Downstream IRL: Ash Sarkar in Conversation With Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor

We have imagined our collective demise so many times that it almost feels as if it has happened already.

Join us in Brighton for this very special Downstream IRL, where Ash Sarkar will sit down with one of the most influential thinkers of our age, Naomi Klein, and award-winning writer, documentarian and co-founder of the Debt Collective, Astra Taylor, to discuss their new book, End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World.

A new, apocalyptic alliance of religious fundamentalists, billionaire Silicon Valley tech kings and ethno-nationalists is gathering momentum – Klein and Taylor argue that this is different from anything we’ve seen before. We are beyond the shock doctrine and disaster capitalism. They aren’t just exploiting collapse, they’re provoking and accelerating it, whilst protecting themselves from the fallout. 

While ordinary people are struggling with the cost of living, the super-rich are building luxury compounds (complete with nuclear bunkers). Musk, the world’s first trillionaire, fantasises about rocketing off to Mars – and none of us are getting a seat on the ship. The world’s fate is increasingly in the hands of men who are ambivalent about its survival and betting money on the end. 

Already, anger at the building of data centres is cutting across left and right, in a way that climate politics rarely has – but how do we make sure that anger is heard? And is there any real possibility of reining in Silicon Valley?

With the Doomsday Clock creeping closer to midnight than ever before, apocalyptic visions of the future can feel inevitable. How do we separate necessary alarm from fatalism? 

Expect big questions, bold analysis, and the kind of conversation you simply won’t find anywhere else.