Keely Adler

Challenging the past as a viable template for the future is an important part of envisioning and enacting new futures. The parts of the brain responsible for creative imagination are directly linked to those that store and manage memories. Our ideas about the future are essentially tapestries remixed from of our memories of former days.

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all... See more

I thought the real pleasure of mass experience was disappearing into a crowd and blending in.

In a major study of young people aged 16 to 25 published in The Lancet last year, 75% said the "future is frightening" and more than half said "humanity is doomed." Of the 10,000 respondents across 10 countries, 45% said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their ability to function in daily life.

Maybe that's why "are you okay" is so destabilizing. Not just because it sees your effort. But because it breaks the contract. It admits that the performance is a performance. And if one person stops pretending, the whole fragile architecture of mutual pretending is exposed.

When living “under capitalism” becomes a catch-all explanation for what you can’t manage — whether that’s getting on the metaphorical treadmill or stepping off it — it assumes the nature of a complaint to an adjudicating authority.

Warhol’s Factory, it is not. That being said, events like Ariana Grande’s Fortnite concert and a number of genuinely beautiful NFT collections, like graphic artist Ezra Miller’s Solvency series, suggest there is scope to create something exciting, youthful and important amid all the clamour. Maybe the problem is simply that Zuckerberg and Co’s... See more