why

My orthodontist tells me I can make an appointment with the surgeon. I call the surgeon. They tell me I need a new referral. I call the orthodontist. They do a referral. I call the surgeon. Referral didn't come through. They tell me about their special unique system we have to use. I call the ortho again and walk them through the referral. I call the surgeon. They say the referral was missing some details so they have to do it again. I call the ortho.

The insurance company calls me about repair shops. I give them the name of the repair shop which I already gave them yesterday. They say they're not in their system but I can use them, but I have to call the repair shop to ask them to contact the insurance company. I call the repair shop and they say the insurance company is supposed to email them.

#Everyone has massively cut their support staff everwhere.#supposedly automation makes up for this gap except that it literally doesn't at all#You can fire 90% of your office staff and replace them with a phone tree#And all that happens is everyone hates it and it sucks and it makes your service completely unnavigable#But like. Who is going to stop you?

#Everyone has done this in every industry and field. There is no alternative you can turn to preferentially because they actually staff thei#phones. No one does!!#Let alone any means of communication outside of phone calling. Which remains the absolute bottom line of getting any info out of anywhere#You can cut your office hours because everything is on the website! Which you haven't updated in 5 years and the plugin broke and

#Basically the same principle we're seeing now in the rollout of AI has already been the status quo. The idea that you can just get rid of#all human support services. Replace them with some automated function.

#On the corporate side the logic is clear: once you have a monopoly (and who doesnt) the only way to increase profits is to cut costs#which means fire people. And if the quality of service tanks who cares because everyone's stuck with you anyway.

#on the government services side it's a bit more opaque.... I guess it probably mostly comes back to cost-cutting again.#Budget pressure. Reforms designed to strangle services.#Plus the longtime practice of throttling government support by making the logistical burden too onerous to handle#By way of wretched clauses about eligibility and the proving therof and etc

#And there's a very real and brutal class component also.#Everyone making these firing calls is totally insulated from the effects of their decisions because they have personal assistants.#Meanwhile the people dealing with the most of this shit are anyone trying to access social services of any sort#or even just do or get things cheaply.

via @screambirdscreaming

(reformatted into paragraphs for easier reading) these tags get to the root of the problem in a way I'd like to see more people acknowledging, honestly.

I saw a post the other day that was pointing out how people selling AI frame AI as some genius worksaving innovation or as a tool based on whether they want to cater to the ego of middle management types whose entire job is answering emails, because obviously the people whose jobs are most able to be replaced by AI are middle management email answering jobs.

An old, decrepit laundromat gets replaced by an upscale bakery? And people are mad? It’s not that the poor hate organic vegan cupcakes, it’s that most of us don’t have a way to do laundry in our own home.

Run-down corner stores replaced by hand-made designer clothing boutiques? We don’t hate your eco-fabric shawl, but I can’t eat that for dinner after work like I could have a can of beans I grabbed from that corner store when I don’t have time to take the bus to the real grocery store after work.

What gentrification brings in and of itself is not typically bad, it’s that gentrification brings institutions of leisure and pleasure and makes it so that the poor have to go farther out of their way for basic necessities. It turns low-income living spaces into local tourist attractions. It can even create food deserts by putting restaurants, grocery stores, etc. in that the majority of the lower class cannot afford.

One child to take my kingdom, she promised me. Well, I’d wanted an heir. It didn’t have to be a curse. 

One child the sea would steal. There was room in that. They didn’t have to die, only to love the sea. I would buy the finest ships. 

And the third would suffer my grandmother’s fate. 

The tower. 

Grandmother told me stories about that tower, shuddering. About the isolation almost driving her mad. About the desperate longing for escape. I know what that escape cost her, and my grandfather as well, with his scarred face and limping gait. 

That was going to be difficult. 

