Am I a bad person? I just want one day without spammers trying to guilt-trip me into buying stuff I don’t need.

I have two podcasts and two radio stations. So unsolicited mail is to be expected. I have little problems with that, until the the people sending the mail continue try to solicit for a response even when I do not respond at all.

The final mail that made me snap

My response

Hello

I have decided to answer your barrage of mails. I don’t really think much of your services to be honest, but I will give you an answer based on experience and understanding of the subject matter at hand.

So, the question of the day is this: does search engine optimization really work? The short answer is no; it does not.

Allow me to build my reasoning here. I have two podcasts, one called “IT-säkerhetspodden” and the one you’re asking about “Flashback, tracks from the past”. They have very different strategies and results. Allow me to elaborate:

IT-säkerhetspodden

It was started in 2018 by me and a friend. It’s in Swedish and covers the area of IT-security. When it started, it had only two other competitors in the same area in Sweden. We hit it off to a good start already from the get-go. A few years in, I was able to get approximate listening from the biggest competitors. Then I compared to ours: we were 10% larger than the best performing competitor. In short: we were the largest IT-security podcast in Sweden. This is no longer true, as we are a bit behind in curve. We have yet to transition to the video format, and that is a problem today for an audio only podcast. But we can pretty much do whatever we want, with no significant loss of listenership. The SEO-angle? Pretty lack-luster. We have not even cared about SEO. No transcripts, no key words, no key word tracking and no description following any SEO strategies. A basic presence on social media (LinkedIn, Facebook and X/Bluesky). No titles optimized for anything at all. A dry website that only 6% of our listeners use. We live on the big podcast directories (Apple, Google, and Spotify). We still perform like the 1% largest podcasts in the world. This is because the curve is exponential. At 1000 unique listeners per one episode and week, we are that big. It says so little about anything except the overwhelming number of podcasts in the world get NO listeners. This is the sad truth. And no SEO in the world can change that.

Flashback, tracks from the past

Started in 2020 and has the format of playing chiptune- and demo scene music with short form narration by me. It covers demo parties (think digital arts festivals) and old games from the past. It has enormous competition. There are a lot of old CGM, chiptune and demo scene podcasts and stations sharing the small number of listeners that are available. Check terraplayer.com and see for yourself. It’s also a narrow (“drainpipe”) instead of a broad (“lake”) of a format, so to speak. It has had a dismal listening from starts as it competes with a narrow format in a totally saturated environment. And the scene has been set in its way for so long that it just isn’t viable to compete as most listeners already got their favorite spots since the early 2000s (long before podcasts, and when it was called “on demand audio). Yeah, I remember that. I started a now long-gone scientific show in 1997 (!) before there were broadband. So, to no surprise: it has almost no listeners. One month of all episode-listening, compares unfavorably with one (!) day of listening for one episode of my other podcast. I decided (unwisely, I know now!) to go full SEO gung-ho on this! I am a software developer by hobby, not trade. So, I read up on the problem and added all things you must have consistent tags, keyword tracking, transcription, the two worldwide supporter chapter namespaces in use and all relevant Podcasting 2.0 attributes needed for full SEO immersion. I started tracking key word usage with PEOSEO.com.

I am now months down the line and the uptick in listening, visibility and usage have been small. Noticeable, yes, but not worth the days and months of development and hard research has not been worth it. I am grateful for the experience, though. It was good to understand that SEO only works to improve an already well-performing podcast or website.

Here are two observations from me:

1. You should not compete

Another old curmudgeon by the name of Troed Troedsson taught me this lesson in his book “Don’t panic”.

If you want the listeners and then money, do not go into markets that are heavily saturated. That’s a lost cause. Sorry, no exceptions! If it works, it is because the conditions change. What was unpopular yesterday, can be popular tomorrow and vise-versa. This just how it works. No need to sugarcoat it or trying to sell a panacea for it. SEO can do nothing here. It’s not possible.

2. You must adapt

A very nice podcast that made an interview with me. They have video. Video is nice!

Today, video-based podcasts are more or less a requirement. If you still have only audio, you are not in the leader quadrant if I may say so. This was not so when I started. But the changes are there all right. Then there is AI and AI-requirements. If you leverage AI today, you can improve your chances somewhat. That’s just the rule of today. There are no ways around this.

Then again, who cares?

I and my friend have earned a pretty good amount from IT-säkerhetspodden during the years. We have interviewed the Swedish CEOs of IBM and Microsoft about AI years before it became the topic of the hour. We have talked with intelligence officers, IT-security gurus, and other people in the market. No SEO needed for that. I bought a subscription from Yoast for the site and learned to optimize the show notes for SEO. It did nothing for the visibility of the podcast and never showed a readable increase in the listening. It cost a lot of money and was irritating as hell for someone proud of being able to express himself with texts and articles.

And Flashback, tracks from the past is a lost cause. Who cares? I certainly do not. I have loved nighttime radio since I religiously watched “midnight caller” in the 80s. And now I present chiptune music and talk briefly about various demo scene topics for a small audience. Fine by me. I sure wanted more listeners, so I did the SEO dance and learned that all the promises were just a pocket full of mumbles, for so are promises. And I really come to expect that all I can do is to enjoy the process not some sort of pipe dream of “stardom” that cannot be the reason to do anything today. Timing is everything. And the time of demo/chiptune is not now. It was 25 years ago. This much is clear. I will continue working the recording desk for as long as I enjoy it, without expecting the non-existing chance of become some sort of influencer. What a stupid goal that is, anyway. The other pod can’t really give me that either. I seek no fame and not becoming some sort of brand name in myself. So, yeah, that’s the whole thing. The last leg of this journey comes here…

“Slkmediaagency” and the spam angle (UCE)

Right, this is the least funny part of the discussion. But we must go there. I’m in my 50s, so I have seen the whole modern IT-era unfold. Back in the 90s, I was a consultant and system administrator. I so the early era of spam. Hormel, the creator the Spam brand of compressed meat, did not like having their name associated with the annoyance that was unsolicited mail. They even had a page on their website stating that their product was Spam with a capital “S”. Unsolicited mail was spam with a non-capital “s”. If the purveyor of the least popular “food” you can eat wants nothing to do with you, maybe it’s time to listen.

Sanford Wallace, legendary spammer from days past.

Later, the spamming industry struck back with a new term called “opt out”., It simply meant “you receive our spam and tell us to stop” (unsubscribe). What a dick-move that turned out to be. But here we are now everyone thinks it should be the norm. And it is.

So why am I even complaining? Well, I get a lot of emails from people selling stuff to my podcasts and radio stations. I answer politely to people trying to get their music on them by noting we have no possibilities to play commercial music. Then there are all the “we can develop your website”-spams. I don’t ever respond. Most people use social media today, so websites are strictly window-dressing or maybe hobbyist projects. And then there is you. If you wonder why I haven’t responded, now you know. But you continued spamming harder with follow ups, while not knowing how easy they could be understood as mass-emails. My name is “Erik Zalitis” and my demo scener handle is “DJ Daemon”. So, my first name is NOT “DJ”. You are calling me that, which makes me understand that you are just trying to automatically spam as many people as possible, hoping someone will respond. And I do, with the only response I can give you: “Please stop spamming. I’m not interested!”.

