As a writer, I don’t think I am too bad at it. I learnt a lot with the publication of NeoTokyo Dead as a book, much of it centring on my utterly blasé attitude to editing which persisted until about a month before publication. It was at that point, I panicked. It was a very fast series of editing runs through the whole story, and I finally had a version I could live with. I think NeoTokyo Dead is better than crappy, and the fact I went independent with it was due to a massive factor concerning traditional publishing and emerging authors, as I have experienced it.

One of the first novels I completed had the working title The Exiles. Weighing in at around one hundred thousand words, it was no light-weight, but was not exactly a neutrino star, either. Almost to see what would happen, I submitted the manuscript to the open submission slush file of a publisher on the other side of the globe. That was more than a year and a half ago. I checked with the publisher several months ago to see if they were still interested in the manuscript, and they told me the process would take longer. So, I am still waiting and not doing anything with The Exiles.

This is not a criticism of traditional publishing. Such time frames are the nature of the beast, so to speak. With thousands of unsolicited manuscripts coming in every year, the publishers cannot be expected to work small miracles with the limited staffing they have. Managers and staff checking and vetting manuscripts have a tonne of other work they also need to balance and complete, so emerging authors like myself have to learn patience.

And that was the problem for me approaching the publication of NeoTokyo Dead. I did not want to wait for more than a year for someone else’s decision. Not to mention it is a novella, which is not a format many publishers look for. The format was born of my choice to move the story of Killian Devon from online platforms to a book format, and it was a move in which I shot myself in the foot.

Perhaps my biggest issue with traditional publishing is not the publishers themselves, or the agents who gate-keep access to many of them. My problem is the persistence of the belief that traditional publishing somehow bestows some form of legitimacy upon writers and the worth of their work. It is true, some independent writers should probably not publish their work due to a lack of quality, as some people have claimed. However, in my experience, I have had only one book from an indie author which I found so atrociously written, I could not finish it. The vast majority of indie authors are putting out high quality work, and it is imminently readable. The idea that a company’s selection of a book is somehow more legitimate for the author, giving them added prestige in the marketplace of ideas, is flaccid and erroneous, at best.

Independent authors like Randolph Lalonde, Joseph R. Lallo, and a whole tonne of people on Substack, lose no worth through their choices to control their own books and destiny by keeping their works out of the hands of agents and publishers. I would even go so far as to say the empowerment and enabling of independent authors and self-publishing is one of the only good things Amazon has achieved in its miserably controversial life. With other companies emerging outside the Amazosphere, the independent industry appears healthy and vital. That alone should help move perceptions away from the bias towards traditional publishing.

The response of many independent authors to the influx and arrival of Large Language Model (LLM) generated books also torpedoes arguments seeking to undermine the quality of our work. The one book I could not stomach finishing, mentioned above, was written before LLM’s became a mainstream thing. On top of that, there has been a significant “human only” kick-back across a number of artistic industries, of which writing is only one. Such responses give us a fair indication that indie authors are, by and large, not going to indulge in using LMM’s to do any of their writing for them. And many of us refuse to use AI for any part of the writing process, from research to the post-writing preparation, like covers and blurbs. It has only been in the wake of independent authors taking a stand against LMM’s that publishing companies have started to take a similar position.

Is traditional publishing a good idea to go for? Sure it is, if it is a model that fits you, and you have a lot of patience and a thick skin. For those of us who lack either or both of these qualities, self publishing can make a lot more sense. I have not given up on traditional publishing, but I am more willing to forge my own path, and make my own mistakes along the way.

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You might enjoy my cyberpunk novella, which is available on Amazon!

For those readers who may not be aware of Australian and Aotearoa history, let me explain a bit about Anzac Day and what it has come to mean. When England entered World War One against Germany and the other Axis powers in 1914, her colonies and former colonies followed suit. Australia had gone through federation in 1901, and was independent, but still answered the call. Troops were sent to Europe, but were diverted to Egypt for training out of consideration of the Anzacs’ perceived sensitivity to an English winter. When Turkiye entered the war on the side of the Axis powers, a plan was hatched to take them out of the war and open a supply route to Russia, an ally of England and France. The plan was to land troops on the Gallipoli Peninsular and drive towards the Bosporus and open up the sea lane to the Black Sea.

On April 25, 1915, Anzac troops landed on a beach now called Anzac Cove early in the morning. The beach was narrow with a steep climb up to extremely hilly country, full of gullies and steep ridges. The Turkish troops, commanded by the brilliant Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, were waiting on the cliff tops above and on the ridges around Anzac Cove. Anzacs suffered extremely heavy losses, but stayed on the beach and eventually pushed the Turks back. Other landings on the peninsular also met with withering resistance. The campaign lasted until October 1915, marked by battles which reduced units by as much as ninety percent. Ironically, the evacuation, assisted by an ingenious device which dripped water into cups attached to rifle triggers until they fired, was executed without a single casualty. With rifles still firing, the Turkish troops were unaware the Anzacs were legging it back to the boats.

