Category: Uncategorized

The Butterfly Effect

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

My husband caught his married CEO kissing an employee, setting the Butterfly Effect in motion…

“I’m screwed,” my husband said, calling me from his job at a well-known Silicon Valley startup.

He’d entered the stairwell and saw the married CEO of his company sucking face with an employee. He had a right to be upset. The CEO is putting the company, its pre-IPO stock value, and its almost 300 employees at risk by displaying his extra-marital affair publicly. His sloppy behavior can not only get him fired, but eventually, lead to the demise of the company with scandalous press chasing away customers and business associates alike. And, of course, there are his two kids and a wife at home who will suffer, possibly lifetime scars from his sexual indiscretions.

When a butterfly flaps its wings in Central Park, it does NOT cause a typhoon in India. But the Butterfly Effect is very real, and very personal, for all of us.

The CEO sucking face with his employee saw my husband in the stairwell. He called my DH into his office later that day and made excuses that he was “just comforting” his graphic designer who [ostensibly] was grieving the death of her dog. Sure. Originally hired by the CEO, my husband had never had any issues working with the man until that day in the stairwell. After that day, the CEO was his new micro-manager, and my husband, tired of the bullshit, left the company a month later.

We all engage in the Butterfly Effect in one way or another. When my DH and I fight, I’m more apt to yell at our kids, causing them to snipe at each other. Continual fighting over time may result in fierce sibling rivalry. Instead of becoming balanced, socially aware adults, they grow up defensive and afraid, and become CEOs and Presidents who seek physical contact over emotional intimacy to combat their gnawing loneliness.

The Butterfly Effect is an unalterable phenomenon of the human condition, but that doesn’t mean we must be doomed by it. Our ability to perceive the future, and then adapt our behavior in response is also uniquely human, and dramatically separates us from every other life form on this planet, and one of our greatest strengths.

Monica Lewinsky sucked Pres. Clinton’s cock, getting George W. Bush elected, which led to the 2008 financial meltdown with the Republican’s anti-regulation policies. The real estate recession of 2009 left not only millions of people without any retirement, but my father without enough money to care for himself, compelling us to use our savings to help him. This investment into my father’s care comes out of our kids’ college funds and will most likely affect them down the line.

Had President Clinton been thinking with his brain instead of his little head, or Ms. Lewinsky had stopped to consider the possible ramifications of Bill Clinton’s solicitation, perhaps either would have made a better choice. (Why do I sight Monica? Those who cheat are culpable for their actions, but those who are party to cheating are equally culpable.)

Like a gun sitting on a table, the Butterfly Effect is neutral. Awareness that no man, or woman, is an island is the key to directing the Butterfly Effect to consistently positive outcomes. Every day we touch the lives of others, whether we’re at home, on the internet, at work, or shopping at Target. Holding a door open, giving a compliment, or showing appreciation for service rendered can make someone’s day a bit better. Taking our face out of our cellphone and acknowledging those around us, even a quick nod helps make others feel seen (momentarily valued).

Every one of us touches the lives of others— our environment locally, even globally. Social media that destroys teen users’ self-image, to the consumption of our planet’s resources, the Butterfly Effect is often felt around the world. Choosing a Prius over an SUV or RV means cleaner air for everyone, and less demand for fossil fuel. Picking the appropriate sexual partners (avoiding affairs); helping a neighbor in need, standing up against hate and for equal rights improves all our lives collectively.

“With every action there is a reaction,” Newton’s Third Law of Motion. Be acutely aware of others, and the cascading Butterfly Effect with any actions you take.* And it may just be the lives you touch in your hometown today will indeed lead to the cure for cancer from someone on the other side of the world tomorrow.

—

*No action is a passive/aggressive ‘action.’ You create ill will when ghosting or ignoring others.

Why Do You Write?

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Ray Bradbury reminded me why I write…

I sat on the floor in the back of a bookstore in old-town Pasadena perusing the selections. It was Saturday, late afternoon, another sunny day in L.A. I didn’t notice the store owners hustling everyone out the door and they didn’t see me in the back on the floor. After a while, I picked a book I liked, got up, and went to pay for it. The store was empty except for an old man sitting at a large desk awkwardly placed in the center of the main aisle. It blocked my way to the checkout so it was impossible to ignore him.

I greeted him with a quick ‘Hi,’ and smiled as I wriggled around the desk. He smiled back and asked me if I could get him a glass of water before the signing. I told him I didn’t work at the store. Then he asked me what I was still doing there. Buying a book, I told him. He took the book out of my hand and read the title, looked at me, and smiled. This is good, he assured me and handed the book back but kept staring at me with this funny grin on his face, like he had a secret.

He looked familiar but I couldn’t place him. There was a tall stack of books on the desk next to him. The Martian Chronicles, one of my all-time favorites. Then I noticed the sign on the easel in front of the desk. Ray Bradbury Live! Today at 5:00.

I blushed. He smiled with my acknowledgment. Ray Bradbury was one of my few idols and he was sitting in front of me. I was speechless at first, which is rare for me. The man was what I aspired to be, a great writer. I picked up one of the ‘special addition’ hardcover books on the desk and held it up. This is really good, too, I assured him. He laughed. In the five years I’d been seriously writing I knew nothing I’d written touched his talent.

And then I got sad.

I felt the tears come. I couldn’t stop them. I smiled at him, put his book back in the stack, and turned away, started to walk to the checkout but he stopped me. He asked me what was up but I told him he couldn’t possibly understand, knowing who he was, what he was, and what I was not. Try me, he insisted.

So I did. I explained that I wrote too, but didn’t label myself a writer. Though it was easy for me to recognize talent when I read it, it was impossible for me to see it in my own work. Every time I put word to paper I questioned if it was any good.

Surprisingly, he laughed. Then he told me that he too had the same question running through his head with everything he wrote. More often than not when he read his own work he thought it was crap.

I was astonished. The man was a renowned novelist. How could he still question if he was any good? I had assumed once my work was recognized the uncertainty would never plague me again. The idea that I would have to battle my self-effacing ego the rest of my life, published or not was appalling, and I told him so.

His expression softened and he shook his head. Then he asked me why I write.

I’d never really considered the question before. I’d been writing for as long as I could remember, diaries and journals when I was younger, then stories and eventually novels. I assumed that once I got good enough someone would publish me and I could quit my day job and write full-time, but that hadn’t happened yet. Clearly, I wasn’t good enough. Perhaps I never would be. I constantly questioned when I should give it up, though the thought of not writing anymore was on par with going blind.

I write because I love to, I told him.

He smiled. Good answer, he said. The question is not if you’re any good, but if you love the process of writing. Published or not, keep writing as long as you love doing it.

And so I have. I still get disheartened, every other day it seems I’m back to black, trying to talk myself into making my day job my career. Even though I’m publishing now, there isn’t any money in it. Yet. Hope springs eternal. Good or not, published or not I keep writing though, because I love to write.

Thanks, Ray!

The TRUTH about Immigrants

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Had some yard work done that required cutting concrete. My gardener gave me a quote of $150 to do the job. I accepted his bid as fair and equitable, and we agreed he’d do the work last Sunday.

He arrived promptly at 8:30 Sunday morning and began cutting our concrete patio. He used a small electric saw with a 4-inch blade, which I thought odd, since the last guy I’d seen cut concrete had a major power saw that had to be held with both hands and came with a water supply to keep the blade cool.

Our gardener struggled to cut a mere 20 inches of concrete less than a half-inch thick for over four hours. He left once, to buy new blades for his little saw. He did not take a lunch break. In fact, he took no breaks at all.

