Cory Doctorow

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)
doctorow (npub1hs3…585k).

Archived at pluralistic.net

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

tootfinder

Books: https://craphound.com
Blog: https://pluralistic.net
Podcast: https://craphound.com/podcast/

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pluralistic_at_mamot.fr@momostr.pink

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Last Notes

2024-06-28 20:45:36

It's like SCOTUS is BEGGING the Democrats to make "pack the court" into the campaign centerpiece of whatever candidate replaces Biden.

2024-06-21 16:43:42

Just realized that I was missing a bunch of RSS feeds from newsletters like Garbage Day, which had left Substack. These newsletters took their subscriber lists with them when they switched, but didn't do an RSS redirect.
Friendly reminder! If you switch mailing list providers and don't redirect your RSS, you're going to lose a lot of readers!
https://www.rssboard.org/redirect-rss-feed

2024-06-20 22:45:58

It's not your imagination: tech really *is* underregulated. There are plenty of avoidable harms that tech visits upon the world, and while some of these harms are mere negligence, others are self-serving, creating shareholder value *and* widespread public destruction.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/20/scalesplaining/#administratability
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2024-06-17 15:51:30

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The debate over merit and luck has been with us for millennia, and even the hereditary absolute monarchs of the Bronze Age had to find a way to resolve it. For the rulers of antiquity, the way to square that circle was *jubilee*.
Bronze Age jubilees were periodic celebrations in which all debts were canceled.
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2024-06-17 15:51:16

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It's an economic wrapper around the old theological doctrine of providence, whereby God shows you whom he favors by giving them wealth and station, and marks out the wicked by miring them in poverty. And like the religious believe in providence, the capitalist belief in meritocracy is essential to resolving cognitive dissonance: it lets the fed winners feel morally justified in stepping over the starving losers.
3/

2024-06-17 15:50:37

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/17/lovilee-jubilee/#debts-that-cant-be-paid-wont-be-paid
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2024-06-17 15:48:56

There's a truly comforting sociopathy snuggled inside capitalism ideology: if markets are systems for identifying and rewarding virtue, ability and value, then anyone who's failing in the system is actually *unworthy*, not unlucky; and that means the winners are not just lucky (and certainly not merely selfish), but actually *the best* and they owe nothing to their social inferiors apart from what their own charitable impulses dictate.
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2024-06-14 18:52:58

As the old saying goes, "When someone tells you who they are and you get fooled again, shame on you." That goes double for Microsoft, especially when it comes to security promises.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/14/patch-tuesday/#fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again
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2024-06-13 20:55:12

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: The health industry's invisible hand is a fist; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/13/a-punch-in-the-guts/
#Pluralistic
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2024-06-13 20:30:26

The US has the rich world's most expensive health care system, and that system delivers the worst health outcomes of any country in the rich world. Also, the US is unique in relying on market forces as the primary regulator of its health care system. All of these facts are related!
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/13/a-punch-in-the-guts/#hayek-pilled
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2024-06-12 13:26:11

The problem with good news in the real world is that it's *messy*. Neat endings are for novels, not the real world, and that goes double for the climate emergency. But even though good climate news is complex and nuanced, that doesn't mean it shouldn't buoy our spirits and fill our hearts with hope.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/12/s-curve/#anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-eventually-stops
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2024-06-11 12:48:43

Double greedflation
What We Owe, Kalena Thomhave
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-11-what-we-owe/
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2024-06-10 17:59:45

For Father's Day next Sunday, my 16-y--o daughter has agreed to watch a movie of my choosing with me.
I want to get her excited about one of the movies I love, but which she's been uninterested in watching thus far.
Should it be:

2024-06-10 13:56:41

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: The CFPB is genuinely making America better, and they're going HARD; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/10/getting-things-done/
#Pluralistic
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2024-06-10 13:22:24

Hey Britons living abroad!
Our independent financial advisor wants to shove us off his books because we no longer live in the UK and Brexit makes it onerous for him to invest our pensions.
We're looking for a pension platform where we can stick the money into a low-load index tracker. MyExpatSIPP looked promising, but they've been a nightmare.
Anyone have PERSONAL EXPERIENCE (e.g. not something you've heard) with a platform or IFA that'll deal with expats?