You should have taken the hint when I dd not respond to the first five or so emails with incessant nagging from you.

I could have been rude, but I do not do that. I only observe that your aberrant behavior highly correlates with “dark tetrad” traits. I will leave the discussion with that and ask you to just go away now.

I’m going to release a new podcast episode of Flashback, tracks from the past in a few weeks from now. It will dig deeper in the concept of evil in videogames. I already have made such an episode in the past, but wish to focus more on organizations that grow corrupted even when they had the best of intentions. But I have not yet started, so I don’t know how to navigate those waters yet. However I have already decided on the last story of it: a fictitious organization that may could have existed in real life. One that started out with the best of intentions, but then became truly evil.

Here is a concept of it from my private notes (translated to English)

As I understand it, the idea was good from the start. Benevolent, even. And it actually still is today. Built on a strong sense of security and doing what is right to protect and to rectify and to form an opinion against society’s greatest injustices. The whole thing was started by a person who himself was exposed to the injustices that he has now come to want to protect others from. There is nothing but goodness in this, as I see it. With little information and nothing to go on, the obvious conclusion is that this is the right thing to do, even if it is controversial. But right from the start it was criticized and the responses from the organizers of the of organization were unprofessional and appealed to emotions and went to direct attacks on those who spoke against it. Angry words from those who set themselves up as a guarantor of a safer society. And those who complained did not get a substantive answer but the answers more implied “how can you think like this” or “are you on the enemy’s side?”. The criticism came because all ideas that are new are controversial. This type of activity takes time to become habitus (accepted by the public). But the answers from the organization are, in my eyes, a number of red flags. They feel more like demagogy than rational responses to the criticism that all new paradigms must always undergo. It was based on making the followers angry and despairing at those who dared to criticize, rather than actually explaining why the criticism is unjustified. An “us against them” mentality in general.

But we have to go back a few years when there were indications of the people the founder had strong bonds with. The reports cited links and direct references to local authoritarian organizations of the type that want everyone to see them as dangerous and very committed to drastic solutions. “Strong men who solve their problems”, one might say. And these men had logos with very strong and simple messages. These people are no longer visible in the organization. But the question is, have they disappeared, or are they still in the background? This is unclear to me. If I hadn’t known about this, I would have probably actually supported them. Which feels hard now, when I know that they may actually have other intentions than those they state. But this may be a misjudgment on my part. It may turn out that this will work out well. They have managed to change parts of society’s rules as they stand now and it actually looks good. Despite this, the given question is what happens next. The questions are whether those who may be in the background have a different idea of ​​where “the ship should sail” than the one stated as the purpose of the whole thing. And if so, are these purposes as legitimate as those we were promised at the start?

So many thoughts and so many times it has started well but ended in disaster. The Italian mafia was started by citizens who wanted to protect other citizens. However, that was not the outcome of this. Where did it go wrong? Were they started by them with dishonest intentions, or was the organization taken over by opportunists who were there at the beginning and who stood on the sidelines without seeming to want a position in it? Maybe they bided their time… Maybe it wasn’t even intended that way. At a later point, the lust for power took over. This is an interesting thought and I think of the saying “Those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it”. This is unclear and maybe I’m worrying unnecessarily. But the fact is that it doesn’t concern me and it doesn’t concern most others either. So why is it even a problem? Maybe it isn’t. But I find it hard to see that this type of situation doesn’t have a big risk of going off the rails and doing things that the founders perhaps didn’t understand could happen.

Everything is up in the air and its activities are about to become totally accepted and then maybe it will stay there and continue to do good for society. But this is a risky path to take and the outcome of an unstable business that is very vulnerable to control and influence from those who see opportunities. It is clear to me that the correct approach is to wait and see, but not make any assumptions until more information is available. And there I stop my thoughts and move on to more relevant tasks this Friday at the end of May 2026.

Where is the podcast connection, then?

Let me show you where I started this discussion in 2021:

The episode is called “It’s good to be bad” and talks about villains that have a reason to be what they are and may not even see themselves as evil at all.

“So Tina Turner may not need another hero, but we need more villains! Interesting villains, and the retro games sometimes deliver the goods. Who wants another mustache twirling bozo who just wants to tie your wife to the railroad tracks? A proper villain has to have a reason to be who he or she is or we don’t want them. And here we celebrate some of the … ok… sorry for the misuse of the term.. “good” ones.” — DJ DAemon

So meet the villains of this episode:

Andrew “I’m right – damn the consequences” Ryan – Bioshock 1.
Donkey “But Mario is the evil one” Kong – The Donkey Kong series.
Sarah “I will bathe in your blood, but I’m the victim here” Kerrigan – Starcraft 1 and 2.
Robo “He’s just like Hitler” Hitler – Castle Wolfestein.
Wallace “Long, intellectual rant on why all is perfect and you suck” Breen – Halflife 1 and 2.
Shodan “I’m god, now you curl up and die” – System Shock 1 and 2.
(Ghost/Zombie/Whatever) Pirate “The incel of piracy” LeChuck – The Monkey Island series.

A few of my notes from the podcast:

“Look, I don't care much for evil for evil's sake. It's a boring and useless trope. And it fits for lesser bosses and the occasional end boss when the focus is not the evil and the villain. But a good villain needs a rationale, a drive, a motivation. Some are into greed, some are corrupted and unleash hidden flaws when life goes bad for them. Some have ulterior motives and no idea as to why everyone hates them. And some would have been good if only insert plot element here would not have happened. So today we go under the sea, into the jungle and among the stars and into the blood drenched walls of a certain castle. And we wade through the corpses and destroy the landscape to find the nature of evil wherever it may be." — DJ Daemon

“Would you kindly consider a bit of wisdom from yours truly? A man choose, but the slave of an idea has to obey. In Bioshock, you come to an underwater city built on the idea of total freedom. A dream of independence where the artist may create, the businessman will earn and the scientist is unfeathered by pesky rules and limitations to his experiments. The city of Rapture was created by Andrew Ryan who had the biggest of dreams, but as the city fell apart he could not accept it was a mistake. Thus he keeps the now insane population locked up in the city that is a complete battle zone. And Orion is an anagram of Ayn Rand, the objectivist, ideologist and author. The evil within Ryan you might ask? Well, mainly sacrificing everything and everyone for a pipe dream." — DJ Daemon

“And that concludes the whole list. We have the boring and uninteresting villains that could've been something with a proper backstory or at least some reason for them to be put into the game. But there are too many to mention here, so all I can say is we're looking at you, Professor Elvin Atom Bender from Impossible Mission. Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde, know the ghosts from Pac-Man. Sinister from Sinister. And Spider Mastermind, the end boss from Doom." — DJ Daemon

... And here is the episode itself

Here is a totally unstructured set of memes I found on X during the last 6 months. Enjoy the madness that is X, people. Try not to think about it, and you will be fine! With no further ado, here it goes…

The Internet landscape explained in one picture

As a producer/podcaster/broadcaster I can relate to this. People that create something have to wade through loads of products that may or may not help us “mining” the listeners for their attention. SEO-tools, new plugins and the next cool DAW. The overestablishment of creators has led to a total eco-system of crazy stuff sold with the promise of making us stand out. And to what avail? No-one is listening anyhow. But hey, if you’re in the business for a shovel, have I got a deal for you!

