Donald Trump is many things: a racist, an authoritarian, a rapist… but what he is, and has always been, above all and from the very start, is a scammer:
Pluralistic: Post-American compute for a post-American Internet (04 Aug 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Obviously, the non-American world has a digital sovereignty problem – Trump has means, motive and opportunity to order his tech companies to shut down any public official, large corporation, or individual who displeases him:
Pluralistic: Sympathy for the spammer (15 Jan 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
In any scam, any con, any hustle, the big winners are the people who supply the scammers – not the scammers themselves. The kids selling dope on the corner are making less than minimum wage, while the respectable crime-bosses who own the labs clean up. Desperate "retail investors" who buy shitcoins from Superbowl ads get skinned, while the MBA bros who issue the coins make millions (in real dollars, not crypto).
Pluralistic: Preparing for a post-Trump internet (03 Sep 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
I know, it's tempting to think of Trump as a cause, rather than an effect – as an aberration who dragged America into fascism. Trump is exceptional, but the thing that makes him exceptional isn't his corruption, recklessness or cruelty. What makes Trump exceptional is his ability to cajole, intimidate and flatter America's most corrupt, reckless and cruel people into a coalition.
Pluralistic: How I got scammed (05 Feb 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
More specifically, I was tricked by a phone-phisher pretending to be from my bank, and he convinced me to hand over my credit-card number, then did $8,000+ worth of fraud with it before I figured out what happened. And then he tried to do it again, a week later!
Pluralistic: They’re just trying to earn a buck (07 Oct 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Life as a prisoner of the neoliberal mind palace must suck: it's a world where every person who suffers under predatory business practices is a "consumer" who has "revealed a preference" for being screwed:
Pluralistic: Comrade Trump (20 Apr 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
There aren't a lot of things I agree with Mark Carney about, but there's one area where he and I are in total accord: the old, US-dominated, "rules-based international order" was total bullshit:
Pluralistic: Millionaire on billionaire violence (10 Aug 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
For the past year, I've been increasingly fascinated by a political mystery: how has antitrust enforcement become a global phenomenon after spending 40-years in a billionaire-induced coma?
Pluralistic: Trump fought the law and Trump won (16 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
The saving grace of the first Trump administration was its administrative incompetence: for every terrible thing Trump I and his henchmen pulled off, ten more awful plots were thwarted because they were so bad at being evil.
Pluralistic: Defense (of the internet) (from billionaires) in depth (23 Jan 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
The only way to truly billionaire-proof the internet is to a) abolish billionaires and b) abolish the system that allows people to become billionaires. Short of that, any levees we build will need constant tending, reinforcement, and re-evaluation.
Pluralistic: Defense (of the internet) (from billionaires) in depth (23 Jan 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
The only way to truly billionaire-proof the internet is to a) abolish billionaires and b) abolish the system that allows people to become billionaires. Short of that, any levees we build will need constant tending, reinforcement, and re-evaluation.
Pluralistic: The billionaires aren’t OK (24 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Billionaires don't think we're real. How could they? How could you inflict the kind of vast misery that generates billions of dollars while still feeling even a twinge of empathy for the sufferer in your extractive enterprise. No wonder Elon Musk calls us "NPCs":
Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period.
Continue reading "Pluralistic: Bonta sold us out to Trump's oligarchs (22 Sep 2026)"
Pluralistic: Billionaire-proofing the internet; Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 5) (14 Jan 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
During the Napster wars, the record labels seriously pissed off millions of internet users when they sued over 19,000 music fans, mostly kids, but also grannies, old people, and dead people.
Pluralistic: Billionaire-proofing the internet; Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 5) (14 Jan 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
During the Napster wars, the record labels seriously pissed off millions of internet users when they sued over 19,000 music fans, mostly kids, but also grannies, old people, and dead people.
Pluralistic: All (antitrust) politics are local (02 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
The US government has abandoned antitrust. Today, companies facing antitrust jeopardy can just pay key Trumpland figures a million bucks, and they will make a discreet visit to the fifth floor of the DoJ building, have a little shoofty around the Antitrust Division and the whole thing will just…go away:
Pluralistic: Making sense of Trump’s unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire (16 May 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
For generations, the American empire was the most powerful force on earth, and so we tended to assume that it was the most durable force on earth – surely anything so powerful must also be eternal?