#oneaday Day 606: How evil is too evil?

Every new reveal from the Epstein files seems to bring with it brand new and exciting horrors to be disgusted by. It is unsurprising to see a veritable Who's Who of The Worst People In the World cropping up as having had contact with the rancid old paedo — and yet with every new name that bubbles up from the sewer, I find myself wondering, more and more, if anything is actually going to happen because of all this.

You'll forgive me for not having a lot of faith that these people will suffer any consequences whatsoever.

We live in a world where companies can just set fire to billions of dollars a year for a technology no-one wants, and where no amount of people going "please fuck off, please fuck off" will make them fuck off.

We live in a world where the President of the United States is demonstrably both an actual criminal and an incompetent fuckhead who shits himself in public, but nothing is done about either of these things — both of which, one would argue, should probably put him out of the running for being in charge of one of the most powerful nations on Earth.

We live in a world where the world's richest man proudly takes over what was once a good method of online communication and turns it into his own personal playground, where his antisemitic, CSAM-generating chatbot floods the world with disinformation and allows some truly vile examples of humanity to thrive. (At least, in this case, something is being attempted in response, though due to all of the other things I'm talking about today, I don't have much faith this will end in any other way than someone paying a lot of money to make it all just "go away".)

The world is dominated by rich people who are making existence for everyone except themselves objectively much, much worse. And I feel like they're going to get away with it. I know legal action takes time and money to come to fruition, and it's entirely possible that things are going on behind the scenes to bring some of these scumbags to some sort of justice, but I somehow doubt it at this point. I suspect what will happen is that some of them will get a slap on the wrist at most, and then maybe asked to pay some money that is a meaninglessly miniscule fraction of their total fortunes, and then we will all be expected to forget about everything.

As the quote frequently misattributed to Final Fantasy Tactics goes, "if the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that crime only exists for the lower class". It's true. If Elon Musk is made to pay even several million dollars by the French authorities for his CSAM-generating chatbot, it means nothing to him. Same for Donald Trump. Same for the myriad rich folks who engaged in barely literate email exchanges with Epstein about "partying" (and we know what that means, unfortunately) on his special paedo island, or how they were going to manipulate and fuck up the economy, politics, tolerance and inclusivity… the list goes on.

I'm open to being proved wrong on all this. But at the moment it feels like there simply isn't anyone to hold these rich fuckheads to account… aside from The People themselves. And, despite growing evidence that people in the States are willing to hit the streets when it really counts, I'm not sure The People have the motivation or the strength to be able to undo all this damage that's been done.

I hope one day we can look back on this period from a better place, and feel like we all learned something from it. After all, the world has recovered from terrible things before. But has anything ever really been quite like what we're dealing with right now…?

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#oneaday Day 86: Defiant Destiny

If you've read any fantasy (or, to a lesser extent, science fiction) novels or played any RPGs (pen and paper or computer-based) you'll be familiar with the concept of "Fate" or "Destiny", whatever you want to call it. The idea that everything that happens is part of a string of events that are "supposed" to happen, things that are planned out, destined to come to pass with an eventual goal which isn't necessarily completely clear.

It's a spiritual, quasi-religious sort of concept, I guess, but despite not being a religious type in the slightest, I'm a bit of a believer in the idea.

Or perhaps it's not Fate or Destiny. Perhaps it's simply the fact that everyone makes choices in their lives, and those choices have consequences that can continue to affect things months, even years, down the line. Not only that, but one person's choices can affect the lives of other people and the choices they make too. Without one simple little thing happening, things might be entirely different.

