I said what I said

For the record: I left currently-known-as-X Twitter years ago and haven't posted since at https://x.com/ditaparker. I haven't been completely inactive or I guess the account would have been deleted years ago; there are people I root for and whose careers I follow I want to support by checking in on them regularly (more or less weekly). The last time I tried doing exactly that, this is what I got: "Sorry, you are not allowed to log in at this time." Oh. Okay. I checked what the account looks like on the web and this is what I got: "@DitaParker hasn’t posted. When they do, their posts will show up here." Huh? (Dita Parker had posted. Many many many times.) The account has been wiped clean. Well, not by me.

What the hell is going on, I'm sure I don't know. I'm not going to try to revive it. Not going to open new accounts there or anywhere else either; I'll make do. If it becomes active all of a sudden, it's not me. If I ever became active on Twitter again (sorry, it will forever be Twitter to me), I would let you know right here at the Den. (Unless this dies, too, which would mean there's some serious fuckery afoot.)

I have no plans to shut down the Den. If I do, I will let you know. If this blog disappears, something happened to it. If I go silent all of a sudden, something happened to me. And I don't mean some fuckery afoot scenario, let's keep things real, shall we; I mean life. Always unpredictable, never a dull moment. (Seriously, I'm never bored. How could you ever be bored on this planet?)

Be well, sweetie darlings, and shine on. Shine on.

Thanksgrieving

Temperature: a rainy 7/45 degrees. 

Eating: falafels.

Drinking: gingerbread coffee.

Listening: to a jazzy Christmas playlist curated by my youngest. I most certainly am, less than four weeks to go, that's nothing!

Watching: Generation X creatives take a beating. Good thing we're a resilient, resourceful bunch, children of a string of recessions, never any certainty about anything. Some would say cynics. I say we're realists. And thankful we had the optimism and opportunity to pursue careers in arts and media, academia and culture, giving the world the best of our skills and talents.

Reading: the US-Russia peace proposal was like reading Kremlin's wish list to Father Frost. What a bunch of immoral and illegal BS.
 
Writing: condolences and other messages of support and sympathy. 

Thinking: Just like no one came to the aid of the blue-collar worker when manufacturing jobs were redistributed, no one is coming to shield creatives from the devastation caused by AI. I hear new jobs are on the horizon, but no one seems to know what these new jobs are and how many openings there will actually be. We don't have time to wait, or waste, we need to keep moving. Where to, now that is the question.

Feeling: Sure, I have a horse in this race and as much to lose as any of my friends and colleagues, but that's not all I'm apprehensive about. Don't you feel uneasy when AI companies would rather not talk about the monstrous environmental footprint they produce and what that means for the climate and all of us? Or how refining language models so far as to make people believe that what these programs produce is actual, factual, carefully deliberated thoughts and answers leads people to use these programs in their daily lives and decision making, wholesale? When in fact, after racing to gather and input as much data as possible, racist and sexist and all manner of toxic thinking and language is now as integral a part of these programs as say Wikipedia or the Encyclopedia Britannica. Or how mercenary their piracy-based business model is? Are you okay with this, all of it? I'm not.

Monday (I have Friday on my mind)

Temperature: a sunny 10/50 degrees.

Eating: Maybe later.

Drinking: tea.

Listening: to the troll-in-chief on his Life of a Showboat Tour brings to mind all the traits of the dark triad.

Watching: Slow Horses.

Reading: on AI from several angles and feeling more and more uneasy the deeper I delve. Automation bias, anybody? Seriously, despite hominid appearances, there's no one home. There's no one on the other end, and when a system gets so complex you can't decipher or understand its inner logic, you gotta ask yourself should I trust this thing to make an assessment or decision for me. And the piracy involved...mind-boggling.

Writing: something that would lift you from your funk and sling you straight into the depths of despair. So let's not go there right now, it's only Monday after all.

Thinking: I get to meet an old and dear dear friend over the weekend so I've already got my eye on Friday. I know, still only Monday. Gaah!

Feeling: an itch in my nasal cavity. Don't. You. Dare.

Cheer up, the worst is yet to come!

TGIF, sweetie darlings, how is everyone holding up in this grave new world of ours? Yes, I'm referring to him, and that one nation under Don, and the Lord of the Flies guys. (I'll explain in a bit.) No man should have that much power. At least you shouldn't give it to someone so self-serving, so undeserving. His mob-boss-like antics work against him, though. Overreaching and/or going all-out un-American will backfire. But first he'll have to double down on the lies to keep people eating his bullshit like it's chocolate mousse. That'll just make everything worse; the lying, the gaslighting, the total demonization of anyone working and speaking against them. Insulating their base is what they need to keep doing, and that'll just make everything worse; the confrontation, the hatred, the vitriol.

