Explaining the radio silence

I have some new year pen reflections to post, and about a dozen more post ideas at various stages of development, but right now I am in a quiet funk.

It’s partly that I work for a company that is US-based, and sells to the US government, and defence contractors, and has partners in Israel.

I also have a brother living in the US, and some friends there, and it’s naturally a big part of my communities, from EDC to pens.

But I sit here every day watching the news about Israel’s ongoing crimes in Palestine, or the US Nazi regime deciding it can kidnap a sovereign president, invade Greenland, or shoot its own citizens in the face. All under a banner of being ‘Christian’.

I watch the AI bros continue to destroy our society: stamping on art, washing away jobs, enabling child porn. Even our in-person world — craft fairs, community events — are flooded with AI slop.

I see people struggling with money in a deeply unequal and unjust society where the middle class are encouraged to punch down on the working class, while the rich get richer, and our social foundations — the NHS for example — are under siege by capitalism.

With Iran massacring thousands of its citizens, Russia continuing to assault Ukraine, and desperate people from nations around the world trying to escape for a better life, I think of all the poor kids caught in the crossfire.

I worry about diseases — especially as idiots decide vaccines are a hoax. Measles, Covid, even flu are on the rise.

And while geopolitics is in the headlines, the climate crisis slips into the background, as we steam towards a blue-ocean event, as wildfires rip across Australia, as floods and storms batter the world. Is anyone really talking about the environment, while AI data centres consume our electricity?

In this kind of world, it feels disgusting to talk about how great the Victorinox 58mm screwdriver is, or how much I love my Tohma pen, or the design of the Fuji X100VI.

I am sad. I am angry. I am also complicit, and that makes me more sad, and more angry.

So that’s why I’m not writing right now.