So I read @pluralistic’s book and signed up for this #fediverse thing. Now I need to follow some people, and ideally post some stuff worth following.
I’m gonna post my early journey into the Fediverse, and share my thoughts along the way. Wish me luck!
564 words on “Once Is Enemy Action,” a science fiction novel about the origins of modern technofascism. (6039 words total) #dailywords
@pluralistic
And yet these days I can't paste styled text between a desktop Word document and an Office 365 document - two formats controlled by Microsoft - and have the formatting match 😠
I'm also on Bluesky. Read today's thread there at:
https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net/post/3mt246rywos2c
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You can follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!
Here's today's edition: https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/14/one-chokable-throat/
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Recent appearances:
* Who The Machine Serves (EFF)
https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-who-the-machine-serves
* Speculative Fiction for Social Change II (Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff)
https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/cool-people-who-did-cool-stuff/08cbb840-a6ae-013a-d8aa-0acc26574db2/part-two-cory-doctorow-on-speculative-fiction-for-social-change/937e8800-9404-45a6-b5e3-90ebee2cfaea
* Speculative Fiction for Social Change I (Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff)
https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/cool-people-who-did-cool-stuff/08cbb840-a6ae-013a-d8aa-0acc26574db2/part-one-cory-doctorow-on-speculative-fiction-for-social-change/15ad467c-0832-44c9-91ea-59defd783dba
* AI, automation and enshittification (Telecoms.com)
https://www.telecoms.com/ai/the-telecoms-com-podcast-ai-automation-and-enshittification
* The AI Enshittification Bubble (Hidden Forces)
https://hiddenforces.io/podcasts/the-ai-enshittification-bubble-cory-doctorow/
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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8
https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/
* #London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9
https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn
* #SouthBend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/
* #Vancouver: BC Policy Solutions Gala, Nov 12
https://bcpolicy.ca/gala/
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Upcoming appearances:
* #Edinburgh International Book Festival (solo), Aug 16
https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/cory-doctorow-enshittification
* #Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales
* #Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24
https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/program/
* #Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25
https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification
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My ebooks and audiobooks (from FSGxMCD, Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."
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My latest nonfiction book is the internationally bestselling"The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI," from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/
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My previous nonfiction book is the internationally bestselling "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It":
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
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#5yrsago Provocateur copyrights a Magic: The Gathering Deck https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/14/angels-and-demons/#owning-culture
#5yrsago Disneyland at a stroll https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/15/disneyland-at-a-stroll-part-vi/
#1yrago Bluesky creates the world's weirdest, hardest-to-understand binding arbitration clause https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/15/dogs-breakfast/#by-clicking-this-you-agree-on-behalf-of-your-employer-to-release-me-from-all-obligations-and-waivers-arising-from-any-and-all-NON-NEGOTIATED-agreements
#1yrago "Privacy preserving age verification" is bullshit https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-think-of-the-cryptographers
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#10yrsago Private prison contractor’s $1B no-bid deal to run immigration jails guarantees 100% occupancy payouts https://web.archive.org/web/20160815022103/https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/inside-the-administrations-1-billion-deal-to-detain-central-american-asylum-seekers/2016/08/14/e47f1960-5819-11e6-9aee-8075993d73a2_story.html
#10yrsago Court of Appeal reverses Labour disenfranchisement ruling, but Corbyn still likely to win https://web.archive.org/web/20160813134816/http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/08/high-courts-judgement-wont-stop-jeremy-corbyn-winning
#10yrsago John Oliver on subprime auto-lending and its killswitches https://web.archive.org/web/20160816154135/https://consumerist.com/2016/08/15/john-oliver-keegan-michael-key-explain-why-subprime-car-loans-are-so-awful/
#10yrsago Worst of McMansions: architectural criticism of inequality’s most tangible evidence https://web.archive.org/web/20160814031109/http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/
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#15yrsago Tiki Room resurgent https://passport2dreams.blogspot.com/2011/08/every-cloud-has-silver-lining.html
#10yrsago After New Zealand spooks misidentified pro-democracy activist, NSA spied on him for them https://web.archive.org/web/20160815040057/https://theintercept.com/2016/08/14/nsa-gcsb-prism-surveillance-fullman-fiji/
#10yrsago Even the woo industry thinks Gwyneth Paltrow’s “smoothie dust” ads are too much https://web.archive.org/web/20160811225548/https://consumerist.com/2016/08/09/ad-and-supplement-self-regulation-groups-have-issues-with-gwyneth-paltrows-smoothie-dusts/
#10yrsago It’s pretty easy to hack traffic lights https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/woot14/woot14-ghena.pdf
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#15yrsago RIP Paul Meier, father of the randomized trial https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/health/13meier.html?_r=1
#15yrsago Long Beach Police Chief: we detain photographers, and I don’t have any guidelines for that policy, photography is classed with attempts to acquire weaponized smallpox https://web.archive.org/web/20110927230257/http://www.lbpost.com/life/greggory/12188
#15yrsago David Cameron’s net-censorship proposal earns kudos from Chinese state media https://web.archive.org/web/20110815220203/https://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/670718/Riots-lead-to-rethink-of-Internet-freedom.aspx
#15yrsago Empirical manners: a science of harmonious norms https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/08/rewilding-etiquette.html
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#25yrsago Berkeley Breathed: the Onion interview https://web.archive.org/web/20011201062719/http://www.theonionavclub.com/avclub3728/avfeature_3728.html
#25yrsago Chinese going mobile crazy http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1492584.stm
#25yrsago Free wifi in NYC https://web.archive.org/web/20011024070700/http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0133/meyers.php
#20yrsago RIAA’s “abundance of sensitivity” ends harassment of grieving family https://memex.craphound.com/2006/08/14/london-copyfighters-speak-at-speakers-corner-on-aug-27/
#20yrsago London Copyfighters: Speak at Speaker’s Corner on Aug 27! https://memex.craphound.com/2006/08/14/london-copyfighters-speak-at-speakers-corner-on-aug-27/
#20yrsago TSA wins the war on lipstick https://memex.craphound.com/2006/08/14/tsa-wins-the-war-on-lipstick/
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Hey look at this
* The Enshittification of Big Food https://thefuturemarket.com/p/the-enshittification-of-big-food?hide_intro_popup=true
* Reverse centaurs: EU approach to AI risks dystopia for human workers https://euobserver.com/231973/reverse-centaurs-eu-approach-to-ai-risks-dystopia-for-human-workers/?cst=b33df4396260b48a181be764dc7978cb6c184b6818f8113ee298c52af8038cda
* Executable Emoji https://martypc.blogspot.com/2026/08/executable-emoji.html
* A Rant About “Technology” https://www.ursulakleguin.com/a-rant-about-technology
* Hardin’s imagined tragedy is pig shit: A call for planning to recenter the commons https://sci.bban.top/pdf/10.1177/1473095218820460.pdf
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Capital formation: Going legit means going mainstream.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/117093567366372421
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Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Capital formation; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/14/one-chokable-throat/
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Don't get me wrong, I love my hackers and I sit in awe of the awesome leverage of writing code that can be costlessly, instantaneously distributed to everyone who needs it. But so long as governments and the law are on the side of extraction and enshittification, the disenshittificatory insurgency will be starved of resources, condemned to remain marginal and inadequate.
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