What do you think?
Rate this book
Underminers: A Guide to Subverting The Machine
A practical guide for radical change
- GenresPolitics
384 pages, Paperback
First published September 10, 2013
99 people want to read
About the author
Keith Farnish
6 books6 followersA stay at home father and husband, occasional computer expert, serial volunteer and not-quite self-sufficient individual in the Scottish borders, Keith Farnish has been actively involved in environmental and social issues for nearly 20 years – for a large part of that as an active member of various organisations before becoming disillusioned with the mainstream activist movement. He founded The Earth Blog in 2006, intended as a source of inspiration for people who want to be challenged, and also the anti-greenwashing site The Unsuitablog.
In 2009, his first non-fiction book, Time’s Up! An Uncivilized Solution to a Global Crisis was published by Green Books, and rapidly became a classic of the anti-civilization genre, particularly in the USA. His second book Underminers: A Guide to Subverting The Machine follows up on the work started by Time’s Up! in a more practical vein. Initially thought to be too radical for publication, it was bought by New Society and published in 2013.
Following the publishing of Underminers, He decided to leave non-fiction writing for something which could connect to a wider audience. He started work on Almost Gone as a short story in 2014 and was encouraged by various people to turn it into a novel, which was completed in mid-2015. Continuing in the world in which Almost Gone is set; the follow-up is in progress, entitled Other Worlds, and written from the point of view of a member of the other tribe featured in the first novel. The final part, of what has become a trilogy, will be called Hollow Ground.
Almost Gone was released as an ebook in September 2016.
In 2009, his first non-fiction book, Time’s Up! An Uncivilized Solution to a Global Crisis was published by Green Books, and rapidly became a classic of the anti-civilization genre, particularly in the USA. His second book Underminers: A Guide to Subverting The Machine follows up on the work started by Time’s Up! in a more practical vein. Initially thought to be too radical for publication, it was bought by New Society and published in 2013.
Following the publishing of Underminers, He decided to leave non-fiction writing for something which could connect to a wider audience. He started work on Almost Gone as a short story in 2014 and was encouraged by various people to turn it into a novel, which was completed in mid-2015. Continuing in the world in which Almost Gone is set; the follow-up is in progress, entitled Other Worlds, and written from the point of view of a member of the other tribe featured in the first novel. The final part, of what has become a trilogy, will be called Hollow Ground.
Almost Gone was released as an ebook in September 2016.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 22, 2014
Precisely and poetically, Keith Farnish cuts down to the core of every issue—the problem is civilization itself—and proceeds to equip underminers with the perspective and skills (via ample tasks as jumping off points) to not just dismantle the machine but, more importantly, to recreate real community and reclaim our humanity. A beautiful, paradigm-shifting work; I found each chapter to be more profound than the last.
----------
"So, if Connection is necessary to our existence, how then can we bring ourselves to sacrifice a pristine forest for a shopping mall?"
"Civilization encourages us to shut the door, shut the windows, shut the blinds, shut our minds from the reality of the world. The connected world is still going on out there, but we would rather let the caustic rain of civilization wash it away and supplant it with 'connections' that have been manufactured to keep us on our place. In our disconnected lives we are made to feel safe, even though we are on the edge of catastrophe; we are made to enjoy what we do, even though we have forgotten what joy feels like; we are made to experience self-worth, even though we have become worthless; we are made to feel in control, even though we have no control at all. The system has us where it wants us. And now it can use all of us like the metaphorical batteries and cogs that signify our labor and our spending, and our naive compliance in which we live our synthetic lives, from the plastic toys we grasp as babies to the flickering, energy-sapping screens that fix our attention on the advertisers' world, from the blacktop roads we populate in countless streams of [rolling] metal caskets on the way to and from our designated places of valued employment, to the offices and factories and supermarkets and call centers where we spend a third of our lives operating in order to keep the machine spinning, in order that we can be given currency that we, in our docility, reinsert into the system so it can keep growing, and taking, and killing everything it is able to reach.
And when we feel weary, we take a packaged, predetermined vacation. And when we feel hungry, we eat a packaged, predetermined meal. And when we feel bored, we go to a packaged, predetermined slice of entertainment. And when we are of no more use to the system, we are retired—and only then do we, in the moments of reflection that we never had time for during our urgent 'productive' years, think about what we could have been had the system not taken is at such an early age. We have become, in effect, an entirely new subspecies—for although our genetic DNA is unchanged from pre-industrial times, our 'cultural' DNA is far removed from that of any other group, tribe or society that ever walked the Earth prior to the emergence of this rapacious version of a human being. 'Homo sapiens sapiens' is a connected species. 'Homo sapiens civilis' has had the connections ripped away from it."
