Start thinking about the eyes that watch you. The ones that live on the traffic lights, and the ones that live in our pockets. And the smaller, quieter ones, behind each credit card transaction and web search and unencrypted text and email and google doc. The state apparatus has always relied on its many, many eyes. But before, those eyes belonged to humans. And when they brought what they saw to be analyzed, they brought it to human brains, with papers and pens and many, many file cabinets.
But now the eyes, they are not so human. They are produced by Huawei and Cisco and Amazon and Google and Sony and TP-Link and Arlo and ADP, the cameras of glass and plastic and silicon connected by airwaves and wires to the great, inhuman brain that sorts and sorts and analyzes and analyzes. The platform. The Algorithms. And the other eyes, that deal not in images but in ideas, in money, in words. The social-media-ears and the payment-processing-noses. These too feed in, to that great surveillance apparatus.
This was never acceptable, yet we have quietly accepted. There have always been other, more pressing concerns. More worrying injustices, more violent impositions of state power. And so that amorphous state body and its algorithmic intelligence brain keeps growing these eyes. Growing them at city council meetings where Flock contracts are approved, in corporate boardrooms where DHS contracts are signed, and on the houses of our scared, scared neighbors who install Nest and Ring cameras on their doorbells. The eyes sprout up with every no-cash business, with every fundraiser that takes Venmo with every service that requires an app. And the eyes sprout forth of our own hands too, with every tweet and blog post and Instagram picture and TikTok that brings the physical world of our friends and community into the digital world of their algorithms. Ever watching, ever searching, ever sorting.
But although these eyes keep sprouting out of the state like heads of a hydra, they are not invulnerable. Cameras are just plastic and silicon, they can be smashed with rocks or painted dark or burnt with lasers. Phones can be left at home, surveilled intersections can be avoided, cash can be paid. But to avoid the eyes, first you must notice them. Look up! Look up at the traffic lights, how many cameras are at this intersection? Look up the process for local police officers to access your personal files on whatever social media platforms you use. And look up into the eyes of the person you’re about to tap a phone for, ask if they might take cash. Say “Hi” while you’re at it. The eyes of state surveillance must be seen, before they can be avoided, let alone destroyed. So start thinking about surveillance. Because behind the airwaves and wires, in that deep mess of server racks and AI algorithms, the surveillance is already, assuredly, thinking about you.
“Whenever we try to envision a world without war, without violence, without prisons, without capitalism, we are engaging in speculative fiction. All organizing is science fiction.”
– Walidah Imarisha
By The Climate Underground
Let’s get real here. Catastrophic climate change is now ravaging the United States. Cities like Altadena, Lahaina, and Paradise have been reduced to cinders. Oklahoma is on fire. Also, as climate scientists have been predicting for decades, the Arctic Vortex has collapsed, causing winter storms to move further south. Poor people are freezing to death in their homes in Texas, Tennessee, and Louisiana. Puerto Rico is still without a functioning electrical grid after being hit by a devastating hurricane nearly a decade ago. This is what climate collapse looks like. We are in it. And if we continue on this path, things are going to get much, much worse.
Yet it is absolutely possible to turn things around. Scotland is already meeting 113% of its energy needs using renewables (there’s so much clean energy there, they are exporting it to other places). If we were to direct just 5% of U.S. steel production to the task, we could meet the entire planet’s energy needs using wind energy alone in just 5 years. (Frierson 2022). This rapid rollout of renewables could be accompanied by accelerated research into and distribution of rare-metal-free batteries (especially sodium ion batteries) — allowing us to fully decarbonize and electrify the grid while avoiding unjust forms of extractivism.
Right now, there are seven small island nations at risk of being lost to the sea if we exceed 1.5°C of global temperature change. We still have time to prevent this. If we start working in 2028 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by just 10% a year — with complete elimination of emissions by 2038 — we would just barely avoid breaching the 1.5°C mark. If you don’t believe us, check out this simulation we made with the MIT climate simulator: tinyurl.com/EarthWinScenario. It can be done. We still have time to reverse course and save billions of human and non-human lives.
Sometimes it can be difficult to envision a best-case scenario when we are bombarded with visions of doom by the corporate media. Even the scientific models used by world leaders to understand climate change lack feasible best-case scenarios. This has created a problem that LA-based climate educator Thomas Yount calls “doom bias.” Doom bias leads us to think we’ve already lost when we haven’t, which plays into the hands of fossil fuel interests.
Many exciting alternative visions of the future are emerging that are aligned with a new scientific and activist movement called “degrowth” or sometimes “postgrowth.” Right now, world leaders tend to pursue economic growth at the expense of all else, but GDP growth is a horrible measure of success: it leaves human well-being and ecological care out of the equation.
