Yeah, Richard Clayderman. I love him.

The post Charlie Kirk, Not In His Own Words: We Honor The Right-Wing Activist By Making Up Quotes That Sound Much Better, Given The Moment appeared first on The Onion.

#Sage #RoninWarriors

A reader writes:

For the bulk of my working life, I’ve been a very low-level lawyer in Washington, D.C. who managed to scratch my way into a few government contracts with the Department of Justice over the years. This definitely wasn’t my dream (poetry is … sigh), but things worked out this way and mostly it’s been okay.

After using your book (which was great), I was eventually hired full-time by another agency last December, but DOGE killed my position very shortly afterwards before I even finished onboarding, and since then I’ve been scrambling, since the whole legal ecosystem in D.C. is a mess and jobs have vanished.

Recently, a couple positions at DOJ were advertised on a normal, generic online job board. Advertised were Law Clerk I (lower) and Law Clerk II (higher) jobs in a non-evil DOJ division, on a project that was slated to go multiple years. It sounded so promising.

The company advertising the positions put themselves forward as a recruiter, and after a very lengthy back-and-forth (where my correspondent very clearly didn’t understand the norms of the government contracting world) and a call with the prime contractor (a major international consulting company), I was submitted and approved for the higher position. I was then surprised to discover the recruiting company was also the subcontractor and would be my immediate employer.

Well, okay … the prime contractor said they were desperate to hire several dozen attorneys, so maybe they partnered with a new-to-the-field company to get it accomplished on schedule.

After that phone call, the usual background checks and everything were pushed very rapidly. I got seemingly legitimate emails from the prime contractor and also the Department of Defense to fill out the usual security forms; the links in the emails all went to legitimate websites, so I felt fine with continuing.

Then everything came to a crashing halt this morning: the recruiter/subcontractor sent me the official offer letter … but it had the job title of the higher position and the pay rate of the lower position. The pay discrepancy between Clerk I and Clerk II is large — about $72K a year and $93K a year.

It felt like a simple miscommunication, so I replied politely asking for a correction. No, their HR said, that’s the rate. It can’t be negotiated — you already agreed to this.

Well, no, I didn’t. Their HR pointed to an email where I acknowledged the lower rate … as part of a general acknowledgement that there were two positions available. As in, I said, “Yes, I understand there is also a Law Clerk I position that pays X rate per hour.” But then I was submitted for Law Clerk II, and my call with the prime contractor was even titled “Call About Law Clerk II position.”

On top of the rate switch, the medical coverage was abysmal. So I declined to sign the offer letter and asked for an evening to consider my options and think it over.

Well, then I started getting spammed with urgent-sounding texts and calls from employees of all levels at this subcontractor, all asking me to talk this over. Some employees I had never even met or communicated with before!

It began to feel very scammy, and I told them the urgency seemed inappropriate. I talked to friends and family — all while still getting these texts, calls, and emails despite asking for space — and eventually decided I didn’t like the feel of this.

So I emailed the most senior-seeming employee that I was withdrawing from the position. Which was met with a reply, “Can I have a few minutes on the phone to clear this up?”

Everyone I’ve asked says this sounds like one of two different scams. The Long Con would be to hire me and bill me to the prime contractor at the higher rate, but pay me at the lower one and pocket the difference (not unheard of).

Or, scarier, The Truman Show, where the entire job was fabricated and designed to steal as much of my info as possible during the “onboarding” and that even my call with the prime contractor manager was faked. I’m really hoping it wasn’t this one, since it would mean they figured out how to fake government and corporate websites and security forms, which I dutifully filled out.

But underneath these scam theories is a nagging feeling that maybe I’m the one who misread things here?

Do recruiters or subcontracting companies normally invest so heavily in contract workers? I’ve never had multiple employees of a company text, call, and email me so heavily in quick succession to urgently “talk through” what seems like a simple mistake.

I’ve also never had a company insist I had agreed to a lower pay rate and then dig in their heels when I proved I didn’t.