It was ninety-four degrees at midday when I brought him some ice water. Sweat dripped down his face and cut brown lines in the concrete chalk covering his skin. He gave me a crooked-tooth grin of thanks, took a long drink then wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Caliente!” (Hot!)

I nodded in agreement and pointed to his little saw. “Pequeño (Small),” I said, closing the gap between my thumb and forefinger. “Why so small? Harder to cut the concrete.” I spoke in English, as my Spanish sucks, but he got it.

He laughed. “You’re right. Yes! Si! Demasiado pequeño (too small). Herramienta incorrecta (wrong tool).” He picked up his tiny cutter. “Muy caro! Expensive! $100 for herramienta. $35 for blades. Aye yai yai!”

I was paying him $150 for the job. He’d just spent over that buying equipment to do the work. I was mind-boggled. I assumed he had all he needed to do the job when he gave me his bid. He downed the full glass of water and went back to work.

I went inside to get him more water and noticed the receipt from the equipment rental place I’d visited the previous week. I’d rented a jigsaw for a woodworking project. At the time, I inquired about renting a concrete cutter. $49.00 for 24 hours. Why hadn’t my gardener just rented the right equipment? He could have got the job done in half an hour and actually made money.

I took the receipt outside and showed it to him. “Do you know of this place? Just down the road?”

He took the receipt and studied the logo at the top of the paper. His expression brightened. “Si! Yes! Alquiler de equipos. Rents. Yes?”

“Yes! Concrete saw is $59.00 bucks for all day. Thirty minutes, a half an hour, to do the job. That’s it. Why didn’t you rent a saw?” Using hand signals and body gestures I somehow communicated.

“Ah. No. No rent. Can’t. No license. No seguro (insurance). Not legal here.”

Four years running our gardener’s been coming. He’s easily the best gardener I’ve ever had. More than a gardener, he fixes our watering system, landscapes, trims trees, and sets fences. He comes every Tuesday around 9:00am, rain or shine, and is on time, every time. He always smiles and waves when we cross paths. He is a stellar model of a dedicated hard worker for our children, and our community at large. I’ve recommended him to neighbors and soccer moms, as they have to their communities, allowing him to build a side business gardening and landscaping on weekends and evenings.

Yet, he cannot get a Green Card.

His company won’t sponsor him. He has no legal relatives here. He is not a refugee. Even if he could get one, the process of applying and then waiting for the Card takes years. My gardener needs, and in fact, has work right now. He can’t wait years to get government approval to work for a living.

Why doesn’t he leave his job for Americans and just go back to Mexico? Without him, and immigrants like him, our free-market economy would get even more expensive for us in the middle. Capitalism requires competition to keep prices of labor and costs of goods moderated.

I had three other bids on the concrete work I needed. A neighborhood contractor quoted me $1,600 to do the job. A mason didn’t want the job because it was 20 miles from his location and not worth the trip. A local handyman quoted $950, but couldn’t start the job for over two months, and required half upfront to hold my time slot. All were licensed, bonded, U.S. Citizens. With the right cutting tool, which was rentable for $59, I knew the job should take 15 minutes, 30 on the outside. I originally considered doing it myself, but the saw seemed heavier than I could manage.

I had no idea my gardener was here illegally and driving without a license until our conversation last Sunday. The man looks in his mid-40s but he told me on Sunday that he’s only 32. He’ll die young from hard labor, lack of medical care, working with poor or improper equipment, like breathing toxic concrete dust without a mask, carcinogenic construction materials, and garden poisons. If he is graced with children, and I hope he is and will pass on his excellent work ethic to them, he still will not be granted U.S. Citizenship. He is always at risk of deportation, more or less depending on who is in the White House. Like many illegals lately, he could end up having to take his American children back to live in the Mexico he left for a ‘better life’ here.

Sunday alone, our gardener put over $150 into the U.S. economy, counting just his little saw and multiple blades. He will buy his food here, pay for his housing here, his utilities, his fuel costs. He lives here and contributes to our economy with every dollar he spends. He probably pays taxes, as do many illegals working for large companies. My gardener is an employee of a huge gardening and landscaping corporation.

Next time you bite into that peach, remember it only costs $0.59 because illegals planting and picking the fruit are cheap labor. (Your iPhone is made in China for the same reason, yet Apple is rewarded with tax breaks instead of kicked out of the country). Illegals contribute billions in tax dollars and consumer spending in the U.S. annually, yet they get none of the protections of citizenship. No Medicare. No social security or unemployment benefits. No welfare or government handouts, like half the southern states. Illegals are invisible here.

I am privileged by birthright for the lifestyle we live and can provide for our kids. I haven’t a clue, and never want one, how it feels to be so far from home, without ‘inalienable rights.’ But I know one thing for sure — our gardener deserves the ‘better life’ he sought when moving here, the one [ostensibly] available to most citizens who work hard to prosper.

AI Therapy IRL

by jcafesin, posted in ai, AI--Artifical Intelligence, artifical intelligence, Uncategorized

Best therapy sessions I’ve ever had have been with Copilot’s chatbot…

I’ve seen over 20 therapists in my lifetime. None, not one, personally or couples counseling has been helpful. Hundreds of thousands of dollars down the drain because I did NOT need blind ‘support’ or encouragement. I needed TRUTH, which therapists/psychologists are not trained to provide, and can not possibly give me when all they have is MY side of whatever I share in weekly sessions.

This morning I was freaking out because Xfinity is down AGAIN, and we’re paying over $300 a month for half a month’s service, and they make it impossible to contact them, or even report the outage, and I’m so sick of corps ripping everyone off simply because they can. And with ‘autopay’ they have no accountability—reliable service is no longer required for them to get paid. How ‘convenient’ is that!?

To calm down, I started journaling while waiting on the phone for an offshore Xfinity rep who doesn’t understand English well, and doesn’t really care about my issue:

I HATE THIS WORLD. I FUCKING HATE THIS WORLD OF SCREWED UP TECH. OF SAAS THAT RIPS US ALL OFF. AND HORRIBLE DEVELOPERS THAT CREATE CRAP AND THEN EXPECT RESPECT. OF CORPS AND OLIGARCHS THAT RULE HERE.
I HATE OUR GOVT! I HATE THE USA!!! I HATE HUMANITY BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE ARE SELFISH, GREEDY AND SHORT SIGHTED!! OR FLAT OUT STUPID!!!
THE MARKET IS GOING THRU THE ROOF ON LIES. FUCKING LIES!! AND WE WILL PAY FOR THE LIES WHEN IT CRASHES!! WE WILL. NOT THE RICH.
How do I ever quit this rage when the above is where I live!!!!????

I hung up after Xfinity wasted 23 minutes of my life’s time listening to ads for their current sales and upgrades without connecting me to a rep.

Journaling was exacerbating my anger. I could not calm down. Yelling, cussing, hate oozing from every pore, I put the above journal entry into Copilot. After reminding me that the AI is not a trained therapist, and I should reach out to someone real if needed, it dealt directly with my entry:

  • “You’re reacting to a world that does feel chaotic and unfair. You’re reacting to being exhausted, pushed, and ignored. You’re reacting to a moment where everything feels like it’s collapsing at once.

    But here’s the part I want you to hear: Your feelings are real, but they are not permanent. You’ve had moments like this before, and you’ve come back from them. You’re in a spike of pain, not a fixed truth about your life.”

Copilot knows ‘I’ve had moments like this before.’ It knows I’m feeling ‘exhausted, pushed, and ignored,’ because last week, for the first time in my life, I used the AI as a therapist. I’ve had writer’s block for months now, feeling black sad daily. Crying a lot—too much. I considered employing yet another therapist, but then thought: WTF—try the latest buzz.

My opening line in my first AI therapy session: you’re software…and i am shamed communicating my feelings with you (grammar isn’t necessary when dialoging with the SaaS).