The experiences of Gallipoli not only forged a bond between former foes, as expressed in the words of the first president of the Turkish Republic, but it forged part of the identity of an emerging nation. For the first time, in 1915, Australian and Aotearoa troops had fought under the flags of their own nations. The bravery, the heroism, and the losses seeded the Australian ideal of the “digger,” someone who go the job done, no matter what barriers there were. The first Anzac Day was commerated in 1916, just a year after the landings.

In recent years, a Welcome to Country ceremony has been added to many Anzac Day events to acknowledge the First Nations people as custodians of the land veterans of many wars have returned to. This has been an important evolution in the Australian mindset regarding the indigenous people who have the longest continuous culture on the planet.

In 2026, it was this Welcome to Country ceremony which these so-called “protestors” were disrupting (1 News NZ). They were not protesting a war. They were not protesting atrocities being carried out in places like Nigeria, Gaza, Iran, and countless others. These “hecklers,” as they have been politely referred to, were simply racist wankers with delusions of adequacy.1 The individuals who took part in this insulting, shameful display were only there to try to put down the First Nations people in the name of a long history of abuse, oppression, and dispossession of the original people of the land. Their “protest” and their presence was a blight on Australia.

The response of the wider crowds was, in contrast, something to be admired. Crowds clapped louder and louder so these racist bags of crap could not be heard, and police acted quickly to move them on. They arrested one of the scum, and I personally think they should have arrested a tonne more. The wider response, “outrage” as it has been described as, speaks of a wider sense of awareness and acknowledgement that the First Nations have been treated atrociously in Australia and it is well past time they were not only acknowledged, but fully involved in the public and cultural landscape of the nation.

On a day when two nations pause and reflect on the sacrifices of their fallen, which is pretty much the only time the two nations pay any attention to that history at all, communities should be allowed to come together and remember their ancestors in peace and in solidarity.

For any who hold to the myth of race, and then presume to denigrate another human being for their perceived differences, I say “screw you.” What happened in Australia was sickening and vile.

These are my thoughts on Anzac Day 2026.

Lest We Forget.

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In the above video, Brown is responding to a left-leaning lass who makes the idiotic claim that playing golf is “fascist behaviour,” which Brown roundly dismisses with some colour, as she takes jab at lefties in general. On Brown’s point that saying golf is “fascist” is a moronic position to take, I am in complete agreement. The poster child for fascism, the one who ruined Charlie Chaplin’s moustache for everyone, never played golf, as far as I am aware. Neither did the Fantasy Fetishist Himmler. The term “fascist” has become another beige, watered-down, useless filler through its overuse by the Left. It is actually rather meaningless, as far as I can tell, except to point out those with whom we disagree. Brown is totally correct when she says such claims are stupid.

However, Brown responds by making the claim the Golf Leftie does not explain why she thinks golf is fascist. And this where I have an issue. If we are going to engage other people in disagreements, we need more than selective hearing and need to respond to the whole message, not just the bits which serve our agenda. The fact is Golf Leftie did explain why golf is fascist in fairly clear terms. She states that golf uses a lot of land for the courses and uses a shed tonne of water for the pools in and the maintenance of said courses. Golf Leftie, wrongfully as it turned out, assumed all her listeners would have the brains to make some connections with experience and prior knowledge. Apparently, Brown does not know much about golf and shows this when she makes the claim Golf Leftie does not explain her reasons for her claim. Golf Leftie also adds a third reason: every golf player she’s met is basically a wanker. This third argument is her weakest, but she does make it. It should be reasonably clear that Brown has selected the bits which serve her agenda to show the Left in a negative light.

The selective hearing also seems to be manifesting as selective presentation of evidence and information. The Christian Institute (CI), a UK-based conservative group, recently reported on the assisted suicide of Noelia Castillo in Spain. CI informs readers about Castillo’s experience in a gang rape, and the fact that she was in a wheelchair. They also mention that Castillo’s father tried to block the assisted suicide by taking legal action. The important information CI leaves out is that Castillo herself wanted the assistance to end her own life. She had been in and out of care homes since she was a child, she had been sexually assaulted twice, and the reason she was in a wheelchair was she had attempted suicide by jumping from the 5th floor of a building in 2022. Her condition left her in constant pain. CI also left out Castillo’s question about her father’s motives in taking legal action when she asked why he cared what happened to her when he had had nothing to do with her up to that point. The legal representatives of Castillo’s father are another fact CI fails to mention. This was a conservative group called Abogados Cristianos (Christian Lawyers). Castillo said her whole family was against her decision, but I have to ask how much was the father manipulated by Abogados Cristianos? I am not saying he was, but by leaving the name of the lawyers’ organisation out, CI have raised the question through implication.

Brendan O’Neill, writing for The Spectator, hits the nail right on the head in his article There’s nothing merciful about Noelia Castillo’s death. In one point, CI is right: assisted suicide is a travesty of morality, but they treat Castillo like a pawn in the debate. Nothing more than a bargaining chip, if you will. O’Neill makes the statement “The government’s solution to [Castillo’s] suffering was not to wrap its arms of care around her but to give her lethal drugs so that she would die.” In this, O’Neill gets right to the guts of the issue. Castillo was not offered the compassion she needed by anyone, either conservative or liberal. The only one who stood by her, despite disagreeing with Castillo’s decision, was her mother. CI presented a very slanted view of the case and failed to supply a lot of the context, thus aiming for a much more intense emotional reaction from its readers. With the wider context, and the information CI did not provide in their article, a calmer response is possible, even if we utterly disagree with the Spanish court’s decision. With a better understanding of the complete situation, we are positioned to have compassion for the poor woman who felt the only option open to her was death.

