Veel verzetslieden en oorlogsslachtoffers hebben na de oorlog hun verhalen voor zich gehouden. Of ze gaven slechts summiere informatie. Dat gold ook voor de soldaten die in Indië gevochten hebben. Sommige verhalen zijn nooit verteld. De tweede generatie bleef ook na de dood van de (groot)ouders vaak nog met vragen zitten over wat er in de oorlog precies is gebeurd in hun familie. Voor velen, inmiddels ook met pensioen, was dat een reden om archieven van instanties en de eigen familie te doorzoeken om antwoorden te vinden. Het heeft de afgelopen decennia geleid tot een hausse aan boeken en documentaires over slachtoffers zowel als daders, verzetsmensen en collaborateurs. En daarmee worden elk jaar weer stukjes geschiedenis toegevoegd, vragen beantwoord en nuances en correcties aangebracht.

Uit de stapel die dit jaar verscheen licht ik een boek met de titel ‘Na de Bevrijding’, eigenlijk dus niet over de oorlog zelf maar over de jaren direct daarna. Daarmee gaat het toch ook weer wel over de oorlog. Veel van wat direct na de bevrijding gebeurde stond immers volledig in het teken van de oorlog. Hoe sterk het verlangen ook was om de oorlogsellende snel te vergeten en vooruit te kijken, er moest een zware en voor velen tragische periode verwerkt worden. ‘Na de bevrijding’, het onlangs verschenen boek van een drietal historici verbonden aan de Radboud Universiteit laat zien hoe Nederlanders hun oorlogservaringen in de jaren veertig hebben verwerkt. De auteurs hebben daarvoor een originele aanpak gekozen. De voornaamste bronnen zijn artikelen uit de toen verschenen dagbladen die een beeld geven van de dagelijkse actualiteit en de wijze waarop gewone mensen met alle tekorten en handicaps de draad van hun leven weer proberen op te pakken. Met name regionale en lokale kranten waar er ‘nauwelijks afstand is tussen de journalist en de gewone burgers’ zijn in de ogen van de auteurs een belangrijke bron voor maatschappelijke ervaringen rond de bevrijding. Ze vormen een aanvulling op individuele getuigenissen en wat er in archieven te vinden is over deze periode.

De thema’s die in het boek aan de orde komen zijn wel bekend. De rol van het militaire gezag en de Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten (BS), de afrekening met collaborateurs, de distributie van levensmiddelen, de trage wederopbouw en de woningnood komen allemaal aan de orde aan de hand van artikelen uit De Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant, De Winschoter Courant, de Helmondsche Courant, de Vrije Stemmen van Schouwen Duiveland, naast de landelijke, uit het verzet voortgekomen kranten als De Waarheid, Trouw, Het Parool en Het Vrije Volk.

Uit de pers van die dagen blijkt bijvoorbeeld dat de ‘bijltjesdag’-excessen en de verhalen over de interneringskampen voor collaborateurs die pas onlangs door Ewout Kieft uit de archieven van een Parlementaire Enquête zijn opgediept ook toen al de nodige aandacht kregen. Zo waarschuwde de Nijmeegse Courant eind 1944 al voor eigen richting: ’…dan gelden niet meer de normen van de rechtsstaat, maar van de jungle en dan is de strijd dien wij meer dan vier jaar gevoerd hebben en nog voeren tegen tyrannie en barbarij zonder zin geweest’. De Nieuwe Nederlander, een links protestants dagblad klaagt dat het moeilijk is een beeld te krijgen wat er in de interneringskampen gebeurt. ‘Wij willen weten, omdat het niet voor mag komen, dat in ons land mogelijk toestanden ontstaan, die wij, zoo wij het geweten hebben, niet geduld zouden hebben.’ Het lokale dagblad Het Kompas schrijft over kinderen van collaborateurs die in Nijmegen onder hevig protest van de moeders door de politie uit een interneringskamp werden gehaald. Pas in 1950, na de Parlementaire Enquête, wordt een van de kampcommandanten door de rechtbank in Groningen veroordeeld omdat, zo schrijft de Zierikzeesche Nieuwsbode, hij ‘op de meest ergerlijke wijze Duitse kampmethoden had overgenomen en zijn machtswellust heeft willen botvieren op zijn arrestanten.’

