Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Social media without socializing; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/19/billionaire-solipsism/
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Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Social media without socializing; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/19/billionaire-solipsism/
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Brought back to mind "lather, rinse, repeat":
https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start
We should be worried about platforms engineering AI interaction to displace human connection for profit. There are other use cases, though.
I use AI as a patient (if fallible) thinking partner. I work through technical architecture problems, practice German grammar, debug encoding workflows at 2 AM, develop story narratives. This replaces the internal monologue I'd have while working alone, supplemented with better pattern recognition. (And if I bugged my friends at 2 AM about encoding workflows, they'd probably stop being my friends and go back to getting sleep.)
Doctorow's right that if AI interaction feels social enough to satisfy surface connection needs while lacking deeper reciprocity, people might not notice they're isolated. The danger is the intersection of platform incentives to maximize engagement, users unaware of what they're trading away, and vulnerable people seeking risk and responsibility free companionship.
Real connection has risks. AI won't betray you, won't radicalize into someone you don't recognize, won't leave when you reveal uncomfortable truths. Sounds appealing—until you realize that safety means never processing hurt, never developing resilience, never learning to navigate being truly known by someone who can reject you. You're protected from the experiences that build emotional maturity. The cycle of hurt, reflection, and trying again with better judgment—that's where growth happens. AI short-circuits it entirely.
Adults decide where to put their cognitive and social energy. Selling "friendship"—commitment-free friends requiring no attention, no adjustment, no reciprocal effort—is dangerous. Real friendships require showing up, tracking what matters to others, navigating conflicts, tolerating their needs when inconvenient. AI removes that entirely while providing something that feels social enough to quiet the loneliness signal. That's seductive in the worst way.
The question isn't whether AI tools have legitimate uses, but whether platforms are deliberately obscuring the difference between tool and relationship—and whether users can maintain that distinction when the platform is designed to blur it and relief from responsibility feels so appealing.
I'm coming to Colorado! Catch me in #Denver on Thu (Jan 22) at The Tattered Cover:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-live-at-tattered-cover-colfax-tickets-1976644174937
And in #ColoradoSprings next weekend (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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Social media without socializing: For Zuck, your friends are a problem to be solved.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115922405828791547
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Hey look at this
* Congress Wants To Hand Your Parenting to Big Tech https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/congress-wants-hand-your-parenting-big-tech
* AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur
* Critical Perspectives on "AI" in Education https://sites.google.com/csusb.edu/criticalperspectives/home
* Public-private predicaments https://www.not-so-obvious.net/public-private-predicaments/
* The Jolla Phone Proved We’ve Been Using Smartphones Wrong All Along https://techglimmer.io/jolla-phone-2026-review-kill-switch-privacy-review/#Jolla (h/t Hacker News)
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#20yrsago Nutjob offers $100 bounty to UCLA students who wiretap lefty profs https://news.slashdot.org/story/06/01/21/1948206/ucla-students-urged-to-expose-radical-professors
#20yrsago Mysterious birthday ritual at Poe’s graveside disrupted by rubberneckers https://web.archive.org/web/20060212041742/https://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/19/poe.mystery.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest
#20yrsago DRM primer for librarians https://web.archive.org/web/20060115061831/https://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/copyrightb/digitalrights/DRMfinal.pdf
#20yrsago Hollywood’s MP caught lying on tape https://web.archive.org/web/20061010121359/http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1080
#20yrsago Musician playing at Hollywood’s MP fundraiser owes success to copying https://web.archive.org/web/20080704112401/http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/1/19/1714267.html
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#15yrsago Book made using 4 daisy-chained printers spanning 100 years’ worth of technology https://web.archive.org/web/20110111054908/https://www.xavierantin.fr/archive/Just-In-Time/
