Here's a draft Preface from the Misogynist. It will be up to the reader (and the main characters) to figure out who wrote this...
I hate people.
People are the reason this world is such a mess. They’re gullible. They believe what they’re told. They’ll follow charismatic leaders into self-destruction and destruction of others. Give them a political or religious cause and they can justify any action no matter how immoral, no matter how many others suffer from their actions. People lie. They cheat at almost any opportunity. They protect themselves at the expense of those around them.
Tell them a lie and bury it in half-truths or truths taken out of context and you can create true-believers. With the advent of the Internet and Social Media, people with crazy ideas have the means to convince others of their righteousness. Say something sensational, get a following, go viral. More and more will believe you. You can be famous. You can have influence. You can be
rich.
And the rich. Don’t get me started. I don’t mean people who are well off. I mean the truly rich, people who have more money than they could spend in ten lifetimes. They have walled estates around the world, cars whose cost would feed a hundred families for ten years, clothes that cost more than many people’s homes. And what do they do with this money? They protect it. They get richer. And they get richer at the expense of others. Their money and the power that comes with it allows them to buy politicians who can convince their constituencies to vote for things that are bad for them but that will benefit their wealthy partners.
The rich get richer and richer, the poor get poorer and poorer as they’re promised that there’s a way to have the American Dream. And the middle class, they don’t even see it coming. They’re
so damned complacent that they work their jobs, come home and watch television, and repeat. They’re getting poorer too and when they lose their homes to failed economies, they join the poor as the rich get richer.
I can’t fault the poor. There is too much stacked against them. The few that succeed, never look back. Why would they want to return to desperation when they worked so hard to climb out? Those that don’t get out fall into hopelessness, petty crime, drugs, and violence that gets propagated to their next generations.
There was a time years ago when the poor had a chance. Stay in school, get an education, go to college, and succeed. Those days are long gone, but the rich keep selling them this ideal and
after they give everything they’ve got and fail to succeed multiple times, despair sets in.
Desperate people do desperate things. They want to believe in some salvation, be it religion, drugs, revolution. Crowds become mobs and mobs destroy without thinking. For God’s sake, if people can’t even watch a soccer game without rioting and killing fellow spectators, what hope is there?
I went into high tech thinking I could make a difference. I honestly believed that information would set the world free. If even the most downtrodden had access to knowledge and experience from around the world, they could educate themselves. They could recognize that their situation was not normal. They could rise up and demand change. Information seemed like the great equalizer.
I invented technologies that made the Web real. Other technologies made it accessible in the most remote places on earth. Together, we should have made a difference. We patted ourselves on the back when the Berlin Wall fell. Many thought Reagan’s arm race with the Soviets brought it down, but those of us in tech knew that without the information about the West that so many received through the Internet, it might never have happened. We enabled
communication like it had never existed before. Radio Free Europe? Nice idea, but it didn’t have the reach, allure, or the wealth of information we provided via the Web. And it certainly didn’t allow anyone to connect to anyone else anywhere, any time.
Yes, we thought the World-Wide-Web meant World-Wide-Change. But commercialism trumped us. It’s all about advertising and popularity now. Like it, retweet, vote, give a thumbs up. Hire a social media consultant and flood the web. Distract people with sensational products, games, or videos. Hide the substance. Or, if you’re one of the big oppressors out there, capitalize on this propaganda machine that Hitler never dreamed could exist. Think what he did with propaganda. You ain’t seen nothing yet.
We have the rich who feel entitled to get richer, we have the complacent middle class, and we have the poor who are lured into making choices against their own interests. We have mobs, extremists, suicide bombers, amoral leaders. We thought information would change all that.
We gave a gift to mankind and they perverted it. If it sounds like the story from the Garden of Eden, maybe it is.
I’m tired of seeing our technologies perverted to make the rich richer at the expense of others.
Something needs to be done. No, I need to do something.
_____________________________________
I hate women.
