Real Review #17

An extinction burst occurs when bad behaviour intensifies before stopping. Undesirable qualities can become entrenched through positive reinforcement. But if the world changes and no longer provides us with the same feedback, we lose our minds: to the privileged, equality feels like persecution. Extinction bursts are forms of active denial; refusals to accept the past as gone, and desperate attempts to preserve the potential of an impossible reality. Today, modernity’s worst tendencies return intensified: patriarchy, racism, plutocracy, colonialism, exploitation, rentierism, genocide. Even attempts at redemption, restoration and stasis accelerate the decline.

Is the decline of the West irreversible? We interview Yancy Strickler on creating alternative realities. Richard Wentworth walks and sends postcards. Wendy Brown prefaces a new translation of Marx’s Capital. Noam Chomsky is in conversation with Rage Against the Machine. Francis Fukuyama is in conversation with JackSelf, who reviews Bin Laden and the creative millennial. Maddy Weavers cancels out noise. Oluwatobiloba. Ajayi reviews black satire, while Neo-Metabolism reviews the Limits to Growth. Noah Gotib watches the American dream crumble. Max Creasy documents the last disposable vape, while Tanja Egleberst captures oil at sea. Sarah Owen and Rose Theodora read the stars. Stephanie Sherman, Lukas Likavcan and Rachel Pearl don spacesuits on Earth, while the Office of Applied Stratgy wears corporate merch. Sophia Sheppard frees herself as an adult.