21 Comments

well written.

I love the very artistic pictures!!

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Well that was just delightful! :)

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I loved this. It illustrated the idea of underprotecting on the phone, but overprotecting in the world. Right now, I don't think we can overprotect on social media, but we definitely can outside of social media

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As a big HP fan, this was delightful. But the big question is: Who is He Who Must Not Be Shared and how does Harry cancel him without his smart phone??

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A nice idea, but IMO the story fell flat. Remember the first rule of storytelling: Show, don't tell.

Interrupting the narrative by citing a bunch of social media statistics was irritating and will be unconvincing to anyone who doesn't already recognize the problem -- assuming you can get them to read the piece.

A better story would have Harry enthralled by all the "magic" tech, dive in head first, and then suffer the consequences over time. Yes, I know it's only a short story, but you could do something like skipping forward to one year later, and show what a wreck Harry's life has become. At *that* point, citing the statistics would come across as explanatory of the events rather than as an "author filibuster".

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Yeah, I kind of felt this too. If you need footnotes to explain the analogy - maybe it's not a great analogy?

Totally on board with the sentiment, though.

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Absolutely true to the core,

We knew smartphone to the core,

(its design, coding, signal & image processing, communication, network)

Hope GenZ soon realize its core!

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"Harry Potter and the Dungeon of Fetishes"

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...haha ... very worried about the next chapter chatting to Dumbledore. Has he got Police clearance?

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Need a class on the protection from the dark web.🤔

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Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful story :)

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Older millennial parent of 6 kids here. I love what you’re doing and know you need to draw the line somewhere, but the idea that waiting to 16 is a good solution seems ridiculous, and your story really drives that home. “As exciting as this smartphone is, sir, I would like to hold off until age 16, when my brain is more developed and equipped to navigate these dangers.” That came right after the description of pornhub and TikTok. As if a 16 year old brain should have access. Not that even 18 is great, but it’s certainly better than 16.

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I think the point was that it was based on pragmatism and not making the perfect the enemy of the good, even if granted it is not quite on 100% philosophically stable ground. By 16, the worst of puberty is basically over, and at least the most fundamental development of the brain is as well.

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Excellent.

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There's just too much money in messing with childrens minds. Too much money in messing with adult minds too. Pharoah had his priests. The modern day ruling classes and their huckster priests, the children of Edward Bernays will do whatever they can do and since they own and control what we laughingly call democracy people like yourselves are tilting at the same ol' windmills. Thanks though. If you ever drove down the road in a blizzard and passed an open buggy you would understand that people can believe anything.

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I love CDI! I wrote a blog for them a few months back and they're wonderful to work with.

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~99% of physicians went along with or believed in or were intimidated or punished into supporting the COVID 1984 Scam. Most still do while the Less educated have mostly figured it out. ALL you need to do to counter the fraudulent narratives is to check the death rate in countries that "treated" the virus with things like Ivermectin or Hydroxycloroquine. Money+ indocrination/propaganda equals compliance. The next generation in the western world is lost.

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Okay Pops, let’s get you inside.

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