Cory DoctorowToday's threads (a thread)
Inside: Goodhart's Law vs "prediction markets"; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/24/degenerated-gambling/
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Goodhart's Law vs "prediction markets": Putting a gun to the metric's head.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116283880569492661
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Hey look at this
* Tickets to HOPE 26 go on sale Tuesday, March 24 https://store.2600.com/products/tickets-to-hope-26?variant=42147982737463
* Prediction Markets Promised Better Information. Instead They’re Creating Powerful Incentives to Corrupt Information. https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/19/prediction-markets-promised-better-information-instead-theyre-creating-powerful-incentives-to-corrupt-information/
* Suicidal Bootlicking as a Method of Governance https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/suicidal-bootlicking-as-a-method
* California bill aims to help vibe coders https://www.semafor.com/article/03/20/2026/california-bill-aims-to-help-vibe-coders
* Manipulating the Stock Market Is Trump's War Strategy https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-manipulating-the
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#20yrsago Airport screening doesn’t stop knives, bombs, or guns https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/airport_passeng.html
#20yrsago Apple’s hypocritical slam against French DRM-interop law http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4833010.stm
#20yrsago Vinge’s scientific computing Nature article about MMORPGs https://web.archive.org/web/20060411235146/http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060320/full/440411a.html
#20yrsago Yahoo: if you use our ads, you have to block non-US visitors https://memex.craphound.com/2006/03/22/yahoo-if-you-use-our-ads-you-have-to-block-non-us-visitors/
#20yrsago Stand-up comic gets his material from dumb patents https://web.archive.org/web/20060613212120/https://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70368-0.html?tw=rss.index
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#15yrsago Chinese censorware nukes any voicecall that contains the word “protest” https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/world/asia/22china.html?_r=2&ref=world
#15yrsago Why Rasputin isn’t in the Haunted Mansion https://longforgottenhauntedmansion.blogspot.com/2011/03/famous-ghosts-and-ghosts-trying-to-make.html
#15yrsago HOWTO play the opening chord from ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ https://www.beatlesbible.com/features/hard-days-night-chord/
#15yrsago Google Book Search rejected: why not try fair use instead? https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/03/judge-rejects-google-book-monopoly/
#10yrsago Harvard Blue Book: peace in our time? https://web.archive.org/web/20160322020137/https://hlrecord.org/2016/03/the-blue-wars-a-report-from-the-front/
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#10yrsago Mondrian pong https://b3ta.com/board/11191694
#10yrsago Silverpush says it’s not in the ultrasonic audio-tracker ad-beacons business anymore https://web.archive.org/web/20160324110815/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/silverpush-ftc-stop-eavesdropping-with-audio-beacons
#10yrsago Nixon started the War on Drugs because he couldn’t declare war on black people and hippies https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/?single=1
#10yrsago Anti-DRM demonstrators picket W3C meeting https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/scenes-anti-drm-protest-outside-w3c
#10yrsago Student loan garnisheeing topped $176M in three months https://web.archive.org/web/20160322023207/https://consumerist.com/2016/03/21/176m-in-wages-garnished-for-unpaid-federal-student-loans-in-just-three-months/
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#10yrsago Dozens of car models can be unlocked and started with a cheap radio amp https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/ausstattung-technik-zubehoer/assistenzsysteme/keyless/
#10yrsago US Embassy staffer ran a sextortion racket from work computer for 2 years https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/former-us-embassy-staffer-sentenced-to-nearly-five-years-for-sextortion/
#5yrsago Patent troll IP is more powerful than Apple's https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/22/gandersauce/#petard
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Yesterday's threads: Understaffing as a form of enshittification; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116276990174444729
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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:
* Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27
https://conference.bioneers.org/
* Montreal: Bronfman Lecture (McGill), Apr 10
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disrupter-tickets-1982706623885
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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* Montreal: Drawn and Quarterly, Apr 10
https://mtl.drawnandquarterly.com/events/4863920260410
* London: Resisting Big Tech Empires (LSBU), Apr 25
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/globaljusticenow/2042691
* Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20
https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow
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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* 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
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Recent appearances:
* Do you feel screwed over by big tech? (Ontario Today)
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech
* Launch for Cindy's Cohn's "Privacy's Defender" (City Lights)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuVCm2PUalU
* Chicken Mating Harnesses (This Week in Tech)
https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/1074
* The Virtual Jewel Box (U Utah)
https://tanner.utah.edu/podcast/enshittification-cory-doctorow-matthew-potolsky/
* Tanner Humanities Lecture (U Utah)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Yf1nSyekI
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I'm also on Bluesky. Read today's thread there at:
https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net/post/3mhsiijkeqs23
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