financialization.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KFA.Vslp.8Xqe7KWGEwRu&smid=nytcore-ios-share [27]: https://www.forever-wars.com/ron-wyden-only-talks-like-this-when-the-spies-do-something-real-bad/ [28]: https://www.wired.com/story/hollywood-is-losing-audiences-to-ai-fatigue/ [29]: https://eletric-vehicles.com/waymo/waymo-exec-admits-remote-operators-in-philippines-help-guide-us-robotaxis/ [30]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#retro [31]: https://web.archive.org/web/20010211165636/http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010202/bs/bellsouth_pay_phones_1.html [32]: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-02/07/content_517885.htm [33]: https://flickr.com/photos/torrez/95124293/ [34]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060208045150/https://www.consumerist.com/consumer/evil/did-nvidia-hire-online-actors-to-promote-their-products-152874.php [35]: https://www.loweringthebar.net/2011/02/sarah-palin-tm-having-trouble-with-registration.html [36]: https://toool.us/love-locks/ [37]: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/business/fake-online-locksmiths-may-be-out-to-pick-your-pocket-too.html?_r=1 [38]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/06/calera/#fuck-bork [39]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#upcoming [40]: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/ [41]: https://fedimtl.ca/ [42]: https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/ [43]: https://conference.bioneers.org/ [44]: https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow [45]: https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html [46]: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 [47]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#recent [48]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html [49]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo [50]: https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/ [51]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0 [52]: https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/ [53]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#latest [54]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ [55]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels [56]: http://thebezzle.org [57]: http://lost-cause.org [58]: http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org [59]: https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245 [60]: http://redteamblues.com [61]: https://chokepointcapitalism.com [62]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#upcoming-books [63]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/#bragsheet [64]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [65]: http://pluralistic.net [66]: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list [67]: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic [68]: https://doctorow.medium.com/ [69]: https://twitter.com/doctorow [70]: https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/07/aimsters-revenge/

Pluralistic: Luxury Kafka (06 Feb 2026) # Today's links * [Luxury Kafka][1]: US Immigration on the easiest setting. * [Hey look at this][2]: Delights to delectate. * [Object permanence][3]: Whisky PC; Anitfeatures; Silicon Roundabout; Steampunk Etch-A-Sketch; MLMs as mirror-world organizers. * [Upcoming appearances][4]: Where to find me. * [Recent appearances][5]: Where I've been. * [Latest books][6]: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Upcoming books][7]: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Colophon][8]: All the rest. [A suburban house; on the law stand a couple, their backs to it, looking appreciatively upon it. On the lawn is a lawn-flag reading 'Chinga la migra' in ornate script, surrounded by butterflies and flowers. The flag is limned in red spokes.] # Luxury Kafka ([permalink][9]) Having been through the US immigration process (I got my first work visa more than 25 years ago and became a citizen in 2022), it's obvious to me that Americans have *no idea* how weird and tortuous their immigration system is: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/52177745821/][10] As of a couple years ago, Americans' ignorance of their own immigration system was merely frustrating, as I encountered both squishy liberals and xenophobic conservatives talking about undocumented immigrants and insisting that they should "just follow the rules." But today, as murderous ICE squads patrol our streets kidnapping people and sending them to concentration camps where they are beaten to death or deported to offshore slave labor prisons, the issue has gone from frustrating to terrifying and enraging. Let's be clear: I played the US immigration game on the easiest level. I am relatively affluent – rich enough to afford fancy immigration lawyers with offices on four continents – and I am a native English speaker. This made the immigration system ten thousand times (at a minimum) easier for me than it is for most US immigrants. There are lots of Americans (who don't know anything about their own immigration system) who advocate for a "points-based" system that favors rich people and professionals, but America *already* has this system, because dealing with the immigration process costs tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, and without a lawyer, it is essentially unnavigable. Same goes for Trump's "Golden Visa" for rich people – anyone who can afford to pay for one of these is already spending five- or six-figure sums with a white shoe immigration firm. I'm not quite like those people, though. The typical path to US work visas and eventual immigration is through a corporate employer, who pays the law firm on your behalf (and also ties your residency to your employment, making it risky and expensive to quit your job). I found my own immigration lawyers through a friend's husband who worked in a fancy investment bank, and it quickly became apparent that immigration firms assume that their clients have extensive administrative support who can drop everything to produce mountains of obscure documents on demand. There were lots of times over the years when I had to remind my lawyers that *I* was paying them, not my employer, and that I *didn't* have an administrative assistant, so when they gave me 48 hours' notice to assemble 300 pages of documentation (this happened several times!), it meant that *I* had to drop everything (that is, the activities that let me pay their gigantic invoices) to fulfill their requests. When you deal with US immigration authorities, everything is elevated to the highest possible stakes. Every step of every process – work visa, green card, citizenship – comes with forms that you sign, on penalty of perjury, attesting that you have made no mistakes or omissions. A single error constitutes a potential falsification of your paperwork, and can result in deportation – losing your job, your house, your kid's schooling, everything. This means that, at every stage, you have to be as comprehensive as possible. This is a photo of my second O-1 ("Alien of Extraordinary Ability") visa application. It's 800 pages long: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/2242342898/][11] The next one was *1200* pages long. Like I say, I became a citizen in 2022 (for some reason, my wife got her citizenship in 2021, even though we applied jointly). At that point, I thought I was done with the process. But then my kid applied to university and was told that she should sign up for FERPA, which is the federal student loan and grant process; she got pretty good grades and there was a chance she could get a couple grand knocked off her tuition. Seemed like a good idea to me. So we filled in the FERPA paperwork, and partway through, it asks if you are a naturalized citizen, and, if you are, it asks you to upload a copy of your certificate of citizenship. My wife and I both have certificates, but the kid doesn't – she was naturalized along with my wife in 2021, and while my wife's certificate was sufficient to get our daughter a passport, it doesn't actually have the kid's name on it. I checked in with our lawyers and was told that the kid couldn't get her certificate of citizenship until she turned 18, which she did last Tuesday. My calendar reminded me that it was time to fill in her N-600, the form for applying for a certificate of citizenship. So yesterday, I sat down at the computer, cleared a couple hours, and went to work. I am used to gnarly bureaucratic questions on this kind of paperwork, and I confess I get a small thrill of victory whenever I can bring up an obscure document demanded by the form. For example: I was able to pull up the number of the passport our daughter used to enter the country in 2015, along with the flight number and date. I was able to pull up all *three* of the numbers that the US immigration service assigned to both my wife *and* me. And then, about two hours into this process, I got to this section of the form: "U.S. citizen mother or father's physical presence." This section requires me to list every border crossing I made into the USA *from the day I was born until the date I became a citizen*. That includes, for example, the time when I was two years old and my parents took me to Fort Lauderdale to visit my retired grandparents. This question comes after a screen where you attest that you will not make any omissions or errors, and that any such omission or error will be treated as an attempt to defraud the US immigration system, with the most severe penalties imaginable. I tried to call the US immigration service's info line. It is now staffed exclusively by an AI chatbot (thanks, Elon). I tried a dozen times to get the chatbot to put me on the phone with a human who could confirm what I should do about visits to the US that I took more than 50 years ago, when I was two years old. But the chatbot would only offer to text me a link to the online form, which has no guidance on this subject. Then I tried the online chat, which is *also* answered by a chatbot. This chatbot only allows you to ask questions that are less than 80 characters long. Eventually, I managed to piece together a complete conversation with the chatbot that conveyed my question, and it gave me a link to the same online form. But there *is* an option to escalate the online chat from a bot to a human. So I tried that, and, after repeatedly being prompted to provide my full name and address (home address and mailing address), date of birth, phone number – and disconnected for not typing all this quickly enough – the human eventually pasted in boilerplate telling me to consult an immigration attorney and terminated the chat before I could reply. Just to be clear here: this is *immigration on the easiest setting*. I am an affluent native English speaker with access to immigration counsel at a fancy firm. Imagine instead that you are not as lucky as I am. Imagine that your parents brought you to the USA 60 years ago, and that you've been a citizen for more than half a century, but you're being told that you should carry your certificate of citizenship if you don't want to be shot in the face or kidnapped to a slave labor camp. Your parents – long dead – never got you that certificate, so you create an online ID with the immigration service and try to complete form N-600. Do you know the date and flight number for the plane you flew to America on when you were three? Do you know your passport number from back then? Do you have all three of each of your dead parents' numeric immigration identifiers? Can you recover the dates of every border crossing your parents made into the USA from the day they were born until the day they became citizens? Anyone who says that "immigrants should just follow the rules" has missed the fact that *the rules are impossible to follow*. I get to do *luxury Kafka*, the business class version of US immigration Kafka, where you get to board first and nibble from a dish of warm nuts while everyone else shuffles past you, and I've *given up* on getting my daughter's certificate of citizenship. The alternative – omitting a single American vacation between 1971 and 2022 – could constitute an attempt to defraud the US immigration system, after all. This was terrible a couple years ago, when the immigration system still had human operators you could reach by sitting on hold for several hours. Today, thanks to a single billionaire's gleeful cruelty, the system is literally unnavigable, "staffed" by a chatbot that can't answer basic questions. A timely reminder that the only jobs AI can do are the jobs that no one gives a shit about: [https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/06/unmerchantable-substitute-goods/#customer-disservice][12] It's also a timely reminder of the awesome destructive power of a single billionaire. This week, I took a Southwest flight to visit my daughter at college for her 18th birthday, and of course, SWA now charges for bags and seats. Multiple passengers complained bitterly and loudly about this as they boarded (despite the fact that the plane was only half full, many people were given middle seats and banned from moving to empty rows). One woman plaintively called out, "Why does everything get worse all the time?" (Yes, I'm aware of the irony of someone saying that within my earshot): [https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pearl-clutching/#this-toilet-has-no-central-nervous-system][13] Southwest sucks today because of just one guy: Paul Singer, the billionaire owner of Elliott Investment Management, who bought a stake in SWA and used it to force the board to end open seating and free