Bawl Éireann: Ireland's toddler TDs

@wwaycorrigan

It had been a while! Below is a photo of my latest letter to the Irish Independent. It's also available at https://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/letters-toddler-tds-rowing-about-the-right-to-bicker-in-the-dail-while-adult-voters-look-on-exasperated/a641231413.html.

Irish politicians. What a bunch! A little more nap time should see them right. 

Time to ground Ireland's petulant politicians?

After interactive intoxication, comes social media moderation

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

Fellow imbibers, you know the feeling. The morning after the night before. 'OK, it was good fun but did I have to binge so much?'

When the hangover is particularly bad, the hair of the dog feels like the best, nay only cure. Or so we convince ourselves. And sometimes this does indeed do the trick, mentally at least. A few more doses of the poison that had done the initial damage, some rest and we're our regular selves again. Until the next time.

It's all a blur: Just like with alcohol, there really is no safe level of social media use.

Sobering thought

Anecdotally speaking — and from the odd personal experience (I'm usually good at not going over my limit these days) — hangovers tend to be worse the older one gets, from roughly mid-30s onwards. Equally worse is the beer blues, that uncomfortable feeling of self-reproach, when one has drunk to excess.

What often follows is a determination to go sober for a time. Some manage to do this for weeks or even months, especially if their last booze session ended badly. Others kick the habit completely.

I wouldn't mind going months without beer. My problem — or my excuse, if you will — is my unsettled lifestyle together with the country I'm in. Drinking out in standard tiendas in Colombia is one of the cheapest socialising pursuits on offer.

So come 6 or 7 o'clock of an evening the temptation for some tienda-beer time is strong. If only there were decent, more readily available zero-alcohol brews in such tiendas. Would I drink them, though? Is it the alcohol-fuelled sensation I'm after or merely the social setting?

'Early social media use was like downing Jägerbombs in the nightclub following an already heavy evening in the pub. It usually led to sloppy public displays of affection or ill-advised encounters of the brutish kind.'

Whatever the case, I've been more conscious of my Colombian beer consumption of late and have tried to cut back. (Again, I say Colombia because the last time I was back in Ireland I quite easily went weeks without any alcohol. Largely for the price reason already mentioned, I find it harder to not drink in these parts. Also, in Ireland I tend to have more non-beer-related activities with which to occupy my time.)

In fairness, I've always had a love-hate relationship with drinking, yet I feel I'm now more sincere, if not too successful, in my efforts to drink less. That I've just entered my 40s plays a part in this, no doubt. I may be becoming slightly more sensible. That's the hope.

Meta monsters

I get the same vibe shift — to use the phrase of the current zeitgeist — in not only my relationship with social media but also that of many other people. It's like there's a collective middle-aged-style questioning of our online behaviour, particularly with what I consider to be the more bathetic and vain platforms, Facebook and Instagram.

(Those Meta monsters are akin to cheesy daytime TV, dealing in lifestyle affairs, albeit Instagram does have a worrying mild-porn side to it. Elon Musk's X is of the late-night, heated-political-debate variety, swinging from the astute to the absurd. In case you're wondering, I'm not on TikTok and have no intentions of doing so. Ditto with Bluesky.)

In the early days of interactive intoxication, the average Facebook/Instagram user i.e. one whose content-sharing is not done with the aim of generating income either directly or indirectly, went on a post blitz. This appears to have waned of late. Many are now adopting a more considered approach.

In revelling terms, social media use fifteen or so years ago was like downing Jägerbombs in the nightclub following an already heavy evening in the pub. It usually led to sloppy public displays of affection or ill-advised encounters of the brutish kind. Or sometimes both. These days, it's more in the style of a quiet drink or two at the local. A reserved affair.

I can imagine those who follow me on Facebook or Instagram reviewing my recent activity and thinking that I'm still in the blitz phase.

In my defence, the chief reason I continue to use social media is to share the content I create, hoping — in vain — to drive more traffic to my blog, as well as to my Spotify and YouTube channels.

'They get their kicks via different interactive engagements, similar to Ireland's Zoomers cosying up to cocaine as they down less alcohol.'

Even with posts that aren't directly linked to my online material, the idea is that more interaction is better than the opposite in this gig. Or, as I'm wont to say, it's better to be a known loser than an unknown one.

I know, I know, one can reasonably ask what's the point when, after over thirteen years, all my blogs, vlogs and podcasts haven't returned me even a penny in income. I could waste time on worse things, though, couldn't I? The other side to this, of course, is that I could spend my time on more wholesome pursuits.

Poisoned posting

What's more, alongside the changes in netizens' interactions with social media, the platforms themselves have evolved as both they and regulators try to find safer ways to operate. This evolution has further boosted the voice and influence of the haves while simultaneously weakening more so the role of the have-nots.

This is the exact opposite of the fanciful vision that Facebook et al. had at their inception. Aiming to empower the proles has merely resulted in giving greater power to the plutocrats. Plus ça change.

Added to this, the younger generations who grew up with social media are less hung-up about it all. In the same way that Gen Z — or Zoomers, as they're also called — in some high-income nations are drinking less alcohol compared to their predecessors, these younger folk are more inclined to be voyeurs rather than active participants on Facebook and Instagram.

This is not to say that theirs is a healthier way. It's just that they tend to get their kicks via different interactive engagements, similar to Ireland's Zoomers cosying up to cocaine as they down less alcohol. Or, more positively, as has been suggested elsewhere, they use Facebook less as a platform to share personal moments and to socialise virtually than as a source of gathering and sharing information via groups and suchlike.

