What is wrong with the picture described? Let’s start with the fact that the regional screen agency had precisely nothing to do with the film in question. Oh, its maker was a squash buddy of one of the big cheeses at the agency, but they had put zero funding into the film. The filmmaker was hoping for support for the film’s launch, and hoped to curry favour by saying how fab the film agency had been. But there was precisely zero formal relationship between film and agency.

Maybe I should instead tell you about the agency potentate who, on being asked to view the work of a promising filmmaker, believed the cinematography to be avant garde because she didn’t realise she was watching the DVD in the wrong format, and on that basis decided she didn’t want to deal with them. The same woman studiously avoided me until wind of something or other I’d done got to her. At which point she greeted me saying ‘I’ve been hearing good things about you…’.

Sometimes it’s better to be ignored. I’ve chosen these particular pieces of dirty laundry from an overfull basket because I’m mulling over the news that the UK Film Council is to be scrapped. There’s a statistic doing the rounds stating that for every £1 invested in film, £5 will come back your way. Which strikes me as an overoptimistic analysis of the financial performance of films with backing from the UKFC or its franchises. Not a week before, I happily retweeted something saying that there was a 2:1 ratio for money invested in the arts generally. Hang on? Film has a fivefold rate of return, but the arts in general just double? I don’t need to be an accountant myself to scent some screwy figures at work there.

With the UKFC out of the way, will public funding of films be out the window? No, since there is still the option for Lottery money to be put into them. And I feel happier about going to a Lottery board than approaching a regional screen agency, with its partialities and intrigues — and I speak as someone in their good books. Besides, if we really are facing unprecedented cuts in the public sector, I’d feel happier remioving money from a privileged layer of middle managers than from a hospital. Especially after witnessing the stunning quality of compassionate care that my father received during his run-in with cancer, which ended when he passed away in the early hours of Monday morning.

Anyway, I’m not sure that even in an ideal world I’d want much public investment in the film sector. I’ve met far too many precious arses who want to subsist from the public purse and have no idea what a paying audience is or how to attract one. And film really is about bums on seats.

Somewhere in all this admittedly muddled and biased thinking is the notion that I’d like to see an indie sector to arise in British film more along the lines of the one that America has got used to. A functional economy that allows filmmakers to get by through concentrating their efforts on quality work at a sustainable level. In America, that culture has given rise to some of my favourite films, from the work of the Coen Brothers to Michael Clayton. If that’s something that could emerge from what’s happening now, then I hope you’ll join me in a salute to the end of the UK Film Council.

Part of the answer is that filmmaking is overwhelmingly a white male business. There are few enough credible roles for women (especially those over 40): why would there be good ones for non-white actors? Depressing, huh? It doesn’t get much better when you think about the black characters that white writers come up with. Witness the phenonomenon of the magical negro…

Even the name makes my flesh creep…the magical negro is a character seemingly in touch with mystical powers, which he’s willing to put at the service of a white protagonist for whom he will sacrifice his own life. Stephen King has perpetrated more than his fair share of this stereotype — look at The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, The Shining and The Stand for filmed examples.

Magical negroes aren’t exclusively male — the Whoopi Goldberg character in Star Trek: The Next Generation is never short of a homily when she serves drinks in the ship bar. Oracle is another insightful black mama, in The Matrix, which also features Morpheus being black and portentuous. Were such characters three dimensional, there’d not be a problem here — the issue is that they’re formed with the same cookie cutter. If Morgan Freeman is to be believed, God Himself is a magical negro, at least if Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty are anything to go by

Much the same charge can be levelled at the martial arts masters and priests portrayed in western films. Whereas white guys over 50 can be adulterers, assassins, husbands and heroes, if your ancestry is Asian it’s inevitable that you’ll sprout a beard and spout wisdom. Nice work if you can get it, if you’re an actor…but the perpetuation of stereotypes helps nobody. Sure: there really are wise old heads of martial arts schools, but I’d lay money they’re outnumbered by mortgage advisors and civil servants and other people whose stories I’d love to see.

How do we change the racial cliches that tv and film perpetuate? I’ve taught writing classes to maybe 200 people, less than 10% of them non-white. But among their number have been some of the sharpest writers I’ve come across — one Asian woman has gone on to write a fairly well-received novel, a Caribbean woman and two Asian men have made short films, and I’m working with a non-caucasian filmmaker on a feature project.