Some people don’t want a Fox-Waifu

This is very understandable. I totally agree. What will the world look like when women feel inferor because they don’t have long telescopic ears, a wet nose optimized for hunting and a bushy tail? And what can women do when society requires them to forage for rodents in big hole, pounce on prey or raid the chicken coop?

X runs the AI ragged

Right! On X, everyone asks poor Grok “is this real” even when the picture shows big foot in lingerine in a parking lot. I totally get if he feels tired and wonders if humanity should be allowed to breed. Poor guy!

Are we back to 2020 (Let’s hope not!)

In 2020, this was how we felt. It was horrible. But many still work from home and probably are about to go full Jack Nicholson in the Shining. All work and no play makes us all go bananas!

Finally explained RIGHT!

I’ve seen this meme so many times. It tries to explain societal policies like “should we help the poor” or “let people handle their lives themselves”. But what always irked me was that all pictures showed a bunch of freeloaders trying to see the game without the paying entrance fee. And now… Finally … someone explains the obvious problem with the picture and what it represents. Thank you, dear sirs!

I’m not contesting this

Can’t we have cool code names for war, like many software products. I want the next world war to be code named “Burnt badger” or call it “Nuked Naarwahl” or something.

Elon and Ayn sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g

Elon Must seems to fit in Ayn Rands “Atlas Shrugged”. Seriosuly, he would do just fine as a hero in her book. That’s the book that reveres dark tetrad behavior more than anything. Yeah, seems about what you expect from her… and from him.

Will I respawn or not?

If god has me as a playable character, what is wrong with his specs? And why can he not even play correctly? He has lost every battle based on social skills so far. Nah, this is not good. Are the are the angels with him on a raid? Does satan play as well? Many questions, but no answers. Maybe in the afterlife DLC.

But think about the kittens!!!!!

If it hurts cats, count me out. Also, it’s not stellar that it hurts humanity.

Is god Nietzsche, then?

My first girlfriend suggested this little aphorism:

• God is dead, says Nietzsche.
• Nietzsche is dead, says god.
• Nietzsche is god, says the dead.

This leaves me with the question: what does the undead say? And what does the fox say?

Remember: the only way to win is NOT to play

I remember War Games that I saw as a child. It had an AI (or AGI? or super intelligence?) that tried to figure out if it could win a world war. And it came close to figure that out for real. Maybe there is a story for Trump, Xi-ping and Putin there?

And this is why we can’t have nice things (with AI)

I cannot think of a better way to explain the problem with AI than this. It understands its task or does not, but always acts like it totally gets it. I know some people like that. But then again, those people does not consume whole nuclear power plants to function.

The honey badger… Nature’s arsehole

The honey badger is the worst animal ever. It just totally fails to have any redeeming point whatsoever. If reincarnation works, I would get most dictators and serial killers would become Honey badger in their next life.

This genre has a pretty long rap sheet…

I’m into 60s music. Like classic rock and old Jazz from the old school era. I also, weirdly enough, like chiptune music. But rap. I cannot stand it. In the olden days it was about injustice and the hard life for African Americans. This I could understand, respect and even like. But today it seems to be tough guy-attitude mixed with horrible sampled loops and some sort semblence of rhythm. To quote ABBa’s legendary audio engineer, Michael B. Tretow, “Skare där va musik????”.

Ask not what he did in the oval office

George Carlin may have lived a bit wild, but JFK was a full on hedonist. I will not delve into that more, but he would have impressed Jeffrey Epstein. JFK may have been a good president, but a good man, he was not! George Carlin is brutal in his effective argumentation. It was most certainly not directed at JFK as Carlin entered his “FM”-era much later when he started going form “safe” to “risque” subjects in his shows.

’twas another time

Seen this meme a lot. Three old stuff that is getting popular and a fourth that you hoped would not. But there we are. Art deco is hot, people! Super hawwwwt!

Chuck Norris – the only man who could kill death

Ok, I admit, although with a heavy heart that the man is no more. But he most certainly did not walk gently into that good night. He probably raged, raged and raged against the the dying of the lime-light.

How it feel to live in Sweden today

I try to avoid getting political. But this is a joke comes with a very real background. When Sweden and Finland joined NATO, Russia threatened us with nukes. That was like the only thing you heard from them during that time. Putin, if you nuke us, what good will it do you to occupy the wasteland of Stockholm afterwards? Seems like a stupid thing to do.

Wasn’t he kinda a dick himself?

Seems like the man himself was not without his problems. And neither was mr. Deckard.

The rationalist’s journey is a lonely one

If you act like that, you will have no friends. But you will at least know in your heart that you built your reasoning well. And that makes you ready to battle all what is wrong on the Internet, one irrational Reddit user at the time. Once more into the fray!

Yo, Joe! Praise the Commodore and pass the ammo!

Kudos to the guy on the top of the image. Unless he is AI-slop. Then no. But this is a true (?) rendition of the classic loader screen of GI Joe from the C64 (bottom of the image). Cool!

Thinning lines…

Reddit! Are you reading this? Maybe get out off your neckbeard mancaves and offer some help instead of “helpful advice” from the “Yo’ mama” school of rethoric excellence.

I don’t wanna set the world on fire!

Would it be fun to play Fallout in real life? This observer says “No”, it wouldn’t. But then again, how would we know, without even trying? Might be fun to listen to 40s Jazz and blasting raiders in central Stockholm. Problem is that one might not even get to experience the fun of catastrophical scarcity.

Wise guy, huh?

Sure! We all want to be like him. But can we? Or are we all going to behave like the sad little nerds we are and cry mommy when someone “begs to differ” on the Internet. Not clear, I’m afraid.

Not the philosopher we deserve, but the philosopher we got

Philosophy is stupid! Just some old people shouting assertions at everyone. “You fool! Live as I say you should, not as I lived my life”. Many were rich old morons that didn’t have to live like the people they taught to live on hay so they would get pie in the sky when they die. Then there is the dude! The dude is awesome! Be like the dude!

… But that’s, like, just my opinion dude.

Don’t make any plans, folks!

So far, so good. Half a year to go, what could possibly go wrong?

