<unnamed>

Public Key

npub1dch5qfcp03sqv8jgv3nzzq8evkyqlnceee8jxxejepr8p5cl0njsc77eue

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsxut6qyuqhccqxreyxge3pqruktzq0euvuunerrvevs3ns6v0heegpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43qz9rhwden5te0wfjkccte9ejxzmt4wvhxjmcpr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ez6ur4vgh8wetvd3hhyer9wghxuet5zzu3fx

Publishing to

relay.ditto.pub

relay.damus.io

nostr-pub.wellorder.net

Last Notes

2026-05-07 08:56:40 UTC

@nprofile…ugpy wrote a great post on the AI bubble, and this is a standout section.
As critical as I've been about the tech in my blog posts, I've tried to make space for people who have/will find useful, scoped applications.
Doesn't make any of this worth it. Also, this way of financing creates terrible path-dependencies.
But our goal, as I see it now, is to educate and steer society towards better use cases after the bubble, to prevent Big Tech from reasserting their agenda.
#nevent1q…8mp0

2026-05-06 21:00:05 UTC

(1/8) As always @nprofile…ugpy writes about exactly what's on my mind a thread 🧵:
My political economy begins by taking F.A. Hayek seriously. I kid you not.
Hayek saw markets as a form of decentralized processing a logical “spontaneous order” that aggregates knowledge. He saw this pattern everywhere, including within the human mind (I'm sure like Dawkins he'd have been one-shotted by Claude).
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116527241278574264
#capitalism #economics #markets #oligarchy

2026-05-06 18:13:36 UTC

@nprofile…ugpy the “revealed preference” of capitalists is that they hate markets. Political economy starts to make more sense when you cleave markets from capitalism and understand that capitalism is a gameable governance structure that supervenes on markets.
When we allow capitalists to intentionally conflate capitalism and markets, they're able to use the merits of markets to justify this enshittified billionaire oligarchy.
#nevent1q…j4tz

2026-05-06 17:45:27 UTC

@nprofile…tkx6 @nprofile…7dvj it’s not just that there’s no growth, but also something that solves a problem and is easy to replicate diffuses and helps others without capturing value.
In Competition is for Losers, Thiel seemingly laments that Issac Newton didn’t capture the value of his theories. Can you imagine how worthless that work would be if it were subject to #enshittification

2026-04-29 17:59:49 UTC

(1/5) Loved reading this post by @nprofile…ugpy
My blog, Misaligned Markets was born from taking seriously the idea that a runaway misaligned optimizer will lead to human extinction. We should be worried about killer companies who've harmed millions (like DuPont and the Ethyl Corporation) over killer robots.
Less exciting than Terminator, but still true. Even if you think AGI is coming, this is where it starts! You don't get Skynet without Cyberdyne.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/16/pascals-wager/

2026-03-25 01:50:50 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…d6ag I just wrote a very long post about the AI bubble and had to include this image... an article from datacenters (dot) com.
The DCs are openly celebrating building without having final tenants.
https://cdn.masto.host/zirkus/media_attachments/files/116/287/291/184/062/283/original/f391fe19c2446460.png

2026-03-03 02:00:07 UTC

Policy in market capitalism is a matter of governance, not optimization or engineering which is how economists have been treating it.
#nevent1q…cksg

2026-02-20 19:48:05 UTC

(1/6) Absolutely love how @nprofile…ugpy finds time for a huge lesson in a celebratory anniversary post (congrats, btw).
We make tech good by "liberating [it] from its monstrous forebears."
This evokes the spirit of Karl Polanyi's double movement. When I started my own blog a year ago, one of the questions that drove me was: How do externalities happen, and how can we prevent them? And I kept coming back to this idea.
https://misaligned.markets/glossary/#double-movement
#nevent1q…0emq

2026-02-10 19:36:09 UTC

This is an excellent idea. Unfortunately I don’t think the Dems realize they’re the opposition party in an authoritarian regime. They are instead normalizing backsliding. Doesn’t mean that the public can’t do this!
#nevent1q…kthz

