Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Code is a liability (not an asset); and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/06/1000x-liability/
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@pluralistic I've spent nearly all of my career as a software engineer saying, verbatim, "code is a liability" - makes me wonder from whom I stole the phrase. Articles capturing the nuance of a specialist field for more general audiences are quite rare, but this time I get to be the one who says it's legit.
If the investors get bailed out by having Donald Trump print money into their pockets, how well can the house of cards be propped up?
And doesn’t even matter I’m trying to work this out myself because the scenario I see the current administration will use the spending power of the United States to simply make the investors whole.
All of that money will be furnished to the wealthiest people with no economic activity associated with it
Thank you. Thank you.
I keep trying to find ways of putting this into words myself, but your assets vs liabilities distinction captures it far better than I was able to:
I'm coming to Colorado! Catch me in #Denver on Jan 22 at The Tattered Cover:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-live-at-tattered-cover-colfax-tickets-1976644174937
And in #ColoradoSprings from Jan 23-25, where I'm the Guest of Honor at COSine:
https://www.firstfridayfandom.org/cosine/
Then I'll be in #Ottawa on Jan 28 at Perfect Books:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DS2nGiHiNUh/
And in #Toronto with Tim Wu on Jan 30:
https://nowtoronto.com/event/cory-doctorow-and-tim-wu-enshittification-and-extraction/
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Ticket purchased!
Mastodon meetup at #TatteredCover!
Code is a liability (not an asset): AI psychosis, tech boss edition.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115848569226300580
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Please don't get me started on Claude hallucinations generating academic integrity referrals for my freshmen!
Hey look at this
* The State of Anti-Surveillance Design https://www.404media.co/the-state-of-anti-surveillance-design/
* Ancient Everyday Weirdness https://bruces.medium.com/ancient-everyday-weirdness-591955f40a2d
* Norman Podhoretz, 1930-2025 https://coreyrobin.com/2025/12/18/norman-podhoretz-1930-2025/
* A Cultural Disease: Enshittificationitis https://aboutsomething.substack.com/p/a-cultural-disease-enshittificationitis?triedRedirect=true
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#20yrsago Coldplay CD DRM — more information https://memex.craphound.com/2006/01/05/coldplay-cd-drm-more-information/
#20yrsago Sony sued for spyware and rootkits in Canada https://web.archive.org/web/20060103051129/http://sonysuit.com/
#20yrsago What if pizzas came with licenses like the ones in DRM CDs? https://web.archive.org/web/20110108164548/http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060104161112858
#10yrsago Star Wars Wars: the first six movies, overlaid https://starwarswars.com/
#10yrsago Transvaginal foetal sonic bombardment: woo-tunes for your hoo-hah https://babypod.net/en/
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#10yrsago Of Oz the Wizard: all the dialog in alphabetical order https://vimeo.com/150423718?fl=pl&fe=vl
#5yrsago Pavilions replacing union workers with "gig workers" https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/05/manorialism-feudalism-cycle/#prop22
#5yrsago South Carolina GOP moots modest improvements to "magistrate judges" https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/05/manorialism-feudalism-cycle/#karolina-klown-kar
#5yrsago Digital manorialism vs neofeudalism https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/05/manorialism-feudalism-cycle/#to-the-manor
#5yrsago My Fellow Americans https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/05/manorialism-feudalism-cycle/#my-fellow-americans
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Of Oz the Wizard
Vimeo
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Yesterday's threads: A world without people; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115843161515296872
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My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels
--
My latest nonfiction book is the internationally bestselling "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/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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