#15yrsago Assemblage octopus for sale https://web.archive.org/web/20110124175436/http://jemayer.tumblr.com/post/2802328671
#15yrsago Among Others: extraordinary, magic story of science fiction as a toolkit for taking apart the world https://memex.craphound.com/2011/01/18/among-others-extraordinary-magic-story-of-science-fiction-as-a-toolkit-for-taking-apart-the-world/
#10yrsago Reminder: Don’t put balls of tea leaves in your vagina https://www.the-independent.com/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/women-putting-herb-balls-in-vagina-to-detox-their-wombs-have-been-warned-of-dangers-a6814671.html
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#10yrsago Martin Luther King, socialist: “capitalism has outlived its usefulness” https://theintercept.com/2016/01/18/martin-luther-king-jr-celebrations-overlook-his-critiques-of-capitalism-and-militarism/
#10yrsago Debullshitifying the “sleep science” industry: first up, sleeplessness and obesity https://web.archive.org/web/20160120210128/http://askforevidence.org/articles/obesity-linked-to-not-getting-enough-sleep
#10yrsago England’s most senior civil judge rules that Terrorism Act violates human rights https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/terrorism-act-incompatible-with-human-rights-court-rules-in-david-miranda-case
#10yrsago Delhi’s “Sleep Mafia” control the nights of 100,000 homeless workers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXzElV75x08
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#10yrsago Replica weapons made from thousands of cut and stacked post-its https://web.archive.org/web/20160109080110/http://ercolimarco.me/post-it-sculpture/
#10yrsago How the standard, high-quality disaster-relief tarpaulin came to be https://www.wired.com/2016/01/tarpaulin/
#10yrsago GM’s Dieselgate: mechanics privately admit software update removes crimeware from Opel cars https://web.archive.org/web/20160121055745/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/16ff471e-bdfd-11e5-846f-79b0e3d20eaf.html
#10yrsago Griefer hacks baby monitor, terrifies toddler with spooky voices https://memex.craphound.com/2016/01/19/griefer-hacks-baby-monitor-terrifies-toddler-with-spooky-voices/
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#10yrsago Spanish-language broadcasting titan Univision buys controlling interest in The Onion https://www.univision.com/noticias/univision-makes-investment-in-the-onion
#10yrsago How the National Reconnaissance Office came to choose a sinister, planet-devouring octopus for a logo https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2016/jan/19/octopus-NRO/
#5yrsago Amazon warehouse union gets tech solidarity https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/19/deastroturfing/#real-power
#5yrsago Facebook's community standards https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/18/peak-indifference/#community-standards
#5yrsago Honor MLK day with the Internet Archive https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/18/peak-indifference/#mlk
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#5yrsago Planet Money's free Great Gatsby audiobook https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/18/peak-indifference/#gatsby
#5yrsago Pandemics and peak indifference https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/18/peak-indifference/#peak-indifference
#5yrsago How to leak a Zoom meeting https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/18/peak-indifference/#watermarks
#1yrago Billionaire-proofing the internet https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/14/contesting-popularity/#everybody-samba
#1yrago Canada shouldn't retaliate with US tariffs https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/#its-the-only-war-the-yankees-lost-except-for-vietnam-and-also-the-alamo-and-the-bay-of-ham
#1yrago Fu-Schnickens https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/17/holy-batfu-its-an-apple/#ba-schnicker-bah-snchnucker
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Saturday's threads: The world needs an Ireland for disenshittification; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115911169616951164
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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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Upcoming appearances:
* #Denver: Enshittification at Tattered Cover Colfax, Jan 22
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-live-at-tattered-cover-colfax-tickets-1976644174937
* #ColoradoSprings: Guest of Honor at COSine, Jan 23-25
https://www.firstfridayfandom.org/cosine/
* #Ottawa: Enshittification at Perfect Books, Jan 28
https://www.instagram.com/p/DS2nGiHiNUh/
* #Toronto: Enshittification and the Age of Extraction with Tim Wu, Jan 30
https://nowtoronto.com/event/cory-doctorow-and-tim-wu-enshittification-and-extraction/
* #Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5
https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/
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