Seven sins of politics – now in color!

You know this diagram of political views. Lefties to the left, righties to the right and pretty much everyone else in the middle . This is weird, but most people, the way this scale is made, land in the middle of it all. But that’s no way to make a political career. So the edge lords get elected and adhere to their respective ideologies. And now you know which sins to select. Nice! Mine is mostly Sloth and some greed. Because why not?

Told’ya so!

Interesting, no? Back in the day, I preached this logic to everyone and the people in my workplace said things like “let’s go to the cafeteria and listen to Erik’s new conspiracy theories”. But who is laughing now? No one. No one is laughing now. Every nation does this to every other nation. And yes, that is why we can’t save nice things on the Internet.

Nah, that’s Orion….

I have no idea what to say… Sorry. Words elude me.

Stuck in the middle…

What did I say about not being political? Well, here I go again. But actually, can we try not to be swayed but all this deranged “love … or .. hate” of false dichotomy? Nah, never! What would the debates on the Internet be about then? They would actually be interesting, enlightning and, you know, totally boring. And we can’t have that!

So correlation does not imply causation… But is it correlated?

Every now and then AI-slop can be interesting. Enough said!

I hope no one invents a religion with a name based on science….

Nah, no one would ever be that daft. Can’t happen in the best of worlds (that we all live in)

Warning labels are so morons won’t sue… I guess…

I would like to know who this is useful information for. Or rather, please don’t tell me. I don’t.

But she loved me! (That was until my credit cared was declined)

I have seen the AI girlfriends on the Internet and if they were real poeple, they would probably sort under some kind of diagnosis. And I really hope the price of a good graphics card soon goes under the GDP of Tanzania.

My liver begs to differ

In this day and age, its easy to want to soothe your soul with some “sudden comfort”. But you shouldn’t. You know drugs are bad, mmmkay?

Wonder what a sequel to this would look like?

Not to comment on the man himself, but this is not a joke. Biff Tannen, as seen in the second installment of the franchise, is meant to be him. This has been confirmed. And that is interesting.

Great words from a great man

In these days, it’s nice to remember wise words from a great man. Not everyday you find that on the Internet.

When Internet fails in five years from now… Well, now you know how it happened

It’s in Swedish and says “I can vibe code – then the software giants will fall on market”. Yes, and so will the Internet.

Doesn’t matter: everyone already knows everything about everyone

As of lately, Discord wanted you to do this. And tomorrow, it will be someone else for some other reason. But then again, every device and app spies on you. So just complain when you are alone in your apartment and someone will consider what you just said. Unclear if that is really a good thing.

Old man is bitter

SkyNet is an AGI or even superintelligence. Still dumb as a brick, though

What would an AGI or a superintelligence makes out of humanity? Hate, love, serve, control, help, annhilate … or maybe observe us and then say “screw this… I’m out” ?

My parents raised no fool

That Hitler guy, the more I read about him, the less I like him. Really nasty person. Someone should stop him.

Lands of confusion… But this time without Ronald Reagan or Genesis

We’re back in January of 2026 and this is what it looked like. Maybe one day, it will look better. Because worse than this, it can’t get. Right? Right?

If we’re going to play Fallout in real life soon, might as well get the feeling for it

Maaaaaaaaybe ….

Yes, this story we must tell our kids

This I remember. Try to run anything that hasn’t passed through five different malware scanners and three firewalls today. It just isn’t safe. Then again, what is safe on the Internet today?

Hah! As if! Vibe coders couldn’t hit their left foot with that

Another scared comment about the dangers of inflicting code you have never seen, nor understand on the Internet.

I remember when it was ok to just be a big nerd

I might just go into early retirement now.

It makes my security work easier

Back in the day we called everything either “Virus” or “Antivirus”, so I don’t really see what has changed.

Sure, but will it still work afterwards? The computer that is.

The man was still walking the earth and beating up the flowers in the park when I saved this picture. And I believe he could have inserted the USB strick with the power of a thousand sledge hammers. But, would that have been a good thing? Unsure. But the hole in the wall behind the computer afterwards would have been impressive. And the computer would have been found in a neighboring country.

All we know from the pre-war history is in small fragments

The history has been passed down orally between the generations. All we know, is that this was, what we call in in layman’s terms “a bad idea”.

Top rationality or the road to nowhere?

Most people are, as I wrote earlier, in the middle. But all idelogies and thought leaders are falling off the edges. So there…

Please don’t nuke here

In between China, Russia and US – who would be the better one to occupy us? No one, I say. Sweden has done pretty well on its own so far. And our king whould issue a stern protest and then retract it, if this happened. And we can’t have that, can we?

POV Trump

Touch grass, mr president!

It notes that the real father lead a normal life and never became one of the successful people. His stepdad (“rich dad”) totally did. And Robert spends this book telling you how to think to be more like the rich dad. The book is geared towards teaching investment and handling of finances, but it totally reads like a “get rich now”-scam. He overembelishes himself and look down at “wage slaves”. He thinks that you do something wrong if you work for others and that you should work for yourself. This book has a heavy survivor bias in the way it’s written. He pretty much says “think and do as I do and you will be rich and successful”.

My lesson to you as a potential reader of such a book is simple: don’t.

I believe that the one important thing to remember is that the people that already think and act like this do not need to read a book in the subjectmatter. They will, however, probably write one. And if you are a person who thinks you need this book to be a success, you are not the right person to do this anyway and you will fail.

It’s biological, not psychical. The person who thinks like this and looks down on other that “are losers and failures” sort under a very specific geometrical shape… Ladies, and gentlemen, I give you:

There are other books, that tell you this in more clear ways:

I have read this book as well. It talks about success through being a total arse. But I’m not sure the author is so much recommending it as just there to observe the behavior of the corporate world. It reads like a modern version the “the prince”. So this might be the one to get, actually. It is advisable not to fall for the rosy dream of acting the way the “successful” people do to get what you want. Remember what I said: if you can play this game, you don’t need this book. If you can’t play the game, the book will not help. You will hurt yourself that way. And worse, you may end up hurting others.

Be happy you’re not wired up biologically as a dark tetra! It’s not a good thing. They tend to yield short term success, while totally failing in the long run. If you are like me, you value small victories and a long-term comittment to live in accordance to your values. It can be a good life, but don’t expect “getting all the babes and bitches” and the “bling”. It’s not for you and not for me.

There are so much dreams sold to you that makes being a “dark tetra” (psychopath, sociopath, narcissist, machiavelian or sadist) look like a power move, that you will look at your meager life and think “I want to succeed”. But what do you want? Love? Money? Achievements? Fame? All those are fleeting values. Nature only cares that you procreate and then you are disposable. But we humans seek other values in life like friends, lovers, a comfortable life, doing what you believe in or maybe simply piece of mind.

