You’d like me more if you hated me

 
The most influential person in the world, surefire questions for your next encounter at a cocktail party, and the rudest of the rude…all bubbling up in my cerebral cortex this week.

1. I’ve been getting more and more concerned about the number of times I forget something basic and then it takes me a few minutes to remember it and…wait a minute. Maybe I started forgetting things when I was in my 20s, but I didn’t notice it then, but now I’m quick-witted enough to recognize it. Yeah, that’s it. I’m actually getting much better at remembering things as I get older.
   
   
2. Artificial intelligence is much more artificial than intelligent. Whether it’s autotext in messages or answer-bots at the bank website, the robots are really, really bad at their jobs. Now that we’ve pointed out this problem, it’s only a matter of time before companies start hiring people to do the jobs that algorithms can’t. Problem solved.
   
   
3. I’m meeting lots of new people lately and I’ve found the perfect icebreakers for anyone under the age of 40. You can’t miss when you ask either, “What are you streaming lately?” or “Tell me about your tattoo.” For people closer to my age, it’s, “Tell me about your symptoms.”
   
   
4. There are probably responses that are ruder, but the one that irks me the most lately is when you suggest a date/time for a meeting/dinner/call and all you get is a reply that the time doesn’t work. Got it. I’m not that hot about seeing you, either, but you don’t need to be that obvious about it.
   
   
5. First, the biggest lies were, “The check’s in the mail,” and, “It’s not about the money,” and then they got replaced by, “Your call is important,” and “Our options have changed.” Now, though, the biggest lies are, “These light bulbs last ten years,” and “We will protect your personal information.”
   
   
6. One of the saddest lessons I’ve learned from social media is that so many people feel cheated. Even among some people I know who have money, good health, reasonably happy families…it doesn’t matter. Whether the obstacle is the government or a secret cabal or society or someone(s) specific, they know they should be, deserve to be, much better off, and they resent whomever they see as their personal bete noire. Very, very sad.
   
   
7. I’ve always needed to hold back my laughter when someone would tell me their problem was that they’re just too nice, but maybe they were onto something. As we’ve all learned over the past few years, the surest path to success on social media is to be nasty, snarky and generally appalling. This blog would have millions of readers if we could only be rotten enough to make the cut. Maybe we’re just too nice.
   
   
8. The most influential person in the world isn’t the President or the Pope or the Dalai Lama or Xi Jinping or Vladmir Putin or even that girl who dances with yams on Tik Tok. Nope, the most influential person ever is a man with no name. We live in a world of 8,000,000,000 people, with thousands of institutions tracking trends and patterns, but the person with the real answers is, “That guy I read about on the internet.” I sure hope he uses his power for good and not for evil.
   

We might not be too nice, but we are nice enough to offer free subscriptions to Dad Writes to a select few individuals who click here right now. How nice is that?

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