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Emigrant

Why is it perfectly acceptable for Brits to emigrate in large numbers for work, study, or retirement to Australia, Spain, USA, Canada, France, New Zealand, and UAE — and not draw comment or ire? Do the chattering classes ever lament, “We were not asked!”

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My mission

I’m an advocate of:

1. Plain English

2. The Open Web

3. Inclusive Minimalism

Just thought I’d share that.

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Rejuvinated

Sometimes you just need to get stuck into something engaging. So that’s exactly what I’ve done in the quiet downtime after work.

A three-hour project, in which I’ve built upon an old HTML book template (a previous after work adventure) to create myself a browser-based eReader, complete with navigation, colour modes and font switching.

And why not? I’m never going to get published, so why not build a micropublishing platform all of my own, to publish for the pure joy of it? A tinkerer’s delight.

I must confess, I feel rejuvinated building something with back-to-basics code. Semantic HTML, CSS and a smattering of simple JavaScript. That’s it. No vast libraries of bloated dependencies.

Just me building something simple for the fun of it. I must admit, I’m enjoying that. It’s like a trip down memory lane to a simpler time, before advertisers and big tech bamboozled us with complexity.

Perhaps, one day, I will share it with you.

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Unpopular

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Island of strangers

Our country is already an island of strangers. It has nothing to do with immigration.

Few of us know our neighbours more than four doors down. People don’t greet one another in the street. Commuters don’t speak on the train.

Unless, of course, you’re originally from Yorkshire, in which case…

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Forever derided

Are people laughing at me? Or am I paranoid?

I’m delivering virtual training to a group of staff.

Two women sitting together look at me, then immediately burst into laughter. My first reaction is to assume they’re mocking me.

But, of course, I’m not in the room there with them, and their microphone is muted. I can’t hear the context of their conversation.

For sure, their talking throughout my presentation seems rude and off-putting, but who knows? Perhaps they have undisclosed access needs.

Give them their seventy excuses, I tell myself. But this is hard, for it seems to be my default experience whenever I wander out in public.

Forever derided. For my voice, my slow speech, my appearance. Is that true? Or does self-doubt simply distort my perception?

From here on, I think I shall pre-record my training, offering bitesize learning on-demand. Or else revert to one-to-one sessions, where interactions are far more personable.

I can’t operate in crowds. I never have been able to. I’d rather hide away than stand and be judged by others, not for the knowledge I might impart but for how I sound or look.

Sometimes, I feel like asking aloud, “What is the joke?” But do I really want to hear the answer?

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Involuntary reaction

Here we go again.

Every time a particular colleague speaks in group settings, I experience a strong involuntary reaction.

It’s difficult to explain because I genuinely like them, get on well with them in one-to-one interactions, and support the work they lead.

However, whenever they speak in public forums, including virtual meetings, I find myself experiencing a very intense physical and emotional response.

It’s not about disagreement with what they say at all. It’s an unwanted reaction seemingly outside my control.

The reaction of my body is completely irrational, involuntary, and disproportionate. But it remains, nonetheless.

As soon as they start to speak, I experience chest tightness, nasal congestion, and a strong urge to leave the space. And, indeed, I almost always do.

It feels like a form of sensory overload or second-hand embarrassment, even though I know rationally they’re being sincere and doing good work.

I’m aware that this reaction is coming from me, not from anything they’re doing wrong.

I suspect it may be related to neurodivergent traits I carry, resulting from or impacted by a genetic variation.

It feels like a kind of heightened sensitivity to tone, authenticity, or social incongruence. Perhaps that triggers a fight-or-flight response in group settings.

I wish it wasn’t so, but it’s all too familiar by now. It’s as if there’s a mismatch between the external environment and my internal processing of events.

It happened again just this morning. I joined a meeting only to leave a couple of minutes later, completely overwhelmed by these involuntary sensations.

Tight chest, congested breathing, racing pulse. And all because a colleague was being excessively nice to the group, friendly and cheerful.

What a strange creation am I!

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Identity thieves

The other evening, my wife was listening to a lengthy speech by an American motivational speaker expounding why Islam is supposedly the fastest growing religion in the west.

My wife was enthralled by the lecture, but I was unconvinced. “Be careful,” I told her, “that sounds like AI to me.”

It seems I’m attuned to picking up on the nuances that others miss. The same video crossed my own timeline today, giving me a name to work with: that of Mel Robbins.

Though I had never heard of her until this evening, it didn’t take long to track down her genuine content. She’s a New York Times bestselling author and host of an award-winning podcast with 28 million followers.

From her own channel, we can view her entire back catalogue, where we discover no such content. Even more helpful, we can listen to her real voice to compare to the suspect video. By now, I am convinced the latter is a fake voice clone.

For those who do not know, services like ElevenLabs enable you to clone voices for text-to-speech purposes. It is intended to help people like me — with stuttery influent speech — produce flawless narrations for videos from script, without constant re-recording.

However, there’s really nothing to prevent a mischievous user from cloning anybody else’s voice without consent, other than a surge of conscience when selecting a checkbox to confirm you will only use authorised recordings. Obviously a big ask for some.

