Today's links

• Enshittification isn't caused by venture capital: Sure, they want "profit at all costs" but ask yourself, 'why is enshittification profitable?'
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020
• 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.

---

Enshittification isn't caused by venture capital (permalink)

Many of us have left the big social media platforms; far more of us wish we could leave them; and even those of us who've escaped from Facebook/Insta and Twitter still spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get the people we care about off of them, too.

It's lazy and easy to think that our friends who are stuck on legacy platforms run by Zuckerberg and Musk lack the self-discipline to wean themselves off of these services, or lack the perspective to understand why it's so urgent to get away from them, or that their "hacked dopamine loops" have addicted them to the zuckermusk algorithms. But if you actually listen to the people who've stayed behind, you'll learn that the main reason our friends stay on legacy platforms is that they care about the other people there more than they hate Zuck or Musk.

They rely on them because they're in a rare-disease support group; or they all coordinate their kids' little league carpools there; or that's where they stay in touch with family and friends they left behind when they emigrated; or they're customers or the audience for creative labor.

All those people might want to leave, too, but it's really hard to agree on where to go, when to go, and how to re-establish your groups when you get somewhere else. Economists call this the "collective action problem." This problem creates "switching costs" – a lot of stuff you'll have to live without if you switch from legacy platforms to new ones. The collective action problem is hard to solve and the switching costs are very high:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/29/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms/

That's why people stay behind – not because they lack perspective, or self-discipline, or because their dopamine loops have been hacked by evil techbro sorcerers who used Big Data to fashion history's first functional mind-control ray. They are locked in by real, material things.

Big Tech critics who ascribe the legacy platforms' "stickiness" to users' moral failings or platforms' technical prowess are their own worst enemies. These critics have correctly identified that legacy platforms are a serious problem, but have totally failed to understand the nature of that problem or how to fix it. Thankfully, more and more critics are coming to understand that lock-in is the root of the problem, and that anti-lock-in measures like interoperability can address it.

But there's another major gap in the mainstream critique of social media. Critics of zuckermuskian media claim those services are so terrible because they're for-profit entities, capitalist enterprises hitched to the logic of extraction and profit above all else. The problem with this claim is that it doesn't explain the changes to these services. After all, the reason so many of us got on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram is because they used to be a lot of fun. They were useful. They were even great at times.

When tech critics fail to ask why good services turn bad, that failure is just as severe as the failure to ask why people stay when the services rot.

Now, the guy who ran Facebook when it was a great way to form communities and make friends and find old friends is the same guy who who has turned Facebook into a hellscape. There's very good reason to believe that Mark Zuckerberg was always a creep, and he took investment capital very early on, long before he started fucking up the service. So what gives? Did Zuck get a brain parasite that turned him evil? Did his investors get more demanding in their clamor for dividends?

If that's what you think, you need to show your working. Again, by all accounts, Zuck was a monster from day one. Zuck's investors – both the VCs who backed him early and the gigantic institutional funds whose portfolios are stuffed with Meta stock today – are not patient sorts with a reputation for going easy on entrepreneurs who leave money on the table. They've demanded every nickel since the start.

What changed? What caused Zuck to enshittify his service? And, even more importantly for those of us who care about the people locked into Facebook's walled gardens: what stopped him from enshittifying his services in the "good old days?"

At its root, enshittification is a theory about constraints. Companies pursue profit at all costs, but while you may be tempted to focus on the "at all costs" part of that formulation, you musn't neglect the "profits" part. Companies don't pursue unprofitable actions at all costs – they only pursue the plans that they judge are likely to yield profits.

When companies face real competitors, then some enshittificatory gambits are unprofitable, because they'll drive your users to competing platforms. That's why Zuckerberg bought Instagram: he had been turning the screws on Facebook users, and when Instagram came along, millions of those users decided that they hated Zuck more than they loved their friends and so they swallowed the switching costs and defected to Instagram. In an ill-advised middle-of-the-night memo to his CFO, Zuck defended spending $1b on Instagram on the grounds that it would recapture those Facebook escapees:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/29/21345723/facebook-instagram-documents-emails-mark-zuckerberg-kevin-systrom-hearing

A company that neutralizes, buys or destroys its competitors can treat its users far worse – invade their privacy, cheap out on moderation and anti-spam, etc – without losing their business. That's why Zuck's motto is "it is better to buy than to compete":

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/zuckerberg-its-better-to-buy-than-compete-is-facebook-a-monopoly-42243

Of course, as a leftist, I know better than to count on markets as a reliable source of corporate discipline. Even more important than market discipline is government discipline, in the form of regulation. If Zuckerberg feared fines for privacy violations, or moderation failures, or illegal anticompetitive mergers, or fraudulent advertising systems that rip off publishers and advertisers, or other forms of fraud (like the "pivot to video"), he would treat his users better. But Facebook's rise to power took place during the second half of the neoliberal era, when the last shreds of regulatory muscle that survived the Reagan revolution were being devoured by GW Bush and Obama (and then Trump).

As cartels and monopolies took over our economy, most government regulators were neutered and captured. Public agencies were stripped of their powers or put in harness to attack small companies, customers, and suppliers who got in the way of monopolists' rent-extraction. That meant that as Facebook grew, Zuckerberg had less and less to fear from government enforcers who might punish him for enshittification where the markets failed to do so.

