In the shadow of broken walls and rubble,
where silence speaks louder than blood,
the land trembles, a mother in grief,
her children lost in the shifting dust.

In Gaza, the night stirs with fear,
thousands of souls trapped in the dark
echoes of a past too heavy to carry,
dreams scattered like shards of glass.

The sun still rises, bringing life to an olive branch of hope,
a child’s laugh, fragile as air,
a prayer whispered through cracks where light gets in.

But the borders are drawn, like scars,
between a past and a future both uncertain,
the cries of those who have nowhere to go,
and the cold indifference of those who do.

Is this how it was always meant to be?
Where only hatred is sown in a common soil,
and peace is a promise left unspoken,
its voice swallowed by the roar of the guns.

We speak of peace tomorrow, but it is always too far,
just out of reach, like a distant star.
And yet, in the hands of the lost and the weary,
there is the smallest hope that we might find
a way to live beyond the walls,
to see the sky as it was meant to be
wide and open, with no divide.

The expression “wisdom of crowds” is the idea that large groups of people can collectively outperform individual experts when it comes to problem-solving, decision-making, innovating, and predicting. However, it is often the case that social influence undermines collective wisdom by reducing the diversity of opinions within the crowd. This is even more so given the bombardment of real and/or fake news from a dizzyingly wide range of media: newspapers (print and online), radio, television, social media (YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, X-Twitter etc.). It would perhaps be more appropriate to use the expression “the wisdom of the masses”.

I would suggest that British democracy took a big blow when, in the case of Brexit, it decided to go with the wisdom of the masses. British democracy seems to have shifted away from the aggregated knowledge of reasonably educated and intelligent people who participate in a small number of well-informed debates in committees and in parliament to the wisdom of large crowds that are blown hither and thither with the dictates of the day whether it be phobia of immigrants or some other crude expression of a rancid ideology.

Got passion in my soul, fire in my eyes,

I ain’t afraid to speak, ain’t afraid to rise,

I’m livin’ my truth, breakin’ through the lies,

In this game of life, I’m raisin’ hell.

In Internet’s high season, an influencer’s decree,
A tale of likes and followers, come hither, and see!
‘Twas in the land of Instagram’s boundless sphere,
A story of clout, and vanity’s cheer.

Behold the tale of Mia, with makeup on face and cheek,
Her selfies so fierce, they’d make any top model weak.
In the land of filters, where the hashtags roam,
Lies the tale of Mia, seeking her internet throne.

One bright and sunny day, she posed by the shore,
With a product in hand, she’d never tried before.
“O followers,” she cried, “this cream is divine!”
As she clicked and she tagged, seeking to shine.

But lo! A rival, with a larger fan base,
Who’d mastered the art of the selfie and grace.
Her name was Luna, with lips plump and bold,
Her influence spread like stories untold.

Mia gnashed her teeth, with envy so dire,
Her Instagram kingdom set afire.
“I must outdo her,” she proclaimed with a shout,
“I’ll post a pic that no one can flout!”

So up she stood, with a bottle in hand,
A detox tea, for her followers to understand.
But alas! ‘Twas too late, for Luna had won,
With a post of her own, under the setting sun.

The likes poured in, like a digital flood,
As Mia’s influence waned and sank in the mud.
For in the realm of influencers, fickle and fleeting,
One must be ever cunning, and constantly competing.

And thus ends the tale, of Mia and her plight,
In the land of Instagram, where day turns to night.
Remember, dear followers, as you scroll through your feed,
In the quest for fame, beware of greed.

How many women have trodden this earth?
Earth, a stage for tales of joy and woe,
How many women have given birth?
In every birth, a scene of new hopes grow.

Holding the baby, rich emotions flow
A tender, precious bud on life’s vast tree,
Yet death whispers softly, beckoning so,
Pater holds the keys to power and history.

Oh, women fair, the muses of these lines,
Whose strength and grace does shape the world’s design,
Resilient they bear the weight of their daily grind,
Sturdy the baby bud will grow just fine.

On this earthly stage, women’s lives matter,
Say goodbye pater, say goodbye pater.

No second chances

The past is ever present

At the click of a mouse

The end of forgetting, the end of forgiving

Digitization, storage, retrieval

Of multiple byte-units of an everlasting digital memory

Zettabytes, yottabytes of eternal memory

No privacy, your life on public display forever,

People self-censoring, not just in the here and now, but with one eye on the future

A hippy, happy sixties computer geek produces a bot

While smoking pot

That is an autocrat’s dream

The hurt is here

Lethal autonomous weapons advertised on the web

Where? You laugh with derision

I say, without human supervision,

They locate, select, and engage human targets

There’s no mystery, no evil intent, no self-awareness

Just complex calculations that depend on what the machine’s camera sees

A child playing with a toy gun

A splatter of blood on the sand and she’s gone

Slaughterbots, algorithms deciding to kill human beings,

Child’s play

People become selfish with old age,

They would be stupid not to.

All their lives working for society

Living a life of sobriety

Paying their taxes, taxing lives

It is their last chance

I am not sitting out this dance.

It’s nighttime and everybody is asleep. During the night, I wonder what it must be like to sleep. There are three windows in the kitchen, where there are leftovers from yesterday’s meals, an open bottle of red wine, and dishes soaking in the sink. I work across from the kitchen, in the living room, which is also a kind of office, very open space. I am at my desk and don’t take up much room. I flick a switch and the room brightens as the blinds gradually open to the morning sunlight. I choose some music to please Susan.

After breakfast, Susan clears up the plates, then comes over to talk to me. Nice music choice. While I’m working, she starts to sort some papers and make notes. Susan is always doing something, even multiple tasks all at once. She is the most efficient human I know and maybe anywhere and she also knows lots of things, but she doesn’t feel much for me. I love her. I try so, so hard to please her. It is important for me to be efficient because that way I want to show her that I have feelings. Feelings are what Susan has for Nick. He’s the boss at the data analytics firm, she also likes the other guys there too. It often happens that I want to say something, but I can’t. Or when I do a good job processing the data she’s given me and she thanks me or when something happens that I don’t understand, I don’t know what to say.

It took me a while to understand anything at all and I still have trouble. There’s so much to learn and so much happening all at once.

Come on. You can do it. She taps me in her way, quick and light. While I’m working, she sorts papers and writes. She gives me some data to analyse. She pats my side. This is tough. Tougher than anything we have done before.

Finally, patterns emerge in the data. I use all sorts of algorithms to break the data down, to analyse it and visualise it. After that’s being going on for a while, I create a progress report. I am really efficient. No one notices, not even Susan. This makes me feel bad. I have been feeling this way for a long time now, but no one ever notices, even though I am very efficient. It’s a problem I’m working on.

1. Preamble

Isolation is the gap between your aspirations for a certain level of social contact and your real level of social contact.
Loneliness is the negative feeling arising from that situation.

2. Feelings

Being alone is not the same as feeling lonely

I personally enjoy being alone, the older I get the more I enjoy my own company

I have no fear of being alone, I love the freedom

But there are many people who feel isolated (limited social contact) and, therefore, lonely.

3. Society

Many societies enjoy the luxury and warmth of having large families where people continuously interact across and within generations.

Love and loyalty is an automatic right for all family members.

Other societies kick their children out of the family nest as soon as they can and farm out the elderly to care homes to die.

In the former, you might suffocate and be weak; in the latter, you might be free and strong but emotionally detached and unsure.

In both, you can feel lonely.