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[danhanly]

The Playbook of the Toxic Flirt: How Went Undercover & Witnessed the Horror of Online Flirting

So I, with an anonymous Reddit account, made a post a few months ago that became quite successful granting me the pleasure of being raised to /r/popular and /r/all — Reddit’s aggregation subreddits containing the most popular posts that day.

I shared a creative endeavour that I’d been practising, one that has been popularised by female creators in the past despite it being something that can interest anyone. Unfortunately, it seems that due to my choice to fully anonymise my profile and username, combined with the nature of what I posted, some users began to assume I was female.

I started to get comments referring to me as ‘she’, and then I started to get ‘Chat Requests’ from the few mistaken users who thought of me this way. They wanted to chat, flirt and, in some deeply unfortunate cases, sext.

To protect my anonymity, I allowed users to assume whatever they wanted in conversations both in the comments and in these instant messages. On one hand, I didn’t want to sell a lie to these users, but on the other, I’d heard about retaliation in the wake of rejection from so many women online, so I decided to keep it light and remain anonymous in conversations. I wanted my post to do well, and I didn’t want a disgruntled would-be sexting partner reporting it when he realised I’d lied about my identity.

So, for the first time in my life, I’ve been on the receiving end of the type of toxic flirting that I’d only previously heard stories about. I however, had a unique position, since my anonymity granted me the ability to have nothing material to lose, a position not often afforded to women online who have exposed their identities to the world.

As I deftly (and sometimes clumsily) tried to sidestep their persistent advances, here’s what I learned about problematic online ‘flirting’, distilled into a ‘playbook’ of techniques used by almost all of these chatters…

[danhanly]

Hogwarts Legacy: Bigotry, Boycotting & Activism

I've been reading a lot of the discourse surrounding the impending release of Hogwarts Legacy, and it's time I communicated my thoughts in the spirit of this blog, i.e. talking about stuff I'm wholly unqualified to talk about that nobody even asked me to talk about.

To get the obvious stuff out of the way first. Yes, I support trans rights, I believe JK Rowling is a bigot, and she is a TERF who has done significant damage to trans rights. Yes, I have also pre-ordered Hogwarts Legacy, and I have no intention of cancelling.

I'm confident that as a result, I'd be recognised on neither 'side' of the fence regarding this particular issue. The trans-rights side would lambast me for purchasing the game, and the TERF side would lambast me for my views of trans-rights and JK's bigotry, so I sit in this no-mans-land between the issues, despite feeling personally aligned in almost every way to the trans-rights side of the debate.

There is a significant cognitive dissonance here for many people, myself included. On the one hand, we're simply following our tastes in entertainment as we should typically be allowed to do. On the other hand, we're forced to take sides in an exceptionally complex and multi-layered debate in which both sides insist it's really simple. How does one resolve this cognitive dissonance? By using the time-honoured tradition of just 'not thinking about it'. But then here I am, thinking about it in-depth, so I'm writing it all out since this is the only way I can resolve the chaos within my skull cave.

I feel the trans-rights side of the debate is right; they have the high ground, and morally, trans people should be given the rights and freedoms that JK Rowling is campaigning to take from them. However, I need to be absolutely clear, I am simply not qualified to prop up either side in the debate, I am simply the 'general public', the 'masses'. I'm not an activist, and I shouldn't be expected to be an activist by either side of the debate.

The process of creating an activist is firstly understanding the issue at hand, secondly being directly or indirectly involved by association with the issue, and thirdly (and perhaps most importantly) having the energy and inclination to rise above the 'masses' to push your point. I fail every single one of those checks. I have incredible respect for activists who campaign ceaselessly to change society for the better, but I'm not one of them, nor should I be expected to be.

"If you purchase Hogwarts Legacy, you're supporting a bigoted agenda" is something I see more and more when it comes to this debate. I have no doubt that people can produce receipts to show how JK Rowling will profit from the sales, but the more you reduce an argument to its most emotionally-charged elements, the more you strip out all the nuance.