"The Tools of Disconnection have been around for as long as civilizations have existed. Most likely they have their origins in the most basic functions of civilized society, such as enforcing a hierarchy of authority, ensuring the availability of a large and reliable workforce and maintaining a constant flow of resources into, and waste out of, the system. The effectiveness of these Tool in controlling every aspect of human behavior is not, as would be imagined, in their direct application, but through the remarkable side effect of disconnecting people from anything but the activities of the civilized world.
Thus, what are otherwise long-used Tools of Control are also Tools of Disconnection. The control creates the disconnection, and the disconnection reduces our ability to prevent the industrial machine from controlling is still further. Climate feedback loops, such as the darkening of the Arctic seas increasing the absorption of solar radiation, are critical for understanding the environmental catastrophe ahead of us. The feedback loop of disconnection is even more critical, because 'it explains why we have done nothing at all to stop this catastrophe.'"
-----
"Whatever medical science my profess, there is a difference between Life and survival… Their instruments measure blood pressure and temperature, but overlook joy, passion, love, all the things that make life really matter."
"Most of us feel as though everything has already been decided without us, as if living is not a creative activity but rather something that happens to us. That's not being alive, that's just surviving: being undead."
"Beyond the life you live, you have no 'true' self—you are precisely what you do and think and feel. That's the real tragedy about the life of the man who spends it talking on his cell phone and attending seminars and fidgeting with the remote control; it's not that he denies himself his dreams, necessarily, but that he makes them answer to reality rather than attempting the opposite."
"We must make our freedom by cutting holes in the fabric of this reality, by forgot new realities which will, in turn, fashion us. Putting yourself in new situations constantly is the only way to ensure that you make your decisions unencumbered by the inertia of habit, custom, law or prejudice—and it is up to you to create these situations. Freedom only exists in the moment of revolution… self-determination, like power, belongs only to the ones who exercise it."
—CrimethInc., Survival & Undermining
---------
"We all have instinct, and most of us ignore it. The gut feeling that something is too risky, going wrong or needs a last minute adjustment is not just innate; it is born of experience and knowledge. By ignoring instinct you are ignoring a lifetime of learning."
"Civilization is disconnection."
"Of course there would be things we would miss… but none of them are critical to life, and clearly the things we would be losing are more than made up for by the things we would be gaining."
"[W]ith our collective efforts, progress can be made in weaning ourselves and others off things we really don't need: shopping, fashion, debt, jobs, a global economy, a global Internet."
"Community is the natural state of human beings: dependent upon each other, working together to ensure the stability and success of whatever collective form we take. Community is the antithesis of how civilization wants us to live. Sadly, as we seek the company and mutual assistance of others like us, this need is exploited by civilization to devastating effect… The future of humanity lies not in civilization but with communities. We have to undermine the civilized idea that we can at once be homogenous, global citizens and atomized, selfish individuals… Community is, in its most basic sense, meaningful connection with other people. But it must be tangible…"
"A headful of worry without an escape route invariably leads to breakdown… By taking positive steps to undermine the system we can remove the torment of knowing the truth. Impotence creates despair, which leads to denial, which leads to acceptance, the most dangerous state of all… the way to break out of it is not to grieve for what may be lost, but to leave this linear pathway and create something that has numerous outcomes."
----------
"So, if Connection is necessary to our existence, how then can we bring ourselves to sacrifice a pristine forest for a shopping mall?"
"Civilization encourages us to shut the door, shut the windows, shut the blinds, shut our minds from the reality of the world. The connected world is still going on out there, but we would rather let the caustic rain of civilization wash it away and supplant it with 'connections' that have been manufactured to keep us on our place. In our disconnected lives we are made to feel safe, even though we are on the edge of catastrophe; we are made to enjoy what we do, even though we have forgotten what joy feels like; we are made to experience self-worth, even though we have become worthless; we are made to feel in control, even though we have no control at all. The system has us where it wants us. And now it can use all of us like the metaphorical batteries and cogs that signify our labor and our spending, and our naive compliance in which we live our synthetic lives, from the plastic toys we grasp as babies to the flickering, energy-sapping screens that fix our attention on the advertisers' world, from the blacktop roads we populate in countless streams of [rolling] metal caskets on the way to and from our designated places of valued employment, to the offices and factories and supermarkets and call centers where we spend a third of our lives operating in order to keep the machine spinning, in order that we can be given currency that we, in our docility, reinsert into the system so it can keep growing, and taking, and killing everything it is able to reach.
And when we feel weary, we take a packaged, predetermined vacation. And when we feel hungry, we eat a packaged, predetermined meal. And when we feel bored, we go to a packaged, predetermined slice of entertainment. And when we are of no more use to the system, we are retired—and only then do we, in the moments of reflection that we never had time for during our urgent 'productive' years, think about what we could have been had the system not taken is at such an early age. We have become, in effect, an entirely new subspecies—for although our genetic DNA is unchanged from pre-industrial times, our 'cultural' DNA is far removed from that of any other group, tribe or society that ever walked the Earth prior to the emergence of this rapacious version of a human being. 'Homo sapiens sapiens' is a connected species. 'Homo sapiens civilis' has had the connections ripped away from it."