And now we're headed to an even more fact-free Facebook, and possibly both the platform previously known as Twitter and currently known as Shitter and TikTok falling into the greasy palms of a Lord of the Flies. (I'll explain in a bit.) That'll just make everything worse; the bot armies and other propaganda machines, the trolling and harassment, the disinformation and miscellaneous calculated distractions. Millions upon millions follow these liars on social media. That's their reality, but you don't have to defer to it or be colonized by it, you can reject it, always. Tens of millions voted for him, tens of millions didn't. Remember that. He got elected on lies, fears, gaslighting and disinformation, but he'll have to govern in the real world where we shouldn't inflate his influence or give him more power than he actually has; reach and clout works both ways.

So just do your own thing, keep living in the real world where hundreds upon hundreds of millions don't share those views or worldview, don't believe the lies being told or approve the policies being introduced. Reject the reality and future they offer, if it's not to your liking, and substitute your own. Go in search of safer and saner communities, alternative social media platforms and ways of communicating. Focus on productive groups and forums that are interested in more than barking and snarling and foaming at the mouth like rabid dogs; and right-wing rabies is all the rage, on X in particular. Don't validate them by participating. Going on those platforms expecting civility is like going to a rodeo expecting to see dressage.

If you insist on staying on, think of the trolls and extremists as deer flies: a nuisance for sure, but in the grand scheme of things, on a global scale, just a bunch of angry buzzing. Loud and abundant if all you are counting or looking for is flies, but easy enough to shield yourself against. Don't worry too much about having to deal with him, with them, those platforms, all of it. Turn the thought around: They will have to deal with us, and we are legion, after all.

Dogs, horses, flies...good god, woman, these are people, fellow humans! Yes, they are, aren't they, adults who should know better than to trust someone who has already shown them, repeatedly, who he is and what he stands for, so please do not plead ignorance when he betrays you. The algorithms made you do it? They try, and you should know better than to trust something that has already shown you, repeatedly, what it is and what it does, so please do not plead ignorance when it makes you angry, leaves you feeling agitated even while you're offline, or you end up radicalized in some way. You are not obligated to participate. There's no law that says you must. It's your life, your precious time, a competition for your attention, certainly, but you still get to choose where you direct it and how you conduct yourself, online and off.

Hold the line, Maria Ressa would say. Do not obey in advance, Timothy Snyder would say. Strength in numbers is on our side, I say. It doesn't have to be this way.

That escalated quickly

Someone took time out of their precious weekend to email me just to tell me...well, I'm not going to post misinformation or disinformation on my blog, that's what Elon's X is for.

Firstly, thank you for writing, although since we don't know each other, your words didn't sting quite as much as you perhaps hoped they would. Anonymous + disposable email = zero fucks given. Secondly, if you disagree but can't/won't converse in an articulate and polite manner, scroll on to topics/opinions more to your liking. It's the World Wide Web, full of nooks and crannies for all tastes and occasions. Thirdly, insults reveal nothing about what you are so vehemently opposed to, so I don't know what to tell ya. Come back with an articulate argument and present it in a polite manner? Because things I care about = all fucks given, so shall we continue our discussion on AI? Despite popular demand, I'm about to.

I speak from a viewpoint of a writer (fiction) and translator (non-fiction), but know all manner of people in the arts, from music through photography to theater. Oh, and a game developer. I also know people in business, so I know the reasoning behind both sides of the isle, so to speak; what creatives fear they are losing, what entrepreneurs hope to gain. And it's not that clear-cut, that black-and-white; not at all. There is plenty artists can do with AI. If we could only agree on some rules. But as things stand, it's almost single-handedly up to the boards of AI/tech companies to make these rules and regulate themselves. Which translates to: No laws = no restrictions.

I also know several teachers, and herein lies my greatest worry: every single one of them has a bad feeling about the digitalization of education and the effects of mobile phones and social media on children and teens. These have been studied and proven to exist, the detrimental effects, I mean. Something else often mentioned: Why do we have to learn these things when we can just look this up if we want to or need to.

