You can also follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!

Here's today's edition: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/

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If you're a nostr:npub1u00djvjjpk6vm09z8vrrkjpnj0s9favacchm00w8qw4ae4ptussq8upzgc subscriber, you can read these essays - as well as previews of upcoming magazine columns and early exclusives on doctorow.medium.com.

My latest Medium column is "Fool Me Twice We Don't Get Fooled Again: There's a crucial difference between federatable and federated"

https://doctorow.medium.com/fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again-20074e311f1f

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Recent appearances:

* New Books Network

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-internet-con

* #HauntedMansion #GhostPost Panel Live From #MidsummerScream

https://dizneycoasttocoast.libsyn.com/haunted-mansion-ghost-post-panel-live-from-midsummer-scream-disney-podcast-episode-1027

* how big tech makes the internet worse (What's Gonna Happen)

https://www.stitcher.com/show/what-s-gonna-happen/episode/how-big-tech-makes-the-internet-worse-with-cory-doctorow-305645071

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Upcoming appearances:

* #SanDiego Union Tribune Festival of Books, Aug 19

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

* #BurningMan Center Camp, 1430h, Aug 29

https://playaevents.burningman.org/2023/playa_events/03/

* nostr:npub1sqfnxau480pnvm0t258kdrj5u2u72zwm2kh7tk3qf6lxtqkwvlmqgn5skr Awards (#SanFrancisco), Sept 14

https://www.eff.org/awards/effawards/2023

* An Evening with #VESchwab (#DesMoines), Oct 2

https://www.thecabinidaho.org/all-events/ve-schwab

* 26th #ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing keynote (#Minneapolis), Oct 16

https://cscw.acm.org/2023/index.php/keynotes/

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My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

https://craphound.com/shop/

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My latest book is Red Team Blues, available wherever books are sold!

Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US):

https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2873/Wed%2C_Apr_26th_6pm%3A_Red_Team_Blues%3A_A_Martin_Hench_Novel_HB.html#/

and Forbidden Planet (UK):

https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/

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My latest nonfiction book is Chokepoint Capitalism (with Rebecca Giblin), nonfiction about monopoly and fairness in creative labor markets.

https://chokepointcapitalism.com

Signed copies available from Book Soup:

https://www.booksoup.com/book/9780807007068

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Yesterday's threads: The Sacklers woulda gotten away with it if it wasn't for those darned meddling feds; and more!

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/110871883425734524

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#10yrsago Podcast of “Metadata – a wartime drama” https://ia600704.us.archive.org/28/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_255/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_255_Metadata_A_Wartime_Drama.mp3

#10yrsago Jimmy Wales: #Wikipedia won’t surveil users for China https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-DGB-28426

#5yrsago The eminently hackable police #bodycam https://www.wired.com/story/police-body-camera-vulnerabilities/

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#10yrsago #NYPD #StopAndFrisk procedure ruled unconstitutional https://www.nythttps://web.archive.org/web/20180812142041/https://www.bitcoinstacks.com/wbb/index.php?thread/15081-exclusive-interview-with-a-twitter-eth-giveaway-scam-ringleader-making-50k-100k/imes.com/2013/08/13/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-practice-violated-rights-judge-rules.html

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#20yrsago #Ultima’s economic indicators http://www.juliandibbell.com/playmoney/2003_08_01_playmoney_archive.html#106022990884580908

#15yrsago #TrafficCams bring in $250,000/month in a town with a $4.6 million budget https://web.archive.org/web/20080813150522/https://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/47592.html

#15yrsago #WalMart: you can’t scan century-old photos of your ancestors because copyright lasts forever https://www.flickr.com/groups/100_years_old/discuss/72157594167106526/

#15yrsago Janes in Love: #GraphicNovel is a call-to-art for young people https://memex.craphound.com/2008/08/12/janes-in-love-graphic-novel-is-a-call-to-art-for-young-people/

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Hey look at this

* How #Fanatics Is Building a Weird #Monopoly Over Sports #TradingCards https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/how-fanatics-is-building-a-weird

* How to Move Your Instagram Feed to #Pixelfed, the Photo App That Doesn't Track Your Every Move https://www.wired.com/story/migrate-move-instagram-to-pixelfed-no-tracking-fediverse/

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Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States: The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act protects the people who need it least.

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/110876807189638595

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Going to #Defcon this weekend? I'm giving a keynote, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse," today (Aug 12) at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826

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Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States; and more!

Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/

#Pluralistic

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After I published on it, many readers wrote in disbelief, insisting that the debt collection practices McGhee described were illegal:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation

And they are illegal. But debt collection is a trade founded on lawlessness, and its core competence is to identify and target people who can't invoke the law in their own defense.

eof/

The point of debt markets isn't to ensure that debts are discharged - it's to ensure that every penny the hereditary debtor class has is transferred to the creditor class, at the hands of their fellow debtors.

In her 2021 *Paris Review* article "America's Dead Souls," #MollyMcGhee gives a haunting, wrenching account of the debts her parents incurred and the harassment they endured:

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/05/17/americas-dead-souls/

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Hudson's claim is that the rulers of antiquity knew this - and that we forgot it. Jubilee was key to producing long term political stability. Take away Jubilee and civilizations collapse:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/08/jubilant/#construire-des-passerelles

Debts that can't be paid won't be paid. Debt collectors know this. It's irrefutable.

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Farmers stop producing the food the people need so they can devote their land to ornamental flowers for creditors' tables. Left to themselves, credit markets produce hereditary castes of lenders and debtors, with lenders exercising ever-more power over lenders.

This is socially destabilizing; you can feel it in McKenzie's eloquent, barely controlled rage at the hopeless structural knot that produces the abusive and predatory debt industry.

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The best-prepared farmer can't save every harvest from blight, hailstorms or fire. When the producer can't pay the creditor, they go a little deeper into debt. That debt accumulates, getting worse with interest and with each bad beat.

Run this process long enough and the entire productive economy will be captive to lenders, who will be able to direct production for follies and fripperies.

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The productive economy will have need for credit to secure the inputs to their processes. Farmers need to borrow every year for labor, seed and fertilizer. If all goes according to plan, the producer pays off the lender after the production is done and the goods are sold.

But even the most competent producer will eventually find themselves unable to pay.

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Hudson has written eloquently and persuasively about the longstanding practice of #jubilee, in which all debts were periodically wiped clean (say, whenever a new king took the throne, or once per generation):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/24/grandparents-optional-party/#jubilee

Hudson's core maxim is that "debt's that can't be paid won't be paid."

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