The AI overlords think I’m an immensely happy person… with eleven fingers.

Contact

I’m easiest to connect with over at LinkedIn - Ben’s profile, and you can follow me on Bluesky. They’re the only platforms I use (any profiles on other platforms are either dormant ones that I’ve set up for API access or, more recently, fakes).

Email: [email protected]

The Point of My Articles

I want to know how much control I have over my own life. I suspect not much — technological progress pulls us along and shapes us into versions of ourselves that we didn’t choose. That’s been happening since your ancestors discovered the shovel, worked the land with it, and denied their children a natural pre-shovel lifestyle. I think that was a wise decision.

I don’t have to hunt through the cold of an English winter, burn dung when I can’t find firewood, or kill strangers before they kill me because thousands of years of post-shovel innovation have made my life easy. But I’m not entirely sure they’ve made it more fulfilling.

At least, the best parts of my life — love, fatherhood, friendships, etc. — have nothing to do with garden tools. By contrast, the most annoying areas of life — clearing spam out of my inbox, selecting squares with traffic-lights in them, checking the news every half hour — are very much driven by consumer tech. Or maybe just facilitated by it?

Writing helps me find out.

Professional History

I was a data scientist before it was cool, and when you still needed mathematical training and a post-grad degree. Dark days, but I enjoyed them. Now, I consult on data science, and I write.