I have mixed feelings about positive discrimination, but am all in favour of the BBC’s plans to increase the numbers of non-white writers working for the corporation. There’s more to it than that though: the whole culture of drinks-based networking is something that suits white males more than it does other people. If your religion prevents you from drinking, or you’ve got childcare to think about, a lot of industry events aren’t as welcoming as you might imagine.

It’s the 21st century. But I find that hard to believe when I go to a cinema to see a popcorn blockbuster in the form of Transformers and am presented with alien robots who have unaccountably acquired a taste for behaving like something from the bad old days of Black & White Minstrels. If you don’t get the wrongness of that characterisation, the problem of race and media is even bigger than I thought.

There are a few ways to look at this phenomenon. Easiest is to suggest that they’re all a slightly (but not much) more grown-up version of the hastily scribbled ‘…and I woke up and it was all a dream’ that school kids can be relied on for when the teacher has set an essay at the start of class and the bell has just sounded. Which is to say, it’s a cop-out.

But even if it is a cop-out, why that particular one? Hmm. Well, in the case of Lost the series title is probably an accurate description of how the writers felt when they’d got several seasons in and had detail upon detail of accumulated mythology to explain away somehow. You can understand the temptation. Exactly how do you explain away the myriad layers of nonsense that happened on that mysterious island without resorting to the supernatural? And if you’re going to head in that direction, you might as well embrace it wholeheartedly, even if it leaves a lot of peoples’ heads unsatisfied.

You could say that this in turn is evidence of the puddingheadedness of the general public, a good number of whom despite the best efforts of Mr Dawkins and his fellow rationalists continue to consult their stars while having their palms read and auras fluffed. With so many people letting the side down, it’s easy to cynically give them what they want in the form of some vague spiritual pablum that handwaves everything from Hurley’s hair to the invisible monster, which I now assume to be nothing less than the Holy Spirit.

As for Battlestar Galactica, there always was a Mormon subtext to the original series I understand. Show creator Glan Larson was a Mormon, and with characters called Cain, Adama and Lucifer it doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to pick up some of the show’s subtext. Having God intervene at the finale may have been a shot from left field to viewers interested in the show’s convincing political intrigues, but let’s remember that there are people including recent American Presidents who believe that the Middle East will be a focal point for the fulfilment of Biblical prophecy.

At least with Ashes to Ashes the denouement is in line with what went before. Ever since it started with Life on Mars there’s been an element of karma to what’s going on with Gene Hunt and crew, so it’s only fitting that the series be wrapped up with that aspect to the fore. Besides, how else are you going to resolve the show’s mysteries? In this case at least, getting all spiritual was a fitting finale.

Back to where we came in though: what does all this say about the contemporary viewer? A few years ago X-Files tapped into the then zeitgeist with a series that promised mystery and conspiracy but no resolution. Running from 1993 to 2002, there seemed to be something very millennial about Chris Carter’s series, and the way it pitted a sceptic against a believer, held together only by prolonged sexual tension. Now…what?

Perhaps the 21st century is all about incorporating sprituality into the mix. If robots and Mormonism can go together, a tropical island offer a chance of redemption, and a 70s cop can be a guardian angel, what tv shows will emerge in an era where all-encompassing fundamentalism of various sorts from free market atheism to militant Islam rubs shoulders with the very individual salvation offered by the personal growth movement?

First, I call a contact who spent a very productive day some weeks back coaching myself and co-conspirator Andy Tudor about our slowly simmering multi-platform project for younger viewers. We had a good chat, I confirmed that we were on track for meeting the deadlines we’d agreed…and she dropped a bombshell. Only, bombshells have unpleasant connotations whereas this news was very good indeed: she indicated her readiness to invest a four figure sum in the project, so convinced is she by its creativity, credibility, and our ability to work as a team. Gosh.

This offer came totally out of left field: Andy and I are aware that we need backers, but we’ve been concentrating up till now on getting the work done. The next milestone is getting a project bible together and having it trademarked by a firm of very cool media lawyers in London. Which is one relevant example of where it’s helpful to have someone backing you to the tune of a four figure sum. There will be many others on this particular road.