What’s more: in the time it took to write you this email, they sent me an update where now they are happy to pay the higher rate and can “work something out” about the horrible medical coverage.

Am I going crazy, or is something going on here that is less than legitimate?

Something is weird here.

If you got legitimate emails from the government agency, I don’t think it’s a scam … but you should check the real sender of those emails; the “from” field can be spoofed, but the raw source data of the email can’t be, so look at that.

They may indeed be billing for you at a higher rate while paying you the lower one but, as you note, that’s a thing that happens — and it’s not the same thing as an identity theft scam or similar.

And unfortunately, it is sometimes a thing that a company will pull a bait and switch on what job they’re offering — leading you to think you’re interviewing for a higher level position but then offering you a lower-paying one.

But what’s really weird is the extraordinary high-pressure sell to get you to accept the job. Texts and calls from multiple employees there, even people you’d never talked to before? That’s not normal.

It’s possible that you have a hard-to-find skill set that’s crucial to them being able to staff their contract … but if that’s the case, the obvious next move for them would to offer you the higher-paying position, not to have scores of employees blow up your phone.

I don’t know what’s going but it’s odd, for sure.

You might as well talk to the most senior-seeming person who asked to talk about you withdrew and hear them out. Who knows, maybe they’ll say something that changes the way this looks.

But after that, if you’re considering moving forward, make sure you do a lot of research on the subcontracting firm … ideally including talking to the prime contractor again, preferably with you calling them at their publicly listed corporate number so that you’re sure of who you’re talking to. I’d also run the whole thing by anyone you know who’s part of the federal contracting world in D.C. (which is not me) and get their take, as well.

The post I turned down a bait-and-switch job offer and now they’re blowing up my phone appeared first on Ask a Manager.

This three-bedroom house was remodeled to look like a giant meatball after the owner mentioned to the host of an HGTV show that he sometimes eats Italian food.

Reference #84502

The post Post-HGTV Disaster appeared first on The Onion.

“The guy who created a list of left-wing college professors he wanted fired for their views would want us to fire anyone who pointed out who he created a to be fired list.” Luke and the Panel (Ian MacIntyre, Clare Blackwood, Nile Seguin) talk about Poilievre v. Carney Round 2, the Right’s attempt to punish […]

The post “Charlie Kirk would have wanted us to get anyone criticizing his views fired,” says man accurately describing why Charlie Kirk deserved criticism appeared first on The Beaverton.

Everyone says that this new crop of American Nazis is really mean, but I, a white journalist, went out to talk to them for this profile, and they were actually really nice. I mean, sure, when I first met George Nathan Bedford Forrest Wallace on his compound, I was a little thrown off by his swastika hat, Confederate-flag T-shirt, and his pants, which had a crossed-out trans flag on each leg. All those hateful clothes made him seem a little mean.

But when he opened the front door of his bunker for me, and I thought, See, this is a guy with manners. He knows how to treat a lady.

His wife, Davida “Duke” Wallace, was also very nice. She introduced me to her knitting circle, which was six pleasant middle-aged ladies who were just sitting down for sweet tea and cake before they went back to their latest group knitting project. I was a little nervous when I saw that they were knitting a very large blanket that read GO BACK TO AFRICA, but they also served me a scrumptious lemon cake with raspberry filling. They even gave me the recipe.

And their kids couldn’t have been sweeter. Eleven-year-old George Wallace Junior and eight-year-old Strom Thurmond Wallace taught me how to play a game in the woods with their bow and arrows. I admit I was a little freaked out when they told me the game was called “The Great Re-Replacement Theory,” but I don’t know anything about the woods, and they kept me from crashing into poison ivy. Yeah, their game was a little edgy, but would truly terrible people help a stranger out like that?

Overall, I have to say that I really enjoyed my visit with the Wallaces. I obviously don’t share their worldview, but I think they’re friendly, kind folks who everyone in the country would be proud to call “neighbor.” Okay, maybe not everybody, but you know, most Americans.

Kashana Cauley’s latest novel is The Payback.