Een apart hoofdstuk is gewijd aan de koloniale oorlog in Indonesië. Volgens velen toen noodzakelijk. Want: ‘Indië verloren, rampspoed geboren’. De wederopbouw van het sterk verarmde Nederland is afhankelijk van het herstel van de band met Nederlands Indië. De Heldersche Courant schrijft op 2 augustus 1945: ‘De bevolking is verzwakt, het jongere geslacht ondervoed. De bodem is uitgemergeld en de veestapel verminderd. De bedrijven zijn gehavend, geplunderd en ontwricht. De koopvaardijvloot leed zware verliezen. Maar verreweg het ergste is dat onze rijke overzeese gebieden verloren gingen in de strijd’. En zo wordt het pas bevrijde Nederland voorbereid op een nieuwe oorlog met geweld van ‘onze jongens’ en misstanden die ook toen al aan het licht kwamen, zij het niet in alle kranten. De Waarheid publiceert een brief van een Nederlandse militair die in Indië dient. ‘De meeste jongens schieten iedere pemoeda, gewond of niet, meteen maar dood. Je maakt hier staaltjes mee, zo diep treurig en beschamend, dat je je afvraagt waarom de nazi’s zo weinig succes hebben gehad bij ons volk (…). Mijn grootste grief echter is dat gevangenen niet alleen geslagen, maar ook werkelijk gemarteld en gefusilleerd worden.’ Deze stemmen zullen pas veel later doordringen tot het grote publiek.

De keuze voor krantenartikelen van vlak na de bevrijding als bron voor een beeld van de toestand in die dagen is interessant, maar heeft natuurlijk, net als dagboeken en archieven een beperking. De kranten waren in die tijd nauw verbonden met politieke groeperingen en kerkelijke autoriteiten. Ze weerspiegelen hun denkbeelden en laten vooral de stemming in het land zien, meer denk ik dan wat de auteurs noemen de ‘maatschappelijke ervaringen’. ‘Geselecteerde ervaringen’ zou je misschien moeten zeggen. Dat laat onverlet dat dit boek zeker ook een waardevolle bijdrage is aan de geschiedenis over een periode waarover voorlopig nog niet het laatste woord is gezegd.

Xia van Beuningen, Charlotte Dommerholt en Lieke Speerstra. Na de bevrijding; wederopbouw, schaarste, zuivering. Uitgeverij Wbooks Zwolle, €27,95

Today's links

• In praise of vultures: They screw you because they can.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: Linus v MSFT; Argentina v MSFT; Danny Hillis on theme parks v games; Smartfilter v Distributed Boing Boing; Rental laptops filled with spyware; Torture didn't help capture bin Laden; Massively parallel Apple //e; Stephen Harper v election law; John Deere v Iowa cartoonist; Qualia.
• Upcoming appearances: Guelph, Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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In praise of vultures (permalink)

One of my bedrock beliefs is that capitalists really hate capitalism. They may name their beloved institutes after the likes of Adam Smith, but they ignore everything Smith had to say about the necessity of competition to keep markets from turning into monopolies:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/09/commissar-merck/#price-giver

The theory of capitalism holds that markets are a kind of distributed computer that aggregates trillions of decisions from billions of market participants in order to optimize production and distribution of goods and services, creating a "Pareto-optimal" world where no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off.

Whether or not you believe that this computer exists and functions as predicted, one indisputable fact about it is that it requires the freedom to choose in order to work. The point of market-as-computer is that it aggregates decisions, so it can only work if everyone is as free as possible to decide.