That was all sorted by 11am, so it seemed wise to go with the flow and get some writing done. And I’ve — finally — completed a script that means a lot to me, and a few people have already expressed an interest in having heard the basic concept. It’s inspired by my experiences in a mental hospital, when I was sectioned there some years back. But, honest, it’s not a pity-me biographical piece. Not remotely. I instead used the pieces of what happened, to create a…well, I still don’t know what to call it exactly. A gnostic pyschodrama? Sounds good, even if I’m not sure what one of those is. Let’s stick with it for now.

What I can tell you is that it’s called The Devil You Know, and it’s about a cop who cracks while he’s undercover, obsessed by one particular bad guy. When he’s sectioned, and allowed out into the community, he meets a woman he gets on with. They arrange to meet again — but she’s killed. And he’s convinced that the bad guy is responsible. What follows is partly his journey towards accepting that his obsession is bogus. But it’s also about an internal transformation: having failed to achieve what he set out to do, what does he need to become in order to succeed, and is there a penalty to pay for that success?

Sounds fun, huh? Well, it’s pretty dark and intense in places. But there are glimpses of humour and humanity too. Each sheds light on the other. And I’m very proud of it. I wanted to write about the experience of psychosis and have a positive outcome to the protagonist’s experiences, since that’s my own experience. There’s more than enough grim stuff concerning mental health out there already: I’m not at all one for claiming to speak on behalf of a community, but I wanted to make my own feelings clear, even if the story they’re attached to has little to do with my own hospital stay.

So, completing The Devil You Know is a bit of a victory for me. I’m very happy with the way the script has turned out, and have sent copies to several trusted readers. In due course, with rewrites, it’ll become part of a package that’ll hopefully secure me an agent. I’ve deliberately avoided that until now, since I wanted to have not just any old script portfolio, but one which represents me at my very best. And I now have that selection, with which I hope to make some steps forward in the months to come.

William Goldman’s famous aphorism about the film industry is ‘noone knows anything’. As a generalisation it’s hard to argue with, but I’d be willing to put money on someone knowing something: that films rushed into production before the director and producer have established their working relationship are unlikely to be troubling film festivals for awards. OK, maybe not the benchmark that matters to this particular director — but at the rate he’s headed I think it’s reasonable to predict a downward spiral that will, at best, result in a film that doesn’t get seen by anyone even if it’s completed. The producer is already edging her way out of the situation, and frankly I don’t blame her, in much the same way that I’d have reservations if the first thing I saw after being asked to strap on a seatbelt is an approaching juggernaut. Life in the fast lane can swiftly turn into a way of becoming another highway casualty.

Anyway, the producer is now returning to her original plan, which involves me working with her to develop and sharpen a script for a short film she’s wanting to make. I was offered the chance to script it, but have plenty on my writing plate already and would prefer in this situation to do what I can to help her do her best. Her concept is fascinating, drawing on personal experience and perceptions that I can’t wait to see her put into film form.

All of which stresses the collaborative nature of the medium. Auteur theory is the creation of academics who’ve never for the most part had anything to do with the making of actual films. It’s an extension of the notion that a single creator is responsible for other artworks, such as paintings. Which itself overlooks the extent to which the grand masters of art frequently had studios whose members had input into the finished product. Sure, the maestro may have had a signature style — but that’s just as true of much classic pottery, where designs were painted by hired hands.

Personal experience tells me that collaboration pays off. I’ve been working with one particular filmmaker for over a year, first on a short film and then on the feature script he’s developing from the same premise. It’s been a fascinating experience for both of us, and one that’s paid off: the short film was singled out by — well, let’s just say a Very Big Cheese — as being the best drama at a festival where it was shown, and VBC expressed interest not only in the director, but in me. The filmmaker’s generosity is characteristic of his attitude, and though neither of us can say what the outcome will be of VBC’s attention his largesse is as welcome as it is uncommon.

These things are what make the days go better. I watched a superb series of filmed interviews with writer Alan Moore, and among other gems was him postulating that we should behave as if our actions will resonate through eternity since, mathematically speaking, that may very well be the case. OK, not the sort of arithmetic I remember from my own school days…but a truly beautiful sentiment from a man who consistently acts from the heart, and in doing so has created work of enduring worth.

A few weeks back, we talked, and it transpired he’s had quite an amazing and appalling life. He’d been through a hell of an ordeal abroad that had hit the news, and had political ramifications. And he wanted to capitalise on that experience, use it to catapult him into being a motivational speaker talking about what he’d been through, and have an accompanying book and so forth.