bag-check, then sold off his stake and disappeared into the sunset, millions richer, leaving behind a pile of shit where a beloved airline once flew: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2024/10/24/southwest-airlines-bends-to-activist-investor-restructures-board/][14] One guy, Elon Musk, took the immigration system from "frustrating and inefficient" to "totally impossible." That same guy is an avowed white nationalist – and illegal US immigrant who *did* cheat the immigration system – who sadistically celebrates the unlimited cruelty the immigration system heaps on other immigrants: [https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118277/documents/HHRG-119-JU13-20250520-SD003.pdf][15] Again: I've got it easy. The people they want to put in concentration camps are doing something a million times harder than anything I've had to do to become a US citizen. People sometimes joke about how Americans couldn't pass the US citizenship test, with its questions about the tortured syntax of the 10th Amendment and the different branches of government. But the US citizenship test is the *easy* part. That test sits at the center of a bureaucratic maze that no American could find their way through. # Hey look at this ([permalink][16]) * The Big Idea: Justin C. Key [https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/05/the-big-idea-justin-c-key/][17] * Jeff Bezos Just Taught Liberal Elites How Oligarchy Really Works [https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/jeff-bezos-finally-pulls-the-mask][18] * Yes, Democrats should run on ICE [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/yes-democrats-should-run-on-ice][19] * "ICE Out of Our Faces Act" would ban ICE and CBP use of facial recognition [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/ice-out-of-our-faces-act-would-ban-ice-and-cbp-use-of-facial-recognition/][20] * ‘Ripping’ Clips for YouTube Reaction Videos can Violate the DMCA, Court Rules [https://torrentfreak.com/ripping-clips-for-youtube-reaction-videos-can-violate-the-dmca-court-rules/][21] [A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'] # Object permanence ([permalink][22]) #20yrsago UK nurses want to supply clean blades and cutting advice to self-harmers [https://web.archive.org/web/20060206205108/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2025748,00.html][23] #20yrsago PC built into whisky bottle [https://web.archive.org/web/20060210043104/https://metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&path=mods/whiskypc/index_eng][24] #15yrsago Startups of London’s “Silicon Roundabout” [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/feb/06/tech-startup-internet-entrepreneurs][25] #15yrsago Antifeatures: deliberate, expensive product features that no customer wants [https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/antifeatures-at-the-free-technology-academy][26] #15yrsago Steampunk Etch-a-Sketch [https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/erbnf/a_steampunk_etchasketch_we_made_for_a_friend_this/][27] #10yrsago There’s a secret “black site” in New York where terrorism suspects are tortured for years at a time [https://web.archive.org/web/20160205143012/https://theintercept.com/2016/02/05/mahdi-hashi-metropolitan-correctional-center-manhattan-guantanamo-pretrial-solitary-confinement/][28] #10yrsago Error 53: Apple remotely bricks phones to punish customers for getting independent repairs [https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other][29] #10yrsago Toronto City Council defies mayor, demands open, neutral municipal broadband [https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2016/02/toronto-city-council-sides-with-crtc-in-rejecting-mayor-torys-support-of-bell-appeal/][30] #5yrsago Amazon's brutal warehouse "megacycle" [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/05/la-bookseller-royalty/#megacycle][31] #5yrsago AT&T customer complains…via WSJ ad [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/05/la-bookseller-royalty/#go-aaron-go][32] #1yrago MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing [https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/05/power-of-positive-thinking/#the-socialism-of-fools][33] # Upcoming appearances ([permalink][34]) [A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.] * Salt Lake City: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18 [https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/][35] * Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24 [https://fedimtl.ca/][36] * Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5 [https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/][37] * Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27 [https://conference.bioneers.org/][38] * Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 [https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow][39] * Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 [https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html][40] * Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 [https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2][41] [A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.] # Recent appearances ([permalink][42]) * How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo][43] * Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline): [https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/][44] * Why Big Tech is a Trap for Independent Creators (Stripper News) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0][45] * Enshittification (Creative Nonfiction podcast) [https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/][46] * Enshittification with Plutopia [https://plutopia.io/cory-doctorow-enshittification/][47] [A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..] # Latest books ([permalink][48]) * "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 * "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/][49] * "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][50]). * "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][51]). * "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][52]). * "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 ([http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org][53]). Signed copies at Book Soup ([https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245][54]). * "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][55]. * "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][56] [A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.] # Upcoming books ([permalink][57]) * "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026 * "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 * "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026 * "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 # Colophon ([permalink][58]) 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 (1023 words today, 23683 total) * "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/][59] 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][60] Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://pluralistic.net/plura-list][61] Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic][62] Medium (no ads, paywalled): [https://doctorow.medium.com/][63] Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://twitter.com/doctorow][64] Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic][65] "*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. 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ISSN: 3066-764X [1]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#n-600 [2]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#linkdump [3]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#retro [4]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#upcoming [5]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#recent [6]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#latest [7]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#upcoming-books [8]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#bragsheet [9]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#n-600 [10]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/52177745821/ [11]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/2242342898/ [12]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/06/unmerchantable-substitute-goods/#customer-disservice [13]: https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pearl-clutching/#this-toilet-has-no-central-nervous-system [14]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2024/10/24/southwest-airlines-bends-to-activist-investor-restructures-board/ [15]: https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118277/documents/HHRG-119-JU13-20250520-SD003.pdf [16]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#linkdump [17]: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/05/the-big-idea-justin-c-key/ [18]: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/jeff-bezos-finally-pulls-the-mask [19]: https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/yes-democrats-should-run-on-ice [20]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/ice-out-of-our-faces-act-would-ban-ice-and-cbp-use-of-facial-recognition/ [21]: https://torrentfreak.com/ripping-clips-for-youtube-reaction-videos-can-violate-the-dmca-court-rules/ [22]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#retro [23]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060206205108/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2025748,00.html [24]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060210043104/https://metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&path=mods/whiskypc/index_eng [25]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/feb/06/tech-startup-internet-entrepreneurs [26]: https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/antifeatures-at-the-free-technology-academy [27]: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/erbnf/a_steampunk_etchasketch_we_made_for_a_friend_this/ [28]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160205143012/https://theintercept.com/2016/02/05/mahdi-hashi-metropolitan-correctional-center-manhattan-guantanamo-pretrial-solitary-confinement/ [29]: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other [30]: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2016/02/toronto-city-council-sides-with-crtc-in-rejecting-mayor-torys-support-of-bell-appeal/ [31]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/05/la-bookseller-royalty/#megacycle [32]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/05/la-bookseller-royalty/#go-aaron-go [33]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/05/power-of-positive-thinking/#the-socialism-of-fools [34]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#upcoming [35]: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/ [36]: https://fedimtl.ca/ [37]: https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/ [38]: https://conference.bioneers.org/ [39]: https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow [40]: https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html [41]: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 [42]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#recent [43]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo [44]: https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/ [45]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0 [46]: https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/ [47]: https://plutopia.io/cory-doctorow-enshittification/ [48]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#latest [49]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ [50]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels [51]: http://thebezzle.org [52]: http://lost-cause.org [53]: http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org [54]: https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245 [55]: http://redteamblues.com [56]: https://chokepointcapitalism.com [57]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#upcoming-books [58]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/#bragsheet [59]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [60]: http://pluralistic.net [61]: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list [62]: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic [63]: https://doctorow.medium.com/ [64]: https://twitter.com/doctorow [65]: https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/06/doge-ball/