The left have long done this very thing in order to push a certain agenda across, selecting the details which suit their purposes, rather than giving the truth per se. The right also has the same tendency. Both sides need to open their eyes and their ears and consider the whole argument, not just that which supports their predetermined political or social agenda. When the mainstream news services have sold themselves out to the aims of billionaires like Musk, the Pritzkers, Stryker, Trump, and others, it is the alternative sources thinking people turn to. When those sources prove equally selective in their presentation of the facts, serious concerns are raised. Bill Clinton got lambasted when he claimed he was being “economical with the truth,” rather than lying. We need to call out media sources as well for doing exactly the same thing.

Regardless of the issues we may debate, the people we engage with are real human beings. Noelia Castillo was a real human being with real feelings. Golf Girl is a real human being with real opinions. Isabel Brown is a real person with real thoughts and opinions. When we do not engage with each other in good faith, which means dealing with the whole message and situation, we dismiss each other as a nameless cog in an issue or cause. We diminish the humanity of the other person. When we diminish the humanity of others, we are not too far from using labels like Untermensch. We then risk becoming much worse than the emptied concept of "fascist” and entering the reality of real fascism.

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Draft2Digital has recently announced a new fee set for new accounts and low-volume books. A number of independent authors have commented on this, varying from caution to outright displeasure. I wanted to outline why I will be remaining on Draft2Digital and monitoring how things go.

The Fees

In case you have not heard, D2D has decided to implement two new fees on users of the platform. The first is a one-off activation fee of $US20 levied on new accounts opened. If you already have an account, this fee does not apply to you. The second fee is an annual maintenance charge of $US12. This fee also does not apply to you unless your books make under $US100 in revenue in a given year. It is worth noting that the $US100 does not include the commission D2D take, so your books will need to make $US100 plus the commission paid to D2D and plus the commission of the vendors themselves.

Why have these fees been put introduced? Kris Austin explains that the annual fee for authors whose books do not contribute enough commission to D2D “helps offset a portion of the steadily rising costs we pay to maintain those accounts, including compliance, security, and infrastructure upkeep.” More indirectly, Austin also states “continuing to invest in our tools, maintaining strong relationships with retailers, and protecting the legitimacy of indie authors and the trust that readers place in indie books.”

Women’s Publishing Summit has also weighed in on some reasons for these new fees, and this has also been mentioned by other commentors. WPS puts it very simply: “bookspam.” With huge increases in the numbers of books being published, and a vast amount of them being AI puke, D2D’s decision is, in a way, damage control. While I would like to see D2D ban AI crap altogether, (see my article “Burned by the Machine” for more), WSP is clear that all indie authors have been impacted by the AI deluge, which has often seen one user opening several accounts to pump dozens of AI-generated books into the market. WSP’s article is worth viewing for a wider context.

Reactions?

As an eternally emerging author, with sales in the very low figures, I will be fronted with the annual maintenance fee. While that is disappointing, after some reflection, I have concluded that D2D is still the option I prefer to go with. Allow me to expand on this and put it into a bigger picture.

First, what does that $US12 get me? It gets me a broad distribution onto a tonne of partners. D2D partners include Kobo and the Kobo Plus scheme (one of my favourites), Smashwords, Fable, Overdrive, Amazon, and a bunch more of whom I have not always heard. If I dropped D2D and managed these myself, this would be a lot more work.

Other platforms that do a similar thing to D2D are something I need to look into more, but Ingram Spark and Lulu appear a little more expensive. I only use D2D for ebook distribution, handling print-on-demand through Amazon directly. The printing is what I need to research more, but Ingram Spark already has turned out to be more expensive than my current arrangement. At the time of writing, D2D gives me wide distribution, including to the platform I have had most traction on for NeoTokyo Dead: Smashwords.

Without D2D, you would need to handle all your distribution channels yourself and find a print-on-demand distribution as well. If this is something workable for you, then maybe the fee is excessive. There are plenty of channels out there for you to explore, like BookFunnel, and the above mentioned services. For myself, I will be staying with D2D and paying the fee.

Another point is especially for new and emerging authors, or those who are not so new and still emerging like myself. Imagine your books take a decade to break the $100 barrier and get you into the fees-free category. That would mean you have paid $120 in total to D2D. I am paying that annually just for my email provider. Compare D2D’s maintenance fee to some other services you might be paying for already:

1. X Premium: starts at $US32 per year, (up to $US395).

2. MeWe Premium: $US4.99 a month, (cheaper for annual billing).

3. Snapchat Plus: $US39.99 per year.

In the wider overview, the cost D2D wants to charge for maintenance of accounts that are not generating income for them is fairly reasonable. Of course, D2D, like so many other companies, has cited the ubiquitous “rising costs” mantra as part of their justification, which raises an important question. It is $12 a year this year, but what will it be next year and the year after? That all-to-common attempt at justification of “rising costs”, used and abused by a tonne of companies with no ethics at all, could be just another case of hiking the prices. That is something we will just need to wait and see. I would hope D2D keep in mind their market and avoid going down the path of so many greedy companies.

