Common Sense

Do you talk yourself down? Do you get overwhelmed? Ignored by those around you? Are you envious of your neighbour? Have you done something you regret? Installed an app that took control over you? Do you need to confess, but cannot afford a psychologist? Not Catholic enough to do the sacrament? Then unload your frustrations on us. Write it down on a piece of paper – anonymously – and we will give you a scene informed by your torment. The performers on stage handle everyday challenges under the yoke of your anguish. You are not alone. We are in this together.

After the break, we pitch the products you didn’t know you hated, those that do not exist … yet. Apps exploiting your weakest points. Gadgets replacing humans. You’ll get to see scenes from a world where these products exist. Maybe they are useful for people, or maybe the innovation is just harmful to the community.

Our brain is designed to sit around the campfire with our gang, it does not work well alone in front of a screen. That is why Common Sense gives you Protest-Theatre against inhumane algorithms, digital capitalism and ultra-processed food. We refuse to individualize responsibility for people’s mental and physical health, and insist that society must take its share of the responsibility.

We perform in Norwegian and/or English depending on audience preference.

It’s easy to get carried away when TechBros either predict the end of humanity or guarantee the Superintelligence will fly in to save us. Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, Demis Hassabis, claims AI will end all disease. If only science is allowed to develop freely unto eternity, then everything bad can eventually be fixed by a pill. Unfortunately, medical research is unable to mobilize quite the same enthusiasm. On the contrary, we see that people develop disease when humanity refuse to submit ourselves to our Ecology, and to how evolution has designed us. I suggest less naive reductionism, more respect for human interactions. A concept the Tech oligarchs are not equipped to understand, as they are on the spectrum, down a rabbit hole, wandering around in the Manosphere. The tech guys and broadcasters’ taste for measuring, weighing, ranking, and electing winners simply doesn’t work equally well for those of us who aren’t young men with entrepreneural whims and defined jaws. Us who are women and men, young and old. It’s human relationships that keep us healthy, not even deeper gene sequencing and SSRIs.

Transhumanism, self-optimization, looksmaxing, and biohacking are lifestyle changes on steroids, wrapped in technological optimism to secure risky investing. Cultural theorist Mark Fisher observed that Capitalism is considered the sole option, humans only understand “survival of the fittest.” In the theater, on the other hand, we see that stories, feelings, and experience arise between people, in the relationships among us. Surprisingly little interesting happens at a “monologue meeting,” or where the fear of an absolute power figure reigns. Participation in society – whether it’s choir practice, at a theater performance, or on a sports team – is good for us, it’s actually a matter of life or death.

Therefore, authorities need to enable community between the people in our society. We need our immune system to be regulated and we need the state to regulate. Regulatory T cells take care of the immune system. If each of us could only stop fighting the species we are mutually dependent on (our microbiome). The authorities, on the other hand, need to take care of Digital Capitalism, not by limiting teenagers’ social lives, but by tackling the problem at the root. Sorry, Techbros got to go.