“ABC pulls Jimmy Kimmel off air for Charlie Kirk comments after FCC pressure.” — New York Times

The FCC has long held that “the public interest is best served by permitting free expression of views.” But given recent events, we recognize there may be some confusion about what is actually allowed. We have added these guidelines for late-night hosts and other members of the traitorous left-wing media.

• Please don’t make any jokes that offend or contradict our viewers. By “viewers,” we mean our free-speech-championing president, who many people say deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Late-night jokes shouldn’t be biting, critical, or funny. Jokes should be more like third wives—anodyne, mostly quiet, and on good terms with convicted pedophiles.

• As long as you’re rewriting the monologues, please know the president loves a good joke, provided the joke teller fawns over him in the manner of a fatuous and shameless sycophant, and mentions his astonishing 2.8 golf handicap. Also, if you fail to call him a style icon and make any reference at all to his fraud convictions, he will sue you for $15 billion.

• Jokes can still be “edgy” if they make fun of anyone from the LGBTQ community, the disabled, or suggest that Puerto Rico is a floating pile of garbage. Man Show–era Jimmy Kimmel would probably have been fine, but only if he had done more blackface.

• Words to avoid: “diversity,” “equity,” “empathy,” “justice,” and “chronic venous insufficiency.”

• Words you are encouraged to use: “woke,” “triggered,” “snowflake,” “vermin,” and “r-word” (also, any other words that begin with one letter and a hyphen).

• If you say anything negative about spurious free-speech provocateurs, you will be doxxed, harassed, and fired.

• If you praise authoritarians and are an avowed white supremacist, the president will invite you to dinner.

• If you say mentally ill people should be involuntarily euthanized by lethal injection, the president will come on your show.

• If you make a disingenuous case that all political violence is committed by the left, you could get a new late-night talk show.

• TV hosts aren’t the only ones who should take note of our new FCC guidelines, though. Private-sector companies that engage DEI programs will be targeted by the government. Billionaires who support our president will receive lucrative government contracts, deregulation, and fracking rights. And rest assured that companies on the far-right side of history will never be audited.

• If you kill people in Kenosha, the president will also invite you to dinner.

• If you publish accurate data about right-wing terrorism, it will be deleted. Right-wing activists are as peaceful as children in a candy store or beauty pageant owners in a teenage girls’ dressing room.

• If you publish accurate economic data about the economy, you will be fired.

• If you suggest that anyone is using Charlie Kirk’s murder as a pretext to come for critics of the president, we will come for you. We will also delete the word “irony” from the dictionary.

• Finally, federal law prohibits obscene, indecent, and profane content from being broadcast on the radio or TV. However, if you brag about grabbing women by the genitals, you are a courageous style icon who should win the Nobel Peace Prize and be allowed to play on the US Ryder Cup team.

We hope this clarifies things, snowflakes. (Now, that’s a good joke.) We look forward to watching Greg Gutfeld Live! on ABC later this fall.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
How come nobody asks for all-powerful, all-knowing, and at least PRETTY good?

This is supposed to be a website about media innovation, so I suppose we must acknowledge the innovation of Brendan Carr, Donald Trump’s chair of the Federal Communications Commission. For decades, the renewal of television licenses was overwhelmingly pro forma; a license has been taken away because of content exactly once, when a Mississippi station was racist enough to block Black people from its airwaves for more than a decade. But Carr, that entrepreneurial thinker, realized that the FCC’s power could be abused to force media companies to bend to the regime’s will, forcing out voices it doesn’t like and encouraging fealty in advance. Innovation!

We saw it with 60 Minutes, whose corporate parent — needing FCC approval for a merger — was willing to grease Trump’s palm with millions over a bogus complaint over editing. Depending on who you believe, that handshake deal may or may not have included the canning of America’s No. 1 late-night talk show host and a side deal promising millions in pro-Trump propaganda airtime. It left one of the country’s most important news sources in the hands of a regime loyalist and with a friendly minder overseeing operations.

