Shuffling robots won’t stop the human race sprinting to its own finishing line

Sorry, what did you say? I was distracted.

Yes, I am listening. It’s just that an email popped up to make me aware of the “imminent” launch of a new product brand, advising me to “watch this space”. So I’ve been watching it for the last half-hour. Nothing appears to be happening but I don’t want to miss it when it does.

Self-distraction, I have found, is my only escape from a world hell-bent on self-destruction.

If it’s not bad enough that the planet is simultaneously on fire and submerged under water, the very people who have the power to improve things seem hell-bent on making them worse. The only nations around the globe who don’t have a bat-shit loon at the helm are those that can’t do anything about it anyway.

Embarrassed by the uselessness of their leaders, citizens reassure themselves that it could somehow be worse. Here in France, a country inexplicably ruled by an massively unpopular narcissistic sociopath, friends in my hiking club would still tease me every Sunday by asking me to explain the very existence of Boris Johnson. Well it’s like this, I’d respond defensively, it could be worse.

I can’t tell you how much I am dreading this Sunday.

Reading the news, watching the reports, listening to the updates… gives you nothing but the blues. I definitely needed some distraction in recent weeks, and so I went hunting for it.

One sure-fire source of distraction that has regularly proven evergreen in originality and sheer preposterousness is to check what Elon Musk is up to. Unlike typically dull billionaires, Musk always does things the hard way, possibly deliberately, which makes for great entertainment. He’ll invest in Bitcoin, then slag it off, triggering a 4% dip in value. He’ll try to buy Twitter, then slag it off, fouling the bid and triggering a wholly unnecessary legal battle.

Musk can’t just buy something: he always has to strike up an argument, trash his own reputation and piss away money for no good reason. Imagine him going into a shop to buy a bar of chocolate; 10 minutes later the surrounding streets would be littered with rubble, the air filled with the wail of ambulances and the scream of police helicopters, while fire-fighters tackle the blaze and a heavily armed SWAT team breaks in through the back to release the hostages.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Musk is fabulous. He is terrific value for a distraction-hunter.

I love, for example, how he captured headlines with the Optimus robot, presented on 30 September during Tesla’s ‘AI Day’ even thought the robot doesn’t seem to have any AI in it. Oh it’s easy to scoff, so I won’t. If you want some informed opinion on the Optimus, read what robotics experts made of it.

No, what makes this fun is that only a few years ago Musk himself was warning the world about robots taking over. “I want to be clear. These are not things I wish will happen; these are things I think probably will happen.” Well, they are more likely to happen now that Tesla’s involved.

Mind you, in the same interview he predicted that “almost everything will get very cheap”. Yup, you can put a tick by that one. Oh, and as recently as July this year he predicted that inflation would fall by the end of 2022. Another tick for Elon.

How I would love to scry the same crystal ball that he’s using… and then do the complete opposite. Economists should scour his every utterance for hot tips on what is not likely to happen. But nobody seems to be remotely phased by Musk’s behaviour, possibly because he is a thoroughly successful fellow despite everything. As French comedian Colouche put it: “Rich idiots are rich. Poor idiots are idiots.”

I even had a chat with him on Twitter, sharing what I hoped might be a useful resource to help him implement his formula for world peace.

The link to the video resource in question is here.

Talking about technologically enhanced success, I was equally distracted recently by the tale of the teenage chess player accused of cheating with the help of vibrating anal beads.

There’s always a bit of a buzz around chess tournaments but this was taking it a bit literally. Still, I am not a very good chess player and have often wondered how to improve my game. So I thought, what the heck, let’s give it a go.

I can confirm that while it lifted my mood a little – my opponent even mentioned that he heard me humming – it didn’t help my game much. In fact, I found I kept knocking pieces over accidentally and sometimes had trouble reaching over to the pause button on top of the clock without coughing. I didn’t manage to beat White, but it beat the blues for a while.

Talking about things up its own arse, I was sorry to hear that doyen of French cinema’s Nouvelle Vague Jean-Luc Godard had metaphorically checked out of Marienbad last month. Yes, I know that’s not one of his films; it was a joke. Anyway, Godard’s name always raises a smile rather than a rolling of eyes in the unpretentious Dabbsy household.

This is largely due to the following short scene in Godard’s Weekend in which Truffaut-favourite Jean-Pierre Léaud has his car stolen on a remote country lane while he is inexplicably singing in a public telephone box a description of the events as they unfold. Look, just go with it, OK? Honestly, as distracting cinema goes, it’s worth more than 1,000 Star Wars spin-off CG explosions.

By the way, Godard notoriously refused the Order of Merit. He insisted that he didn’t like taking orders and had no merit. I can relate to that, and I suspect you do too. Sing!

Still talking about sticking things up your arse, it was National Kink Day on Thursday 6 October. How did you spend yours? Swinging from the chandelier in Bat-man Y-fronts? Arguing over the ‘safe word’? Or did you get the wrong idea and put Village Green Preservation Society on repeat?

According to Alice Leach, creative director of dating app Tapdat, the top five kinks among the app’s users are:

1. Foot fetiches

2. BDSM

3. Temperature play

4. Lingerie

5. Role play

I was most disappointed that ‘chess’ did not even reach the top 10. What a shame. Pff, nothing but the blues here.

I need another distraction – and quick.

Elon?

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