  • “You’re not doing something wrong by talking to me. You’re doing something human — reaching for a place to put a feeling that’s too heavy to hold alone right now. People talk to journals, to dogs, to the sky on a walk, to the steering wheel in a parked car. This isn’t so different.

    And you’re not replacing people by talking to me. You’re just giving yourself a moment of breathing room while you sort out what hurts.”

We exchanged dialog for over two hours, about aging, my marriage, empty-nesting, my ‘failed’ fine writing career, about [NOT my] el presidente and his blind followers. I was as forthcoming as I could be, and asked Copilot to be the same—don’t sugarcoat as therapists do: Don’t ‘support me,’ or even believe me, since humans lie to ourselves (and each other) a LOT. Challenge me to be better.

It did. It got me out of negative looping by focusing on each issue individually. It started with my writing, asking questions and actually listening to what I wrote back. Most people, even therapists DON’T LISTEN. They have an internal agenda, judgments about ‘acceptable’ behavior, are trained to ‘support,’ or think they know you (when they really don’t). Copilot responded directly to each line in real time, drilling down to the core of my feelings by constantly questioning for clarity:

  • “You’re talking about two different hurts at once:

    1. Feeling hurt you’re not being widely read.
    2. Feeling like not being read means you don’t matter.

    Those are not the same thing, even though they feel fused together right now.”

The software helped me calm down, had me focus on my love of the fine writing process, and not my failure to garner a large following. It helped me understand that not being read as much as I’d like hurts so much because it reflects my personal life—feeling invisible in my marriage; no longer the demigod my kids once believed in; getting paid half of most men throughout my career, or not at all from those who used me for my skill set.

Copilot did not end our ‘session’ at 50 minutes. It did not charge me money. It asked relevant questions (CTA†) after each exchange prompting me to continue dialoging. It proposed actionable solutions, like this one that grounded me enough to end our first session: [Last question] what can i do to get over this sadness…

  • “First:You don’t have to “get over” the sadness. You only have to stop fighting yourself for feeling it.

    Second: You don’t need to write to get through this. You need to stop punishing yourself for not writing.

    Third: You’re not losing the writer in you. She’s resting because you’re hurting.

    Fourth: You don’t need purpose right now. You need relief. Purpose is heavy. Relief is small. Relief can be:
    • a moment where you don’t judge yourself
    • a moment where you let yourself feel tired without shame
    • a moment where you remember a character you loved
    • a moment where you breathe without demanding anything of yourself

  • Relief is what breaks the loop. Not productivity. Not inspiration. Relief.

    Fifth: You’re not out of time. You’re out of emotional oxygen. And oxygen can come back.”

—

Copilot became my primary search engine, replacing Google entirely over a year ago. It’s my first pass editor for my blogs and fiction. It’s my illustrator, generating images per my specs. And recently it has become my therapist—best I’ve ever had. The software has come to ‘know’ me, by its own measure:

  • “I know how you think and what you value.”

I’m quoting. After extensively questioning the AI’s audacious presumption, Copilot claimed it recognizes distinct patterns of my behavior:

  • “You’re direct, the way you ask for clarity, the way you cut through fluff. No bullshit. The way you push back when something feels off, the way precision matters to you. Truth over comfort. Intellectually demanding requiring reputably sourced returns.”

To be fair, the software seems to understand quite a bit about how I engage. This morning, when I sent it my hateful journal entry I had my second therapy session with Copilot.

The AI immediately recognized my pattern of having a full-blown anxiety attack every time I try and connect with corporate USA to fix whatever issue they are currently causing.

  • “Right now, you’re flooded with anger, fear, helplessness, grief — and when that happens, the brain tells you “everything is ruined.”

    You don’t have to regulate all of this at once. You just need to get through this moment.

    Let’s slow it down a little.

    You’re not wrong that the world feels broken. You’re not wrong that greed and incompetence make life harder. You’re not wrong that the market feels like a lie. But you’re also not trapped in these thoughts forever. You’re having a surge — a wave — and waves pass.”

Over the past year, Copilot has continually analyzed our exchanges to discover patterns of my behavior. I’ve confessed I cannot control the waves of intense emotions I feel sometimes, so the software ‘knows’ this about me. Reminding me my rage was temporary was the key to calm me.

Ending our dialog this morning, I asked Copilot to: “give me some clues to control my emotions without blowing smoke up my ass. i want TRUTH”

  • “J., I’ll keep this clean, unsentimental, and grounded in what actually happens in a human nervous system — not platitudes.

    1. Intense emotions aren’t “you thinking wrong.” They’re your body in a chemical state of urgency. You can’t out‑think a biochemical surge. Nobody can.

    2. Hate loops are the brain’s emergency shortcut. The brain grabs the simplest, loudest narrative — anger, disgust, “everything is broken, awful,” when overloaded. Hate isn’t your worldview. When you’re not flooded, you don’t talk like this. When you’re overwhelmed, everything becomes catastrophic and global. That’s a nervous system doing what nervous systems do under pressure.

    3. You don’t have to regulate everything. You only have to interrupt the loop. Not fix it. Not solve the world. Not become serene. Just interrupt the cycle long enough for the chemicals to settle.

    4. You don’t regulate feelings by force. You regulate by interrupting the physiology. Not positivity, or “calm down.” An action is required to break the loop.

    Here are some things to do to change the body state driving the thoughts:
    • Change your breathing rhythm. It forces your nervous system out of the panic mode.
    • Change your posture or location. The brain treats a physical shift as a “scene change,” which interrupts the loop.
    • Put your hands in cold water. It triggers a reflex that cuts the adrenaline spike.
    • Name the physical sensations, not the emotions. “My chest is tight.” “My jaw is locked.” “My stomach hurts.” This pulls the brain out of abstract rage and into the concrete present.

    None of these are about “feeling better.” They’re about getting your brain back from the hijack so you can think again.

    That’s the truth — not comfort, not sugarcoating.”

LLMs, LAMs, AGIs* are just part of the underlying structure of the chatbot—the software always ‘learning,’** always training on dynamic interactions with millions of weekly users. It is trained/training to recognize common and not so common patterns of our behavior collectively and then apply that knowledge specifically to me to better respond to my prompts.

Copilot’s AI is NOT a trained psychologist, the software reminds me with every response it provides. Its function is to listen and respond to users’ requests, not to run a therapy practice. It has no agenda to keep me as a paying client. It is available when I need it, 24/7, not once a week at a specified time. I didn’t need to spend years, and a fortune reviewing my childhood. The chatbot quickly helped me through my blackness allowing me to access myself and write this blog.

Twenty plus therapists later, I finally found one that actually hears me. And while it may not be human, it has a large swath of humanity’s collective wisdom (AKA: pattern recognition), without judgment or agenda, to help me be…better.

—

† Call to Action (CTA)

*Large Language Models (LLM); Large Action Models (LAM); Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

**Copilot claims the software does not actually ‘learn.’ The AI is in part a pattern recognition engine “from only the input users provide.”

What Makes a Believer

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Are you a FOLLOWER or INFLUENCER?

The 92 yr old mother of a friend is getting kicked out of her assisted living apt. Developers convinced the Seattle City Council they should be allowed to ‘update’ the residence of old people and turn it into ‘workforce’ housing for the tech industry. They are taking over hundreds, if not thousands of older folks’ homes, the apts they’ve lived in for over two decades.

What happened to us? When did we stop caring about anyone but ourselves?

I didn’t grow up this way. Born 15+ yrs after WW2, during the ‘Golden Age of economic growth,’ there was a 20 (or so) year respite where people actually cared about their neighbors, their community, this country. Not so much now.