2024-06-05 21:25:20

Noted anti-capitalist agitator Adam Smith had it right: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again
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2024-06-03 18:04:11

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Ticketmaster jacks us for billions so it can pocket millions; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/03/aoi-aoi-oh/
#Pluralistic
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2024-05-30 22:46:45

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I, a total stranger, was thinking of inviting myself over to your house for dinner.
But before I do, I wanted to ask, is your cooking insipid, greasy and terrible?
Honestly, it's not problem if it is, I'm just trying to focus on eating food that isn't shit.
Oh, come on, don't be so touchy! How is anyone supposed to know whether to eat the food you cook if you won't tell them whether it sucks?
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2024-05-30 22:45:30

I, a total stranger, was thinking of befriending your kid, but before I did, I thought I'd ask you, are they a boring, selfish jerk?
It's fine if they are, I'm just really trying to find quality people to be friends with, so I thought I'd ask you, is your kid a dick?
Wait, don't get offended! How are people supposed to know whether to hang out with your kid if you can't answer a simple question?!
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2024-05-29 18:14:44

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Think for a moment about the fact that the US government is - at this very moment - trying to break up Google, the largest tech company in the history of the world, and there has been virtually *no* press about it. This is a gigantic story. It's literally the biggest business story *ever*. It's practically a *secret*.
Why doesn't the Biden admin want to talk about this very small number of very good things it's doing?
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2024-05-29 18:14:33

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But that's not how this works. Yes, misstatements about active cases can do serious damage, but *not talking about cases* extinguishes the political will needed to carry them out. That's why a competent press secretary excellent briefings and training, because they *must* talk about these cases.
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2024-05-29 18:14:10

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They've done more on these three kinds of crime than all of their predecessors over the past forty years, *combined*. And yet, Stoller finds example after example of White House press secretaries being lobbed softballs by the press and refusing to even try to swing at them. When asked about any of this stuff, the White House demurs, refusing to comment.
The reasons they give for this is that they don't want to mess up an active case while it's before the courts.
8/

2024-05-29 18:13:56

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Writing in his newsletter, Matt Stoller offers an explanation for this lack of credit: the Biden White House almost never talks about any of these triumphs, even the bold, generational ones that will significantly alter the political landscape no matter who wins the next election:
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-does-the-biden-white-house-hate
Biden's antitrust enforcers have gone after price-fixing in oil, food and rent - the three largest sources of voter cost-of-living concern.
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2024-05-29 18:13:39

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A political leader who does things that the voters deplore can't expect to become more popular, though perhaps they can pull off *less unpopular*:
https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-left-is-not-joe-bidens-problem
Biden may be attracting unfair blame for inflation, and totally fair blame for genocide, but in addition to those problems, there's this: Biden hasn't gotten credit for the actual good things he's done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoflHnGrCpM
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2024-05-29 18:13:31

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It''s undeniable that every leader who has presided over a period of inflation, irrespective of political tendency, is facing extreme defenstration, from Rishi Sunak, the far-right prime minister of the UK, to the relentlessly centrist Justin Trudeau in Canada:
https://prospect.org/politics/2024-05-29-three-barriers-biden-reelection/
It's also true that Biden has presided over a genocide, which he has been proudly and significantly complicit in. That Trump would have done the same or worse is beside the point.
5/

2024-05-29 18:12:27

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The Unity Task Force promised - and delivered - key appointments and policies that represented serious and powerful change for the better:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/10/thanks-obama/#triangulation
Despite these excellent appointments and policies, the Biden administration has remained unpopular and is heading into the 2024 election with worryingly poor numbers. There is a lot of debate about why this might be.
4/

2024-05-29 18:12:10

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Biden didn't so much win that election as Trump lost it, by doing *extremely unpopular* things, including badly bungling the American covid response and killing about a million people.
Biden's 2020 election victory was a squeaker, and it was absolutely dependent on compromising with the party's left wing, embodied by the Warren and Sanders campaigns.
3/