"The Tools of Disconnection have been around for as long as civilizations have existed. Most likely they have their origins in the most basic functions of civilized society, such as enforcing a hierarchy of authority, ensuring the availability of a large and reliable workforce and maintaining a constant flow of resources into, and waste out of, the system. The effectiveness of these Tool in controlling every aspect of human behavior is not, as would be imagined, in their direct application, but through the remarkable side effect of disconnecting people from anything but the activities of the civilized world.
Thus, what are otherwise long-used Tools of Control are also Tools of Disconnection. The control creates the disconnection, and the disconnection reduces our ability to prevent the industrial machine from controlling is still further. Climate feedback loops, such as the darkening of the Arctic seas increasing the absorption of solar radiation, are critical for understanding the environmental catastrophe ahead of us. The feedback loop of disconnection is even more critical, because 'it explains why we have done nothing at all to stop this catastrophe.'"
-----
"Whatever medical science my profess, there is a difference between Life and survival… Their instruments measure blood pressure and temperature, but overlook joy, passion, love, all the things that make life really matter."
"Most of us feel as though everything has already been decided without us, as if living is not a creative activity but rather something that happens to us. That's not being alive, that's just surviving: being undead."
"Beyond the life you live, you have no 'true' self—you are precisely what you do and think and feel. That's the real tragedy about the life of the man who spends it talking on his cell phone and attending seminars and fidgeting with the remote control; it's not that he denies himself his dreams, necessarily, but that he makes them answer to reality rather than attempting the opposite."
"We must make our freedom by cutting holes in the fabric of this reality, by forgot new realities which will, in turn, fashion us. Putting yourself in new situations constantly is the only way to ensure that you make your decisions unencumbered by the inertia of habit, custom, law or prejudice—and it is up to you to create these situations. Freedom only exists in the moment of revolution… self-determination, like power, belongs only to the ones who exercise it."
—CrimethInc., Survival & Undermining
---------
"We all have instinct, and most of us ignore it. The gut feeling that something is too risky, going wrong or needs a last minute adjustment is not just innate; it is born of experience and knowledge. By ignoring instinct you are ignoring a lifetime of learning."
"Civilization is disconnection."
"Of course there would be things we would miss… but none of them are critical to life, and clearly the things we would be losing are more than made up for by the things we would be gaining."
"[W]ith our collective efforts, progress can be made in weaning ourselves and others off things we really don't need: shopping, fashion, debt, jobs, a global economy, a global Internet."
"Community is the natural state of human beings: dependent upon each other, working together to ensure the stability and success of whatever collective form we take. Community is the antithesis of how civilization wants us to live. Sadly, as we seek the company and mutual assistance of others like us, this need is exploited by civilization to devastating effect… The future of humanity lies not in civilization but with communities. We have to undermine the civilized idea that we can at once be homogenous, global citizens and atomized, selfish individuals… Community is, in its most basic sense, meaningful connection with other people. But it must be tangible…"
"A headful of worry without an escape route invariably leads to breakdown… By taking positive steps to undermine the system we can remove the torment of knowing the truth. Impotence creates despair, which leads to denial, which leads to acceptance, the most dangerous state of all… the way to break out of it is not to grieve for what may be lost, but to leave this linear pathway and create something that has numerous outcomes."
December 25, 2020
Still appropriate to the further resilence of humanity. Provocative and encouraging.
"Civilization is unsustainable at any scale, and the more resource intensive the civilization, the shorter the time it can last. However, we have to bear in mind that the construct called Industrial Civilization is actually a composite of a great number of different—albeit not very different—civilizations that have collided and merged into one enormously destructive entity. It is only because of the huge scale of Industrial Civilization, being able to take what it needs from anywhere on Earth with our tacit approval, that it has lasted as long as it has."
"Civilization is unsustainable at any scale, and the more resource intensive the civilization, the shorter the time it can last. However, we have to bear in mind that the construct called Industrial Civilization is actually a composite of a great number of different—albeit not very different—civilizations that have collided and merged into one enormously destructive entity. It is only because of the huge scale of Industrial Civilization, being able to take what it needs from anywhere on Earth with our tacit approval, that it has lasted as long as it has."
December 20, 2025
The authors “guide to subverting the machine” entails nothing more than being a nuisance and practical jokester who prints out fake news articles and fake company statements in an attempt that some who see it will become radicalized. The author focuses more on connecting to a community as a means of global change that will uproot civilized society. The irony of this is that one of the authors main points is that “hope” has got us nowhere in undermining civilization. Yet the authors idealistic optimism views a society that upheaves the global neoliberal corporate world through the power of friendship and personal connection. Far-fetched and unfocused to say the least.
January 28, 2018
very good book.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews