Category: Links

Posted on August 12, 2021

In defence of Extinction Rebellion 🔗

>The pundits of the various leftist movements have spent thousands of words telling us how much better their red climate movement would have been (more working class!, more intersectional!, more militant!) than XR if only they’d got round to doing it.

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Posted on August 9, 2021

I’ve just read this article in by Oliver Burkeman _The Guardian_:

At best, we're on Earth for around 4,000 weeks – so why do we lose so much time to online distraction? 🔗

It is an edited extract from his book _Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It_, published on 26th August 2021.

I recognise and certainly experience a lot of the symptoms of being distracted that he is pointing out.

>Social media is engineered to constantly adapt to our interests. No wonder the rest of reality seems unable to compete

>We mustn’t let Silicon Valley off the hook, but we should be honest: much of the time, we give in to distraction willingly

>When we succumb to distraction, we’re motivated by the desire to flee something painful about our experience of the present

>What we think of as distractions aren’t the cause of our being distracted. They’re just the places we go to seek relief

The title of this post comes from _**Burnt Norton**_ the first of T.S.Eliot’s _Four Quartets_:

>Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration