Benvenuto nel Poliverso

Cory Doctorow

2 settimane fa • •

Cory Doctorow
2 settimane fa • •

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: A perfect distillation of the social uselessness of finance; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2025/12/18/sel…

#Pluralistic

(This is the last edition of Pluralistic for the year - see you in 2026!)

The Earth from space. Standing astride it is the Wall Street 'Charging Bull.' The bull has glowing red eyes. It is haloed in a starbust of red radiating light. Image: Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/ CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Pluralistic: A perfect distillation of the social uselessness of finance (18 Dec 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

^{pluralistic.net}

#Pluralistic

reshared this

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

I'm at the end of my tour for my new book, the international bestseller *Enshittification*!

My last two events are CCC in #Hamburg, Dec 27-30:
events.ccc.de/congress/2025/in…

and the Tattered Cover in #Denver, Jan 22:
eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow…

I hope you can make it!

39th Chaos Communication Congress Infos

Infos, news, links and more

^{events.ccc.de}

#hamburg #Denver

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/3

Sensitive content

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/4

Sensitive content

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/5

Sensitive content

#15yrsago

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/6

Sensitive content

#10yrsago

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/7

Sensitive content

#10yrsago

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/8

Sensitive content

#1yrago

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/9

Sensitive content

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/10

Sensitive content

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/11

Sensitive content

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/12

Sensitive content

#hamburg #Denver #coloradosprings

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/13

Sensitive content

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/14

Sensitive content

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/eof

Sensitive content

#hamburg #Denver

in reply to Cory Doctorow

oscarfalcon

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/eof

Sensitive content

Cory Doctorow reshared this.

in reply to oscarfalcon

Cory Doctorow

in reply to oscarfalcon • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/eof

Sensitive content

in reply to Cory Doctorow

oscarfalcon

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Long thread/eof

Sensitive content

in reply to Cory Doctorow

sam

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

Long thread/13

An interesting thing about that Daily Show interview is that you mention Myspace and also Ronny talks about how Facebook made things easier for the average non-tech person to use. I remember that myself and many other people learned some html and css to be able to modify our myspace profiles. For many people it was a stepping stone to go on and learn more about web design and development.

There's no reason that social media today couldn't do similar. For example, on snac2 each user can have their own custom style.css.

Being able to modify my profile and make things my own were a big part of what I liked about Myspace. Make the web fun and interesting and personal and it will be easier for people to learn. Or if they're not interested in that, then choose the platform with the aesthetic they like, but like you said, make them interoperable.

snac2

A simple, minimalistic ActivityPub instance written in portable C

^Codeberg.org

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Dalia_Z

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

See you in Denver! Have a great holiday break. ❄️

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Lightfighter

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

Look forward to seeing you in Denver.

in reply to Lightfighter

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Lightfighter • 1 settimana fa • •

see you there!

in reply to Cory Doctorow

sleepy62🍁🛠️ 🖥️ 🔬 🌞

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

Nice one. Way to cut through the bullshit of a bullshit industry. I feel better equipped to converse with my stock market obsessed relatives this Christmas.

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Edelruth, PBS Passport Holder

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa • •

I just realised I missed the boost due to being overly intrigued by the bull. Good bull. Good picture.

in reply to Edelruth, PBS Passport Holder

Cory Doctorow

in reply to Edelruth, PBS Passport Holder • 2 settimane fa • •

Thanks!

in reply to Cory Doctorow

Kevin Carson

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 2 settimane fa (Ricevuto 1 settimana fa) • •

The only useful function served by capitalist finance -- a credit mechanism for facilitating coordination of future production streams between enterprises -- requires only a unit of account. The pretense that credit is "lent" "against" "savings," and the limitation of the credit function to those in possession of stockpiled wealth, is as stupid as requiring us to pay rich people for letting us use feet and inches.

in reply to Kevin Carson

GhostOnTheHalfShell

in reply to Kevin Carson • 1 settimana fa • •

@KevinCarson1
I’ve been reading through Gesell’s Natural Economic Order. It might be a little bit rough going because 19th century stuff but.. but the man was lit.

The preface was probably the hardest part to read because he opens up venting.. and after a certain amount of pages, you realize he’s pissed off at the people who have all the capital.

His theory of interest, which is more general definition of interest that bodies also profit is very satisfying

@Kevin Carson

in reply to GhostOnTheHalfShell

Kevin Carson

in reply to GhostOnTheHalfShell • 1 settimana fa • •

@GhostOnTheHalfShell I was heavily influenced by Schumpeter's History of Economic Analysis, and two major distinctions that reappeared throughout the entire history were those between
1) money theories of credit and credit theories of money; and
2) advance vs. coordination theories of capital "investment."
Both boil down to the difference between people who think money, capital, and credit are real things with an independent value of their own, and people who think they're just markers or imaginary units like pounds or feet, for measuring real things produced by labor.
Turning money into a fictitious commodity, so that credit cannot be created at will by groups of workers coordinating their production flows with each other, is a prerequisite of capitalism.

@GhostOnTheHalfShell

in reply to Kevin Carson

GhostOnTheHalfShell

in reply to Kevin Carson • 1 settimana fa • •

@KevinCarson1
The interesting element of his own outlook is that money as it is, it has been gifted a unique property amongst all artifacts of mankind: immortality

Every tangible good incurs a storage cost or otherwise decays, physically or in utility. Makers must sell before rot

His solution was to granted the gift of death, reducing it to the same status of every other commodity.

Therefore the imperative to buy after sale, mirrors the imperative to sell/make in order to buy.

@Kevin Carson

in reply to GhostOnTheHalfShell

GhostOnTheHalfShell

in reply to GhostOnTheHalfShell • 1 settimana fa • •

@KevinCarson1
I do not necessarily think he’s the only one that’s made the observation that the consequence of interest (profit) is to create scarcity not plenty

@Kevin Carson

⇧