(Because 17.4 million lemmings can’t all be wrong)
Even by my standards … my output on Medium has, of late, been an irregular mixed bag and not terribly substantial either — barely even lightweight nonsense, never mind anything of substance.
There are a variety of reasons for that — not least that I haven’t really had much I particularly wanted to say … nor the élan to say it even if I had.
But something has been on my mind for a while and I’m motivated to say something about it at last.
First a preamble…
(A Beginners’ Guide To Reclaiming Online Privacy)
There were problems that arose with the original post of this, because … at something over forty-one thousand words … every time I made edits and saved it, my account would get suspended whilst under investigation, because it kept getting picked up by Medium’s spam filters and, seemingly, they can’t put a permanent exception on an article, only unblock it until the next time it trips the filters and the whole miserable rigmarole of saying “Oi! Medium! NO!” has to be restarted.
So, I got fed up with correcting typos only…
Well, well, well …
It appears there has been some confusion on the part of some … some of whom appear to be thick as a brick, with the word ‘JOKE’ painted on it, smashed into their face ¹ … re some of my more deadpan satire.
So, in the name of clarity, let me clarify for you, how to discern when I am being serious and when not — hopefully the clarity/clarify combo there makes my intent clearer; after all, I wouldn’t want anyone to be confused by ̶m̶o̶n̶o̶s̶y̶l̶l̶a̶b̶i̶c̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶o̶s̶y̶l̶l̶a̶b̶l̶e̶s̶̶
words ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶a̶i̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ … <sigh> with more than one sound…
That’s all I can say for now.
Typically useless non-communication from Medium:
Hello,
We are writing to once again remind you of our rules:
https://medium.com/policy/medium-rules-30e5502c4eb4
As mentioned in our previous message, we do understand that discourse and disagreement is part of this process, and is often a very necessary part indeed.
However, we do not allow harassment or personal attacks. We ask that you help our community by disengaging before conversation reaches the point of conflict, and treat others with respect.
As a reminder, if you find content you feel violates our rules, please flag it or email us for review, then block any…
(Tales Of The Une̶x̶p̶e̶c̶t̶e̶dnecessary)
Me: “Most of the time, when I throw out those ‘shocking’ ideas, it’s to see how much they resonate with other people … to determine how far off the beaten track they are and I, therefore, am.”
Them: “Where you are, you can’t even see the beaten track.”
Granted, I not altogether infrequently put them out there to make a serious point too …but, that said, I also do it just to make people squirm.
Which is why it occurs to me that … in the post transgender world, where biological sex…
And neither is your love.
It’s a combination of vasopressin, adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, endorphins and (above all) oxytocin … a mind-altering cocktail of stimulants and psychoactives that dupes two people into making each other miserable for years-to-decades on end, in the vain hope that things will get better because the sex was good once — Nature’s way of ensuring we don’t kill each other for long enough to produce and raise offspring … no more, no less.
“Love is like crawling through broken glass and dogshit.” — Greg, Misfits ¹.
This year, however, many of you…
The New Zealand Tourist Board has been running a Do Something New campaign, telling people to stop traveling “under the social influence,” stop copying everyone else and “share something new” … because all those photos posted to IG, FB and wherever (most especially by so-called ‘influencers’) are boring.
You know the ones: the photos you copied off the web, photoshopped yourself into and posted to your account to convince everyone you went to New Zealand instead of spending a fortnight greased up with lard under the cooker/hob/stove light in your parents’ kitchen:
There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live and too rare to die.