I got hacked on Facebook (2018), stopped using Instagram (2019), quit Reddit (2023) & Xitter (2025).

Now I have only books (lots of audiobooks), Google Keep (own thoughts and pics), Lemmy (random thoughts), and Bluesky (microblog).

My input and output are much healthier, the people I interact with (when actually people) are nicer, and I generally don’t feel doomed.

Well, yes, I realize the world is fucked, fucked up, and fucking crazy. I’ve reduced by orders of magnitude how toxic it is to my headspace because I’m cutting out the worst of the dreck and engaging with more objectively real information. I’m not in screaming echo chambers populated in the millions. I’m happy if I get 10 responses to a post. Updoots are incidental.

Its like leaving L.A. to settle down in Schitt’s Creek.

Correction: charging two people…

— in the same store, in the same plaza, on the same day, at the slightly different times (or not!), discriminating between them algorithmically —

different prices for the same item…

• So much for early 2000s “price matching.”

• So much for benefits to loyal customers.

• So much for knowing your grocery budget.

• So much for the “neighbourhood store.”

• So much for people being anything other than another resource to mine.

Everyone, everywhere is just a “rational consumer” guided by the “invisible hand” and “voting with their dollars” so that “the best products” emerge.

All of these axioms have, in the fullness of time, proven false.

Falling Down is the American Dream turned nightmare.

I’d submit that — in 1993 — the one that struck me as being the most similar was Demolition Man. Not the Sly Stallone character in comparison, tho. The Dennis Leary character was more a 1 to 1 analogue of the non-conformist pushing back on a system that deems him “not economically viable.”

Later, 1998, I’d say that The Way of the Gun (wri/dir Christopher McQuarrie) does this well. I know, I know, low scores on RT and iMDB, but this movie still works for me. Even the opening scene, which sets up a world of reprehensible characters perfectly. It’s a rock-solid neo-noir western helmed by a the writer of the Usual Suspects (and a long string of Tom Cruise projects including M:I 5,6,7&8.)

I’d also toss in Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai. A man, who has a code, undertakes to address that which he sees as unjust while moving through a world that wants to exploit him. And, American Beauty (1999) (tw: Spacey)

By the late aughts and early '10s, in the wake of the total meltdown of the global economy, Margin Call (2010, only economic violence) and Killing Them Softly (2012). “Now fucking pay me.”

From TV: The Wire and Breaking Bad fit the bill.

John Lennon ‐ Working Class Hero

If you’re a bot, do better.

If you’re a person, outperform bots.

Continuity, governed by the script supervisor, is designed to be invisible.

“When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.” ~ God Entity, Futurama S03E20

• Genetic-level diagnoses and treatments.

• Inexpensive, rapid genome sequencing.

• Commonplace genetic counselling for more than just pregnancy.

• Laws in place to govern the collection, use, ownership, and patenting of human genes and genetic information.

• Cloned tissues (i.e. blood, skin), organs (i.e. heart, lungs, kidneys) for transplant or repair.

I graduated university the same year the Human Genome Project first published completion. Certainly, that project uncovered more questions than answers.

Also, we’ve done an absolutely garbage job of becoming appropriate stewards of this technology. Primarily, today, it would be used to identify, segregate, subjugate, and eventually kill a portion of the population.

The Forever War is such an important and great read. I’d put it alongside Catch-22 and Johnny Got His Gun for an anti-war novel.