Yeah, we’ve all been there. Somebody says something so “wrong” (even if it may be factually correct) that it makes you angry.

So you either write an angry response, or report the person for “offensive content” because, well, they offended you.

Now, as a sometimes moderator of stuff on the web, let me just tell you how big of a waste of time reporting everything that pisses you off as offensive content really is.

Moderators don’t have to care about your hurt feelings. They have to care about whether the content is legal or not. If it’s an opinion that hurts your feelings, but is still legal to express, meaning it’s not an incitement to violence (as an example), then all your report does is waste time. The person you’re reporting will never see the report and never know that anyone reported them.

But the moderators have to wade through hundreds of these unnecessary reports just in case one of them is real illegal content. Yes, I know that seems insensitive, but when you see so many people (on both sides of the political spectrum) act like their feelings are more important than everything else on the entire site, then yeah, insensitivity to mewling little brats is something that happens. Especially when you see the same people reporting every little slight.

Moderators exist to protect the site from accounts that violate the law or the Terms of Service. They don’t exist to make the big bad person on the other computer stop offending you. Especially if the thing you find offensive is facts that are breaking through the lies you’ve been led to believe (again, on both sides of the political spectrum).

You do not have a right to not be offended. Remember that before hitting the report button just because someone said something that offended your delicate sensibilities. Block them, sure, but your mods will love you if you don’t overuse the report button.

We got the kiddo a PS3 last year, and a PS4 will be coming this year.

She was lamenting the cash cost, though, until I reminded her that she bought me a Commodore 64 soon after it was released. That was roughly£400 in 1982, so approximately the equivalent of £1,230 based on the RPI increase from then (calculated by Measuring Worth), or a little more than four -and-a-half PS4s based on what I paid (YAY Amazon Warehouse Deals!). Of course, she paid less than retail, because we’re a family of bargain hunters, but this illustrates the point.

Back in her day, she got a walkie talkie doll in the early 50's for £20, which, by the same RPI calculation is just over £548, or twice what I paid for the PS4.

So while it seems like, to generations before, that toys are getting more expensive, they’re actually getting cheaper, just more sophisticated!

Think about that for a minute.

People were saying they have a right to how they feel, while also saying that a certain subgroup has no right to feel how they feel.

I doubt any of the people involved realised this though, but it’s common on every hotly argued topic; both sides feel the way they do, and neither side wants to accept that the other side also feels a certain way, because they just can’t see that point of view in their world.

It’s the accidental arrogance of living in a bubble. It’s knowing your own feelings and having them reinforced by those around you who happen to feel the same way, and then dismissing anything different as an outlier or a minority opinion that doesn’t matter, even though the people who feel differently have an equally valid reason to do so in their world view.

We all do it. I do it.

We are a universe of worlds living on one planet, and we need to travel to the other worlds around us more often.

All our worlds would coexist better if we were even remotely interested in figuring out at least some of the other worlds around us.

I could recreate myself as a character and make my novel a parable, I could write an extremely fictionalised autobiography of how I see myself in my own mind, and amp it up to an action movie where even the act of making breakfast is an explosion filled Michael Bay wet dream!

Or I could tell you that my story is for others to write. It’s for those around me, those writers who know me, to write. It is for them to be inspired by what I say and write in the same way as I am inspired by what they do and how they do it.

But any of those would not be my story. My story is a normal, every-day story of a person who is waiting, hoping, and working towards an upswing in fortunes.

It’s an oft repeated story in a world where skill and talent have less to do with success than notoriety, because notoriety has become fame.

And thus the cynical, self-doubt riddled emo chapter emerges in a tale that, until now, has been edgeless.

I wish to write my own future, but no future is self created, despite what anyone tells you. A future needs input from others, a helping hand. A future means a change from the status quo, which means an outside influence and an inside desire to match the example of that influence.

My story may never be written, because when it’s done, I’ll be too dead to write it or care about it.

Instead, my stories are waiting; the ones about the people who live in my head. The parables, the thrillers, the fantasies. They are ready to be told. They simply need paper.

The words refuse to flow. So much to say, so many words revolving in my head. So many topics, so much passion, so little time for reason.

I can hate the haters, I can game the gamers, I can play the players, all in my mind. I’m a writer, and therefore I’m only comfortable when I can write both sides of an argument!

But writing the other side involves learning it, and when passionate hatred is involved, it becomes an exercise in self loathing.

Do I truly want to get into the mind of someone who devalues another human being based on race, religion, sexuality, or gender? Do I really want to see the patriarch’s point of view when he feels his power may be diluted?

The words refuse to flow because I cannot raise passion for hatred, and I cannot erase passion for the hatred of hatred. I cannot see how the gay couple next door will affect my life; they don’t live in my house. I cannot see how getting pwned by a woman in a game is any worse then getting pwned by a man. I cannot see the similarities in all people who follow a religion because I’m blinded by their wonderful, beautiful, human differences.

The words refuse to flow because I cannot be unbiased. I cannot sit here and give credence to worldviews that remind me of the fight to keep slavery, or the fight to keep apartheid.

The words refuse to flow, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe, some day in the future, I will read this and be happy that the rest of the world also doesn’t understand how these worldviews ever existed.

Then, maybe, the words will flow.