What these teachers are trying to hammer home with varying success: Without a baseline, a touchstone, without any accumulated, internalized knowledge, without media literacy and tools to spot misinformation and combat disinformation, facts become a matter of opinion, and the adults of tomorrow easily fooled and led. You don't know what you don't know.

AI doesn't know what it doesn't know, it has to be taught. But it learns in such a different way from humans that it gets things wrong all the time, makes guesses, talks like a confused individual suffering from memory loss, makes things up as it goes, or just confidently gives you an answer that on the surface looks perfect but turns out to be BS. AI also already knows plenty, serves several functions quite admirably, gathers and arranges data super fast, and keeps on learning.

But Pinocchio has a long way to go in order to become a real boy. It will need everything it can get its hands on; even that which we haven't volunteered to give. It will have to wade in a cesspool and enjoy the pinnacles of human achievement alike. What will it present to us as its findings, its truth about things, now that is the question. If we start going to these programs as we would an oracle, if they become omnipresent, a verb, like Google, but we don't know the first thing about what we don't know and have no idea where else to look, we're bound to be fooled and led, inadvertently or intentionally. (Because not everyone knows what they are doing. And just imagine what oppressive regimes could do with a Truth Machine all their own; China and Russia already have a government-curated internet.)

You may not care, but many do. You may gladly volunteer your stuff, but not everyone wants to, so please try to understand, respect, and sympathize with their point of view. A rising tide lifts all boats, they say. As a friend noted, this feels like a tsunami, and many of us will simply drown.

We need a cheering anecdote to cap things off, don't we? I can't recall it verbatim, but you'll find it in This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race by Nicole Perlroth. Picture a roomful of tech leaders. When asked to please raise a hand if they liked living in this world they've created, not a single hand came up.

(Another book recommendation, this one re: the reading brain in a digital world: Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf. Every parent, teacher, tech leader, tech follower, AI developer, and human being should read this book.)

The abyss stares back

Temperature: 20/68 degrees. It hasn’t been this cool in…well over a month. It’s but a brief respite, the heat promised to return over the weekend and stay put for another X weeks. A subcontinent once preoccupied with keeping warm is now working fast to learn how to keep cool. That means changes to energy use and production, construction of housing and infrastructure, everything under the scorching sun and increasing rains. How to help the natural world adjust is another matter.

Drinking: I made rhubarb juice! Again!!

Eating: And like twelve different pies. It’s quite high-yielding, our patch. Not complaining, mind you. I freeze what we don’t use so we get to taste summer all year long.

Watching: my favorite Austen, Brontë and Gaskell adaptations.

Listening: to the sounds of summer, which my youngest has been recording, both audio and visual. I thought how wise and sweet of him until we chatted about it and I realized he is recording things he expects to lose over time, at least to some extent. I had to excuse myself and go cry in the bathroom. This. This is what we are doing. This is what our dawdling is doing. To our children and their future. They are being so very brave and hopeful, so positive and innovative, because the alternative is this…abyss.

Reading: my favorite Austen, Brontë and Gaskell novels.

Thinking: The Pegasus project revelations, ugh and duh, another Evil Corp at it, and not the only one, everything that can be done will be and is being done, so crying that this is not what it’s meant for is the Zuckerberg defense, and we all know his motives are both obvious and dubious, it’s like arming yourself for personal/national/regional safety and defense, the business end of your arsenal is still meant for threats and offense, and for all your, ahem, good and noble intentions, that is what it is being used for so zip it, or fix it, or have some standards, the bar doesn’t seem all that high so it shouldn’t be all that hard for a security software company, no, that’s like calling KFC a vitamins and supplements supplier, insecurity company then, and what good is end-to-end encryption when the whole device can be hijacked on the hush-hush, come to think of it, and you know what else I’m thinking, my blog so I’ll tell you, not interested then what are you still doing here, life is short, the clock is ticking, yes, so, with all your possible and probable resources, all your data and know-how, all that you could be doing, this is the scope of your ambition, this is what you’d rather do above all else, enable oppression, drive division, for profit, o-kay, but with everything going on in the world, all the problems waiting to be solved, this is your contribution, o-kay, okay okay okay, just wondering, always wondering, about everything, one of my favorite pastimes, truly, just endlessly curious, but, ew, eternal shame on you, if I were a vindictive person I’d wish long covid upon the whole lot of you at it, or maybe a visit from some other virus, something you only dreamt of but couldn’t quite make happen, you know, because this is absolute we-sure-are-being-humongous-dicks-but-do-we-give-a-flying-fuck-hell-no-show-us-the-money assholery, but since I'm not, what I wish is for some form of common agreement that this has gone too far for far too long and has to stop.