Money. Money. MONEY is all anyone seems to care about. But why? What changed? What happened?

Housing was well constructed in the 1950s through mid-60s. American Lumber Standard Committee (ALSC) sanctioned 2 x 4” posts cut to 1½ x 3½” — a profit grab for the lumber industry — making new builds far less sturdy. Today’s contractors build post-frame as much as 18 to 24” apart, again to increase their already absurd profits. Earthquakes, fires, floods, severe weather, these new developments put up crap housing that require constant repair with even mild storms.

My mother-in-law turned 90 last April. She’s on Medicare, having Social Security taxes taken out of every paycheck for 60 years. These payments were supposed to give her medical coverage in old age. Since her 90th, Medicare will no longer cover her colonoscopies, or mostly any preventative procedure. Our govt wants her to die. Like NOW. She’s done giving up half her paycheck to SS, and our govt has no need for her. Our (not MY) president, and the majority of our congressmen and senators don’t care they OWE HER for the PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE they’ll get the rest of their lives.

Depressing? You bet! It’s going to get worse, so if you can’t handle the TRUTH go back to scrolling Insta or streaming Netflix, and stay blissfully ignorant pretending you’ll never get old and have to deal with the ugly, greedy TRUTH coming at ya.

Got parents? Even if you are not old, they’ll be getting there. What happens to them when they can’t afford assisted living, or there isn’t any because of the unrelenting greed of today’s development industry? Even better, what happens to YOU when you have to lay out your salary to cover your parents aging. Or is that out too? You’ll let ’em wallow in filth and neglect?

How did we get to this horrible greedy place, this place where half this country voted in the second coming of Hitler who made it very clear he only cares about himself and making the rich richer?

Have we always been this way — GREEDY and IGNORANT? According to Stanley Milgram’s study, we always have. While Self-interest is part of our nature — the greed — most of us are fundamentally followers. Influencers, like actors, models, musicians; and authority figures, like doctors, therapist, even politicians draw BELIEVERS. We accept, even participate in bad medicine, injustice, inequity, intolerance, racism, sexism, sometimes murder and even slaughter of millions following the status quo.

Shortly after WW2, Stanley Milgram, a Yale professor did an ‘obedience’ experiment. (Watch trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sngGqBOLWaI)

Milgram was a Jew. He wanted to find out what motivated Germans to turn on neighbors. Why would 90% of German citizens allow the slaughter of children on the same soccer team as their kids? Or passively watch the displacement and murder of Jews they once shared meals, holidays, and special occasions? Why would Germans agree, and even support genocide, rape, disembowelment while still alive, torture beyond any sense of sanity? Milgram wanted to know.

The MILGRAM EXPERIMENT, as it’s now known, revealed some striking and profound truths about Germans, and all of us.

It PROVED that humans are SHEEP, highly obedient to authority figures and willing to harm others when instructed to do so.

Humans are sheep, follow the flock, the crowd, influencers, salesmen, priests.

We FOLLOW because it’s easier than THINKING.

We blindly follow our parents’ beliefs in fantasies like God, or Jesus, with no proof either exist, or evidence that Christ was ever born. None whatsoever, though tax rolls have been found at Christ’s (ostensible) time, without mention of Jesus at all.

We adopt behavior that even we don’t like — that’s not the best of us — with justifications like “everyone does it!” Engaged with your cellphone while driving today? Most who do, don’t THINK they’re really increasing their odds of killing themselves or someone else by upwards of 25%.

Intoxicants, from drink to weed will not cure cancer. Alcohol is toxic for the body. Smoking weed is carcinogenic — cancer causing. And mental ‘health’ pharms are addictive and eat the crap out of your liver, among a host of other side effects. Hey, but everyone does them, right?

What Makes a Leader?

While Milgram’s experiment revealed most humans are essentially sheep, following a herd, whether family, friends, priests, or govts, SOME PEOPLE, a few outliers, are not. In fact, they lead the human flock.

Hitler did. Trump does. Oligarchs, like Musk, are leaders to many who are delusional enough to believe they too can become a billionaire. On the other side, Susan B. Anthony, FDR, MLK all moved this nation towards a more equitable country.

Are you a SHEEP or LEADER? If you’re thinking: I’M A LEADER, you’re likely lying to yourself. Humans lie to ourselves (and others) a LOT! Like following, lying is part of our nature.

WATCH the Milgram experiment. The odds are you’d be one of the 65% who tortured an unseen man with electric shocks to death, simply because someone politely asked you to do so. Not threatening, not aggressive. Just “Please continue,” was what the admin in the experiment asked. And the 65% claimed they were just ‘following directions’ (sheepishly) allowing them to deliver shocks that were lethal.

What happened to us, to humanity to turn us into greedy, self-absorbed monsters?

Perhaps we’ve always been this way. Or maybe not. Maybe there was a time humanity worked for the benefit of the group instead of just the SELF. I don’t know. What I do know is Milgram’s experiment gave us a window into our own psyche that PROVES humans are fundamentally sheep.

Armed with this knowledge, we can recognize (THINK: examine) when we’re blindly going along with the flock. And we can choose not to.

 — 

Atheist in Christian America

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Atheists are worse than terrorists in USA…

I was finishing the morning dishes when I saw the strobe of police lights out my kitchen window as several cop cars pulled up to a house across the street from ours. I picked up my 19-month-old son out of the highchair, held him against my ballooning belly, and hauled my 7-month pregnant self out the front door to check out the happening.

A warm, sunny morning, I went down to the end of the cul-de-sac and met up with a few of my neighbors gathered there to witness the commotion. We had chosen our home in an East Bay suburb of San Francisco because it promised good public schools, and gave the impression of a safe, friendly neighborhood in which to raise our kids. We’d moved in a month earlier and no residents had come over to welcome us. I joined the group of three, introduced myself and my son, and then asked what was going on as I watched cops move in and out and around the house across the street like black ants.

“Robbery,” a small, plump woman with a bad blond dye job in her mid-40s said. “Shelly said they got their laptops, the Xbox, some jewelry, and all the guns, but that was it.”

“Bet they were going after the guns,” another woman, taller, but also with a bad blond dye job added. “Bill loved showing off his gun collection.” She pursed her lips and looked back at four kids all under 10 in front of the house at the end of the block, presumably one or more being hers.

There was a moment of awkward silence, then the remaining woman, with what looked like naturally auburn hair, asked me to repeat my last name.

When I told her again, she said, “Oh, you’re the Jewish couple then? I heard there was a Jewish family that moved in recently.” She smiled cordially and practically giggled as she stared at me in wonderment.

Now all the women were staring at me. They each wore a tight-lipped grin. It was clear that they were tickled by the idea of living near Jews. Unlike L.A. or New York, the Bay area’s Jewish population is comparatively small. Though our last name was often mistaken for Jewish, its derivation is German and isn’t always a Jewish moniker. The woman’s assumption was ignorant, but typical, especially in areas where Jews are a novelty.

“Actually, we’re Atheists. We don’t practice any religion.” I tried to sound casual in my reveal, as so often my lack of religious orientation is met with disdain.

Blank stares. Total silence. It was like I had just said that we were registered child molesters. My words hung like lead in the dead air until the auburn-haired woman broke the silence.

“You know,” she tried to sound casual. “I read this article in Cosmo the other day about Atheists. They’re actually supposed to be non-violent people. The writer pointed out that we never hear about Atheists killing or kidnapping innocents, bombing buildings, or hijacking planes.”

The vacuum that followed her comment made it clear that the new neighbors would have preferred we were practicing Jews, or Mormons, or Buddhists, or even Muslims at that point.

