Consider this an apology.

Last week in the comments under my column about placing too much trust in AI detectors, and artificial intelligence in general, I apparently hurt the tender feelings of a troll by remarking, under another commenter’s response (“The irony …”), on his consistent use of Grok AI for his responses, wondering if perhaps he had stock in the company.

Dude blocked both of us. But seriously, read the room. If someone is opining on why implicit trust in AI isn’t wise, don’t respond with something you had an AI tool write.

But hey, dude: I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. If I’d known it would upset you so much … well, I still would have made that comment because your reliance on AI is truly disturbing.

A few other things I’m sorry for:

💵 That more people don’t seem to understand what poverty does to you, and that the effects can last a lifetime.

I’ll never stop being that kid whose toys many times were second-hand through family and friends or yard sales, or were scavenged from the dump (yes, there were times we went to the municipal dump to drop trash off, but also to see if there was anything salvageable there). Who didn’t have a car in high school and lived out in the country so didn’t have an after-school job so that I could afford things (and who often had to not participate in things I had no way to get to). Who had to scrape to find a way to pay for a Beta Club trip with my quiz bowl team (of which I was captain) after we won the Arkansas title to go to the national convention because I couldn’t participate in the fundraising the other members did. Who paid for college with scholarships, grants and loans because parental contribution was minimal, for obvious reasons. Who still struggles, especially in this economy. The bootstraps idea only works if you have the money for the boots. It’s not like we’re out here living lavishly and not doing anything at all to try to get ahead.

So many people are just one emergency away from disaster, something that really hit home for me Tuesday after I had to call a plumber and found I have a major drain stoppage (I ran the washer Monday and it backed up into the toilet and tub … so gross) and am looking at $1,000 or more for the repair, plus I’ll have to have a tree taken down at some point because it’s likely growing into the pipe. (If you can help, you can donate to my GoFundMe that I’d already started for medical and living expenses here, to my Venmo [@blooper0223], PayPal [@BrendaLooper] or CashApp [$BrendaLooper2] … and if you have leads on flexible remote jobs that won’t interfere with my day job, or house/cat-sitting jobs in the Little Rock area, send them on. I hate asking for money and would rather earn it, but things are dire at the moment.)

🧚‍♀️ That more people don’t appreciate whimsy.

This world is not a fun place to be right now, especially if you’re a woman, a person of color, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, disabled, etc. Some of us have to develop coping strategies so we don’t start smacking random people who. Just. Can’t. Leave. Us. Alone. (Especially when we’re just existing, working, and trying to pay our bills; don’t bother us, we won’t bother you.) For many of us, our strategies involve little things that make us happy. Maybe it’s donning purple and painting things purple (guilty) because you love the color and so did your mom. Perhaps it’s doing a little happy dance when something goes your way (sometimes a big happy dance, though probably not Balki’s “dance of joy.”).

Or maybe it’s referring to furry members of your family (because for many of us, that’s what pets are) as fur-kin: fur-nephews and nieces, grandkitties and granddoggies, fur-sons and daughters, and the like. I mean, I’ve always been a fan of furry critters (cat lady from waaaaaaay back), but I take a special kind of joy in using “fur-kin” language in my columns simply because it triggers one of my trolls … maybe at some point he’ll just decide his blood pressure can’t take it anymore and he’ll find a better hobby. 😏

If whimsy bothers you so much, just ignore it. Unlike second-hand smoke, it’s not hurting you unless you let it.

✅ That fact-checking, and facts in general, are scoffed at.

The scourge of politics as it’s practiced now has damaged so many things, among them reality. Don’t like history because it accurately describes something your favored group did? Rewrite it and just zhuzh it up so your guys look better, or just plain lie about the other camp’s evolution and say they never changed (highly unlikely; the Democrats of today are far from the ones of Andrew Jackson’s day, and neither Abe Lincoln nor Ronald Reagan would recognize today’s GOP; people and times change, so there’s a natural evolution in political thought). Don’t like what scientific discoveries reveal about sex and gender, epidemiology, the age of the Earth, etc.? Ignore it or pooh-pooh it because those scientists who’ve studied these things their entire careers know nothing and are only saying these things for the money and clicks (yeah, if you really think they’re raking in the dough, I have a story you’re not gonna like, because most people aren’t making huge amounts of money, especially if they’re not CEOs).

History and science can change when there’s new information. That’s how history gets fleshed out further (like when, say, letters from the era are discovered that lend new context to events, or historians are able to figure out that a king’s burial spot was under a car park in Leicester). That’s how treatments for disease are created and improved (in the case of COVID-19, a new virus at the time, we watched it happening in real time, which just helped feed conspiracies from people who have no desire to understand science) and new ways of locomotion are developed. Reality is where facts live, and where we should live too.

I mean, I get that reality sucks, but we all have to deal with it somehow.

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

More than anything, I’m sorry that too many people refuse to treat their fellow humans with even a minimum of kindness if they suspect that they are from the “other” camp, whatever that camp might be. They make no real effort to get to know them, but rather make up their own stories about who those people are (heck, I still have people who think that I run the paper, hand out contracts to writers, handle syndication contracts for cartoonists, moderate the comment boards and so many other things that I literally do not do, because, for one thing, I simply don’t have the time to do it, and for another, I’m certainly not being paid to do it). They could make the effort to try to find out actual facts about them (like that Abdul El-Sayed isn’t a socialist, but a progressive Democrat). But no, that’s too hard. They find ready-made hyperpartisan fodder that has at best only a glancing resemblance to truth, or they construct their own realities, and woe be to them who dare shine a light on the truth they ignore.

Here’s the thing: We’re all on this planet together. For the most part, our own actions don’t really affect anyone other than ourselves and a small number of others because we’re all just trying to make it through the day, the week, the month, the year. But when you’re out in the world, why not think of the Hippocratic Oath as your goal: First do no harm.

Want to set off firecrackers (in August, seriously?)? Maybe check local ordinances as well as if your area is in a burn ban or at heightened wildfire risk. Want to dump chemicals in a creek? Yeah, just don’t do that; animals and humans may drink that water. Want to help yourself to your neighbor’s things? That’s a crime, so don’t do it unless you’ve been given permission or you’re willing to face the consequences because one of these days, you’re going to pick the wrong neighbor on exactly the wrong day.

Want to be a jerk? Go ahead, but don’t complain when people get angry with you.

Sorry about that. OK, not really.