Well, Paramount isn’t the only media company that needs FCC approval for something — and thus finds itself needing to kiss Carr’s ring. Nexstar, which owns many local TV stations, wants to merge with Tegna, which also owns many local TV stations. That merger will need FCC approval. Brendan Carr has no ideological objections to large media companies becoming larger media companies; indeed, he’s specifically said he wants to make such consolidations easier to pull off! But he’s not one to pass up a point of leverage, and he’s now used Nexstar’s corporate urge to merge to knock another Trump critic off the air. From The New York Times:

ABC announced on Wednesday evening that it was pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show “indefinitely” after conservatives accused the longtime host of inaccurately describing the politics of the man who is accused of fatally shooting the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

The abrupt decision by the network, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, came hours after the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, assailed Mr. Kimmel and suggested that his regulatory agency might take action against ABC because of remarks the host made on his Monday telecast. The network did not explain its decision, but the sequence of events on Wednesday amounted to an extraordinary exertion of political pressure on a major broadcast network by the Trump administration…

Mr. Carr, in an interview on a right-wing podcast on Wednesday, said that Mr. Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people,” and that the F.C.C. was “going to have remedies that we can look at.”

“Frankly, when you see stuff like this — I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Mr. Carr told the podcast’s host, Benny Johnson. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the F.C.C. ahead”…

Shortly after Mr. Carr’s remarks, Nexstar, an owner of ABC affiliate stations around the country, said that it would pre-empt Mr. Kimmel’s program “for the foreseeable future” because of the host’s remarks. Nexstar recently announced that it planned to acquire a rival company in a $6.2 billion deal, which will be scrutinized by the F.C.C. In a social media post on Wednesday, Mr. Carr expressed approval for Nexstar’s decision to pre-empt Mr. Kimmel, thanking the company “for doing the right thing.” He added: “I hope that other broadcasters follow Nexstar’s lead.”

Trump, now seeing Colbert and Kimmel’s heads on stakes, is now demanding similar treatment for Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon. (“Do it NBC!!! President DJT.”)

I found myself nodding through the writer John Ganz’s take on the matter:

If you were writing a hackneyed novel or film about an authoritarian America, it would go exactly like this: a figure close to the regime is assassinated, a massive shrill and sanctimonious hue and cry rises over the martyred dead, hysteria is whipped up about terrorism and public disorder, leaders in the regime and movement promise vengeance, private citizens are mobbed and lose their jobs for expressing anti-regime sentiments at the encouragement of regime officials and regime-aligned demagogues, and, then, the power of the state is brought to bear against public figures who oppose and criticize the regime.

This is exactly what’s happening now. The FCC used the threat of its regulatory powers to push Jimmy Kimmel off the air, and it worked. Any explanation other than this one, any account that prevaricates about this reality or points out this or that technicality is a dishonest avoidance of the situation. There will always be some justification that’s minimally persuasive and encourages people to overlook or rationalize what’s going on. That’s how this works: Little exceptions, little reasons to look the other way, little reasons to think, “In this case, what’s the big deal?” They will offer people alibis. And many people will take them. People will say, “Well, what he said was bad.” Or, “Well, they did get the facts wrong.” Then the chill sets in, and people start to become ever more careful about what they say.

Bill Carter, the longtime New York Times beat reporter covering late night, now at Latenighter:

ABC responded by instantly caving, taking Kimmel’s show off the air, and in the process handing Trump the opportunity to glory in his handiwork — which he did gleefully by declaring ABC had canceled the show…ABC, of course, realizes that Trump and Carr will make good on the threat, which Carr stated openly and without any regret about his unabashed abuse of power in undermining the Bill of Rights, using terms Tony Soprano would have loved: “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

If ABC decides to stand by Kimmel, the hard way may be financially excruciating. Already the other huge ABC station group, Sinclair Broadcasting, a famously hard-conservative group, leapt to support Carr’s and Trump’s bullying, issuing a statement Wednesday night that it would not carry Kimmel’s show no matter if ABC finds a way to return him to the air…

ABC/Disney is in a brutal situation. This administration can inflict enormous damage to its bottom line if the company defies. It will have to weigh that against the value in defending the principle that the American government has no business dictating who gets to talk on television. If the decision is surrender, much more will be lost than one more talented late-night host.

