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How to Deal with Incompetence: The Role of Malice

July 3, 2023

Society

ignorance, responsibility, social masses, society, stupidity

You might have seen some memes going around claiming “Idiots, everywhere!” or something of the sort. As George Carlin famously said, imagine how dumb the average person is, then realize half of them are even dumber. But to deal with incompetence (which isn’t quite the same as stupidity, which isn’t quite the same as ignorance), we need to also take something else into consideration: the role of malice.

There is a world of difference between an incompetent person who, still, has good intentions, and one who is malevolent. In other words, the saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” is seriously misleading.

Why?

But because benevolent incompetence will want to rectify its repercussions, whereas malevolent will not even recognize there is a problem.

Let’s try to categorize all this and come up with a theoretical framework, to see where (if anywhere!) it gets us.

deal with incompetence cats
“Let me handle this, Jim” (as I’ve said before, whenever I don’t want to spend much time finding a more suitable image, you get a cat; this time, you get two)
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Accumulating Cringe Theory (or, why It Sucks Growing Old)

June 5, 2023

Experiencing, Society

experiencing, life, psychology, society

If you think you’re about to read some grand existentialist revelation, let me stop you right there – or redirect you to Giacomo Leopardi. Accumulating Cringe Theory might sound fancy, but it’s just something I came up with in the middle of the night while trying to fall back asleep.

To be fair to my brain, the “what if” behind it was intriguing. The basic premise is: If we are embarrassed by our past behavior – think of the silly things you said as a teenager – doesn’t it follow that the older we get, the wider the expanse of this past?

In other words, as we get older and have more of a past to recall (often in a flawed manner), doesn’t it mean we have more embarrassing moments, too? I decided to call this accumulating cringe theory just to have a name for it. Is there anything valuable to discuss there? I’m finding out myself as I’m typing this very post.

cringe theory
Perhaps this not-to-be-taken-too-seriously cringe theory of mine could contain a clause for doing embarrassing stuff when you’re old
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AI Tools for Writers: Make Your Life Easier, Keep Your Art Intact

May 29, 2023

Writing

affect, art, creativity, fiction, literature, programming, society, writing

The popularization of artificial intelligence (AI) tools is arguably one of the most important things to have happened in terms of the internet and IT in recent years. We’ve already seen how AI can help programmers, and we’ve also seen the pitfalls of improper AI use. So let’s make it specific for writers and see what kinds of AI tools writers can use – and this will be a case of “it’s not what you think”.

You might recall a post where I explained how AI can write really well but it’s utterly lousy at producing art. This is a crucial detail to keep in mind here: AI can’t do your job for you. AI can’t produce art; currently it can barely produce something emulating it (though this might change in the near future).

In any case, if your goal is to write fiction that actually has something to express, completely eradicate from your mind the idea that you can delegate this job to AI. You can’t rely on AI for anything that is “client-facing”. In other words, you can’t rely on AI for writing.

Instead, I will focus on ways and AI tools writers can use to make their life easier, tickle their imagination, and produce literature that is affective.

ai tools writers
This is an AI-generated image made with DALL-E and Microsoft Bing Image Creator. The prompt was “A white FIAT 500, old model, parked on a Greek island beach under a tree, late afternoon”. For a fiction author, this is an invaluable reference tool
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