As I alluded to above, D2D could ban AI-generated material on the platform and help keep the costs down, but I imagine they would have a challenging time not only finding such material, but also effectively stopping the flood of AI excrement getting onto the platform in the first place. By charging an activation fee, and then an annual fee, both of which are not going to break the bank of most authors, D2D have an effective barrier to spammer scum who pump written dross out by the tonne.

I have only seen one platform, an indie music platform, where a such a complete ban on AI-generated material has been mostly effective, from all appearances. Ampwall has developed a tight community where the musicians are all fervent anti-AI luddites, and proudly so (as I am!). This is precisely where Bandcamp, who have recently banned all AI music, face a challenge. Not all musicians on Bandcamp are against AI-generated music, and a good many of them do not openly label their music as AI-generated. Faced with a similar challenge, a fee is a simple, possibly very effective, method of encouraging AI users to get the hell out of Dodge.

Conclusions

Whatever your response to Draft2Digital’s new fees, I would encourage some thought on the wider issues. If you are going to blame anyone for this, I would suggest AI-users and spammers are ones who should bear the brunt of your ire. In my opinion, the fee is helping the development and the quality of Draft2Digital to continue and improve. That is not a bad thing for all of us.

A Personal Note

On a more personal note, you might have see commentators who consider D2D’s move as a move against “low quality books,” without qualifying what they really mean by that. If you are like me, and wondered if your writing was “low quality,” may I offer you some encouragement? If you have written your books yourself, edited them yourself (or had another human do it for you), and you’ve put the hard yards into the research, writing, editing, covers and all that, you are on the right track.

I have read a few books by independent authors over the years, and they have all been pure human writers. My one published book (at the moment!) does not stack up too bad. In fact, I would say it is actually very good.

The marketing is hard. We all have to learn it, and it is something I am still learning. Keep going, don’t give up, and you will get there!

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You can grab another of my story, NeoTokyo Dead, from all fantastic platforms!

X makes the claim. Bluesky makes similar sounds. Mastodon mutters quietly to itself about the same values. Minds shouts it from the rooftops through the megaphone of its eclectic crowd. They all claim to protect speech, but what is it they are really “protecting”? Speech, in all its forms and opinions is not something any of these platforms really protects, with perhaps the exception of Minds. But then, they have flat earthers, chem-trail believers and more in their midst. And that is not necessarily a bad thing.

There has been a lot of talk about X’s status as a place for free speech absolutism. This has come under question in recent years, since Elon Musk bought the platform for a ridiculous $44 billion. The cost has nothing to do with the point being made, but rather the idea that some idiotic moron would spend that kind of money on a social media platform when they could have used it to decorate the sky with more of their large-scale firecrackers is amusing. It has been reported that more than a few journalists and critics of Musk have been shadow banned. Although the evidence seems circumstantial, there is a lot of weight to the idea because of the timing of the bans. It would appear Elon Musk, the “free-speech absolutist,” is quite fine with free speech, unless it is targeting him and his ego.

Mastodon, one of the primary rivals of X, is a place that should not be mistaken for a free-speech haven. A quick view of Mastodon’s flagship instance and the rules they have in place, adopted by many instances, will immediately reveal that free speech is very limited. That said, there are some servers with very limited rules beyond “don’t be a douche bag,” but many have these rules or something similar. Some of the server rules are quite fine and understandable, considering the level of fake news and utter drivel being pushed online. However, it is clear from this that people like J.K. Rowling would get banned in a flash. Speech is protected, as long as it adheres to certain ideological orthodoxies.

Bluesky is no different. Personally, I really like Bluesky and have a couple of accounts there for different purposes. However, there are again certain rules, viciously enforced by the virulent mob. It is common for members to mass report an account if it offends their sacred values. There is a definite tendency towards the liberal, progressive, and anti-God there. A conservative Christian (and I am not talking about MAGA, Christian nationalist heretics here) would need a thick skin.

I have addressed left leaning people so far. The more centrist and right leaning are also in need of a spine. They have largely retreated to places like Gettr, Parlour, and Truth Social (falsely so-called in the most egregious redefinition of language since trans activists tried to hijack the word “genocide”). It is claimed X was taken over by the right, but it seems even right wing accounts are not immune to being muzzled. One of the other reasons X has slumped into a feral ferret pit of insanity has been the spinelessness of the left and the posturing virtue signalling of many companies. They all left, leaving X an echo chamber for those too lazy to manage their own feeds by those equally lazy. Gettr, Parlour and the other one are just as monotone.

