What’s in a name? For us, everything.
When the world’s gone utterly snooker-loopy, Absurdity is the only answer.
Latest
Cognitive Whiplash
Or, why talk is cheap, and the head will fuck us all unless the heart and hands respond.
Island of strangers?
The outrage over echoes of Enoch are valid, but the deeper question remains: where *are* our communities?
Narratives need enacting, otherwise they’re just words
A theory for story in service to organising: get on the bike!
Links for Subscribers: April
The collection of our Signal chat links from April (into May) for paid subscribers.
On reflecting the goodness of humanity: an invitation
Are you ready to collaborate on how we decide our fate?
How we launched Speak Up mattered – here’s why
Attention to detail is critical if we want to be heard above the noise of our dysfunctional media.
Policied to Extinction – why the think tanks came after the climate movement
Announcing the launch of Clare Farrell’s Substack, essential analysis for anyone who wants to live in a democracy.
Work for Free
The more of our work we give away for free, the more we create a different (and kinder) culture.
Belonging in fractured Britain: an argument for ritual
If we're going to pull together as a country, we need to get back to our rituals.
Links for Subscribers: March
Dear supporters. Thank you once again for the value you see in our work – and so far, no-one’s unsubscribed!
An angel, a badger and an evil-tempered dad walk into a citizens’ assembly…
Two new absurd interventions in the world this week: a climate comedy novel, and a series of dialogues on assemblies.
Democracy
Trump’s Tariffs on the X-Y Axis of Evil
Our friend and collaborator David Bent, founder of Atelier of What’s Next, dismayed like many with Trump’s terrible mathematics and with the commentariat’s forgetfulness of the wider agenda, weighs in with some sound algebra of his own.
Activism
The Network is The Strategy, Part Two: in Praise of Fred Hampton
It’s time to do the previously unthinkable: get over ourselves, and start actually working with each other.
Activism
The Network is The Strategy, Part One: Last Exit From La-La Land
Right and left have failed us, and the centre cannot hold. Are you tired of pretending the slo-mo disaster movie doesn’t star us? And are you ready to do the previously unthinkable? Part one of two: the broken models of behaviour we need to escape.
Belonging
What qualities should the next Archbishop of Canterbury have?
This is Absurd Intelligence’s inaugural guest post: by Liz Slade, the first woman leading the Unitarian General Assembly in its 96 year history
Culture
It’s time to Speak Up for the world we want
A plan to broaden people’s perspectives by offering a new vision for what the future could be.
Democracy
40 Ways to Reframe Reform
How do we combat Reform and outmanoeuvre the insurgent right-wing revolters?
Democracy
How do we rehabilitate activism?
There’s a clear strategy behind the character assassination of climate activists – it’s our job to counter it
Democracy
Who was cheering for violence this week? The political diary of Ed Miliband
Exclusive insights into climate politics from the diary of a Net-Zed-er
Risk
Feeling the risk we’re in: an invitation to collaborate
A year-long investigation into provoking emotional realisations of the risks we’re in, in a way that leaves people feeling equipped to act.
Democracy
The Diary of Ed Miliband, aged 55+1/4
Announcing our new columnist: we are delighted to be serialising Ed's private diary each Monday on Absurd Intelligence.
Culture
How time travel is the key to coping with The Shitshow.
Using the lesser known Greek concepts of time, Kairos and Aion, to save us from the tyranny of Chronos.
Climate
Why we started Absurd Intelligence
Those of us who have been around the movement for many years can think back to a time we would tell ourselves, “When rich people in LA start losing their homes, things will change”...