Pluralistic: All laws are local (05 Feb 2026) # Today's links * [All laws are local][1]: And no law knows how evitable it is. * [Hey look at this][2]: Delights to delectate. * [Object permanence][3]: Whisky PC; Anitfeatures; Silicon Roundabout; Steampunk Etch-A-Sketch; MLMs as mirror-world organizers. * [Upcoming appearances][4]: Where to find me. * [Recent appearances][5]: Where I've been. * [Latest books][6]: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Upcoming books][7]: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Colophon][8]: All the rest. [A pair of broken off statue legs, shod in Roman sandals, atop a cliff. Behind them, we see a futuristic city.] # All laws are local ([permalink][9]) About halfway through Thomas Piketty's 2013 barnstorming *Capital in the 21st Century*, Piketty tosses off a little insight that skewered me on the spot and never let me go: the notion that any societal condition that endures beyond a generation becomes "eternal" in the popular consciousness: [https://memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-the-21st-century/][10] Piketty was referring to "primogeniture," the ancient practice of automatically passing the family fortune onto the eldest son (or, if no son was available, the eldest nephew). Primogeniture did important work by keeping dynastic fortunes intact, rather than dividing them up among all children of some baron or lord or other guillotineable monster. Primogeniture persisted until the age of colonization, when Europe's "great powers" stole the rest of the world. In that moment, the size of Europe's great fortunes expanded by orders of magnitude. This vast increase in the wealth of Europe's most murderous, remorseless looters made primogeniture obsolete. There was so much blood-soaked money available to the nobility that *every* son could found a "great house." After a couple generations' worth of this, the colonies were exhausted. There were no more lands to conquer, which meant that every son could no longer expect to found his own fortune. But for these chinless masters of the universe, a world where every son of every rich man wouldn't get his own dynasty was incomprehensible. To do otherwise was literally unimaginable. It was *unnatural*. For Piketty, this explained World War I: the world's chinless inbred monsters embarking upon an orgy of bloodletting to relieve one another of the lands – and peoples – they'd claimed as their property in order to carry on the "eternal" tradition of every son starting his own fortune. It's a very important idea, and a provocative explanation for one of the 20th Century's defining events. That's why it struck me so hard when I first read it, but the reason it stuck with me for the decade-plus since I encountered that it is a vital observation about the human condition: as a species, we *forget* so much. Something that was commonplace a generation ago becomes unimaginable today, and vice versa. Even people who lived through those years forget who they were and what they took for granted in those days. Think, for example, of all those evangelicals who would vote for Satan himself if he promised to hang any woman who obtained an abortion; the same evangelicals who, just a few decades ago, viewed anti-abortionism as a politically suspect form of crypto-papacy: [https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/][11] Perhaps the reason Piketty's primogeniture-based explanation for WWI struck me so forcefully and durably is that I imbibed a prodigious amount of science fiction as a boy, including the aphorism that "all laws are local, and no law knows how local it is": [https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-a-cosmopolitan-literature-for-the-cosmopolitan-web/][12] In other words, things that seem eternal and innate to the human condition to you are apt to have been invented ten minutes before you started to notice the world around you and might seem utterly alien to your children. As Douglas Adams put it: > 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 fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things. [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams][13] This notion is much on my mind right now because the world is (to me, at least) unassailably in a state of change, and everything is up for grabs. Europe went from 15 years *behind* on its climate goals to *ten years ahead of schedule* after the supply of Russian gas dried up and Europeans found themselves shivering in the dark. The massive leap in EU solar means that the (seemingly) all-powerful fossil fuel lobby has absolutely, comprehensively *eaten shit*, something that was unthinkable just a few years ago: [https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/23/our-friend-the-electron/#to-every-man-his-castle][14] Indeed, this happened so fast that many people (including many Europeans) *haven't even noticed that it happened*. Back in December, when I was at CCC in Hamburg, I talked to a bunch of European activists, close watchers of the Commission and the Parliament, who were completely convinced that Europe would never spurn the fossil fuel sector – despite the fact that *it had already happened*. Indeed, it may be that intimate familiarity with European politics is a liability when things change. Spend enough time observing up close how supine European politicians and their Eurocrats are and you may find yourself so reflexively conditioned to view them as spineless corporate lackeys and thus unable to notice when they finally dig up a vertebra or two. Smart financiers are familiar with Stein's Law: "anything that can't go on forever eventually stops." Change happens. Eternal verities might be fifteen minutes older than you. Pink used to be the color of ferocious masculinity, whereas blue was so girly as to be practically titular: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gendered_associations_of_pink_and_blue][15] Real talk: I have serious, debilitating chronic pain. One of the reasons I'm so prolific is that the only time I stop noticing how much I hurt is when I'm lost in work (compartmentalization is a hell of a drug, and while it's not *always* healthy, it has its upsides). Ask anyone with chronic pain and they'll tell you that treating pain eventually becomes your hobby, a bottomless well of esoteric dives into various "modalities" of pain treatment. Thus it is that I've found myself on one or two psychologists' couches, learning about different mental approaches to living with constant pain. One of the most useful pieces of advice I've gotten was to attend closely to how my pain changes – how it ebbs and flows. The point is that if pain changes, that means that it *can* change. It *feels* eternal, but it comes and goes. Maybe someday it will go altogether. And even if it doesn't, it may improve. It probably will, at least for a while. Things change. Our current crop of cowardly, weak appeasers – in Congress, in Parliament, in the European Parliament – have, at various times (and very recently), found their spines. The factions within them that militated for the kind of bold action that might meet this moment have, from time to time, won the day. We have lived through total transformations in our politics before, and that means we might live through them again: [https://hypertext.niskanencenter.org/p/the-fragmentation-flywheel][16] Sure, it's easy and tempting to assume that our leaders will always suck as hard as they suck now. But latent in that assumption is that the leaders who presided over big, incredible transformations were exceptional people. Maybe they were and maybe they weren't, but I'm here to tell you, ten minutes' worth of research into the biographies of the "heroes" of our history will reveal them to have been every bit as capable of monstrousness, cowardice, cruelty and pig-ignorant bigotry as any of today's rotating cast of fascist goons: [https://truthout.org/articles/disrupting-the-myth-of-franklin-d-roosevelt-in-the-age-of-trump-sanders-and-clinton/][17] The question isn't merely "How do we elect better leaders?" It's "How do we make our leaders follow *us*?" Today's Democrats are unserious quislings who keep bringing a squirt-gun to a mass-casualty assault-rifle spree-shooting. How do we terrorize these cowards into rising to the moment? If we want Congressional Democrats to form a Nuremburg Caucus and start holding hearings on who they're going to put in the dock when the Trump regime collapses, we're going to have to drive them to it. And we *can*! The Democrats who gave us the New Deal weren't braver or more moral than the self-dealing millionaires in Congress today – they were *more afraid of their base*. Things change. Some years ago, I gave a speech at Consumer Reports headquarters in Poughkeepsie, trying to get them to refuse to give a passing grade to *any* product with DRM, on the grounds that the manufacturer could alter how that device worked at any time in the future, meaning that no matter how well a device worked now, it might turn into a pile of shit at any time in the future: [https://www.soundguys.com/the-sonos-app-death-spiral-132873/][18] They didn't take me up on this suggestion, obviously. They made the (seemingly) reasonable point that people bought Consumer Reports to find out what to buy, not to be told that they shouldn't buy *anything*. Every product in many key categories came with DRM, meaning that their recommendation would have had to be "just don't buy any of it." But today, consumer review sites do sometimes recommend *nothing*: [https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-wheels-every-car-brand-reviewed-by-mozilla-including-ford-volkswagen-and-toyota-flunks-privacy-test/][19] And of course, there's some precedent here. Somewhere between the emergence of the evidence for seatbelts and the appearance of seatbelts in most makes and models of cars, there would have been a time when the answer to "which car should I buy?" was "don't buy a car, they're all unsafe at any speed." Things change. Today, every car has a seatbelt, and they'd continue to do so, even if we did away with regulations requiring seatbelts. Driving a car without a seatbelt would be as weird and terrible as using a radium suppository: [https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/19/just-stop-putting-that-up-your-ass/#harm-reduction][20] Things change. The nine-justice Supreme Court isn't an eternal verity. It didn't come down off a mountain on two stone tablets. It's about ten seconds old: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_Act_of_1869][21] Tomorrow, it will be different: [https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/20/judicial-equilibria/#pack-the-court][22] Our eternals are all ephemerals. The idea that we should tax capital gains at half the rate of wages? It was practically invented yesterday. You know who thought we should tax all income at the same rate? That noted Bolshevik, Ronald fuckin' Reagan: [https://archive.thinkprogress.org/flashback-reagan-raised-capital-gains-taxes-to-the-same-level-as-wage-taxes-for-first-time-444438edf242/][23] We're living through a time of change. Much of it is calamitous. Some of it wondrous: [https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/28/mamdani/#trustbusting][24] It's so easy to slip into the habit of thinking that nothing will change, that our politicians will never fear us more than they love the money and power they get from catering to the Epstein class. I'm not denying that this is how they view the world today, but there was a time in living memory when it wasn't true. If it changed before, it can change again: [https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/15/how-the-light-gets-in/#theories-of-change][25] Things change. # Hey look at this ([permalink][26]) * The Scourge of Online Sports Betting [https://prospect.org/2026/02/04/feb-2026-magazine-sports-scourge-online-betting-fanduel-draftkings/][27] * ICE has offices in 5 Canadian cities. Here’s what it can — and can’t — do [https://www.cbc.ca/lite/story/9.7073273][28] * RIP, Fobazi M Ettarh [https://bsky.app/profile/fobettarh.bsky.social/post/3me34k3rtvc2j][29] * The Roots of the Youth Sports Gold Rush [https://prospect.org/2026/02/05/feb-2026-magazine-youth-sports-private-equity/][30] [A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'] # Object permanence ([permalink][31]) #20yrsago UK nurses want to supply clean blades and cutting advice to self-harmers [https://web.archive.org/web/20060206205108/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2025748,00.html][32] #20yrsago PC built into whisky bottle [https://web.archive.org/web/20060210043104/https://metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&path=mods/whiskypc/index_eng][33] #15yrsago Startups of London’s “Silicon Roundabout” [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/feb/06/tech-startup-internet-entrepreneurs][34] #15yrsago Antifeatures: deliberate, expensive product features that no customer wants [https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/antifeatures-at-the-free-technology-academy][35] #15yrsago Steampunk Etch-a-Sketch [https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/erbnf/a_steampunk_etchasketch_we_made_for_a_friend_this/][36] #10yrsago There’s a secret “black site” in New York where terrorism suspects are tortured for years at a time [https://web.archive.org/web/20160205143012/https://theintercept.com/2016/02/05/mahdi-hashi-metropolitan-correctional-center-manhattan-guantanamo-pretrial-solitary-confinement/][37] #10yrsago Error 53: Apple remotely bricks phones to punish customers for getting independent repairs [https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other][38] #10yrsago Toronto City Council defies mayor, demands open, neutral municipal broadband [https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2016/02/toronto-city-council-sides-with-crtc-in-rejecting-mayor-torys-support-of-bell-appeal/][39] #5yrsago Amazon's brutal warehouse "megacycle" [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/05/la-bookseller-royalty/#megacycle][40] #5yrsago AT&T customer complains…via WSJ ad [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/05/la-bookseller-royalty/#go-aaron-go][41] #1yrago MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing [https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/05/power-of-positive-thinking/#the-socialism-of-fools][42] # Upcoming appearances ([permalink][43]) [A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.] * Salt Lake City: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18 [https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/][44] * Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24 [https://fedimtl.ca/][45] * Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5 [https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/][46] * Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27 [https://conference.bioneers.org/][47] * Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 [https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow][48] * Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 [https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html][49] * Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 [https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2][50] [A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.] # Recent appearances ([permalink][51]) * How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo][52] * Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline): [https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/][53] * Why Big Tech is a Trap for Independent Creators (Stripper News) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0][54] * Enshittification (Creative Nonfiction podcast) [https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/][55] * Enshittification with Plutopia [https://plutopia.io/cory-doctorow-enshittification/][56] [A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..] # Latest books ([permalink][57]) * "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 * "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/][58] * "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][59]). * "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][60]). * "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][61]). * "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 ([http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org][62]). Signed copies at Book Soup ([https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245][63]). * "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][64]. * "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][65] [A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.] # Upcoming books ([permalink][66]) * "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026 * "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 * "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026 * "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 # Colophon ([permalink][67]) 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 (1005 words today, 22660 total) * "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/][68] 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][69] Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://pluralistic.net/plura-list][70] Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic][71] Medium (no ads, paywalled): [https://doctorow.medium.com/][72] Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://twitter.com/doctorow][73] Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic][74] "*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 [1]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#this-too-shall-pass [2]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#linkdump [3]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#retro [4]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#upcoming [5]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#recent [6]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#latest [7]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#upcoming-books [8]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#bragsheet [9]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#this-too-shall-pass [10]: https://memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-the-21st-century/ [11]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/ [12]: https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-a-cosmopolitan-literature-for-the-cosmopolitan-web/ [13]: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams [14]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/23/our-friend-the-electron/#to-every-man-his-castle [15]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gendered_associations_of_pink_and_blue [16]: https://hypertext.niskanencenter.org/p/the-fragmentation-flywheel [17]: https://truthout.org/articles/disrupting-the-myth-of-franklin-d-roosevelt-in-the-age-of-trump-sanders-and-clinton/ [18]: https://www.soundguys.com/the-sonos-app-death-spiral-132873/ [19]: https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-wheels-every-car-brand-reviewed-by-mozilla-including-ford-volkswagen-and-toyota-flunks-privacy-test/ [20]: https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/19/just-stop-putting-that-up-your-ass/#harm-reduction [21]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_Act_of_1869 [22]: https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/20/judicial-equilibria/#pack-the-court [23]: https://archive.thinkprogress.org/flashback-reagan-raised-capital-gains-taxes-to-the-same-level-as-wage-taxes-for-first-time-444438edf242/ [24]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/28/mamdani/#trustbusting [25]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/15/how-the-light-gets-in/#theories-of-change [26]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#linkdump [27]: https://prospect.org/2026/02/04/feb-2026-magazine-sports-scourge-online-betting-fanduel-draftkings/ [28]: https://www.cbc.ca/lite/story/9.7073273 [29]: https://bsky.app/profile/fobettarh.bsky.social/post/3me34k3rtvc2j [30]: https://prospect.org/2026/02/05/feb-2026-magazine-youth-sports-private-equity/ [31]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#retro [32]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060206205108/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2025748,00.html [33]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060210043104/https://metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&path=mods/whiskypc/index_eng [34]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/feb/06/tech-startup-internet-entrepreneurs [35]: https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/antifeatures-at-the-free-technology-academy [36]: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/erbnf/a_steampunk_etchasketch_we_made_for_a_friend_this/ [37]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160205143012/https://theintercept.com/2016/02/05/mahdi-hashi-metropolitan-correctional-center-manhattan-guantanamo-pretrial-solitary-confinement/ [38]: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other [39]: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2016/02/toronto-city-council-sides-with-crtc-in-rejecting-mayor-torys-support-of-bell-appeal/ [40]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/05/la-bookseller-royalty/#megacycle [41]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/05/la-bookseller-royalty/#go-aaron-go [42]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/05/power-of-positive-thinking/#the-socialism-of-fools [43]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#upcoming [44]: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/ [45]: https://fedimtl.ca/ [46]: https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/ [47]: https://conference.bioneers.org/ [48]: https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow [49]: https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html [50]: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 [51]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#recent [52]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo [53]: https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/ [54]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0 [55]: https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/ [56]: https://plutopia.io/cory-doctorow-enshittification/ [57]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#latest [58]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ [59]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels [60]: http://thebezzle.org [61]: http://lost-cause.org [62]: http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org [63]: https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245 [64]: http://redteamblues.com [65]: https://chokepointcapitalism.com [66]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#upcoming-books [67]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#bragsheet [68]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [69]: http://pluralistic.net [70]: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list [71]: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic [72]: https://doctorow.medium.com/ [73]: https://twitter.com/doctorow [74]: https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/

Pluralistic: Justin Key's "The Hospital at the End Of the World" (04 Feb 2026) # Today's links * [Justin Key's "The Hospital at the End Of the World"][1]: A biopunk medical thriller from a major new talent. * [Hey look at this][2]: Delights to delectate. * [Object permanence][3]: Coconut volunteers; Astro Noise; Rich old men behind "Millennials Rising"; Stop the "Stop the Steal" steal; "Chasing Shadows." * [Upcoming appearances][4]: Where to find me. * [Recent appearances][5]: Where I've been. * [Latest books][6]: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Upcoming books][7]: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Colophon][8]: All the rest. [The Harpercollins cover of Justin Key's 'Hospital at the End of the World.'] # Justin Key's "The Hospital at the End Of the World" ([permalink][9]) Justin C. Key is one of the most exciting new science fiction writers of this decade and today, Harpercollins publishes his debut novel, *The Hospital at the End of the World*: [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-hospital-at-the-end-of-the-world-justin-c-key?variant=43822999928866][10] I've followed Key's work for more than a decade, ever since I met him as a student while teaching at the Clarion West writers' workshop in Seattle. At the time, Key impressed me – a standout writer in a year full of standouts – and I wasn't surprised in the least when Harpercollins published a collection of his afrofuturist/Black horror stories, *The World Wasn't Ready For You*, in 2023: [https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/19/justin-c-key/#clarion-west-2015][11] This is virtually unheard of. Major genre publishers generally don't publish short story collections at all, let alone short story collections by writers who haven't already established themselves as novelists. The exceptions are rare as hell, and they're names to conjure with: Ted Chiang, say, or Kelly Link: [https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/13/the-kissing-song/#wrack-and-roll][12] But anyone who read *World Wasn't Ready* immediately understood why Key's work qualified him for an exception to this iron law of publishing. Key is an MD and a practicing psychiatrist, and he combines keen insights into personal relations and human frailty with a wild imagination, deep compassion, and enviable prose chops. *Hospital at the End of the World* is Key's first novel, and it's terrific. Set in a not-so-distant future in which an AI-driven health monopolist called The Shepherd Organization controls much of the lives of everyday Americans, *Hospital* follows Pok, a young New Yorker who dreams of becoming an MD. Pok's father is also a doctor, famous for his empathic, human-centric methods and his scientific theories about the role that "essence" (a psychospiritual connection between doctors and patients) plays in clinical settings. The story opens with Pok hotly anticipating an acceptance letter from The Shepherd Organization, and the beginning of his new life as a medical student. But when word arrives, Pok learns that he has been rejected from *every* medical school in the TSO orbit. In desperate confusion, he works with shadowy hackers in a bid to learn why his impeccable application and his top grades resulted in this total rejection. That's when he learns that someone had sabotaged his application and falsified his grades, and, not long thereafter, he learns that the saboteur was his father. To make things worse, Pok's father has fallen grievously ill – so ill, in fact, that he ends up in a Shepherd Organization hospital, despite his deep enmity for TSO and its AI-driven practice of medicine. Pok doesn't accompany his father, though – he has secured a chance to sit a make-up exam in a desperate bid to get into med school. By the time he is finished with his exam, though, he learns that his father has died, and all that is left of him is an AI-powered chatbot that is delivered to Pok's apartment along with a warning to flee, because he is in terrible danger from the Shepherd Organization. Thus begins Pok's tale as he goes underground in a ubiquitous AI surveillance dystopia, seeking sanctuary in New Orleans, hoping to make it to the Hippocrates, the last holdout from America's AI-based medicine and surveillance dystopia. Pok's father learned to practice medicine at Hippocrates, and had urged Pok to study there, even securing a full-ride scholarship for him. But Pok had no interest in the mystical, squishy, sentimental ethos of the Hippocrates, and had been determined to practice the Shepherd Organization's rigorous, cold, data-driven form of medicine. Now, Pok has no choice. Hitchhiking, hopping freight cars, falling into company with other fugitives, Pok makes his way to New Orleans, a city guarded by tall towers that radiate energy that dampens both the punishing weather events that would otherwise drown the city and the data signals by which the Shepherd Organization tracks and controls the American people. This is the book's second act, a medical technothriller that sees Pok as an untrusted outsider in the freshman class at Hippocrates med school, amidst a strange and alarming plague that has sickened the other refugees from TSO America who have taken up residence in New Orleans. Pok has to navigate factions within the med school and in New Orleans society, even as he throws himself into the meat grinder of med school and unravels the secrets of his father and his own birth. What follows is a masterful and suspenseful work of science fiction informed by Key's own medical training and his keen sense of the human psyche. It's one part smart whodunnit, one part heist thriller, and one part revolutionary epic, and at its core is a profound series of provocations and thought experiments about the role that deep human connection and empathy play in medical care. It's a well-structured, well-paced sf novel that probes big, urgent contemporary themes while still engrossing the reader in the intimate human relations of its principals. A wonderful debut novel from a major new writer.