Today's links
I don't know if you've heard, but water has started running uphill – I mean, speaking in a politico-scientific sense:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/28/mamdani/#trustbusting
By which I mean, the bedrock consensus of political science appears to have been disproved. Broadly speaking, political scientists believe that lawmakers and regulators only respond to the policy preferences of powerful people. If economic elites want a policy, that's the policy we get – no matter how unpopular it is with everyone else. Likewise, even if something is very, very popular with all of us, we won't get it if the super-rich hate it.
Just take a look at the gap between public opinion and policy outcomes: most people think "capitalism does more harm than good"; most Canadians, Britons and Australians aged 18-34 think "socialism will improve the economy and well-being of citizens"; 72% of Brits support a national job guarantee; the majority of Californians support permanent rent-controls; and most people in 40 countries want CEO salaries capped at 4X that of their lowest-paid employees:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/07/the-people-no-2/#water-flowing-uphill
The inability of the public to get its way isn't just an impressionistic view – it's an empirical finding, based on a representative sample of 1,779 policy outcomes, that politicians ignore the will of the people in favor of the will of billionaires:
economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
And yet, all over the world, we're seeing these irrepressible outbreaks of antitrust policy, aimed squarely at shattering corporate power:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/28/mamdani/#trustbusting
It's a mystery. There's no policy that would be harder on billionaire wealth and power than vigorous antitrust enforcement (not least because preventing corporate concentration is key to preventing regulatory capture):
https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/
Certainly, there are a lot of merely obscenely rich people who are angry that the farcically rich people are screwing them over, and this class division between the 0.01% and the 1% has opened up some political space:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/09/elite-disunity/#awoken-giants
But that wouldn't be enough, not without the massive supermajorities of everyday people who are sick to the back teeth of being abused by corporations, and who are desperate for any outlet to strike back.
Take juries. Orrick is a big corporate law firm that represents the kinds of companies that might find their future in the hands of a jury in a state or federal courthouse. Orrick periodically surveys representative samples of people who show up for jury service to get a picture of their attitude towards the kinds of companies that can afford to hire a firm like theirs:
https://www.orrick.com/en/Insights/Groundbreaking-Jury-Research-Reveals-US-Jury-Attitudes-in-a-Polarized-Society
Their latest report contrasts the results of a pre-pandemic 2019 survey with a 2025 survey of 1,011 jurors in California, Florida, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Texas, New Jersey, and New York.
They found that jurors' trust in the court system has plummeted since 2019 (67% in 2019, 48% in 2025); hostility to cops has tripled (11% to 33%); anti-corporate sentiment is way up (27% then, 45% now). The percentage of jurors who believe that they should use the courts to "sent messages to companies to improve their behavior" has risen from 58% to 62%; and 77% want to award punitive damages to "punish a corporation" (up from 69%).
And jurors are notably hostile to pharma companies, energy companies and large banks, but they especially hate social media companies.
It's no wonder that corporations are so desperate to take away our right to sue them, and why "binding arbitration" clauses that permanently confiscate your legal rights are now part of every corner of modern life:
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
The business lobby has been trying to take away workers' and customers' and citizens' right to seek justice in court for decades, ginning up urban legends like "A lady's coffee was too hot so McDonald's had to give her $2.7 million":
https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/hot-coffee/#mcgeico
Don't believe it. The courts are rarely on our side, but the fact that sometimes, every now and again, a jury will seize an opportunity to deliver a smidgen of justice just drives plutocrats nuts. Billionaireism is the belief that you don't owe anything to anyone else, that morality is whatever you can get away with. You don't have to be a billionaire to contract a wicked case of billionaireism – but you do have to be stinking rich to benefit from it:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/20/billionaireism/#surveillance-infantalism
Hey look at this (permalink)
Object permanence (permalink)
#20yrsago Google stealthily monitoring clickthroughs from search-results https://web.archive.org/web/20051119012842/http://mboffin.com/post.aspx?id=1830
#20yrsago Hunter S Thompson’s ashes in fireworks display — pics http://www.talkleft.com/story/2005/08/22/076/47806/media/Hunter-Thompson-s-Final-Blast-Off
#10yrsago Make your own TSA universal luggage keys https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/where-oh-where-did-my-luggage-go/2014/11/24/16d168c6-69da-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html
#10yrsago Regal promises security-theater bag-searches in America’s largest cinema chain https://www.techdirt.com/2015/08/21/tsa-movies-theater-chain-looks-to-bring-security-theater-to-movie-theater/
#10yrsago Judge: City of Inglewood can’t use copyright to censor videos of council meetings https://web.archive.org/web/20150821122121/http://popehat.com/2015/08/20/californias-city-of-inglewood-cant-copyright-city-council-meetings-case-against-youtube-critic-tossed/
#10yrsago EFF-Austin panel commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Steve Jackson Games raid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChPS4H-nqiQ
#5yrsago Facebook overrules its own fact-checkers https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/21/zuck-the-scale-thumber/#scale-thumbers
#5yrsago Rewarding CEOs for failure https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/21/zuck-the-scale-thumber/#failing-up
Upcoming appearances (permalink)
Recent appearances (permalink)
- "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).
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"The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org).
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"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).
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"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).
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"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.
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"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
- "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025
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"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/
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"Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026
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"Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026
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"The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026
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"The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026
Today's top sources: Naked Capitalism (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/).
Currently writing:
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