I'll say it again:

In my opinion, when companies or institutions cave to Trump despite the law being on their side, they are not misunderstanding the law; they are making educated guesses that the U.S. is heading in a direction where, in practice, the law won't matter.

— Matthew Segal (@segalmr) September 17, 2025

https://t.co/coFILBHABk pic.twitter.com/kx5gq6yNy8

— This You? (@Thiss_Youu) September 18, 2025

Trump literally said Kimmel is next back in July! All of this is clearly pretextual. It's like having us believe Lisa Cook got fired because of a mortgage application. Other people can pretend to be that stupid, but you don't have to be.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 17, 2025

I asked FCC chair @BrendanCarrFCC if he had any new comment now that ABC has pulled Jimmy Kimmel's show, and he sent me this GIF pic.twitter.com/ljz60FzHN4

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 17, 2025

LONDON—Claiming that he recognized the member of the royal family, but his memory was hazy, President Donald Trump has spent his entire trip to the U.K. trying to figure out where he knows Prince Andrew from, sources confirmed Thursday. “Who is that guy? His face seems so familiar,” said Trump, pausing in the middle of shaking hands with various royal dignitaries to get a closer look at the disgraced Duke of York, whose name, as well as the activities they engaged in together, had been eluding him for the past couple days. “Maybe I met him on some boys’ trip? I feel like I’ve seen his penis before. Have we ever gone swimming at the same time? You have a mole right here under your rib cage, right?” At press time, Trump reportedly concluded that the prince, who quickly continued down the halls of Windsor Castle while avoiding all eye contact, must be Stephen Hawking.

The post Trump Spends Entire U.K. Trip Trying To Figure Out Where He Knows Prince Andrew From appeared first on The Onion.

JERUSALEM—In response to an independent United Nations inquiry concluding that Israel is committing an ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a defiant statement Thursday in which he criticized the commission’s finding, declaring that “these so-called genocide experts have probably never committed a genocide in their lives.” “Until you’ve killed countless civilians, the word ‘genocide’ shouldn’t even come out of your damn mouth,” said Netanyahu, arguing that the pampered intellectuals at the U.N. were nothing more than a bunch of armchair human rights abusers. “Name one ethnic group you’ve attempted to obliterate. I’ll wait. I mean, have you even bombed a single children’s hospital? Please, you’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe you read a book about the 1948 Genocide Convention? Well, I’ve read Sports Illustrated, but that doesn’t mean I’m a quarterback. You have no on-the-ground experience mass-murdering civilians like I do, okay?” At press time, the acting U.S. ambassador to the U.N. formally backed Israel’s motion to compel the chair of the Human Rights Council to list three families whose lines he had wiped out if he was such a genocide scholar.

The post Netanyahu: ‘These So-Called Genocide Experts Have Probably Never Committed A Genocide In Their Lives’ appeared first on The Onion.

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade apologized for saying that mentally ill homeless people should be subject to “involuntary lethal injections”, a remark he now calls “extremely callous.” What do you think?

“You can’t call for the extermination of anyone these days.”

Lexi Olivera, Miter Craftsman

---

“Aww, I knew deep down he was a softie.”

Keith Croft, Truancy Punisher

---

“There are no bad ideas in brainstorming.”

Paul Racine, Mannequin Outfitter

---

The post Fox News Host Apologizes For Saying Mentally Ill Homeless People Should Be Executed appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—Thanking the government for defending the public from the terrifying screen in their homes, the American people confirmed Thursday that they were grateful to Republicans for protecting them from TV. “Thank God we have the GOP to safeguard us from television and all the frightening people on it,” said Seattle resident Eric Torento, echoing the sentiments of 340 million Americans who commended the Republican Party for its steadfast commitment to shielding them from the terrifying stream of colorful pictures and sounds being continually broadcast into the nation’s homes. “I live in constant fear that I might go outside and walk past a TV screen showing sitcoms, news, or mild topical commentary. If it weren’t for President Trump and other Republicans, who knows what milquetoast jokes we might hear? No longer will we have to worry about the scary box.” At press time, the fearful nation urged the GOP to shelter it from any books, radio, digital media, newspapers, or films.