The sorceress’s curse worked. Within the year, I held my first babe in my arms, a sturdy boy who kicked and cried and cuddled against his mother as if he hadn’t been made only to bring me grief. Well, all mothers grieve. 

the "milkman" is a common figure in stories depicting a woman's infidelity and adulterous affair.

this implies that the ability to provide milk would both decrease the likelihood of a man abandoning his wife and children, as it would eliminate the need for leaving to get milk AND would secure that man's marriage, as his wife would have no need to seek milk from an extraneous source.

therefore, all men should produce milk, through various means such as:

- being a cow

- being an almond

- being a woman

- being a coconut

- being in the omegaverse

- being an oat

(list is exemplary and not finite)

We… were not. 

War had ravaged us, and sickness, and war once again, until our population dwindled beyond the point of recovery. We struggled against that, of course… we used genetic manipulation, and cloning, and even more desperate measures. None succeeded. When the humans came, we were sinking into apathy, only a few tens of us left. We had begun to discuss whether we should commit a mass suicide, or simply wait to fade away. 

And then the young species came, in their clumsy ships, and they asked us why we were so few. 

“We are becoming extinct,” we told them. “We have passed the point of recovery.” 

It is custom to avoid the races that are dying – once a species reaches the point of inevitable extinction, even war is suspended, and the fiercest enemy pulls back. The custom was born of plagues and poisons that could be carried forth from a dying world to afflict a healthy one, but it has the implacable weight of tradition now. After we are gone, after they have waited for the prescribed period of quarantine, there will be a fight for our world. Habitable worlds are few, and this is a good one, with plenty of free groundwater and thriving vegetation. It is a bitter thing to be grateful for the custom that allows us to die in peace, but we are grateful.

But the humans don’t know that custom, and they do not leave. They seem distraught, when we tell them we are dying, and try to offer their aid - but their technology is behind ours, and it is too late. When they realize that they can’t save us, though, they do something that bewilders us. 

Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. –C.S. Lewis

I found this great piece of writing advice from C.S. Lewis on twitter today.(courtesy of @thatboycanteach)

I know the phrase “show don’t tell” confuses a lot of people who are new to critiquing/workshops, because all writing is telling… isn’t it? 

But this is exactly what writers are talking about when they use that phrase. 

This is also why, when critiquing your work, writers might tell you to remove adjectives and adverbs, or why you might hear that those two types of words are “bad writing.” It’s not that you’re never allowed to use an adjective or an adverb, but that–like Lewis says–it’s much more preferable to be terrified, than to be told something is terrifying. 

Borrowing the two adjectives he uses (Delightful and Horrifying)

Sandra was giddy with joy to the point that she practically skipped with every step. The evening with Brandon was one that she felt could have only happened in her wildest dreams! They danced and sang and giggled the night away, enjoying soft, tender moments in between fits of guffawing laughter and meals so delicious that they defied description. She couldn’t wait to tell Odette everything, and more importantly, she couldn’t wait to see Brandon and his cute button nose again.

(This just screams delightful! Or at the least, it gives the impression that Sandra had a very delightful night with Brandon and would like to have another with him)

(Now to try one for horrifying)

Peter could feel his heartbeat thunder in his ears as each erratic beat crashed and hammered against the inside of his chest. The air around him felt cold as ice and bit into his lips as he hobbled deeper and deeper into the woods. Anywhere… He thought. Anywhere but here, anywhere has to be safer than here! His eyes were darting back and forth, watching the swaying trees and the weakening beam from his torch as the leaves rustled and branches swayed overhead. “I told them…” Peter whispered as he grasped the metal crucifix hanging from his necklace. His grip was so tight that he felt every groove and etching bite deeply into the skin of his palm. “I told them not to take anything from the Arkham library… b-but. But they didn’t listen. Dear God, save me, please.” Peter pleaded as tears rolled down his face. He froze as he heard a sound from behind him: a twig breaking, something thumping onto and scattering leaf litter, and a low, gasping rumble that blew hot, moist air over Peter’s entire body. “Oh god NO!!!” Peter screamed as he was thrown to the ground before silence filled the inky darkness of the forest.

BUT