But that's not the world capitalists want. For capitalists, the point is to restrict other people's choices in order to maximize your own freedom. That's how we get economic doctrines like "revealed preferences": the idea that if a person says they want one thing, but does another thing, then you can tell what they really prefer by looking at the latter and disregarding the former. This is the kind of doctrine you can only fully embrace after sustaining the kind of highly specific neurological injury that is induced by taking an economics degree, an injury that makes you incapable of perceiving or reasoning about power. Under the doctrine of revealed preferences, someone who sells their kidney to make the rent has a revealed preference for only having one kidney:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/30/players-of-games/#know-when-to-fold-em

Capitalism is supposed to run on risk: the risk of being overtaken by a competitor drives businesses to deliver better services more efficiently, thus producing a bounty for all. But capitalists really hate risk, hence the drive to monopoly: Mark Zuckerberg admitted, in writing, that he only bought Instagram so that he wouldn't have to compete with it ("It is better to buy than to compete" -M. Zuckerberg):

https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/20/if-you-wanted-to-get-there/#i-wouldnt-start-from-here

Capitalists hate capitalism, but they love feudalism. Feudalism is like capitalism, in that you have a ruling class that creams off the surplus generated by labor; but under feudalism, society is organized to protect rents (money you get from owning stuff) over profits (money you get from doing stuff). The beauty of rents is that they are insulated from risk: if you own a coffee shop, you're in constant danger of being put out of business by a better coffee shop. But if you own the building and your coffee shop tenant goes under, well, you've still got the building, and hey, now it's on the same hot block as the amazing new cafe that's driving its competitors out of business:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Douglas Rushkoff calls this "going meta": don't drive a taxi, rent a medallion to a taxi driver. Don't rent a medallion, start a ride-hailing app company. Don't start a ride-hailing company, invest in the company. Don't invest in the company, but options on the company's shares. Each layer of indirection takes you further from the delivery of a useful service – and insulates you further from risk:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn

Monopoly is to capitalism as gerrymandering is to democracy, a way to strip out any meaningful choice. Think of the two giant packaged goods companies that fill your grocery aisles: Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Practically everything on your grocer's shelves is made by a division of one of these two massive conglomerates. If you try to "vote with your wallet" by buying a low-packaging version of a product, it's going to be sold to you by the same company that sells the high-packaging version. If you switch to an artisanal brand of cookies made by a local family business, Unilever or P&G will buy that company and issue a press release declaring that they made the acquisition because they know "their customers value choice":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/18/market-discipline/#too-big-to-care

Gerrymandering strips your vote of any impact on political outcomes. Monopoly strips your purchases of any ability to influence economic outcomes. Wrap both of them in "revealed preferences" and you get a system that endlessly narrates its ability to deliver choice, and then blames your misery on your having chosen badly.

This is the method of the entire conservative project. As Dan Savage says: the thing that unites conservative assaults on voting, birth control, abortion and no-fault divorce is the stripping away of choice. Conservatives are trying to create a world populated by husbands you can't divorce, pregnancies you can't prevent or terminate, and politicians you can't vote out of office. Add to that Trump's assault on the National Labor Relations Board, his reversal of the FTC's ban on noncompetes, and his protection of "TRAP" agreements that force employees to pay thousands of dollars if they quit their jobs, and you get "jobs you can't quit":

https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/09/germanium-valley/#i-cant-quit-you

Conservative strongmen like Trump and Musk exalt the value of self-determination – for themselves, at everyone else's expense. Trump's ability to stiff the contractors that built his hotels and Musk's ability to rain flaming rocket debris down on the people who live near his company town require that everyone else be stripped of protections. They get to determine their own course in life by taking away your ability to determine your own. Their right to swing their fists ends two inches past your nose:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/21/torment-nexusism/#marching-to-pretoria

Cheaters and bullies hate the rule of law, hence Trump's endless repetition of Nixon's mantra: "When the president does it, that means it is not illegal." But not everyone can be president, and the world is full of would-be Trumps in positions of power who would like to be able to commit crimes without fear of legal repercussions. For these people, we have something called "binding arbitration."

"Binding arbitration" is a widely used contractual term that forces you to surrender your right to sue a company that wrongs you. Instead of suing, binding arbitration forces you to take your case to an "arbitrator"; that is, a lawyer who is paid by the company that cheated you or maimed you or killed your loved one. The arbitrator decides whether their client is guilty, and, if so, how much that client owes you. The entire process is confidential and it is non-precedential, meaning that if a company rips off millions of people in the same way, each of them has to arbitrate their claims separately, and people who are successful can't share their tactical notes with the people who are next in line to plead for justice.