I have so much more I want to write in this article, but I feel I got the message out and that’s enough for now. See you later. Then I will probably have something insightful to say about broadcast audio compression or Commodore retro computer.

I was a new employee in a company, working as a security specialist. My first assignment was a brand-new encryption solution that I was asked to evaluate. My manager wanted me to tell him if this product was worth investigating further or not. I was given a production presentation pamphlet. It was something you don’t hear every day: a Swedish company offering a totally new encryption solution. It was one of those startups that had gotten a healthy injection of cash from a “corporate angel”. In short, they were given money to realize a new solution. It was presented as something brand new and never seen before. It didn’t need any keys, passphrases or other information that could give away the secrecy of the data. Also, it was based on a security protocol that the inventor of the solution had invented herself. And it also boosted that it was patented and the patent registration number was printed in the pamphlet.

It was easy for me to get the patent document from the patent office. It read as the same “marketing fluff” that the pamphlet did with the addition of a generic diagram and some text talking about quantum encryption. Most of the statements raised red flags for me. I will explain shortly why. Then I thought that “maybe there is something to download to test it?”. No download links and no instructions on who to contact at sales to get a trial version. Checking their website and other sources gave me no further information. I started doubting that they had some sort of software solution ready. This was weird. The company was at the time a few years old. “They got to have some sort of beta”, I thought. But nothing came up anywhere. I noted to my manager that I didn’t recommend going any further with this solution. My manager wasn’t a bit surprised. He had read the marketing text and didn’t think it was interesting to pursue further. Fair enough, not all things on the market are worth the effort. There’s nothing strange about that.

A few years later I read a popular Swedish magazine where a reviewer had gone through the solution. The most interesting part of the article was when he commented on the claim about “quantum properties”. The marketing text stated that the solution through quantum properties could detect if someone was eavesdropping the encrypted data. Not hacking or trying to decrypt it. Just watching the packet stream would set off an alert. This was claimed to work on any kind of connection. The reviewer noted that an ethernet connection as opposed to a fiber optic connection doesn’t have quantum properties. The claim was wrong as this feature could not work. It was physically impossible.

Years passed and in 2018 me and a friend decided to start a podcast together. We both worked at the same company at the time and in the IT security industry. So, it was clear we would cover the IT-security field. That’s a story for another day, though. A few months later we were offered a sponsorship by a large security organization in Sweden. This included that they sent interesting IT-security and info security lecturers for us to interview. We started doing regular interviews during the spring and it continued.

In the summer the other host went on vacation, and I decided to take the reins of the podcast myself during his vacation. I ran the show, covering the events in the IT-security field during each week. One of the last podcasts I made before he came back was about the inventor and her company. I was careful not to mention her name or the name of the company. But I talked about the claim that she had invented an encryption protocol herself. This is generally a very bad thing to do. Especially if you don’t make the solution open. Her encryption, if it existed at all, was closed source. Microsoft made this mistake in the 90s when they released Windows 95. It had the passwords of the users stored in passwordlist-files. Those encrypted .pwl-files were built so no one got to know how they worked and that was supposed to be secure. It was not. Not by a long shot. Hackers had a field day with the solution and what little security Windows 95 could offer was lost. The .pwl files were properly hacked and became useless. A new encryption format must go through years of vetting and attacks before getting trusted for implementation in standards. Some encryption standards that were considered secure, have been broken over the years and then stopped being used. This is the harsh reality and the reason why this was a red flag for me. I noted this on the podcast.

This is where it got interesting. What happened next was something I would never have seen coming. Our contact in the organization suggested another guest for our podcast. He said she was a bit controversial but may be interesting. We had to decide ourselves if she fit the podcast. She had invented her own encryption. You guessed it, it was her and it was the very same solution that I had evaluated previously. Who would have thought? What was the likelihood of our paths crossing? Me and the other host agreed to allow her on. It was a bit of risk taking, but a self-made inventor could be interesting to have on. I silently wondered if we knew what we had gotten ourselves into. We had no idea…

It was a nice day in autumn when she arrived at our work office. We led her to a conference room we had been allowed to use. She told us she had just come back from a large company nearby. She had been presenting her product to them, and she seemed to be very hopeful of it leading to some business for her company.

 The recording went off to a bad start. It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. She spoke about prime numbers, and I explained what that was. Got the explanation right but also suggested a few numbers that were prime numbers. Among them was 9, which is not a prime number at all. It’s divisible by 3. I got to hear that a number (haha!) of times from listeners and thought there was no end of it. What happened next was worse. She claimed that her cryptography did not use mathematics and pointed to a matrix with binary numbers she drew on the whiteboard. Listeners could not see that, but if they had, they would probably have drawn the conclusion I did: a matrix, a mathematical thing. At least I learned to use them in math class in school way back when. Either way, I have never heard about cryptography not using math. I tried a conversation starter by telling her that her solution reminded me of the Kerberos protocol. That did not sit well with her. I started worrying that she might stand up and walk out on us if we asked the wrong questions. It was probably not what we should have done. She was kind of worked up from my question. We really didn’t know how to challenge her different views on how encryption was to be done. In the end, she told us her point of view without much intervention. We thanked her for her time and then stopped recording.

What she said later totally should have gone into the recording but didn’t. It was interesting and unexpected. The first thing was that she was going to teach herself Microsoft C#, a popular programming language, to be able to build the software solution. I could hardly believe that I heard her right. At this time, her company was 10 years old. It confirmed what I suspected from the beginning: there was no functioning solution. They basically had an unrealized idea that yet had to materialize. This is kind of the most long-standing “vapor ware” I have ever heard of. What could she really sell to an interested customer if she had no solution ready? Then came the next thing she said. She told us of her quantum computer that she had in her cellar. Some background: quantum computing is bleeding edge research technology. Companies like Microsoft, IBM and Google pour loads of money into their projects to create the first quantum computer capable of reaching the goal of being powerful enough to bring massive parallel computing to this world. This technology advances but is many years away from being done. Back when this interview was conducted there were just a handful of quantum computers in the world. Somehow, she had one in her cellar. Such statements are impossible to verify unless you look in her cellar, I guess. This left me wondering exactly why she said something like that.

We went home to our respective homes, and the episode was uploaded and spread though the podcast services on time and to a waiting community. The response came a few days later.

Someone posted a message in a Swedish Facebook group specializing in IT-security. This message was about the interview, and it was surprisingly respectful for an angry take on our podcast. The people posting in the thread called us out and wondered why we had put her on the show. They also wondered if we knew anything about cryptography, given that we didn’t question anything she said. And few days later someone posted a new post without knowing about the first one. There were the same critical questions about the interview. We responded the best we could.

Something good came out of it. A man working with cryptography in a Swedish university offered himself as a guest on our show. We let him on, and it became a good introduction to cryptography and quantum computing. The calmness began to come back to our world. This is the end of the story, right. Nooooo… Not by any stretch of imagination.

