Month: December 2022

I’m Really Pleased With How This Novel Is Shaping Up

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m so excited about how well things are going with this novel that I really want to read the first draft then turn around and start writing the second draft. But they tell you to try to wait about a month between first and second drafts so you look at what you wrote with fresh eyes.

While I don’t think I’m going to make a month, I am going to wait until Christmas to read the first draft so I can begin the process of writing again so I can complete the second draft by April – May 2023. That will give me the summer to get the novel up to snuff to query as part of the fall 2023 querying season.

That’s the dream, at least.

It’s going to be a real struggle because, well, lulz, I can’t even pay people to help me develop the damn thing. Apparently, something about my personality turns literary types off. They just don’t want to deal with me for some reason, which is weird because you think being creative people themselves that they wouldn’t be so quick to judge.

Maybe I’m being naive.

Only successful kooks are allowed to be themselves, maybe. Being a drunk crank kook is a privilege, not a right in their minds. If you’re a loser drunk crank, they don’t want anything to do with you. But if you’re a success, then you’re “unique” and “interesting.”

Anyway, all I can do is just bootstrap it. While no one is going to help me — even if I offer to pay them — I can still read. I hope to spend these few days of not writing on the second draft to read, read, read any and everything I can get my hands on that I can force myself to read.

I continue to be interested in how leadership applies to building a strong protagonist. So, I’m trying to read a few leadership books I’ve bought along the way since I started this project a few years ago.

The Singularity Hits Education

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

From what I can tell on Twitter and people using OpenAI ChatGPT to take their finals for them — we are all very fucked. People — and especially young people — are very, very lazy. They somehow thing that by not putting the work in and using at chatbot to pass a test that they are somehow gaming the system when, in fact, they’re just hurting themselves.

This is probably the closest we’ve ever come to the Singularity. And it’s only going to get worse. We’re probably going to be awash in chatbots soon enough and, what’s worse, we’re may be well on our way to Artificial General Intelligence by as soon as the end of the decade.

So, either we’re going to have to restructure significant parts of our society to address how fucking lazy people are, or we’re going to find that by default our entire civilization revolves around asking a better question of a chatbot or AGI.

We are just not prepared for what may be about to happen.

Contemplating Kara Swisher’s Theory That Elon Musk Is Turning Twitter Into The ‘New’ Fox News

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Fox News is a national embarrassment, but maybe not in the way you think. The embarrassment is not it is force feeding Americans seditious propaganda, it’s that A LOT of Americans want that agenda. They are wilful in their consumption of hate.

So, if it wasn’t Fox News doing it, someone else would be doing the exact same thing — if not worse.

Which leads us to Kara Swisher’s idea that maybe Elon Musk is maybe trying to somehow turn Twitter into a new and improved MAGA Nazi media outlet. I suppose this is possible, but I think the thing we would have to keep an eye out for is Musk assembling some sort of editorial staff.

If he did that then,yeah, Ms. Swisher is probably right. But given how fucking old most of the people who watch Fox News are, I don’t think there would be a one-to-one replacement. The new “Red Pilled” Twitter might be something for younger people, but even if somehow Fox News went under the slack would be picked up by OANN and Newsmax, not Twitter.

Who knows. I think the Ms. Swisher’s idea has come credibility, but only time will tell how much.

America’s Rush Towards Severe Political Conflict in Late 2024 – Early 2025 Is Accelerating

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

With the rise of “Red Pilled” Twitter, whatever was left the American center is vanishing at an alarming rate. As I’ve said before, to be a “centrist” in American politics these days is to be a complicit fool. What you’re really saying is you tacitly agree with MAGA Nazism, but you’re not willing to publicly make your decision.

That is all going to change in late 2024, early 2025 when it’s very likely that MAGA Nazis are going to demand Blues “bend a knee” to autocratic MAGA fascism. At that point, you have to pick a side, or side will be chosen for you. No more wiggle room, no more “both sidesing” things. You. Will. Have. To. Pick. A. Side.