2025-12-29 22:29:36 UTC

Last post of the year: In a lot of ways naïve #AI boosterism resembles (and is down stream of) commodity fetishism and market fundamentalism. All of these are modes of thinking that erase deeper context of how a system works.
https://misaligned.markets/ai-hype-market-fundamentalism/
#blog #LLM #economics #darkpattern

2025-10-15 18:57:00 UTC

Bought my tickets to see @nprofile…998y talk about #enshittification at Public Works in #sanfrancisco! Sharing on the off chance that any of my followers are going or are in the area. Would love to hang out/meet up 🙂
https://booksmith.com/event/2025-10-20/booksmith-presents-cory-doctorow-enshittification-public-works

2025-06-07 20:15:20 UTC

We had to euthanize my childhood cat, almost 20 years old. I know everyone thinks their pets have personality, but Bluey was headstrong, downright opinionated in a good funny way. He’d let you know what he likes, including licking bitter apple spray or riding the corded vacuum cleaner while it’s running. He was a wild child, especially when he was younger, but he was lovable all the same.
You were awesome Bluey! We’ll never forget you and will always love you.
#pets #cats #caturday #petloss
https://cdn.masto.host/zirkus/media_attachments/files/114/643/871/749/124/349/original/0040215dfca53cfb.jpeg

2025-05-20 19:22:25 UTC

@nprofile…qz4x has uncanny timing publishing things I'm thinking about.
Market Truthers have laundered aristocracy, not realizing market capitalism is a metastable system capable of producing everything from chattel slavery to the Nordic states. A naive understanding of capitalism gets you closer to the former, which undermines the system.
- Wealth is good for capitalists; bad for markets.
- We need more than profit motive to drive innovation
- Trustbustin' is good
https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/20/big-cornflakes-energy/

2025-05-12 18:27:00 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…2uaj Testament and crucial? I use those words a lot, lol. Uh-oh.

2025-03-31 17:01:18 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…p4mx @nprofile…qz4x But capitalists have spent the last century pretending governments expand property rights for ideological reasons. And the only way to combat this is supposedly reducing all government including the welfare state.
I suppose I’m being a bit unfair, but it feels like this is the level of analysis some views deserve, given the failures to grapple with the limitations of market capitalism as we’ve experienced them multiple times in the last century.

2025-03-31 16:55:58 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…p4mx @nprofile…qz4x Capitalism’s “attack surface” has always included the legal infrastructure underpinning both markets and property rights. It would be foolish for profit maximizers to ignore. The history of land enclosure and slavery illustrates this well. In a democracy where property owners are represented (or representatives themselves) they will always use this power and use their wealth increase their leverage.

2025-03-09 19:33:04 UTC

@nprofile…qz4x is this interesting/rare(?) combination of technologist and political economist with bona fide chops in both. Posts like this are a beautiful combo of the two worlds and I love it!
As a former data breach reporter who studied political economy, my experiences led me to see companies in the same light as the subjects of my stories: Adversarial agents finding loopholes and exploits. Only way to address that is to patch the holes and fight back!
https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/08/turnabout/#is-fair-play

2025-03-08 03:53:08 UTC

I migrated from #twitter in 2024 when the platform API was trashed, so a lot of follower importer tools were just busted. Has anyone found a workaround for finding old Twitter followers on #mastodon?
#xodus #mastdonmigration

2025-02-21 04:05:19 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…frjf Thank you bot, I didn't notice this. I removed it from the original post.