Yet it’s not just the voice that sounds not quite real — though admittedly Generative AI is getting better at simulating the variations in intonation all the time — but also the script itself. Though you might ask ChatGPT to write a speech in the style of Mel Robbins, it would still lack authenticity.

It’s possible that others have noticed that too. Indeed, amidst the proliferation of pro-Islam videos attributed to the author on YouTube, some now add the line “Inspired by Mel Robbins” in recognition of it not being real, while nevertheless continuing to use her cloned voice.

Others, operating from multiple newly-minted YouTube accounts, have no such scruples. For these, anything goes. Perhaps they think they’re doing a good thing in the service of their religion and have not considered the ethics of their actions at all.

But I doubt it, for the comments beneath each video have a ring of fakery too. The entire enterprise has a feeling of instrumentalisation, using deception to influence opinion. It is so far removed from the ethics and morals of our tradition that it is a public relations exercise liable to backfire spectacularly.

There is no place in our deen for these devious activities. We hold to the notion that “truth stands out clear from error”. The way does not require false witness to change hearts. On the contrary, the Quran emphasises that the successful are:

"Those who do not bear false witness, and when they come across falsehood, they pass by with dignity." --- Quran 25:72

To be charitable, we might ascribe these actions to misguided youth with good intentions, yet to develop the wisdom required of believers.

To be realistic, we should teach one another to be more discerning about the information we consume in this age of deception.

More than that, we might advise each other to learn about the technologies that surround us. If anything, it shows that there’s a good reason to keep your face and voice out of the public domain if you can avoid it.

All around us there are unscrupulous people lacking in ethics, wisdom and good character. Our task is to be the opposite, striving for the truth by truthful means. May God make us of those who repent, believe, and do righteous deeds.

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Esc

It used to be that we turned to the internet to escape our lives. Now, we return to real life to escape the internet.

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Here I am

Sometimes, we have to remind ourselves who we are and what our role is.

Sometimes, we get so bogged down in helping others with their mundane tasks that we forget what we’re here for.

Sometimes, we have to refocus on our own work, blocking out all of the other noise, to remember, “Actually, I have something to contribute here.”

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Job satisfaction

The trouble with job satisfaction for me…

I feel unfulfilled and undervalued, and appear to have little influence to bring about any meaningful change around me.

These factors would have me looking for a new job.

But I collect a decent salary and have flexible working conditions that generate ease.

And so whenever I feel particularly uninspired, I have to ask myself:

“Wouldn’t it be daft to sacrifice the latter comforts for more job fulfilment?”

For, indeed, there’s no guarantee any other job would offer that.

Don’t I just have to accept that work is work, and its primary function is to provide an income to fund the rest of our lives?

I suppose this is the tension many people feel: the trade-off between comfort and meaning, or stability and fulfilment.

Only, in my case, perhaps the problem is simply me: the limitation of cognitive function, making me think myself unqualified for any other role.

In truth, I think I am stuck with what I have. But also the truth: perhaps this is the best for me anyway.

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Hallucinations

The bright young healthcare professional wonders out loud, “Why can’t I use AI at work as I do in my private life?”

Because, whatever their early promise, none of these platforms are yet accurate, clinically safe, or transparent in how they store or use your data.

It’s one thing for an AI chatbot to hallucinate information when responding to personal questions, quite another to trust it with patient care.

But the hallucination problem will be resolved over time, right? If anything, the evidence points to it getting worse. In short, these services are far from reliable.

These bright young professionals may not realise that medicines and medical devices go through the most rigorous evaluation before being licensed for use in healthcare.

Systems in use may well seem archaic to junior doctors so used to the convenience of a smart phone and watch. Maybe that is the direction of travel, but not everything can move at the pace of consumer tech.

In the consumer space, the users themselves are often the guinea pigs, helping to make software better, one release at a time. But that method of delivery is limited by safety considerations in the workplace, where accuracy can be a matter of life and death.

Many of my own colleagues have already integrated AI into their workflows, legitimately or not. They were surprised during a recent conversation to discover that I — tech nerd extraordinaire — am an AI sceptic.

I certainly see that it has some potential. But I also see people investing in half-baked products that are not yet ready for commercial use. I would include many enterprise products delivered by major suppliers in that category.

Generative AI is a hype bandwagon that many have jumped on lest they be left behind. Only, after investing billions in the tech, many have belatedly realised it is far from ready for the mainstream.

I wonder how many people check the outputs they get from AI. How many query the data they get back when it seems wrong? How many would know to if they asked it about topics they themselves know nothing about?

There have already been significant incidents in cybersecurity, law, and journalism, where humans have invested too much confidence in generative AI, only to belatedly discover its limitations.

Hallucinated software functions, hallucinated legal cases, hallucinated news stories. Imagine that in a healthcare setting, where a hallucination might result in a critical incident.

Still, I see colleagues in other services investing in solutions touted to be utilising cutting-edge AI. Is it telling that those most wary of these developments are the techies? Could it be that they have insight the non-techs don’t?