I say all of this in the context of both Elon Musk “Red Pilling” Twitter, trying to turn it into a new Fox News and how Republicans have settled on a “stab in the back” narrative to explain why they lost the 2020 presidential election. Now that the 2022 mid-terms are over, MAGA Nazis are using their macro momentum as a battering ram to destroy American democracy once and for all.

Now, let me be clear — I’m always wrong. Always. And I can’t predict the future. So, as such, it’s very possible something will happen to punt all these problems down the road and I will yet again look like a hysterical fool. But the point of all this ranting is to make people sit up and take notice as to what might happen.

We have to take how the United States is tearing itself apart seriously.

It Keeps Happening

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the worst experiences of my life to date was when Annie Shapiro “stole” ROKon Magazine from me by bringing back (in secret) without me. In hindsight, I was setting myself up for a fall because I was not exactly in the greatest state of mind at the time and so she just proved that she loved the magazine more than I did.

But the experience has left me really paranoid about someone “stealing” the idea for the novel I’m working on. My paranoid theory is that a woman I gave the fleshed out outline to in hopes she might advise me on it — only to promptly ghost me — somehow has connections in Hollywood. My fear is she sent what I gave her to someone in LA and it’s good enough that they’re going to cherry pick the best bits of the concept for a screenplay.

This is obviously very bonkers.

While I suppose it’s possible something like that could happen, much of the theory is being created out of whole cloth. I have no idea if she would even do such a thing if she could. And getting a screenplay produced is really tough — even with contacts in the business.

And, yet, someone else looked at some of my musings about when I am going to query this novel — fall 2023 — and so of course my paranoia is they’re gauging how they steal a march on me by getting a movie produced before I have to me to even query the thing.

The more I think about it, the more this seems like just the insecurities of a first time, aspiring novelist. I have no idea what the motives of the people looking at the link are — it could be that they’re just interested in when they might expect to see the novel available to read.

The only reason why this particular situation has left me a little uneasy is I think the ping was coming from a Slack channel. So, of course my paranoid that some Hollywood producers were talking to each other in a corporate Slack channel about my novel and they were trying to figure out how to screw me over.

The more I think about it, the more I realize this is very bonkers and almost completely unfounded. And, besides, I would have to be a little bit flattered if such a thing happened — at least my baby would get to be created, even if not by me. AND it would prove that I was able to create a concept that real people with real money were willing to produce into a movie — even if not with me.

If my worse case scenario did happen, I would just lick my wounds and pivot to one of the other stories I’m working on in the back of my mind. And this point, my biggest concern is I’m just old and if I want to ever publish a novel I’ve got to get it done sooner rather than later.

MAGA Nazis As Fascist Khmer Rouge

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The big difference between MAGA and traditional Nazis is they more like the Cambodian Khmer Rouge. That’s my biggest fear at the moment — that the United States is going to implode like Cambodia rather than try to take over the world like the Nazis.

There’s not much of a need for the United States to take over the world, we already have!

So, if our fears come true with the next Republican president, what our new MAGA Nazis overlords do will look like what the Khmer Rouge did. It most likely express itself in the guise of Qanon ideas becoming party orthodox.

Now, this is where I have to pause and say that the targets of these new prospective Killing Fields have the means to just leave the country. So, that would probably be the first indication that things are about to get lit — many, many wealthy liberals will simply flee the country, never to be seen again.

So, if there were MAGA Nazi Killing Field it would the average, poor people who will get rounded up and murdered en masse for political reasons. The reason I have this on the brain is I’m reading about the transformation of the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich.

Sometimes, the Darkest Timeline actually happens. And it definitely seems that on a macro level, at least, the United States is careening towards MAGA Nazi autocracy a lot sooner than you might think.

Of course, there is always the OTHER option, which is everything I just described happens, but it happens in the context of a National Divorce. Under this scenario, MAGA Nazis would be radicalized as part of a civil war. If there was no clear winner of such a civil war and the United States was simply split into to hostile nations, then while Trumplandia was beginning to see American Killing Fields, the Blue Union would return to some semblance of normality.

But all of that is very, very speculative. All I know is it is self-evident that at least the conditions are there for something very dark and turbulent to happen to the United States starting at some point between now and spring 2025.