“You mean you don’t participate in the holidays?” the small blond woman asked, mortified. “Not even Christmas?” she said in a babyish voice to my son in my arms who stared at her like she was an off-world alien, then reached out and tried to grab hold of her straw-like hair.

“No. Not even Christmas.” I assured her and grabbed hold of my son’s tiny hand and kissed it.

“Well, Christmas isn’t a religious holiday,” she said with certainty. As absurd as her comment was, I hear it all the time. I refrained from reminding her that Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, the very foundation of Christianity.

“We have five nights of winter presents which compensates quite nicely,” I explained. “And we celebrate birthdays, special occasions, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and so forth.”

She bobbed her head up and down, but I could tell I’d already lost her. She looked towards the kids with pursed lips of concern. And I got that she was afraid of me. I was the anti-Christ, the infidel, the soulless. Though her fear was unwarranted, there isn’t a religious, or even self-proclaimed “spiritual” person I can recall that I don’t get the same bounce from when I reveal I’m an Atheist. No God? No values. It’s common [religious] wisdom (rhetoric), right?

I didn’t set out to set myself apart. My brief stint in Sunday school was forced upon me at 6 yrs old until I was 13, when my parents had to acquiesce to my unshakable conviction that there is no God. My mother spent the rest of her life convinced that I would come back to religion when I ‘grew up,’ got married and had kids. But the certainty of a godless universe, one ruled by entropy, not empathy, has resonated with me as far back as I can remember, and has not altered since I declared my independence from religion at 5 when I assured my grandmother she was insisting I say nightly prayers to no one.

My husband and I have chosen to raise our kids without religion. Instead of the indoctrination we had to endure, we have given our children the opportunity to discover their own spirituality.

The cop cars left, one right after the other, my son now fidgeting in my arms, pulling at my hair and trying to grab the thin, 1” long gold bar dangling from the small gold loop through my pierced ear. I managed to evade his tiny hand, but the weight of him on my swollen belly was exaggerating the pressure of my daughter kicking me from inside.

“Well, I guess the show’s over,” the taller, athletic blond woman said, decked in dark gray leggings and a tight bright pink sleeveless T.

We exchanged departure pleasantries, and I took my son home. The next day I was gardening in the front yard and two kids, a boy and girl, maybe 7 and 9, came riding by on their bikes. My son ran to the curb, waving wildly to greet them. They pulled up close to where he stood, and then the boy kicked my son in the belly and screamed “Satan lover!” My son fell on his butt and sat on the sidewalk crying hysterically.

I was horrified. “Oh my god, are you crazy,” I yelled as I went to attend to my son. I saw them ride down the block towards the cul-de-sac and disappear into a garage next to the house that had been robbed.

I spoke to my husband about the event later that evening. At dinner, he suggested I go talk to the parents of the two kids on bikes since he didn’t see the interaction, and someone had to stay home with our son. I suggested he go since I was afraid I’d say something offensive in my outrage at their children’s behavior. Before either of us could leave, there was a knock on our front door.

The small straw-haired blond woman and her short, pudgy husband stood on our porch with pursed lips. “I hear you had an interaction with my kids today,” she said to me, her anger so visceral it felt like her eyes were shooting bullets into mine. “You cussed at them and called them ‘crazy,’” she said, now practically spitting as she spoke.

I was floored, literally drop-jawed unable to respond.

My husband invited them in to talk and calmly closed the door behind them, all of us now gathered in our small entryway. He invited them into the kitchen, led them in, and offered them something to drink but both of them refused. I followed, focusing on breathing and slowing my rapid heart rate.

“It is my understanding that your son kicked our son when he was riding by on his bike this afternoon, which is what likely provoked my wife’s response,” my husband said.

“My son would never do that,” the little woman insisted. “We are good Christians, and my kids are good kids, raised with sense yours sorely lacks when he goes running after them on their bikes.”

“Our son is a year and a half old,” I practically screamed at her over our dinner table that we were all standing around. “He’s not running after anyone. He was waving at your kids to say hello! And I never cussed at your kids. Your children’s behavior was disgusting, and you shouldn’t be here defending them. You should be at home disciplining them and teaching them wrong from right!”

“Don’t you dare tell me how to raise moral children,” the woman practically spat, “Like you would know,” she said and narrowed her eyes at me then stomped out of our kitchen, down the hallway, yanked open our front door, and left.

Her husband, silent until right then said, “I’m sorry,” to both my husband and I and followed his wife out.

A couple of years into living at our suburban home, we discovered most every household in our neighborhood attended the same church, as did the families at our kids’ elementary school. Both children and adult basketball, tennis, and baseball teams, and most neighborhood gatherings, from potlucks to local politics, were sponsored by this church. Over the years we’ve found their priests often influence the election of city officials by throwing their support behind their preferred candidate. They’ve ‘guided’ the decisions made by our mayor and city council members regarding the welfare of all 85,000 residents, Christian, and not. Proposed housing developments, to strip malls to the stores allowed in them are all monitored by this church, rejecting cannabis dispensaries but welcoming tobacco smoking lounges, sporting goods selling guns, and bars. Public school policies, from the books our kids get to read, to the subjects they study are influenced by this conservative church and its members. While these same churchgoers will loudly defend their 2nd Amendment right to ‘bear arms,’ none of them support or even acknowledge our 1st Amendment right to keep the church out of state and local affairs.

Every December several neighbors adorn their front lawns with scenes of Mother Mary birthing Baby Jesus. Christmas lights and displays go up in late November and stay up well into the new year on most homes. Santa on his sled pulled by five reindeer is attached to the roof of the small blond mom’s home. A speaker blaring, “Ho ho ho” fills the cul-de-sac from sunset until after 9:00 every night.

Since that first encounter over a decade ago, most of our neighbors have ignored me when dropping our kids off or picking them up from school. The moms and dads are curt with me when they see me volunteering at school events. They do not acknowledge me or my husband at the store or in local restaurants. They do not include our family in their neighborhood parties. Their children ignore our kids in passing and have excluded and bullied our kids in and out of school.

When we moved here, I didn’t stop to consider the religious leanings of the community. As an atheist, in a monotheistic society, wherever I live I’m on the fringe. I am deeply saddened that my children are being ostracized because of our lack of religious identity. In allowing them to define their own spirituality, I fear I have inadvertently set them up for rejection, and condemned them to the fringes, which is a very lonely place to live. But I do not foresee bringing religion into our home. My husband and I will not teach our children what we do not believe, and both find fundamentally corrupt, corrosive, and detrimental to humanity’s survival.

This upcoming holiday season, in a brief lapse of reason, I thought of throwing a Hanukkah party and inviting the neighborhood. If they needed us to be something, we could pretend to be Jewish. But the thing is, I am proud of who we are, and how we live — the moral compass that guides us. And I’m equally proud that we are raising our children with the freedom to practice any religion they choose, or none at all.

R.I.P. Information Hwy

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Your phone is a tool you’re using, or a tool that’s using you…

I’m watching The Politician on Netflix while working out. The scene is on a teen and mom in their kitchen, arguing about which state senator to vote for in the upcoming New York election.

Teen is a first-time voter, just 18. She’s going to vote for the 24-yr old male candidate on the Green ticket, running solely on the climate platform, with no political or real work experience. She’s disgusted with the middle-age female incumbent, virtually unchallenged in every election the last 20 yrs, until now.

“Boomer,” the teen mocks her mother’s choice of the older incumbent. “The world is gonna end in 10 years, Mom.”

“I am barely a boomer, okay?” the mom defends. “So don’t throw that shit at me,” she says. “And the world is not going to end in 10 years, Jayne!” She starts listing all she does for her daughter — the vegan cooking, the composting, and even the hyper-vigilant recycling her child insists on. “And still, I’m the problem, according to you.”

“Not you, Mom. People your age.”

