In this episode, we chew on a question that’s been on Dougald’s mind since a recent event in London, where Brian Eno wondered what is the difference between an analysis which says we cannot save or make sustainable the trajectories of industrial modernity and technological progress, and an accelerationist position which says we need to bring about collapse in order to release the possibilities to be found in the ruins? What would a “decelerationist” politics look like?

Shownotes

* Derek Gow, Birds, Beasts and Bedlam

* Andy Hamilton, New Wild Order

* James Kaelan, 999 Years of Peace is “a luddite publication, not for sale”, but you could try sending Cartoon Distortion a message on Instagram to find out more.

* Elizabeth Oldfield, author of Fully Alive was talking at The Kairos Club, London this week. Kairos currently has paperback copies of At Work in the Ruins on sale for £10 and some great events coming up with friends of this podcast:

* Strategic Adaptation For Emergency Resilience (SAFER) with Rupert Read, Tuesday 26 November

* A New Cosmology: Feeling Our Way into the Imaginal with Ellie Robins, Thursday 28 November

* Ece Temulkeran, How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship

* Dougald quotes from R. G. Miga’s comment on our election day episode

* Watching “accelerationism” move over the last decade and a bit:

* #ACCELERATE MANIFESTO for an Accelerationist Politics by Alex Williams & Nick Srnicek (2013)

* Paul Mason, Clear Bright Future (2019)

* Aaron Bastani, Fully Automated Luxury Communism (2019)

* Nick Land – “the Godfather of accelerationism”, from the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (alongside Mark Fisher of Capitalist Realism) in the 1990s to Neo-reaction and the Dark Enlightenment

* ‘Accelerationism: the obscure idea inspiring white supremacist kil