When the music is to good to work to. 😩
Immanuel Wilkins' latest is SPIRITUAL..

Dead Birds Everywhere Pt. 1: Crisis as Exposure

(Finally) starting to write / think again on Permutations – with a new series on democracy, magical realities, and charting a way beyond.

This is part 1: Dead Birds Everywhere.

Against Method 008 // 12-16-2025 AM008 w/ Jack DeJohnnette, Eiko Ishibashi, Hand To Earth, Sumac, Mette Henriette, Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi, and more

New show is up (it's been a while)!

AM008 w/ Jack DeJohnnette, Eiko Ishibashi, Hand To Earth, Sumac, Mette Henriette, Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi, and more

www.mixcloud.com/AgainstMetho...

This Democracy Is Yours, Too Four quick thoughts on Zohran Mamdani’s victory.

Wrote this up in more depth + a few questions to sit with: open.substack.com/pub/simonhoe...

4. Beyond Analysis
It’s hard to overestimate the psychological experience of self-efficacy the Mamdani’s campaign has had on people who had almost gotten used to hope- and helplessness.

As Mamdani put it: This democracy is yours, too.

3. Building without debt
Grand ideas only get diluted if on your way to power you build on alliances that bog you down. Build a movement that is coherent to begin with, and you have a much harder start but a much longer breath.

2. Back to Basics
The most powerful response to today’s hyper-news cycles was the calm return to everyday basics: public transport, rent, childcare. Turns out the most extreme thing you can do in 2025 is vote for free buses and lower rent.

Four quick thoughts on Zohran Mamdani’s victory:

1. Leaders as catalysts:
A healthy reminder of the first rule of politics: A charismatic, authentic human is necessary for any movement to take root. Good leaders aren't saviours, they are convenors who make visible what was already trying to emerge.

Kurze Zusammenfassung für alle, denen das jetzt etwas viel wird: Die CDU Berlin vergibt willkürlich Gelder für Antisemitismus-Bekämpfung, u.a. an eine Immobilienfirma mit Geschäftsführer Max Mustermann oder auch an die Kollegin des haushaltspolitischen Sprechers im Parteivorstand Lichterfelde. 1/4

New Probe: Just because we can choose, it does not mean there are no consequences to our choices.

On world making, objectivity, and responsibility.

A way forward for designing public institutions in an age of doubts.

→ open.substack.com/pub/simonhoe...

New Post: The most sophisticated thing our organisations do isn’t solving complex problems. It’s making them look simple.

The use of the many frameworks to grasp complexity is conversational:

“Seek for simplicity but distrust it.” - Whitehead

→ open.substack.com/pub/simonhoe...

It stabilises the cycle of trauma and enables it.

It removes friction to generate legitimacy from the very harm it facilitated.

No learning, never. 4/4

This continuity is preventing any collective learning that would require pause, reflection, and or accountability.

Instead we witness ubiquitous and shameless avoidance of any responsibility. 3/4

Shamelessness is central to how trauma politics functions:

There is no interim space for reflection or accountability here. The shift from complicity to concern happens without interruption. 2/4

The ease with which major (German) media now seamlessly switch from enabling Gaza's destruction to reporting on it with “deep concern” is breathtaking in its shamelessness.

This is no accident. This is trauma politics in action.
And it is very coherent. 1/4

Trauma Politics From Never Again to Ever Again

We are witnessing a new form of politics.
One that flipped the script of shame, decency, and virtue.

It makes transgression a guiding principle for how we govern, and renders any response to it structurally inadequate.

This is trauma politics.

Governing Unthinkable Futures (Talk) Video and recap from my talk at FutureDays Lisbon, May 2025

Bonus: I added all the references to the many projects mentioned in my write up over here: simonhoeher.substack.com/p/governing-...

Simon Höher at Future Days 2025 YouTube video by Future Days

My talk on ‘Unthinkable Futures’ from #FutureDays in Lisbon is online!

If you like futures, glitches and parasites → www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTAq...

Ant mills are odd: everyone follows the rules but the system is collectively stuck. Without intervention they spiral to death.

What could this mean for democracies?

What happens when rules designed to maintain a system cause its undoing?

→ New post up now: simonhoeher.substack.com/p/death-by-d...

A few quick thoughts on Iberia’s recent blackout and what this means for how we govern through complexity.
→ open.substack.com/pub/simonhoe...

My latest post is up:

From interventions to intersections → how to move beyond the binary and back.

open.substack.com/pub/simonhoe...

Öffentliche Innovation Neu Denken Entdecke neue Perspektiven! Lerne Veränderung systemisch zu gestalten – mit internationalen Expert:innen in einem kompakten Online-Kurs im März und April 2025. Jetzt anmelden! Warum dieser Ku...

PSA: 📣
Ende März bieten wir wieder unseren Kurs Öffentliche Innovation Neu Denken an: Grundlagen, Methoden und viel Praxis für systemisches Arbeiten.

Mit tollen Speaker:innen, einer kleinen, feinen Kohorte und viel Einblicke in die Praxis.

(Viel) mehr Infos → protocol.ghost.io/offentliche-...

Schon wieder Der Aufstieg der NSDAP/AfD

Uff.
datajournal.org/schon-wieder/

Unthinkable Futures The New is Beyond Prediction

Is Foresight a problem!? 🔮

My first post is up!

This one is about why we should stop imagining desirable / critical / indigenous futures

– and start looking for glitches instead.

→ open.substack.com/pub/simonhoe...

Wir haben die Schikanen der Polizei Berlin der letzten Wochen nicht an die große Glocke gehängt: Weil wir keine Absicht dahinter vermuteten. Seit gestern wissen wir: Die Polizei hat systematisch ALLES daran gesetzt in den letzten 30 Tagen, den Adenauer SRP+ zu verhindern! Ein Thread zum SKANDAL! 🧵

When faced with crises, we escape to the future: We dream up positive, desirable, even critical futures to strive for—or brace for darker ones. It's how we orient our choices, set our priorities, find something worth fighting for.

Starting to write on the internet in 2025. There is value in permutation. There is surplus is change.

Ideas evolve, recombine – and sometimes, they’re worth picking up again.

I’m starting Permutations: longer reads, slower thoughts on systems, democracy, design and justice.

First post is up today! Next one drops tomorrow.
If this sounds fun, have a look—or even subscribe:
simonhoeher.substack.com

Real-O-Mat Reality-Check statt Wahlversprechen. Positionier’ dich zu 20 politischen Forderungen und finde raus: Mit welcher Wahl wird’s auch real?

Wahlkampfversprechen bleiben (aus verschiedensten Gründen) oft einfach nur Versprechen und was im Koalitionsvertag steht, wird auch nicht immer umgesetzt.

Beim Real-o-Maten könnt Ihr Eure Erwartungen an die Parteien damit vergleichen, wie die Sie tatsächlich abgestimmt haben.

In Focus: Arvo Pärt 10th January 2025 Playing Christian Traditional, Minimalism, Classical.

NTS In Focus w/ Arvo Pärt is perfection.
www.nts.live/shows/in-foc...