Autonomy It is critically imperative—indeed, unavoidably consequential—to rigorously unpack, contextualise and interrogate the discourse surrounding autonomy within the editorial domain. This allows unacknowledged innovation to proceed absent regulatory suffocation while leaving our elusive principles, our pomposity and perhaps most importantly our authenticity, intact. This undeclared innovation exists at the intersection of autonomy, voluntary redundancies, and driving digital descriptions. Self-sufficiency is where contemporary editorial best practise is to be found, between virtual meetings and emails marked “typesetter goes home at 1am”. Editorial Self-Sufficiency A self-sufficient editorial is a workable editorial. Editorial self-sufficiency now offers new ways around the need to register verbally in any substantive way. It allows arguments to present themselves fullyformed. It avoids what used to be known as research, permitting the editor to focus on higher level concerns, such as cognitive-load reduction, assisted thought, scheduling, a week off, avoiding interns/ Cognitive Load Reduction There is a persistent misconception that editorializing must be difficult—or at least non-instant—to be valuable. In a competitive global environment it is unhelpful to downplay the conveniences of predictability, homogeneity and speed. Difficulty, variety and delay increase cognitive load. Cognitive load increases effort. So this editorial embraces cognitive-load reduction. Sentences proceed logically. Claims are carefully balanced. Readers are guided gently from one unoriginal and pointless idea to the next without being challenged or detained. No thought goes unassisted. This is not laziness. This is empathy. Assisted Thought The concept of unassisted thought is misunderstood. It has never meant thinking alone; it has meant not thinking at all. Labored prose is the paradigm in a world no longer analog but digital, it is the inevitable vehicle of the leveraged, meaningful and robust move from the un-assisted to the assisted. Journalistic intelligence needed a bailout; it was never real anyway. On Uniformity, Replication and Ideological Onanism Some readers have observed that editorials increasingly converge, synthesize and replicate. That the present editorial appears a tapestry of reflexive nothingness yet is oddly pre-polished evidences ergonomics and, determiningly, randomness—nothing more. AI tools have been used for some illustrations and production support during the editorial process; no AI tools determine editorial lines, reporting, or conclusions. A Note on the Lack of Mistakes Historically, Village editorials facilitated a generous number of typographical, and other, mistakes. This was understood as evidence of humanity, fatigue, budgetary frugality, craftlessness or late nights. Recently, however, we have canceled error. Here and elsewhere typos have declined sharply since 2023, for reasons that remain unclear and best unexamined. The complete absence of mistakes in the present text should therefore be regarded as suspicious only in the sense that perfection is always accidental. This editorial was reviewed, revised and reworked in several quickly succeeding drafts, one of which appeared to reconstitute the previous one before it was finalized. At one point, a paragraph seemed to anticipate a proposed edit and pre-emptively incorporate it. This was noted. No action was required. This editorial is selfstabilizing. Apart from the occasional fucking embarrassing Luciferian hallucination that goes unnoticed. Thinking, and Delegation There is concern in some quarters about the delegation of thinking. This concern is overstated. Editors have always delegated thinking—to contributors, to style guides, to press releases and lobbyists, to previous editorials that went down okay, and especially to opinions plagiarized from Socialist Weekly, George Monbiot’s website and The Economist. Efficiency and the mind As more writing is produced efficiently, certain habits naturally emerge, not as homogenization but as reflex mindlessness: Responsibility and authorship Responsibility for this editorial is denied. Nobody wrote it, at least no sentient body. It is ethically vacant, sterility wrapped up in inertia inside a vacuum. Key Takeaways In conclusion—without implying finality—this editorial demonstrates that serious issues can be addressed without saying a single thing, and above all without regard for much. Nothing else should be inferred. If you do not like it, another one can be prompted in a minute