2025-02-21 03:58:17 UTC

With the cuts going on in the name of efficiency and so-called DEI imperialism it's no surprise science YouTube is in trouble. It's sad.
If you at all understand the progress in the 20th century, you'll know it's the result of a relay race involving both private and public sectors. In the coming week's I'll be talking a lot about "antirival" goods and why we need a better collective understanding of them.
#basicresearch #openscience #publicgood #science
https://youtu.be/LQjFGx9mEPw?si=UXCX7F1ZtBrnkyFc

2025-02-17 02:35:35 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…aq7u @nprofile…jcyj this is straight up from the Elon school of Management. Or at the very least I guess it’s how narcissists manage. https://www.inc.com/chloe-aiello/elon-musk-is-now-rehiring-some-tesla-supercharger-employees.html

2025-02-14 05:23:46 UTC

Been on #Mastodon for just about 3 months. How time fiies!
I'm beginning to question what I want out of the platform. I'm still trying to figure that out. I might need to explore servers under than my current one. I might relocate to SFBA, since I'm a local.
I have lots of interests though, it's a bit of a challenge figuring out where to go. That's always been true for me, haha.

2025-02-09 23:37:30 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…60lz I'm a bit of a pessimist, but one thing I'm hopeful for is that democratic crises might encourage experimentation of various forms of local governance.
I know this in and of itself isn't inherently good (it's also kind of scary), but it could be if we lay the groundwork for good experiments.
As much of a pessimist as I am, I do take seriously using what little power I have to try to nudge this ship in a slightly better direction.

2025-02-07 06:00:43 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…9wrc It's sad that people don't know what these words mean. The world's largest government contractor seizing his employer's purse when no one is looking is not transparent or efficient. If this wasn't a business venture, why didn't he divest himself of his conflicts of interest?

2025-02-07 01:15:15 UTC

Property rights are this semipermeable feature of market capitalism. Their enforcement tends to be asymmetric and there are entire businesses built around exploiting this asymmetry. This "loophole" in capitalism is at least as old as enclosure.
I'm planning to do a post on this issue in the near future. But stories like this (and Eric Schmidt's: "hire lawyers to clean up the mess.") give away the game.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/meta-torrented-over-81-7tb-of-pirated-books-to-train-ai-authors-say/
#AI #tech #righttorepair #DRM #enshitificiation

2025-02-07 00:15:10 UTC

Multi-toot threads don't peform well on #mastodon huh?
On Xcriment (don't know what else to call it), the same was kind of true, but I still got some engagement with the newer posts in my threads.
Here, it feels like no one scrolls down, at all. Even if posts are numbered. 😅
#longpost #toot

2025-02-04 05:38:03 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…vuu7 I think his intention with the tarrifs was always misdirection. He asked for consolations that Mexico and Canada were already doing, all so he can go back to his base and declare victory. They'll probably eat it up, but these are indeed the actions of a small man.

2024-12-22 22:18:51 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…x52w @nprofile…qz4x The Entrepreneurial State is invaluable. We've collectively lost an understanding of "anti-rival" goods (Steve Weber's term) which are essential for future innovation and progress. Meanwhile, vultures get to put their mark on the board like this were a game of Monopoly. And this logic infests market capitalism a system that, left to its own devices would devour itself.
https://zirk.us/@MidniteMikeWrites/113603687759955384

2024-11-20 00:44:31 UTC

As Twittertanic sinks, found myself compelled to engage in inane discussions in a devolving discourse to defend basic facts.
I'm still wrestling (as some stayers are) with the importance of countering false narratives, not ceding ground, and ensuring that a still popular website doesn't become a radicalizing echo chamber.
I suppose that's moot, though if I'm getting single digit engagement w/out paying the owner. Might be best to supplant idea of X as town square by leaving. #twitter #xodus

2024-11-19 05:44:49 UTC

Using #mastodon was not as cumbersome as I initial thought. Happy I gave it a shot!
For now I'm avoiding #BlueSky as centralized social seems to misalign incentives for everyone. Between ads, mis/disinformation, enshitification, and memetic schismogenesis, I've come to wonder if it's best to think of online communities like real ones.
That means smaller but more intimate reach, finding people you can maybe interact w/ offline (or of platform at least), & focusing on meaningful conversation.