Across the Divide

“Head of Female Worker Seen Over Office Cubicle, Standard Oil Company of California, 1976–77” by Chauncey Hare.

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Escape with the best of them by reading New Escapologist Issue 19.

€40,000

A decade ago, we celebrated the story of a guy who sued his workplace for boring him half to death.

I found myself wondering what came of him. Did he win his case? Did he find another job? Did he take his winnings and live on a yacht?

The myth-busting website Snopes has part of the answer:

a court in Paris ruled that Frédéric Desnard’s employer had subjected him to “moral harassment” and bullying, including deliberately subjecting him to “bore-out” at work.

And:

Mere boredom was far from the only mistreatment suffered by Desnard, who argued he was deliberately marginalized and humiliated at work for four years, causing him to become withdrawn and clinically depressed.

But:

While Desnard had asked for hundreds of thousands of euros in damages and compensation, the court ultimately sanctioned just €40,000.

It’s a pretty good moral victory and 40k is certainly a healthy escape fund to get you on the road, but I’m worried about Desnard now because 40k probably wasn’t enough to retire on (though maybe it was?) and because all that comes up when you Google his name now is his kooky employment tribunal. This help him to get another job.

I decided to do some modern “journalism” and ask him. I found his LinkedIn page, which was plastered in profile updates about bore-out, which made me wonder if he’s become working some sort of anti bore-out consultant. But when I tried to befriend him, he deleted his page. Good!

We respect your right to disappear, Monsieur Desnard. Good luck wherever you are.

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Escape with the best of them by reading New Escapologist Issue 19.

On the Lamm

August Lamm, the anti-tech artist we interviewed in the still-just-about-available Issue 18, has a new book out called You Don’t Need a Smartphone.

And you know what? You probably don’t need a smartphone. Personally, I’ve made peace with having one, but it repays to rethink these things. The considered life and all.

In August’s latest newsletter, she explains that publishers no longer send authors on book tours, so she’s decided to cross the USA on her own terms and at her own expense.

For a book like mine, addressing the decline of culture in the digital age, in-person events are crucial. Only by convening in a physical space can we escape algorithmic pre-determination and open ourselves up to the organic, unpredictable unfolding of Real Life.

This is great. Her position of integrity reminds me of my favourite Jaron Lanier quote, which I find genuinely empowering. I carry it in my heart:

You, you, you, have the affirmative responsibility to invent and demonstrate new ways to live without the crap that is destroying society. Quitting is the only way, for now, to learn what can replace our grand mistake.

If you happen to be America, please consider visiting August on tour and buying the book. It’s one in the eye for the supremacy of boring digital business practices that are wrecking the world and a vote for personal integrity.

Prison Break!

Friend Fabian writes to tell us about a German law allowing for a prisoner’s right to escape.

Sure enough, Wikipedia explains:

Escaping from prison isa criminal offense in countries such as the United States and Canada, and usually results in time being added to the inmate’s sentence … In Germany and a number of other countries, it is considered human nature to want to escape from a prison and it is considered as a violation of the right of freedom, so escape is not penalized in itself (in the absence of other factors such as threats of violence, actual violence, or property damage).

The countries who see the desire to escape as human nature include:

Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Iceland, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil

“Isn’t it interesting,” writes Fabien, “how they recognise our desire to be free from confinement as a natural given?”

It is. It’s something I’ve often wondered about because the alternative seems So disingenuous. Other illegalities I’ve wondered about are suicide and “resisting arrest.”

It’s unsporting if nothing else. Catching and retaining people the law sees as guilty is surely the law’s job, not that of the so-called criminal.

The only reason to obey these laws is the fear of legal consequence. There’s no moral reason for laws like these; they exist only to make rozzers’ jobs easier. I don’t think they should exist and I salute the legal systems who respect this.

The Wikipedia page for prison escapes, by the way, is great fun. It’s full of great stories about how people have busted out of prisons using spoons and helicopters.

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Escape with the best of them by reading New Escapologist Issue 19.

Back to Nature

Friend Joe sends us this painting, “Back to Nature,” by Robert Storm Petersen or “Storm P.” Look at those anonymous grey trudgers!

Petersen was a pipe-smoking Danish humorist whose writings and cartoons regularly portrayed vagabonds as philosophers. Our kind of guy.

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Escape with the best of them by reading New Escapologist Issue 19.

Either Own It Or Leave

In the moment, not quitting in some ways feels heroic, like you’re martyring yourself to your own capacity or grit. In fact, you’re actually limiting yourself, because you’re not walking away from things that are failing.

A little bit of Escapology from Lindsay Crouse who quit her job this year and has published a book called The Case for Quitting:

Staying [as opposed to escaping] is a decision, too. I’ve heard people say: “I really want to quit, but I can’t.” I think you have to ask yourself: why can’t you? If you think you can’t quit your job because you need money, have you actually run those numbers? Maybe you have, and you don’t like them. That’s fine, but you need to own that choice to stay.

If you want to leave your relationship, but are afraid of starting over, own that. Maybe you just want to get married. Down the line, tell yourself that was a decision you made, and you knew what you were getting into. Otherwise, you can quit and do your future self a favour – your partner, too. Who wants to be in a relationship without investment?

Being only one foot in is a very passive and kind of cowardly way to live your life. You need to ask yourself: “Am I hoping that this doubt, or deliberation, is just going to abate?” That question helps you reframe the situation – and the answer is no. You have to act: either own it or leave, but don’t think that these problems will just disappear. Maybe you can put up with them, but is that the life you want?

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Quit with the best of them by reading New Escapologist Issue 19.