But it's worse than that, because Zuckerberg and other tech monopolists figured out how to harness "IP" law to get the government to shut down third-party technology that might help users resist enshittification. IP law is why you can't make a privacy-protecting ad-blocker for an app (and why companies are so desperate to get you to use their apps rather than the open web, and why apps are so dismally enshittified). IP law is why you can't make an alternative client that blocks algorithmic recommendations. IP law is why you can't leave Facebook for a new service and run a scraper that imports your waiting Facebook messages into a different inbox. IP law is why you can't scrape Facebook to catalog the paid political disinformation the company allows on the platform:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

IP law's growth has coincided with Facebook's ascendancy – the bigger Facebook got, the more tempting it was to interoperators who might want to plug new code into it to protect Facebook users, and the more powers Facebook had to block even the most modest improvements to its service. That meant that Facebook could enshittify even more, without worrying that it would drive users to take unilateral, permanent action that would deprive it of revenue, like blocking ads. Once ad-blocking is illegal (as it is on apps), there's no reason not to make ads as obnoxious as you want.

Of course, many Facebook employees cared about their users, and for most of the 21st century, those workers were a key asset for Facebook. Tech workers were in short supply until just a couple years ago, when the platforms started round after round of brutal layoffs – 260,000 in 2023, another 150,000+ in 2024. Facebook workers may be furious about Zuckerberg killing content moderation, but he's not worried about them quitting – not with a half-million skilled tech workers out there, hunting for jobs. Fuck 'em. Let 'em quit:

https://www.404media.co/its-total-chaos-internally-at-meta-right-now-employees-protest-zuckerbergs-anti-lgbtq-changes/

This is what changed: the collapse of market, government, and labor constraints, and IP law's criminalization of disenshittifying, interoperable add-ons. This is why Zuck, an eternal creep, is now letting his creep flag fly so proudly today. Not because he's a worse person, but because he understands that he can hurt his users and workers to benefit his shareholders without facing any consequences. Zuckerberg 2025 isn't the most evil Zuck, he's the most unconstrained Zuck.

Same goes for Twitter. I mean, obviously, there's been a change in management at Twitter – the guy who's enshittifying it today isn't the guy who enshittified it prior to last 2023. Musk is speedrunning the enshittification curve, and yet Twitter isn't collapsing. Why not? Because Musk is insulated from consequences for fucking up – he's got a huge cushion of wealth, he's got advertisers who are desperate to reach his users, he's got users who can't afford to leave the service, he's got IP law that he can use to block interoperators who might make it easier to migrate to a better service. He was always a greedy, sadistic asshole. Now he's an unconstrained greedy, sadistic asshole. Musk 2025 isn't a worse person than Musk 2020. He's just more free to act on his evil impulses than he was in years gone by.

These are the two factors that make services terrible: captive users, and no constraints. If your users can't leave, and if you face no consequences for making them miserable (not solely their departure to a competitor, but also fines, criminal charges, worker revolts, and guerrilla warfare with interoperators), then you have the means, motive and opportunity to turn your service into a giant pile of shit.

That's why we got Jack Welch and his acolytes when we did. There were always evil fuckers just like them hanging around, but they didn't get to run GE until Ronald Reagan took away the constraints that would have punished them for turning GE into a giant pile of shit. Every economy is forever a-crawl with parasites and monsters like these, but they don't get to burrow into the system and colonize it until policymakers create rips they can pass through.

In other words, the profit motive itself is not sufficient to cause enshittification – not even when a for-profit firm has to answer to VCs who would shut down the company or fire its leadership in the face of unsatisfactory returns. For-profit companies chase profit. The enshittifying changes to Facebook and Twitter are cruel, but the cruelty isn't the point: the point is profits. If the fines – or criminal charges – Facebook faced for invading our privacy exceeded the ad-targeting revenue it makes by doing so, it would stop spying on us. Facebook wouldn't like it. Zuck would hate it. But he'd do it, because he spies on us to make money, not because he's a voyeur.

To stop enshittification, it is not necessary to eliminate the profit motive – it is only necessary to make enshittification unprofitable.

This is not to defend capitalism. I'm not saying there's a "real capitalism" that's good, and a "crony capitalism" or "monopoly capitalism" that's bad. All flavors of capitalism harm working people and seek to shift wealth and power from the public and democratic institutions to private interests. But that doesn't change the fact that there are, indeed, different flavors of capitalism, and they have different winners and losers. Capitalists who want to sell apps on the App Store or reach customers through Facebook are technofeudalism's losers, while Apple, Facebook, Google, and other Big Tech companies are technofeudalism's great winners.

Smart leftism pays attention to these differences, because they represent the potential fault lines in capitalism's coalition. These people all call themselves capitalists, they all give money and support to political movements that seek to crush worker power and human rights – but when the platforms win, the platforms' business customers lose. They are irreconcilably on different sides of a capitalism-v-capitalism fight that is every bit as important to them as the capitalism-v-socialism fight.

I'm saying that it's good praxis to understand these divisions in capitalism, because then we can exploit those differences to make real, material gains for human thriving and worker rights. Lumping all for-profit businesses together as identical and irredeemable is bad tactics.

Legacy social media is at a turning point. Two new systems built on open standards have emerged as a credible threat to the zuckermuskian model: Mastodon (built on Activitypub) and Bluesky (built on Atproto). The former is far more mature, with a huge network of federated servers run by all different kinds of institutions, from hobbyists to corporations, and it's overseen by a nonprofit. The latter has far more users, and is a VC-backed corporate entity, and while it is hypothetically federable, there are no Bluesky services apart from the main one that you can leave for if Bluesky starts to enshittify.

That means that Bluesky has a ton of captive users, and has the lack of constraint that characterizes the enshittified legacy platforms it has tempted tens of millions of users away from. This is not a good place to be in, because it means that if the current management does choose to enshittify Bluesky, they can, and it will be profitable. It also means that the company's VCs understand that they could fire the current management and replace them with willing enshittifiers and make more money.

This is why Bluesky is in a dangerous place: not because it is backed by VCs, not because it is a for-profit entity, but because it has captive users and no constraints. It's a great party in a sealed building with no fire exits:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/14/fire-exits/#graceful-failure-modes

Last week, I endorsed a project called Free Our Feeds, whose goals include hacking some fire exits into Bluesky by force majeure – that is, independently standing up an alternative Bluesky server that people can retreat to if Bluesky management changes, or has a change of heart:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/14/contesting-popularity/#everybody-samba

For some Mastodon users, Free Our Feeds is dead on arrival – why bother trying to make a for-profit project safer for its users when Mastodon is a perfectly good nonprofit alternative? Why waste millions developing a standalone Bluesky server rather than spending that money improving things in the Fediverse?

I believe strongly in improving the Fediverse, and I believe in adding the long-overdue federation to Bluesky. That's because my goal isn't the success of the Fediverse – it's the defeat of enshtitification. My answer to "why spend money fixing Bluesky?" is "why leave 20 million people at risk of enshittification when we could not only make them safe, but also create the toolchain to allow many, many organizations to operate a whole federation of Bluesky servers?" If you care about a better internet – and not just the Fediverse – then you should share this goal, too.

Many of the Fediverse's servers are operated by for-profit entities, after all. One of the Fediverse's largest servers (Threads) is owned by Meta. Threads users who feel the bite of Zuckerberg's decision to encourage homophobic, xenophobic and transphobic hate speech will find it easy to escape from Threads: they can set up on any Fediverse server that is federated with Threads and they'll be able to maintain their connections with everyone who stays behind.

The existence of for-profit servers in the Fediverse does not ruin the Fediverse (though I wouldn't personally use one of them). The fact that multiple neo-Nazi groups run their own Mastodon servers does not ruin the Fediverse (though I certainly won't use their servers). Not even the fact that Donald Trump's Truth Social is a Mastodon server does anything to ruin the Fediverse (not using that one, either).

This is the strength of federated, federable social media – it disciplines enshittifiers by lowering switching costs, and if enshittifiers persist, it makes it easy for users to escape unshitted, because they don't have to solve the collective action problem. Any user can go to any server at any time and stay in touch with everyone else.

Mastodon was born free: free code, with free federation as a priority. Bluesky was not: it was born within a for-profit public benefit corporation whose charter offers some defenses against enshittification, but lacks the most decisive one: the federation that would let users escape should escape become necessary.

The fact that Mastodon was born free is quite unusual in the annals of the fight for a free internet. Most of the internet was born proprietary and had freedom foisted upon it. Unix was born within Bell Labs, property of the convicted monopolist AT&T. The GNU/Linux project set it free.

SMB was born proprietary within the corporate walls of Microsoft, another corporate monopolist. SAMBA set it free.

The Office file formats were also born proprietary within Microsoft's walled garden: they were set free by hacker-activists who fought through a thick bureaucratic morass and Microsoft fuckery (including literally refusing to allow chairs to be set for advocates for Open Document Format) to give us formats that underlie everything from LibreOffice to Google Docs, Office365 to your web browser.

There is nothing unusual, in other words, about hacking freedom into something that is proprietary or just insufficiently free. That's totally normal. It's how we got almost everything great about computers.

Mastodon's progenitors should be praised for ensuring their creation was born free – but the fact that Bluesky isn't free enough is no reason to turn our back on it. Our response to anything that locks in the people we care about must be to shatter those locks, not abandon the people bound by the locks because they didn't heed our warnings.

Audre Lorde is far smarter than me, but when she wrote that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house," she was wrong. There is no toolset better suited to conduct an orderly dismantling of a structure than the tools that built it. You can be sure it'll have all the right screwdriver bits, wrenches, hexkeys and sockets.

Bluesky is fine. It has features I significantly prefer to Mastodon's equivalent. Composable moderation is amazing, both a technical triumph and a triumph of human-centered design:

https://bsky.social/about/blog/4-13-2023-moderation

I hope Mastodon adopts those features. If someone starts a project to copy all of Bluesky's best features over to Mastodon, I'll put my name to the crowdfunding campaign in a second.

But Mastodon has one feature that Bluesky sorely lacks – the federation that imposes antienshittificatory discipline on companies and offers an enshittification fire-exit for users if the discipline fails. It's long past time that someone copied that feature over to Bluesky.

