Tag Archives: censorship

Is it a collection for commuters?

News Short stories Thoughts and speculation No Comments

I’m told that we have a shorter attention span than we used to. That we are at a moment in history when we want everything in bite-sized chunks. We make these micro-transactions in all sorts of ways. From the instantly ‘liked’ and instantly forgotten interactions to the chopping and changing between watching a film while flicking through our feeds.

Do we want bite-sized fiction too?

Well, I’m told we do. Actually, I’m told people enjoy reading tightly formed flash stories, such as those in my Nudge the Future collections – did I mention there’s a new one out? It’s called Biohacked & Begging. 

In this new collection I play around with the notion of micro-transactions. I touch on such things as micro-voting, renting your home by the hour, and the zero-hours contracts of the future.  It’s not all bleak (honest).

Short fiction is certainly not at all a new thing and I don’t think flash fiction will ever replace the full immersion of reading a novel, it’s a totally different experience.

Hopefully, these Nudge the Future collections fill a gap – they’re perfect for the commute to and from work, or for reading with your morning coffee.

Why not use them to create a small oasis of entertainment? Why not flit off to another place for a precious few minutes each day with a self-contained story?

And if they also prompt some pondering that’s great because don’t forget, The future is ours and it’s up for grabs…

“The more we surround ourselves with technology, the more uncanny our lives become. Enter Stephen Oram: with Bradbury’s clear-sightedness and Pangborn’s wit, he pulls ways to live out from under modernity’s “cacophony of crap.”” Simon Ings, Arts Editor, New Scientist.

Find out more about Biohacked and Begging

 

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Banned Words…

Flash fiction No Comments

Following on from my post about the Unicorn, here’s another piece of micro-fiction written for a specific purpose, the 7 banned words theme at New Flash Fiction. I liked the concept of what they were doing – short pieces that contained words recently banned from US government press statements (note: I can’t find the original submission form, but that’s how I remember it).

This was my offering – I’ll let you guess which are the banned words.

AlterNatives

‘A transgender fetus? That’s insane. Impossible. That’s ridiculous.’

‘It’s a science-based study sir. It shows we can determine in the womb if Mother Nature has got it wrong.’

‘So, we’re all vulnerable now, are we? Vulnerable to the crazies before we’re even born.’

It’s an entitlement sir and it could save a lot of money; correcting in the womb would be much cheaper.’

‘Nobody has an entitlement to be “corrected” so that’s a stupid argument.’

‘Imagine how all those so-called evidence-based studies would look though. It’d improve the diversity stats without all the legal fuss and bother we have to put up with now.’

‘I won’t allow it. No. Simple. Got it? No.’

‘But, you could have been a woman. Imagine having the sort of body you crave so much. As your own.’

‘Out. Get out.’

The president sat in his office alone, sad and wishing for a different life.

 

 

 

 

detect deceit and delete

Thoughts and speculation No Comments

I came across these two stories last week – there’s an algorithm that can detect deceit in your social media feed and Twitter has been telling people they don’t exist.

This led me to ponder what it would be like to be in charge of a social media company with a conscience.

Imagine you’re uncomfortable with providing a platform from which people tell lies that are stored for future generations as the accurate record of our social history.

If your algorithms can detect deceit and detect it more effectively than human beings – that’s the claim – then would you consider it your moral duty to find the lies and delete them all? Of course you’d have to trust the algorithms, and their creators, to not deceive you.

Would you delete everything that appeared to be a lie, no matter how big or small?

I wonder if Twitter is temporarily suspending accounts while it cleanses them.

Have you checked your social media history recently?

Maybe you should…

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