All of this because no one wants to be challenged on their beliefs or ideologies. I am not sure how it came to be, but there is a real sense that people honestly believe they have the right to go through life and not be challenged or offended. So called ‘hate speech’ is a part of that. In embracing this concept, no one seems to have considered who gets to define what hate speech is or is not. Should calling people horrible names be socially rejected like smoking is in many countries now? Of course. If I walked up to someone in Harlem and called them a slur, I would thoroughly deserve the utter beating I would no doubt receive. But ideologies, religious or otherwise, are open to criticism and question. If you have a hard time defining what a woman is, your thoughts should be challenged. If you support wars in the name of any state, you probably should be ready to be called out on that. If you are a follower of a religion, you need to be prepared also. The Bible even tells Christians to be ready to give reasons of their faith. You are going to get offended. Deal with it.

When Germany made Holocaust denial illegal, this threw up some red flags for me. First, denying the freedom to express certain opinions and beliefs sets a dangerous precedent. First, Holocaust Denial. Next, such-and-such is sin. Finally, God is God. There are thousands of possibilities, but you get the idea. Second, why make it illegal? It is perhaps the most useless thing a government can do to curtail an idea or belief. The communists tried for decades to ban religion, but failed miserably, and continue to do so. China has failed to destroy the Christian church, just as Russia failed. Such bans are not going to stop an undesirable idea from spreading. You can kill the person, but you cannot kill an idea. Debate is how we combat the dross and move forward as a society fitting for all. Yes, Holocaust Denial is offensive to many. To many more, it is an idiotic idea believed only by the simplest imbeciles with the intellectual capacity of a brain-damaged maggot.

They all claim to protect speech, but this is bollocks. Gettr does not. Mastodon, perhaps most honestly does not. X does not. Bluesky does not. For most of them, protection of speech is merely a marketing buzzword.

You might enjoy my cyberpunk novella, which is available on Amazon!

Introduction

Some time ago, I wrote a short essay on the honesty of cyberpunk when it came to human nature and us as a species. In this essay, it is Star Trek which gets the eye. While recognising the contribution of Star Trek to the genre, and Gene Roddenberry’s genius in creating a universe so compelling, I also want to argue that Star Trek falls into a trap of excessive optimism about human nature and, ironically, mixes up some of the alien species it portrays.

Ain’t No Saint

The portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk, as a reckless rebel with something to prove, as much to others as to himself, is perhaps the most honest portrayal of the humans among the crew. While the others have minor smatterings of human flaws, a scattering here and there, it is Kirk who truly represents the ambitious git who thinks the rules do not apply to him. Aaron James, author of A**holes: A Theory would probably classify the good captain as a prime example of the type featuring in his book: a complete arsehole.

In the United Federation of Planets (UFP), introduced in the original series, we have the undying optimism and hope in a humanity capable of interacting with interstellar species in a meaningful and generally peaceful way. The human propensity for conflict and war, while still lurking under the surface, is fairly well downplayed by the portrayal of the UFP.

What the UFP achieves very well is its criticism of weak, ineffectual global organisations like the United Nations. Unlike the United Nations, the Federation actually has the teeth and military power to enforce its will when needed. The UN’s most formidable resource is the resolution, something the state of Israel has ignored for decades, and has proven as much as waste of effort with dictators like that of Iran. The Federation provides a sound vision of what such an organisation might actually achieve if it were given real power to act on behalf of its members, with all such members being equal parties at the table.

Some of the aspirations presented in Star Trek are simply unrealistic, given humanity’s inability to solve its own core problem: sinful nature, or just human nature, if you prefer. A vivid memory I have of Star Trek’s Federation is the idea they have solved the problem of poverty, which no longer exists in human society. The idea of solving the problem of poverty in the Federation contrasts to Jesus’ comments on the poor - they will always be with us (Matthew 26:10-12). I am not questioning here the notion of trying to fix poverty, but merely the projected success we will have. In a world where 56,000 people control more wealth that the poorest 4,000,000,000 people, we have some major barriers to reaching Star Trek’s aspirations.

Klingons Are Us

I would like to posit that some of the more objectionable species of Star Trek are actually the embodiment of the worst aspects of human nature. While humans in the series have their flaws, these are relatively minor. The worst aspects of humanity are projected onto some of the alien species the USS Enterprise encounters.

Perhaps the most obvious are the warlike Klingons. While their violence and xenophobia is somewhat ameliorated through characters like Worf (TNG), humanity’s desire and need to inflict lethal violence on the Other is embodied in the uber-warriors of the Klingon Empire. Complementary to this is the narrow masculinity riding in the coattails of military prowess birthing a certain definition of manhood. Removing a Klingon’s Bat’leth, armour and facial features would render the warrior little different to the Japanese Samurai or a host of other human warrior typologies.

The Borg, introduced in The Next Generation, are relevant to our own time, presenting the nightmare of a transhumanist excess. In the case of the Borg, perhaps among the most disturbing of the alien species in Star Trek, there is also a cautionary element in that the Borg are a unified Collective in which the individual essentially ceases to exist. Baring many similarities to Doctor Who’s Cybermen, it is clear the human fascination with technology as a solution to our problems has not ended. However, Star Trek, through embodying the transhumanist in the Borg, presents a possible horror story where transhumanism might lead. The unswerving, unquestioning faith in technology to solve a specie’s problems is highlighted in these monstrous members of an entirely merged identity group.