I was interested, but pretty soon alarm bells started to sound. He told me he’d been in America talking to someone who reckoned they could get him a book deal, and filmed a half hour video about his ordeal to get across to people in the book and film worlds what he’d been through. But he also said that he wanted to work with me. And that didn’t add up: if he’s got this American thing on the go already, what could I add to the party?

The ethics of the situation troubled me — I didn’t want to be working on something for him in Britain while he’d meanwhile got people working on his behalf in America. It seemed like he was prepared to work on projects with different partners, all developed from his personal history, and go with whatever worked, which wasn’t a situation I liked the sound of: who exactly had the rights to what, and how would they benefit from it? And that made me reassess the whole situation. It struck me that here I was dealing with an opportunist, and I didn’t want to be.

A few days after that scenario, I met up with a couple of women from a small but credible theatre company about the possibility of working together. We talked about one way to do so, and I made them aware that there were other ways forward too, which excited all of us. I set about developing four ideas for them in the next 48 hours — one of which was based on my experience with the chap I mentioned above, since the whole notion of turning your trauma into a career interested me, and his approach to it was fascinating.

As it turns out, the theatre people moved the goalposts about what they wanted, and didn’t go with any of the ideas I submitted. Hey ho. But I’m still fascinated by the guy I’d met, and at this point I’ve got a two page story outline and five pages of dialogue inspired by him. And I like what I’ve written, as does a filmmaker I’ve shown it to, and I’d love to do something with it.

At which point I remember that there’s a Channel 4 scheme running, looking for original 30 half hour dramas. It’s a project I’ve applied for unsuccessfully in the past, and ignored for a few years. This time round though, I reckon I’ve got something topical, with a dark satirical edge, that I’d love to develop. The requirement of the organisers is that the script can be shot in four days, and the piece would use only three actors…yeah, I’m going to give it a go. Plenty of time between now and the early June deadline to polish up a proposal.

All of which serves as a reminder that — like the title of this piece suggests — nothing is wasted. I could have dismissed the meeting with the tormented guy as a run-in with just another joker, albeit one who’d been through hell. Instead, I used it to inform an idea for a play. And now that’s been knocked back by the people who were potentially interested, I’ll remix it and submit it as a tv idea. If that doesn’t work, I can see it existing as a radio play or low budget feature even. No sense letting a good idea go to waste, and in this particular case I know the concept is worth sticking with until it finds its opportunity for expression.

Not that it’ll be fully developed even at that point, but you need to make your brainchild appealing to the directors and producers you put it up for adoption with. You might have created this unique and special creature, but you want someone else to rear it, if only because it costs more money to turn a script into a film than any writer I’ve met has lying about the place.

So, attitude. Committing to the time it takes to nurture an idea from its first tentative beginnings through to an initial draft, and then rewrites based on hopefully intelligent feedback…it’s a lot to take on. And it requires patience. Tenacity. Flexibility — when someone tells you your protagonist is the wrong gender, or that the story should open with the climactic scene, it can take a lot to see what they’re getting at.

You’ll note that there’s an assumption here that you’ll be dealing with the industry. And that’s intentional — it’s all very well complaining about the crap they show at your local multiplex, but you have no business reckoning you’re better than that unless you get to grips with the industry side of things. Which again calls for attitude. The enthusiasm that gets you out there networking events hoping to meet people who not only like your ideas, but are demonstrably sane and have shown an ability to get projects off the ground. Dealing with whom calls for skills as well as attitudes: juggling emails and phone calls politely and efficiently, responding to feedback without preciousness, delivering successive drafts to deadline.

Think of the people you might come across, and how you’d deal with them. I’m incredibly lucky in that the producer I have most contact with is a stable and skilled woman who can juggle multiple projects while still making you feel valued. But some writer somewhere sometime soon will be dealing with none other than Liam Gallagher, who has decided in the wake of Oasis and his aventures in haute couture that his new project is to be a film based on the later days of The Beatles. Say what you like about Liam, but there’s no doubting he’s got attitude.

Attitude is what keeps you going when there’s been no response to the scripts you sent out three months ago and you’re finding it hard to work the mojo to get another one off the ground. Attitude allows you to put a distance between personal difficulties and the need to keep producing pages. Attitude is what helps you realise that a random comment provides critical insight into your story, and enables you to go back to that script with a fresh pair of eyes.