There's a reason that Hogwarts Legacy has broken records when it comes to pre-orders, and that's because Harry Potter is a hugely successful franchise and fandom, and what the studio has created looks to be a great addition to that franchise. It looks fun and engaging and includes many features I look for in video games.

In the current culture in which we live, products can be enjoyed by consumers entirely divorced from the political leanings of those who benefit from its sale. You can make a strong argument as to why this shouldn't be the case, and I may be inclined to agree, though we'd both have to understand that affecting this change, in reality, would be momentous, if not impossible.

When I purchase a milk bottle, I don't look up the voting history of the farmer; I don't think "who profits from this bottle of milk," or "I wonder if the glass bottle was made by someone who supports Brexit," or "I heard a terrible rumour about the guy who drove the van to deliver the milk from the Tesco distribution centre to the Tesco Extra store I bought it from." If we did, nobody would buy Nestle products due to their global bad-actor stance, Apple products due to the literal children building the iPhones or any modern fashion brand that uses sweatshop labour. A certain amount of activists will care about the harm in the supply chain, but the vast majority of consumers will not. Buying an Apple product doesn't mean you support child labour, buying a T-shirt from ASOS doesn't mean you support the use of sweatshops, and buying a KitKat because you're hungry for a snack doesn't mean that you believe water isn't a human right, of-course-it-fucking-doesn't!

We'd live in a beautiful utopia if people voted with their wallets in this way. Still, they don't and never will; asking people to do so is unrealistic and serves no purpose but to harm the overall effort. To affect this level of change would require such an exceptional societal shift that I don't think it'd ever really be possible.

Perhaps I feel this way because I'm separate from the debate. After all, I don't know any trans people and have never personally experienced any of the same types of bigotry. I'm an outlier to the activism and the actual issue at hand. This is perhaps why I'm not taking a more active stance in the debate. Even knowing that I'm still allowed to have an opinion, I'm still able to believe in the experience of others and use that to inform my choices.

Maybe I'm just a cynic, but cancelling someone for their views isn't an effective change; it's temporary, only until society as an entity forgets about them (see: Louis CK's recent sell-out comedy tour). The actual effective change is in voting and fundamental policy shifts. So when some trans-rights activists call for a boycott of Hogwarts Legacy, all they're calling for is a temporary stay of sales for no further benefit. Society will forget about this debate. A year or two after release, the argument will have simmered down or diverted in a different direction, and it'll pop up on sale in a game store, and people will buy it. Some will say it's about "sending a message," but it's broken pre-order records, so what exactly is 'the message'?

Once an activist 'converts' one of the 'general public' members over to their side, that person doesn't become an activist, but they will vote differently next time they have an opportunity to do so.

Activists on both sides are the players in a game of tug-of-war. We, the masses, the public, are bound within the rope. Governments, laws and policies are like the little flag in the centre that'll tell you which side has won. Activists will pull us one way or another, but at no point will a strand of the rope get up and start pulling too; we are and will forever be 'the rope'. Without a rope, activists have nothing to pull; without activists, the rope lies limp; without activists or a rope, the government entity that sits at the centre will never change. All parts of the equation rely on one another, but we must start appreciating that not everyone thinks like an activist.

I am within the rope, and to me, the activists on the trans rights side of the debate are valiantly pulling the flag over to their side. So, whenever I get a chance to do so, I will support and vote for real change that affects trans rights, be it by party or referendum or donation to a relevant charity. I won't be making this issue my life's mission and making this issue the backdrop of every decision I make. I'm not a paragon of virtue and justice, I'm just a 'me' doing 'me shit', and like every other homo-sapien on this god-forsaken orb sometimes that feels contradictory, overly complex, nuanced, or just plain confusing.

There's no correct answer; everything feels like the wrong move, and what's being asked of consumers is unrealistic. The decision to buy or not buy a game should never be this hard. I'll continue to support LGBTQ through more traditional means (like charity donations or voting for parties that specifically campaign against bigotry) despite how others feel about me buying the game.

A cop-out, maybe? I don't know. Perhaps I'm just mired in a cynical view of society. Who the fuck asked me anyway, right?