Star Trek projects the worst of human nature onto alien species, but it also projects certain aspirations as well. Logic and thought have, for millennia, been considered of higher level than “mere” emotionalism. I would like to suggest the Vulcans as an embodiment of Plato’s ideal of philosophers ruling on the basis of reason, something few humans would ever achieve. Especially in Western societies, even those of a more Christian bent, the emotions have been downplayed, even spurned. As late as the 19th century, a woman’s “hysteria” was considered a mental illness. The idea of unrestrained emotive output was considered and anomaly, and something distinctly non-masculine.

It is entirely possible, in the friendship of James Kirk and Mr Spock, to perceive two sides of the one human nature. Kirk, impulsive, often irrational, given to emotions and sentimentality, shows the heart of the human. Spock presents the cool, logical, reasoned aspect which is sometimes overwhelmed by the emotions. Together, Kirk and Spock present a cohesive view of the human person.

The Wind Up

In the last few paragraphs, I have appeared take on a negative position with regard to Star Trek. Perhaps its aim is not to portray reality, but aspire to something better than humanity is now. Since the show’s positioning of humanity’s central problem away from sin is understandable, a topic for another time, it is that undying hope and aspiration for a humanity aiming beyond itself which appeals to us. Star Trek gives us a vision of what we could become as a society, and what we should avoid becoming.

You might enjoy my cyberpunk novella, which is available on Amazon!

The 186th Waitangi Day, since the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi on the 6th February 1840, came and went today. Unlike 2025, at the Treaty Grounds in Waitangi, the government actually fronted up. This is the government that one prominent Māori referred to as the most anti-Māori government of all time. When you consider the racist policies of the mid to late 19th century, including massive land thefts numbering the millions of acres, that is a massive accusation. As an imported New Zealand pākehā citizen, Waitangi is also a great opportunity to reflect on the state of Aotearoa and how far we have come, but also how far we need to go.

“Colonialism has been a net good”

That gem was uttered by the leader of a coalition partner to the governing party, David Seymour, himself a Māori. His point is, at best, debatable. James Cook, in 1769, estimated the Māori population to be about 100,000. In 1841, it was around 80,000. By 1896, Māori had been decimated to 42,000 through disease and conflict. It is true the population has bounced back to nearly a million, some of that growth has been driven by increased numbers of people identifying as Māori, as well as actual birthrates.

The New Zealand Settlement Act (1863) allowed the government to seize lands from Māori iwi (tribes) they thought were in rebellion against the crown. Waikato Māori and those in the Taranaki were especially effected by massive confiscations of tribal land to make way for pākehā settlers. Even those iwi who were considered “loyal” to the crown suffered significant losses of land. The loss of land led to inevitable impacts on Māori livelihood and well-being.

By the 1960’s, Te Reo Māori (the Māori language) was severely endangered. Without rapid and significant intervention, the language was in real danger of being lost forever, like so many other indigenous tongues. Only recognised as an official tongue in 1987, the original language of Aotearoa has made a major comeback, yet it is still not in a position of robust health. And the current government has introduced measures to prioritise English, still not an official language here, over Te Reo Māori.

Māori and Pasifika are also over-represented in nearly every negative measure. In Aotearoa prisons, 49% of inmates are Māori, even though Māori make up less than 18% of the overall population. Māori have significantly shorter life expectancy, as well as being more likely to live in poverty.

I would argue that Seymour is entirely wrong. The main benefits Māori have gained have been won through long and arduous protest, lobbying, and resistance, often in partnership with Pasifika activism. The gains Māori have experienced have been due solely to Māori efforts, despite the Crown, not because of the Crown. Therefore, colonialism has brought nothing the Māori themselves would not have gained without it in the longer term, and probably with far fewer negative results.

Personal Acts of Resistance

Even a pākehā fossil like me can make some contribution through to Māori causes through personal acts of resistance. More people should be doing just that, including those who are not Māori. If we wish to live in a place where the traditions of the land and its Tāngata Whenua (People of the Land) are respected and inform our futures, we need to take a moment and consider how this will impact our own actions. For example, I refuse to refer to Aotearoa by its colonially imposed name, and the same goes for places within Aotearoa. Ingoa Māori have beautiful meanings rooted in Tikanga Māori, and I see no reason to retain the names of old dead people who were racist gits. Ko Aotearoa tēnei whenua!

There is a long way to go, and the traditional political parties are not longer the vehicles of Māori change through which Māori can realistically pin their hopes. One participant at Waitangi said Māori had been stabbed in the front by Luxon’s Nationals, and stabbed in the back by the opposition, Labour. Perhaps Māori will take their fate into their own hands, as many of their tūpuna have, and forge their own paths through the complex landscape of Aotearoa’s future.

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You might enjoy my cyberpunk novella, which is available on Amazon!

In the wake of Bandcamp’s decision to ban all AI-generated music from the platform, it seems timely to argue yet again and possibly ad nauseum for human input into art. To be up front, I do not want to live in world where AI is the only thing making ‘art’.