So as we older generations rethink our relationship with social media, it needn't be a case of complete abstinence. Then again, just as health experts advise about alcohol, the safest amount of online socialising might be zero. And if forced to continue with just one of the two poisons, I'd opt for the liquid kind.
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Appreciating Colombia's approach to health and safety

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

Living relatively independently in Colombia, a nation that hasn't completely tried to control almost all aspects of its citizens' lives, means that I've been shielded from much of the health and safety silliness that has infected many high-income countries over the last few decades.

Sure this motorbike is only half full!

Yes, Colombia does have some perplexing rules and regulations. What's more, some of its citizens are anal about rather harmless practices yet blasé when it comes to acts that are highly damaging all round.

Nonetheless, even for things that are officially outlawed here, law enforcement is generally lax. Depending on the situation, this can work to one's advantage or drive one insane. On balance, however, I feel I'm mentally up in the deal living in Colombia. The matters that affect me most hover around my Goldilocks zone.

Shamberger

I did, though, get a taste of how others are forced to operate and strictly follow questionable procedures when I worked on a short recording project at a multinational global technology company 'driving energy innovation for a balanced planet', as it describes itself.

(I don't think I'm breaking any contract agreement by naming the company, so here goes: It's Schlumberger, or SLB as it's called these days. It has a big base in the town of Cota close to Bogotá. I was tempted to run with Shamberger in the title of this piece but considering I haven't got paid yet, that might have been a bit too risqué.)

Before one even goes through SLB's turnstiles, it's clear these guys don't do health and safety by half measures. (This is in contrast to many Colombian companies that are often all show in this regard but then offer little in terms of substance. Again, it's the approach of 'As long as we have it on paper, the practice doesn't matter.')

On seeing some odd-looking contraptions before the turnstiles, I was initially dumbfounded, thinking that we were returning to the covid-19 pandemic-era tests. But tests for covid-19 they were not. They were breathalysers for alcohol and, I assume, other narcotics.

Now, the production company with which I was working didn't tell me in advance that there'd be such a test. Nonetheless, the four 750 ml Costeña beers that I'd drunk the evening before had clearly gone through my system. I got the green light to proceed. (Had such machines existed at places in which I worked full-time previously, I might have struggled to get the green light one out of every five times or so.)

'After successfully and miraculously navigating the stairs, we were then sent to a safety briefing to learn of all the other nearby threats to our existence and how we could competently avoid them.'

Then, just after the turnstiles, before we undertook the herculean task of ascending a standard stairs, we were told how to do so correctly. 'Stay to the right, in single file, and ensure you use the handrail at all times. On ascending, hold on to the top of the handrail, on descending, hold on to the bottom of the handrail.'

Goodness! All those times I've gone up and down stairs, hands swinging by my side. How reckless. In my defence, your Honour, I've heard fitness experts say that using the stairs freestyle can help to build and maintain one's core strength. So SLB could be accused of accelerating the development of health problems in its employees.

Be that as it may, considering some of us in the production crew were novices at this handrail procedure, it was little short of a miracle that we successfully navigated the stairs.

Drive me crazy

After that formidable feat, we were sent to a safety briefing to learn of all the other nearby threats to our existence and how we could competently avoid them.

I shan't go into all the exciting details of that, only to mention that some insects, such as wasps, are potentially dangerous. Come on SLB, you've got to see things from the wasps' perspective. They're the victims here.

We were also given guidance on how to drive carefully and safely. OK, SLB is a US-headquartered company but this is Colombia. One has a better chance of locating the legendary city of El Dorado than finding a local who drives carefully and safely here.

Amusingly enough, an SLB head, a Colombian, rebuked the production company bosses for arriving in a jeep that carried a passenger in the boot. It was pointed out that the boot had a retractable seat and, so the counterargument went, that it was therefore legal to travel with someone seated on it. The SLB guy, not to be seen to back down, said it was unsafe, particularly as the boot was full of equipment.

Now, if this exchange had happened in say, Germany, I wouldn't have questioned its bona fides. But Colombians getting worked up about unsafe driving practices? I'm not having it.

This is a country, after all, where it's common to see four or five people ride on one motorbike, without a helmet in sight. If safety is considered at all, it's in thinking about where's best to place your youngest passenger. Tucked in between you and the handlebars? Or somewhere between your wife at the back of the bike seat and the other two kids in the middle? Trial and error, I guess.

Sterilising health and safety

I'm not, however, criticising this, even though I wouldn't do it. It's the traditional Colombian do-so-at-your-own risk approach. For the most part, I think that's a fair way to live one's life. (Do note that for this to truly work, one must take responsibility for one's actions. And accepting culpability when things go wrong is the harder part.)

The other extreme is what we mentioned at the start, the pullulation of health and safety procedures that we've seen across the Anglosphere and continental Europe.

There is a more agreeable middle way. In my experiences, Colombia is closer to that than most high-income nations. It allows for a little more individual daring as opposed to effectively moulding the masses into a state of inertia: 'Careful now, that's not allowed.' That latter imposition goes against human nature, even if it's done with the best of intentions in mind.

It was this daring, the adventurous spirit of its settlers — particularly those who roamed west — that played an important role in making the United States of America great. It's not overstating it to say that the shackles of over-the-top health and safety rules have played a part in that country's stagnation in certain areas. Basically, too much government interference, just like in Europe.

President Donald Trump has wasted no time in tackling the often pernicious DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) culture that has taken hold in the US (similar expressions of this are in force elsewhere). Where he has led, others have quickly followed in what is being referred to as an overall vibe shift, not just in the US but outside its borders, too.

In many ways, DEI can be seen as an offspring of the more ludicrous elements of health and safety.

So while the child is now being chided, we also need to take the parent to task. Sterilise health and safety before it sterilises us.
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Listen to The Corrigan Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".