Politicians Sound Like CEOs

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Not long ago, Democrats were convinced that Kamala Harris was the best candidate in the history of democracy. The media praised her competence, intelligence, and experience.

The same thing happens in Germany. Government politicians talk about how amazing the country is and how great their achievements are—every single one of them. The current president even said, “We live in the best Germany that ever existed,” just a couple of weeks ago.

But it turned out Kamala Harris was one of the weakest candidates in modern history. And it turned out that the last several German governments have run the country so deeply into the ground that only massive new debt can ensure pensions are still paid out next year.

So why do politicians and pundits keep talking about how wonderful everything is when reality is the complete opposite?

The answer might be: Politics is like the stock market. And politicians are just CEOs.

Not long ago, Germany was shaken by a huge scandal involving a company called Wirecard. It was essentially a PayPal clone with German roots, reporting massive profits in the Asian digital payments market. The company rose quickly, making it into the DAX—the German equivalent of the S&P 500. Politicians proudly presented Wirecard as a “tech success made in Germany” and praised its two leading figures as symbols of German innovation.

But everything Wirecard reported turned out to be a lie.

The company inflated its stock price with fake financial reports and transactions that never happened, all while being possibly connected to Russian and Chinese intelligence networks. Wirecard collapsed just as fast as it had risen.

During its rise, Wirecard’s CEO constantly celebrated the company’s numbers in the spotlight. His second-in-command was hailed as a young tech genius—the next “Steve Jobs,” as they always say. Both enjoyed the fame. Even when the first reports surfaced claiming Wirecard might be nothing more than a bubble, they stayed calm and talked about a bright future.

When it all fell apart, one of them vanished somewhere in the East—possibly Russia—beyond the reach of Western law enforcement. The other, the official CEO, still insists the company wasn’t a fraud and claims he could have saved it if only he’d been given more time.

In short: nobody in charge ever took responsibility. They never admitted any wrongdoing. They didn’t even acknowledge the reality of the fraud after the bubble burst. Not. A. Single. Time.

And isn’t that exactly what we see in politics today?

Politicians always talk about how great things are—even when they’re not. As long as they’re in charge, everything is supposedly perfect. And when they’re out of power, they insist everything will be perfect if we just vote them back in.

It’s like stock-price management: never admit mistakes, never discuss problems, always insist everything is fine—because anything else would drive the “stock price” down.

In politics, we voters are the stock price. And they try to lie, deceive, and manipulate their way into higher voter numbers at all cost. Even after their bubble—or an entire country—has burst, they still pretend everything was fine.

It’s pure psychopathy. Pure stock-market bullshit.

Collect All Story Ideas – Especially the Bad Ones

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I keep a swipe file on my computer, and I have physical notebooks scattered everywhere. I even keep one next to my bed in case an idea hits me right after waking up.

My swipe file has grown to more than 300 story ideas by now. I’ll never be able to work on all of them—and to be honest, some of them aren’t even worth developing. But I still collect every single one.

There’s a good reason for that: over the years, I’ve realized that different parts of my mind seem to wake up depending on which stage of writing I’m in. To make the part I currently need work best, I have to quiet down all the others.

For example: The most creative part is needed for generating new ideas. But during editing, I need a completely different mindset, because the creative side is terrible at judging what I’ve written. Outlining requires yet another area—a blend of creativity and critical thinking.

When I don’t let one specific part take over, they all start talking over each other. And when that happens, nothing works: idea generation, outlining, editing… everything just falls apart. Too many cooks spoil the broth.

That’s why I collect ideas without judging them at all. I don’t rate them or evaluate them—I just write them down.

Only later, once I’ve finished a book and I’m deciding what to work on next, do I go through my swipe file and rate the ideas.

I’m convinced that if I tried to generate and judge ideas at the same time, I would discard most of them, assuming they weren’t good enough. Eventually, I’d end up with no ideas at all, because the constant cycle of generating an idea, rating it poorly, and throwing it away would discourage the creative part of my mind from offering ideas in the first place.

By making it a habit to let ideas emerge freely and uncritically—and by writing them down no matter how good or bad they seem—I’ve allowed the creative part of my brain to express itself without hesitation.