` # Hey look at this ([permalink][13]) * Ken MacLeod: Imagined Futures [https://plutopia.io/ken-macleod-imagined-futures/][14] * Elbows Up: How Canada Can Disenshittify Its Tech, Reclaim Its Sovereignty, and Launch a New Tech Sector Into a Stable Orbit [https://archive.org/details/disenshittification-nation][15] * HOPE IS NOW A 501(C)(3) NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION [https://2600.com/content/hope-now-501c3-non-profit-organization][16] * Department of Justice appeals Google search monopoly ruling [https://www.theverge.com/tech/873438/google-antitrust-case-doj-states-appeal][17] * List of Kennedy Center cancellations during the Trump administration [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kennedy_Center_cancellations_during_the_Trump_administration][18] (h/t Amanda Marcotte) [A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'] # Object permanence ([permalink][19]) #20yrsago AOL/Yahoo: our email tax will make the net as good as the post office! [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/technology/postage-is-due-for-companies-sending-email.html][20] #20yrsago Volunteers ferry 15k coconuts every day to Indian temple [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4677320.stm][21] #15yrsago Wikileaks ACTA cables confirm it was a screwjob for the global poor [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/02/secret-us-cables-reveal-acta-was-far-too-secret/][22] #10yrsago Laura Poitras’s Astro Noise: indispensable book and gallery show about mass surveillance [https://www.wired.com/2016/02/snowdens-chronicler-reveals-her-own-life-under-surveillance/][23] #10yrsago How to prepare to join the Internet of the dead [https://archive.org/details/Online_No_One_Knows_Youre_Dead][24] #10yrsago Who funds the “Millennials Rising” Super PAC? Rich old men. [https://web.archive.org/web/20160204223020/https://theintercept.com/2016/02/04/millennials-rising-super-pac-is-95-funded-by-old-men/][25] #10yrsago They promised us a debate over TPP, then they signed it without any debate [https://www.techdirt.com/2016/02/03/countries-sign-tpp-whatever-happened-to-debate-we-were-promised-before-signing/][26] #5yrsago Stop the "Stop the Steal" steal [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/04/vote-machine-tankies/#ess][27] #5yrsago Organic fascism [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/04/vote-machine-tankies/#pastel-q][28] #5yrsago Ron Deibert's "Chasing Shadows" [https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/04/citizen-lab/#nso-group][29] # Upcoming appearances ([permalink][30]) [A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.] * Salt Lake City: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18 [https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/][31] * Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24 [https://fedimtl.ca/][32] * Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5 [https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/][33] * Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27 [https://conference.bioneers.org/][34] * Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 [https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow][35] * Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 [https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html][36] * Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 [https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2][37] [A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.] # Recent appearances ([permalink][38]) * Why Everything Got Worse and What to Do About It (Jordan Harbinger) [https://www.jordanharbinger.com/cory-doctorow-why-everything-got-worse-and-what-to-do-about-it/][39] * How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo][40] * Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline): [https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/][41] * Why Big Tech is a Trap for Independent Creators (Stripper News) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0][42] * Enshittification (Creative Nonfiction podcast) [https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/][43] [A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..] # Latest books ([permalink][44]) * "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 * "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/][45] * "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][46]). * "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][47]). * "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][48]). * "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 ([http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org][49]). Signed copies at Book Soup ([https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245][50]). * "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][51]. * "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][52] [A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.] # Upcoming books ([permalink][53]) * "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026 * "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 * "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026 * "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 # Colophon ([permalink][54]) 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 (1011 words today, 21655 total) * "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/][55] 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][56] Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://pluralistic.net/plura-list][57] Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic][58] Medium (no ads, paywalled): [https://doctorow.medium.com/][59] Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://twitter.com/doctorow][60] Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic][61] "*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 [1]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#hippocrates [2]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#linkdump [3]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#retro [4]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#upcoming [5]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#recent [6]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#latest [7]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#upcoming-books [8]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#bragsheet [9]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#hippocrates [10]: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-hospital-at-the-end-of-the-world-justin-c-key?variant=43822999928866 [11]: https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/19/justin-c-key/#clarion-west-2015 [12]: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/13/the-kissing-song/#wrack-and-roll [13]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#linkdump [14]: https://plutopia.io/ken-macleod-imagined-futures/ [15]: https://archive.org/details/disenshittification-nation [16]: https://2600.com/content/hope-now-501c3-non-profit-organization [17]: https://www.theverge.com/tech/873438/google-antitrust-case-doj-states-appeal [18]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kennedy_Center_cancellations_during_the_Trump_administration [19]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#retro [20]: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/technology/postage-is-due-for-companies-sending-email.html [21]: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4677320.stm [22]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/02/secret-us-cables-reveal-acta-was-far-too-secret/ [23]: https://www.wired.com/2016/02/snowdens-chronicler-reveals-her-own-life-under-surveillance/ [24]: https://archive.org/details/Online_No_One_Knows_Youre_Dead [25]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160204223020/https://theintercept.com/2016/02/04/millennials-rising-super-pac-is-95-funded-by-old-men/ [26]: https://www.techdirt.com/2016/02/03/countries-sign-tpp-whatever-happened-to-debate-we-were-promised-before-signing/ [27]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/04/vote-machine-tankies/#ess [28]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/04/vote-machine-tankies/#pastel-q [29]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/04/citizen-lab/#nso-group [30]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#upcoming [31]: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/ [32]: https://fedimtl.ca/ [33]: https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/ [34]: https://conference.bioneers.org/ [35]: https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow [36]: https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html [37]: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 [38]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#recent [39]: https://www.jordanharbinger.com/cory-doctorow-why-everything-got-worse-and-what-to-do-about-it/ [40]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo [41]: https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/ [42]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0 [43]: https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/ [44]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#latest [45]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ [46]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels [47]: http://thebezzle.org [48]: http://lost-cause.org [49]: http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org [50]: https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245 [51]: http://redteamblues.com [52]: https://chokepointcapitalism.com [53]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#upcoming-books [54]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/#bragsheet [55]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [56]: http://pluralistic.net [57]: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list [58]: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic [59]: https://doctorow.medium.com/ [60]: https://twitter.com/doctorow [61]: https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/04/slice-bees/

Pluralistic: Michael Swanwick's "The Universe Box" (03 Feb 2026) # Today's links * [Michael Swanwick's "The Universe Box"][1]: Short stories from a science fiction master at the top of his form. * [Hey look at this][2]: Delights to delectate. * [Object permanence][3]: DRM lobotomizes “human memory”; Crayola hex values; Tattoo artists copyright customers' bodies. * [Upcoming appearances][4]: Where to find me. * [Recent appearances][5]: Where I've been. * [Latest books][6]: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Upcoming books][7]: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Colophon][8]: All the rest. [The Tachyon Books cover for Michael Swanwick's 'The Universe Box.'] # Michael Swanwick's "The Universe Box" ([permalink][9]) *No one* writes short stories like Michael Swanwick, the five-time Hugo-winning master of science fiction. To prove it, you need only pick up *The Universe Box*, Swanwick's just-published short story collection, a book representing one of the field's greatest writers at the absolute *pinnacle* of his game: [https://tachyo.com/product/the-universe-box/][10] Science fiction has a long and honorable history with the short story. Sf is a pulp literature that was born in the pages of magazines specializing in short fiction and serials, and long after other genres had given up the ghost, sf remained steadfastly rooted in short form fiction. There are still, to this day, *multiple* sf magazines that publish short stories *every month*, on *paper*, and *pay for it*. I started my career as a short story writer, and continue to dabble in the form, but I have mostly moved onto novels. That's a pretty common trajectory in sf, where – notwithstanding the field's status as a haven for the short story – the reach (and money) come from novels. But sf has always had a cohort of short fiction writers who are staunchly committed to the form: Harlan Ellison, Martha Soukup, Martha Wells, Ray Bradbury, Ted Chiang, James Tiptree Jr, Theodore Sturgeon, and, of course, Michael Swanwick. It's a little weird, how sf serves as a powerful redoubt for short fiction. After all, sf is a genre in which everything is up for grabs: the reader can't assume anything about the story's setting, its era, the species of its characters. Time can run forwards, backwards, or in a loop. There can be gods and teleporters, faster-than-light drives and superintelligent machines. There can be aliens and space colonies. All of that has to be established *in the story*. The most straightforward way to do this is, of course, through exposition. There's a commonplace (and wrong) notion that exposition is bad ("show, don't tell"). It's fairer to say that exposition is *hard* – dramatization is, well, *dramatic*, which