[danhanly]

Living in a distance society

What does the B-29 Enola Gay have in common with Internet Trolls?

Ever since the invention of electricity, we've been looking for ways as a society to live without ever seeing or speaking to another person.

This is not a new thing, we've been seeing this as a slow transition, and it pervades almost every aspect of our lives. We are inundated with options to not interact with people on a daily basis. First the telephone, then the internet, all have provided innumerable ways for us to operate without direct interaction.

US Army Scientists and Generals of 1945 devised a way to kill millions of people without ever leaving their houses. The atomic bombs upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki are one of the first instances of people doing something exceedingly impactful without physically being there. All other types of warfare prior to this required soldiers, gunners or even archers before them to be there physically, in positions that helped them witness the effects of their actions. Compare that with a 4.7 sq mile estimated blast area, with the Enola Gay airship that delivered the bomb being able to travel 11.5 miles away before feeling its effects.

From this, in warfare, in leisure, in work, in nearly every single aspect of the human condition have we been looking for ways to live in a distance society.

Those that live in a distance society are protected from the immediate impact of their actions - and thus we deny ourselves the empathy that comes with witnessing the effects of our actions.

Enola Gay was too far away to see any individuals being caught in the blast of the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. It could see the larger scale of the blast, but had the distance to miss the human cost. It would likely have felt more like destroying buildings, than killing husbands, wives, daughters, sons, grandparents and other loved ones, nearly all non-combatants. Colonel Paul Tibbits who piloted the Enola Gay demonstrated a superhuman ability to set aside the devastation he was about to inflict, or else make great leaps to justify it.

As a child, we learn how to interact with people socially in schools and nurseries - it takes the form of us saying something hurtful, seeing the effect of that hurt in a very human way (by making the other party upset or angry) and then learning, altering our behaviour until we're able to communicate effectively.

If we shield people from the effects of their actions, then how are we to learn how to act accordingly?

One need only work in a Customer Services call centre to see this very thing. Individuals are more than comfortable being horrible to those they're speaking to on the other end of the phone because the distance shields them from the effects of their actions, they can't see the hurt in the eyes of the Customer Services representative as they call them inept and unprofessional.

One need only visit Twitter to see it also. Individuals hiding behind the mask of relative anonymity are quite comfortable being horrible to those they're interacting with on the other side of the world because the distance shields them from the effect of their actions.

The answer to the lead question in this post, is that both things are protected by physical distance at seeing the human cost of their actions. Enola Gay on a macro-scale, in the slaughter of ~150,000 people, with Internet Trolls on a micro-scale, in the one-on-one interaction across the internet.

Nowadays, with rocket-powered missiles, the effective kill distance has grown from 11.5 miles to 7,500 miles (Guinness World Records has this listed as the Russian "Satan" missile's effective range).

Given what we know about how easy it would be for an anonymous internet troll to say some extremely hurtful things to another internet user, I dread to think how easy it would be for a missile of that range to be launched. Both instances are the same, but on vastly opposite ends of the spectrum - the spectrum of 'actions shielded from empathy'.

Where's the future going to take us? The pandemic has pushed 'normal' work to being remote, has pushed 'normal' family interaction onto Facetime and Google Meet, has pushed 'normal' social interactions to a remote setting, and due to the use of masks, even when we're in person we're somewhat protected from seeing the effects of our actions, since the biggest empathy trigger is from our facial expressions.

Is this the downfall of our society? Hypothetically, in generations to come are we going to lose all capacity for empathy? When my wife says "Does my bum look big in this?" am I going to feel completely comfortable saying "Yes it does"? When someone is an obstacle to my advancement, am I going to feel comfortable simply getting rid of them?

Our standards for human interaction must not slip, even if the method we use to interact changes.

[danhanly]

NFTs - The Low-down

NFTs are art, for the digital age.