The ‘fairer sex’ isn’t so fair once you get to know them. They’re jealous of each other and will stab other people in the back faster than any sleazy businessmen I’ve ever met if it helps them look better among their peers. They use love and sex to lure men in to get what they want and then move on when they have it. Men are such suckers. We believe from an early age that we will find a kind, caring, loving, supportive woman, a life partner. Advertisements promise sex.
Movies and novels promise true love. But women are calculating. The Serpent chose one of his own to destroy Paradise.
Like my wife Janice. We married young. She was beautiful and intelligent with a goal of making a real difference in the world. After law school, she worked in legal aid, helping the poor and unprotected. I believed in her and what she did.
But then I got rich. Not just comfortable, not just well off, RICH.
Janice changed. She quit her practice and became a socialite. I never imagined this was possible. She always seemed so grounded. Suddenly, life became about being seen. People needed to know who we were and how wealthy we were. No, not in dollars, but in what we could afford to do or buy. She needed the biggest house with the best view, expensive clothes, homes
in exotic places. We had to throw regular parties for the elite of the San Francisco Bay Area.
I set up charities so that we could ‘pay-back’, and asked her to manage them, thinking that would bring back some of the ‘make-the-world-a-better-place’ Janice, But these too became vehicles for her social climbing.
When I started giving away our fortune, she filed for divorce. She wanted to make sure she got her half before it became too small to support her new lifestyle. Truth be told, I was glad to see her go.
But I started looking around. Other high tech founders were going through the same fate. Sure, there were many who reveled in their new-found wealth and the social doors their wives opened. But others, those with a conscience, those true believers, often found themselves in my place – stunned at what their wives had become.
I think it’s even worse for the entrepreneurs who haven’t made it yet, who risked it all to be successful in bringing their visions to the world. Their wives hung around for one or two startups, but at some point, they decided that their husbands were losers. And for them too, it was time to move on to greener pastures, leaving in their wakes visionaries who were already suffering after their exhausting efforts led to failure, now emotionally devastated too.
I lost two of these friends to suicide. They could have made a difference but now they’re gone. And the wives moved on, their exes’ deaths just confirming their decisions.
Yes. I hate women. I’m tired of seeing women destroy the vulnerable. Something needs to be done. No, I need to do something.
_____________________________________
I hate people.
People are the reason this world is such a mess. They’re gullible. They believe what they’re told. They’ll follow charismatic leaders into self-destruction and destruction of others. Give them a political or religious cause and they can justify any action no matter how immoral, no matter how many others suffer from their actions. People lie. They cheat at almost any opportunity. They protect themselves at the expense of those around them.
Tell them a lie and bury it in half-truths or truths taken out of context and you can create true-believers. With the advent of the Internet and Social Media, people with crazy ideas have the means to convince others of their righteousness. Say something sensational, get a following, go viral. More and more will believe you. You can be famous. You can have influence. You can be
rich.
And the rich. Don’t get me started. I don’t mean people who are well off. I mean the truly rich, people who have more money than they could spend in ten lifetimes. They have walled estates around the world, cars whose cost would feed a hundred families for ten years, clothes that cost more than many people’s homes. And what do they do with this money? They protect it. They get richer. And they get richer at the expense of others. Their money and the power that comes with it allows them to buy politicians who can convince their constituencies to vote for things that are bad for them but that will benefit their wealthy partners.
The rich get richer and richer, the poor get poorer and poorer as they’re promised that there’s a way to have the American Dream. And the middle class, they don’t even see it coming. They’re
so damned complacent that they work their jobs, come home and watch television, and repeat. They’re getting poorer too and when they lose their homes to failed economies, they join the poor as the rich get richer.
I can’t fault the poor. There is too much stacked against them. The few that succeed, never look back. Why would they want to return to desperation when they worked so hard to climb out? Those that don’t get out fall into hopelessness, petty crime, drugs, and violence that gets propagated to their next generations.
There was a time years ago when the poor had a chance. Stay in school, get an education, go to college, and succeed. Those days are long gone, but the rich keep selling them this ideal and
after they give everything they’ve got and fail to succeed multiple times, despair sets in.
Desperate people do desperate things. They want to believe in some salvation, be it religion, drugs, revolution. Crowds become mobs and mobs destroy without thinking. For God’s sake, if people can’t even watch a soccer game without rioting and killing fellow spectators, what hope is there?
