Month: July 2023

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Twitter’s rate limit exceeded: A post-mortem 

Months ago, when I explained Elon Musk’s extreme self-absorption in a blog post, I was told off because what billionaires do must be correct and “smart”. A week after that post was published, everything I said about Musk was corroborated in news reports. According to some software programmers working at Twitter, they were contacted in the early hours one morning after the Super Bowl.

The programmers were told there was an “urgent situation”. Musk was upset because President Biden got more views on his tweet. The programmers were ordered to rewrite the code for the platform so that Musk’s tweets would be served to the home feed of every account. Instead of acting more professionally after being caught out, Musk now sends the press the poop emoji when they ask him to comment on stories about himself.

But my point is that I was able to speak on Musk’s character and accurately predict his motives because I was paying attention to his behaviour, and it fit a pattern. Please note that I have kept adding postscripts to that post because Twitter’s devolution is relentless. 

Twitter CEO Elon Musk announces name change to X (after Threads drama) 

At 05:30 on Sunday, July 2, I opened up my Twitter app to look for updates from France, which was on fire. After a few scrolls down the trending page, I got a notification which read “rate limit exceeded”. I hadn’t used Twitter all that week so I was confused. When I tried to check my own profile, I couldn’t see my own tweets. I could tweet and reply from my notifications but I could not delete anything from my own timeline. Naturally, I threw an epic tantrum. 

By Wednesday, I was raring to go on Threads by Meta. It’s no surprise that the new microblogging app got 100 million signups within a week. You see, Elon Musk’s ego had got the better of him and he switched off (what he thinks is) his customers’ dopamine supply. In some countries, however, Twitter is a utility – an emergency hotline in case of natural disasters. For businesses, it’s where they do customer care. Small businesses use the app to network with potential partners and find new customers. 

Fast forward three weeks, and I’m reaching again for the face slap emoji. This post was originally set to private, but I exhumed it after reading that Musk announced he was looking to change Twitter’s logo to an “X”. To be perfectly frank, I’m quite bored with his late night sh*tposting. He’s dosing with ketamine (when executives take drugs at work it’s called “microdosing for mental health” but if you’re a pleb you go to jail), so I wouldn’t be surprised if another quarter passes and the logo doesn’t get changed.

Integrity and dignity: A refresher   

Swirling around us is a palpable lack of reverence for ostentatious wealth. And we know why that happens: Some people have used their power and privilege to benefit themselves at the expense of others. Their supporters allow them to get away with things that they would never tolerate for ordinary people. But what many of us still fail to realise is that wealthy people throw tantrums at scale. And the “rate limit exceeded” drama is an example of a wealthy person having a massive tantrum and misusing their power.

Before I continue this Twitter post-mortem, let me take a moment to review two concepts which are relevant to this discussion. Integrity is the quality of having strong moral principles. It means being truthful, fair, and consistent in one’s actions. Dignity means having a sense of self-worth and treating others with respect, regardless of their social status or position in life. People with dignity and integrity are trustworthy and reliable. I feel that Musk is neither trustworthy nor reliable and this is why he treats Twitter’s users like they’re programmable software and not real people.

The Twitter is over party

At 06:00 on July 2, I logged in on a different device so I could find out what was going on. I read reports that Twitter had not renewed its Google Cloud contract, which expired on June 30. But soon, my direct messages and tweets were vaporised and I couldn’t use the app at all. 

A few people said that Twitter was in self DDoS mode because the code was edited to force people to log in. Elsewhere, Muskovites claimed he was a hero for fighting “bots” (forgetting that an army of them pump up his engagement on there, but c’est la guerre). My theory is quite different. When I saw Musk replying to his own tweet to humblebrag that his post achieved the highest view count ever, at over half a billion views, I understood that this was his true objective. 

France and Belgium were burning and tweeters couldn’t communicate with their networks to get information out. In Japan, where Twitter is a utility, users were worried that they’d be cut off from life saving updates during a flood or earthquake. Ukraine is still being invaded by Russia. Imagine being the world’s richest human and openly obsessing about your tweet views (a cosmetic feature) while people are fighting to live.

This is what happened, in my opinion. By late Saturday afternoon (US time zones) on July 1, most Twitter users were following news stories and commenting on events. Days earlier, SCOTUS said it was okay for businesses to refuse to serve clients they didn’t agree with. Against the human rights implications of this development, it is easy to imagine that tweeters were quite uninterested in reading more of Musk’s gibberish. During Pride Month, he was liking transphobic tweets and people told him off. On top of that, I believe he was frustrated by everyone’s focus on “not him” and he put the platform on timeout. Now that all eyes are on him, he seems to be stuck repeating himself.  

Postscript: July 24, 2023. So the logo change took place already. However, Twitter’s branding is still there. On my Chrome browser, the platform is called “twitter.com”, and the posts are called “tweets.” It’s really slap dash but we’ll see.