2024-05-29 18:11:56

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Remember Hillary Clinton's *unimaginably* terrible campaign slogan, "America is already great?" In other words, "Vote for me if you believe that nothing needs to change":
https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/758501814945869824
Biden picked up the "This is fine" messaging where Clinton left off, promising that "nothing would fundamentally change" if he became president:
https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/
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2024-05-29 18:10:35

The corporate wing of the Democrats has objectively terrible political instincts, because the corporate wing of the Dems wants things that are very unpopular with the electorate (this is a trait they share with the Republican establishment).
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/29/sub-bushel-comms-strategy/#nothing-would-fundamentally-change
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2024-05-25 17:43:28

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But that's not the lawyer snark I'm writing about today. Dunford *also* sent a letter to IMG Worldwide, whose lawyers sent the initial threat, demanding an explanation for this *outrageous* threat, which was - as the physicists say - "not even wrong":
https://www.loweringthebar.net/2024/05/lol-no-explained.html
4/

2024-05-25 17:43:16

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Cola made a t-shirt that remixed the LA Lakers logo to read "Fuck the LAPD." In response, the LAPD's private foundation sent a nonsense copyright takedown letter. Cola's lawyer, Mike Dunford, sent them a chef's-kiss-perfect reply, just two words long: "LOL, no":
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/04/19/apparel-company-gives-perfect-response-to-lapds-nonsense-ip-threat-letter-over-fuck-the-lapd-shirt/
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2024-05-25 17:43:02

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Kicking off this week's backlog is a piece of *epic* lawyer-snark, which is something I always love, but what makes this snark total catnip for me is that it's snark about *copyfraud*: false copyright claims made to censor online speech. Yes please and a second portion, thank you very much!
This starts with the Cola Corporation, a radical LA-based design store that makes lefty t-shirts, stickers and the like.
2/

2024-05-25 17:42:34

It's the start of a long weekend and I've found myself with a backlog of links, so it's time for another linkdump - the eighteenth in the (occasional) series. Here's the previous installments:
https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/25/anthology/#lol-no
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2024-05-23 17:53:07

I have been a published writer since I was 17, and never in all those years have I encountered worse editorial suggestions than the automated ones generated by Microsoft Office365.
Makes Clippy look like EB White.

2024-05-21 13:52:24

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No, seriously, fuck you.
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2024-05-21 13:51:02

Oh, fuck you, British Airways.
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2024-05-20 17:25:06

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2024-05-20 17:21:31

Depending on how you look at it, I either grew up in the periphery of the labor movement, or atop it, or surrounded by it. For a kid, labor issues don't really hold a lot of urgency - in places with mature labor movements, kids don't really have jobs, and the part-time jobs I had as a kid (paper route, cleaning a dance studio) were pretty benign.
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2024-05-16 14:46:56

Residents of 21 cities in Utah have access to some of the fastest, most competitively priced broadband in the US, at speeds up to 10gb/s and prices as low as $75/month. It's uncapped, and the connections are symmetrical: perfect for uploading *and* downloading. And it's all thanks to the government.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/16/symmetrical-10gb-for-119/#utopia
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2024-05-15 20:56:14

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Upcoming appearances:
* "Finding the Money" screening (LA), May 15
https://www.laemmle.com/film/finding-money?date=2024-05-15
* Authorship in an Age of Monopoly and Moral Panics (SF), May 17
https://www.authorsalliance.org/2024/03/15/authors-alliance-10th-anniversary-event-authorship-in-an-age-of-monopoly-and-moral-panics/
* Media Ecology Association keynote (Amherst, NY), Jun 6-9
https://media-ecology.org/convention
* HOPE XV, Jul 14 (Queens, NY)
https://www.hope.net/talks.html
* American Association of Law Libraries keynote (Chicago), Jul 21
https://www.aallnet.org/conference/agenda/keynote-speaker/
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2024-05-15 20:55:53

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My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."
https://craphound.com/shop/
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2024-05-15 20:55:43