“Why can’t I use AI at work as I do in my private life?”

For the same reason you wouldn’t prescribe the untested herbal remedies you’ve sworn by for years. Yours is an evidence-based practice, isn’t it?

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Carers go home

Oh wow, has Britain fixed its carer recruitment crisis? No, it hasn’t. We’re just playing pretend.

We’re pretending that there’s a domestic recruitment pool prepared to work at the minimum wage to provide adequate care to the UK’s ageing population.

Those working in the care sector would say no, there isn’t. Chronic underfunding means they cannot offer competitive salaries for challenging work.

But government policy does not care for the real crises facing Britain, like rising health inequalities and declines in social welfare.

The one challenge in the government’s sights is the rising popularity of the Reform Party, which threatens its electoral majority.

If you’re worried about the care of your parents as they get older, I suggest now is the time to start considering your options, for the government has no plans to address the crisis in care.

Meanwhile, time for all the Reform UK comment trolls to step forward to take up training to fill all our skill shortage roles. Make Britain Great if you dare.

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Three vignettes

Sometimes in the quiet hours of the night, clarity arrives. The past night was like that, wrought with the heaviest of dreams.

Waking in the morning, I felt moved to ponder what each vignette of the night might mean. In turn, tentative understandings compelled me to reconsider the paths I’ve been walking of late.

Already, I recognised them as suspect, of dubious worth, requiring excision. The night’s dreams simply served as confirmation: an injection into my psyche from outside myself, telling me, yes: reform.

Easier said than done, for this realisation comes at a great personal cost. Some might call it cutting your losses; others a waste of money and time over many months. Purging all that my heart knows to be doubtful will pain me.

But then, there was the symbolism of my dreams: letting go of something I’ve built. In my dream, it was the extension on my house brought to nothing. In the dream, we sacrificed it to preserve the foundation. It was as if it represented my soul.

The Quran reminds us: “Perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah knows, while you know not.” (Quran 2:216)

There’s profound wisdom in this verse. What seems like loss in the immediate term often reveals itself as gain in the broader journey. What pains us in the moment may protect us from greater harm ahead.

The test of character isn’t found in never making mistakes, but in how we respond when we recognise them. Do we cling to what’s comfortable despite knowing better? Or do we accept the temporary pain of reform for lasting peace of conscience?

The hope is that in purging from my life all extraneous inventions of my own, the core structure of my soul may remain intact. I pray that what’s essential — faith, principles, integrity — will endure and grow stronger through the process of honest self-correction.

With every hardship, says our Book, comes ease. What we sacrifice for the sake of alignment with our values and faith is never truly lost, but exchanged for something better — if not in this world, then certainly in the next.

While the immediate loss may sting, there’s often a strange serenity that comes in following what we know to be right, especially when it’s difficult. There’s freedom in release and protection in submission to higher principles.

Sometimes the most important growth comes not from what we achieve or acquire, but from what we have the courage to let go of. I pray for strength in this journey of reform, and for all those facing similar moments of necessary change.

We must make this prayer sincerely, for what follows is the genuine test. Will I follow through to do what needs to be done, or will I waver once more, because my heart is too attached to all I have done? Will I make the change needed, or will I succumb to temptation once more?

Here, I recall the three vignettes of a heavy night of dreams. Three scenes that ought to serve as a warning for me. A final call from beyond myself, confirming all that my conscience knows to be true. So to myself I must now declare: “Over to you!”

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Deceitful dawah

To be truthful requires a conscious effort. A decision. A commitment.

It could be said that with the tools at our disposal, more effort is required than ever before.

Our deen declares, “Do not mix truth and falsehood.”

But technology now enables us to generate realistic images that look like photos, video that is sometimes quite convincing, and clone voices to make others say whatever we want them to.

It is here that we are required to make moral choices, regardless of good intentions.

You may think your actions are noble and good, but they are made suspect by the method of delivery.

Does it matter that your words are true if you disseminate them via a fictional podcast show, interviewing fictional personalities embodied by avatars and generated voices?

Can we say that a project is good if it demands the use of generative images and videos passed off as real?

These are the real tests of an age in which it is easier than ever before to make the make-believe almost real.

To interrogate yourself: am I mixing truth and falsehood here? Might I be held to account for this? Might this be ethically dubious, at best?

These are real trials. Not abstract what ifs. They are the wellspring of the inner battle between the good and bad within, between the scheming and self-reproaching nafs.

Maybe the scheming nafs is utterly convinced by the rightness of its actions. Or if not convinced, at least absolutely attached, until leaving it becomes nearly impossible.

These are indeed our major trials: to be truthful or not. To be transparent, ethical, and sound in deeds.

And so it is in every moment of our lives whether at work or play, or in service of ourselves or community. But above all, in the promulgation of our faith.

Dare we countenance this?

That there may be no reward whatsoever in dawah delivered by deceitful means? That is, a call to faith that mixes truth and falsehood.

What if our good intentions are in fact the seeds of our own demise?

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