Feeling: This calls for more Austen, Brontë and Gaskell.

Be kind, rewind

'Tis the season to be jolly... Well, it is, sweetie darlings, carnival season! Followed by lent, which is all about penance, abstinence, giving up, letting go. Of what? Carne vale means a farewell to meat but there are better ways to fast than a forty-day vegetarian streak.

What if we gave words a rest this lent? Spoke less, listened more. Wrote less, read more. Rich coming from someone whose livelihood depends on how one uses words and language? That's just it, dearest denizens. How do we use our voices? Are we all mouth and no ears? All busy fingers and blind eyes? It sure feels like it as you move around the World Wide Wildness.

And it is a jungle out there, isn't it, one where words and sentiments such as pity, remorse and mercy play but a bit part, so it seems. How easy it is to cut someone down. All you need is 140 carefully chosen characters. Or just brush them off with a swift swipe. Or round up some friends and go after them, pitchforks sharpened, torches a-blazing and scathing scythe at the ready. You'll never have to face them. You don't even know them. You know nothing about them, all you have is a personal opinion and your private soon public emotions and we are all entitled to ours, but that's as far as our entitlement extends, isn't it?

At least it should be. But we take freedoms in the jungle, and what a free-for-all it is, one where entitlement knows no bounds. I feel some David Bowie coming my way... Oh man! Look at those cavemen go / It's the freakiest show / Take a look at the lawman / Beating up the wrong guy / Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know / He's in the best selling show... All the world's a stage and everyone wants their fifteen minutes, and so what if someone gets hurt, bleeding hearts of the world: unite! 

No, I'm not saying some don't deserve a good tongue-lashing, but that's an art right up there with every other form of using and choosing language. Start screaming and the opposition will only scream louder to make sure it's heard. Hiss and curse, vilify and objectify, and the opposition will only come up with something lower and lewder. Silencing someone, or attempting to, is the surest way to draw attention to them.

No, I'm not saying that banning words or the ones who misuse them is the answer. Quite the opposite. Freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of opinion and the right to dissent are under constant attack all over the world, even in our parts. You know it's bad when your government, your government, starts distorting facts, suppressing truths, killing people based on metadata and attacking freedoms it has sworn to defend.

You know the end is nigh and that they're only getting started when they flash the for-your-own-protection card. I don't feel safe, I feel violated. I don't feel reassured, I feel hoodwinked. Utterly hoodwinked and disgustingly violated. The hubris. The hypocrisy! You want to rule the world you better listen to your subjects or else you're just another dictatorship.

There is nothing more dangerous than a freethinking human who refuses to be silenced. There is nothing more powerful than a freethinking person who demands to be heard. I hope that this carnival season, you celebrate your freedom and rights. And I hope that this lent, you honor your responsibilities.

This ain't a scene, it's an arms race

Andy Warhol once said that "In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." I think it's safe to say the future is here. At least the proper distribution channels are all in place. You don't have to land a contract, know someone in the business or be the next best thing to get your music, films, books or art out there. Just put it out there.

Once upon a time few got published but those who were, were also read. Then more and more authors got published but ever fewer found an audience. Now everyone who wants to be published can be and fewer authors than ever are being read. This is a gross generalization, even a myth in part, but bear with me.

Many author-friends have written about this lately. I think about this constantly. That it's easier than ever getting your voice out there but harder than ever being heard. We're being sucked into a self-defeating cycle where we spend more and more time promoting our work and persona via promo posts and other social media activity alike in the hopes we stand out from the crowd. We do our best but so does most everyone else. Tweet our thumbs numb, update our statuses morning, noon and night and every snack in between, and it seems as if all we've accomplished at the end of the day is a cacophony of voices screaming over each other.

What if we only got to post once a day, be it Facebook, Twitter or some other group? Make it count! Or maybe what we need is some sort of Auto-Tune for Authors, "Turns your coffee cups into timeless nuggets of wisdom!". I enjoy coffee. I appreciate the fact that others enjoy their coffee. But I've rarely had a cup I felt compelled to chat about. Believe you me, when I do, you will hear all about it. Truth is, my coffee is pretty norm, my work days rather uneventful, and yes my kids are really smart and funny but you don't love them like I do so maybe you wouldn't enjoy reading about them half as much I would enjoy writing about them, you don't even know them and let's keep it that way, so how's the weather in your parts?