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My latest nationally bestselling novel is "The Bezzle," an ice-cold revenge story of high-tech finance crime starring the forensic accountant Martin Hench:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle
Signed copies from Chevalier's Books:
https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/product-page/the-bezzle
--
My latest nonfiction book is "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation" from Verso Books:
http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org
Signed copies available from Book Soup:
https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245
Both are national bestsellers!
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2024-05-15 20:55:34

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Monday's threads: AI "art" and uncanniness; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/112435509029371337
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2024-05-15 20:55:14

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#5yrsago Discovering whether your Iphone has been hacked is nearly impossible thanks to Apple’s walled garden https://www.vice.com/en/article/pajkkz/its-almost-impossible-to-tell-if-iphone-has-been-hacked
#5yrsago Foxconn promised it would do something with the empty buildings it bought in Wisconsin, but they’re still empty (still no factory, either) https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/13/18565408/foxconn-wisconsin-innovation-centers-factories-empty-tax-subsidy
#1yrago Ireland's privacy regulator is a gamekeeper-turned-poacher https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town
#1yrago Google’s AI Hype Circle https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/
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2024-05-15 20:55:05

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#5yrsago Alex Stamos on the security problems of the platforms’ content moderation, and what to do about them https://memex.craphound.com/2019/05/15/alex-stamos-on-the-security-problems-of-the-platforms-content-moderation-and-what-to-do-about-them/
#5yrsago Axon makes false statements to town that bought its police bodycams, threatens to tase their credit-rating if they cancel the contract https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2019/may/09/algorithms-axon-fontana/
#5yrsago After retaliation against Googler Uprising organizers, a company-wide memo warns employees they can be fired for accessing “need to know” data https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/google-execs-internal-email-on-data-leak-policy-rattles
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2024-05-15 20:54:56

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#5yrsago Three years after the Umbrella Revolution, Hong Kong has its own Extinction Rebellion chapter https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3010050/hong-kongs-new-extinction-rebellion-chapter-looks
#5yrsago Lawyer involved in suits against Israel’s most notorious cyber-arms dealer targeted by its weapons, delivered through a terrifying Whatsapp vulnerability https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/technology/nso-group-whatsapp-spying.html
#5yrsago The New York Times on Carl Malamud and his tireless battle to make the law free for all to read https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/us/politics/georgia-official-code-copyright.html
10/

2024-05-15 20:54:45

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#5yrsago Jury awards $2b to California couple who say Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller gave them cancer https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/14/business/bayer-roundup-verdict/index.html
#5yrsago AT&T promised it would create 7,000 jobs if Trump went through with its $3B tax-cut, but they cut 23,000 jobs instead https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/att-promised-7000-new-jobs-to-get-tax-break-it-cut-23000-jobs-instead/
#5yrsago DOJ accuses Verizon and AT&T employees of participating in SIM-swap identity theft crimes https://www.vice.com/en/article/d3n3am/att-and-verizon-employees-charged-sim-swapping-criminal-ring
#5yrsago Collecting user data is a competitive disadvantage https://a16z.com/the-empty-promise-of-data-moats/
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2024-05-15 20:54:34

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#10yrsago Nude closeups of people who are more than 100 years old https://web.archive.org/web/20140516055234/http://anastasiapottingerphotography.com/gallery/art/centenarians/
#10yrsago Cable lobbyists strong-arm Congresscritters into signing anti-Net Neutrality petition https://web.archive.org/web/20140527030122/http://www.freepress.net/blog/2014/05/12/tell-congress-dont-sign-cable-industry-letter-against-real-net-neutrality
#10yrsago London property bubble examined https://timharford.com/2014/05/when-a-man-is-tired-of-london-house-prices/
#5yrsago A year after Meltdown and Spectre, security researchers are still announcing new serious risks from low-level chip operations https://www.wired.com/story/intel-mds-attack-speculative-execution-buffer/
8/