The postgrowth movement pushes back against the use of GDP measurements as a definition of success and urges leaders and policymakers to instead prioritize human and ecological well-being. Jason Hickel has defined degrowth as “a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being.” A degrowth transition means moving beyond the myth of “green capitalism,” and instead working to ensure surplus is directed towards human well-being and ecological care.
This means scaling back useless work and overproduction, and reducing forms of inequality and inequity, while dismantling systemic forms of oppression. It also means we all get more time to spend on leisure, on building meaningful lives, playing games, pursuing life-long education, doing arts and crafts, and caring for each other and our communities — human and non-human alike. It involves ending forms of colonial and imperial exploitation through processes like democratization, delinking, demilitarization, and decolonization.
One great way to tackle doom bias in our communities is to circulate feasible visions of best-case climate scenarios rooted in social justice. Below, we’ve created two scenarios that do just that. As you read through these scenarios, you might be drawn to one scenario more than the other. That’s okay! And it’s okay if some of your friends and comrades gravitate towards a different scenario than you. An important part of movement-building is learning to understand and acknowledge that we often all have slightly different visions in our minds of what a best-case scenario will look like. Even if our visions differ slightly, it is important to find common ground, and to keep dreaming. As we’ve been saying in Berkeley since 1969: The trip belongs to whoever dreams.
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Two best-case scenarios for human and ecological well-being
In both of the scenarios below, humans succeed in limiting planetary warming to 1.5°C while improving human well-being and building a more equal, equitable, and just society. Here is what the scenarios look like when mapped onto an alignment grid:
Feel free to use this alignment grid and add a best-case scenario of your own. Let’s keep workshopping our visions and hold space for differently desirablebest-case scenarios. Note: The scenarios below are visions of the future rooted in the present, so they are written in present-continuous tense.
Scenario 1:Mycelial Eco-Social Healing (ecology-embracing, global cooperation is rooted in local participation).
Following the crises of the early 21st century, localized networks of care and resistance sprout up. These movements are united by a shared understanding: The wrong ICE is melting. United by a great love of neighbors that transcends borders, people everywhere begin to listen to the voices of refugees and immigrants, building understanding about the systemic forces that forced them to flee their homes.
A demand for “delinking and decolonization” emerges around the world, and soon all foreign debt of the so-called “Global South” is forgiven — that debt was only there because of capitalist meddling anyway. Freed from unjust foreign obligations, these regions rapidly shift towards caring for their own people, rather than letting capitalists tear up the ecology and society of the region so to pay off unjust foreign debts.
By the early 2030s, as a systems of transnational systemic racism are dismantled, a global grassroots transformation unfolds that centers the rise of more democratic, localized, and consent-based ways of doing things. Rape culture is replaced with nurturance culture. There is a rapid uptick in worker cooperatives, union co-ops, land trusts, commons, and neighborhood farms. Work becomes slower, more meaningful, and more social. Convivial technologies like the bicycle rise to a new level of social prominence.
People begin to focus more on living fully within their bodies, and cultivating the ability to connect deeply with others. The internet continues to play a role in supporting coordination, but communication is re-centered on face-to-face encounters: TikTok is out, storytelling at the campfire is in. The border between economics and ecology are blurred.
Ecosystems come to be understood as commons that must be intentionally and collectively managed. The next big trans-national project becomes the work of coordinating care of the planet’s atmosphere, oceans, soil, and biodiversity. The harvesting of wind and sunlight to make energy comes to be seen as cultural practice. World hunger is ended thanks to networked Regenerative Agriculture co-ops, guided by the principals of agroecology, Indigenous wisdom, and mutual aid.
Long-ignored treaties and agreements with Indigenous groups are finally respected, sparking the widespread return of land to Indigenous hands. Disability accommodations are prioritized, ensuring disabled voices can more easily stay active in guiding the transition. Cityscapes are transformed to be more walkable, accessible, inviting, and green. This transition occurs not because people wait around for collapse, but because they get proactive, draw the line, and build a global, mycelial economic network that is fully authoritarian-proof. They thought they could bury us, but we were seeds.
Scenario 2: Fully luxury Eco-socialism(technology-embracing, local power networked into global cooperation).
In the wake of the crises of the early 21st century, people begin to turn away from the agendas of the corporate elite, united by shared understandings that spread rapidly thanks to networked communication technology. Social media — valued for its role in fueling resistance by allowing footage of atrocities to circulate — comes to be owned and governed by co-ops and the public, putting an end to addictive algorithms and Cambridge Analytica-style election interference.