That makes binding arbitration another key weapon in the conservative movement's war on choice: not just jobs you can't quit and politicians you can't vote out of office, but also companies you can't sue. Binding arbitration is a creation of the Federalist Society and their champion Antonin Scalia, who authored a series of Supreme Court dissents and (ultimately) decisions that opened the door for binding arbitration everywhere:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/27/shit-shack/#binding-arbitration

Given the Fedsoc's role in shoving binding arbitration down every worker and shopper's throat, it's decidedly odd that they invited Ashley Keller to be their keynote debater in 2021, where he argued that "concentrated corporate power is a greater threat than government power":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY5MrHGjVT8

Keller is a powerhouse lawyer, and an avowed conservative, who has pioneered many tactics for overcoming binding arbitration clauses. He helped create "mass arbitration," bringing thousands of arbitration cases on behalf of Uber drivers who'd had their wages stolen by the company. Since Uber has to pay the arbitrators in each of those cases, they faced a much larger bill than they would face in any possible class action suit:

https://www.reuters.com/article/otc-uber-frankel-idUKKCN1P42OH/

Mass arbitration cases spread to all kinds of large firms that used petty grifts to steal from thousands or even millions of people, like Intuit, who deceive – and rip off – millions of Americans every year with their fake Turbotax "free file" system:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/24/uber-for-arbitration/#nibbled-to-death-by-ducks

Mass arbitration worked so well that Amazon actually revised its terms of service to remove binding arbitration from their terms of service, because they realized that they'd be better off facing class action suits:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/02/arbitrary-arbitration/#petard

Of course, the point of binding arbitration was never to create a streamlined system of justice – it was to bring about a world of no justice, where you have no right to sue. It's part of the decades-old "tort reform" movement that the business lobby has used to take away your right to sue altogether. Any time you hear about a seemingly crazy lawsuit (like the urban legends about the McDonald's "hot coffee" case), you're being propagandized for a world without legal consequences for companies that defraud you, steal from you, injure you, or kill you:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/hot-coffee/#mcgeico

That's why companies (like Bluesky) are now trying terms of service that also ban you from mass arbitration, while retaining the right to consolidate claims into a mass arbitration case if that's advantageous to them:

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

But Keller keeps finding creative ways around binding arbitration. He's currently bringing thousands of arbitration claims against Google, on behalf of advertisers whom Google stole from (Google is a thrice-convicted monopolist, and they lost a case last year over their monopolization of ad-tech, where they were found to have defrauded advertisers).

He also just argued before the Supreme Court in a case against Monsanto over the company's attempt to escape liability for causing cancer in farmworkers with their Roundup pesticide:

https://www.npr.org/2026/04/27/nx-s1-5793804/supreme-court-monsanto-roundup-arguments

Keller appears in the latest episode of the Organized Money podcast, for a fascinating interview about his work and outlook, and how he reconciles his work fighting corporate power with his identity as a movement conservative:

https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/the-conservative-who-torments-big

Keller's first big, important point is that (basically), capitalists hate capitalism (see above). He cites Milton Friedman, who "always said that the tort system is the best way to ensure that companies behave and follow the rules." For Keller (and Friedman) the alternative to private litigation against bad businesses is "government regulation and the alphabet soup of Washington, DC agencies [that] try and police these companies."

But, of course, the businesses that want binding arbitration and tort reform (so they can't be sued) also want to "dismantle the administrative state" (so they can't be regulated). They're the impunity movement, the "when the president does it, that means it is not illegal" movement, the "heads I win, tails you lose" movement. They're the caveat emptor movement, the "that makes me smart" movement:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/04/its-not-a-lie/#its-a-premature-truth

They don't want efficient markets, with the ever-present threat of a better competitor putting them out of business. They want feudalism. They want to go meta. They want to have the kind of self-determination you can only achieve by taking away everyone else's self-determination.

I was very struck by Keller's claim to be engaged in an exercise that Milton Friedman identified as the best one for making markets work. One of Keller's most forceful points is that class action suits are especially important for reining in petty, recurrent grifts, the junk fees that are the hallmark of enshittification.