---

Hey look at this (permalink)

• DOJ Closes Tulsa Massacre Probe as Trump Takes Office https://prospect.org/justice/2025-01-20-doj-closes-tulsa-massacre-probe-as-trump-takes-office/

• Martin Luther King Jr's prescient criticism of technology and power https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/martin-luther-king-jrs-prescient

• Faiz Shakir Would Like the DNC to Do Something https://prospect.org/politics/2025-01-20-faiz-shakir-would-like-dnc-do-something

---

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago American Airlines invents reasons to ask me for a dossier on my friends’ home addresses https://memex.craphound.com/2005/01/21/american-airlines-invents-reasons-to-ask-me-for-a-dossier-on-my-friends-home-addresses/

#15yrsago TSA plants baggie of white powder in traveller’s bag https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/local/20100121_Daniel_Rubin__It_was_no_joke_at_security_gate.html

#15yrsago Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb: classic kids’ book about drumming beatnik monkeys https://memex.craphound.com/2010/01/21/hand-hand-fingers-thumb-classic-kids-book-about-drumming-beatnik-monkeys/

#15yrsago Does the Uncanny Valley exist? https://web.archive.org/web/20100123181533/https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/robotics/4343054.html

#10yrsago Alien overlord: stop blaming me for your city’s housing bubble! https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/stop-complaining-zathbog-planet-cibwarv-inflating-u-s-housing-prices

#5yrsago Boda Boda fashion show: equipping Nairobi motor taxi drivers with outfits to match their glorious bikes https://janhoek.net/BODA-BODA-MADNESS

#5yrsago China announces ban of single-use plastic bags and straws https://www.dw.com/en/china-to-ban-single-use-plastic-bags-and-straws/a-52065123https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/21/business/greta-thunberg-davos/index.html

#5yrsago Riot Baby: an afrofuturist science fiction novella of race, rage and fierce resistance https://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/21/riot-baby-an-afrofuturist-science-fiction-novella-of-race-rage-and-fierce-resistance/

---

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Picks and Shovels with Ken Liu (Boston), Feb 14
  https://brooklinebooksmith.com/event/2025-02-14/cory-doctorow-ken-liu-picks-and-shovels

• Picks and Shovels with Charlie Jane Anders (Menlo Park), Feb 17
  https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow

• Picks and Shovels with Wil Wheaton (Los Angeles), Feb 18
  https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Cory-Doctorow-Wil-Wheaton-Author-signing

• Picks and Shovels with Dan Savage (Seattle), Feb 19
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-with-dan-savage-picks-and-shovels-a-martin-hench-novel-tickets-1106741957989

• Picks and Shovels with John Hodgman (NYC), Feb 26
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-john-hodgman-picks-and-shovels-tickets-1131132841779

• Picks and Shovels (Penn State), Feb 27
  https://www.bellisario.psu.edu/assets/uploads/CoryDoctorow-Poster.pdf

• Picks and Shovels at the Doylestown Bookshop (Doylestown, PA), Mar 1
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-picks-and-shovels-a-martin-hench-novel-tickets-1146230880419

• Picks and Shovels at Red Emma's (Baltimore), Mar 2
  https://redemmas.org/events/cory-doctorow-presents-picks-and-shovels/

• Picks and Shovels with Lee Vinsel (Richmond, VA), Mar 5
  https://fountainbookstore.com/events/1795820250305

• Picks and Shovels at First Light Books (Austin), Mar 10
  https://thethirdplace.is/event/cory-doctorow-picks-shovels-1

• Picks and Shovels at Dark Delicacies (Burbank), Mar 13
  https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3257/Thu%2C_Mar_13th_6_pm%3A_Pick_%26_Shovel%3A_A_Martin_Hench_Novel_HB.html#/

• Cloudfest (Europa Park), Mar 17-20
  https://cloudfest.link/

• Picks and Shovels at Imagine! Belfast (Remote), Mar 24
  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctorow-in-conversation-with-alan-meban-tickets-1106421399189

• Teardown 2025 (PDX), Jun 20-22
  https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/portland-2025

• DeepSouthCon63 (New Orleans), Oct 10-12, 2025
  http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

---

Recent appearances (permalink)

• Right to Repair with Karen Sandler (Software Freedom Conservancy):
  https://videos.trom.tf/w/q1AAL629GYMFtN6nCy15WE

• Just Say It's Capitalism (This Week in Tech)
  https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/1014?autostart=false

• Lost Dollar Business Club
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuLGgMQfFCk

---

Latest books (permalink)

• 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). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).

• "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). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)

• "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. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

• "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

• "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

• "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

---

Upcoming books (permalink)

• Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025

• Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 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, 2025

---

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Status: second pass edit underway (readaloud)

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

• Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2025

Latest podcast: Picks and Shovels Chapter One https://craphound.com/overclocked/2025/01/10/picks-and-shovels-chapter-one/

---

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

---

How to get Pluralistic:

Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

Pluralistic.net

Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic

Medium (no ads, paywalled):

https://doctorow.medium.com/

Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://twitter.com/doctorow

Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic

"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

I’m off for the holiday, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2018.

A reader writes:

My company has a ridiculous late fine policy: you will be fined $2 for every minute, starting from 9:01 a.m. So if you come in at 9:05 a.m., that’s $10 you gotta pay up in cash. (This is not somewhere where down-to-the-minute coverage would be essential. It’s just typical deskbound, back-end work. I can see why the receptionist who gets the calls will need to be there smack on the dot, but the rest of us — not really.)

I’ve been here for over a year, and have been fined maybe three times. They were for 9:01 a.m., 9:02 a.m. and 9:08 a.m. I was intensely annoyed and embarrassed, but okay, I can still absorb the $2-$16 financial pinch.

I hate this policy because it nickel and dimes employees down to the first minute, and at a very high rate. I hate this policy because coming in at 9:01 a.m. does not makes you any less productive than the dude who came in at 9:00 a.m., whose bloody computer is still starting up.

A few days ago, I overslept for the first time. I somehow slept through my usual TWO alarms and woke up with a start at 8:30 a.m. — an hour late. I immediately texted my manager that I had overslept and asked if it was possible to get an emergency, UNPAID, half-day leave. I had calculated that coming in an hour late would result in a $120 fine, which is painfully difficult for me to absorb. I’m a junior employee.