2024-05-15 20:54:19

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#10yrsago Rob Ford: a night of drunk driving, racism, drugs, beating friends and demeaning his wife https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/rob-ford-one-wild-night-in-march/article_7167c4f4-2a92-5444-b0d1-54d16a6a3f5b.html
#10yrsago Aussie politician calls rival a “c*nt” in Parliament, gets away with it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TsNL3uBw1g
#10yrsago Mozilla CAN change the industry: by adding DRM, they change it for the worse https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/mozilla-and-drm
#10yrsago De-obfuscating Big Cable’s numbers: investment flat since 2000 https://www.techdirt.com/2014/05/14/cable-industrys-own-numbers-show-general-decline-investment-over-past-seven-years/
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2024-05-15 20:54:03

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#15yrsago Charlie Stross on the future of gaming http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/05/login_2009_keynote_gaming_in_t.html
#15yrsago UK chiropractors try to silence critic with libel claim https://gormano.blogspot.com/2009/05/two-things.html
#15yrsago Sony Pictures CEO: “Nothing good from the Internet, period.” https://wwd.com/feature/memo-pad-uniqlo-nabs-deyn-bad-internet-classic-martha-2136751-1496073/
#10yrsago FCC brings down the gavel on Net Neutrality https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/prepare-take-action-defend-net-neutrality-heres-how-fcc-makes-its-rules
#10yrsago IETF declares war on surveillance https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7258.txt
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2024-05-15 20:53:50

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#20yrsago Mayor dispatches cops to bust blogger-critic https://web.archive.org/web/20040605152433/https://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2004/05/a_french_blogge.html
#20yrsago England’s love affair with the utility bill https://web.archive.org/web/20040706124142/https://cede.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_cede_archive.html#108455091554008455
#20yrsago RIAA’s funny bookkeeping turns gains into losses https://web.archive.org/web/20040607052730/http://www.kensei-news.com/bizdev/publish/factoids_us/article_23374.shtml
#20yrsago Read this and understand the P2P wars https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=532882
#15yrsago Sarah Palin’s legal team doesn’t understand DNS https://www.huffpost.com/entry/crackhocom-sarah-palins-n_n_202417
#15yrsago Was 1971 the best year to be born a geek? https://www.raphkoster.com/2009/05/14/the-perfect-geek-age/
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2024-05-15 20:53:22

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Hey look at this
* Sam Bankman-Fried Is Not Entirely Wrong https://prospect.org/health/2024-05-13-sam-bankman-fried-not-wrong-steward-health-bankruptcy/
* My Mother’s Letters Should Belong to Me — Not a Company That Works With Prisons https://truthout.org/articles/my-mothers-letters-should-belong-to-me-not-a-company-that-works-with-prisons/
* Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead" https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/05/big-tech-eu-drop-dead
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2024-05-15 20:52:54

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Even if you think AI search could be good, it won't be good: It's just too goddamned easy to cheat.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/112447022069996461
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2024-05-15 20:52:19

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TONIGHT (May 15), I'm in North Hollywood for a screening of Stephanie Kelton's *Finding the Money*:
https://www.laemmle.com/film/finding-money?date=2024-05-15
Friday (May 17), I'm in San Francisco at the @npub1umd…wfr7 to keynote the tenth anniversary of the @npub17kr…p88t:
https://www.authorsalliance.org/2024/03/15/authors-alliance-10th-anniversary-event-authorship-in-an-age-of-monopoly-and-moral-panics/
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2024-05-15 20:51:35

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Even if you think AI search could be good, it won't be good; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/15/they-trust-me-dumb-fucks/
#Pluralistic
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2024-05-15 20:40:39

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This is true of any algorithmic feed: while such feeds are important - even vital - for making sense of huge amounts of information, they can also be used to play a high-speed shell-game that makes suckers out of the rest of us:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/11/for-you/#the-algorithm-tm
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2024-05-15 20:40:25

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If Google can make things worse for searchers without losing their business, it can make more money for itself. Without the discipline of markets, regulators, tech or workers, it has no impediment to transferring value from searchers and publishers to itself.
Which brings me back to AI search. When Google substitutes its own summaries for links to pages, it creates innumerable opportunities to charge publishers for preferential placement in those summaries.
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2024-05-15 20:40:18