He quotes his old boss, the archconservative judge Richard Posner, who said "Only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $20." But if you multiply a $20 junk fee by ten million purchases, a company can use that fact to make hundreds of millions of dollars. That's real folding money, which is why every company has figured out a way to whack you for a $20 junk fee.

There are two ways to end this racket: one is litigation, the other is regulation, and the capitalism-hating-capitalists who run the world want to kill both. That's why the business lobby smears lawyers like Keller as being "vultures." But as Matt Stoller says, "vultures look aggressive and whatnot, but when you actually get rid of vultures out of an ecosystem, all sorts of things go haywire."

I love this point. Vultures live off the disgusting, rotting crap that would otherwise pile up around us, breeding disease and emitting an unbearable stench. If plaintiff-side, no-win/no-fee lawyers are vultures, then junk fees, wage theft, and the million petty frauds they fight are the disgusting, rotting crap that vultures feed off of – and the harder we make it for our noble vulture lawyers, the more disgusting, rotting crap we have to live with, hence the unbearable stench that is all around us.

Listening to Keller was a fascinating exercise. I thoroughly disagree with him about many things – the way he characterized Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act couldn't have been more wrong – but it's quite bracing to hear a capitalist who doesn't hate capitalism defend it against the vast majority of capitalists, who hate capitalism more than any socialist ever did.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• Why Reddit blocked my daily visit to its mobile website https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/05/why-reddit-blocked-my-daily-visit-to-its-mobile-website/

• "The Score Is Four/and Next Time More" https://rickperlstein.substack.com/p/the-score-is-fourand-next-time-more

• Bodyform | Never Just a Period https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpFYcj2sJ3A

• Getting Digital Fairness Right: EFF's Recommendations for the EU's Digital Fairness Act https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/dos-and-donts-eus-digital-fairness-act-effs-recommendation-regulating-digital

• DHS Demanded Google Surrender Data on Canadian’s Activity, Location Over Anti-ICE Posts https://www.wired.com/story/dhs-demanded-google-surrender-data-on-canadians-activity-location-over-anti-ice-posts/

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Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Torvalds responds to Microsoft's Craig Mundie https://web.archive.org/web/20011019132822/http://web.siliconvalley.com/content/sv/2001/05/03/opinion/dgillmor/weblog/torvalds.htm

#25yrsago Bankrupt Argentina considers banning proprietary code and switching to free software https://web.archive.org/web/20010614131152/https://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,43529,00.html

#20yrsago Danny Hillis on how games are(n’t) like a theme park https://web.archive.org/web/20060513182649/https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/disney.html

#20yrsago Mission Impossible opening marked by anti-Scientology flyover https://web.archive.org/web/20060514000636/http://hailxenu.net/

#20yrsago SmartFilter targets Distributed Boing Boing – how to defeat it https://memex.craphound.com/2006/05/04/smartfilter-targets-distributed-boing-boing-how-to-defeat-it/

#15yrsago John Ashcroft assumes charge of “ethics and professionalism” for Blackwater https://web.archive.org/web/20110507103749/https://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/blackwaters-new-ethics-chief-john-ashcroft/

#15yrsago Rumsfeld and other US officials say torture didn’t help catch bin Laden https://web.archive.org/web/20110505012303/https://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/surveillance-not-waterboarding-led-to-bin-laden/

#15yrsago Rental laptops equipped with spyware that can covertly activate the webcam and take screenshots https://web.archive.org/web/20110506130156/http://www.ajc.com/business/pa-suit-furniture-rental-933410.html

#15yrsago Parallel machine made out of 17 stitched-together Apple //e’s https://web.archive.org/web/20110504194313/http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/AppleCrateII.html

#15yrsago Sarah Palin and James Lankford: giving $4 billion of taxpayer money to oil companies doesn’t matter https://web.archive.org/web/20110505220640/https://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/03/palin-lankford-oil-subsidies/

#15yrsago Stephen Harper violated election laws https://web.archive.org/web/20110701000000*/http://www.examiner.com/canada-headlines-in-canada/stephen-harper-breaks-election-rules-campaigns-on-radio-on-election-day

#15yrsago History and future of bin Ladenist extremism https://www.juancole.com/2011/05/obama-and-the-end-of-al-qaeda.html