My manager said no. She wanted me to come in anyway because “it’s the right thing to do.” I cried some tears of frustration, but told her okay and rushed like hell down, but not before racking up 45 minutes worth of late fine — $90.

Alison, I understand that she wants me to be punished accordingly. I accept that sleeping through two alarms was all on me.

At the same time — and I don’t know if this matters — I’m a relatively high performer at work. I truly enjoy what I do and do a decent job at it. I just received a glowing annual appraisal and got publicly commended by the director, in spite of my young age (this is my first job out of college) and junior position. Furthermore, I work overtime every day because my workload is high, even though we don’t get any overtime pay. And I’m not chronically late — this was my first time oversleeping.

And yet, my manager rejected my request for an UNPAID, half-day leave. Technically, she is right and I deserved it. But I don’t think being rigidly strict here was warranted. Am I just entitled for feeling this way? If you divide my monthly salary by 30 days, $90 is what I earn in one day. I will have to cough up an entire day’s salary (worth three weeks of lunch expenses!) for this, and my manager was cool with that? I’m fuming, yet I don’t know if I have the right to be.

Part of me wants to talk about this with my manager to see if it could’ve been handled differently — if I could’ve been given the unpaid, half-day leave. Is this worth revisiting with her about, and if so, how should I approach it?

This is utter bullshit.

I am IRATE over this.

If you’re not in a job where coverage matters (like one where you need to answer phones or meet with clients starting at a precise time), then it really, really doesn’t matter if you’re two minutes late. I would think it was ridiculous for a manager even just to have a stern talk with someone for being two minutes late in a job where it doesn’t have any practical impact — but fining you?

No.

You are a professional adult holding down a professional job. The entire concept of fining you is offensive and ridiculous.

If your manager has a problem with your time of arrival, she can do what a decent manager would do and talk to you about it. If it continues after that, she can decide what the consequences are. But they need to be normal work consequences (up to and including firing you if it’s that big of a deal, although I’m skeptical that it should be) — it can’t be digging through your wallet and taking whatever cash she finds there, or insisting you cut off two inches of your hair, or that you change your name to Xavier Sebastian Pumpernickel. And it can’t be making you turn over your own money for the privilege of working there.

Or at least it shouldn’t be.

Legally, though, in a lot of cases it would be allowed. I talked with employment lawyer Donna Ballman, author of the excellent book Stand Up For Yourself Without Getting Fired, who agreed that federal law does allow this, as long the fine doesn’t take your pay for that period below minimum wage. But she noted that you might live in a state that prohibits it, and it’s worth checking into that. Also, if you’re non-exempt, they can dock your pay for the actual time you were late … although if you’re exempt, that docking could negate your exempt status, make you effectively non-exempt, and mean that you’d be entitled to overtime pay when you work over 40 hours in a week. (There’s an explanation about exempt and non-exempt here, but the gist is that “exempt” is a government classification meaning that the nature of the work you do makes you exempt from receiving overtime pay. If you’re exempt, they can’t dock your pay when you work fewer hours. If they do that anyway, they can end up owing you overtime pay, including retroactively.)

Donna also pointed out: “The other thing I’d say you’d have to look at is the reason the employee was late. If it was to care for a sick child, spouse or parent, then punishing them might violate FMLA. If it related to a disability, then they might be violating the Americans With Disabilities Act. If it’s applied unevenly, then other discrimination laws could kick in. I’d say an employer doing this is, number one, a terrible employer, and, number two, taking a huge risk that they are violating some law.”

As for what you can do here …

First, it’s worth looking into the potential legal issues Donna raises. If there’s a legal violation here, your employers deserves to have someone pursue it.

Second, look into whether you’re correctly classified as exempt. You said you don’t get overtime pay even when you work overtime, which means they’re treating you as exempt. I would bet good money that they’ve misclassified you (which many employers do), especially considering that this is your first job out of school and first jobs often don’t meet the bar to be exempt. And if that’s the case, they owe you a ton of overtime back pay. Even if you ultimately choose not to pursue that, it would be really handy leverage to have in any discussions about the fining.

Third, recalibrate your expectations. Because this is your first job after college, you might be thinking this is more acceptable than it actually is. But it’s not normal to treated salaried professionals this way. It’s not something you should expect to find at future jobs. It’s not something you should be okay with now.

And you have every right to be fuming about that $90 fine. You are not being entitled. You are being absolutely, entirely reasonable.

So fourth, go back and talk to your manager. Say something like this: “I’m asking you to waive this $90 fine. $90 is what I earn in a day. I can’t afford to pay back an entire day’s salary. I work overtime every day, and it makes no sense for me to work long hours when I’m not given even a minute of leeway on the other end. I’m not chronically late, and I do excellent work. I don’t think I should be subject to a financial hardship for a one-time occurrence.”

Fifth, consider pushing back on this entire abhorrent policy with a group of your coworkers. People have unionized over less.

* I make a commission if you use that Amazon link.

Read an update to this letter here.

The post RFK Jr. Attends Inauguration Shirtless appeared first on The Onion.

The post Trump Rolls Onto Capitol Steps In Bulletproof Sphere appeared first on The Onion.

The post Inauguration Begins With Moment Of Silent Gloating appeared first on The Onion.

The EPA warned that forever chemicals found in sewage sludge that some farmers use to fertilize fields and pastures can pose a threat to human and animal health. What do you think?

