Beware Geeks Baring Gifts
On the internet it's best to look a gift horse in the mouth.
6/8/20264 min read
Don't look an gift horse in the mouth (unless it's on the internet)
That seems reasonable enough. If the offer of a gift horse comes from a friend, there’s probably very little downside, but if you accept one from someone you don’t know on the internet, there’s probably a degree of caution required. Beware geeks bearing gifts and all that - Look what happened to the Trojans.
So, whenever you see a gift horse on the internet, check its dental records first otherwise you may fall for one of these scams:
Phishing: You sign up for a free horse, then you're bombarded with spam selling you a donkey ride franchise on Skegness beach.
Bait & Switch: You think you're getting a free horse and before you know it there's a 2,000 lb hippopotamus sitting on your sofa.
The Subscription Trap: You sign up for a "free horse" but don't read the small print. Ever seen Mr. Popper's Penguins? Same outcome, only with horses.
The Freemium Scam: You download free riding lessons and then your computer locks up and you need to buy a £60 "Pro" saddle to fix it.
Vishing: You're called several times a day by an AI voice clone telling you to send money or the horse gets turned into glue.
All of which is an elaborate way to explain why you might be skeptical about downloading my free book The Dragon & the Hummingbird. See what I did there?
Because who’s to say this rather magnificent tome about capitalism and climate change (316 pages of fun, facts and filosophy) may also be a trojan horse out to take advantage of your good nature? On the other hand, who's to say downloading this book might be the smartest thing you’ll do all year?
Making that decision is difficult because our brains are not set up to understand what to make of free stuff.
In general, we use price as a short-hand proxy for quality; what economists call the price-quality heuristic. So we assume a £2 bottle of wine will be undrinkable, while the same wine with a £45 price tag will genuinely taste better.
Following this logic, I wonder if I charged £45 for my book people would consider it the work of a literary genius. Unlikely. But that’s not the point. I wrote this book to be read rather than to make me money (which is just as well.)
However, even if all this flimflam I’m serving up has disarmed you I’m still faced with a serious hurdle to get over - which is…
…Nobody Reads Books Anymore
Let’s face it, books are sooo Twentieth Century.
Seriously, who nowadays sits in a leather armchair, smoking their pipe and enjoying a good read? Life’s too short
For a book to succeed in our modern air-head ADHD society, it has to deliver a real and practical advantage within its first five pages. So if my book doesn’t explain how to get a better table in a restaurant or give you the instructions that lets your Firestick hack everything on Sky and Netflix for free, what’s the point?
Well, Mr, Mrs, or Ms. TLDR - you might be surprised to learn The Dragon & the Hummingbird actually does provide TANGIBLE BENEFITS within its first five pages. And that’s because, as well as delivering an excellent storyline, (don’t believe me? - read the reviews) The Dragon & the Hummingbird is the undisputed Toilet Book of the Year*.
(*I made that up, though I suspect it's true.)
This book is an essential edition to the toilet canon. So, unless you've got chronic constipation (in which case, see a doctor) this is by far the best way to productively use that dead time you otherwise spend staring at the back of the toilet door. Every future visit to the smallest room in the house will begin with a full bowel and an empty head and end with the situation entirely reversed.
What’s more, there’s an additional bonus to tell you about.
Kicking Bezos in the Goolies
Downloading this book means that each time you now take a dump you will also be kicking that other little shit, Jeff Bezos, in his goolies!
We live on a beautiful and unique blue marble, floating out in the vastness of empty space. As far as we know, we are the only lifeforms to enjoy such unimaginable riches. And what are we doing with this incredible privilege? We're fucking it up.
Our planet is on life support, and this book is the instruction manual on how to give it CPR.
And Amazon is the one standing at the back trying to unplug the defibrillator.
Little Jeffrey may be a hero in his own home, but to the rest of us he’s just another megalomaniac with a subconscious need to prove something to his mummy. To achieve this he seeks to make a profit from every single book sale on the planet. And to execute this bizarre plan he has chosen to enslave the creators of books inside a system that works entirely for his own benefit.
Should we allow this to happen? Should we let him to reduce us all to non-player characters in his personal Bezosworld?
No we should not.
The Hummingbird Effect
There's a traditional story at the heart of The Dragon & the Hummingbird which tells of a great forest fire. While the other animals flee in despair, a tiny hummingbird flies back and forth from the river to the flames, carrying a single drop of water in her beak.
"What are you doing? What difference can you make?" the other animals mock.
"I am doing what I can," the hummingbird replies.
And while it’s true that a single bird changes very little, a flock of billions can change everything. And, by getting this far into this over-long article, you're already part of that flock.
This is what I call The Hummingbird Effect: a shared public space where taking back control gathers momentum and resolves into action.
What Next?
Download the PDF (or buy the paperback at near-cost if you prefer).
If the ideas move you to "Buy Me a Coffee" as a thank-you, that would be excellent too. But there is no pressure and no guilt trip attached.
Drop me a note with your download if you like; I'd love to hear from you.
Join the LinkedIn ‘Hummingbird’ Group, a non-hierarchical space for people to meet and share ideas.
Do whatever makes you happy. I'm just pleased you're here.
Now download the book and stop being a wimp.
Many thanks,
Gramskii