AI Writing Can Never Make You Forget That You Are Reading

How to Recognize Abusive Words and Phrases with Walter Rhein

This is the second conversation on estrangement that I’ve had with Andra Watkins [https://substack.com/profile/101595169-andra-watkins]. I’m coming to understand that just about everyone who grew up in the United States was conditioned to not discuss the abuses they endured out of some absurd “deference” to the abuser. I suppose we could conclude that patriarchal systems are only allowed to exist if we are all trained not to acknowledge the shortcomings of the patriarch. Recognizing that truth changes your whole perspective of the world, but when you begin to speak… wow, the patriarch enablers (or the patriarch wannabes) sure come after you. We’re not stopping though. It’s too empowering to see through the false narratives that have been imposed on us. I know that I’ve already encouraged my children to be mindful of the tactics dishonest people use. We have to stop seeing them as “red flags” and start seeing them as closed gates with flashing red lights and loud warning alarms. We’ll get there as a society, but it starts with conversations like this one! Looking forward to the next one! Here’s the last one: Thank you Theater Is Hard. [https://substack.com/profile/2413330-theater-is-hard], Deb Sherrer [https://substack.com/profile/20070823-deb-sherrer], Kay-El [https://substack.com/profile/42578551-kay-el], Marian S [https://substack.com/profile/406027-marian-s], Elizabeth Van Alstine [https://substack.com/profile/324595077-elizabeth-van-alstine], and many others for tuning into my live video with Andra Watkins [https://substack.com/profile/101595169-andra-watkins]! Join me for my next live video in the app. Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe [https://walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Reflections on Travel, Life in South America, and Decompressing

Hey Friends! Checking out some new equipment and broadcasting live from the Costa Verde. It was nice to check in! Thank you A. Eevie Bateman [https://substack.com/profile/443649430-a-eevie-bateman], Cryn Johannsen [https://substack.com/profile/148826259-cryn-johannsen], Margaret Williams, MS, ACC [https://substack.com/profile/12044824-margaret-williams-ms-acc], THE TRAJECTORY [https://substack.com/profile/126135419-the-trajectory], Sandra [https://substack.com/profile/18011536-sandra], and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app. I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe [https://walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