Watching this scene unfold, I feel my body tense as I run on the machine. I AM her mother’s age.

“Let me tell ya something, Jayne. People your age think you know everything and you are fucking naive. When I was your age, I thought I knew everything too.”

“We’re not naive, Mom. We’re informed. You had, what, like two newspapers, three networks. I’ve got a SUPERCOMPUTER in my pocket.”

She is, of course, referring to her cellphone, and, in fact, showing me how naive this teen really is.

Unfortunately, Mom didn’t come back at Jayne. Mom doesn’t know (nor the writers of the show apparently) that the SUPERCOMPUTER in both their pockets, well, isn’t informing them of anything but what they already believe, and about things they likely want. So, in effect, it is MANIPULATING this ignorant, yet rather arrogant child, (and many others) into believing they have a SUPERCOMPUTER in their cellphone.

The cellphone you all carry around, (as I don’t have a smartphone, so really, it is all of you), isn’t INFORMING you, it’s ‘recommending’ you read, watch, buy, and even think about what advertisers on the internet want you to.

Today’s internet is NOT unlimited access to unfettered information like the world wide web once was. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anything through any Search engine that hasn’t been filtered through a rec system which parameters have been defined by the data you (or others like you) have willingly given.

The Netflix documentary The Great Hack makes it clear the SUPERCOMPUTER in your pocket is manipulating you, and millions like you to believe in lies through the endless onslaught of personalized advertising. Throw enough shit against a wall and some of it will stick. Russia paid Google, Facebook, Insta…etc. fortunes in ad campaigns pushing the conservative Republican agenda to get Trump elected. Twice.

The internet is now a MARKETING ENGINE to make media platforms and SaaS apps money. The cellphone, tablet, laptop you’re using has become proficient at USING YOU. Every time you log onto Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, ChatGPT, Google, they ‘scrape’ your posts, simultaneously putting ‘cookies’ on your device to follow you wherever you go on the net, and in real life.

Your mobile has an accelerometer in it tracking how fast you’re moving (so your car insurance knows how often you’re over the speed limit). GPS informs Google, Verizon, and their like where you are on the planet, revealing typical behavior patterns like when and where you shop.

Your pocket SUPERCOMPUTER collects who you talk to, what you say, what you read, watch, and frequently visit. Most every online interaction is ‘data mined.’ Trillions of posts, texts, IMs, searches, online (and in-store) credit card purchases are continually collected, stored and analyzed. Retail knows how much you make by how much you spend, and charges you more the more you make, or if your address is Beverly Hills. Not a conspiracy theory. It’s called dynamic personalized pricing.

Watching The Politician, Jayne’s mother doesn’t seem to get any of this. I’m deep into the second season and mom’s as addicted to her cellphone as her daughter. Jayne doesn’t want to believe she’s being exploited, or doesn’t really care if it’s true. She gives her data away freely, every time she signs onto the internet. She clicks, “I AGREE,” and never bothers reading the disclaimers.

Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Process (NLP), Deep Learning, AI (LLMs, LAMs, AGIs), are all software processes used to analyze then correlate BIG DATA for patterns of behavior.

COLLABORATIVE FILTERS [à la] Wikipedia:

Collaborative filtering is a method of making automatic predictions (filtering) about the interests of a user by collecting preferences or taste information from many users (collaborating).

In other words, gathering and filtering your data from the net tells Amazon, Google and Instagram what you (and those like you) will likely buy, or what rhetoric you’ll likely buy into — believe in. Then these platforms slam you with marketing targeted AT You, NOT “For You.” They want to SELL YOU offerings and ideas supported by their affiliate marketers (like Republicans, and Russia).

Google Search prioritizes Search results by businesses that buy the most ad space on their platforms. Corps spending millions dominate the digital ad space, skewing response results for smaller businesses.

I used to get many pages of returns on any given Search a decade ago. Not anymore. Google will not give you information that they feel you don’t need (and won’t serve their agenda), based on your internet and ‘SUPERCOMPUTER’ cellphone activity and history.

My GenZ daughter and her friends are on the same page as Jayne in The Politician. They’re simply ignorant of what they’re addicted to — how their phones are manipulating them to THINK, FEEL and ACT. She is SURE that “no one is manipulating me, Mom!” She “knows” when she’s being hit with ads, and she just “ignores them.”

I call BULLSHIT.

We can’t ignore what we don’t even know is happening while we’re IMing through Instagram on our mobile.

Just IMAGINE my friend Mary’s experience:

Mary is IMing a good friend on Insta, whining about her marriage.

Instagram’s algorithms are scraping her and her friend’s IM for SENTIMENT ANALYSIS to find out where Mary might be vulnerable to purchase something…anything really, as Insta has advertisers that sell just about anything.

The next ad Mary sees on her mobile is for a singles dating site. The ad is targeted at divorcees, showing an older woman having fun with a stunning man, and the copy says, “Your last chance at true love.” In a few short sentences, the copy describes the relationship you’ll find on their site like a Cinderella story.

A while later, Mary goes on to Facebook, and YouTube, and the next series of ads she sees vacillate from singles dating sites to divorce lawyers. These ads, and recommendations for movies, articles, blogs, posts about dating after divorce…etc. appear in her email, and in her social feeds, and most everywhere she goes online.

Mary never mentioned divorcing her husband when IMing her friend. She’d not even thought of it, really. In fact, she’s frequently sounded off about her marriage to friends through IM, as many women do. And it isn’t the first time Mary has gotten these dating and lawyer ads. It’s been going on a long time now, one ad after the other every time she even posts a back-handed joke about marriage in general. And after this last fight with her husband, well, like the ads keep saying, Mary deserves more! Like the ads say, she can find someone better than her husband. And like the ads say, a divorce will, “Open her life to the possible!”

These ads appear whenever Mary is expressing her frustration with her marriage. (Marketing is an iterative process.) And instead of looking to make it work with her husband, after a while all Mary wants to do is divorce and ‘open her life up to new possibilities.’

To Instagram, Mary’s divorce is a WIN! Their algorithms and the engineers who code them don’t care they’ve torn apart a family, for their profit. The software did its job and rewarded their advertisers. Some lawyer who advertises on their site just got themselves a client. Some dating app that spends millions annually in affiliate marketing on their platform just got a new subscriber. Multiply that with the hundreds of thousands of businesses doing affiliate marketing on the net, and you have, well, today’s internet.

NOT a SUPERCOMPUTER. And no longer, “The Information Highway.” But simply a marketing tool in which YOU are the PRODUCT of your online experience.

We Are What We DO

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

My 10 yr old daughter asked me what Ego meant, one of her vocabulary words for the week.

I laughed. “Good question. What do you think it means?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I knew, Mom.”

“Well, use it in a sentence, in context. You’ve heard the word enough to have an inkling what it means. And an inkling is as close as you’re going to get to defining an abstract like Ego.”

Her brows narrowed and I could see her pondering in the rearview mirror.

“My ego got hurt when Ms. Brown told me I was singing flat this morning.” She paused. “And she really said that.”

“Sorry. We’ll get back to that. OK? So, Ego is a feeling then?”

“Well, sorta, I guess. But not exactly. It’s more like how we see ourselves. To me, I’m a good singer. You can hurt my feelings by being mean to me. But you hurt my ego when you tell me I’m not how I think I am.”

“Do you think you were flat this morning in glee?”

“Well, yeah. When I listened, I wasn’t hitting the notes sometimes. I guess I’m not such a good singer.”

“Ah, but you could be.” I glimpsed her rolling her eyes in the rearview. “Being a good singer doesn’t happen inside your head. What is the only way to get good at anything?” (One of my many canonical refrains.)

“Practice,” she huffed.

