iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026

In the summer of 2013, two esoteric, technical, incredibly important texts were published within weeks of one another: the first is the Snowden leaks, which revealed a system of global, pervasive digital surveillance. 1/

"Eugène Delacroix's painting 'La Liberté guidant le peuple' ('Liberty Leading the People'), depicting the French revolution as a ragtag group of peasants led by a flag-waving, bare-breasted incarnation of 'Liberty.' The painting has been altered: the scene is now being observed with a giant, smoke-shrouded CCTV dome, and the distant building have been replaced with a mainframe computer.

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: pluralistic.net/2026/08/11/t... 2/

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Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period.

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unclehiss.bsky.social @unclehiss.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Look,I'd respect Snowden too, if he didn't come to aid a genocidal empire that is slaughtering my people for 12 years now. As it goes, he is deserving of highest CIA reward - two bullets in the back of the head.

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Natalie @odinsrealmom.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

This is the best thread I have ever read.

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Funksands @funksands.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Permanent dynastic wealth distorts and eventually destroys democracies and economies. This is why we need high taxes on the ultra-wealthy. Not to pay for stuff.

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Double Choco Choquant 🔻☮ ⏚ ★ @doublechocochoq.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

You could add this one (to build a trilogy) : From Johann Chapoutot "Les irresponsables" (dunno if there's a translation though). Even one from David Graeber on the debt, "Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropologys"

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Fabian Fridholm 🇸🇪 @fabianf.wsocial.eu · 12/08/2026

Very interesting thread. I’m missing the ironic fact that Snowden ended up in the #1 oligarchy of Russia.

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Le Fab @lefab.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Great read, very interesting! Thank you! I'm currently in France, feeling inspired to look up some guillotine blue prints 😅

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JAMDrops @jamdrops.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

God, how I love the phrase "Bonfire of the Stupidities." Doctorow is a wordsmith.

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Blake Brown @antiquequaalude.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

We're going to have to tax the ever loving shit out of these people or we are rapidly headed to Oliver Twist levels of poverty for the vast majority of us and a lot of spilled blood. It should be extremely clear - if their wealth grows faster than the economy grows then that money is coming from us

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 13/08/2026

Have you read Luke Kemp’s Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse? An archaeologist’s analysis of the history of those collapses—meshes very neatly with this thread.

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