What do I mean by that? Well, before we talk about what NFTs really are, we need to understand value in a bit more depth. Psychologist Maslow, in the 40's, put together a "hierarchy of needs" to help explain human behaviour, and whilst it's generally accepted that it's in need of update for various reasons, it's still good to look on as a rough and generalised overview of what we want as humans. See below:

Essentially, what Maslow posited is that we only look for satisfaction in the tiers above, once we've satisfied our needs for the tier below. So we don't look for satisfaction in family, or property, until we have breathing/food/water etc. It's simplistic, but does help us understand some things.

What we value, or what we assign value to, is roughly based upon the need to lift up to the next tier. For example, if you have completely satisfied your physiological needs, and your safety needs, you'll naturally start valuing friendship, family etc, and if you have all those things, you'll start looking for Esteem.

To deny our search for value, would be to deny a very human impulse.

We're going to be focusing on some very core Esteem related needs here; "respect by others", and "achievement."

At the moment, the world has a very strong industry, worth billions upon billions annually, where the entire worth of all products in this industry is determined solely by the needs for Esteem...

That is the Art Industry. Who determines what's valuable? There's no core value in art, aside from the expenditure of supplies needed to create the art. Art exists at the values it exists at because we as humans desire it, and that generally, art is 'non-fungible' or irreplaceable. There's only one Mona Lisa. Sure, you can purchase a print for a reasonable price, but everyone knows it's a copy, a replication, a fake, because access to the real thing is a very public matter. We assign the value, we then pay the fee, and we proudly proclaim ourselves as the only owner of this asset. The higher the value we paid, the higher the status we gain as a direct result of owning it.

So now we've established some base facts, let's talk about NFTs. NFTs are Non-fungible tokens. They are assets that exist in a non-fungible (or irreplaceable) way, in the same way that the art industry popularises, but these ones are digital only.

Let's take Jack Dorsey's original tweet for example: "@jack: just setting up my twttr" - there is only one of these, you can screenshot it, of course, just like you can buy a print of the Mona Lisa, but there is only one of the original thing.

So when a sale for the 'ownership' of this tweet was launched, it sold for $2.9m.

For the 'esteem' need to be satisfied, the world needs to know how much we just spent on this non-fungible asset otherwise it's all for naught, and we get nothing out of it. With 'art' we know because we display it in our homes, on our walls, or have a special plaque next to the donation in the museum with our name on it. We need to tell the world that we own this thing.

This is where the blockchain comes in. The most simplistic way of looking at the blockchain is that it's a very public, open record of every crypto transaction. So there is a clear public record of ownership, which ticks the box in the need for esteem.

Here's the official transaction record from Valuables, which is linked to its certification. https://v.cent.co/tweet/20

This is now a tweet that is publicly owned by Sina Estavi.

This is no different to the bragging rights of Mohammed bin Salman who owns DaVinci's Salvatore Mundi.

It's a public transaction, used to gain esteem and status, of which the original piece has a value inferred only by its audience.

NFTs are art, for the digital age.

The true magic of NFTs though isn't in the ownership of the item, it's in the continued investment and development of the blockchain technology and the potential to alter the way we all think about ownership and products.

The sky's the limit. NFTs are but one application of an incredible technological advancement that has the ability to upend modern society.

[danhanly]

A New Residence: A Thriller.

Upon making an offer, And getting the offer accepted, Thus begins the chain.

Lengthy be the process, a process filled with uncertainty, Am I the only one feeling this pain?

Dragging along, over half a year of negotiation, pull your socks up vendors!

Back and forth, with advisors and agents, now we can't reach our lender!

Solicitors dithering, Surveyors delaying, Emails lost in transit.

Is this the best way To buy a house? I have to ask, is this really it?

Stress levels rising, Uncertainty growing, Phone-calls go unanswered.

Is this still happening? Has a chain link snapped? Contracts are left unsigned....

Just give me the fucking keys!

[danhanly]

On being pro-life.

What does pro-life mean? It means the preservation of human life above the wellbeing or emotional needs of another. On the face of it, this is a noble ideal, an ideal most people can get behind. Human life is invaluable. Looking at this fact itself, I can absolutely see the appeal of the pro-life mindset.