I know. It's being social, friendly, keeping the lines open and conversation flowing. What am I? Antisocial? No, just European, more straight-talker than small-talker. I just feel that when I do have something really important to relay, or someone else has, it gets lost in a Bermuda triangle of dirty coffee cups, what our kids or pets are up to, and all the funny/cute/appalling/witty things the Internet is full of. In that water we wade, trying to be seen, hoping to be heard, some waving, some drowning.

Not. Antisocial. Really. The cute and the funny and witty have saved my day more than once. So many interesting discussions going on on people's blogs, so many groups I'd love to be a part of and interact with. I'd love nothing more than to spend more time talking to all the lovely people out there, but when I have, that's been the day then. How do you do it? I'd love to hear how you reconcile it, find a balance. It's all so time-consuming. Are we just robbing each other of precious time?

It's probably a good time to be an established author. I don't know. Is it? Meanwhile, back in the jungle, the frog's eye view looks something like this: unless someone's looking for you, you're not likely to be found. Unless you're already fairly rooted, you're not likely to take flight. You can write a good book, a great book, the best book the clitterati has ever seen and never garner much attention.

I can hear the snickering and the sighs, "Oh sweetie, are you just figuring that out? That is so cute!" No. I know that's how it's been in all the arts since the dawn of man, since the day some ancient ancestor of ours pressed his or her hand against a rock and saw their creation. I bet they were appalled as hell that no one paid any attention to their doodle because everyone was so busy surviving. So. Are we just cavemen and women fighting for the chance to tell our tale by the fireside, fighting for survival, a place in the sun, the spotlight?

Is it going to get worse before it gets better? How much worse? Better when? Better how? The Best Authors You've Never Heard of Society keeps growing. Authors made of solid awesome writing pure gold slipping from relative anonymity into total obscurity. Because they can't or won't write full-time. Because they can't or won't promo day in and day out, because it takes you away from the business of writing, a business where you leave self-consciousness and the skin you live in at the door and enter another existence. Because promo is everything but, it's the very antithesis, self-conscious to the max. It's all about you. Not just your book. You. Who are you? Who do you write for? Why do you write? Not everyone wants to answer those questions in public. Not everyone wants to seek an answer to those questions even in private.

I have small children. I have another career. I have a tendency of keeping my feelings and opinions to myself because when I bring them out into the open I have a tendency of saying more than I probably should. (Q.E.D.) I have a book coming out. Only my second Romantica in some 24 months, which in publishing years is something like a decade. (What the hell happened? What usually happens. Life.) I don't stand a chance, do I?

Who does the future belong to? Those who shout the loudest, the longest? Those who can afford to keep at it? Those who write for the sheer pleasure of it, not for money, not for name recognition, not for respect? Those who are content just to have their voices out there regardless of whether or not they are heard? Who knows? I don't. Do you? What I do know is that the happiest people I know are the ones living their dream, doing what they want to do, regardless. I guess that will have to be incentive enough for all of us because for most of us, that is all the reward we have coming.

Proof of life

How was your weekend, dearest denizens? I know, it's Tuesday, but it feels like a Monday. So how was it, le weekend? I had a festive, family one. My sister turned thirty and my niece was baptized and we all got together and it was such a perfect day.

We now have an Amelie in the family and she looks just like my brother, which makes her a very handsome girl (as Austenites know, the height of beauty, so stop cringing, she's the cutest!). 

As long as there are babies and books and brothers and sisters and music and dance and bubbly, I don't care about the vitriol being projectile vomited through the nostrils of social media sites and news media alike. It's exactly what it seems: bad jokes in bad taste not to be taken seriously or to heart. (No, seriously. What gives? You need a hug? What is it?)

Have a great week, sweetie darlings, wherever you are.

Now I've done it

Joined Facebook in Dita's shoes, that is. I hope they'll be kind to the poor lass. Poor lass, my ass. Kick-ass lass. In the most tender, loving and caring way imaginable, of course. As long as there's no hating. No kidding. Okay?
 
Don't let the occasional growl and scowl act fool you, I'd get along with an ogre and could probably strike a conversation with a rock, so if you know a nice ogre or an articulate rock, tell them to friend me ASAP. 

You'll find me listed under the "Looking for: The kindness of strangers" folk. Oh, right, there's no such category. Whyever not? And why is whyever not an actual word? And what happened at the end of Inception? The totem fell over, didn't it? Didn't it? Arghh!!