AI Writing Can Never Make You Forget That You Are Reading

This newsletter is free now and forever thanks to you. It’s also OF HUMAN ORIGIN (no AI). I worked too hard for too long to start cheating now. 🤣🤣 Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] There’s a magical thing that happens when you pick up a fantastic story created by a master artist. It doesn’t happen right away. At first, you look at the words and your mind recognizes them as ink marks formed into the familiar shape of letters. Then, slowly, your awareness shifts and you start to recognize the meaning. You read on for a moment longer, still aware of who you are as a person and the room you occupy. The separation between you and the text lingers, but it slowly begins to fade. If the words are true, within a relatively short amount of time, something wonderful happens. The lines blur. You lose yourself in the moment. Your mind links up with the text and suddenly you’re not looking at ink marks on paper. Instead, you’re walking through an exciting new world with a group of people you will come to see as friends. When you reflect on this experience, it will be with the awareness that it was something that happened to you, not something you observed. We care for the people we meet in books. We feel real emotions when tragedy befalls them. We laugh from the depths of our soul. We cry actual tears. Authentic human writing can make you forget that you’re reading. That’s the difference between work of human origin and artificially created slop. The human work has a soul. AI work does not. The real tragedy of our age is that the tech oligarchs have come to recognize they cannot compete with legitimate brilliance. So, rather than try, they instead sabotage your ability to engage. Tech oligarchs are the usurpers and the book burners. No matter how gifted a writer might be, it still takes a few minutes to complete the link up. Those of us who are readers have come to regard the link as precious. We are provoked to anger when we’re interrupted. It’s like being awakened from a pleasant dream. “Can’t you see that I’m reading?” That simple question illustrates how much of an intrusion it is to disturb somebody’s gentle connection with the written word. The tech oligarchs know this all too well. In order to prevent us from having genuine moments of soul sharing, they’ve created an endless tidal wave of distractions. They haven’t taken the books, they’ve clouded our ability to see them. Today, our children are captured by scrolling services. These represent AI curated options that, although offered under the illusion of choice, are really not that distinguishable from one another. The scroll is eternal. It operates on the promise that there will eventually be some sort of reward, but the truth is that it’s designed to render any form of link-up impossible. The scroll keeps us in that perpetual state of promise without any hope of reward. Perhaps the whole point of the mechanism is to entice the human race to reject reading as a concept. We’re deliberately denied access to alternative perspectives, and eventually we become frustrated. Is it the expectation of our digital overlords that we’ll eventually become conditioned to cast learning aside so we might occupy ourselves with productive labor? That seems overly malicious, but it’s not a theory I would discount without proof. We live in a society that’s built on distraction. The competition to steal your attention is fierce, and there’s no longer any expectation that promises must be fulfilled. We live in an era of clickbait. The authors of this digital vomit don’t want your mind, they only want to compel your finger to tap the button on your mouse. That’s the end of the interaction. Wham, bam, don’t let the search engine door hit you on the way out. Attention is the only objective. They don’t want to convince you. They don’t want to interact with you. They don’t want to share anything with you. All they want to do is distract you for a moment before you make your way on to the next distraction. We’ve been tricked into living like this because the tech overlords fear the link up more than anything. They know they can’t compete once human beings communicate. Communication creates community. From community people derive their power. Therefore, the ruling class has come to view quiet reflection as the enemy. They’ve become highly effective at stamping it out. There are still a few old codgers like me rolling around. I’m of the class that remembers making my selection at video stores rather than on streaming services. I still go to libraries. I enjoy the sensation of being overwhelmed by all the diverse perspectives that have been created by the glorious human race. But I’m fearful for a generation of kids that’s grown up with curated streaming services that are the equivalent of the doom scroll. The only difference is that streaming service menus go from left to right, social media goes from top to the endless bottom. Notice that we have no tools to curate these lists. We can’t designate what actors we don’t want to watch. We can’t set dates. No, the era of personal choice is over. We have to sit and accept what the AI entity thinks is best for us. We’re not allowed to contemplate whether that AI might have a nefarious objective. We’re not allowed to contemplate anything anymore. Contemplation is the enemy of control. The oligarchs know that better than anyone. There are some mornings when I come downstairs and I see my children captured by screens. In those moments I feel as if I’ve failed as a parent. Their eyes, their ears, their very being has been condemned to a prison. The worst part is that the door is open, and yet they remain there willingly. We haven’t yet cultivated our evolutionary warning about this kind of trap. It’s a prison formed by banal diversion. It’s easier to scroll than it is to think, so we end up scrolling forever. Adults have to be reminded that thinking is beautiful. They must be compelled to teach their children. Scrolling is an abomination. It’s killing us. We’ve traded a beautiful life for a fortress of solitude. Recently, I had a task for my daughter. I discovered her sitting on the couch in the living room. Much to my delight, she wasn’t holding a screen connected to some malicious oligarch whispering sweet words of deceit. Instead, she held a book. She held a real, physical book that she’d checked out from the library. In that moment, I experienced a surge of affection for that book. In my vision, it was almost as if she was curled up on the sofa with a puppy. It felt very much like a living thing to me, not cold and digital and dead like the bright light of a toxic screen. The pages were as organic as leaves. She seemed so connected to the Earth and life and her basic humanity that I became emotional. She hadn’t noticed me entering even though I walk with a heavy foot. She’d escaped the distractions and discovered the link. My soul recognized this as a rare and beautiful thing. I stopped myself from calling out to her, and instead I slowly backed away. There’s no task more important than allowing your children to revel in the beautiful connection to another mind that only a work of human origin can provide. There is still hope. But we also must recognize that we’re surrounded by danger. The distraction is false. The beauty of this life comes from making true connections. Tell your friends. Tell your kids. Tell everyone. It’s time to recover the power and the joy of making your own choice. This newsletter is free now and forever thanks to you. It’s also OF HUMAN ORIGIN (no AI). I worked too hard for too long to start cheating now. 🤣🤣 Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe [https://walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

How White Supremacy Has Defiled Christianity

Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe [https://walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The Platner Debacle Is the Fault of Corporate Democrats and Outrage Journalists