Time passed and we continued producing podcast episodes. Months passed, but one day I got an email from a listener. It was addressed to me and asked me if I believed in her solution. At this time, I had to be careful what to respond. I didn’t want to be too negative about it. I noted that all I had to do was to say it like it was. I responded something like “there is no product to test in order to evaluate its capabilities. Until such a solution exists and can be tested, I do not believe it works. If I ever get to test it, it’s unlikely I will believe in it. But let me at least try”. I felt pretty good about that answer.

20 minutes later, I stood outside the building I work in, so I could get some fresh air. Then the phone rang. It was her and she wanted to talk to my manager. It was a moment of “ouch, dammit!”. It wasn’t just my direct manager she wanted to talk to. Not even the CEO of my company. Nope, she wanted to talk to the CEO of the company group. I thought I was going to get into some hot water. But she was nice and polite. I gave her his number. Then I went back to the office and sent him a message. I asked him to be a bit on the skeptical side with her. I got no response from either of them. It later struck me that it was probably just a coincidence she called me at the time she did. She most likely wanted to do a sales pitch. It was not her with a fake name I had mailed back to. A sigh of relief later it was all forgotten.

More time went on. Months later I got a message from her. She wanted to come again as a guest of our show. I didn’t have the heart to tell her no. I asked her to come back to her later. Time passed and I didn’t hear from her at all and forgot about it.

This story has a sad ending. One day I saw a message from her daughter on social media telling us that the inventor, her mother, had passed away recently.

There is an old saying: “Don’t speak ill of the dead”. I really don’t want to do that either. Remember that my first experience with their security product was before I even met her. My whole point is to tell a story about working in the IT industry. We must be hard on security companies, because so much of our society will be entrusted to their protection. It’s nothing personal really.

Stackoverflow Do you think this random avatar you assigned to me is appropriate? Seriously. Come on, do you have a sickle and hammer as well or maybe the Nod-insignia from Tiberium wars?

Whoever drew that abomination should be given their walking papers.

Vi är inne i en lågkonjunktur som också är en stagflation. Och kanske snart även en recession. För den som inte vet: var och en av dem är dåliga för allt i samhället. Och tre av dem samtidigt är trist på riktigt. Och då också för allt i samhället.

Så, är det dags att förbereda sig för dåliga tider? Nej, absolut inte. Det var typ för ett år sedan det var dags. Är du redo, så är du. Annars är det på med röda lampan och skrik ”skadekontroll” tre gånger högt, medan du tecknar ett dollartecken med handen. Som det är just nu, kan det hjälpa lika bra som faktiskt göra något. Men, ok, jag ska vara mer positiv. Det finns tid att agera, men planera din förberedelse mot just allting som kan gå fel i svallvågorna av situationen vi har här och nu.

Denna text handlar om varför företag går under i dåliga tider och relaterar mest till händelserna kring 2000 och 2008. Vad som händer nu har vi liksom inte facit till ännu. Så 2000? Vad? Samma som så många gånger förut. Något var övervärderat och marknaden krashade, vilket gjorde att den fick just den storlek den borde ha. Hände också 1983 med spelmarknaden för övrigt. För många speldatorer och för ruttna spel för att säga det enkelt. Gejmerserna tyckte att Ataris ”ET” stank och det gjorde att de slutade köpa spel och datorer. En enorm förenkling, men den stämmer någotsånär. Och på den vägen är det och så har det alltid varit. Tulpanerna i Holland i salig åminnelse.

2000 var det IT-marknaden med drömmare som lanserade idéer som var före sin tid eller allmänt utan eftertanke. Man pumpade pengar in i den typ av företag som vi idag kallar enhörningar. Och de flesta av dem har idag en sak gemensamt med riktiga enhörningar: de finns inte.

2004 gick jag och lyssnade på Handelskammarens framtidsseminarium. Alla där var högdjur som kände gud och hela världen. Jag var en enkel felus catus bland alla mustela erminea. Jag och en träslöjdslärare från Uppsala. Vi snackade en massa om pengar, jobb och trä. Högdjuren hälsade knappt. De såg att man inte var en av dem. En av dem talade om hur bra en stor entreprenör var som startat en inkubator för småföretag. – ”Han har skapat 100 nya företag på en kort tid”. Jag undrade hur många som hade livskraft. Men, han hade dragit i spaken 100 gånger och vem vet, han kanske fick pengar tillbaka eller vann något. Osäkert.

En person hade förläst sig på den stora filosofen från öst som sa att man inte skulle befatta sig med folk som inte var av nytta för andra. Och jag var det helt klart inte, eftersom han vägrade hälsa på mig. Jag fick det förklarat av en kompis som också var där och som kände honom. ”Äh, han gör så där”. Dumt. Du vet aldrig vem som kan bli en bra vän eller faktiskt nyttig för dig att känna. Han fattade det senare och släppte beteendet, vilket jag tror var bra för honom.

Företaget jag jobbade på vid den tiden krängde som en båt i sjönöd och det är en historia i sig, som någon gång ska berättas. Men inte här och nu. 2003 hade företaget gigantiska skulder och stod inför randen till konkurs. Två år innan var stämningen däremot positiv och man var glad att man inte var en av de där startup-företagen som kraschade 2000–2001. Lätt att vara efterklok, men så var det.

När blev allt bra igen? Ja, det var ju ingen som sa. Men runt 2004–5 pratade man inte längre om ”elände, elände, elände”. Så det måste varit då. Är ingen Sherlock Holmes, men det är min magkänsla. Sen var det högkonjunktur och solen sken. I alla fall fram tills 2008. Och då var det en bostadskris i USA som tog med sig världsekonomin. I det stora landet i väster kunde du lätt köpa ett hus för stora lån och sedan ställa in det när de inte gick att betala. Du förlorade huset, men banken fick ta skulden. Bankerna hanterade det på ett närapå obegripligt sätt: de sålde lånen mellan varandra. Så ett lånepaket innehöll lån som kunde ställas in när som helst tillsammans med lån som var säkra. Och det var i efterhand lika smart som navigera med GPS-en över ett stup som den inte visade att det fanns där. Också något att skriva en avhandling om, vilket ekonomerna redan gjort 1000 gånger. För en enkel IT-snubbe som jag, räcker det med att sammanfatta med orden ”Aj, fan”.

Även då skakade allt, men IT-marknaden i Sverige verkade stå pall och vi här ryckte på axlarna och installerade Fedora Linux 3 och Windows Server 2008 på servrarna. Men svallvågorna var enorma. Det vet de glasögonprydda förståsigpåarna, eller historiker som vi kallar dem, att berätta.

2017 kom krisen igen, fast det var ju bara i media. Det var dags för lågkonjunkturen som dock hade fräckheten att svika oss och inte dyka upp. Samma sak 2018 och 2019. 2020 vet jag inte vad som riktigt hände. Det var som vanligt, total katastrof och ”förvånansvärt bra givet omständigheterna”. Samtidigt. Och så var det den där otrevliga varelsen som fanns överallt i luften och som vi inte kunde bli av med. Men nog om den elaka ledaren för det där stora landet. Vilket land? Vet inte, men jag har en lista på kandidater.