makes it easier to engage the reader's attention. But great exposition is *great* and sf is a genre that celebrates exposition, done well: [https://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-favorite-bit/my-favorite-bit-cory-doctorow-talks-about-the-bezzle/][11] The opposite of exposition is what Jo Walton calls "incluing," "the process of scattering information seamlessly through the text, as opposed to stopping the story to impart the information": [https://web.archive.org/web/20111119145140/http:/papersky.livejournal.com/324603.html][12] Incluing is a beautiful prose technique, but it makes the *reader* work. You have to pay close attention to all these subtle clues and build a web of inferences about the kind of world you've been plunged into. Incluing turns a story into a (wonderful and engaging) puzzle. It makes the aesthetic affect of short sf into something that's not so much a reverie as a high-engagement activity, a mystery whose solution is totally unbounded. This is a terrific experience, but it is also *work*. Doing that kind of work as part of the process of consuming a 300-page novel is one thing, but trying to get the reader up to speed in a 7,000 word story and still have room left over for the *story* part is a big lift, and even the best writers end up asking a lot of the reader in their short stories. Sf shorts can be the "difficult jazz" of literature, a form and genre that requires – and rewards – very active attention. (Incidentally, my favorite incluing example is Mark Twain's classic comedic short, "The Petrified Man":) [https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-twain/short-story/the-petrified-man/][13] But here's the thing. *None of this applies to Swanwick*. His stories use a mix of (impeccable) exposition and (subtle) incluing, and yet, there's never a moment in reading a Swanwick story where it feels like work. It's not merely that he's a gorgeous prose-smith whose sentences are each more surpassingly lovely than the last (though he is). Nor does he lack ambition: each of these stories has a more embroidered and outlandish premise than the last. Somehow, though, he just *slides* these stories into your brain. And what stories they are! They are, by turns, individually and in combination, slapstick, grave, horny, hilarious, surreal, disturbing and heartwarming. They have surprise endings and surprise middles and sometimes surprise *beginnings* (Swanwick does an opening paragraph like no one else). This is what it means to read a short story collection from an absolute master at the absolute peak of his powers. He can slide you frictionlessly between Icelandic troll tragedies to lethal drone-leopard romantic agonies to battles of the gods and the cigar box that has the universe inside of it. All with the lyricism of Bradbury, the madcap wit of Sturgeon, the unrelenting weirdness of Dick, the heart of Tiptree and the precision of Chiang. This is a book of worlds that each exist for just a handful of pages but occupy more space than those pages could possibly contain. It's a series of cigar boxes, each with the universe inside of it. # Hey look at this ([permalink][14]) * U.S. Envoys Refused to Report "Apocalyptic" Conditions in Gaza. Exclusive Photos Show the Reality They Suppressed [https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/northern-gaza-apocalyptic-wasteland-jack-lew-israeli-war-supressed][15] * To Avoid a Tax Hike, Billionaires Decide to Take Over California [https://prospect.org/2026/02/02/billionaires-california-tax-hike/][16] * Mentioned in Hell’s Dispatches [https://ftrain.com/mentioned-in-satans-dispatches][17] * MAGA's "People's Capitalism" [https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/magas-peoples-capitalism][18] * The Onion’s Exclusive Interview With Pete Hegseth [https://theonion.com/the-onions-exclusive-interview-with-pete-hegseth/][19] [A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'] # Object permanence ([permalink][20]) #20yrsago Sony CD spyware vendor caves to EFF demands [https://web.archive.org/web/20060208033113/https://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_02.php#004378][21] #20yrsago British Library: DRM lobotomizes “human memory” [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4675280.stm][22] #15yrsago Hex values for Crayola colors [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crayola_crayon_colors][23] #15yrsago Michael Lewis explains the Irish econopocalypse [https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/03/michael-lewis-ireland-201103?currentPage=all][24] #15yrsago Canada’s Internet rescued from weak and pathetic regulator [https://web.archive.org/web/20110203054651/http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/932571–ottawa-threatens-to-reverse-crtc-decision-on-internet-billing][25] #10yrsago Tattoo artist asserts copyright over customers’ bodies [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/nba-2k-videogame-maker-sued-861131/][26] #10yrsago EU plans to class volunteers who rescue drowning Syrian refugees as “traffickers” [https://www.statewatch.org/news/2016/january/refugee-crisis-council-proposals-on-migrant-smuggling-would-criminalise-humanitarian-assistance-by-civil-society-local-people-and-volunteers-greece-ngos-and-volunteers-have-to-register-with-the-police-and-be-vetted/][27] # Upcoming appearances ([permalink][28]) [A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.] * Salt Lake City: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18 [https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/][29] * Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24 [https://fedimtl.ca/][30] * Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5 [https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/][31] * Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27 [https://conference.bioneers.org/][32] * Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 [https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow][33] * Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 [https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html][34] * Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 [https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2][35] [A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.] # Recent appearances ([permalink][36]) * How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo][37] * Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline): [https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/][38] * Why Big Tech is a Trap for Independent Creators (Stripper News) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0][39] * Enshittification (Creative Nonfiction podcast) [https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/][40] * Enshittification with Plutopia [https://plutopia.io/cory-doctorow-enshittification/][41] [A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..] # Latest books ([permalink][42]) * "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 * "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/][43] * "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][44]). * "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][45]). * "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][46]). * "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 ([http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org][47]). Signed copies at Book Soup ([https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245][48]). * "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][49]. * "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][50] [A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.] # Upcoming books ([permalink][51]) * "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026 * "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 * "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026 * "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 # Colophon ([permalink][52]) 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 (1053 words today, 20644 total) * "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/][53] 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][54] Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://pluralistic.net/plura-list][55] Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic][56] Medium (no ads, paywalled): [https://doctorow.medium.com/][57] Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://twitter.com/doctorow][58] Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic][59] "*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. 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ISSN: 3066-764X [1]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#nirvana-or-bust [2]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#linkdump [3]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#retro [4]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#upcoming [5]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#recent [6]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#latest [7]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#upcoming-books [8]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#bragsheet [9]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#nirvana-or-bust [10]: https://tachyo.com/product/the-universe-box/ [11]: https://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-favorite-bit/my-favorite-bit-cory-doctorow-talks-about-the-bezzle/ [12]: https://web.archive.org/web/20111119145140/http:/papersky.livejournal.com/324603.html [13]: https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-twain/short-story/the-petrified-man/ [14]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#linkdump [15]: https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/northern-gaza-apocalyptic-wasteland-jack-lew-israeli-war-supressed [16]: https://prospect.org/2026/02/02/billionaires-california-tax-hike/ [17]: https://ftrain.com/mentioned-in-satans-dispatches [18]: https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/magas-peoples-capitalism [19]: https://theonion.com/the-onions-exclusive-interview-with-pete-hegseth/ [20]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#retro [21]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060208033113/https://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_02.php#004378 [22]: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4675280.stm [23]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crayola_crayon_colors [24]: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/03/michael-lewis-ireland-201103?currentPage=all [25]: https://web.archive.org/web/20110203054651/http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/932571--ottawa-threatens-to-reverse-crtc-decision-on-internet-billing [26]: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/nba-2k-videogame-maker-sued-861131/ [27]: https://www.statewatch.org/news/2016/january/refugee-crisis-council-proposals-on-migrant-smuggling-would-criminalise-humanitarian-assistance-by-civil-society-local-people-and-volunteers-greece-ngos-and-volunteers-have-to-register-with-the-police-and-be-vetted/ [28]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#upcoming [29]: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/ [30]: https://fedimtl.ca/ [31]: https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/ [32]: https://conference.bioneers.org/ [33]: https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow [34]: https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html [35]: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 [36]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#recent [37]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo [38]: https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/ [39]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0 [40]: https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/ [41]: https://plutopia.io/cory-doctorow-enshittification/ [42]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#latest [43]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ [44]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels [45]: http://thebezzle.org [46]: http://lost-cause.org [47]: http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org [48]: https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245 [49]: http://redteamblues.com [50]: https://chokepointcapitalism.com [51]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#upcoming-books [52]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/the-last-days-of-old-night/#bragsheet [53]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [54]: http://pluralistic.net [55]: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list [56]: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic [57]: https://doctorow.medium.com/ [58]: https://twitter.com/doctorow [59]: https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/03/the-last-days-of-old-night/