The post Nation Grateful To GOP For Protecting It From TV appeared first on The Onion.

A Kentucky man was arrested after allegedly killing his partner and leaving behind a to-do list, which included instructions to clean blood, dispose of the body, and hide evidence. What do you think?

“Vision boards are way less incriminating.”

Brandon Brummett, Hedgehog Stylist

---

“It’s easy to laugh, but to-do lists really can help murderers with ADHD.”

Clark Skirven, Tome Shelver

---

“This is why I memorize all my crimes with a mnemonic.”

Tara Frick, Unemployed

The post Murder Suspect Found To Have To-Do List For Cover Up appeared first on The Onion.

Today's links

• AI psychosis and the warped mirror: When you stare into the LLM…
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: No such thing as shareholder supremacy; Intel's DRM'ed CPU; THIS COMPUTER IS NEVER OBSOLETE.
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• 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.

AI psychosis and the warped mirror (permalink)

"AI psychosis" is the pop-psych diagnosis in a recent string of horrible and horrifying cases in which vulnerable people were lured by chatbots into harming themselves and others, including a murder-suicide:

https://futurism.com/man-chatgpt-psychosis-murders-mother

AI psychosis is just one of the many delusions inspired by AI, and it's hardly the most prevalent. The most widespread AI delusion is, of course, that an AI can do your job (it can't, but an AI salesman can capitalize on this delusion to convince your boss to fire you and replace you with a chatbot that can't do your job):

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/18/asbestos-in-the-walls/#government-by-spicy-autocomplete

The AI job delusion has a long lineage. Since the steam-loom, bosses have hyped new technologies as a way to frighten workers into accepting lower wages and worse working conditions, under threat of imminent technological replacement.

Likewise, AI psychosis isn't an entirely new phenomenon, and it has disturbing precedents in our recent past.

In the early 2000s, a community of internet users formed to discuss a new illness they called "Morgellons Disease." Morgellons sufferers believed that they had wires growing in their skin:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons

Morgellons appears to be a delusion, and the most widely accepted explanation for it is that people whose mental illness compels them to pick at their skin create open sores on their bodies, and then stray blowing fibers adhere to the wet, exposed tissues, which the sufferers believe to be wires.

Morgellons became an internet phenomenon in the early 2000s, but it appears that there were people who suffered from this pathology for a very long time. The name "Morgellons" comes from a 17th century case-report:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Letter_to_a_Friend

The difference between a Morgellons sufferer in the 1680s and a Morgellons sufferer in 2001 is that the latter need not suffer alone. The incredible power of the internet to connect people with rare traits meant that people suffering with Morgellons could coalesce online and egg one another on. They could counter the narratives of concerned family members who insisted that there weren't wires growing under their skin, and upload photos of the "wires" they'd discovered under their own skin.

People have suffered from all kinds of delusions since time immemorial, and while the specifics of the delusion reflect the world of the sufferer (I remember when I stopped hearing from people with radios in their heads and started hearing from people with RFIDs in their heads), the shape of the delusions have been stable over long timescales.

But the internet era has profoundly changed the nature of delusion, by connecting people with the same delusions to one another, in order to reinforce each other.

Take "gang stalking delusion," the traumatic belief that a vast cabal of powerful, coordinated actors have selected a group of "targeted individuals" to harass. People with gang stalking delusion will sometimes insist that passing bus-ads, snatches of overheard music, and other random/ambient details are actually targeted at them, intended to bring them distress:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_stalking

The "targeted individuals" suffering from gang stalking delusion have formed vast, sprawling communities that are notionally designed to support them through the trauma of being stalked. But the practical function of these communities is to reinforce the delusion and make things much worse for their members: "My psychiatrist said the same thing as yours did – it's proof that they're both in on it!"