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Google is fearless. It doesn't fear losing your business, or being punished by regulators, or being mired in guerrilla warfare with rival engineers. It certainly doesn't fear its workers.
Making search worse is good for Google. Reducing search quality increases the number of queries, and thus ads, that each user must make to find their answers:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan
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2024-05-15 20:40:09

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Google doesn't fear competition, it doesn't fear regulation, it doesn't fear rival technology and it doesn't fear its workers. Google's workforce once enjoyed enormous sway over the company's direction, thanks to their scarcity and market power. But Google has outgrown its dependence on its workers, and lays them off in vast numbers, even as it increases its profits and pisses away tens of billions on stock buybacks:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification
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2024-05-15 20:40:01

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Google doesn't fear competition, it doesn't fear regulation, and it also doesn't fear rival technologies. Google and its fellow Big Tech cartel members have expanded IP law to allow it to prevent third parties from reverse-engineer, hacking, or scraping its services. Google doesn't have to worry about ad-blocking, tracker blocking, or scrapers that filter out Google's lucrative, low-quality results:
https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/
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2024-05-15 20:39:53

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In Europe, Google's vast profits lets it fly an Irish flag of convenience, thus taking advantage of Ireland's tolerance for tax evasion *and* violations of European privacy law:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town
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2024-05-15 20:39:39

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This is why Google doesn't have to worry about privacy laws. They've successfully prevented the passage of a US federal consumer privacy law. The last time the US passed a federal consumer privacy law was in 1988. It's a law that bans video store clerks from telling the newspapers which VHS cassettes you rented:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act
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2024-05-15 20:39:29

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Then the surveillance business consolidated into a small number of firms. Two companies dominate the commercial surveillance industry: Google and Meta, and they collude to rig the market:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue
That consolidation inevitably leads to regulatory capture: shorn of competitive pressure, the companies that dominate the sector can converge on a single message to policymakers and use their monopoly profits to turn that message into policy:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/
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2024-05-15 20:39:19

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Spending tens of billions of dollars every year to make sure no one ever encounters a non-Google search is a cheaper way to retain your business than making sure Google is the very best search engine:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task
Competition was once a threat to Google; for years, its mantra was "competition is a click away." Today, competition is all but nonexistent.
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2024-05-15 20:39:10

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What changed wasn't the character of the leaders of these businesses, nor their capacity to cheat us. What changed was the *consequences* for cheating. When the tech companies merged to monopoly, they ceased to fear losing your business to a competitor.
Google's 90% search market share was attained by bribing everyone who operates a service or platform where you might encounter a search box to connect that box to Google.
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2024-05-15 20:38:59

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These companies always had the *capacity* to siphon value away from business customers (like publishers) and end-users (like searchers). That comes with the territory: digital businesses can alter their "business logic" from instant to instant, and for each user, allowing them to change payouts, prices and ranking. I call this "twiddling": turning the knobs on the system's back-end to make sure the house always wins:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/
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2024-05-15 20:38:50

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Remember: enshittification isn't the result of worse people running tech companies today than in the years when tech services were good and useful. Rather, enshittification is rooted in the collapse of *constraints* that used to prevent those same people from making their services worse in service to increasing their profit margins:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/26/glitchbread/#electronic-shelf-tags
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2024-05-15 20:38:42

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AI search is *still* a bad idea. Because beyond all the *obvious* reasons that AI search is a terrible idea, there's a *subtle* - and incurable - defect in this plan: AI search - even excellent AI search - makes it far too easy for Google to cheat us, and Google can't stop cheating us.
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2024-05-15 20:38:26

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But let's take Google at its word. Let's stipulate that:
a) It can't fix search, only add a slop-filtering AI layer on top of it; and
b) The rest of the world will continue to let Google index its pages even if they derive no benefit from doing so; and
c) Google will shortly fix its AI, and all the lies about AI capabilities will be revealed to be premature truths that are finally realized.
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2024-05-15 20:38:17

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Sometimes, the AI robot dancing on stage turns out to literally be just a person in a robot suit pretending to be a robot:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain
The AI video demos that represent "an existential threat to Hollywood filmmaking" turn out to be so cumbersome as to be practically useless (and vastly inferior to existing production techniques):
https://www.wheresyoured.at/expectations-versus-reality/
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2024-05-15 20:38:06