Pluralistic: Stock swindles (02 Feb 2026) # Today's links * [Stock swindles][1]: A buyback is not just a dividend by another name. * [Hey look at this][2]: Delights to delectate. * [Object permanence][3]: Acme License-Plate Maker; IPV4 delenda est; Mandatory gun-ownership; Sukey; Ross and Carrie x LRH; Criti-hype. * [Upcoming appearances][4]: Where to find me. * [Recent appearances][5]: Where I've been. * [Latest books][6]: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Upcoming books][7]: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Colophon][8]: All the rest. [A detail from a US$100 bill showing Benjamin Franklin's portrait. It has been altered. Franklin's face has been overlaid with an orange sad clown, surmounted by Trump's hair. The zeroes in '100' above and below the portrait have been extended to run its entire length.] # Stock swindles ([permalink][9]) There are plenty of American historical antecedents of Trumpism – fascist movements like the Jim Crow reign of terror, the McCarthy hearings, the gleeful genocide of indigenous people. But when you're thinking about the rise of Trumpism, never forget that America isn't just a nation of cruel bigots; it's also a nation of rich swindlers. We call Trump a "reality TV star" and it's true, as far as it goes. Trump did play a billionaire on TV long before he grifted actual billions, using his status as the poor man's idea of a rich man to secure liar loans and rip off creditors, contractors, business partners, workers, and governments – local, state and federal. He rose to power on this, boasting on stage that cheating "makes me smart": [https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/04/its-not-a-lie/#its-a-premature-truth][10] Like so many crooked officials, Trump's brand is "He steals, but he works" (except of course that he doesn't – at any given moment, odds are that he's either taking a nap, watching Fox News, or playing golf): [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskBalkans/comments/utui8s/in_romania_we_have_a_saying_about_corrupt/][11] Remember: the right is the movement that says that governments are inefficient and corrupt, so right wing elected leaders make their own case by being incompetent and corrupt. Someone like Trump *has* to convince people that they can't rely on institutions or their neighbors. His path to power lies through convincing people that the system is rigged and that he – as a man who is an expert at cheating – knows how to rig it in *your* favor: [https://www.factcheck.org/2016/07/trumps-rigged-claim/][12] But merely claiming "the system is rigged" doesn't actually win the day. If you want to convince people that the system is rigged, it really helps if the system is *actually* rigged. Want to convince people that elections are corrupt? Legalize unlimited dark money spending and fill our polling places with defective, unauditable voting machines made by Beltway Bandits selling into no-bid contracts: [https://web.archive.org/web/20210203113531/https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/02/03/voting-machines-election-steal-conspiracy-flaws/][13] Want to convince people that there's a shadowy cabal of rich pedophiles hiding children in a pizza parlor basement? It helps if there's an actual cabal of rich pedophiles hanging out on a private island, abusing more than a thousand children (and counting). Want to convince people that the financial system is a rigged casino so you might as well just gamble on cryptocurrency and betting markets? It helps if the actual financial system is run by banks who receive billions in public money and then steal millions of Americans' homes after Obama takes Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's advice to "foam the runways" for the banks using Americans' houses: [https://keystoneky.com/article/all-we-can-do-is-put-foam-on-the-runway-tim-geithner-speaking-before-the-collapse-of-lehman/][14] Which is all to say, if you want to understand the origins of the surge of suckers for fascists who are desperate for a strong man to cheat on their behalf in a rigged system, it helps to look beyond racism and xenophobia, to the ways in which the system is, indeed, rigged. Racism and misogyny alone aren't enough to bring about fascism. To groom a nation of fascist patsies, you first need a crooked system: [https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/22/all-day-suckers/#i-love-the-poorly-educated][15] This is why it's worth understanding finance. The finance sector hides its sins behind the Shield of Boringness (h/t Claire Evans). The layers of overlapping jargon and performative complexity make it hard for everyday people to criticize the finance sector. Finance ghouls exploit this, leveraging confusing ambiguities in the system to insist that their critics don't know what they're talking about and that everything is fine, actually. This is an incredibly destabilizing dynamic. Living in a system where you're being fleeced every day but where people who seem smarter than you have reasonable-seeming explanations about why it's all legit and above-board is a recipe for abandoning all faith in the system, in experts, and in lawful processes, and throw your lot in with a strongman who promises to cheat on your behalf. Take stock buybacks, a form of stock swindle that was illegal until 1982. In a stock buyback, a company buys its own shares on the open market. When the number of shares goes down, the price per share goes up. This is just a form of "wash-trading," like when NFT and shitcoin scammers buy their own products in order to make it look like they're valuable and desirable: [https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/06/computer-says-huh/#invisible-handcuffs][16] Advocates for markets as a system of allocation (as opposed to allocating via a democratically accountable state, say) insist that markets are efficient because prices "encode information" about the desirability, viability, and other qualities of goods and services. This is the whole argument for the new crop of rigged casinos we call "prediction markets" that are grooming the next generation of fascist footsoldiers by robbing them blind and then insisting that the whole process was not only legitimate, but *scientific*, a way to retrieve the "encoded information" about the world around us. In a market system, stock prices are supposed to reflect the aggregated information about the health and prospects of a company. When a company buys its own stock back, though, its price goes *up* while its value goes *down*. I mean that literally: say a company that's sitting on a billion dollars cash is valued at $10 billion. From this, we can infer that the company's capital stock (factories, inventory, etc), IP (patents, processes, copyrights, etc) and human capital (payrolled employees, contractors) are worth $9 billion. That's a reliable estimate, because we know exactly how much one billion dollars cash is worth: it's worth one billion dollars. Now, let that company piss that billion dollars up the wall with a stock buyback. The company is relieved of its billion dollars cash on hand, leaving it with no cash, only its physical capital, IP and human capital, which are worth $9b. The company is now worth less than it was before the stock buyback. What's more, the drop in corporate valuation is *more* than the billion the company just blew on its buyback. A company with no cash reserves is brittle and prone to failures. Without a cash cushion, any rent shock, change in market conditions, or other adverse incident will leave the company scrambling to borrow money (at punitive rates, thanks to its desperation) to weather the storm. If share prices are actually "encoding information" about a company's worth, a billion dollar buyback should lop *more* than a billion dollars off the company's share price. Instead, it sends the share price *up*. This is just stock manipulation, which is why it was illegal until 1982. But apologists for this system will tell you that a stock buyback is just a dividend by another name – just another way for a company to return value to its shareholders, who, after all, are the owners of the company and entitled to extract those profits. This is categorically untrue. Dividends *do* take money out of the company's coffers and distribute them to its shareholders, sure – but a dividend is a bet on the company's future *success*, which is why a company's share prices rise after a dividend is declared. Investors observe a company that is so well-run that it can afford to drain some of its cash reserves in favor of its shareholders, so they buy the company's stock in anticipation of more dividends derived from more skilled operations. But imagine if a company parted with a dividend so large that it meant that the firm would struggle to keep its doors open in the coming year. Imagine a publisher, say, whose dividend was so large that it couldn't afford to pay advances for any more books in the next season, meaning it could only make money from the backlist titles it already had in the warehouse, but was entirely out of the running when it came to publishing next year's blockbuster book. That dividend would *not* send investors chasing the company's stock. Why would you bet on a stock whose management had just doomed the company to a bad season, and maybe an unrecoverable death-spiral? Without new books to sell, the company won't have any cash to pay dividends, and when it stops paying dividends, its stock price will fall, leaving shareholders with a hole in their own balance-sheets. Contrast that with buybacks: to do a buyback, the company need merely spend its free cash flow, or money it borrows, or money derived from the sale of key capital, or money saved through mass layoffs, to buy its own stock. Then the share price goes up. In other words: when a company's stock price rises on news of a dividend, that's "encoding information" about the market's confidence in the company's management and its future growth. When a company's stock price rises on news of a buyback, that's "encoding information" about the market's confidence in the company's future looting to the point of collapse. I used to think that this was the whole stock buyback story, but as is ever the case with finance, buybacks are fractally corrupt. This week, I've been reading Boston College law prof Ray D Madoff's book *The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy*, and I've learned even more scummy truths about buybacks: [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo256019296.html][17] For tax purposes, dividends are "ordinary income," meaning that they are taxed at up to 37%. Meanwhile, if you sell your shares after a stock buyback juices the price, the profits are treated as "capital gains," whose tax rate caps out at about half that (20%). This means that shareholders pay *half the tax* on money that comes from strip-mining a company than they would get from money derived from managing a company for sustainable growth. It's worse than that, though, because capital gains can be offset by capital *losses*. If you invested in a stock that tanked, you can hold that stock in your portfolio until you are ready to sell a profitable stock, and deduct your losses from the gains you've made. But you don't even have to sell the stock to realize *tax-free* income from it: the ultra-rich live according to a financial arrangement called "buy, borrow, die" that lets them avoid *all* taxes. Here's how that works: if you're sitting on a bunch of stock, you can stake it as collateral for a loan that is tax-free. Better than that, if you're smart, some or all of the interest on that loan is *tax-deductible*. If you're rich enough, you don't have to make regular payments on the loan, either – you just wait as the stock continues to grow while your loan is maturing, and when it's due, you borrow *even more* money against the new valuation and pay off the old loan. That's "buy" and "borrow." Here's "die." When you die, you transfer your assets to your kids, who benefit from something called the "step-up in basis," which lets them avoid *all* capital gains on the appreciated value of your assets. Now, maybe you're thinking that you can benefit from this arrangement. I've got bad news for you: you won't qualify for one of those cool loans that you don't need to pay regularly! What's more, if you own any stock you almost certainly own it through a retirement plan like a 401(k), and when you cash out that 401(k), *that* is treated as "ordinary income" at nearly twice the rate that our plutocrat overlords pay. Buybacks, then, are part of a system whereby rich people get *much* richer every time a company that makes something good and employs ordinary people guts itself and sets itself on the path to bankruptcy. Meanwhile, working people don't benefit from this system, even if they own stock. They just get to live in a world where businesses are looted and shuttered and public services are slashed thanks to balanced budget rules that mean that governments can't spend when rich people don't pay taxes. This is *why* buybacks have apologists. Buybacks – a stock swindle that was illegal in living memory – make rich people richer, and they spend some of that loot to fund an army of reply-ghouls who push the message that buybacks are dividends by another name. It's part of the ripoff economy that has seen crypto-billionaires lobby, bribe and terrorize lawmakers into merging their speculative assets with the real economy, endangering the economic well-being of everyday people: [https://www.levernews.com/what-tech-wants-crypto-reign-of-terror/][18] It's part of the ripoff economy that has seen AI bros put the global market in peril with crooked accounting and empty promises: [https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-enshittifinancial-crisis/][19] The ripoff economy is baked into the American experience. It is the foundation of Trumpism. It is the financial basis for things like "Project 2025" – literally! The Heritage Foundation (who created Project 2025) was founded and funded by the founders of Amway, a destructive Ponzi scheme that was rescued from criminal prosecution when Gerald Ford (Congressman to Amway's founders) became president and ordered the FTC to let them off the hook: [https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/05/free-enterprise-system/#amway-or-the-highway][20] Trump's right: the system *is* rigged. If you're going to pull the people you love back from the nihilistic descent into fascism, you have to be able to understand and explain how the rigging works. We can't insist – as Hillary Clinton did – that "America is already great": [https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/clinton-america-is-already-great-220078][21] America is not great. It has been gutted by the Epstein class, who robbed us blind, raped our kids, and are now selling us shitcoins and chatbots and the spectacle of protesters being shot in the streets. But it's not enough to know *that* the system is rigged. Everybody knows the system is rigged. To build a movement and save our future, we have to know *how* it is rigged and *who* rigged it. # Hey look at this ([permalink][22]) * Wherein I have some thoughts on food delivery apps [https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2026/02/01.html][23] * A Letter On Justice And Open Debate About Raping Children [https://www.popehat.com/p/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate-about-raping-children][24] * Impeach President Miller [https://prospect.org/2026/01/31/impeach-president-miller/][25] * Google Settlement May Bring New Privacy Controls for Real-Time Bidding [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/google-settlement-may-bring-new-privacy-controls-real-time-bidding][26] * U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office [https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-government-has-lost-more-10-000-stem-ph-d-s-trump-took-office][27] [A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'] # Object permanence ([permalink][28]) #25yrsago Acme License-Plate Maker [https://www.acme.com/licensemaker/licensemaker.cgi?state=California&text=NSHITKN&plate=1987&r=943099606][29] #15yrsago Apple implements iStore changes, prohibits Sony from selling competing ebook app [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/technology/01apple.html?