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Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in

theguardian.com

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Re: Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in

#11

Post by defen »

If I were to give my own tl;dr summary of accelerationism, I would say that they treat intelligence as the "good" of utmost value. In the accelerationist vision of the world, intelligence is a feature of the universe, a sort of higher-level organizing principle, and we should strive to maximize intelligence in whatever form. Accelerationists would be perfectly content with a world of ever more intelligent self-replicating machines taking over the universe, without regard to human life or happiness. After all, Nick Land's personal motto is "Coldness be my God"

Everything else is what you get when you take "maximize intelligence" to its logical conclusion.

Re: Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in

#13

Post by Sharlin »

This essay reads weirdly like it was transported from an alternate universe where the notion of accelerating human progress only occurred to a fringe group of mostly right-wing thinkers. I guess it reads like what articles about transhumanism and Kurzweil-style singularitarianism did read about fifteen years ago...

Re: Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in

#16

Post by accountyaccount »

defen wrote: post #11

If I were to give my own tl;dr summary of accelerationism, I would say that they treat intelligence as the "good" of utmost value. In the accelerationist vision of the world, intelligence is a feature of the universe, a sort of higher-level organizing principle, and we should strive to maximize intelligence in whatever form. Accelerationists would be perfectly content with a world of ever more intelligent self-replic…

For a while I was kind of on the "Ai is scary" train, but as I read into accelerationism more I've grown to accept that maybe it's ok if humans eventually become obsolete. It almost seems right.

Re: Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in

#18

Post by aerodeck »

defen wrote: post #11

If I were to give my own tl;dr summary of accelerationism, I would say that they treat intelligence as the "good" of utmost value. In the accelerationist vision of the world, intelligence is a feature of the universe, a sort of higher-level organizing principle, and we should strive to maximize intelligence in whatever form. Accelerationists would be perfectly content with a world of ever more intelligent self-replic…

I think this is more or less correct, but I think the more important take-away from the article is how this kind of thinking ends up getting wrapped up in NRx and inevitably, the alt-right. Viewed from 1,000 ft, it is very easy to coldly construe our weird political landscape as a fulfillment of this hyper-rationalist dream: the irrationalities of the poor and uneducated are something to be corraled by the cold and calculating. It's the sort of thinking popular with plutocrats, since it rationalizes their actions.

Accelerationism is interesting to me insofar as it is transparent about the fact that technology is an a-human (not in-human) force. Blind faith in the liberational potential of technology does nothing to actually fulfill this potential, but instead just furthers it's a-human qualities. The reference to the California ideology is apt.

Re: Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in

#19

Post by aerodeck »

accountyaccount wrote: post #16
defen wrote: post #11

If I were to give my own tl;dr summary of accelerationism, I would say that they treat intelligence as the "good" of utmost value. In the accelerationist vision of the world, intelligence is a feature of the universe, a sort of higher-level organizing principle, and we should strive to maximize intelligence in whatever form. Accelerationists would be perfectly content with a world of ever more intelligent self-replic…

For a while I was kind of on the "Ai is scary" train, but as I read into accelerationism more I've grown to accept that maybe it's ok if humans eventually become obsolete. It almost seems right.

Anti-humanism is a very interesting strain of thought these days. Homo-Deus by Harari is my favorite example.

The problem, of course, is that if we got where we are now by being humans, then how do we know we're far enough along to 'quit' being humans without going backwards? How do you know that 'giving up' isn't the same sort of intellectual trick that that Nazis played on themselves? How do you give up without giving up?

Re: Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in

#20

Post by mixedCase »

jressey wrote: post #4
mixedCase wrote: post #2

TL;DR: It's just communism by another name.

I don't think you read it. It is really complex and actually hypercapitalistic, and nationalistic in its basic form. It advocates for advancement of their perception of humanity over all else. The newest iteration even advocates for independent, authoritative nation states! I concede the article also discusses a branch that goes left, and yes it is probably closest to social democracy.

From the article:

"Accelerationism, therefore, goes against conservatism, traditional socialism, social democracy, environmentalism, protectionism, populism, nationalism, localism and all the other ideologies that have sought to moderate or reverse the already hugely disruptive, seemingly runaway pace of change in the modern world."

My notion of accelerationism before this article was "communists, disappointed after communism failed at taking over the west, advocating that more capitalism will inevitably show its failures and lead to communism". This notion persists after reading the article.

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