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What’s missing? The context of cancel culture

The essence of cancel culture 

One thing Generation X can take credit for is that we grew up with tangible media. These included books, newspapers, handwritten letters, postcards, vinyl records, cassette and VHS tapes, cinemas, stages, and physical photo albums. My theory is that as children, as we interacted with these objects, our brains grew to truly understand the meaning of “context.” 

When we closed a book, the story ended, at least, until we were ready to continue reading. We knew, without being told, that what we read in a newspaper was different from the dialogue in a novel. One story was based on fact, and the other was totally made up. When you pushed the eject button, the VHS tape popped out of the VCR, and the movie was over. Currently, we buy vinyl records from specialty stores; visit galleries to look at paintings; take walks in the park; and take photos with film cameras. So what’s missing, and why are we so miserable? 

In our digital age, I believe that more and more of us are losing the capacity to separate content (and text) from context. And it makes us more anxious because the stories we are fed never have an exit button so we can shut them down. When people can’t unplug, we see cancel culture, where some people are publicly shamed for saying or doing things that others consider offensive or unacceptable. 

Of course, there is plenty out there that is offensive or unacceptable. But in a culture of instant gratification and self-affirming narratives, those definitions are changing constantly. And this is why cancel culture makes us miserable. Our brains are struggling to place things in the proper context. We get frustrated quickly and destroy things instead of turning them off.

Consider the context

And this is not a Millennial/Gen Z issue. It happens even with Generation X. Look at one Gen-Xer’s comment on a coronation declaration I wrote for my second novel. The story is set in a fictional country, Maitheland, in an alternate timeline to this one, in 2033. The main Orthodox religion in that timeline is also fictional.

The ecclesiastical portion of a coronation scene? [This story must] be set pre-20th Century because there aren’t too many of those anymore. The last was Britain’s Elizabeth II in 1953. Spain’s King Juan Carlos I just swore a Freemasonic oath of office in 1975. Which explains why the contemporary Spanish monarchy has been such a disaster.

Reader’s comment

I found this response to my work unsettling because it disregarded the stated context of the declaration. The characters I wrote about are not based on any existing royal family. Was it necessary to question the historical provenance of a fictional ceremony?

While this was not a cancellation, it is an example of judgement out of context. This is the essence of cancel culture. Instead of observing and noticing things from a distance, people try to write themselves into a situation.

As I mentioned in the introduction, tangible media like books, vinyl records, and photo albums helped to shape my generation’s understanding of context through storytelling. These objects provided concrete instances for our developing brains to sort out the differences between real and made-up events. However, as we consume more interactive media, we are able to write ourselves into any story even when we are not invited to do so.

Stories and empathy development

Stories helped us to learn how to be the underdog, the prince, the fighter jet pilot, or the ambulance driver. High quality stories were better at helping us to use our imagination. They also helped us develop critical thinking skills. With every reading, we had the chance to experience the story from a new character’s perspective. During playtime, we created costumes and designed our own immersive environments. A lot of the things we did during playtime helped us to connect with our bodies and be aware of the world around us. Later, that awareness could be transferred to an understanding of the physical and emotional experiences of others. 

Nowadays, we are trained to talk about ourselves and do frequent checks for engagement. When we are constantly being judged and criticised, we may become less likely to express ourselves honestly for fear of being ostracised. Ironically, this can cause us to be less compassionate towards each other. Instead of making people better, cancel culture can lead to decreased empathy.

I feel that our brains are becoming more vulnerable to stress and anxiety because we use the same devices to do a range of things: work, play, communicate, relax, stay fit, and study. Adding to this problem is the blurring of lines when real events are used to create entertaining stories, or when fictional events are used to comment on current social issues. For example, we see grown men posting videos on YouTube in which they complain that Disney’s The Little Mermaid cast a young woman with tan complexion to “attack fathers.” Of course, the film was made for children but these men were outraged anyway.

The more we adapt to changing technologies, the more we forget the guidance that helped us to become sensible people. As adults we hear the term “work life balance”. It suggests that we need to relax, but we are not specifically reminded that we should focus on the physical world.

Instead, we are encouraged to do “adulting” activities on our favourite social media platforms. There, we watch someone painting a wall, comment as someone cooks a meal, and then listen as a book we purchased is analysed for us. Even romantic partners are taught that relationship maintenance is as easy as watching TV shows together.

Eventually, constant stimulation from being online becomes overwhelming. The blurring of lines between real and fictional events can lead to anxiety and stress. Instead of reducing that stress by logging off, many of us respond by attempting to control the individuals who appear on our screens.

Outro: Read printed books

There are plenty of stories to read, and we are buying more than a billion printed books every year. But are we turning the pages? Effective communication, conflict resolution, teamwork, empathy, and resilience are themes we can find in books. Turning the pages of a book tells our brain that we are following characters on a journey. By witnessing their struggles, we subconsciously construct templates for addressing similar challenges in our own lives.

