The internet was supposed to celebrate differences. Instead, it’s weaponised conformity. We’ve narrowed acceptable discourse to a narrow band. A band where ±1 standard deviation seems to be too wide and anything outside the ‘consensus’ gets you piled on. (Consensus with a very loud and increasingly violent minority.) The phrase vive la différence is nearly extinct in modern English, and it shows. We are not ignorant of diversity - we’re terrified of it. So we hide the messy, interesting parts of ourselves and perform an acceptable vanilla version for the town square.

The result? A society suffocating under its own self-censorship. The crowd isn’t forcing us to conform - we’re doing it preemptively, trading authenticity for safety. We’ve accepted the bargain that you’re either with us or against us, and nobody wants to find out what happens if you dare explore the edges.

The road less taken isn’t less travelled anymore; it’s invisible.

This prompted on reading Om this morning: Our Algorithmic Grey-Beige World, but it isn’t a new theme of mine … or indeed others …

🖇️🔎 Here’s a few from the archives.

🖇️ What’s strange is how little of that generosity we extend to each other

Quoting the quote:

I’ve been thinking about how quickly we’ve adapted to working with AI. We all understand the deal. If the output is bad, it’s probably on us. The prompt was vague. The context was missing. We didn’t give it enough constraints. So we revise. We clarify. We try again. No frustration. No judgment. Just iteration.

I know right? … and then the clincher

What’s strange is how little of that generosity we extend to each other. Somewhere along the way, we learned to treat machines as systems that need better inputs–but we still treat humans as if they should just know. And when they don’t, we judge competence, take it personally, make assumptions, or shut down.

Guilty. NO argument. Going to try harder.

The link above also references:

🔗 Wikipedia

But better to read 🔗 UXtopian

My three words for 2026 are 🖇️ Engage - Enable - Excite. But there’s a catch. Underpinning all of that is a requirement to both stop and start. Stop what’s bad for you, what isn’t working, what’s draining you. And start what’s good for you, change things up, do something different when something clearly isn’t landing.

That’s where the tension lives. One voice says when things aren’t working, change the game. Do something different. Move it up. Stagnation demands disruption. You’ve got agency, the ability to reframe, introduce new variables, step outside the rules you’ve been playing by. This voice won’t accept circumstance as fixed.

The other voice says if things aren’t working, they’ll persist anyway. Be patient. All will be well. Not wishful thinking, but confidence in process. The recognition that what’s broken right now is already being worked on by time and circumstances you can’t control yet. Patience here isn’t inaction. It’s understanding that some shifts simply require waiting.

Both are right. And so - by definition - both are wrong and the decision is made by applying the real skill of ‘sensing’. Very useful!

When does the system actually need you to disrupt it, and when is your job to hold steady whilst deeper shifts take hold? Get that distinction wrong and you either exhaust yourself with constant pivoting or you surrender to inertia. Sometimes both.

For me this is not theoretical. It’s the fork in the road. It’s not about the new year - it’s about life that continues to get harder and harder.

This all came to mind this afternoon when this popped up on my phone.

Song For The Post

🔗📼 The Clash

Not My Words - but those of ‘The 🔗Jax’ - over on 🔗 LinkedIN

(Lightly edited to make sense in a blog post.)

“We should all do the right thing by and for our children - they are our future and deserve to be protected.”

💬 Jax Harrison

Keeping #CHILDREN - babies literally safe online should be #EVERYONE ’s priority. Sadly this causes so much damage - and I am so sad for the loss of this young boy 13 year old -Levi and for the family who lost him.

Maybe Australia has it right.

Children don’t have the wisdom or knowledge to know what is real and what isnt - or how to cope when things go wrong…

Parents are not sure how to explain it or talk to their children about it - the dangers of hashtag#chatbots and #sexbots and #sextortion to a child of 13years old. And not only that - because it is supposed to be safe for them to use the Apps. Is it awkward to tell your 13yr old these things? Yes, but now a more than necessary and urgent conversation to have.

Why? It is because of the consequences of lack of hashtag#safety parameters of private companies - who are larger than many nations - who are deciding the fate of our #CHILDREN and their futures - without the appropriate intervention and guidance from lawmakers and governments or even counsellors. Without full disclosure of what they are allowing.

Do you really think if there was a warning label like on a pack of cigarettes - every time you or your child logged in to the App - if there was a flashing for 30 seconds a warning ‼️ “Use of this app may expose children and others to harmful sextortion, potentially harmful relationship bots, cutting and self harm groups and challenges, radicalisation, bullying, and may cause severe anxiety, self harm and suicidal thoughts … everyone would be so keen on it - NO. Of course not - parents and teens would think twice.

And that’s the smallest step the companies could do. It would cost them nothing … just less children on their platform.

Instead they just take the risk and do nothing to make it better because it doesn’t cost that much to them.

The value of collecting our children’s data is worth more than that. Think about it. Read that again.

Somehow as a human society we are abdicating responsibility of the protection of our …

#childrensrights
#childrensminds
#mentalhealth
#hearts

… to private companies who have #profit first and #safeguarding second.

We cannot trust them to do the right thing - because “when a leopard shows you its spots you should believe them”.

Their actions tell you who they are.

#OnlineSafety prevents hashtag#OfflineHarms and companies like hashtag#Instagram hashtag#Meta can and should do better.

“We should all do the right thing by and for our children - they are our future and deserve to be protected.”

Governance and regulatory accountability and actions don’t hinder innovation they #savelives - our children’s lives.

#thefuturefound
#onlinesafety
#AI
#governance
#regulation
#policy
#children
#stopchildtraffic
#socialmedia

This is from iAWriter.