field notes

how we turned the ship around

Set in 2029, Assembly for the Future – part of Bleed festival – invites thinkers and artists to address an Australian audience in 2020 to let them know what the future holds.

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when the sky caught fire

It starts a few days ago, with perfectly preserved eucalyptus leaves twirling out of the sky, brittle and scorched. I’m not sure anyone knows how it ends.

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the extinction rebels

Instead of looking for hope, look for action.Then, and only then, hope will come. —Greta Thunberg             We’ll be less activist if you’ll be less shit. —School Strike 4 Climate placard             Bourke Street Mall in central Melbourne is strewn with hundreds of bodies. Shoppers edge past the spectacle trying to work out what’s happening. Police stand at a watchful distance. Commerce in and out of department stores is postponed behind this cheerful shambles of banners and placards, megaphone speeches and sea of sprawled corpses of the theatrically dead. Many of the flags and cardboard signs bear a stylised hourglass in a circle. Weeks after thousands of people brought central London to a standstill under this banner, the Extinction Rebellion has come to Australia. First published at the Monthly It

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cypherpunks and surveillance power

Let’s go looking for the best examples of how people are building something better, something that delivers on the internet’s original promise. Let’s signal boost the good stuff for a change.

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