Books/Magazines/Podcasts:

• No Logo by Naomi Klein

• Adbusters by Kalle Lasn

• Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev

• A New Train of Thought (though somewhat ham-fistedly) by Various Writers

• Ashes, Ashes by David Torcivia and Daniel Folkner

• Reset by Roland J. Diebert

Fitting the description of movie/show:

• Mr. Robot

• Utopia (UK version)

• Killing Them Softly

• The Big Short, Margin Call

• Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai

• 3-Iron (Korean film)

• Parasite (Korean film)

There are several documentaries and short films

• The Corporation by Joel Bakan, Harold Crooks, Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott

• Who Killed the Electric Car?

• The End of Suburbia

• Man by Steve Cutts (3m47s)

• Nuggets by Andreas Hykade (5m06s)

• The Power of Nightmares and HyperNormalisation by Adam Curtis

Also, you might search for films about “corporate malfeasance”.

• Michael Clayton (top pick)

• The Insider (top pick)

• Erin Brockovich

• Dark Waters

As an introvert, it’s actually easier for me to talk to strangers. Fewer attachments, lower risk thresholds, can bail when I need to. Mostly it’s jokes or insights, comisseration and comedy are easy roads in.

Expecting, or pursuing the establishment of, human rights as a subjugate group or “subordinate” class.

deleted by creator

If it’s America… Again, the following:

• target practice

• cheap / unpaid labor

• scapegoating

• entertainment

• political wedge issue

• cannon fodder

• general purpose exploitation

• status symbols

• enemy images

Greed. Ignorance. Intolerance.

Your workout, food, or personal hygiene regimen.

Exploitation, expropriation, or extortion.

Your subjective experience of opening a box, playing a video game, or viewing media.

It’s in because, well, I was surprised that Grey’s Anatomy is in its 22nd season.

Its interesting that interactions here center on the one pop-culture element of my comment and none on the others. Yes, it’s a non-sequitur. It stands out.

Is it because the others are all self-evident? Flogged to death? Too controversial? Not controversial enough? Insurmountable?

• Expensive education

• Cities planned for cars

• 5-day work weeks

• Grey’s Anatomy

• Nuclear weapons

• Racism

And I agree with the others who’ve said:

• Fossil fuels, particularly coal

• Private health insurance

Were you there when it happened to me?

I swear, that one Donald Sutherland scene in JFK had me going for such a long time on the conspiracy bent. I thought it was real.

Who knew, it was Kevin Bacon we needed to pay attention to all along.

Worse, it was produced by Alex Jones.

The Roots (first four albums especially)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor / A Sliver Mt. Zion

Portishead, Massive Attack

Public Enemy

Ah. Oops. Did not know I’d transgressed.

As far as I know, these cycles were written by the post-maker. I just found them compelling, each a visual and visceral view of our inhumanity toward ourselves. The writing is pretty good. The AI is illustrative, though not altogether the compelling element.

In your head, change the name of a food you wish to avoid. I’ve done this with McD’s.

In my head, it’s been called McDicks since high school. I, personally, don’t enjoy eating dicks. So, when I see the sign, and I feel like a Big Mac would go down easy, I say to myself, “I don’t eat dicks.”

It works.

For those who enjoy eating dicks, well, you’ll have to choose another association. Also, I didn’t think the phrase “feel like a Big Mac would go down easy” would be so overtly sexual.

More people need to know about Bernays. Literally wrote the book, Propaganda in 1928. Went on to found the industry of Public Relations. He is the reason advertisers target your subconscious, make you feel bad, an use their products as a salve for the pain they inflict.

Adam Curtis covers the effects well in The Century of the Self. Watch out, it clocks in at just under 4 hours.

Do yourself a favour, watch the directors cut.

Skateboarding. Wingsuit flying. BASE jumping.

All seem like SO much fun. But, Im entering middle age with two kids. Broken bones are not fun. Nor are risks not covered by my insurance, apparently. That’s what my partner tells me anyway. She gets final say on fun.

Or, the insurance company does. Whichever. They’re on the same side: against injury. And fun.

For those who don’t understand these words, I’ll translate: driving a motor vehicle (car, truck, van, or other) with a manual-shift or stick-shift transmission.

In an automatic transmission vehicle, you have steering, gas, and brakes. The car itself decides automatically which gear to be in based on several conditions. This is the form of driving to which most are accustomed.