Elon Musk Really Could Blow It

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m growing tired of Elon Musk’s bullshit. He wants to be the Red Pilled “main character” of Twitter everyday and it’s a lot to deal with on a regular basis. Now, I would prefer that Twitter remain the nation’s virtual town square where people of both sides of the political debate and discussion issues.

And, yet, every day, Musk tries to out Trump, Trump and I find myself hoping that Twitter rival Post starts to get the features I expect from Twitter. I hate the idea that yet another element of American life will be siloed for political reasons but it definitely seems inevitable.

There comes a point when you just don’t want to use a service where you’re being “owned” every day by people who are fucking Nazis. It’s darkly dumb that MAGA Nazis always think they’re being “shadowbanned” when, in fact, they’re just boring and the people they hate so much — people like me — don’t really feel like acknowledging that they tweeted anything at all.

And it’s always the most sincere, earnest MAGA Nazis like fucking “Catturd” who get upset about shit like this. “Oooh, Elon, I’m being shadowbanned, please make the people I hold with such contempt give me validation by saying nice things about me on Twitter.”

It would be funny if it wasn’t so idiotic.

Anyway, for the moment Musk is fine. Post simply isn’t something I can use full time instead of Twitter. But that might change. Or, it could be that all of this is going to be moot soon enough with the chatbot revolution and the potential of a coming Singularity.

‘What Is A Woman?’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If anything epitomizes how fucked we are, it’s the contrived “gotcha” that is the fucking MAGA Nazis obsession over the question “What is a woman.” They know that because for the typical center-Left politician (because of the political power of the transgender community) this is not as simple a question as the average person might believe.

So, as usual, the two sides talk past each other. Or, even worse, MAGA Nazis take any reluctance to give the answer they think the average person expects as “proof” as to how out of touch the “woke” “groomers” of the “cancel culture mob” are when it comes to the absolute need of every American to see Hunter Biden’s cock on Twitter.

When it comes to transgender rights, I’m pretty indifferent. I don’t think transgender people should be discriminated against, but I’m not an idiot — I can see what your typical Traditionalist in middle America is aghast at how conspicious the issue of transgender rights has become in recent years. And through in a huge disinformation campaign on the part of MAGA Nazis over young children and gender reassignment surgery and you have a recipe for a fucking custerfuck.

If our politics was functional, the two sides would have a lot of debate about transgender rights and, in the end, we would have some consensus as to what to do with the issue. But, HA, we can’t even agree on what color the sky is, much less something like transgender rights that requires a subtle, nuanced approach given the sensitives of both sides about such things.

And it’s self-evident that MAGA Nazis know transgender rights is a pressure point for center-Left politicians. If transgender rights is the reason you’re a single-issue voter, if a politician you’re inclined to vote for doesn’t give the “right” answer you’re probably going to scream bloody murder So, of course, that’s the one thing that MAGA Nazis hone in on as much as possible to put the squeeze on center-Left politicians.

The whole thing is horrible. Why can’t just get along?

Also: fuck MAGA Nazis. Cocksuckers.

‘Are We Going To Have A Civil War?’ (A Reassessment)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that the 2022 midterms are over, let’s take a deep breath and think again about how likely it is that we’re going to have a Second American Civil War. The boner that MAGA Nazis have over this issue comes in large part from the fucking froth found within far Right circles.

It took me a long time to realize what was going on, but now I think I have a better handle on things — the reason why MAGA Nazis have civil war on the brain so much is they want the ability to murder people like me in cold blood without having to worry about any criminal accountability. Once the rules of war, not law are in play, then they can finally end the “woke cancel culture mobs” tyranny of “grooming” and forcing them to learn to hate white people and attend drag queen storytime on their way to their gender reassignment surgery.

But, you say, “Are we going to have a civil war?“

Well, I don’t know yet. But I can tell you that if it happens, I just don’t see it being because MAGA Nazis take up arms in rolling political violence like civil war expert Barbara F. Walter thinks. She’s so busy thinking about how angry Reds are, that she misses that the dynamic is such that it will be Blues — the majority of the country — that will ultimately face the decision as to if we’re going to have a civil war or not.