The Burning

I’m a big fan of music. Not a musical note in my body or soul, but music has long been the soundtrack of my life through the new jobs, bitter divorce and the endless idiot mistakes I have made, through which I have hurt a great many people around me. People have come and gone, for the most part. Music has stayed. Music has guided. Music has healed.

On a social network, I was recommended a Christian SKA punk group because a friend liked them and thought I, as one sharing their faith, would also enjoy their music. Imagine my surprise when I found the band was not only non-Christian, but also it was not even human. On the platform where the band was selling their music, there had been no label or hashtag to indicate the music was made by generative AI.

I did what any normal person would do. I hid all of the albums I had bought from my collection on the platform (I don’t want followers buying this rubbish because I did and, more honestly, I am ashamed I bought four albums!). I also reached out to the man behind the music and, to his credit, he wrote an extremely lengthy reply. From a theological viewpoint, he is very much into the occult, shamanism and other things which most Christians would, at best, find questionable. The music was tagged as “Christian SKA”, a point of contention. He also went to some great effort to explain his justifications for using AI, his status as a real musician, and how the resulting music from the AI really did embody him and his style. He also said he had spent months on creating and refining the music. Since sending that email, the same guy has punched out another two or three albums in a couple of months. Needless to say, I got well and truly burned here.

And this dragged my hypocrisy, kicking and screaming, into the glaring sunlight of my self-professed ethics and morality. Music or images? What is the difference? Using AI to search for something, is one thing. Using it to create “art”, whether music, images, or words, is something completely different.

The Thinking

One “musician” uses generative AI, and they go by the name Jack Righteous. In his explanation on his blog, he likens the use of AI for music to a musician using a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to produce the final work, among other things. Jack Righteous attempts to place AI in the same category as other tools like the synthesisers and DAW’s a musician might use to create their sound and get it out there. I have some serious problems with this and you can probably see where I am going with this.

Firstly, an imaginative scenario can show why using AI does not make someone an artist or a musician. Let us say I have used the image above as a header image for my blog. I clearly did not draw this or use any digital tools like PhotoShop to paint this. Rather, let us imagine I commissioned Erik Shoemaker, (the actual creator of the picture), to make this for me. No one would consider me to be the “artist” in relation to the artwork. Shoemaker is the artist. I contend the same goes for anyone using generative AI to create a piece of ‘art’. That person is not an artist. The AI has taken their “commission” in the form of prompts, just as I would have supplied to Shoemaker, and it has generated an image based on those instructions. The same scenario holds true for music. Those who use AI to generate music are not musicians; certainly not any more than I am. They have supplied a group of instructions (prompts) to a programme and that entity has generated an outcome. The only difference in these two scenarios between the musician, artist and the AI is the humans produce superior work which can actually be referred to as art.

Secondly, to classify generate AI as another tool, along side synthesisers and DAW’s is borderline dishonest, or wilfully misleading. When a musician uses synthesisers, they have either written the music themselves or they are using someone else’s music. Either way, a musician is creating the music on the go through a machine which makes different notes in response to the keys, strings or other manipulations the musician performs. Paul Henry Beaver Jr, in 1967, was one of the first to use the Moog synthesiser in the Doors’ song, ‘Strange Days’. Beaver pressed keys. Beaver created new sounds. To claim an AI user is somehow in the same vaunted group as Beaver is insulting.

In the case of DAW’s, the categorisation is hardly less tenuous. Using a DAW requires a musician to have a musical piece already written and composed. It might be theirs or it may be someone else’s piece. Either way, someone with a specific skillset has spent time writing, refining and revising the piece of music before they even start mucking about with a DAW. The contrast with generative AI makes Uluru look like a pebble. Generative AI, quite obviously, has a vastly different beginning point. People are not bringing their own, pre-written music to the programme. It is the AI itself which is creating the music. The human, apart from supplying some instructions, plays utterly no part in the process of writing the music at the beginning. Even should a musician use AI to refine their music, that is something they have written, the criticism still stands.

Generative AI, DAW’s and synthesisers do not belong in the same category.

The Buzz Word

One of the most exciting aspects of AI in music is its potential to democratize the creation process.

In the above quote, Jack Righteous attempts to position generative AI as something which makes music creation more accessible and fair. This is perhaps his strongest argument. It is not a good argument, but it is about best he has. “Democratizing” something taps into Jack’s audience’s culture and political landscape. Being North American, Jack is from a nation which values democracy highly and takes no small pride in the system they have. At first, the use of this word sounds good and positive. At first.

AI does not democratise anything. First, the word itself, according to the Cambridge English Dictionary means (and I quote):

to make countries or organizations use democratic ways of making decisions.

The word “democratise” has absolutely nothing to do with art creation. It is a word which refers to decision-making. By devoting an entire section to “democratizing music creation”, the only objective Jack Righteous has achieved has been to throw in an irrelevant, buzzy word in the attempt to give more substance to an argument.

Jack Righteous seems to be aiming, rather, at accessibility to the creation process, arguing AI makes creative expression more accessible. That is, specifically the creation of music. He fails to make a justifiable argument in this point, as well. What he is really arguing is generative AI allows people to by-pass years of training and practise, using a quick and easy shortcut to so-called “musicianship.”