De-privatization unfolds rapidly: Private prisons are abolished, medical debt and student debt is forgiven, and the predatory systems at the root of all these things are dismantled. Guided by a global movement for energy sovereignty, locally-managed renewable microgrids appear everywhere — making it impossible for dictators to cut off a region’s energy supply. Patterns of strategic economic resistance unfold at every scale — led by unions and federated co-ops — giving rise to universal healthcare, free public transit, housing for all, and “library socialism.” Many regions adopt a program of “Democratically Coordinated Sustainability,” guaranteeing meaningful work for all who want it — work that often centers rebuilding public intuitions so they can truly be by the people and for the people.
Decentralized access to real-time Earth data allows everyone actively to monitor the health of the atmosphere, soil, oceans, and biodiversity. Monitoring the health of Earth’s systems becomes a popular pastime, thanks to games and media that make the monitoring of planetary health fun and exciting. Soon, the work of coordinating care for the planet gains the same level of attention and prestige once reserved for space travel. Earth systems engineers work hand-in-hand with Indigenous experts, farmers, artists, social scientists, and ecological economists to keep the economy in balance with the ecology.
Cities and workplaces are redesigned through participatory processes to center social well-being and ecological care, while upholding the values of infinite diversity in infinite combinations (IDIC). Disabled people are actively included, and their contributions valued. Large monocrop farms are dismantled, and Regenerative Agriculture is subsidized. Vertical farms spring up in many cities with public supermarkets on the ground floor, allowing city people to easily access fresh food, locally grown in skyscraper-sized greenhouses. The prime directive of Free and Prior, Informed Consent (FPIC) takes a central role in guiding this transition to an environmentally stable, socially just economy.
The UNDRIP, a global declaration of Indigenous rights created as part of an Indigenous-led process, comes to bettered respected and upheld, and Indigenous people come to be better included in all spaces of decision-making, research, and creative expression. Profit incentives for war are dismantled, leading to rapid demilitarization. Exnovation, the deliberate winding down and phasing out of destructive industries, comes to be just as important as innovation.
The early 21st century is remembered as a tumultuous time, and the memories of those who died in standing up to tyranny live on for centuries. This transition to a more logical and socially just world does not come by waiting for collapse, but by taking initiative, using the technologies at hand, and boldly steering the planet towards the best future still possible.
Further reading:
• To learn more about how we could transition the grid to renewables in less than 5 years, check out the chapter “Blowing in the Wind,” in the free, open access textbook, “Climate, Justice and Energy Solutions: Radical Visions of 100% Clean Power for 100% of the People.”
• Energy solutions should probably be limited to wind and solar installed only with the consent of local people. To learn why this is, check out the online zine, “Hoodwinked in the Hothouse: Resist False Climate Solutions.”
• Don’t let ecofascists mess up your movement. Check out the online zine: “Against the Ecofascist Creep” by the Anti-Creep Climate Initiative.
By Mars, with input from Sprout, Hope, Lichen, and Feb
We live in scary times. That’s no secret. In every direction there’s something so eye-poppingly horrible that turning on the news feels like drowning. So, that means it’s time to do something! Right? There are so many ways to help, so….. just go! Start! You can pull on any thread and help the whole rotten thing unravel! But….what if I don’t know what to do? I don’t know how to unionize a workplace or start a protest! There are so many people with more skills who are better equipped to meet this moment. Who am I to think I have any of the answers, or even any good ideas? I’m not sure what to do and I’m so overwhelmed. Surely, a moment will come when I know it’s my time.
This dead-end train of thought has been circling my brain since 2016, but especially in the last year. And sometimes it’s humiliating to think about how much time I’ve wasted. How many skills have I not acquired? How far behind am I? Am I even a real leftist?
Recently, I’ve come to understand this paralysis as a form of imposter syndrome. “There’s always someone better or more skilled than me.” “I don’t know what I’m doing so I should move out of the way and let people who do know take over.” These are not unfamiliar thoughts. I’ve had them in a myriad of life arenas, from work to relationships to art. I bet you have too. But it took me a while to recognize I was feeling imposter syndrome in regard to political activism as well.
Partially, this is because our current political system relies on citizens only participating in the ways it deems appropriate. You can vote, you can call your elected officials, you can file lawsuits, you can protest, but only at sanctioned, peaceful ones! Actions that would more effectively center your power as an individual, such as strikes, mutual aid networks, DIY HRT regimens, and targeted direct action are looked down on and viewed with extreme suspicion. Under these hostile conditions, it’s undeniably scary to poke your head above the battlements and participate at all. The fear tells you it’s safer to let the professionals and the system handle it. Just buckle down and wait for fairer weather.
But if we can identify that anxiety lies to us in other areas of life, surely we can figure out a way to beat it back in the political arena as well. Strangely enough, a framework that’s been helping me overcome this mental block is thinking about it in relation to AI. Let me explain.