I went into high tech thinking I could make a difference. I honestly believed that information would set the world free. If even the most downtrodden had access to knowledge and experience from around the world, they could educate themselves. They could recognize that their situation was not normal. They could rise up and demand change. Information seemed like the great equalizer.
I invented technologies that made the Web real. Other technologies made it accessible in the most remote places on earth. Together, we should have made a difference. We patted ourselves on the back when the Berlin Wall fell. Many thought Reagan’s arm race with the Soviets brought it down, but those of us in tech knew that without the information about the West that so many received through the Internet, it might never have happened. We enabled
communication like it had never existed before. Radio Free Europe? Nice idea, but it didn’t have the reach, allure, or the wealth of information we provided via the Web. And it certainly didn’t allow anyone to connect to anyone else anywhere, any time.
Yes, we thought the World-Wide-Web meant World-Wide-Change. But commercialism trumped us. It’s all about advertising and popularity now. Like it, retweet, vote, give a thumbs up. Hire a social media consultant and flood the web. Distract people with sensational products, games, or videos. Hide the substance. Or, if you’re one of the big oppressors out there, capitalize on this propaganda machine that Hitler never dreamed could exist. Think what he did with propaganda. You ain’t seen nothing yet.
We have the rich who feel entitled to get richer, we have the complacent middle class, and we have the poor who are lured into making choices against their own interests. We have mobs, extremists, suicide bombers, amoral leaders. We thought information would change all that.
We gave a gift to mankind and they perverted it. If it sounds like the story from the Garden of Eden, maybe it is.
I’m tired of seeing our technologies perverted to make the rich richer at the expense of others.
Something needs to be done. No, I need to do something.
_____________________________________
I hate women.
The ‘fairer sex’ isn’t so fair once you get to know them. They’re jealous of each other and will stab other people in the back faster than any sleazy businessmen I’ve ever met if it helps them look better among their peers. They use love and sex to lure men in to get what they want and then move on when they have it. Men are such suckers. We believe from an early age that we will find a kind, caring, loving, supportive woman, a life partner. Advertisements promise sex.
Movies and novels promise true love. But women are calculating. The Serpent chose one of his own to destroy Paradise.
Like my wife Janice. We married young. She was beautiful and intelligent with a goal of making a real difference in the world. After law school, she worked in legal aid, helping the poor and unprotected. I believed in her and what she did.
But then I got rich. Not just comfortable, not just well off, RICH.
Janice changed. She quit her practice and became a socialite. I never imagined this was possible. She always seemed so grounded. Suddenly, life became about being seen. People needed to know who we were and how wealthy we were. No, not in dollars, but in what we could afford to do or buy. She needed the biggest house with the best view, expensive clothes, homes
in exotic places. We had to throw regular parties for the elite of the San Francisco Bay Area.
I set up charities so that we could ‘pay-back’, and asked her to manage them, thinking that would bring back some of the ‘make-the-world-a-better-place’ Janice, But these too became vehicles for her social climbing.
When I started giving away our fortune, she filed for divorce. She wanted to make sure she got her half before it became too small to support her new lifestyle. Truth be told, I was glad to see her go.
But I started looking around. Other high tech founders were going through the same fate. Sure, there were many who reveled in their new-found wealth and the social doors their wives opened. But others, those with a conscience, those true believers, often found themselves in my place – stunned at what their wives had become.
I think it’s even worse for the entrepreneurs who haven’t made it yet, who risked it all to be successful in bringing their visions to the world. Their wives hung around for one or two startups, but at some point, they decided that their husbands were losers. And for them too, it was time to move on to greener pastures, leaving in their wakes visionaries who were already suffering after their exhausting efforts led to failure, now emotionally devastated too.
I lost two of these friends to suicide. They could have made a difference but now they’re gone. And the wives moved on, their exes’ deaths just confirming their decisions.
Yes. I hate women. I’m tired of seeing women destroy the vulnerable. Something needs to be done. No, I need to do something.
_____________________________________
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