Thought bubbles

I’ve been doing my tax return. It’s difficult because it’s all in bits – some of my books are under Leg Iron Books, some are still on my own self-publishing account, I have to account for small amounts paid out to authors because the world is full of illiterate sods who never read books, there are hangovers from microbiology days, incredibly tiny interest payments on small savings, pathetic returns on the few shares I still hold, there’s a pension…

It’s more difficult because I really don’t want to give any money to the wasters in power. In previous years I’ve had refunds but this time I have cut back my expenditure, mostly by giving up the microbiology lab (I still have to motivate myself to sell the equipment) so I might actually be in profit for the first time in years. Probably not, the book income isn’t likely to exceed expenditure, but the chance is there and it’s, well, irritating.

I might have to give 70, 80… maybe as much as a pound to the wasters! I could have wasted that money myself.

Politics has become completely silly in recent years. I have seen people on Twatter say that they cannot understand how the Tories did so well in the election after they had seen almost total support for Mad Corbyn in the run-up to the election. They now think the Tories rigged it.

They did see total support. They really did. Because they had blocked anyone who didn’t totally support Labour. They built a little online thought bubble and ignored everything outside it – including the real world.The same happened on Farcebok and all other online timewasting sites.

I try to stay out of politics, mostly, on Twitface and more so on Farcebok. Because I have paid attention, unlike many who think themselves superior because they have some kind of celebrity status. Pick a side and you lose half your market. Go woke and go broke is a real thing, and so is the opposite.

JK Rowling put up a perfectly innocent tweet that was declared ‘transphobic’ by her leftie bubble and now they want to burn her books. Well, that’s how she rose to fame in the first place. It was the American Bible belt declaring her an emissary of the devil and having book burnings that brought her Harry Potter stuff to the world’s attention.

No author cares at all if you burn their books. You buy, them, you can do what you like with them. I wish someone would get outraged at mine, buy a thousand copies and have a bonfire. I’d get the royalties anyway and those books aren’t on the second hand market. It’s perfect.

Maybe they will with Panoptica. It now includes a reason for wiping out the white race. And that reason is going to cause outrage. Absolute, uncontrolled outrage. Assuming anyone reads it, of course. That’s the first hurdle.

I’ve been working on that book this month. Gastradamus has decided to hold back on publication, which is a good thing. Rushing ‘The Silence of the Elves’ resulted in me having to replace the cover within a week. I don’t want that to happen again. So I have Christmas time to work on Panoptica. If I can just stay ahead of the real life madness.

I’ve never put up a poll on Twitter. Certainly not a political poll. It would be pointless – most of the people following me are doing so because they broadly agree with me so I know what answer I’d get before I started. The poll would have no meaning.

Just as any kind of roundup on any social media has no meaning – especially for those who block dissenting voices. You just end up hearing what you want to hear. So all your prejudices are reinforced.

Blocking people on social media is not a ‘win’. You don’t deplatform them or silence them. They just can’t see your comments any more. You silence yourself. Those people who disagree with you now will never see your arguments. So how do you expect them to change their minds?

The other thing to realise about Twatter, Farcebok and all the rest is… it’s not the real world. Apart from CStM (who I met through Twitter) I don’t know anyone in real life who uses it. Neither of my children are on Farcebok nor Twatter. My brother works for some government agency thing (yeah, he’s my version of Mycroft) so he doesn’t use social media. My father will have nothing to do with the internet at all, ‘new fangled bollocks’. Heck, he doesn’t even like landline phones in the house.

I have friends my age who use mobile phones for speaking but will not, under any circumstances, use text messaging. None of them have the slightest interest in social media. None of them have blogs. They are not the anomaly. I am.

What is on social media is not representative of the real world. And a lot of what is on there is invented crap and photoshopped imagery. It’s a hoaxer’s paradise and I have to admit to playing with it too, just a little bit 😉

It’s a game. It’s not real life. Real life is not the internet. This place is a playground. Most people use it to buy things or look up information, it is not their pub or club.

The very last works Christmas party I went to, must have been about 15 years ago, everyone sat in departments. Seriously. It was like having ten separate Christmas parties in one room. Bubble formation is not new, it wasn’t created by the internet, but back then you couldn’t simply block all the other departments. Now you can – and many people do.

The bubbles that form on social media are impenetrable, and those inside think they are in the real world. A limited reality of their own creation, and they believe that is all there is.

Panoptica just takes that into real life.

I have to finish the book before it happens.