Benjamin Sobieck

Nothing like a lucid dream about bringing out the trash that’s so realistic you swear up and down you brought out the trash, only to find that you did not bring out the trash. True story.
          
          This is the end game for all paranormal activity: what if it’s true, but it kinda sucks? Like the ghosts who get tired of repeating their names to dorks with voice recorders, or the aliens fascinated by Arby’s, or the medium who conjures the spirits of the most boring people in history. 
          
          The fantastical is superimposed by the observer. The more fantastic, the more imposition, until proven otherwise. 

'Truly, that which makes me believe there is no inhabitant 
          on this sphere, is that it seems to me that no sensible being 
          would be willing to live here.' 
          
          'Well, then!' said Micromegas, 'perhaps the beings that 
          inhabit it do not possess good sense.' 
          
          One alien to another, 
          on approaching the Earth, 
          in Voltaire's Micromegas: 
          A Philosophical History (1752)
          
          
          
          
          Chapter 4 of Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World" opens with that quote. Sagan draws from "Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" a lot, too.
          
          If there is a starting point to a way out, it's somewhere in those books.

Yeah, I just don't feel like throwing away a generation on a war in the Realm Of Always War is a great idea. We always seem to be one bomb short of peace.

re: the alpha-sigma-bro-manosphere 
          re: re: driftward young men chasing a good life 
          
          If you want to go fast, be an ***hole. 
          
          If you want to go far, be kind.

I’m going to suggest Canada keep the Teen Burger confined to Canada. We have enough problems with conspiracy theories down here.

If you ever have imposter syndrome, just remember that you can be completely out of touch with your customers and product while still being the CEO of the world’s largest burger chain.

Junk mail
          Telemarketing calls
          Infomercials
          Spam emails
          Spam texts
          Spam apps
          AI slop
          Junk mail
          
          

re: writing satire
          
          re: re: The Hard Times
          
          I'm up to a dozen or so articles with The Hard Times now, and someone in the chat passed along a brilliant piece of advice on how to approach writing satire. 
          
          Satire is "a new absurd in an old familiar."
          
          How perfect is that?

Listening to the audiobook version of “Nuclear War: A Scenario,” by Annie Jacobsen, and am struck by how close nuclear annihilation is at any moment. 
          
          Also struck by the thought that if there was ever a reason to host a private, breakaway branch of technology, this would be it. If you knew a way to prevent nuclear holocaust, it would be an excellent idea to keep it out of the one-upmanship of the world powers. 
          
          Just a thought. 
          
          My fiction read right now is “Horror Movie,” by Paul Tremblay. Much lighter reading, and everything about the story and physical presentation reminds me why I love books so much. Excellent stuff. 

If America is a business, then government is HR.