Of course, everyone works differently. But if you’re thinking about writing your own stories, I recommend trying this approach: Keep a notebook with you at all times and jot down whatever comes to mind while watching a movie, reading a book, daydreaming, waiting at the doctor’s office, or listening to music. I’m pretty sure that when you look back over your notes after a month, you’ll find at least one idea in your swipe file that’s worth developing.

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Books to Read #7)

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This novel is often cited as one of the major inspirations for Orwell’s 1984. It was written during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, which ultimately led to the communist takeover. We depicts a collectivist future where a totalitarian state controls every aspect of human life. Conformity and mass surveillance define this world. Individuals no longer have names; instead, they are assigned numbers, like the protagonist D-503.

When D-503 meets I-330, a member of a revolutionary group, he begins to question his existence in the One State. Meanwhile, the regime attempts to eliminate imagination and emotion from the human mind through a newly invented psycho-surgical procedure called the “Great Operation.”

The book can be a bit challenging to read, as it’s written in the form of a journal. Whether due to the translation or the era in which it was written, the prose doesn’t always flow smoothly.

If We did inspire Orwell, it did so in the best possible way. Orwell didn’t merely adopt Zamyatin’s ideas and steal his vision—he instead added layer upon layer of new concepts. In the end, only the dystopian setting and the idea of a man rebelling against collectivism because of his fascination with a woman remain similar.

If you enjoy dystopias, We is a must-read. If you don’t, start with 1984 or Brave New World first—and pick up We only if you enjoyed those two.

Btw, you can read it for free at the Project Gutenberg here.

SEO Basics: Improve Page Loading Speed

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One of the most important things to check when you’re not getting any traffic is your page’s loading speed.

I once read that most people won’t wait longer than three seconds for a site to load. I’m not sure if that number is exact, but I know I don’t wait long myself. Especially, when I visit a new site for the first time, my patience is limited—and I assume most internet users feel the same way.

To make sure your page loads quickly:

  • Choose a reliable hosting plan
  • Use a professional theme
  • Avoid unnecessary plug-ins
  • Upload images at the smallest size you actually need
  • Use a plug-in designed to speed up your site

These are the key steps. A high-quality hosting plan is usually the most significant factor—although also the most expensive. A professional theme is next; it’s typically affordable and a one-time purchase.

The more plug-ins you install, the slower your site becomes, so only use the ones that are truly necessary. Some plug-ins help clean up your cache and improve overall performance, though, such as LiteSpeed Cache.

When it comes to images, avoid uploading them at full resolution. Think about the size at which the image will appear on your site, resize it accordingly, and reduce the file size. You can also compress your images to size the file down further:

  1. Use GIMP (a free Photoshop alternative) to resize images
  2. Use this free compressor to reduce file size

If you want to test your page loading speed, you can use free tools such as: Page Speed Insights

Not All Traffic Is Good Traffic

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The spammers and scammers are back. For the last few days, I’ve been getting a flood of comments linking to gaming websites. It’s all generic nonsense like, “What a great article. I had a blast reading it.”

It looks like they’re running bots that spam the internet with this meaningless garbage just to plant links that redirect users to their shady gambling sites and help them rank higher in Google.

It’s a mess.

The early days of the internet wasn’t free of scams either. I remember the first “chain emails” that were sent around to everyone. Sometimes it was about a Nigerian prince who needed two thousand dollars to regain access to his account—once he had the money, he would supposedly send you back $20,000. What a deal. Another chain email I remember receiving as a kid claimed you’d be cursed if you didn’t forward the message to at least five people in your contacts. Sometimes a virus was attached to it, other times it was just about a link in the mail they wanted you to click on.

Despite such scams, back then you could at least now that when someone left a comment on your content, it was a real person. Nowadays, most comments are automated bot messages sent from entire farms in India.

The more the internet gets flooded with automated content, the more the metrics for a successful online platform shift from raw numbers to the quality of your traffic.

What’s better? 1 million views a month? Or 1,000 real readers a year?

Obviously, it’s the latter. And the more these ridiculous sites use bots to promote their low-effort content, the more people will focus on the quality of their audience rather than just the number of views.