The post Sewage Sludge Used As Fertilizer Poses Health Risks appeared first on The Onion.

Pope Francis has published his memoir, Hope, making him the first pope to publish an autobiography. Here are the biggest revelations from the new release: 

Became interested in Catholicism after getting possessed by the devil as a child

Began career as an executive assistant to the angel Gabriel

Crashed the popemobile into a 7-Eleven the first time he tried to drive it

Honestly gets pretty weirded out by adult converts

Has lip-synced dozens of homilies over a backing track

Regrets picking papal name Francis instead of much cooler name like Ryder

The best advice God ever gave him was “consider becoming the pope”

Shares his secret recipe for Hatch chile infused-communion wafers

Accidentally converted to Judaism in 2002

The post Revelations From Pope Francis’s New Memoir appeared first on The Onion.

New comic!
Today's News:

I'm sorry but you can't start giving exposition right next to those tasty crates and expect me to listen. I just hope no ever expects me to act stealthily, or to respectfully traverse a cemetery.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
If only you had artificially increased inequality, you wouldn't have technically violated the rules.

Today's News:

The health department announced Friday that the two cases, in adults who live in the same household and have unknown vaccination statuses, are linked to international travel. Contract tracing is being conducted.

The storm is expected to bring a significant amount of snow, with totals ranging from one to three inches across much of the area. Parts of the region, along the Interstate 10 corridor south to the coast, could see accumulations potentially reaching three to five inches.

In brief: It is the final hours before the Arctic freeze sets in, and we’ve got the latest information on what to expect in terms of cold and wintry precipitation, and when to expect it. The bottom line is that Tuesday and possibly Wednesday both look very iffy for traveling around Houston.

It could be worse

As I type this, the Houston Texans are kicking off against the Kansas City Chiefs in the Divisional round of the NFL Playoffs. Game-time temperatures are in the low 20s, with gusty northwesterly winds. By Tuesday morning the low temperature there is expected to be -1 degree Fahrenheit. So yes, Houston is going to get cold this coming week, but it could always be worse. Also, let’s go Texans!

Temperatures will soon begin falling

It’s fairly pleasant outside, with temperatures in the low 60s across much of the Houston region. But don’t be fooled. Winds are steady from the northwest, and as the Sun falls toward the horizon, temperatures will follow. Lows tonight will drop to around freezing in Houston, and with gusty northerly winds the apparent temperature will feel as if it is in the low 20s, at least tomorrow morning. So if you’re joining me at the Houston Marathon, bundle up, wear layers, and use the cold as motivation to go faster. Despite the cold start, Sunday will be fine in terms of getting out and about. Highs will reach the low- to- mid-40s with sunny skies.

MLK Day

Houston will likely see a light freeze on Monday morning, although some inland areas (i.e. along and north of Highway 105) could see lows drop into the mid- to upper-20s. But Monday should be mostly fine for any last minute preparations ahead of a winter storm. Highs will be around 40 degrees. I’m afraid it’s a dreary forecast for MLK Day festivities, with increasing clouds and gusty easterly winds keeping a distinct chill in the air.

Monday night through Wednesday morning

You should plan to be home by around 9 pm CT or so on Monday. Although temperatures probably won’t fall below freezing until a few hours later, we might start to see some light sleet or snow by around this time. Temperatures reach freezing levels by midnight or so, when precipitation coverage should also begin to increase.

This is the point of the forecast where we are still mired in uncertainty. The key questions are a) how much moisture will be available for precipitation to form and fall, and b) what kind of wintry mix will develop. Neither is answerable yet. For areas along and north of Interstate 10, I continue to think snow is the most likely option (perhaps 1-3 inches, or more), but we could see sleet mixed in. For areas south of Interstate 10, sleet may be more likely than snow, although we may still see some snow there. Further to the southwest, in Matagorda and Brazoria counties, we may see freezing rain as the dominant precipitation.

The bottom line is that when you wake up on Tuesday, some sort of winter wonderland (or nightmare) is going to exist outside. Snow/sleet/freezing rain is likely to continue through the morning hours on Tuesday, and possibly into the early afternoon. We may see some partially clearing skies by evening. However, temperatures will struggle to reach above freezing on Tuesday, and if they do in Houston it may only be for an hour or two. So I don’t think we’re going to get enough warmth to melt and clear streets.

Depending on how much snow cover there is overnight, temperatures in Houston will either be in the upper teens or lower 20s on Wednesday morning, which will be the coldest of the week. Virtually the entire metro area, aside from the coast, is likely to experience a hard freeze. This is going to help maintain ice or snow on area roads, and my sense is that Wednesday morning will likely once again be a no-go for traveling around the area.

By Wednesday afternoon, the combination of (slightly) above freezing temperatures and sunny skies will probably help clear roads. But it’s difficult to be certain of this right now.

The end

Highs finally get back into the mid- to upper-40s on Thursday, so at this time we think Houston will return to normal by that time. Next weekend looks to be fairly mild.

Will my power go out

Honestly, we can’t answer that. However, our supposition is that things probably will be OK in Houston in terms of electricity. ERCOT issued an update on Friday saying that while it is monitoring grid conditions closely, they are expected to remain “normal” during the upcoming winter weather. That means officials are fairly confident the grid will hold up during the colder weather. Additionally, Houston is not expected to get significant accumulations of freezing rain, which can build up on power lines and snap them. So, cautiously, we’re optimistic. But we will see.