Take something as seemingly inconsequential as, say, joining Twitter. Without joining Twitter on whenever-it-was (a piece of information that I'm sure used to be easier to find out) there's a ton of things that would never have happened. It's entirely possible that the Squadron of Shame SquadCast wouldn't have happened and that the small but tight-knit community that has grown around that over at the Squawkbox wouldn't be what it is today. Without that happening, I might not have been spurred on to quit my job and try and "make it" writing—something which yes, I'm aware I still have some way to go on, but it is at least considerably further along than it once was. Without that happening, many of the events of the last year might not have happened, for better or worse. I might not have met a number of awesome people who have become very important to me (in very different ways to each other, I might add). And I might not be sitting here now wondering what the future holds in a positive, forward-looking manner rather than dreading it.

Of course, some may point out that some of the events in that sequence of things indirectly led to bad things happening, which means that without my joining Twitter in the first place I might be sitting in a very different place right now in an alternate timeline. But then that's where the question of "Fate" or "Destiny" comes in. Perhaps that's one key event that was "supposed" to happen in order to make all that other stuff come to pass. And even the bad stuff, in that case, happened for a reason to lead me on towards some sort of eventual future awesomeness that hasn't quite happened yet but feels like it's finally starting to get there.

You can really over-think things if you're not careful. Live in the moment. Do what seems right. Tackle the consequences as they come. Life will throw you challenges and big, steaming lumps of shit along the way, but at some point, eventually, you'll find yourself on the pathway to something that's "right", something where your eventual goal is clear, if far away.

Am I on that pathway yet? Couldn't say. But I know that for the first time in a long while, I'm looking forward to finding out.

#oneaday, Day 250: No!

The most difficult word to pronounce in the English language is not the one with the most syllables. For starters, opinion differs on exactly which word is the longest and most complicated one. "Floccinaucinihilipilification" is right up there, for one, but then "guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride" is pretty long too, but it is a shampoo ingredient and technically three words. Then there's some weird science thing called "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" which picky Scrabble players reject because it doesn't fit on the board and is also a word made up by SCIENCE! which therefore doesn't count.

In fact, the most difficult word to pronounce in the English language is "no". One of the shortest words there is. You can't get much shorter than one syllable really. You could say nothing, but then you're, well, not saying anything. So we can establish that "no" is one of the shortest words out there. There are ones with less phonemes or whatever that nonsense they teach in primary schools is now, but… just no, okay?

The reason "no" is a difficult word to pronounce is not because of its complexity. It is because of the emotional connotations. No is a negative, and using it often implies some sort of negative consequences.

Interactive Thought Exercise™ time! Consider how you would feel if you asked any of the following questions and the answer was "no":

Will you marry me?
Do you like me?
Is this picture I've drawn you the best thing you've ever seen?
Would you like to play Scrabble with me?
I know we've only known each other a little while, but I really like you so I thought it'd be kind of cool if we could go and, you know, grab some coffee sometime or whatever and then see what happens—what do you say?

But then what everyone forgets is that, paradoxically, "no" can actually have positive connotations too.

Interactive Thought Exercise™ time again! Consider how you would feel if you asked any of the following questions and the answer was "no":

Is it cancer, Doctor?
Do I look fat in this dress?
Have you ever been to bed with a better lover than me?
Have you ever seen anything more impressive than that awesome thing I just did?
Is there ever going to be another series of The X-Factor?

The thing is, though, it's easier to focus on negative things than positive things. Who knows why this is? It appears to be one of those things that is bundled under the heading of "human nature" when neither the scientists or the psychologists can be arsed to work out exactly why it happens. But it happens, regardless. Sometimes we want to say "no" to something because we don't want to do it, because it makes us uncomfortable or perhaps because the prospect of it terrifies us. But we don't. Because we put ourselves in the shoes of the person who is asking us something and we imagine how they'd feel or react if we said "no" to them. We don't want to hurt their feelings or look like a dick.

Chances are, of course, they wouldn't react in the way we were thinking. And a key part of learning to be assertive is learning how to say "no" to these things. But it's still difficult.

Of course, some people have absolutely no problem saying "no" to anything and everything. And, like their brothers and sisters who argue with everything, regardless of context? We also call these people assholes.