Interacting with characters in our minds also helps us to empathise with ourselves. We need to be kind to ourselves in order to be resilient. As we grow stronger, we will become less interested in forcing other people to do (or say) what we want. 

The evolving landscape of digital media consumption is bringing up new challenges for future generations to resolve. Thankfully, the studies that have been conducted suggest that digital media can play a role in shaping our empathy and resilience. I believe that there is a conscious effort among us to use digital media to foster empathy and understanding. But there’s a physical world out there with things we can enjoy, too. We should remember that our minds are delicate. And if any of us had the right guidance in our developing years, now is a good time to reflect on the many soft skills they have taught us.

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Bend the rules: 5 tips for writing a science fiction novella with a strong plot

Business card AI generated

Science fiction is a genre that allows for a lot of creativity and imagination. And every writing tutorial will tell you the same things. We all know what makes a good story. But what would happen if you bent the rules a little? As a genre, science fiction is great for rule-breaking with reality, and I think that your storytelling technique can follow the same principle.

Writing a good science fiction novella is challenging especially if you decide to do original world building. Most writers will rely on existing cultural artefacts to help tell the story. But in my writing, I wanted to build a completely different timeline of historical events and fit the story within it.

Habitat Team A - Our Lady the Perpetual

The science fiction novella I will use as an example is my third novel. The title is How to be rich by Hurricane Nisto and it takes place thirteen years before the events of my (unpublished) second novel, Maitheland, and ten years before the first, The Quarter Percent. Most things you’re familiar with have a different name, and unlike my first novel, there is no explanation for anything. So, how did I write this science fiction novella with a strong plot while bending the rules?

The plot is strong. Trust me.

  1. Started with a strong premise? In my novella, the central conflict of the story is subtle. It is not obvious even to the protagonist, Hurricane. She feels some friction in her daily life, and faces interpersonal conflict over the course of the story. Mostly, she is waiting for the clock to wind down until she can get off Skartøya. Of course, conventional wisdom says you should make your premise clear and intriguing, but your characters can overcome hurdles in the story without being self aware.
  2. Developed well-rounded characters? For Hurricane, people in the world are cardboard cutouts that fit into her ideal vision of romance. She isn’t romantically interested in women (and has no women friends). And men are either talking heads (bosses or colleagues) or potential partners. She is toxic, and this is why we have a story. Having been exiled to a remote island in Antarctica, she has a chance to reflect on the incidents that make up her life story. She is reflective not because she’s sorry, but because she is bored. To make her believable and relatable, I made sure that her epiphanies were ironic and incidental. Six weeks were not nearly enough time for Hurricane to really “get it” about herself.
  3. Created a believable world? Even though the story took place on an alternate timeline, the world was consistent with the rules of science fiction that I established in my first novel, The Quarter Percent. Events in the story unfold in Hurricane’s memory and the island, Skartøya, feels real and lived-in because of all the mundane tasks she has to complete every day.
  4. Kept the pace moving? For a novella, the usual advice is to make sure that the plot doesn’t drag. But think about the location for the story. Living on a small, remote island with three other humans is a drag, and the reason this happened was relevant to Hurricane’s development as a character. To keep the action moving forward, I focused the twists and turns on her adjustment to her living space, with some unexpected challenges. Your story doesn’t need to be blockbuster Hollywood fare in order for readers to dig it.
  5. Ended with a satisfying conclusion? The ending of the story ties up most of the loose ends, but leaves room for the imagination to continue. Hurricane has had six weeks to adjust and is finally ready to settle into her new job as the Antarctic autumn approaches. Is she a mature adult yet? Not at all. And what’s the rush? Ultimately, this is a progressive reflection on a life that needs purpose.

Outtakes

Most of my “science fiction” reading comes from academic journals in science and medicine. This means that I am more inclined to ground the science in theory. It was challenging to write a story that develops at a slower pace. But I really wanted readers to understand why Hurricane’s boredom as an office worker motivated her to move differently in the world. Having said this, writing realistic science fiction is tough. I think that it would have been easier to write a weird tentacle fiesta, but I’m sure that’s been done.

In other words, I tried a few things and bent the rules somewhat. After experimenting with different plot structures, character types, and worldbuilding elements, I organised the novel into different sections, with a different issue resolved at the end of each one.

Getting feedback from readers while I was still writing and editing was a fun part of the process. Quite a few writers disagreed with me, saying that it was not a good idea to put an unpolished fiction work out there in the wild. Even feedback from people who didn’t manage to get past the first section was helpful. Some readers will put down a book even if you put the best bits at the beginning. But what these readers found in the first stages stayed in their memory. This I took to mean that I wrote something they could really understand.

Good luck out there. I hope these tips help you write a science fiction novella with a strong plot.