However, I've been closely following the rhetoric of the pro-life movement in America, in particular the events within Texas in recent days, and I can't in my mind reconcile this with what pro-life is supposed to be.

So what I'm seeing is that the pro-life movement is all about preventing abortion. If we focus on this clear motive here, then their actions are bizarre.

What I'm not going to do here, is make assumptions about motivations, struggles, or intentions of the women who require abortion - it's not my place to comment on any of that; but that doesn't stop me from wanting to figure out what the pro-life movement is intending, and what their motivations are. This is an analysis not on the legalities or illegalities of abortion, but is an analysis on the goals of a political position that I find curious and perplexing.

The pro-life movement often attacks what they see as 'recreational abortion'. This encompasses the idea that women want to get abortions, or the idea that women can be as promiscuous as they like and fall-back to abortions when things go wrong. I live in a country where abortion is legal, and I've never heard of anyone doing this. Maybe I'm sheltered, but I grew up in one of the most economically deprived areas of the UK, where many are accused of having loose morals, so I've certainly been exposed to the environment that the pro-life movement seem to suggest is rife with this practice. Women don't ever want an abortion - so this argument is flawed.

The pro-life movement are overly concerned with treating the symptoms of abortion, rather than the cause.

If you look throughout the entire history of the world, you'll find no example where prohibition has ever prevented an action. For example; in the US, the 1920-33 period has been called the Prohibition Era, where alcohol in all its forms was banned.

Wikipedia's page on the Prohibition was as follows:

"Following the ban [on alcohol], criminal gangs gained control of the beer and liquor supply in many cities."

So, 'casual' alcohol consumption reduced, but consumption didn't stop, in-fact, it created an entirely new criminal enterprise. The US (and most other countries in the world) currently prohibits drug-use - and pretty much everyone knows at least a handful of people who use drugs recreationally. The prohibition of sex-before-marriage that occurred in early parts of the previous century (and still exists in a cultural - not legal - sense in some communities) did not ever prevent sex-before-marriage, it just encouraged people to hide the fact that they did it. My parents prohibited swearing in the house, I did it anyway, just not in their earshot.

Abortion wasn't always legal; but history shows, abortion has always happened. This either happened via unlicensed surgeries, or ' 'convenient miscarriage' - both cases had a very high likelihood of permanent injury or even death for the patient.

Prohibition never works, ever.

So why is the pro-life movement advocating for a strategy that has demonstrably never worked?

There's a cognitive dissonance that the members of this movement suffer from - on one hand, you have the potential death of a baby, and on the other, the potential death of a pregnant woman. What usually happens here, is that in attempting valiantly to defend their 'all life is sacred' values, that they have to pick one. In this case, the baby is blameless, but the pregnant woman - well, she could have been guilty of promiscuity, or guilty of not caring, or guilty of any number of other perceived indiscretions. So when they're on the fence, and there are seemingly two equal problems on both sides, they have to pick holes in one, otherwise they have to admit that their whole belief system is flawed, which is a far more difficult situation for them to manage mentally.

However, there is a way that they could save the potential child and the mother. It's a way that doesn't win as many big political points, and that's where it falls apart. Any big movement requires someone to lead it, and the person who leads it needs something to gain.

The first solution is greater investment in education, and sexual education. The second is greater access to birth control, free of stigma. The third is massive investment into law enforcement - particularly the testing of rape kits - the samples taken by a medical professional upon admission to a hospital after a rape, and the much higher sentences for those convicted of rape. The fourth is much wider protection for pregnant women, employment protection, maternity leave and all the trappings therein. The fifth is investment into childcare, fostering and adoptions, incentivising women to take the child to term.

Let's take Portugal for example, which has most recently implemented some of these things - legalised and de-stigmatised abortion (2007); since this ruling the number of abortions has dropped year on year (after a small initial rise)

These solutions don't make as strong political talking points, and so they're never fought for - but they work! The candidates leading the charge of all the anti-abortion sentiment are interested only in quick wins - they want to get re-elected, not affect positive social change.