Nu är det 2022 och nu har vevade just ekonomerna med flaggan, så nu är racet mot avgrunden (eller det temporära lilla trasslet, som snart är över) alltså i gång. Solen går upp som vanligt och folk kör som idioter med sina elektriska sparkcyklar. Så det känns inte så dåligt just nu. Fast vi får tydligen välja när vi har ström i vinter. Men bra nyheter: det fixar man åt oss, så vi behöver inte bry oss. Det blir bara lite svart i TV-rutan ibland.

Kommer kickad.nu komma tillbaka? Den siten köptes till sist av IDG tror jag. Men i början av 2000-talet kollade man om företaget man jobbade på sagt upp folk eller inte. Eller om någon konkurrent gjort det, vilket var mer lättande. Just nu svarar den inte på tilltal när man skriker ”HTTP GET” med sin webbläsare. Men vem blir glad av att bli kallad en GET, så det förstår jag.

”We’ll meet again” sjöng Vera Lynn till en vacker bakgrund av atombomber som briserade. Låten är vacker, men rockvideon kunde vi klarat oss utan. Någon som vet vad bandet ”Dr Strangelove” gör nuförtiden?

Alltså, det finns saker man ser på det lilla planet när tiden för elände kommer. Det är ilska, förtvivlan och vrede. Men du kan knappast spöa upp dörren hemmet eller anklaga gud och hela världen för allsköns dumheter när osäkerhetskänslan kommer. Slå handen genom skärmen är olämpligt, då en ny är dyr och handen kommer behöva gips.

Men om vi inte kan springa från recessions-lejonet som äter våra skuldtyngda bostäder, våra jobb och vår trygghet. Ska vi slåss? Hur gör man det mot ett dystert besked om ränteläget? En rak höger mot radioapparaten löser det problemet.

– ”Där har du Sveriges Radio P1 för att du lät riksbankchefen säga det där! Jag är #kränkt”.

 Transistorer, kretsar och knappar åker alla världens väg och ljudet försvinner ur högtalaren, som flyger i en båge över rummet och sedan gömmer sig bakom blomkrukan och hoppas på att du snart lugnar ner dig.

Nej, så är det inte. Men ilskan ökar som om värmen i rummet just skruvats upp av en elak kontorsdemon. Konflikter, ilska och rykten flödar. I början av 2000-talet kom stormen till mig i form av en arg medarbetare som tyckte jag och min kollega till it-tekniker skulle fått sparken. Varför? Eftersom vi båda varit anställda kortare tid än några som fått gå. Samma snubbe var annars trevlig och nästan en personlig vän till vår lilla IT-avdelning.

Vice-VDn som rekryterats nyligen ansågs var en skarprättare och allt från hans privatliv till hans roll gjorde folk högröda i ansikten. ”Folk blir allt argare för var dag som går”. Vänner började se snett på varandra och alla ifrågasatte allt och alla. Man ville personifiera allt elände och skälla ut den jäveln.

Alla försök att rädda situationen ökade ilskan hos oss alla. Lönesänkningarna minns jag värst. Alla undrade vilka som inte gått med på den och man var smart i att hålla tyst. Det var visserligen anonymt, men jag hoppades att ingen trodde jag hade sagt nej. För jag hade faktiskt gått med på det, men det fick man inte heller säga. Då blev man idiotförklarad i stället. Ingen av oss var en dålig människa, men känslan av att allt var så här kunde få ut det värsta ur oss alla. Det var ingen rolig tid och man gick till jobbet med en stor klump i magen varje dag.

Så jag tänker på det som vi fruktar just nu omkring oss. Inget nytt under solen och precis som många gånger förut. Jag hoppas att en del klokskap ändå finns denna gång. Jag minns ilskan och osämjan som värre än osäkerheten med allting. Det är mitt hopp att om saker blir jobbigt för dig och för mig att vi minns hur det var förra gången. Jag tror vi måste stilla våra upprörda sinnen och försöka bete oss så bra vi kan.

Vi flyr eller vi slåss som människor på denna krigsplanet, men det finns ingen flykt och ingen strid i en lågkonjunktur. Och då kan vi välja att falla isär eller hålla ihop. Det finns nog ingen annan väg att gå.

• En som funderat förr.

Then he changed. Or maybe it was she. I don’t really keep track anymore, sorry. He became pompous and started demanding his place in this world. Maybe it was all the scandals with the ladies, the booze or the drugs. Or that he threw the TV out of the hotel window. Again… Or all the loud parties. Maybe I just misremember everything. No, that was not it! It was the well-thought-out speeches becoming ramblings. He knew his stuff but moved into opining about adjacent subjects. And soon he commented about everything. All from his typical right wing … or was it left wing rhetoric. The facts became more opinions and eventually, the foundation of his logic stood on a swamp of unresearched statements.

Was he a charlatan? No, I don’t think he was. But as time progressed he became one. Why? Because he always was that way, you see. You know how those big-ego people are. Just let them loose, and this is what happens. Ok? So, the people that enabled him, hailed him to the skies and gave him whatever he pointed at did nothing wrong? They now wash their hands?

I will not comment about what has been. Let’s talk about what can be. That is, how can we hinder those situations? I promise no solution, just a mere idea in my head.

First off, just to be clear, I have not spoken about a specific person in this text. But I can make a list, and it’s pointless. You know a lot of people that would fit in it. They created themselves, and we helped them. I propose that we drop the love and the hate and more than anything else: the bloody idolization!

Both you and I live in fear of missing out, being rejected, saying something that makes people angry or just plain screwing up. It’s painful to feel the effects of those things, but it sets constraints. What if there were no constraints? Neither you, nor I would become bad. Because we don’t want to be doing bad stuff in the first place. But what if people start pushing you to take risks, to become more outspoken about those things they love to hear? Or to compose that beautiful music. Because of your talent, you are always set apart. You get a manager and a private chauffeur. You suddenly have a whole new set of friends that would never say “Dude, you’re going a little to hard on the drink, man”. They will clean up the place, pick up your vomit and pay the bills.

This is not lack of restraint, this is pushing you to express your personality to the max. Humans are not made from metal. When the world changes its expectations of a person, the person changes. Very few people would consider throwing the TV out of the hotel window (see introduction) or to say controversial stuff to get attention. But slowly and gradually, people demand more and more. And the persons bad sides are augmented along with the good. Going back to that restraint and self-control we all have means falling out of the world’s favor.

Then we have the pedestal. That platform raised to the stars. The person now stands on it and is held up as all the best a rock artist/philosopher/influencer/author/tv-host/super developer/spirit healer there ever were. And he can do whatever he wants, with hordes of people admiring his “in your face arrogance”. The public opinions are par for the course, and he asserts everything for everyone. “Just telling you like it is”.