Next update

Since I’m running the marathon tomorrow and will be cooked for the rest of the day, Matt will be covering on Sunday. We’ll have a morning and late afternoon update on the winter storm situation, similar to today.

In brief: There have been few changes to the overall forecast today, with higher resolution modeling now coming into range on this storm and essentially validating most of what we’ve seen to this point. A legitimate, rare winter storm, with primarily snow and sleet is likely to impact most of the Houston area tomorrow night and Tuesday, causing significant travel disruption through at least Wednesday morning.

What’s new?

A few minor notes this afternoon, none of which are significant changes in thinking from this morning.

First off, the NWS has upgraded us to a Winter Storm Warning and increased their snow total forecasts for the Houston area.

They have also increased the “realistic worst case scenario” snow forecast.

Why has this happened? Well for one, modeling has continued to lock in colder with this storm, showing a sharp transition overnight Monday into Tuesday morning from plain rain, freezing rain, and a mix of sleet and snow to just sleet and probably mostly snow across the region. Secondly, high resolution weather models that only run about 48 to 60 hours out in time are now in range of the storm, confirming both that precipitation-type outcome and the potential for “banding” that will exacerbate local snowfall totals.

Again, we have to note: The snow will not fall perfectly uniformly across the region. Depending on where this “banding” sets up, that will determine places that are at risk for 6 inches or more of snow. Quite frankly, that could be anywhere in our area; we simply don’t know at this time. Recent model runs have favored the Houston through Liberty County areas, as well as Brazoria County through Beaumont areas, but that could easily change. I’d say we’ll know more tomorrow, but realistically, we may not know it until it starts.

Again, just to underscore: As long as the forecast stays on track, travel is going to be nearly impossible Monday after midnight and all day Tuesday. You will almost certainly be stuck where you are until at least later Wednesday morning. The exception to this may be the far north now (like north of Highway 105), where snow may end up lighter, no ice occurs, and roads may clear off a bit after the snow stops Tuesday afternoon. But even that may be optimistic. More to come on this.

Historical context

Realistically, this is the most significant snow threat to the region since Christmas Eve 2004. The 1895 storm stands alone as the greatest on record in Texas and Louisiana, and this storm will not dethrone that one. However, with that in mind, this has the potential to set a modern official snowfall record in Houston, which currently sits at a mere 3 inches back in February 1960. January 1940 also sits at 3 inches. While a few storms since then, including Christmas Eve 2004 have produced higher amounts in parts of the area, from a record-keeping perspective, we have a chance to make some noise.

Could it be a blizzard?

This morning I noted how wind gusts of 40 to 50 mph were possible on Galveston Island Tuesday morning with this storm. That obviously begs the question of whether or not this could end up meeting blizzard criteria. That will be hard. The technical requirements are:

1.) Sustained wind or frequent gusts to 35 mph or higher. (This will be close)
2.) Heavy snowfall or blowing snow that reduces visibility under a quarter mile. (This will be tough)
3.) Three consecutive hours of these conditions. (This will be very tough)

I’m not saying it can’t happen, but given how rigorous these requirements are, I have doubts that we’ll officially get there. But at least now you know what an official blizzard is. That said, we almost certainly will see blizzard-like conditions on the island if those winds come to fruition and a full changeover from sleet to snow occurs.

Whatever the case, we are into some seriously rare winter weather for Houston in what may end up being a generational winter storm. We will have the latest for you in the morning with revised model data at our fingertips.

QUEEN’S PARK – Soon after debuting his “Canada Is Not For Sale” hat, Ontario Premier Doug Ford was spotted wearing a second hat to clarify that he is still very much for sale. “I was thrilled to see ‘Canada Is Not For Sale’ hats flying off the shelves,” said Ford. “It reminded me why I […]

The post Doug Ford gets second hat to clarify that he is still for sale appeared first on The Beaverton.

I wouldn't have had this on my 2025 bingo card, but Saturday Night Live creator/executive producer Lorne Michaels is donating his archives to the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin.With that donation comes a chance for us SNL fans to see part of the collection in the Fall of 2025 with the "Live From New York! The Making of Lorne Michaels" exhibition. Besides the expected

COUTTS, AB – Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has arrived on foot at the Coutts-Sweet Grass border crossing station, petitioning for refugee status in the US on the grounds of being persecuted in her home country. “In my home land, I am singled out for my beliefs,” pleaded a bedraggled Smith to a US customs officer. […]

The post Danielle Smith applies for refugee status in USA appeared first on The Beaverton.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
According to Green's Dictionary of Slang, the slang verb form of cock is attested in English as early as 1450 and in specifically Scottish sources by 1768. All I can figure is Macdonald was such a 'grandma' to use Tolkien's insult, that he either didn't know or couldn't imagine people taking it in a prurient way.

Today's News:

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Guess who's celebrating tonight? You guys probably, because it can't be me because there is no such entity!

Today's News:

An iconic store closed last month, as Food Town shut down their outlet at 570 El Dorado Blvd, Webster, TX 77598. The store started as a Randalls and was famously visited by Boris Yeltsin in 1989. The stop was impromptu and was requested by Yeltsin after a planned trip to the nearby Johnson Space Center. Yeltsin wanted to see a “typical” American grocery store, and what he found shocked him. The store was fully stocked, ...