Being pro-life to me should mean treating the mother with as much empathy as the potential child, and a massive investment into social services, healthcare and law enforcement.

The problem that conservative politicians have, is they can't invest in these domains without subsequently supporting a liberal political position. Something they're completely unwilling to do, even if the ends justify the means. What they'd rather do instead is pretend to be 'tough' on these issues, even if the ends do not justify the means.

So in summary, the prohibition mindset of the pro-life movement and its various political backers has, across all of history, not ever worked in practice - it didn't ever achieve the goals it set out to hit. However, this pro-life movement isn't going away. Protecting babies is a noble goal that conservative governments love to tap into, but if they're serious about it, it means investment into services that will ultimately support the liberal or democratic agenda, which they're never going to do. What they instead want is to win political points to support their re-election, and saving babies will always do that.

Are you pro-life, or pro-conservative governments? A true pro-lifer would be keen to look for solutions that will actually, demonstrably work to slow the rate of abortions, and that would (unfortunately for them) put them firmly in the left-wing of the political spectrum - something they won't ever compromise.

[danhanly]

Teaching my kids to curse

Cursing or swearing is the garnish to the dish of language. It doesn't need to be there to make yourself understood, but a dish without the garnish is plain, boring and devoid of fun.

I'm teaching my kids to swear.

Now before you you get conniptions; let me explain why I'm doing it, and perhaps why you should do it too. Feel free to disagree, that's what makes our world beautiful, your disagreement means you can parent whatever way you wish, leaving me to my methods.

First thing I'd like to mention is that I cannot prevent my children from swearing; they'll learn it on the school yard, they'll say it with their friends, and slowly, they'll change how they are around me in order to hide that fact. Anyone who suggests that zero-tolerance of swearing prevents the child from swearing is completely misguided - the child simply learns not to do it around the parents.

The typical formula for dealing with this is as follows: Parents swear, but guard themselves in front of their children - pretending they don't. Children also swear, but guard themselves in front of their parents - pretending they don't. So parents hide their real selves from their children and children hide their real selves from their parents. This is not the formula that promotes a healthy, comfortable and open environment.

I need to promote an environment where my children are comfortable saying or doing whatever they want around me (within reason). They shouldn't ever feel they need to 'change' how they are around us parents - I want to see and get to know the 'real' them.

The long-goal is that in future, if they ever get into trouble in any way, they're completely comfortable talking about it with me and my wife, without fear of reprimand - for example, if in future they encounter something they're uncomfortable with at a party and require a rescue - they need to know that I'm not going to be mad at them for doing things that may be risky - the first step in building that trust is to create an open and supportive environment for them to grow within.

Does that mean I think they should openly swear in front of everyone? No it does not. There is a 'skill' to learning to swear, and one of the most significant lessons is that swearing has a social constraint. Behaving in a certain way amongst friends is not the way that you behave in school with teachers in earshot, or with grandparents. Most children have already learned this lesson; they know they can't go up and tickle a teacher, but my daughter wouldn't think twice about tickling me - so she already knows that there is a constraint in how to behave with me, versus my teacher. Curse-words are simply an addendum to the lesson they've already learned about social contextualisation.

My children are 1 years old and 6 years old. I won't be comfortable with the 1 year old repeating swear words unless she's learned behavioural social constraints, but the 6 year old has already learned that lesson, and so I've started allowing her to swear.

This is a comfortable, controlled environment in which to experiment. I can teach them the full context of a word which is something that certainly wouldn't be taught on the schoolyard. I can give them all the information they need to make an informed decision about whether to use the word in their vocabulary, otherwise they're relying on the lessons of untrustworthy or naïve schoolmates.

I want my children to be whoever they're comfortable being around me, and I want to be comfortable and open amongst them. It's the only way to be fully supportive, and allowing cursing is one of the key ways you can promote this without damaging their relationships.

So, I won't guard myself from swearing. This doesn't mean I can be shouting swear-words at people on the street - all the usual lessons about being kind and having a level of decorum still apply, I'm just capable of doing so with more colourful language.

