Hey all you wild hearts out there,

Let's set the tone for the next four years.

Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, raise your middle finger in a global gesture of defiance.

Do it because he calls climate change a hoax.

Because he continues to spread the big lie.

Because he mismanaged the Covid crisis.

Because he gifted the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem to Israel.

Because you don't want his finger on the nuclear button.

Or do it just because he's a low-life pussy grabber unfit to lead a nation.

Let your fury flow … and irrigate dreams of a better tomorrow.

What Happens When AI Completely Decodes and Synthesizes Reality?

As we realize A.I. can do what we do, better — and for free — we’ll experience a kind of false dawn of euphoria. It steps up, and we happily step back.

Students stop writing essays. Job seekers stop writing resumes. Designers use MidJourney to create book covers. All life’s gruntwork is over, and the finished product isn’t suffering at all. Hallelujah!

But here’s the deal we can’t quite grasp: Bit by bit we humans lose our skills ... our agency ... our creative spark ...

This is how a slave’s dependence on a master evolves: slowly and then quickly. At a certain point you realize you are no longer making your own decisions, but you don’t particularly care, because in a strange way it’s easier this way.

Just west of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan stands the Crooked Grove, a stand of aspen trees that, for reasons scientists don't fully understand, all grow gnarled and deformed.

The trees start out straight but then bend, eventually curling so far out of the sunlight that they begin to die. At which point new shoots spring out from the trunk and start growing in a different direction.

The new generation wants to live, despite its parents' crooked ways.

—Harry Flood

Zen and Punk:
A Path to Authentic Revolution

While punk emerged as a reaction to the hippie movement of the 1960s, it has faced its own challenges in maintaining its revolutionary spirit. The commercialization of punk rock and the descent into mere escapism through drugs and loud music have buried the movement's original principles. However, Zen philosophy offers a powerful framework for revitalizing punk's core values.

The Convergence of Zen and Punk Ethics

At first glance, Zen's emphasis on silence and punk's loud rebellion might seem contradictory. Yet both share fundamental values: authenticity, rejection of materialism, and the importance of direct action over empty talk. As Zen teaches, "The more you talk about it, the less you understand" - a principle that aligns perfectly with punk's emphasis on action over rhetoric.

Beyond Nihilism: Zen as a Tool for Punk Revival

While many punks have fallen into cynical nihilism, Zen offers a way to maintain rebellion while finding deeper meaning. Instead of numbing oneself with substances and noise, Zen's practices of mindfulness and meditation provide tools for facing society's problems with clarity and purpose.

Near the end of Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, the hero finds himself standing in the gallows, about to be hanged. In one minute it'll all be over. It suddenly occurs to him what an enormous amount of time that is. A full minute. He takes ten seconds to think about his family, then allows his mind to roam over the play of light on the church steeple in the distance, the granular subtleties of his entire life. His impending demise – or so he thought – had smashed his last moment on earth like an atom.

You could say that's all of us now. We're standing on the gallows having an existential moment together. And performing in our heads what the writer Mitchell Jackson called "survival math" – a term he hatched after being held up at gunpoint and realizing his odds of living would swing wildly depending on what he said and did in the next thirty seconds.

Call it a hinge moment.

Send us your middle finger here

What Happens When AI Completely Decodes and Synthesizes Reality?

Zen and Punk:A Path to Authentic Revolution

The Convergence of Zen and Punk Ethics

Beyond Nihilism: Zen as a Tool for Punk Revival

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Zen and Punk:
A Path to Authentic Revolution