The rest of us can actually drive.

It is difficult to get all of these in a single film.

However:

• Art direction that makes you love design.

• Cinematography at such scale and intimacy that you love light, shadow, depth of field, and the rule of thirds

• Writing that makes you love language, references, and lived experiences

• Casting that extols the virtues of interpersonal chemistry

• Editing that forces you to feel pace, tone, and contemplation as the story demands

• A plot that twists, turns, and delivers a gut punch when you least expect it

• A twist-in-the-end that, on reflection (or re-watch), makes total sense.

• Compelling, developing characters responding to irresistible forces that wash through their being

• Murphy’s Laws in full force: failure is an option, main characters can die

e:

• A true, hidden, and/or surprise villain whose perspective you can see and might even agree with.

Good examples:

• Synecodoche, New York

• Michael Clayton

• Sicario

• Requiem For a Dream

• No Country for Old Men

A foreword: there is no picture. The future has guidelines, tendencies, but no actual shape. There’s nothing you’re supposed to do. Life isn’t planned out all at once. Those days are dead. In fact, they nay never have existed. You will become a new person, and have a new career or focus or stage of life, about once every 11 years. That’s normal. That’s life’s uncertainty.

The piece of advice is the one I’ve given on many platforms for years: if you’re —

• North American and

• from any “settler-colonial” culture and

• you’re able,

then leave North America for at least one year. Live elsewhere, see how others live, and break out of the bubble built by the preschool to prison pipeline, the corporate cradle to coffin collective consciousness. This advice isn’t exclusively for Gringos and Canucks, but it’s based on the particular starting square I had and most of the people I’ve encountered. Also, I don’t mean to exclude my Indigenous, Mexican, Mexica, and other Latino brothers and sisters, but my understanding is that you’ve already got reality pushing the movement narrative.

If you’re a a first-generation North American (like me), also build connections within your community. There is much work to be done to diversify these places and so many other new, and first-gens could use some support. Detachment from one another is what harms us most. The communities I’ve had outside of El Norte continue to feed me. Admittedly, the job I have and the hours I keep prevent community-building. I need to get back to it.

Finally, get smart about money. Find teachers, take meetings at banks, go to teachings at libraries. Study the jargon in your credit card agreements. Make investments in yourself and your future. I failed pretty spectacularly at this one.

As far how to choose WHAT to do with all your time, well, the only thing I’d advise is to be a crafty, insightful, decisive disruptor. Nothing else that I’ve seen works. Be the best there is at a small thing you do. Identify a critical mass for your work and work hard to get to the place where 15% of the people you talk to will say ‘yes’ to you. Gain your repeat customers, followers, students, and acolytes. You can do what want. The trick is to have people support you or believe in your doing it.

Just a digest of what Ive seen here so far:

don’t get bogged down planning too far ahead. Set yourself some achievable goals for the near future.

This is good advice.

there is a good chance that your future could look very different than what you imagine it might be.

This is not advice, but true and warrants remembering because you can bend the future.

find a good strategy for managing upkeep on whatever needs it.

Many people forget that anything and everything you obtain and want to keep working will require maintenance. Machines, subject knowledge, relationships, tools, whatever — all need upkeep. Know your shit so you can keep your shit together.

Focus on improving a single thing you can do in the short term.

I’d add to this. Short term goals should not be ends in themselves unless they are for entertainment. If you’re focusing on a short term goal, connect it to a long term goal.

get[ ] a union job if you don’t have employment figured out yet.

Unions can protect you. But, if you’re looking for satisfaction, the job has to be what you want it to be. Or, take pleasure in the union connections. If neither of these feeds you, a union can’t save you from yourself.

Anyway, you asked and I’m stuck in a waiting room.

Tr. Do what excites you.

Unless it’s heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, or other highly addictive drugs. Also, no gambling unless you’re a mathematical genius. No extreme sports unless you’re extremely fit and a physicist. No crimes or exploitation. No killing, forcibly confining, gaslighting, or coercing people. That’d be awkward. Also, no parenting unless you already have the means to spend $1M on someone other than yourself — while keeping yourself fed, clothed, housed, employed, and pretending to be happy.

So, yeah, whatever excites you and makes you fit, smart, caring, and socially ept.