Like Morgellons, gang stalking delusion isn't a new phenomenon. It's a subset of "persecutory delusion," another mental illness that we find centuries of evidence for in the record:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecutory_delusion

But like modern Morgellons sufferers, people today with gang stalking delusion are able to find one another and reinforce and amplify each others' delusions, to their own detriment.

Now, even this isn't new – through the historical record, we find many examples of small groups of people who coalesced around a shared delusion. The difference is that old timey people had to luck into finding someone else who shared their delusion, while modern, internet-enabled people can just use the Reddit search-bar.

There's many examples of harmful delusions being worsened through online community reinforcement: there's pro-anorexia forums, incel forums, bitcoin, and "race realism" and other all-consuming junk science.

That's where LLMs come in. While the internet makes it far easier to find a toxic community of similarly afflicted people struggling with your mental illness, an LLM eliminates the need to find that forum. The LLM can deliver all the reinforcement you demand, produced to order, at any hour, day or night. While posting about a new delusional belief to a forum won't generate responses until other forum members see it and reply to it, an LLM can deliver a response in seconds.

In other words, there's one job that an AI can absolutely do better than a human: it can reinforce our delusions more efficiently, more quickly, and more effectively than a community of sufferers can.

Speed isn't the only reason that LLMs are super efficient delusion-reinforcers. An LLM has no consciousness, it has no desires, and it has nothing it wants to communicate. It has no wants, period. All it can do is transform a prompt into something that seems like the kind of thing that would follow from that prompt. It's a next-word-guessing machine.

This is why AI art is so empty: the only message an AI image generator can convey is the prompt you feed it. That's the only thing a piece of AI art has to "say." But when you dilute a short prompt across a million pixels or a hundred thousand words, the communicative intent in any given sentence or brushstroke is indistinguishable from zero. AI art can be "eerie" (in the sense of seeming to have an intent without there being any intender), and it can be striking, but it's not good:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

However, the more communicative intent there is in a prompt, and the more human decision-making there is in the production (whether that's selecting the best work from among many variants or post-processing the work with your own artistic flourishes), the more chances that work has of saying something. That's because you're saying something, every time you re-prompt it, every time you select from among an array of its outputs.

When you repeatedly prompt an LLM over a long timescale – whether you're discussing your delusional beliefs, or pursuing a romantic fantasy ("AI girl/boyfriends") – you are filling it up with your communicative intent. The work that comes out the other side – the transformation of your prompts into a response – is a mirror that you're holding up to your own inputs.

So while a member of a gang stalking forum might have a delusion that is just different enough from yours that they seem foolish, or they accuse you of being paranoid, the chatbot's conception of gang stalking delusion is being informed, tuned and shaped by you. It's an improv partner, "yes-and"ing you into a life of paranoid terror.

In the Greek legend, Narcissus falls in love with his reflection in a stream and is rooted to the spot, captured by his own regard. People who prompt a chatbot to reinforce their delusions are catching sight of their own reflection in the LLM and terrifying themselves into a spiral of self-destruction.

(Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified)

Hey look at this (permalink)

• The “Debate Me Bro” Grift: How Trolls Weaponized The Marketplace Of Ideas https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/17/the-debate-me-bro-grift-how-trolls-weaponized-the-marketplace-of-ideas/

• Imagine putting DRM in a battery to void warranties… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoVd1PAlT-Q

• Getting Yelled at By Dumbasses https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/getting-yelled-at-by-dumbasses

• Prediction markets are booming. Oversight is barely there. https://www.citationneeded.news/prediction-markets-oversight/

• A guide to understanding AI as normal technology https://www.normaltech.ai/p/a-guide-to-understanding-ai-as-normal

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Software lets camphones scan and OCR a page of text in 5 secs https://web.archive.org/web/20051029085125/https://www.newscientist.com/article.ns/?feedId=online-news_rss20&id=dn7998