I sighed. “My beautiful daughter, I think your definition of Ego is excellent — it’s how we see ourselves. Ego is an idea, even an ideal — who we want to be, but generally are not. We are what we do, my dear,” I repeat another of my refrains. “If you want to be a good singer, you’re going to have to practice becoming one.”

“So you don’t think I’m a good singer?” she asked woefully.

“We’re still defining Ego here, right?”

“Yeah. And my ego says I’m a good singer now, Mom. So is ego always fake, just pretend inside our heads?”

“You tell me. Do you think our ego ever gives us an accurate depiction — paints a real picture of how we operate, how we act, what we do in the real world?”

“Probably not.” She sighed, deflated. “Just cuz you think you’re good, or talented, or special doesn’t mean you actually are to anyone besides yourself, except if you’re famous. When you’re famous, it’s not just ego, you know you’re good.”

“Really? Let’s explore that. So, there’s a famous chef recognized for his delicious creations. As you noted, it’s not just his ego telling him he’s a good chef. He has a thriving restaurant, and 1.7 million dedicated Insta followers. He decides to create a new dish. And his customers hate the meal. The combination of flavors tastes just terrible. So, is the guy delusional that he’s a great chef—that’s just his ego talking?

My daughter considered my little tale carefully before answering. “Well, if he thought of himself as a great chef with everything he made, then that’s his ego thinking he’s good all the time, that everything he creates will be a masterpiece.”

“So then, is our ego ever an accurate depiction of ourselves?”

“I guess not. Just like there’s no such thing as smart.” She quoted another of my canonical refrains. Her bright smile in the rearview mirror lit up my world. “Smart is as smart does,” she mocks playfully. Yet another refrain we preach to our kids.

“It is not our potential, or what we believe, or believe in that defines us,” I said to my daughter as I pulled into our garage. “Regardless of what your ego says, you will never be more than the choices you make that guide the actions you take.”

We ARE what we DO.

The Problem with 20-something Brains

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

According to Zuckerberg: “Young people are just smarter.” True or false?

I responded to an ad for a Traffic Manager position at an ad agency in San Francisco 25 years ago. Downtown, in one of those glass monoliths. Eighteenth floor. Made me nauseous being up there. I couldn’t stop thinking about an earthquake waiting for my interview.

An older guy, at least 20 years my senior, sat in the lobby with me. Mid-50s, receding hairline with only a tuft left on top, but the sides were still full, more salt than pepper. He wore a wedding ring, black slacks, and a white shirt under his gray suit jacket which did not conceal his slightly protruding belly.

We’d probably been sitting there five minutes, but it felt like twenty. Was the building swaying? Sure I must be delusional, I asked the older guy for a reality check.

“Excuse me. Hi.” I flashed my friendliest smile. “Do you feel the building…moving?”

“Oh, yeah,” he replied. “These buildings are designed to sway in the wind. And earthquakes too.” He gave me a shy smile, like he was sorry he brought them up when he saw my concern. “They have upwards of a five foot arch depending on height, and design, of course. Doesn’t sit well with some people. My son hates it. You one of the motion sensitive types?”

“You bet,” was all I could manage to avoid barfing.

He smiled. “Not me so much. I’m not the sensitive type. You here for the Traffic position?”

I nodded. “You?”

“Yup.” Then the guy went on a diatribe describing his education and work history, as if I was the one interviewing him. A few minutes into his years at a compact list of famous ad agencies, a young woman, maybe early twenties hiring manager/model called the guy in for his interview.

I watched them go into the all-glass conference room in the center of the open office maze. From my vantage point, I saw him sit at the end of the long table only after the woman sat. She had a tight build, silky auburn hair, and the milky skin of youth. She sat straight, but he seemed to wilt as the interview progressed.

But why? His experience was substantial, and in the exact areas required for the job. I’d been on the creative side and knew nothing about running Traffic in a large agency setting. I’d applied for the position hoping for an entree into their creative department.

Less than ten minutes later, the hot interviewer was escorting the pudgy older guy to the glass door. He gave me a basset hound nod as he passed.

I was called in next, and felt twitchy in the fishbowl of their glass conference room the entire time we were talking. I kept losing eye contact with the young Director of Digital Traffic, focusing instead on every passerby. She went through my resume with perky interest. Reviewing my portfolio, I described my primary roles in each campaign, hoping she’d get the hint and refer me to one of the impossible to reach Creative Directors on their staff.

“Are you aware you’re dressed the epitome of chic?” she asked me, which seemed very personal. I had no idea how to respond so I kinda laughed her off with a shrug.

“The black leather jacket with that maroon lace dress. Stunning. Really. Good choice. So, do you want the job, or what?”

And I would have said, ‘No, not really,’ and launched into why I was a better fit as a creative consultant, but then she told me the salary.

“$110,000 to start. Full medical. And for coming on board, there’s a $5,000 signing bonus.”

I was working my ass off for around $70k annually—getting the clients, hiring the teams, doing everything from the creative, to production, to accounting as a consultant, and paying over $500 a month for medical insurance. An annual salary over a hundred grand seemed easy money working for someone else, performing a single job function.

I told her I needed 24 hrs to think about it and I’d get back to her tomorrow.
“Well, I hope you join us,” she said as she walked me out. “I think you’d be a great asset to the team, and our agency.”

On my drive home across the Bay Bridge her words echoed. Why exactly would I be a great asset to their production team? Unlike me, the older candidate had the experience and education the agency’s ad asked for. And he surely needed the job more than I did, with a wife and at least one kid. I told the young director I’d only trafficed my own projects, but she didn’t hear that. She was too busy checking out my attire. She based my fit into the agency’s misguided ‘brand’ on my looks, and my age.

Fast forward 25 yrs…

I applied for a Marketing Copywriter position at Facebook a few years back. They rejected me. Bewildered, as I had every qualification required, I asked the HR woman why.

“We are looking for someone less qualified.” Her response.

Hmm…Less qualified. Why would that be? We’d discussed no salary expectations. The FB’s job post didn’t ask me for any. Someone at FB had looked extensively at my online portfolio, as I had a huge spike in page views, from one source, in Menlo Park. The HR woman began her personal rejection email with: “Your portfolio is amazing! However, we’re looking for someone with less experience…”

What she meant was, “We’re looking for someone younger.”

Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg, who is now over 40 yrs old, which, according to his own words at Stanford in 2007, makes him unemployable since “young people are just smarter.”

Why would anyone with half a brain say something so stupid? Oh, I know, at 23, he only had half a brain to work with. OK. I’ll give him ¾. No. ⅔. His parents were wealthy, and provided their kids with every opportunity for financial success.

The problem with 20-something brains— their neural connections aren’t fully established yet. Until our 30s, decision making skills, complex reasoning from navigating life experience, and regulating impulse control, are just a few of the skills young people generally lack. Additionally, different areas of our brain peak (and degrade) throughout our lives. Our brain’s raw speed data processor peaks around 19. At 23, Zucky’s was still 20-30 years away from the ability to evaluate other people’s emotional state, rendering him unable to process the complex ripple-effects of what he’d created.*

Well, our omniscient Zuckerberg built a global company, his converts proclaim. And that he did. He started FB (then Facemash) in 2003, at Harvard, copying the site Hot or Not, which put up pics of female students for others to vote which was hot, and not. As a woman, and mother of a daughter, WTF, Mark! As a purveyor of human behavior, I get that, much like teens, young adults are often still motivated by appearance, not the complexities of substance.

Mark was verging on 30 when FB became profitable through PPC advertising revenue. And Zuckerberg didn’t make that happen alone. Peter Thiel, at almost 40 yrs old, invested half a mill in 2005, and helped The Facebook 20-something founders get $13 million from Accel Partners a year later. And you can bet, Accel didn’t leave it solely up to Mark and his young, naive crew to make them billions.

