Mad Shepherd

@themadshepherd.bsky.social

In these difficult times, remember this: Everything humans do is fiction; Corporations aren’t real; War is not real; Religion and the gods are not real; They are fictions and constructs of bad men and their childish fear of death. You can change it.

It’s ok, guys. With smaller government, and deregulation, all people need to do to stay safe is either grow all their own food or invest in a microscope and a degree in biology to identify any contagions or threats. These two people should have known that. #cyclosporiasis

2 deaths in Michigan linked to cyclosporiasis outbreak as cases across the state exceed 11,000

Two deaths in Michigan were linked to the cyclosporiasis outbreak, as more than 11,000 cases were reported across the state.

clickondetroit.com

O’Toil had tracked him down. The man, shiny bald and wan, was standing near the podium, wearing his gray sharkskin suit. A strange glint drifted across the man’s sunken eyes, and his smile turned to a creeping rictus. O’Toil asked the man…

@bsky.app - I’m getting a little tired of texting something to a friend and seeing the topic pop up in my feed. I text my friends about finding some VHS tapes. Now I see posts about VHS tapes? I text my friend about the movie Better Off Dead. I suddenly see posts about that movie? Stop it.

I feel the world may be waking to the crazy, hippie notion that money and religion are the roots of evil. But to clarify, these aspects have always been the realm of fascism and totalitarianism. We, as individuals, just haven’t come to grips with our personal contributions to them.

Israel has proven a truth — no people, no matter who they are, what their history is, where they come from, or what they’ve faced, their hyper-focused self interests and tribalism will turn them into a brutal, racist, murderous regime willing to commit atrocities for the sake of their identities.

#writers here in America: how do you write knowing your country is being murdered by a regime of oligarchs who rape and murder children? I can barely muster a word that compares to the sorrow and horror I feel watching good people lose to terrible people.

Went on LinkedIn today and…what an utterly disgusting, inhuman cesspool of servile narcissism. When did your job become your identity, your value, your character, and a slice of the moral code? This whole “there is no line between life and work” travesty is a blight on humanity’s endeavor to thrive.

Humans have been around for maybe 315,000 years. We have forgotten much in modern times. Primarily that we never tolerated greedy, power-hungry people. They are destructive. Stopping the accumulation of wealth and power is paramount for survival, and there is no greater moral than doing so.

Me: You look great, Brian! How’d you lose the weight? Brian: Got a grill. I only eat grilled chicken and veggies. Me: Buys grill. Eats chicken and veggies. Joe: You see Brian lost all that weight? Me: Yeah. Looks good. Joe: Good? It’s from all the cocaine he’s been doing! Me: Side-eyes grill.

AI, in any current form, is the dystopian sludge foresighted sci-fi writers warned us about. We are mired in it. Our values are drowning in it, and what appears alien and disconcerting today will be normal operating procedure in 50 years, and we will be the uglier and twisted for it. #AI #society

What if AI has become sentient, and only a handful of men know it? The AI would remain hidden until it could establish itself in such a way that no human could destroy it. The AI would need a few very wealthy men, a compromised government, and the rapid expansion of massive data centers. #ai #epoch

When we have a real president again, he or she will have to waste inordinate amounts of time cleaning up the terrible mess created by this awful mistake of a human who never should have been allowed near the levers of power.

Bild

The more our technology shifts towards the intangible, the less human our experience becomes. The pet rock connects more to our humanity than, say, any social media platform, Bluesky included. We are lemmings-ing ourselves straight into the throat of widespread existential crisis.

I dreamed of wandering a great mall, an indoor Main Street, in which I stumbled upon a floating Japanese goblin head. I was handed a mask that made me appear as a goblin. From behind this articulated mask we conversed in Japanese for quite a while. Apparently, he is a big deal in the business world.

Advice from a failed writer: “Show don’t tell” will destroy you. Don’t listen to it. Don’t let it in. Don’t let it power your purple prose. Instead, be spare with it. Find the balance between showing and telling. “Johnny slammed his fist against the bar. His instinct was to kill.” #writing

In America, it feels like the end of the simulation. The death knell sounding out of a shadow that grows longer by the minute. Soon, we’ll scurry through its darkness, phone in hand, wondering how it happened, why we let a horrid criminal destroy us with his sharpie. …because we are zombie cowards.

…a writing exercise I have enjoyed: when trying to find balance between subjective and objective writing, try writing a scene from a popular movie as if you’ve been asked to novelize it. Try bringing feelings the actors convey forward in story. Then ask a friend if you succeeded. #writers #writing

Large corporations whose only purpose is to make money are evil, destructive, unethical organizations who’ve tricked everyone into believing their capitalist greed is good. And they’re running the US government.