#10yrsago Belushi widow & Aykroyd produce Blues Brothers animated series https://deadline.com/2016/05/the-blues-brothers-animated-comedy-series-dan-aykroyd-1201748389/

#10yrsago Chinese censorship: arbitrary rule changes are a form of powerful intermittent reinforcement https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/04/why-growing-unpredictability-chinas-censorship-is-feature-not-bug/

#10yrsago US government and SCOTUS change cybercrime rules to let cops hack victims’ computers https://www.wired.com/2016/05/now-government-wants-hack-cybercrime-victims/

#10yrsago After advertiser complaints, Farm News fires editorial cartoonist who criticized John Deere & Monsanto https://web.archive.org/web/20160505042150/https://www.kcci.com/news/longtime-iowa-farm-cartoonist-fired-after-creating-this-cartoon/39337816

#10yrsago Outstanding rant about establishment pearl-clutching over Trump https://web.archive.org/web/20160505033357/https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/george-will-is-a-haughty-dipshit-1774449290

#10yrsago The Planet Remade: frank, clear-eyed book on geoengineering, climate disaster, & humanity’s future https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/04/the-planet-remade-frank-clear-eyed-book-on-geoengineering-climate-disaster-humanitys-future/

#5yrsago Qualia https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/04/law-and-con/#law-n-econ

#5yrsago Whales decry the casino economy https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/04/law-and-con/#all-bets-are-off

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Guelph: Musagetes Lecture, May 8
  https://riverrun.ca/whats-on/guelph-lecture-on-being-2026/

• Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13
  https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/

• Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14
  https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification

• Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20
  https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow

• Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18
  https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html

• Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19
  https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html

• Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25
  https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2

• SXSW London, Jun 2
  https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901

• NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24
  https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html

• Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
  https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• Enshittification (99% Invisible)
  https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/

• Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas)
  https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor

• When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8

• Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors)
  https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612

• The internet is getting worse (CBC The National)
  https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P

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Latest books (permalink)

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/)

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor.

• "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

• "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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Ze zijn razend populair en trekken volle zalen met hun cabaretvoorstellingen, vooral in de regio. Toch zijn ze in het landelijke circuit niet of minder bekend. „Waarom zou ik voor 25 man in Amsterdam spelen als er in Hardenberg 500 op me wachten?”

DEN HAAG (ANP) - Drie opvarenden van het cruiseschip Hondius zijn woensdag van het schip afgehaald, meldt Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, de topman van de Wereldgezondheidsorganisatie (WHO). Zij zijn vermoedelijk besmet met het hantavirus en zullen in Nederland medische zorg ontvangen.

MOERDIJK (ANP) - De zes partijen die de nieuwe coalitie in Moerdijk gaan vormen, hebben hun bestuursakkoord voor de komende jaren gepubliceerd. Ze benadrukken daarin nog eens hoe belangrijk ze het vinden dat inwoners voor de lange termijn duidelijkheid krijgen over alle uitbreidingsplannen voor de industrie en energie-infrastructuur. Ook dringen ze aan op "ruimhartige compensatie" voor mensen die moeten vertrekken.

Er wordt al langere tijd gesproken over opheffing van het Brabantse dorp Moerdijk, een van de elf kernen van de gemeente. In juni wordt vanuit het Rijk meer duidelijkheid daarover verwacht.

"Dat de inwoners van Moerdijk steeds opnieuw met die onzekerheid te maken krijgen, vinden wij niet menselijk", staat in het akkoord. "Daarom hebben wij richting Rijk en provincie een duidelijk signaal afgegeven: de Moerdijkers moeten voor de lange termijn duidelijkheid en perspectief krijgen." Daartoe moeten overheden samen optrekken en projecten samenhangend bekijken, "met een doorkijk tot 2050".

Verantwoordelijkheid

Informateur Onno Hoes schrijft dat de gemeente "bereid is haar verantwoordelijkheid te nemen" voor de projecten, die nationaal van belang zijn voor de energietransitie en het verduurzamen van de industrie. "Daartegenover verwacht men ruimhartige (financiële) steun voor zowel de bewoners en bedrijven in de gemeente Moerdijk als specifiek voor de gemeenschap in de kern Moerdijk."

