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@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 12 hr. ago

A maddening itch between your shoulder blades feels *so good* when you scratch it, and *even better* when someone else scratches it, and better still if that person hits the right spot because they love you and they've done this for you so often and attentively, they know *exactly* which spot to hit.

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/2026/09/25/other-people/#right-there

A shirtless bald man seen from behind. He has contorted one arm between his shoulder blades to scratch an itch. The itchy area glows red, as do the abstract clouds surrounding him. Small angelic figures caper in the mist.

Image:
Orrling and Tomer S (modified)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Itch.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en — A shirtless bald man seen from behind. He has contorted one arm between his shoulder blades to scratch an itch. The itchy area glows red, as do the abstract clouds surrounding him. Small angelic figures caper in the mist. Image: Orrling and Tomer S (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Itch.jpg CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Itch scratching (25 Sep 2026)

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 12 hr. ago

One of the recurring themes in Spider Robinson's short stories and novels is people who have close relationships suddenly realizing that they have acquired a psychic link. He comes up with endless ways to play this scene out, but my favorite - I think it's from one of the later Callahan's tales - is when one person scratches another between the shoulder blades and hits the *exact* right spot the very first time and they realize that they are now psychically linked.

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 12 hr. ago

Maybe it's a primate grooming reflex, maybe it's receiving a gesture of love and care. Maybe those are the same things. Having your itch scratched for you feels *good*. Not just primates, either: cats with the flexibility to reach any part of their body with all four of their paws *and* their teeth will nevertheless purr like a badly-tuned diesel outboard when you scratch them *just right*.

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 12 hr. ago

Since the outset, the free software/open source movement has extolled the virtues of technological self-determination, which is to say, deciding how the computers and programs you use will work. This is often described as "scratching your own itch."

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 12 hr. ago

There is no question that scratching your own itch in this way is hugely and enduringly satisfying. On my laptop, I have a variety of little scripts and keybindings and bits of automation that I've built up over the years and every time I use one of these, I get a little hit of brain-reward.

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 12 hr. ago

The latest: I got tired of alt-tabbing to get to the file explorer, only to discover that I'd closed all my file explorer windows, meaning I had to mouse over to the dock and open a new one. So I bound "Windows key + E" to opening a file explorer after reading a message board post from an ex-Windows user who'd done this (apparently this is a standard Windows keybinding).

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 12 hr. ago

I've fully retrained my fingers to type Win-E rather than alt-tab when I want to get at a graphic filesystem and every time I do, I get the tiniest little pleasant jolt of pleasure. I scratched my own itch!

But even better than this are the little scripts that *other people* have thoughtfully made for me over the years.

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 12 hr. ago

The oldest of these still in daily use is *more than 20 years old*, a bash script called "boingpic" (from when I was still working on Boing Boing). When I run this, it iterates interactively through the files ending with "jpg" or "png" on my Desktop, tells me how wide they are, prompts me to resize them or hit enter to keep their size, and then rsyncs them to the directory on my server that corresponds to https://craphound.com/images/.

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 12 hr. ago

I have invoked this command *hundreds of thousands of times* and afterward, I tab back to my text editor and type something like 'img src="https://craphound.com/images/WHATEVER.jpg'.

If this strikes you as weird and inefficient, that's fine, because it does *exactly* what I need it to do, and I've memorized it through long, long use.

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