You can’t learn attitude on an MA course in screenwriting. You won’t get it by going on a McKee course. It’s something you’ve hopefully already got a smattering of, and can cultivate over time and through feedback into a thing of steel…when steel is what’s needed, as it is when gutting a script to make the same story work in 20 pages less. Attitude can be about fire, when you’re at a pitching meeting and willing people to hear what you’re actually saying right here right now, rather than rerunning last night’s drinks chat with a commissioner over in their heads. Attitude can be ballsy, when that first pitch doesn’t ignite interest, but leaves one of those listening asking ‘What else have you got..?’ when you’ve got nothing prepared but recognise the opportunity for what it is.

I’d love to write for some of the BBC’s shows, I really would. Dr Who would be my absolute dream gig, but then there’s The Street, and Spooks, and Survivors, and maybe something original for CBBC that would allow me to recapture the eerieness I felt watching Children of the Stones way back when.

But there’s no guarantee that being in the Writers Academy will open those doors. Sure, it’ll increase your chances — but the core task of Writers Academy is to groom writers to script the BBC’s flagship shows: Eastenders, Holby, Casualty and — on the nursery slopes — Doctors. And I realised a while back I have no true passion for any of those programmes.

I’ve written for Doctors, and had a lot of fun doing so. Learned some things of use, too. But having got my first idea approved and developed, I found that I was still more excited by what I’d done for my trial script than what transpired as my first tv episode was brought to fruition. And as I produced more, and more, ideas for a second episode, I realised what part of the problem was. As a writer, your job is to create a distinctive episode. As someone involved in the show, your role is to ensure a consistent series. And those two responsibilities don’t always dovetail. There’s a danger of truly distinctive elements getting sanded down by the compromises involved in working on a branded property.

It took a while to reach that — possibly controversial — conclusion. And I continued to produce concepts after my second episode was broadcast. By which point I realised I was also in a pool of 200 other writers also generating a multitude of concepts for the show. Which had to get past first your script editor (mine were both lovely people I had a good working relationship with) and then people further up the food chain before getting a go-ahead. Now, let’s say each writer contributes 15 one page outlines to their story editor in a season…you can see where this is leading. Generating such a concept could take a day or more, so while the chances are better than that of a spermatazoon fertilising an egg, it increasingly started to feel like a numbers game I wanted no part of.

So, I opted out. Actually, that was part of a wider commitment to only work on projects I felt truly passionate about. And guess what? I’ve been happier since then, and more satisfied with my writing. That’s where my drug worker series The Sharp End came into existence, which has been well received by everyone who’s seen it, and which I’m waiting for someone to bite at — or offer me interesting work on projects of their own. And it’s led to any number of other opportunities, such as the invitations to work with an up-and-coming theatre company and talented filmmaker that I wrote about recently.

All of this suits me because I have an entrepreneurial streak as well as a creative one. I’d rather take a chance on developing projects of my own, getting involved in the networking and production side of it all, than spend a career working on someone else’s shows that I don’t have a real feel for. It’s that simple.

So, I won’t be applying for the BBC Writers Academy. But it remains a superb opportunity for those of you who have a genuine love for the shows it’ll get you involved with: Academy graduates are increasingly involved in scripting those dramas, so there’s a clear route to stability and success to be found. I wish that worked for me, but it really doesn’t, so I’ll be taking my chances elsewhere. Wish me luck.

And that approach is one answer to the question of why I maintain this blog. One collaborator, a good friend at that, has never really understood why I write anything for free. And it’s not something I can explain in purely rational ways. Maintaining a web presence is not easily reduced to something that can be identified in a cost/benefit analysis. I do it because I enjoy it. I do it because I want to build up my profile. I do it because I enjoy the discipline. I do it because of the unexpected things that happen to me as a result.

The filmmaker’s overture was not today’s only step forward. I had a meeting with a theatre company who’ve established a good reputation for their work, and identified an opportunity to collaborate that none of us were expecting when we first sat down around a coffee table. There was something we knew we would talk about, and we did. But then this other thing came up, which if all works out you’ll be hearing more about soon.