AI is a nightmare technology that was created by billionaires whose only goal is to solve the problem of ever having to pay workers again. It is the ultimate expression of late-stage capitalism and was built so that the worst people in the world can surveil the public, cut humans out of decision making, “more effectively” wage war, and reduce online platforms to cesspools of slop. AI loudly proclaims to have all the answers while it guzzles resources, lies, emotionally manipulates its users, and alienates labor even further from workers.
However, at the same time, the technology is advanced enough that you can ask it for almost anything and get a result that is…adequate. It will be the lowest common denominator of whatever style you requested, but you will get a result. It will not be avant-garde or interesting (except for maybe some extra fingers!). But it will be a competently rendered facsimile of the prompt you input.
And that makes AI very appealing because it can function as an escape hatch for imposter syndrome. Insecure about your writing skills? Don’t worry, AI can write it for you. Can’t draw? Don’t worry, AI can generate almost any image you can imagine. Never got the hang of an instrument? Don’t worry, AI can produce an entire song for you in minutes.
My friend Sprout, who wrote an essay that was the original inspiration for this article, detailed how they see this phenomenon in their students, who are afraid to write without ChatGPT because they don’t want to fail. They haven’t practiced writing enough, are too overwhelmed to start, and don’t want to bang their head against the wall for something that might not even get them a good grade. When you’ve lived your entire life in an environment that immediately and mercilessly punishes incompetence, why wouldn’t you turn to the answer the system so neatly provides?
But as I’ve watched AI art and writing overwhelm the online landscape, I’ve felt my conception of what “quality” art looks like completely invert itself. Before AI, my imposter syndrome told me that an “artist” is a person who can see a vision in their mind and successfully translate it through a medium into an identifiable representation of what they imagined. If you can’t do that, oops!, guess you aren’t an artist. But now, with the knowledge that I can generate whatever corporate, safe, lifeless image or essay I desire in minutes, it makes me stop and think. As a human being with a brain and body, doesn’t that mean I have the unique ability to make the most fucked up, horrendous, incompetent art I can imagine? If the AI can make something look “good,” can I make something look “bad” and give it just as much value? What’s stopping me from covering an entire page in scribbles of purple and green pen and saying “Yep! That’s art baby, read it and weep?”
My understanding of art and creativity has fundamentally changed. I now see artistry as a practice of looking imposter syndrome square in the face and saying, “Fuck you, I’m doing it anyways.” And once you can make that mental switch, there’s no such thing as failure. Did you try to draw a person and instead it looks like a cursed goblin? Congrats, your brain and eyes and hands were all communicating with each other! That’s so cool! Did you try to paint a sunset and instead it looks like mud because you mixed too many colors together? Congrats, you just learned about color theory! Are the same motifs repeating in your poetry? Congrats, those are the topics that are most emotionally resonant for you and help you process life. And what’s even cooler: my failures will look completely different from your failures, will look completely different from your roommate’s failures, etc.
Individuality, non-conformity, and failure are punished by capitalism. So, it follows that every time you make something “ugly,” or choose a path that feels best for you regardless of societal pressure, you become part of the resistance. The systems that built AI do not see value in individuality because they view human beings as simply a resource to exploit. They are counting on you to keep finding comfort in the system and be too scared to try something new.
But they’ve really overplayed their hand. These days it seems like no one is having fun on the Internet anymore. Facebook is a wasteland and has been for years. Tiktok is an addiction machine I see more people every day making an effort to quit. Meanwhile, the larger capitalist, imperialist system funds genocides, kidnaps world leaders with impunity, executes people in the street, and sells public land to oil executives. The comfort some of us may have enjoyed is crumbling before our eyes. Soon, nothing will be keeping us tethered to the old world except our fear.
I suspect that messiness and failure will be required to create a new and different world, and I’m hopeful because it seems like more people are embracing this concept. It might be a temporary relief to write that essay with ChatGPT, or tell yourself we just need to get through the next three years and things will sort themselves out. But as long as we continue using the same systems, we’ll get the same answers. And those answers have never delivered an equitable and dignified life for all.
Choosing to try something new is hard! It takes courage to act on an idea, even if you don’t think it’s perfect, even if it doesn’t feel like it will accomplish much. It’s hard to introduce yourself to new people. It’s hard to look at the ugly-ass thing you just drew and not judge it. But every time you try anyways is a tiny victory. And sometimes it’s less difficult than you think it will be! After all, I went to the planning meeting for this Slingshot issue. I went to my first swap a few weeks ago and donated a bunch of old supplies to mutual aid. I wrote and submitted this article. It’s hard, but it’s time. Take the imposter syndrome out back and smash its head in.