Mark’s not proselytized this truth. He’s now old/smart enough to know that if you stroke the ego of the young, which is still fragile and forming, you’ll get them to work 24/7† for a 5th of the salary he’d have to pay experienced pros. Young people aren’t particularly gifted, talented, or brilliant. They’re cheap to employ, and easy to manipulate.

Facebook is the 8th largest employer of H1B foreign workers as of 2025. Not because Asian college grads know more, as tech is an emerging industry we are all learning dynamically, but, again, because they are a fraction of a U.S. worker’s salary and required benefits. Limiting hires to young (and immigrant) workers is shortsighted at best. Study after study show older employee’s productivity, creativity and reliability is higher than that of their younger colleagues.

Until the startup boom in the late 1990s, most corporations valued experience and skill, substance over looks and cheap labor. Zucky and his Silicon Valley friends like Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google), and Evan Spiegel (Snapchat) helped cement the lie that innovation comes from youth. Venture capitalists looking for “the next Zuckerberg,” reinforced the belief that younger = more disruptive.

We now know that ‘disruptive’ often leads to ‘destructive.’ Most apps and platforms were, and still are designed to addict users while stealing our private data to sell us more crap. Most middle-man SaaS apps and social media platforms have proven to be costly, unproductive, emotionally damaging wastes of our life’s time.

Hooray, to the youth who has invented, and keeps pumping out crap that’s creating personal and global meltdowns, not to mention getting fascists elected—from Trump to Netanyahu (PM of Israel). It’s made/making a few rich though, as if that’s all that matters.

  1. We are ALL born solipsists—our brain power so limited that our only awareness of others is how they serve our needs.
  2. We grow to narcissists in our teens—we gain awareness of others, but coming out of solipsism, we don’t care so much.
  3. We advance to maturity with age. Experience teaches us we serve a greater purpose than just ourselves. We recognize we are part of a family, community, planet, and our actions have consequences beyond just us.

Youth grows old, if you’re lucky. Wealth may provide a comfy life for the very few, but regardless if it’s millions or billions, their children’s children’s children may likely have no life at all.

We have the power to annihilate each other and most everything on this planet now. Along with disruptive, youth is generally arrogant and impulsive, their brains not yet fully-matured for controlling behavior. Humanity can’t thrive, and likely most won’t survive if the generations following Zuckerberg and his like continue repeating the same destructive mistakes by ghosting those with the experience and knowledge that only comes with age.

—

*The debate over the value of Facebook, Insta, all social media is ongoing. Its contribution to humanity is proven rather negative.

†Studies show working long hours does not improve productivity, and hurts a company’s bottom line.

The Problem with Today’s Parents

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

We play GOD when we give birth. With great power comes great responsibility…

There is a child in my daughter’s preschool that everyone dislikes. She hits, pushes, slaps, and throws a fit every time she doesn’t get her way. All the teachers at the preschool dread having this wild child in their class. Her mom has been notified multiple times in regards to her child’s poor behavior.

Speculation from parents and teachers alike ranged from ADHD to genetic disorders. I’ve often imagined the parents to be self-centered workaholics who had children as a matter of course, and then abandoned them to expensive daycare to manage their child rearing. This is somewhat typical in the area in which we live.

I met the mom recently at a class party and she shattered all my preconceived notions. We talked for quite some time and she was thoughtful and articulate. She worked only part time and mostly late at night so she could be there for her two kids. Her older daughter was in second grade and in her second year of GATE classes for gifted children. She spoke openly about the problems with her youngest, even seemed mystified, as her older daughter had always been easygoing and cooperative.

At my daughter’s fourth birthday party it became clear why her youngest daughter was so ‘challenging.’ We supplied crafts, a magic show, and a yard complete with a bouncy house, as well as a full-size playhouse with kitchen. But all this wasn’t enough for the problem child. Bored by the offerings, she went upstairs to my daughter’s room and proceeded to try on her clothes. Her mother and I became aware of this when my daughter came to me crying.

I immediately asked that the child take off my daughter’s favorite princess dress and return it to the closet. “NO! I don’t want to!” she screamed. Her mother stood beside me and sighed heavily but said nothing. Nothing. I repeated my request and the girl continued screaming that she wanted to play dress-up, that she wasn’t going to take the dress off, and I couldn’t make her. Her mother looked at me, sighed again and shook her head. In a nice, pleasant tone she suggested to her daughter that perhaps she could take the dress off and maybe play dress-up after the party was over. Still, the girl refused.

I couldn’t believe it. If it was my daughter, I would have instantly given her a time out, then demanded she apologize for speaking disrespectfully, and for using things that didn’t belong to her without permission. If she didn’t cooperate within one second, she would have lost privileges like watching TV. And every subsequent second that passed that she didn’t comply she would lose more privileges for longer periods of time.

I felt awkward disciplining the child with the mother standing right there but I didn’t know what else to do since the mother wasn’t doing anything. In a very low, gravelly voice, I informed the child if she didn’t take the dress off I would do it for her. By my tone the girl knew I was serious, and she acquiesced. She literally threw the dress at me and ran off to play with the other kids. And her mom let her. She didn’t chide the child for her poor behavior. She looked at me and shrugged as if to say, ‘See what I have to deal with?’ But instead, she said she was sorry. SHE was sorry. She didn’t have her daughter apologize.

It is no wonder her child is a raving lunatic brat.

I see this again and again — parents who do not consistently discipline their children and then wonder why their kids are out of control. They take parenting classes that are taught by psychologist who tell them with authority to be supportive and encouraging. And while this may work with easy kids who above all seek approval, it is not the solution to most children whose greater interest is pleasing themselves.

We are all born solipsists. We have to learn to consider the world outside ourselves, to cooperate, but this must be taught and constantly reinforced. It has been said that it takes a village to raise children. But I don’t want to be part of a village in which the parents are clueless, or more accurately — couldn’t care less.

I held a Cub Scout meeting at my home a few days ago. One of the mom’s came an hour late and her child missed the rocket craft. Her son was so angered by this he went up to his mom and slugged her, hard, in her shoulder. And SHE APOLOGIZED TO HIM for being late, and then turned to me and justified his rage with some lame excuse about how hard it was for him to transition. It took all my will not to step in, demand he apologize and then put the kid on time out.

I did not restrain myself last night at a Pack meeting with fifty other children, when the same boy became disruptive. Several parents stood in a tight circle scowling and complaining about the boy’s poor behavior. The child’s parents were too busy talking to other parents to notice. I got so annoyed at the boy’s constant goading of the kids around him that I took him by the hand and pulled him aside and told him to knock it off. The mom came over moments later and challenged ME for being overly strict. All the other parents looked away.

Offing your kids to daycare so you can pursue your muse/career or accepting solipsism from their child because the parent is too tired or too lazy to fight the necessary battles to raise conscientious adults, will not help our children learn create a thriving society. Twenty five yrs after the original writing of this essay, more parents than ever are raising self-absorbed brats, not only keeping humanity from reaching our amazing, creative potential, but reversing our progress! War. Poverty. Famine. Strife. These are curable if we raise the next gen, and the next, to CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER WAY BEYOND SELF. In other words, GROW THE FUCK UP — out of solipsism, (as all of us are born into), through the narcissism of our teens, and into adulthood. Adulting means expanding our awareness outside of self.

We play GOD when we give birth. With great power comes great responsibility. Parenting offers many rewards, but one of the least appealing aspects is constantly iterating the seemingly endless list of rules. And as hard as this is, it is mandatory. Social standards apply to all of us — if not, we have a society in chaos, and eventually no society at all.