_r=3][30] #15yrsago IPv4 is exhausted [https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/02/01/0036227/Last-Available-IPv4-Blocks-Allocated][31] #15yrsago Harper’s publisher rejects $50K worth of pledges, will lay off staff anyway [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdDoZvxCvsax1zkMKANucBCQU8v-08tcw6VIDrtnmnqLY9I0A/viewform?formkey=dGdtbXUtNUV3cmtpaXJienJ5bldwcUE6MQ][32] #15yrsago South Dakota senator introduces mandatory gun-ownership law [https://www.newser.com/story/111031/south-dakota-bill-every-adult-must-own-a-gun.html][33] #10yrsago UK Snooper’s Charter is so broad, no one can figure out what it means [https://web.archive.org/web/20160202092111/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/tech-firms-are-unclear-on-new-uk-surveillance-laws-warns-government-committee][34] #5yrsago The good news about vaccination bad news [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/01/dinos-and-rinos/#mixed-news][35] #5yrsago Unidirectional entryism [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/01/dinos-and-rinos/#entryism][36] #15yrsago Inside Sukey the anti-kettling mobile app [https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/feb/02/inside-anti-kettling-hq][37] #10yrsago Swatting attempted against Congresswoman who introduced anti-swatting bill [https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/02/01/cops-swarm-rep-katherine-clark-melrose-home-after-apparent-hoax/yqEpcpWmKtN6bOOAj8FZXJ/story.html][38] #10yrsago A would-be clinic-bomber & friends are terrorizing a charter school for being too close to a future Planned Parenthood office [https://web.archive.org/web/20160318235447/https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/inside-the-bizarre-war-anti-abortion-zealots-are-waging-against-school-kids][39] #10yrsago Ross and Carrie become Scientologists: an investigative report 5 years in the making [https://ohnopodcast.com/investigations/2016/2/1/ross-and-carrie-audit-scientology-part-1-going-preclear][40] #10yrsago Exclusive: Snowden intelligence docs reveal UK spooks’ malware checklist [https://memex.craphound.com/2016/02/02/exclusive-snowden-intelligence-docs-reveal-uk-spooks-malware-checklist/][41] #5yrsago The free market and rent-seeking [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/02/euthanize-rentiers/#poor-doors][42] #5yrsago Criti-Hype [https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/02/euthanize-rentiers/#dont-believe-the-hype][43] # Upcoming appearances ([permalink][44]) [A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.] * Salt Lake City: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18 [https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/][45] * Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24 [https://fedimtl.ca/][46] * Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5 [https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/][47] * Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27 [https://conference.bioneers.org/][48] * Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 [https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow][49] * Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 [https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html][50] * Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 [https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2][51] [A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.] # Recent appearances ([permalink][52]) * How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo][53] * Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline): [https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/][54] * Why Big Tech is a Trap for Independent Creators (Stripper News) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0][55] * Enshittification (Creative Nonfiction podcast) [https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/][56] * Enshittification with Plutopia [https://plutopia.io/cory-doctorow-enshittification/][57] [A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..] # Latest books ([permalink][58]) * "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 * "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/][59] * "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][60]). * "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][61]). * "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][62]). * "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 ([http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org][63]). Signed copies at Book Soup ([https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245][64]). * "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][65]. * "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][66] [A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.] # Upcoming books ([permalink][67]) * "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026 * "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 * "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026 * "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 # Colophon ([permalink][68]) 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 (1007 words today, 19588 total) * "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/][69] 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][70] Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://pluralistic.net/plura-list][71] Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic][72] Medium (no ads, paywalled): [https://doctorow.medium.com/][73] Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://twitter.com/doctorow][74] Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic][75] "*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 [1]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#that-makes-me-smart [2]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#linkdump [3]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#retro [4]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#upcoming [5]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#recent [6]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#latest [7]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#upcoming-books [8]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#bragsheet [9]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#that-makes-me-smart [10]: https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/04/its-not-a-lie/#its-a-premature-truth [11]: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskBalkans/comments/utui8s/in_romania_we_have_a_saying_about_corrupt/ [12]: https://www.factcheck.org/2016/07/trumps-rigged-claim/ [13]: https://web.archive.org/web/20210203113531/https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/02/03/voting-machines-election-steal-conspiracy-flaws/ [14]: https://keystoneky.com/article/all-we-can-do-is-put-foam-on-the-runway-tim-geithner-speaking-before-the-collapse-of-lehman/ [15]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/22/all-day-suckers/#i-love-the-poorly-educated [16]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/06/computer-says-huh/#invisible-handcuffs [17]: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo256019296.html [18]: https://www.levernews.com/what-tech-wants-crypto-reign-of-terror/ [19]: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-enshittifinancial-crisis/ [20]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/05/free-enterprise-system/#amway-or-the-highway [21]: https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/clinton-america-is-already-great-220078 [22]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#linkdump [23]: https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2026/02/01.html [24]: https://www.popehat.com/p/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate-about-raping-children [25]: https://prospect.org/2026/01/31/impeach-president-miller/ [26]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/google-settlement-may-bring-new-privacy-controls-real-time-bidding [27]: https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-government-has-lost-more-10-000-stem-ph-d-s-trump-took-office [28]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#retro [29]: https://www.acme.com/licensemaker/licensemaker.cgi?state=California&text=NSHITKN&plate=1987&r=943099606 [30]: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/technology/01apple.html?_r=3 [31]: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/02/01/0036227/Last-Available-IPv4-Blocks-Allocated [32]: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdDoZvxCvsax1zkMKANucBCQU8v-08tcw6VIDrtnmnqLY9I0A/viewform?formkey=dGdtbXUtNUV3cmtpaXJienJ5bldwcUE6MQ [33]: https://www.newser.com/story/111031/south-dakota-bill-every-adult-must-own-a-gun.html [34]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160202092111/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/tech-firms-are-unclear-on-new-uk-surveillance-laws-warns-government-committee [35]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/01/dinos-and-rinos/#mixed-news [36]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/01/dinos-and-rinos/#entryism [37]: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/feb/02/inside-anti-kettling-hq [38]: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/02/01/cops-swarm-rep-katherine-clark-melrose-home-after-apparent-hoax/yqEpcpWmKtN6bOOAj8FZXJ/story.html [39]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160318235447/https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/inside-the-bizarre-war-anti-abortion-zealots-are-waging-against-school-kids [40]: https://ohnopodcast.com/investigations/2016/2/1/ross-and-carrie-audit-scientology-part-1-going-preclear [41]: https://memex.craphound.com/2016/02/02/exclusive-snowden-intelligence-docs-reveal-uk-spooks-malware-checklist/ [42]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/02/euthanize-rentiers/#poor-doors [43]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/02/euthanize-rentiers/#dont-believe-the-hype [44]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#upcoming [45]: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/ [46]: https://fedimtl.ca/ [47]: https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/ [48]: https://conference.bioneers.org/ [49]: https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow [50]: https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html [51]: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 [52]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#recent [53]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo [54]: https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/ [55]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0 [56]: https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/ [57]: https://plutopia.io/cory-doctorow-enshittification/ [58]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#latest [59]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ [60]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels [61]: http://thebezzle.org [62]: http://lost-cause.org [63]: http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org [64]: https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245 [65]: http://redteamblues.com [66]: https://chokepointcapitalism.com [67]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#upcoming-books [68]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/#bragsheet [69]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [70]: http://pluralistic.net [71]: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list [72]: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic [73]: https://doctorow.medium.com/ [74]: https://twitter.com/doctorow [75]: https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/corprophagia/