70 Comments
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James Filbird's avatar

I like this format. Please publish more of them. Perhaps I'll create a video version of one of them being that I'm an actor and work with a crew to create my short videos for my Douyin and Kuaishou channels. I have over 1 million followers.

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Catherine Hazur's avatar

Great idea, James.

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William Paul's avatar

I just checked out your site and subscribed, James.

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James Filbird's avatar

Which site is that, William?

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Juliana Barnet's avatar

Love the satire! Trouble is, it's too realistic...

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Starry Gordon's avatar

That's a problem with satire these days. We need a new HTML tag to warn people: (SATIRE> blah blah </SATIRE>, just like <IRONY>, <PARODY>, <SARCASM>, and <RANT>.

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Alexander's avatar

Yeah I've had to post an <Irony Alert> ahead of many of my online comments because too many people take them seriously

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Thierry Bruno's avatar

The story of an ordinary breakfast such as there must be thousands (millions) of them in the homes of our "collective West". Alas!

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CarbonCopy's avatar

This is absolutely brilliant!

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Bhavana Lymworth's avatar

My words exactly!

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Crixcyon's avatar

News flash...Another 2,000 people murdered by big pharma prescribed drugs today, and yesterday and tomorrow...like clockwork. These numbers are increasing and there are no guns involved except for perhaps your doctor holding one to your head if you do not accept his poison drugs.

What's the worst tragedy? Mass murder is mass murder...only the causes and number of dead are different and perhaps how much out in the open they are.

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Mark Keating's avatar

Dead is dead. Is someone less dead because they died in a car accident instead of a shooting? Or lack of health care? Brain cancer vs. lung cancer? Or someone flew a plane into their office building, vs parked a truck bomb near it?

"One death is a tragedy. A million dead is a statistic." J. Stalin

(edit for spelling errors)

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Feral Finster's avatar

I am triggered by this post!

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Bhavana Lymworth's avatar

Hahaha!

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jamenta's avatar

"launching 'em outta catapults" ... sigh

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Lotus Martini's avatar

I approve of more comedy articles like this. Spot on, the insanity is plain to see for an outside observer, but not for Tom & Jane!

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The Revolution Continues's avatar

I think there should be a whole series of these short plays with even more American families... Tom & Jane & Ted & Alice maybe?

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Landru's avatar

Thank you Caitlin. Fact with a dose of fiction : ( People are thinking someone will save us as we live in delusion. Tipping points for sale, get your tipping point, buy now in the next 10 mins, free shipping.

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Marquis's avatar

It was hard to tell the difference between this and a normal day in the United States. There have been times where I have woken up to several mass shootings reported during a single day. The aspect of companies downsizing for no real reasons is also realistic, you know profit. There is no need for the fish poison though, we polute our waters with PCBs, mercury, and garbage. We kill the fish without a second thought. Hell, you really can't give a man a fish anymore, they are too poisonous to eat! ;)

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Warren Smith's avatar

That’s America!

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Fortified City's avatar

Oh goodness ain’t that the truth.

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Zork (the) Hun's avatar

This dropped into my mailbox as I was finishing some corrections to my own post of two days ago.

It will take me a while to get away from my subject, as everything reminds me of it.

Like this post. How can anybody believe that AI can be creative? That it can ever 'understand' the subtleties in a simple, short piece like this one?

The delusion is strong in some....

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Joker E Public's avatar

Thing is, you could train an AI on a body of satirical pieces and prompt it to write something just like this... But you do need to know how to code, that this skill is not ubiquitous is a sad state of affairs for humanity given the unprecedented power available to anyone who has picked up this obviously beneficial skill in the last few decades.

I get that it's threatening, all the fearmongering about AI supplanting us is a disservice to the tremendous assistance it will be providing us (if we use it right). You'd do better to embrace AI as a tool to enhance your process. Lest you be left in the dust the same way people who clung to cave drawings or bard songs, or scrolls, pen and paper, printing press, the typewriter, and so on.

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Zork (the) Hun's avatar

I think you are missing my point which was quite specific in referring to my post on the subject which is a suggestion that what machines do, is not intelligence. Machines cannot understand the "meaning" of meaning. They can never write something like this.

Maybe you should read my post: https://zorkthehun.substack.com/p/ai-is-no-match-for-natural-stupidity

I am not afraid of the machine, but I am concerned about its misuse

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Paul Zickler's avatar

Writing plays is fun, right? I've probably written at least 100 short plays, most of which I don't even remember. There's something about creating dialogue on paper (or screen) that's very satisfying. We already know you're gifted at essays, poems, paintings and tweets, so it's exciting to add yet another medium to the Caity arsenal. Thumbs up.

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Leskunque Lepew's avatar

Marvelous, is it a Broadway play yet?

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gmc's avatar

You are taking it , to the next Level - my Dear - Thanks !

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