I'm also comfortable allowing them to listen to music, or watch TV-shows/movies where the only 'adult content' is swearing - for example, I wouldn't allow them to watch violence, or drug abuse, or overt sexualisation. However, if it's just the odd swear-word here and there, then I don't see a reason to prevent them from watching/listening/seeing.

If they ever ask what the word means, I'll explain it without admonishing them. I'll make them understand where the word comes from, how it can be harmful, how it can be funny, and who they should be comfortable saying it around.

Ultimately, all this needs from me is to not be 'frightened' of the prospect of a swearing child. There's nothing I can do about it anyway - they will learn to swear through other means, so instead of pushing it away, I'm embracing it.

[danhanly]

Writing Exercise: The YouTuber Apology 2.0

Scenario: A community uncovers evidence of a massive YouTuber having said racial slurs in 2011. This happens a lot since we live in an age where we share everything, even the stupid shit we said and did as we were growing up. The inevitable apologies are always criticised for being insensitive or missing the point, so I thought I'd see if I can do better. This is completely hypothetical of course, but I'm definitely guilty of oversharing when I was growing up and experienced some shameful and awkward moments as I was learning what was acceptable to talk and joke about.

-

First and foremost, I'd like to apologise to anyone offended by what I said in the past. I shouldn't have said them, but I did anyway.

I'm not going to delete the offending posts, but I am going to link to this statement in the comments of each of the posts flagged by my community so that anyone who sees them can immediately see this statement.

I need to talk about some things that may be difficult for some to hear. I don't regret saying those things. I know you're probably expecting me to regret them, expecting me to find it so shameful that I immediately want to bury it, but that's not the case here.

When we're young, we learn social skills from saying and doing the wrong thing and learning hard lessons about how our words affect others. Due to the nature of us growing up in full view of social media, sometimes we have to learn these hard lessons in a very public way.

I don't regret saying those things because the lesson I learned from saying them has shaped who I am today. I learned through offending others and understanding how that ultimately made me feel, what was socially acceptable and what wasn't, on the macro level and the more subtle micro level. I'm proud of the progress I have made as a human being.

These days we don't allow visible growth, we don't allow people to learn difficult lessons and change. There's an unwritten rule in how you present yourself online, and that is "you should always be your best self" - but this rule doesn't gel with human nature. We make mistakes, we grow, we change, our very nature is malleable. I'm guilty only of showing my growth, warts and all.

I'm not trying to justify saying these things, I understand and appreciate the offense that they cause. What I'm trying to say is that the hard lessons have already been heard, felt and logged deep within me, and I hope you can see in the way I conduct myself today that those lessons are important to me.

We're all guilty of saying or doing the wrong things, and changing our behaviour based on the reaction - nobody lives their lives perfectly, anyone who claims such is lying. The difference perhaps between you and I is that you are able to witness that change in me somewhat 'live'.

I am no longer the person who said those things, but I want them to stay visible because I don't subscribe to the mindset that we must only expose the perfect and bury the imperfect. I made mistakes, those mistakes are visible for all to see, and as those mistakes are visible, so too is the growth, the maturity, and my current form.

Please accept this as my statement on the matter, and please hold me to account for the stupid things I say and do today, not by the stupid things I said and did before. The accountability is the only way for me to move forward from it, and so I won't shy away from criticisms of my current behaviour.

Judge me only by my actions of today, because the mistakes I made in the past have had their lessons learned.

-

If your favourite content creator released a statement like that, how would you feel about it?