The fall is hard as it’s sudden. Some news outlet starts calling him out. He has always had detractors, but this is new. The big dogs of media and the people in power starts biting him. It was seldom totally out of the blue. One thing he said or did, was “too much”. You might argue, “that how he always been”. But I advise you to stay silent. Because being on his side or liking his music is now dangerous. Virtue signaling ensues “Yeah, I used to like him, but I now understand how horrible he was. I hate him now”. The “yes men” are gone, the friends went out when the fair weather was no more, and the manager does no longer respond to his calls.

Am I saying he was a good man and innocent of his misbehavior? No. I’m not doing that. I think it should be clear that my only point is that the community became religious around him and simply pushed. It takes strength to back down and to focus on the important stuff, like what it was that was good. The music, the knowledge, the skills, the leadership, the scientific research, the result and how it made the world better for the people around. Drop the ego? Well, maybe not developing it to humongous proportions had been a better solution.

But the world must also stop creating idols out of humans as well. We’re not helped by worshipping people. Bob Dylan wrote in his autobiography about people trying to get him to speak their opinions, join their groups and to become a voice for them. That was not what he wanted.

He wanted to write lyrics with his patented “diorama storytelling” and compose music. Unfortunately, he wanted to sing them as well, but we have come to take the good with the bad.

Phil Spector reigned supreme (haha!) and when he frequently threatened to shoot people, the other artists just asked him to put the gun away. Maybe they shouldn’t have just ignored what was going on, I’m just saying.

Many actors and celebrities just fall off the radar. They couldn’t take what the world was demanding and what they had become. The retraced their steps and got back into a more normal life situation. I’m happy for them.

To wrap this one up: please don’t create idols out of real people. Stone, glass and iron is ok. Those will never change and will not break easily. Real people on the other hand, when supported but not idolized will create, change and improve themselves and the world. No idols and no heroes!

Sure, and therefore we must try to define the terms “truth”, “correctness”, and “usefulness”. The prism is true unless it’s broken. It’s also correct to a certain degree. But to see the light in both a real and metaphorical sense, the prism must go! I’m not even talking about lies and deceit, mind you. Just the truth in colors and the usefulness of knowing it’s a reflection of a cathedral in France, which the prism cannot tell you it is.

Another example, called the “illegal pixel”. As it stands today, Mickey Mouse is still under copyright. Disney owns the right to the character and any sort of picture or painting of him. That’s right, Disney, has tried to forbid unauthorized paintings of Mickey Mouse and other of their characters on the walls of a day care center in the US!

So, if I take picture of my living room and a picture of Mickey Mouse and shrink both to a resolution of 1×1. Each picture will be EXACTLY one pixel. Is one under copyright and the other is not? If no, then at what resolution will one of them be? This is a fun exercise for a copyright lawyer, and yes, this discussion is real. As in it has been in the debate many years ago.

This is the problem with many “one-pixel” truths, building a composite lie. Read up of survivor bias, selection bias and cherry picking if you do not believe me.

A very simple example of this:

The full resolution: “I was not in the bank when the robbery occurred. I did not intend to rob the bank.”

Some minor “compression” to save space in the sentence above. “I was in the bank when the robbery occurred. I did intend to rob the bank.”

If you count the words, you can notice I did not do much change to it. It should be pretty close to intact.

You get this?

1) Representation cannot alter the meaning of the original statement.

2) All facts in the case must be correctly represented. You may not break them down and “choose” what is presented.

Hey! If this is how it is, wouldn’t that make short news blurbs, tweets, and Facebook groups with an agenda just a bunch of worthless garbage?

Well, yes, it would. And thanks for making my point for me.

(StationID) Rationaaaaaaaality, your reality leader…

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And we’re back. This is Rationality, your reality leader. DJ Daemon here to talk about Hanlon’s razor and Hanlon+.

The famous Hanlon’s razor says that bad effects for you come from either a) the incompetence of others or b) the malice of others.

In short, if something bad happens. Someone did because they’re evil/uncaring or because they’re stupid/incompetent.

I have a bit of a problem with this. It’s way too judgmental. I don’t intend to remove judgement, not at all. It should just not be “built into” the first assessment. Instead, I propose, we change “Incompetence” to “Non-intentional” and “Malice” to “Intentional”.

To elaborate, let’s assume you accept a temporary position at a farm. You get a note that tells you that your first assignment is to operate the tractor. It has the usual number of warnings and reminders. You know you’ve seen them before and skip ahead. As you arrive to the farm, you check in, get the key and the walk to the tractor. As you try to start it, it will not work. The engine growels but will not start churning as you turn the key in the ignition. After an hour of troubleshooting, you find out that the tank is empty. That stupid sunnova…. The farmer totally forgot the fuel.

When you tell the farmer about the problem, he just sternly tells you to look at the assignment again. You do. And the notes tell you that you’re supposed to always check the logs in the house to know when refuel is necessary. Ow!

What’s the verdict, Hanlon’s razor? Malice! Clear as the day. The farmer knew you would skip over the instructions and this way, you learned that he expects you to know the check list by heart.

But malice? Really? It’s clearly intentional, not necessarily malicious. He gives you another chance, and you complete the work. The harvest looks promising, and you get paid. Hence, it’s “Intentional”, not malicious.

The “Nigerian prince” that offers money, if you just send him your bank account information is also intentional. And malicious. He wants to gouge you of as much money he can before you figure out that you’ve been had.

So “Malice” is now “Intentional”.

And then we have the other result of Hanlon’s razor: incompetence. Something bad happens, and that’s because of their (whoever they may be) incompetence. They certainly tried, but you know how they are, nothing ever comes out right. Aaaaargh!

No, I would say it’s “non-intentional”. That INCLUDES incompetence but does not restrict itself to that. Instead, it could be something like:

– Incompetence

Yes, actually. That’s that case when it IS exactly that. It’s a common reason for “non-intentional” consequences.

– Competent, non-participation

They know they could not solve the problem, so they didn’t. That caused problems on your side. Maybe it could have been solved, but not after so many mistakes or so much time had passed. Irregardless, it wasn’t possible. They should have told you, but maybe you didn’t get the memo. And there you are.

– “Act of <insert deity>”

Sometimes bad stuff happens ™. It’s not your fault, it’s not ours either. Sorry. Maybe if x haden’t been in power/in charge/tasked with fixing it. Or maybe it just happens. Reason unknown. An electric storm has no mind of its own, but due to it, you have no Internet connection. Non-intentional, not “incompetent”.

Summary

Hanlon+ replaces Hanlon’s razor. “Intentional” replaces “Malice” and “Non-intentional” replaces incompetent.

We’re going on with a two-hour marathon with the best thoughts from the 60s, 70s, 80s until today on Rationality FM – your reality leader. Stay tuned!