So, advance two spaces. It feels good, and it validates the approach I’m taking to develop my writing career. These are very interesting times, and it’s possible that Mr Gladwell’s tipping point is nearing for me. But, the trick is not to get too caught up in the possibilities. Right now, and write now, is what matters. There are three ideas to develop for the theatre company, and so far I have one. There is a short story to be read that the filmmaker wishes the script to be developed from, and the process of assembling my thoughts about it. Oh, and there’s the screenplay I’m writing, which is a little behind schedule. And a novel, for good measure.

All of this is fine. All of this has been achieved by making good use of my time. What seems to work is either doing work, or doing other things. No need for all that other stuff which used to consume me, about wondering whether I’d ever get anywhere, whether I was any good. All that kind of thinking does is waste energy that could be more productively used in writing, in networking, in blogging.

Put another way, the above amounts to saying ‘cut out the trying’. There is only doing, and not doing. Anything else is an indulgence. Which includes the speculation about approaching a tipping point. That may be the case. It may not be. Pondering about it is an irrelevance either way.

All of which gives a samurai-like dimension to the life of the writer. And why not? It beats endless agonising and reflection and recrimination. I’d rather be Mifune than Woody Allen any day. Except, for all the angsty stuff, Allen gets things done. That’s the thing. Also noted by someone on talking to Helena Bonham Carter about her husband Tim Burton, commenting what a practical man he is. That makes sense. Making films is not a pursuit for dreamers who only dream. This is a business. And it’s a business for people who get things done.

It’s 11.15 at night now. Time to do some more work. To write up the first play idea I have, and see if I can conjure another one. And then, I will sleep. A few nights ago, I dreamed of the filmmaker who contacted me today. I wonder what I’ll dream of tonight?

Graham’s stance was captured in his suggestion that there are “opportunities for the industrious writer who is able to diversify”, reiterating that statement by saying that the twin themes of the new era are diversification and independence. Writers are often being offered advances a quarter of what was the case a few years ago, and Amazon sells 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical ones, where the same titles are compared. Online drama Kate Modern attracted 66 million hits thanks to its link with social networking site Bebo, and was only pulled when one of its partners, AOL, got greedy. This is a new world, and there are no set rules it operates by. Graham’s strategy, very much echoing the themes of my own thinking recently, is to adapt and find ways to capitalise on three or more of the income streams available to writers, if they’re so inclined.

And that last part is the contentious bit, where some people are concerned. More than I’ve experienced it before, there seemed to be two camps at the conference. On the one hand, those keen to support themselves through the monies available to them through writing. On the other, those whose hearts are in serving the community. And some of what’s been said about this apparent dichotomy is pretty ugly — one participant commented thus on Twitter: “Every time I hear the word ‘monetize’ in a conversation about community creativity I hear the word ‘cuntify’.” Nice.

This simplistic dualism doesn’t take all kinds of things into account. Like, as with people such as myself, many of those aspiring to support themselves through creativity have already been active in community arts of one sort or another. I’ve been there, done that, with — among other projects — a theatre company aiming to do work about learning difficulties in schools. And found that what we wanted to do was a no-goer commercially speaking, since Nottingham Council’s theatre-in-education team offered subsidised rates that we couldn’t compete with. So we didn’t: we did our shows for some years, to much acclaim, and with support from charities that barely covered our costs. When it came to divvying up the monies in the bank account when it all came to an end, we each had around £100.

So: when you dismiss writers wanting to make money, you’re dismissing people who may well have done more than their bit for community arts and education. Also, remember that advocates of arts in the community are the ones looking for jobs in same. I’ve encountered no end of writers in residence, creators working with marginalised groups, facilitators, drama therapists and so forth, and I believe that’s a perfectly good way to be spending your time. But not everyone has the networking and workshopping skills needed to get such work, or the desire to acquire them. Some people just want to write, and earn money for it. And that’s fine, too.

I’ve got a foot in both camps here, and I suspect that’s the way it’ll remain. Even with the potentially lucrative multiplatform work I’m planning there’s a utopian element in terms of the story content that I want to inspire kids with as I in turn was inspired by the characters whose adventures I followed. And if that works out, I intend to give money to charities from the profits generated.

Suggesting that writers are either moneygrabbing or community-minded is reductionist bullshit, and it makes me sad to hear people talking in such terms. Especially when the future is going to be challenging for us all, and we can help one another to prosper.