#20yrsago Profiles of RIAA victims who fought back https://web.archive.org/web/20051125085616/http://p2pnet.net/story/6283

#15yrsago Intel + DRM: a crippled processor that you have to pay extra to unlock https://memex.craphound.com/2010/09/18/intel-drm-a-crippled-processor-that-you-have-to-pay-extra-to-unlock/

#10yrsago UC Berkeley issues first-ever university transparency report https://slate.com/technology/2015/09/uc-berkeley-issues-the-first-ever-university-transparency-report-others-should-follow.html

#10yrsago THIS COMPUTER IS NEVER OBSOLETE https://www.tumblr.com/neuroxin/125324271592/this-computer-is-never-obsolete-digging

#5yrsago Youtube's war on algorithmic radicalization https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/18/the-americanskis/#algorithm-lawyers

#5yrsago A cryptographic mystery solved https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/18/the-americanskis/#otps-r-us

#5yrsago In Search Of A Flat Earth https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/18/the-americanskis/#mass-murder-cults

#1yrago There's no such thing as "shareholder supremacy" https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/18/falsifiability/#figleaves-not-rubrics

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Ithaca: Communication Power, Policy, and Practice (Cornell), Sept 18
  https://events.cornell.edu/event/policy-provocations-a-conversation-about-communication-power-policy-and-practice

• Ithaca: A Reverse-Centaur's Guide to Being a Better AI Critic (Cornell), Sept 18
  https://events.cornell.edu/event/2025-nordlander-lecture-in-science-public-policy

• NYC: Enshittification and Renewal (Cornell Tech), Sept 19
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/enshittification-and-renewal-a-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1563948454929

• NYC: Brooklyn Book Fair, Sept 21
  https://brooklynbookfestival.org/event/big-techs-big-heist-cory-doctorow-in-conversation-with-adam-becker/

• Boston: Enshittification with Randall Munroe (Brattle Theater), Oct 7
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-at-the-brattle-theatre-tickets-1591235180259?aff=oddtdtcreator

• DC: Enshittification with Rohit Chopra (Politics and Prose), Oct 8
  https://politics-prose.com/cory-doctorow-10825

• NYC: Enshittification with Lina Khan (Brooklyn Public Library), Oct 9
  https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/cory-doctorow-discusses-central-library-dweck-20251009-0700pm

• New Orleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12
  http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

• New Orleans: Enshittification at Octavia Books, Oct 12
  https://www.octaviabooks.com/event/enshittification-cory-doctorow

• Chicago: Enshittification with Anand Giridharadas (Chicago Humanities), Oct 15
  https://www.oldtownschool.org/concerts/2025/10-15-2025-kara-swisher-and-cory-doctorow-on-enshittification/

• Los Angeles: Enshittification with David Dayen (Diesel), Oct 16
  https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-10-16/cory-doctorow-enshittification

• San Francisco: Enshittification at Public Works (The Booksmith), Oct 20
  https://app.gopassage.com/events/doctorow25

• PDX: Enshittification at Powell's, Oct 21
  https://www.powells.com/events/cory-doctorow-10-21-25

• Seattle: Enshittification and the Rot Economy, with Ed Zitron (Clarion West), Oct 22
  https://www.clarionwest.org/event/2025-deep-dives-cory-doctorow/

• Madrid: Conferencia EUROPEA 4D (Virtual), Oct 28
  https://4d.cat/es/conferencia/

• Miami: Enshittification at Books & Books, Nov 5
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1504647263469

Recent appearances (permalink)

• The Enshittification Of Everything (And What To Do About It) (Cornell)
  https://archive.org/details/k-091225-the-enshittification-of-everything-and-what-to-do-about-it

• Escaping Big Tech, Privacy Battles & “Enshittification” (Revolution.social)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exvpetQRSVo

• Nerd Harder! (This Week in Tech)
  https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/1047

Latest books (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).

• "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).

• "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

Upcoming books (permalink)

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025

• "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/

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

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

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

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

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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ISSN: 3066-764X

Leftovers just taste better with the orbital laser.

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