SAN DIEGO—As they shooed a herd of giraffes into a nearby bathroom, workers told reporters Friday that they were frantically scrambling to hide all of the San Diego Zoo’s animals ahead of a visit from the landlord. “He texted an hour ago saying he was dropping in to check the garbage disposal, so we’ve been running around cleaning up evidence of the 12,000 rare and endangered animals we’ve got living here,” senior zookeeper Allison Weepie said while lighting a scented candle to cover the stench of snakes, Gila monsters, and tortoises in the reptile exhibit. “The lease says we’re allowed to have a cat, but it requires a $500 pet fee, which, you know, fuck that. I’m gonna turn up the volume on a nature documentary to drown out all the screaming macaques and parrots. Next we gotta throw tarps over the lions and sweep up the hundreds of pounds of rhino dung. As for the pandas, I’m just gonna tell him we’re pet-sitting for the neighbors.” At press time, workers were overheard explaining to the landlord that the colony of penguins marching through the property were legally protected service animals.

The post City Zoo Scrambles To Hide Animals Ahead Of Landlord Visit appeared first on The Onion.

President-elect Donald Trump has expressed his interest in buying Greenland, an idea he first floated back in 2019. The Onion examines the pros and cons of the U.S. acquiring the country. 

PRO: New Indigenous people to wrong

CON: Feels immoral to do anything that makes the Danes richer

PRO: Would increase domestic supply of ice caps to melt

CON: Full of foreigners

PRO: Would make Alaska jealous

CON: The Great American Melting Pot is still adjusting to the Scots-Irish

PRO: Can finally sate America’s appetite for pickled fish 

CON: 51 stars is a little gaudy, don’t you think?

PRO: Immigrant camps have to go somewhere

CON: Vacation to Greenland no longer considered exotic

PRO: USA! USA! USA!

CON: Björk from Iceland

The post Pros And Cons Of Buying Greenland appeared first on The Onion.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has banned the use of red dye No. 3 in food, beverages, and ingested drugs, more than 30 years after scientists discovered links to cancer in animals. What do you think?

The post FDA Bans Red Food Dye appeared first on The Onion.

Team, tonight we play the biggest game of our lives. I know you have heard our opposing coach’s comments—“We’re doing everything we can to honor our creator.” I also know you saw last week when their star quarterback took a knee and grabbed the sideline reporter’s microphone so the world could hear his prayer:

Our father, who art in heaven
I throw this ball for you
Please grant me touchdowns
And deliver me from interceptions
All glory to you, God
And to State, the greatest team in your creation
Amen.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “This ain’t good, Coach. They’re convinced they have the Almighty on their side. If that’s true, what chance do we have? How are we going to beat both State and the God of Western Christianity?”

Well, men, I recently completed my audit of PHIL 332: Nietzsche & The Death of Practical Meaning, and I’m tired of mincing words.

Their God is dead.

Time of death: tonight.

Place of death: Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.

Causes of death: the ceaseless march of modernity, the dawn of an age of existential crises, the fatal annoyance of having to endlessly answer the prayers of State’s performatively evangelical offensive linemen, and our explosive passing attack.

When we take the field, we will do what we know how to do. We are going to get pressure on the quarterback. We are going to execute great downfield blocking. And we are going to show State University that Christian morality is by no means self-evident.

We will engage State in a practical philosophical thought experiment that proves an unblocked corner blitz can shatter the idea of God. We will offer definitive evidence that no man has the moral high ground in a two-minute drill. We will teach our gospel: the gospel of deep crossing routes that break the necessary assumptions of Christianity, leaving State’s hands grasping at air, empty and faithless.

Come halftime, State’s coach will stare dead-eyed into the camera, a man whose table has lost three of its four legs. Holly Rowe will ask him, “Coach, what adjustments will help your team get back on track?”

He will respond in a whisper: “They are die Übermenschen.”

We are the Overmen, the Supermen, the dadgum Tech Cougars, those who have crossed from mindless acceptance to a world of self-directed, restless solitude in pursuit of a grounded human ideal.

Our opponent lives, though they do not yet know it, in the twilight of their idols—specifically, the false idols of ground-and-pound, line-of-scrimmage-obsessed football. We require no idols. We have been reborn via our newly installed flea flicker, which reflects our belief in the quintessence of man. We require no moral code. Our defensive coordinator is neither good nor evil. Three-man front or four-man front? Neither and both. We are beyond scheme. Our opponent will live in an infinite loop of eternal recurrence, an unchanging eternity of us Cougars gaining first downs on jet sweeps forever.

We do know that our victory will be meaningless. As soon as it is over, it will mean no more than the act of eating an English muffin at the team buffet. Our win will be as worthless as the paper money society has denominated as value, although it is valueless. Our “National Title” will be as meaningful as the drunkard’s boast that he is heir to the throne of England. Because he is, and he is not, just as we are, and we are not.

Yet this does not change what we do tonight.

Tonight, we won’t rely on faith or intelligent design. Tonight, we won’t pray for victory. Tonight, we won’t supplicate to a higher power. No, tonight, we are accountable for what happens, and what is going to happen is that we are going to kick State’s ass up and down the field.

We will score touchdowns and have the player who scored lie down while the rest of us pantomime throwing dirt on him, representing the burial of the ancient gods, now sacrificed to progress, science, and our air raid passing offense.

We will play clean in coverage, bat passes down, point toward the heavens, and then point at our butts, indicating that their dead God is butt at football.

We will stand victorious at the podium with Holly Rowe. She will ask us how we feel, and we will say, without embarrassment, that we feel as gods must feel. That WE ARE gods. The Gods of Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.

Hands in, gentlemen. Clear eyes, full hearts, Zarathustra can’t lose.