31–40 of 63 posts
But his prose...delightful!
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not quite what the article talks about, but Accelerationism in communist/anarchist thought is the notion that you either permit capitalism to go off the rails without hindering it or even encourage it actively. The goal is to "show it for what it really is" and make things so unpalatable that a worker uprising is inevitable (or at least more likely). So in that view, an accelerationist could be a socialist who oppose…
I am a Socialist myself and I often talk with people who are accelerationists; I am divided on the issue personally. Accelerationism in the Communist sphere tends to align itself with policies against working within the democratic system to improve conditions, as you noticed even to reject social democratic policies. The other argument for this from their point of view is that it would encourage complacency of the wo…
Capitalism replaced feudalism because the bourgeoisie took power, one small victory at a time, from the feudal nobility.
If a system in which the working classes take power from the capitalists is to replace capitalism—and the modern mixed economy may be a transitional form on the route to such a system, or might just be a diversion—then it's going to be the same way.
Two words: Javascript frameworks. Now that's accelerationism.
1. New technological platform emergence, 5 years.
2. Rebuild basic tooling over 5 years.
3. Experiment with new possibilities for another 5 years.
4. Find out what the real improvements over previous platform were during next 5 years and settle for them.
5. Goto 1. With lessons learned from previous platform, but forgetting some earlier lessons.
I am steeped in the circle of artists and thinkers who have been toying with accelerationism, the most important of who are properly mentioned in the article (Marx, Noys, Land, Deleuze and Guittari, more) but the article ultimately misses the usefulness of the concept and waters it down into yet another transhumanist navel gazing and further sci-fi gargling. Accelerationism seems easiest grasped by American millenials and grey haired leftist philosophers, in other words those with a nurtured consciousness of mass consumer culture.
Accelerationism is an angle of marxism most at home in aesthetic studies and pretty much nowhere else. Accelerationism usually reveals itself as a reflexive irony (with sometimes thick nuance) in it's aesthetic applications, related to exacerbated effects/affects of the commercial abstraction loop to the point where commercial abstraction is not only "there" but is the material of life experience itself. There are significant strains of culture that are out and out "accelerationist" style. I would argue accelerationism revives the Pop art torch in a truly Warholian manner and at contention with the desperate and defensive current state of institutional contemporary art. Vaporwave, post-internet, Dis Magazine, health goth, 2016 Berlin Biennale are at the least affiliates of accelerationist art and at the most it's representatives.
We are still stuck on this little blue marble, with the entire Universe in our telescopes (hundreds of billions of galaxies, hundreds of billions stars in each), that we can see, but can't really visit. It almost maddens me.
If we meatbags are too fragile to travel to stars, let's build immortal AIs who'll do it for us. I am going to die on this planet, like every other human being. But I hope that we can create new minds and new non-carbon lifeforms, better than us, who might be able to escape.
I guess I am an accelerationist. But isn't it a natural attitude for any thinking mind?
Two words: Javascript frameworks. Now that's accelerationism.
(Except ASM.js ... maybe...)
TL;DR: It's just communism by another name.
Is there anybody here who _doesn't_ like technical progress and doesn't want it to go faster? We are still stuck on this little blue marble, with the entire Universe in our telescopes (hundreds of billions of galaxies, hundreds of billions stars in each), that we can see, but can't really visit. It almost maddens me. If we meatbags are too fragile to travel to stars, let's build immortal AIs who'll do it for us. I am…
Sure. I am quite glad we stopped iterating on nuclear weapon designs and I am quite fine with the state of the art not obliterating entire continents yet. I'm also quite happy we haven't done the R&D and optimization to lower the cost for mass producing neutron bombs too. I think you are too.
I like technical progress that ameliorates the human condition. Some of it does. Some of it doesn't.
Talking about the idea is difficult and complicated when you drill down beneath some trivial level, so people rarely bother, unless they, in one form or another, abstract that complexity away.
If you do that, you're left with "progress is good!" and forget all the times when it wasn't or the reverse. Neither position is particularly interesting.
I really don't see what the article's accelerationism has to do with the notion as used in Lord of Light. In spite of the Hindu religion references, that is definitely not a philosophy/politics book. It is Zelazny's best book in my opinion, and you can read it - it has little to nothing to do with the Guardian's article.
I am not very familiar with Zelazny but am very familiar with accelerationism discourse and can therefore add another confirming perspective that these are not usefully related.