But I will say that for a lot of people — especially people within the MAGA Nazis community — the idea of a Second American Civil War has taken on an air of inevitability. It’s al very ironic because the very people who just need to be patient so they can get everything they want through politics, MAGA Nazis, ironically are the ones chomping at the bit to run around murdering people.

It’s because of that weird, ironic, dynamic that I have serious doubts that we’re going to have a civil war. If you take out the possibility that MAGA Nazis are going to spontaneously take up arms to overthrow their smug “woke cancel culture mob” overlords…well, I just don’t think the logical people to start a civil war — Blues — have it in them to do it.

And, remember, the issue is of Trump.

If anyone could start a civil war, it’s ding-dong Trump. But, still, any civil war that happens will be caused when Blue States refuse to bend a knee to autocratic MAGA Nazi fascism. That’s it — I just don’t see Reds doing what they keep thinking and talking about. They have no need to. They’re getting everything they want through politics because they control the “attention economy” with a tyrannical vise grip.

So, my answer is — we’re not going to have a civil war. Either we somehow magically punt the tectonic problems we have as a nation down the road one more presidential cycle…or we have another Republican POTUS and he / she turns us into an autocratic state that probably will, if we’re lucky, looking like Hungary or Turkey, and if we’re not…Russia or Nazi Germany .

Good luck and Godspeed.

MAGA Nazis & The ‘Red Pilling’ of Our New Chatbot Overlords

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We have to address the issue when it comes to chatbots (and AGIs) that humans are hardwired to believe in something akin to a “god.” We also love to “triangulate” with an “objective” third party whenever we have a disagreement with someone.

Combine those two things and we’re careening towards a very dark, troubling future where a lot of ding-dongs are going to use whatever output they get from an chatbot prompt as validation for what they already agree. And, worse still, if they don’t get that validation they’re going to scream at the top of their lungs about “bias” and demand something be done about it.

Gaming out the end result of a Singularity-like chatbot revolution, it’s easy to imagine the issue of chatbot “bias” becoming a huge fucking issue as soon as 2023. MAGA Nazis are going to hone in on what they perceive as the “mind virus” of the “woke cancel culture mob” and demand that chatbots be more “objective” when, of course, really means “agree with us.”

I’ve used Chatbot GPT some and, relative to me, I don’t see much bias. It struggles to give reasonable answers to dumb human prompts and, as such, it is clear that the issue is humans — specifically MAGA Nazis — are assholes who bitch and moan if they can’t use our new digital overlord to “own the libs.” They ask ChatGPT loaded political questions like, “what is a woman” and when it doesn’t tow the exact MAGA Nazis party orthodoxy they flip the fuck out.

And it’s only going to get worse.

The more young children use chatbots to find answers to questions, the more chatbots — just by existing — will bang up about the siloing of America in to two nations, Red and Blue. In fact, I the issue of chatbot “bias” becoming just another thing to throw on the culture war pyre. It will follow “CRT,” “grooming” and “cancel culture” in the clusterfuck that is modern American politics.

We already have MAGA Nazi parents wanting to pull their children from public schools so they can indoctrinate them in their hateful agenda. The moment little Bubba gets an output from a chatbot that suggests that maybe systemic racism is a problem in America, there will be hell to pay.

All of this plays into the conundrum that is how America is politically, socially, culturally and economically tearing itself apart in broad daylight. We just can’t fucking agree on anything anymore. And MAGA Nazis do everything in their power to force the issue because the more Reds are siloed, the more power MAGA has and the more it can try to destroy the “woke cancel culture mob” that wants little kids to be transgender and to attend drag queen story time on their way to gender reassigment.

UGH.

In short, the issue of chatbot bias is a ticking political timebomb. There is just not ready answer at the moment MAGA Nazis want to destroy America and turn us into fascist, autocratic state.

I continue to fear that it’s possible that late 2024, early 2025 could be one of the most astonishing few months in American — if not human — history. If you combine the so-called “Fourth Turning” in America as MAGA Nazis force Blues to decide if they’re going to bend a knee or not with the very real possibility of something akin to a Singularity….yikes.

But I’m always, always wrong. And there is still plenty of time for us to take an exit ramp. I’m just a person who likes to make my abstract fears concrete.