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It happened sometime around 2010:
A singular moment in human history . . .

. . . it was the moment we stopped getting angry at people gaping at their devices, bumping into us on the sidewalk . . . the moment when, with a sigh, your professor finally gave up on that student who, to be fair, was, like, always checking her phone . . .
I myself remember marking it . . . it was as though a sea change had stolen upon me . . . a young man came in for a job interview; halfway through, his pocket bleeped . . . and he pulled out his phone and checked it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
It was the moment when family meals grew more distracted . . . sitting with friends more remote . . . when your first act on waking was to check your social . . . when on Saturday nights it was easier to blow off the bar, teeming and awkward, for the cool thrill of the left-swipe, right-swipe, glimmer of chance encounter.
You remember it, don’t you . . . when you too started walking with your head down . . . the first buds of Spring pushing forth, unnoticed . . . the eagle wheeling above you in the high sky, unseen . . . a text suddenly as good as the touch of a hand . . . a selfie as warm as a hug . . . no big deal, right? . . . a mere tweak, a toneshift, a new ambience to inhabit, buzzing and flashing and futuristic . . . quite exciting, really . . . and yet, and yet . . . that moment you lived through ten years ago was one of the most significant in human history . . . indeed, it was humanity’s second great migration — the moment we departed the physical world for a virtual one.
Humanity’s first great migration, eons ago, was our primordial passage from the sea to the land. A preposterous success, it set us on a billion-year evolutionary adventure . . . delivering us to this current day and its attendant wonders . . . behold, in mere hours, global commerce delivered to your couch . . . at the push of a button your every acquaintance . . . in your pocket all recorded knowledge of the world.
But, but . . . a shake of the head . . . a gnawing suspicion . . . something feels off . . . screens everywhere, eyes glazed over, this simulacrum of our own devising, the enormity of constant connection . . .
it is can we admit it? boring . . .
What if we want out? want back?. . . back to the birds, the beasts, the fish . . . back to the rivers and wild spaces, to the scent of ozone after rain . . . back to immanence, to roughness . . . back to physical.
Might we then get a shock? . . .
find that the world we abandoned years ago has vanished . . . that somewhere along the line it went POOF . . .
find that our billion-year experiment here on earth is laid bare: an evolutionary dead end.
— Kono Matsu
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Adbusters #141
New Ways to Live, Love & Think

AB141 - New Ways to Live, Love & Think

A crooked line runs through issue #141, connecting cold, hard truths with ideas that may inspire a rebellious flicker of alacrity towards a new future. The clunky, straight-edged shapes of current power structures blot the front lines, only to be overshadowed by swaths of polychromatic pages, their archaic blandness upstaged by design that fucks with complacency. The world teeters on an edge sharp enough to end all life. So without further ado—New Ways to Live, Love & Think puts forth the real-life jams and revolutionary campaigns that have the energy to shift the status quo. It talks to you—designer, economist, environmentalist, human—and offers ways to re-enchant a disillusioned world. New Ways to Live, Love & Think comes with our 2019 #moonstruck calendar—follow the full moon and stay tech-free one day every month, and be as wild as your spirit moves you to be.

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MARCH 20TH — BLACKSPOT MOONDAY
‍We slap blackspots on every fucking ad on the planet. . . let's break the media-consumer trance!
APRIL 1ST — FOOLS DAY
‍A global wave of politically charged pranksterism. . . will Donald get a pie in the face?
MAYDAY (MAY 1ST) — WORLDWIDE GENERAL STRIKE
‍A billion acts of civil disobedience. . . in the spirit of Extinction Rebellion.

This year we say fuck-it-all and have some fun!

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