VVD, Onafhankelijk Moerdijk, CDA, Moerdijk Lokaal, ChristenUnie en BBM/BBB vormen de coalitie. Ze willen verder onder meer inzetten op meer woningbouw. Op sociaal vlak kondigen ze aan dat "een groter beroep gedaan wordt op de eigen verantwoordelijkheid". Daarmee hopen ze kosten te besparen en de zorg beschikbaar te houden voor "onze meest kwetsbare inwoners".

ROTTERDAM (ANP) - Het Openbaar Ministerie heeft woensdag zeven maanden cel geëist tegen Joseph Leijdekkers (71), de vader van Jos Leijdekkers, oftewel Bolle Jos, voor het witwassen van een horloge. Dat werd aangetroffen bij een doorzoeking van zijn huis in Rotterdam in januari 2023. Daarbij werden meerdere horloges, contant geld en een jammer gevonden.

Het horloge, een Patek Philippe, zou een waarde hebben van 110.000 euro, meent justitie, en zou gekocht zijn met de drugswinsten van zijn zoon. Voor het witwassen van een tweede horloge vroeg het OM vrijspraak wegens gebrek aan bewijs. Ook werd een iets kortere straf geëist vanwege de hoge leeftijd van de verdachte en de duur van de zaak.

Ook de moeder en zus van Bolle Jos worden vervolgd voor witwassen. Hun zaak is woensdag uitgesteld.

WASHINGTON (ANP) - Het Witte Huis denkt dicht bij een conceptovereenkomst met Iran te zijn over een einde aan de vijandelijkheden, meldt het Amerikaanse nieuwsmedium Axios op basis van ingewijden. De Amerikanen zouden de komende twee dagen een antwoord van Iran verwachten.

Het zou gaan om een memo van één pagina met daarin onder meer toezeggingen over het verrijken van uranium, sanctieverlichtingen en het vrijgeven van miljarden aan bevroren Iraanse tegoeden.

De Amerikaanse president Donald Trump kondigde recentelijk aan zijn "Project Freedom" tijdelijk stil te leggen. Die maritieme beschermingsmissie moet toezien op veilige doorvaart in de door Iran geblokkeerde Straat van Hormuz. In het bericht dat Trump aan die keuze wijdde, schreef hij dat de opschorting van de missie samenhing met een mogelijk akkoord met Iran.

De premier van Pakistan, dat zich opwerpt als bemiddelaar in de onderhandelingen tussen Iran en de VS, zegt hoop te hebben "dat het huidige momentum leidt tot een duurzaam akkoord" tussen de landen. Premier Shehbaz Sharif bedankte op X verder Trump voor diens keuze Project Freedom stil te leggen. Iran zei daarover eerder herhaaldelijk dat het iedere vorm van Amerikaanse interventie in de Straat van Hormuz beschouwt als een schending van het staakt-het-vuren.

​De Duitse regering is tevreden over de controles aan de landsgrenzen om migratie tegen te gaan. Bondskanselier Friedrich Merz belooft ermee door te gaan tot alle asielzoekers zijn verongelukt.

"We hebben nu meerdere ernstige verkeersongelukken gezien door de files die wij hebben gecreëerd", zegt Merz. "Het zou kunnen dat er onder de slachtoffers ook migranten zijn. Als dat zo is, dan hebben de controles dus effect. Er is in ieder geval meer dan voldoende aanleiding om dit beleid voort te zetten."

​

&

Vibe Check, a free and anonymous alternative to AI, talks teens through consent, boundaries and apologies

Val Odiembo volunteers at her former high school a few times a month, teaching teens about consent and healthy relationships. Now a sophomore at Rhode Island College, 19-year-old Odiembo isn’t much older than the students she’s teaching – which she thinks makes it easier for the high schoolers to come to her with their questions. But she knows she isn’t the only source they’re consulting.

“A lot of them confide in AI,” she said. A recent UK study found that one in 10 young adults has consulted AI for sexual health information, and a 2025 Pew Research Center report showed that one in five teens have had a romantic relationship with a chatbot.

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