I predict that the corporate democrats are once again going to take the exact wrong lesson from the Platner Debacle. Instead of listening to the people, they’re going to subject us to an offensive lecture because that’s what they always do. “See? See what happens when you demand something other than one of our anointed candidates? Now be good little voters and get behind the bland corporate white man we select for you.” They do this over and over. It goes hand in hand with their lie about how “progressives can’t win” in red areas even though when you look at election results you see them doing exactly that. The other thing you see is centrists losing, but somehow the corporate Democrats never acknowledge that fact. We’re in this authoritarian mess because of corporate Democrats. They lost the presidency, they lost congress. Even worse, when they actually had control of everything in 2021, they lacked the courage to meaningfully use their power. All they had to do was put all the insurrectionists in jail—all of them. Platner was a mess from day one, but that’s as much an indictment of the corporate Democrats as it is of him. The voting public is so fed up with what the DNC shoves in our faces that they’re willing to support basically anything else. That’s what created MAGA. Yet, the DNC still sticks with their, “Do what we say” narrative. The voters in Maine clearly indicated that they’re fed up with politics as usual. Unfortunately, now we’re stuck with the DNC selecting a candidate… again. When given the choice to help or punish, the corporate democrats always reach for the whip. Our current media is also complicit in this disaster. Both the legacy media, and the crop of obnoxious “former celebrity” losers who flock to substack and have 10,000 paid subscribers over night. These are individuals who are more interested in outrage content than following the truth. It’s frustrating, because we literally have the power in our hands to get good people elected. If the journalists on this and other platforms with huge followings would just elevate good people, voters would have the information that allowed them to make informed decisions. But so many of our most well funded “journalists” are just undercover agents for corrupt corporate entities. Before the Maine primary, I became disgusted with all the dialogue presenting the race like it was already Platner vs Collins. A. Eevie Bateman [https://substack.com/profile/443649430-a-eevie-bateman] mentioned that there was another democratic candidate on the ballot. I tracked down his web page, sent him an email and Eevie and I interviewed him the next day. It was simple. What this interview showed me was that there are good candidates out there. It’s just that the DNC and the “celebrity” media works hard to suppress them. David Costello has years of experience in public office. The advantage of that is that he knows the job. He has reasonable solutions for problems that won’t be undone by nefarious political mechanisms. This is why I prefer a candidate like Costello over somebody like Heather Cox Richardson [https://substack.com/profile/4875576-heather-cox-richardson]. In my opinion, HCR is very well suited to elevating good candidates. She’s got a massive platform. I don’t believe in electing people to senate who have never been in government before. It’s too long a term. State government should be a testing ground. You put people in office, see if they actually perform, discover if they have any skeletons in their closet, and if they pass all those tests then you elect them to longer terms. Make them demonstrate they have integrity. Make them prove it with positive action over years. The problem we’re living through right now is that the DNC gets rankled if the voters are allowed to select the candidate. They got so angry at Mamdani’s win that they tried to sabotage it. They become furious about primary challengers even though primaries are the best way to gain visibility for new talent. Our current DNC only stands for control and corruption and that’s why people are flocking to untested voices. Unfortunately, we end up stuck with Fettermans who the DNC can point to and say “See? See?” The DNC doesn’t try to fix anything, they just want to maintain control. What we need is a party that will actually listen. We could get there if our “celebrity” journalists started listening too. I’ve yet to see Qasim Rashid post his apology over his coverage of Platner. Many of my creator friends attempted to warn him of how they saw Platner as problematic and he didn’t listen. I’ll give him credit for interviewing Francesca Hong after I did. I’ve reached out to him several times asking him to interview more of the great people from my list of candidates—but we’ve never had a dialogue. I mention him because he seems like one of the good ones, but there’s so much more he could do. We should be working together. If he’d interviewed David Costello, maybe we’d be in a better position right now. He’s not the only one. I’ve been literally begging all the massive platforms to help cover the primaries. The only people who have helped are those platforms that are more or less the equivalent size of my own. Honestly, I’m done asking. People out there with one thousand, four thousand, and ten thousand subscribers can get the word out about great candidates. The mainstream media and the celebrity journalists aren’t going to help us. From what I see, they’re only interested in promoting corporate interests. Indulging in constant rage content keeps the voters angry and uninformed. That’s why we get Platner instead of Costello. A decent media would have promoted all the flaws with Platner before he managed to sabotage this race. Even now, they’re patting themselves on the back for getting him to resign and not calling for him to go to jail. When a man is accused of raping a woman, it’s not sufficient punishment to say, “Well, now he has to drop out of his race for one of the most powerful offices in the world.” No, we need to start demanding true accountability. Nobody should even whisper about a redemption arc until they’ve served their sentence and provided restitution to all the people they hurt. If they can’t fix what they broke—then they have to work humbly for the rest of their lives. What we’re seeing right now is a repeat of the same media and political incompetence than sabotaged Kamala. The DNC failed to support her. The media posted endless criticisms even as they disregarded the fact that she was running against a criminal and a sex offender. When she “lost,” the DNC pivoted to their tired racist narrative of the need to run a white man. The media allowed them to get away with it. We need a massive change in philosophy and it has to happen one person at a time. Even as it stands right now, candidates that get their start with small publications are likely to turn to the big ones when they start to gain national attention. We need to understand that we have to transform the media. We have to help build each other up. That means we have to revoke our support for the big platforms that aren’t doing their jobs and help the small platforms that are. The simple fact is that our corrupt political system is going to change. It’s either going to self-destruct under the appalling weight of its own incompetence, or we’ll correct the ship and save all of humanity. It’s up to all of you to get us on the right track by supporting the politicians and writers out there who are actually fighting for truth instead of enriching themselves on distraction and outrage. The best thing you can do to pressure the big journalists is withdraw your support. There are platforms on Substack run by men facing rape allegations that still have thousands of paid subscribers. There are felons and grifters and “former” republicans that aren’t working for us. Why are people still supporting them? This morning alone I received dozens of comments attacking the woman who bravely came forward about Platner. When I checked the profiles, I found that every single one of them financially supported one of the main centrist platforms. It’s weird. It’s like these groups are attempting to manufacture the appearance of support with fake profiles. Just because somebody has a thousand paid supporters doesn’t make them legitimate. It’s a pretty easy thing to fake. There’s a lot of money out there being spent to brainwash the general public and create the illusion of credibility. When you get a gut feeling that something is off, believe it. We have to be more diligent about curating the content we consume. People who say, “Why didn’t you come forward before now” are not being honest. The truth is that we did come forward before. It’s just that nobody listened. Start listening before it’s too late. The best way to do that is to curate your list and hold writers responsible. Don’t be coerced into financially supporting your own oppression. Reject the lies of corporate media and corporate politics. Find good candidates in your area and advocate for them. Find good writers and support them. We do have the power to fix our country, we just have to stop supporting people who refuse to do the work. I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe [https://walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]