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1. Embed this notice
   Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Thursday, 27-Feb-2025 08:38:00 JST Cory Doctorow

   Today's threads (a thread)

   Inside: With Great Power Came No Responsibility; and more!

   Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/26/ursula-franklin/

   #Pluralistic

   1/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Thursday, 27-Feb-2025 08:37:56 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     Hey look at this

     * Hubert Horan: Can Uber Ever Deliver? Part Thirty-Five: What Drove Uber’s Recent $8 Billion P&L Improvement? https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-thirty-five-what-drove-ubers-recent-8-billion-pl-improvement.html

     * Ron Wyden asks for rules about whether you own your digital purchases https://www.theverge.com/news/618614/senator-ron-wyden-ftc-andrew-ferguson-digital-goods-ownership

     * Framework wants to fix the budget laptop with its first touchscreen machine https://www.theverge.com/news/618784/framework-laptop-12-touchscreen-convertible-announcement-release-date

     4/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Thursday, 27-Feb-2025 08:37:56 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     #20yrsago Science fiction can make you a better Unitarian https://www.uuworld.org/articles/spiritual-science-fiction

     #20yrsago Why Wikipedia works, and how the Britannica bully got it wrong https://web.archive.org/web/20050301003539/http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/issue_02/fud_based_encyclopedia/

     #10yrsago Nerdcore Net Neutrality rap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlBj4rrBbCc

     #10yrsago Emma Thompson on tax-strike until HSBC tax evaders are jailed https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/25/emma-thompson-greg-wise-tax-boycott-hsbc-scandal

     #10yrsago Companies should never try to intercept their users’ encrypted traffic https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/dear-software-vendors-please-stop-trying-intercept-your-customers-encrypted

     5/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Thursday, 27-Feb-2025 08:37:58 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     With Great Power Came No Responsibility: My Ursula Franklin Lecture on enshittification in the Trump age.

     https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/114069865570320148

     3/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Thursday, 27-Feb-2025 08:37:59 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*.

     Catch me in NYC TONIGHT (Feb 26) with JOHN HODGMAN:

     https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-john-hodgman-picks-and-shovels-tickets-1131132841779

     And at PENN STATE TOMORROW (Feb 27):

     https://www.bellisario.psu.edu/assets/uploads/CoryDoctorow-Poster.pdf

     More tour dates here:

     http://martinhench.com

     Mail-order signed copies from LA's Diesel Books:

     https://www.dieselbookstore.com/picks-and-shovels-martin-hench-novel-martin-hench-novels

     2/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Thursday, 27-Feb-2025 08:38:28 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     #10yrsago World War 3 Illustrated: prescient outrage from the dawn of the Piketty apocalypse https://memex.craphound.com/2015/02/26/world-war-3-illustrated-prescient-outrage-from-the-dawn-of-the-piketty-apocalypse/

     #10yrsago VA boss caught lying about serving in the Special Forces https://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/robert-mcdonald-veterans-affairs-lie-special-forces-115446

     #5yrsago McMansion Hell visits 1971 https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/26/pluralistic-your-daily-link-dose-26-feb-2020/#morriscounty

     #5yrsago The Smithsonian publishes 2.8m hi-rez images into the public domain https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/26/pluralistic-your-daily-link-dose-26-feb-2020/#openaccess

     6/

   • Embed this notice
     George B (gbargoud@masto.nyc)'s status on Saturday, 01-Mar-2025 17:02:15 JST George B

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross

     @pluralistic @cstross

     > My colleague Charlie Stross calls corporations "slow AI.”

     I read that slow AI article many years ago and have looked for it ever since (forgetting who the author was) and it's been absolutely impossible to search for the word "corporation" and "AI" together and get anything useful since 2023 or so.

   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br)'s status on Saturday, 01-Mar-2025 17:02:15 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • George B
     oh, seeing how doctorow and schneier both quoted stross about this recently, I assumed he'd come up with it before me, but... it looks like I may have, erhm, priority? 🙂
     https://www.fsfla.org/~lxoliva/#singular>
     
     five minutes into the 2016 LibrePlanet speech, I stated that I had realized the year before that the notion of corporations had already materialized the singularity that we so often feared. indeed, that was the realization around which I built that entire speech 😉
     
     in 2019 I came across another writer who had also figured that out, publishing it at just about the same time as stross
     https://patternsofmeaning.com/2017/11/30/ai-has-already-taken-over-its-called-the-corporation/
     
     it was an idea whose time had come. that's so cool!
     
     CC: @pluralistic@mamot.fr @cstross@wandering.shop
     
   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br)'s status on Sunday, 02-Mar-2025 04:46:55 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • tom jennings
     • George B
     I recall listening to a friend trash-talk corporations to me, and responding with just the kind of eye-rolling you mention. that was some 20 years ago. it took me watching The Corporation (op.cit.) and doing a lot of thinking to get to the other side. thanks for spreading this key understanding, despite the difficulties. we're up against a formidable opponent.
     
     CC: @gbargoud@masto.nyc @pluralistic@mamot.fr @cstross@wandering.shop
     
   • Embed this notice
     tom jennings (tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org)'s status on Sunday, 02-Mar-2025 04:46:56 JST tom jennings

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Alexandre Oliva
     • George B

     @lxo @gbargoud @pluralistic @cstross

     I have said out loud, posted, alas not written about, "the corporation is the worst idea humans have ever had", for ten years or more, and it's been so abundantly obvious to me... And I got eye rolls and 'oh Tom's exaggerating again'.

     I am totally fine with other more eloquent than me writing so effectively about this. I only wish corporations had been reigned in a century ago.

     Our current troubles are rooted on the Civil War, which we literally never terminated -- instead of utterly vanquishing the extremists, we let them grow and flourish.

     And now we are here.