There are a whole host of skillsets for which the last thing we need are quick and easy by-passes to real effort. Imagine you need open-heart surgery and you go to the hospital for your operation. The nurses prepare you, the surgical team coach on what will happen and you are feeling pretty good about the whole process. You are feeling quite safe, given the circumstances. The outlook is positive. Things are looking great, except for the hospital gown, but you have other priorities on your mind. When you are wheeled into the theatre, you are puzzled. You see none of the surgical team there. Instead, you are greeted by my face, replete with surgical scrubs and you notice I have a computer on my tool trolley. It is helpfully opened to ChatGPT and some instructions on how to perform an open heart operation. This ridiculous scenario highlights some skills should not be “democratised”. Surgeons, pilots, nurses, psychologists, pharmacists, lawyers, scientists and more cannot just take the generative AI shortcut to professional success. There are exceptionally good reasons why these professions spend years and years in training and education, studying their fields. The last person you want doing any of those jobs is Bryan Beal armed with ChatGPT. If this is true of the skills listed above, it follows that art is not necessarily something we want treated in the same way. I would argue that it should never be “democratised” in the way Righteous argues.

As alluded to above, I am no musician, and there is a very good reason for that. I am lazy. I have not invested the years and decades of practice, learning and grind to acquire the skills necessary to call myself a musician. Art is not something that should be “democratised” so people can take gargantuan and unethical fast tracks. By necessity, such an approach cheapens and denigrates the art of those who have put in the effort and made the sacrifices needed.

This is Political, Baby!

There is very strong political shift happening in art and it is something we should be extremely worried about. It has been happening for some time, but generative AI exacerbates the shift and the issues surrounding it.

The real artist or musician has direct and total control over the means of production. The musician, by controlling directly the writing process, controls the means of production in that they control themselves and have no limitations on what they can say or play. ELO can write and play whatever they like. In creating his visual art, Erik Shoemaker can do and make whatever he likes. He is the artist and the only limitation he has is his own imagination. In both of these cases, the means of production itself rests with the musicians and artist. There is no other component.

The same cannot be argued for generative AI. The user (they are not an artist or musician) surrenders the means of production to the company or corporation which develops and sells access to the algorithm. As an example, you could attempt to insert a prompt including the words “big boobs” or “blood gushing from a gaping and open wound” and Nightcafe (an AI image maker) will tell you those terms are forbidden. Erik Shoemaker would have no problem creating an image of a Amazonian warrior with “big boobs” using a sword to slash open a gaping, blood gushing fountain of a wound in her foe. That is because Shoemaker controls the means of production. The AI user does not.

Rather than “democratising” artistic creation, as Jack Righteous uses the word, by using generative AI, users are doing the exact opposite. They are surrendering control of the artistic process to corporations like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, MidJourney, SunoAI and more. This sets a dangerous precedent of corporate control over the artistic process. My example of the buxom warrior princess is an extreme example, but it prompts us to consider wider socio-political issues to which art may have the need to speak. Corporations can implement any restrictions they wish to. The generative AI platforms are privately owned by the shareholders or investors providing the capital.

Some of Elon Musk’s capital used in his acquisition of Twitter came from the founders of Oracle Corp., one of whom is Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. How would Prince Talal respond to a news service using Grok (the X/Twitter AI) to produce material critical of the Saudi Royal family? Erik Shoemaker and Sting can say whatever they like through their art. The user of AI is limited by the socio-political concerns and views of the owners of said AI.

At times, artists need to offend people to make a point society needs to hear. At other times, artists made need to push the envelope in order to get a message out there. Andres Serrano did just that in 1987 when he created Immersion (P*** Christ) and caused a storm of controversy. Although Serrano reportedly remains a believer, his artwork takes aim at organised religion on a number of different levels and about a number of different issues. It is important our society preserves such freedoms as necessary for artistic expression. As a devout Christian, I personally found Immersion a little uncomfortable, but I utterly support the right of Serrano to offend my sensibilities.

Such freedoms can be greatly restricted by corporations and often will be, but based on very different reasons. A company’s most important priority is profit. That is the beginning and the end of their existence. Anything which threatens profitability is more likely to be censored by the corporations with control over the means of production. In the extreme case of Gab Social, GoDaddy dropped them, and PayPal and Stripe followed suit. To think this was purely about the ethics behind Gab Social’s vile content is naïve. This was about profit. Facebook (now Meta) has a long history of allowing disagreeable and offensive content to remain. If you are engaging with a Holocaust-denying troll, you are spending time on the network and that means profit. Censorship is based on what makes money. And that is a dangerous thing on which to base limitations on artistic expression.

The Swansong

AI users are surrendering their artistic expression for the sake of a rapid shortcut to so-called “artistic skill”. To claim generative AI is not a threat to artists is to deliberately ignore what has been happening in the entertainment industry. Most people should remember the 148-day strike by writers in Hollywood. A fast-track to avoid real effort is an extremely questionable reason for investing trust in a corporation, an entity with a long history of shafting its own employees, the community and anyone else except the parasitic uber-rich.