AIming a Little Higher

I love Devi Sridhar. Yes, I fancy her but that is BESIDE THE POINT. Her recent book How Not to Die looks like self-help at first, but is in fact a brilliant call for radical change in public health (and for an expansion of what that means).

It’s not entirely our fault, as individuals, that we’re unhealthy or suffer a low quality of life. It’s that public policy currently nudges us away from making the obvious healthy choices when it should do the opposite. And we shouldn’t be at risk of random agonising deaths from, say, cars and guns, when such things could be spirited out of our lives if only the political will could be summoned to do so.

Lucky for me, Devi writes quite regularly in the Guardian, meaning I get little top-ups of her writing. This week she speaks of AI and what it might be doing to our brains and the world.

AI bores me as a topic, but it might be of interest to Escapologists dreaming of a low-work future for all and who might advocate (or not) for the automation of everything.

[we’re] moving closer to a world where we don’t have to see anyone, move anywhere or use our brains, seemingly at all. And [that’s] wonderful for the tech companies and those looking to cut costs by replacing humans with automation, but certainly not for the rest of us.

I agree, but only inasmuch as there’s no collectively arrived-at vision for a world after work. We may well be sliding into a future where we sit around with phones and laptops like the people in WALL-E. But in those circumstances, at least putting down those devices and doing some something would be a choice instead of something we’re economically bullied into. We shouldn’t have to “do” when we don’t want to. People should decide to get off their arse, not be cattle-prodded into it each morning by a job they despise. We just need to find the imagination to see beyond the world of work.

As an academic, Devi is worried specifically about “generative” AI and how it’s currently used:

As we look to the future, will thinking, reading, writing and actively using our brains become activities from a bygone era? If we stop using our brains to think, socially interact, concentrate or problem-solve, what will be the impact on our quality of life and our chances of ageing healthily? Will we see a rise in chronic disease linked to the brain?

And, maybe just as importantly, does anyone even care? It’s certainly not the concern of tech companies, which are in an arms race to go faster. And so we’re heading in that direction and being told it’s all wonderful. Yes, it is wonderful for certain tech companies. And probably terrible for the mental health and wellbeing of the rest of us.

We do seem to be automating the wrong things: students using AI to write essays when the whole point is to use the brain, publishers using AI to write books when the whole point of books is human connection and to send human thought into the future.

At the same time, I quite like the idea of putting the whole economy on automate. You could have bots buying from other bots in service of GDP (if people insist on that mattering) while we get on with things that matter, no longer motivated by money. The economy could be forced into a data centre where we don’t have to think about it anymore. We do something else instead, even if it just comes down to lazing about and exploring our inner realms.

What it comes down to is: I don’t want work and money to be the motivators for how we live. I don’t want artists to be forced to work primarily so that they can escape destitution. Instead, we can all make art for its own sake and as a means of connecting to each other. Can’t we? We need to find the imagination of what to do after AI, what to automate, and what to reclaim for ourselves. That should be the new system of public policy nudges we should be looking for.

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Connect with real human thought by reading New Escapologist Issue 19 and/or by anonymously mocking your useless workplace in our Workplace Woes section.

No Loyalty!

Thanks to contributor Andy for sending us this:

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Strike back by reading New Escapologist Issue 19 and/or by anonymously mocking your useless workplace in our Workplace Woes section.

Unusually Free to Make Uncommon Choices

Here are some choice cuts — with a bit of a through-line — from The Day the World Stops Shopping (2021) by JB MacKinnon:

On the free will that comes with minimalism:

Classical economic theory holds that consumers know what is best for themselves and act rationally in their self interest, a perspective that remains influential today. Paradoxically, it is anti-consumers, not mainstream ones, who come closest to this ideal: they are more likely to make active, informed choices … are less swayed by advertising and fads, and are less likely to feel trapped in consumption or to [try to] use it as a means of escape.

It’s a false means of escape: a delicious and enjoyable one usually, but it’s important to remember the difference between escapism and Escapology. Focus on what matters.

Many people perceive living simply as limiting; [but downshifter Syd Fredrickson] said it has always made her feel unusually free to make uncommon choices, question conformity, act spontaneously and express herself through her words and appearance. All her adult life she has watched people around her pursue careers they didn’t like or stay in jobs they hated because they would not risk ending up with a lower income. “They would say their lives were all hollow and crazy… They just thought it was too scary to do something else,” she said.

Sound familiar?

On how non-consumers might spend their time:

[Even though we need collective action at the policy level to actually save the planet,] it is still reasonable to reduce your consumption for personal reasons alone. [And] there are many more roles that individuals can play. A world that stops shopping needs new products and services, new theories of how an economy can function, new ways of making meaning in our lives, new models for doing business, new habits, new policies, new protest movements, new infrastructure. As Kris De Decker said, “We need to rethink everything.”

In other words, when you reduce your interest in materialist consumption you don’t merely absent your money and time from the system but you also open up some of the bandwidth needed for the Great Project of rethinking everything. Isn’t that cool?

On innovation vs. the profit motive:

Traditional economists have long claimed that innovation is driven by the profit motive, but that, too, does not appear to be the way that it actually works. [The research of Eric von Hippel] found that many innovations don’t even originate in businesses, but rather among everyday people, who often share their ideas freely. … The inventor [or hobbyist] takes satisfaction not from making money but from creating something useful and gaining standing in the community. Similarly, scientists themselves tend to invent the scientific instruments that are most important to the advancement of science, often profiting little or not at all from their inventions.

New Escapologist is written, decorated, and published by such people. Get it here.

GLUE

Big thanks to our distributor, Ra & Olly, for taking Escape Everything! to the GLUE Bookfair at London’s ICA this week.

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New Escapologist Issue 19 is available to order NOW! NOW! NOW!