I realized today that a lot of fields are mostly about saving people from their bad ideas. My field — IT — certainly is. I spend more of my time doing this than any other single activity.

From what I’ve heard this is also true of law, insurance, engineering, and accounting. And I am sure many others. Humans are very weird.

We’ll Miss You: Pioneering instant messaging program ICQ is finally shutting down after nearly 30 years.

ICQ is still better than any similar program that has been created since. That’s because it centered the user rather than centering corporate needs or Foucaldian control mechanisms. And that makes all the difference.

What is the mindset of people who get repeatedly scammed?

The mindset is called “huge dumbass.” No other explanation is required.

Most people with good social skills don’t realize that those are learned — they just don’t understand that they acquired them early, through natural interactions with peers, and in fact they were not (mostly) born that way.

Those like me who had few natural interactions with peers, who were shunned and hated, but who later learned to have high-level social capabilities know 100% that those skills are learned. Because we did it the fucking hard way when we were much older and when rejection stings that much more intensely. And it was worth doing but damn it was difficult.

The privilege of the properly-socialized is that they don’t understand they have privilege at all; try being raised by wolves in a social hellscape and see how you like it. (Obligatory “You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where I was raised.”)

The first ten on today’s playlist:

These days if I were in the forest and had to choose between a man, woman and a bear, I’d also choose the bear. So I get it.