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The promises of AI are grossly oversold, including the promises Google makes, like its claim that its AI had discovered millions of useful new materials. In reality, the number of useful new materials Deepmind had discovered was *zero*:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs
This is true of *all* of AI's most impressive demos. Often, "AI" turns out to be low-waged human workers in a distant call-center pretending to be robots:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/31/neural-interface-beta-tester/#tailfins
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2024-05-15 20:37:56

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Nevermind how *unfair* that is, think about how *implausible* it is: if this is the way Google will work in the future, why wouldn't every publisher just *block Google's crawler*?
A third obvious objection: AI is bad. Not morally bad (though maybe morally bad, too!), but *technically* bad. It "hallucinates" nonsense answers, including dangerous nonsense. It's a supremely confident liar that can get you killed:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/01/mushroom-pickers-urged-to-avoid-foraging-books-on-amazon-that-appear-to-be-written-by-ai
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2024-05-15 20:37:45

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Another obvious objection: why would anyone write the web if the only purpose for doing so is to feed a bot that will summarize what you've written without sending anyone to your webpage? Whether you're a commercial publisher hoping to make money from advertising or subscriptions, or - like me - an open access publisher hoping to change people's minds, why would you invite Google to summarize your work without ever showing it to internet users?
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2024-05-15 20:37:32

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Now, there are plenty of obvious objections to this plan. For starters, why wouldn't Google just make its search results better? Rather than building a LLM for the sole purpose of sorting through the garbage Google is either paid or tricked into serving up, why not just stop serving up garbage? We know that's possible, because other search engines serve *really good* results by paying for access to Google's back-end and then filtering the results:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi
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2024-05-15 20:37:22

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AI-powered search promises to fix this, not by making Google search results better, but by having a bot sort through the search results and discard the nonsense that Google will continue to serve up, and summarize the high quality results.
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2024-05-15 20:37:12

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Googling used to be easy: type in a query, get back a screen of highly relevant results. Today, clicking the top links will take you to sites that paid for placement at the top of the screen (rather than the sites that best match your query). Clicking further down will get you scams, AI slop, or bulk-produced SEO nonsense.
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2024-05-15 20:37:01

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Google bills this as "let Google do the googling for you." Rather than searching the web yourself, you'll delegate this task to Google. Hidden in this pitch is a tacit admission that Google is no longer a convenient or reliable way to retrieve information, drowning as it is in AI-generated spam, poorly labeled ads, and SEO garbage:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/03/keyword-swarming/#site-reputation-abuse
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2024-05-15 20:36:30

The big news in search this week is that Google is continuing its transition to "AI search" - instead of typing in search terms and getting links to websites, you'll ask Google a question and an AI will compose an answer based on things it finds on the web:
https://blog.google/products/search/generative-ai-google-search-may-2024/
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/15/they-trust-me-dumb-fucks/#ai-search
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2024-05-13 19:13:10

When it comes to AI art (or "art"), it's hard to find a nuanced position that respects creative workers' labor rights, free expression, copyright law's vital exceptions and limitations, and aesthetics.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand
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2024-05-09 09:01:29

Fun fact: "The Tragedy Of the Commons" is a hoax created by the white nationalist Garrett Hardin to justify stealing land from colonized people and moving it from collective ownership, "rescuing" it from the inevitable tragedy by putting it in the hands of a private owner, who will care for it properly, thanks to "rational self-interest":
https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions
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2024-05-05 22:31:58

If you listen to F1 on your phone cranked to max in public places (e.g. airports) you are a fucking war criminal and you are going to Hell for ten billion years when you die.

