FIRST, let’s establish that I’m not blind lover of things electronic or digital, including AIs. I personally think that like nuclear power plants, we’ve a lot to learn about the downsides and side effects of these commonly extolled human endeavors. Still, I admit to a particular and equally peculiar character propensity I call “Toad’s Wild Ride.” I am attracted to anything and everything new, shiny and, alas, that includes things electronic and digital, including AIs like ChatGPT,...

I’M going to have fun with this one! Flim-flam is insincere or nonsensical talk. It also is a swindle or con. Boyancy is all about ending up on top with optimism and cheerfulness. If that isn’t an interesting paraducks I don’t know what is. But in my “new” dictionary for our new times, flimflamboyancy is all about surviving this increasingly “fake” world while optimistically and cheerfully retaining hope for something better. 

Is our world increasingly “fake?” I would say yes...

AH, did you catch that? “Virtually” nothing to say. That is, nothing — nada, nope — to say about the virtual world, but a lot to say about the “real” world.

Less than a decade ago, the distinction between real and virtual was quite clear: The real world was where one lived out one’s mortal life, for better or worse, gaining experience over time from face-to-face and sometimes body-to-body social encounters. No more. In many cases, the virtual world is these days more real than ...