[danhanly]

Let's all do remote working from now on

Companies that want a return-to-normal are missing a huge opportunity to improve. Those that are not considering a full conversion to #remoteworking need to be keenly aware that they may well be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It comes down to the type of manager you are. If you're the type that sees your employees as resources that need to be encouraged to engage, you'll want to see them in the office where you can ensure engagement. Whereas if you see employees as autonomous engagers, then you'll be comfortable with just seeing their work output whether or not you see them do the work itself. The problem is that these #management types are self-fulfilling. If you're a manager that sees employees as work-avoiders rather than work-engagers, you'll see that all your employees eventually become work-avoiders - this happens because a lack of trust in a team can damage morale, which causes a conscious lack of engagement from a team. So by mistrusting your employees, you become justified in your views. Conversely, if you're a trusting manager, your team will become work-engagers naturally - improved trust breeds improved engagement. The reason I say this, is to contextualise how difficult it is to change a management style, especially if this style is all the manager knows; they'd have reams of stories about why they're correct in their assumptions so are understandably loathe to pivot. In an ideal world, the trial-by-fire of the last 18-months should have shaken free some of the preconceptions, and forced those who would otherwise be a closed-book with their management styles into a new mindset - but we don't live in an ideal world. It's an understandable, and terrifying prospect to have to change how you work as a company, especially if you've made significant investment into property/equipment etc. There are pros and cons to becoming #remote - most of these can be improved or eliminated by an adjustment to managerial expectations. At this point, I would expect most companies to have (perhaps painfully) managed to resolve some of the major hurdles of working remotely. So the question isn't 'how can I convert to remote?' It's 'why should I stay remote?'. Things to consider: - Global, or timezone-specific #talent pool (as opposed to a 20mile circle around your office). This is something our company has engaged with fully with recent new employees. - Immediate cost savings with the release of property/equipment - Improved #worklifebalance for your employees - I see my children every day, and that in turn improves my work #productivity. - Improved pay conditions for employees, with no pay rise; massively reduced expenses with no commute or lunch out etc. You're looking at a better company, with better conditions, and happier employees. It'll be a hard transition, but all change needs to be correctly managed for you to feel the benefits. The pain of change need not be a reason to avoid change.

[danhanly]

A new game development company based in Montreal announced their founding as Raccoon Logic yesterday, and with the announcement, they provided a photo of the team.

This team is constructed of previous colleagues from another studio, amongst a bunch of new faces, likely via personal recommendation. I've no doubt that this team is qualified to build a game, but I've worked in the tech sector for 15+ years and this might-well be the most homogenous team I've ever seen.

Why is this a problem? At the founding of the company, it's an excellent opportunity to put your company values front-and-centre, to tell the world "this is who we are!" This is the point in which interest grows in a company, and the community at-large begins to respond to the values you put forward.

Unfortunately, 'coming out' as homogenous, in an era in the embattled tech sector that has been heavily investing in, and pushing hard, the diversity agenda can't help but feel like a backwards step. The implicit values put forward by this company immediately harken back to the days in which people of colour, women, and other minorities felt uncomfortable joining a company in which their life experiences were so at odds with every colleague.

A lack of diversity can close the doors to diversity permanently, as there's no way for diverse team members to break into such a tight-knit and homogenous group without tremendous effort - an effort that shouldn't be their responsibility.

On top of this, recently we've seen that homogeny breeds abuse in so many ways with the implosion of Activision-Blizzard, the abuses at Riot, Ubisoft and so many others. A collective who all agree with one another, often finds itself drifting listlessly in the direction of creative stagnancy at best, and abuse at worst; a frat-house/locker-room mentality. The news of those abusive companies have made it clearer and clearer that people of colour, women and other minorities just don't belong in this type of culture.

Diversity is not just about 'avoiding controversy', there is tremendous benefit to filling your team out with members who have starkly different life experiences. Diversity breeds innovation, and every company needs innovation in order to succeed. Diverse teams drive higher profitability (McKinsey, 2018), better employee engagement (Deloitte, 2013), a better outward reputation (PwC, 2017). These are not new ideas, they're not breaking an established cultural norm. I'd argue that over the last decade, a diverse workforce is becoming the cultural norm, and that Raccoon here are an outlier in an otherwise forward-progressing industry.

To be clear, Raccoon is a new company, with no history of abuse, with employees with experience working on some of the largest and most successful games of our age, but in this case, they had an opportunity to 'set the standard' and put their best foot forward to promoting diversity and inclusion, and in that, they have failed.