2024-05-04 22:53:32

Cyberpunk trifecta
https://static.mamot.fr/media_attachments/files/112/385/271/388/901/610/original/78c86135c009c632.jpg
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2024-05-03 09:41:26

Even Google admits - grudgingly - that it is losing the spam wars. The explosive proliferation of botshit has supercharged the sleazy "search engine optimization" business, such that results to common queries are 50% Google ads to spam sites, and 50% links to spam sites that tricked Google into a high rank (without paying for an ad):
https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies#site-reputation
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2024-04-30 17:08:40

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Live Nation/Ticketmaster is buying Congress; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/30/nix-fix-the-tix/
#Pluralistic
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2024-04-27 13:52:32

One of my weirder and more rewarding hobbies is collecting definitions of "conservativism," and one of the jewels of that collection comes from Corey Robin's must-read book *The Reactionary Mind*:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reactionary_Mind
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/27/for-the-little-people/#alden-capital
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2024-04-25 13:15:40

This is huge: yesterday, the FTC finalized a rule banning noncompete agreements for every American worker. That means that the person working the register at a Wendy's can switch to the fry-trap at McD's for an extra $0.25/hour, without their boss suing them:
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-announces-rule-banning-noncompetes
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/capri-v-tapestry/#aiming-at-dollars-not-men
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2024-04-24 18:58:26

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: The specific process by which Google enshittified its search; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/
#Pluralistic
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2024-04-23 07:16:15

If AI has a future (a big if), it will have to be economically viable. An industry can't spend 1,700% more on Nvidia chips than it earns indefinitely - not even with Nvidia being a principle investor in its largest customers:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39883571
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs
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2024-04-22 07:20:12

Anyone who says "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product" has been suckered in by Big Tech, whose cargo-cult version of markets and the discipline they impose on companies.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/22/kargo-kult-kaptialism/#dont-buy-it
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2024-04-21 12:33:45

ceci n'est pas une bannière
#StreetFurniture #Recursion #Torino
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2024-04-21 07:20:21

Cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion
#beer #serbian #cyberpunk
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2024-04-20 07:05:45

Today in "Capitalists Hate Capitalism" news: *The Appeal* has published the first-ever survey of national prison commissary prices, revealing just how badly the prison profiteer system gouges American's all-time, world-record-beating prison population:
https://theappeal.org/locked-in-priced-out-how-much-prison-commissary-prices/
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/20/captive-market/#locked-in
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2024-04-19 10:33:17

Combine Angelou's "When someone shows you who they are, believe them" with the truism that in politics, "every accusation is a confession" and you get: "Every time someone accuses you of a vice, they're showing you who they are and you should believe them."
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/19/make-them-afraid/#fear-is-their-mind-killer
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2024-04-18 16:41:25

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You are not disagreeing; rather, you're commenting without following the link, whereupon you would have discovered that this is in no way incompatible with the thesis.
https://static.mamot.fr/media_attachments/files/112/293/214/361/661/542/original/0fe48593cd4b6e95.png

2024-04-17 14:13:09

> I find my feelings about #AI are actually pretty similar to my feelings about #blockchains: they do a poor job of much of what people try to do with them, they can't do the things their creators claim they one day might, and many of the things they are well suited to do may not be altogether that beneficial. And while I do think that AI tools are more broadly useful than blockchains, they also come with similarly monstrous costs.
- [@molly0xfff](https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff)
https://www.citationneeded.news/ai-isnt-useless-2/

2024-04-15 13:20:18

Corporate crime is notoriously underpoliced and underprosecuted. Mostly, that's because we just choose not to do anything about it. American corporations commit crimes at 20X the rate of real humans, and their crimes are far worse than any crime committed by a human, but they are almost never prosecuted:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/12/no-criminals-no-crimes/#get-out-of-jail-free-card
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2024-04-01 14:44:24

Here's a fun AI story: a security researcher noticed that large companies' AI-authored source-code repeatedly referenced a nonexistent library (an AI "hallucination"), so he created a (defanged) malicious library with that name and uploaded it, and thousands of developers automatically downloaded and incorporated it as they compiled the code:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/ai_bots_hallucinate_software_packages/
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2024-03-26 14:24:26

"Enshittification" isn't just a way of describing the *symptoms* of platform decay: it's also a theory of the *mechanism* of decay - the means by which platforms get shittier and shittier until they are a giant pile of shit.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/26/glitchbread/#electronic-shelf-tags
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