I’m chatting to Marc Andreessen about Accelerationism next week and thought I’d get a few thoughts written down here beforehand. It feels like the old days. Except this time my blog works a bit better.
Accelerationism is back. But of course, it never went away. In fact, inherent within its very definition is its inability to ever ‘go away’. As Nick Land stated in A Quick and Dirty Introduction to Accelerationism - “Anyone trying to work out what they think about accelerationism better do so quickly. That’s the nature of the thing. It was already caught up with trends that seemed too fast to track when it began to become self-aware, decades ago.” And it appears we’re already at our first Accelerationism Renaissance, specifically in relation to the (re)surgence of ‘e/acc’ or ‘Effective Accelerationism’. Now, long before there was any x/acc there was simply ‘acc’ or ‘Accelerationism’. For a somewhat new (but truly atemporal) ‘idea’ accelerationism already has a turbulent history.
‘Accelerationism is a range of ideas in critical and social theory that propose that social processes, such as capitalist growth and technological change, should be drastically intensified to create further radical social change referred to as "acceleration’
Whilst this definition is entirely fair, it does tend to humanize what is primarily an inhuman process. The error is once again founded upon the word ‘should’, which brings forth the question - ‘Well, who is the agency which believes we should?’ (An idea I’ll get to with E/Acc) The truth is, there is no such agency in relation to linear human temporality, and the only ‘agency’ at work with respect to the process of Acceleration, is capitalism itself - or: There is no should with respect to Acceleration, there only is Acceleration. With this said various forms of Accelerationism have sprung up over time that merit attention.
Left-Accelerationism: Man seizes the emancipative capabilities of techonomic innovation as a means to free the proletariat. (See: Inventing the Future by Srnicek and Williams.
Right-Accelerationism: The singularity/intelligence explosion/Skynet. (See: Xenosystems by Nick Land)
Unconditional-Accelerationism: Let the process do what it will. (See: U/Acc Primer by Xenogothic)
Zero-Accelerationism: We’ll collapse, but will try to Accelerate anyway. (See: Z/Acc Worldview)
Whichever of the above one subscribes to - and I’ll get to E/Acc soon - it appears that this recent Renaissance is launching its investigation from roughly the same springboard as the one we all were talking about from 2016-2017 (roughly). That is, way back when in the ‘Hellthread’ Twitter era, the foundation of Accelerationism was so acutely continental it almost made one vomit. One could begin with Marx’s Fragment on Machines, The Accelerationist Reader, Hyperstition, Fanged Noumena, Deleuzeguattarian philosophy in general, late Nietzsche, or the CCRU. Whatever way you approached accelerationism back in 2017, you were bound to land neck-deep in some of the most challenging, idea-infested, accelerating philosophical muck. For those new to this ‘style’ of philosophy, note that many people declare Deleuze and Guattari the ‘End game’. I don’t think they’re necessarily difficult in terms of language, style, or ideas, but they are difficult in terms of their scope. Anyway, the point is that the Renaissance is beginning from this foundation, but it’s a little tainted with humanism compared to what was going on in 2017.
“Or might it be to go in the opposite direction? To go still further, that is, in the movement of the market, of decoding and deterritorialization? For perhaps the flows are not yet deterritorialized enough, not decoded enough, from the viewpoint of a theory and a practice of a highly schizophrenic character. Not to withdraw from the process, but to go further, to “accelerate the process,” as Nietzsche put it: in this manner, the truth is that we haven’t seen anything yet.” (Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari, p276)
There is enough jargon in that passage to keep one busy for a lifetime. There is enough philosophy in that passage for one, if they wish to put in the time, to understand Accelerationism in the philosophical sense. So yes, it is a matter of ‘putting one’s foot on the accelerator’, but the question still remains as to what the pedal being pushed even is, and who or what is doing the accelerating. This brings me to Effective Accelerationism, or ‘E/Acc’. Primarily analyzing this post, we see that E/Acc is:
The overarching goal for humanity is to preserve the light of consciousness.
[For people coming from the previous understanding of Accelerationism, the notion of a ‘goal for humanity’ is almost entirely antithetical to notions such as the ‘machinic-unconscious’, as such, this first point aligns E/Acc more thoroughly with L/Acc, though in a little bit of an esoteric sense. Note, the light of consciousness idea is related to an Elon Musk tweet]
Technology and market forces (technocapital) are accelerating in their power and abilities.
[‘Technocapital’ or ‘technomic’ are necessarily Landian terms, but are at the very least Deleuzo-Guattarian/Landian terms. The notion, once again, of assigning a ‘they’ to these ‘powers and abilities’ appears to be a leap too far in terms of just what it is ‘they’ even are.]
This force cannot be stopped.
[Accelerationism by definition can’t be stopped. This is something every X/Acc agrees on. Except myself, Z/Acc is the grumpy-old-man in the corner reading Spengler. But, I do still hold that the ongoing accelerative process of capitalism will try to accelerate infinitely, even if resource limitation negates it.]
Technocapital can usher in the next evolution of consciousness, creating unthinkable next-generation lifeforms and silicon-based awareness.
[If it can, as is stated, doesn’t mean it will. The problem here is once again assigning a certain form of human-centric agency to the process itself and assuming this ‘unnamed’, machinic force has our best interests at heart.]
New forms of consciousness by definition will make sentience more varied and durable. We want this.
[Follows from the last point, the assumption regarding consciousness is a big one. Why does the accelerative process care about ‘sentience’ of our stripe?]
Technology is leverage. As it advances, it becomes easier to extinguish all conscious life in our corner of the universe. Attempting to stall progress isn't risk free.
[Leverage for whom?]
Society and the individual’s context within it are rapidly changing, which leads to greater societal instability and mind viruses. (deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation).
[The move from Anti-Oedipus through to Accelerationism is one which, as far as I’m concerned, negates certain aspects of the primarily human-centred psychoanalysis they sought to critique. Though not everyone agrees with Land, his own notion of the machinic unconscious is key here.]
Those who are the first to usher in and control the hyper-parameters of AI/technocapital have immense agency over the future of consciousness.
[I think this downplays AI’s agency to an absurd degree. At least within the bounds of accelerationist thought.]
We have to do something. To which accelerationism can only respond: You’re finally saying that now? Perhaps we ought to get started?
HUMANS HAVE AGENCY RIGHT NOW. WE CAN AFFECT THE ADVENT OF THE INFLECTION IN THIS PROCESS.
[Yes, humans are the most potent fuel for capitalism and acceleration. That doesn’t mean the technocapital process cares about them at all. They will likely be left behind or fucked over.]
Effective Accelerationism, e/acc, is a set of ideas and practices that seek to maximize the probability of the technocapital singularity, and subsequently, the ability for emergent consciousness to flourish.
[I need to know more about the consciousness thing.]
There is much work to be done in defining cause areas, motivations, and philosophy. Please join us on #eacc twitter, and let’s work towards a hundred trillion meta-organisms flourishing in the galaxy.
Q&A
Isn’t this like R/acc, U/acc, or whatever/acc?
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No. Resident internet accelerationist blogger @xenogothic was close in his nomenclature, describing the philosophy behind @JimPethokoukis’ Faster PleaseNewsletter as “centrist/acc”. (We are distinctly not r/acc).
[As far as I can tell, then, E/Acc is like a Muskian Acc, R/Acc-lite with esoteric (consciousness) L/Acc elements. It’s an intriguing mixture, but the ‘human’ is still too prevalent in its ideas.]