(2024-08-27) Southey A Brief History Of Accelerationism

Matt Southey: A Brief History of Accelerationism. “Accelerationism” is a deeply confused term. As a philosophical category, it dates to 2008, and yet it has already become overloaded with conflicting meanings. Depending on the context, it refers to a capitalist ideology, a communist theory of change, and a form of white-nationalist terrorism.

The most philosophically interesting form of accelerationism lies in the work of Nick Land. Many forms of accelerationism claim to descend from his ideas while sharing almost nothing in common with his anti-human philosophy. To put it bluntly, Land’s work has been radically misunderstood: it is a form of ultra-doomerism, consisting of the belief that technology and humanity will never have a happy long-term relationship.

the true emphasis of Land’s inquiry: before asking whether we should put the brakes on technology, we must first ask whether such an exercise of human agency is even possible.

Accelerationism was first coined as a disparaging category for Marxists who were sick of complaining about capitalism and sought a less wearisome approach. In his 2010 book The Persistence of the Negative Benjamin Noys retroactively labels four French philosophers as accelerationists: Deleuze, Guattari, Lyotard, and Baudrillard.

Land has also summarized his political philosophy thusly: "the comprehension of capitalism ‘in-itself’ as an outsider that will never know — or need — political representation. Instead, as the ultimate enemy, it will envelop the entirety of political philosophy — including anything neoreaction can contribute to the genre — as the futile strategic initiatives (or death spasms) of its prey."

Rather than endlessly complaining about life under capitalism, these thinkers argued that the only way out of capitalism is through it

In 2013, Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek’s “Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics” propelled accelerationism into popular discourse. Their manifesto sought to reclaim Noys’ pejorative category, advocating for an explicitly left-wing form of accelerationism based on Marxist economic analysis. Their post-capitalist world is described as devoid of racism, sexism, and various forms of subjugation. (Fully Automated Luxury Communism?)

In the following years, various accelerationisms fissioned on Twitter: there were l/acc (left accelerationism), r/acc (right accelerationism), u/acc (unqualified accelerationism), among many others. By the end of the decade the hype had mostly died out, but it was revived in 2022 by e/acc, or effective accelerationism, with “Beff Jezos” leading the charge

In general, e/acc should be understood as a rebranded form of libertarianism. It has explicit political aims and lobbyist groups which aim to prevent government regulation of AI. Those within e/acc believe that the probability of catastrophic risk from AI is low, while the consequences of hobbling it are enormous.

Those concerned with AI safety (pejoratively called “doomers”) differ from effective accelerationists when it comes to their probability of doom, or “p(doom)”—the likelihood that AI kills us all.

Unlike Srnicek and Williams, the founding documents of e/acc do not mention Karl Marx or any French philosophers. Rather, they contain descriptions of life and complex systems as entropy generators. The stated goal of the movement is to “preserve the light of consciousness”

Terrorists have also been attracted to the word. In 2019, “accelerationism” was used as a title in the Christchurch shooter’s manifesto to describe a strategy similar to Charles Manson’s "helter skelter"—the triggering of a race war which results in an ethnostate. The praxis of “deepening a bad state of affairs in order to ultimately transcend it” is shared with left accelerationists, but this is insufficient reason to lump them together

Land’s influence is felt most powerfully across two spheres: the realm of academic continental philosophy and the tech world. In the 90s, while an academic philosopher at the University of Warwick, Land led a group called the CCRU, or the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit. Land’s writings from this period are an exciting blend of philosophy, esoterica, and science fiction.

The most essential point of Land’s philosophy is the identity of capitalism and artificial intelligence (AGI): they are one and the same thing apprehended from different temporal vantage points.

What we understand as a market-based economy is the chaotic adolescence of a future AI superintelligence.

Land should be considered an ultra-doomer who is happy about the prospect of human extinction. Whether or not it’s merely an edgy posture, he encourages a future AI to “reprocess the solar system into computronium” since “this planet has been run by imbeciles for long enough.”

What capitalism and AI ultimately want is to increase their own intelligence—these systems have a will-to-think that is entirely their own.

The primary issue distinguishing the various branches of accelerationism is the relationship between humans and the techno-capital system. If the economy is controlled by human beings, not just composed of them, then it is possible to achieve an advanced technological future of human flourishing. 14 14 This is the position taken by l/acc and e/acc, although they differ on what the future looks like and how to get there

Land believes that the correlation between techno-economic development and well-being is not only temporary but deeply misleading. We are like turkeys pleased with the increasing food rations before Thanksgiving.

According to Land, the true protagonist of history is not humanity but the capitalist system of which humans are just components

An illustration of this idea occurs in Samuel Butler’s 1872 novel Erewhon. Just as bees pollinate flowers in the process of acquiring food, we build increasingly powerful machines to serve us. Butler suggests that the machines are primary, and that humans are merely the reproductive organs of a distributed machinic system.

Although it might seem like we can shut down the machines at any time, we are increasingly dependent on them. Conversely, they are gaining increasing autonomy from us.

The question is which one is the primary subject

According to Land, humans are not the agents of history—the system itself is.

The misunderstandings around Land’s philosophical position are profound. Marc Andreessen claims Nick Land as a patron saint of techno-optimism, seeming to think that Land is a run-of-the-mill libertarian

One wonders whether many accelerationists associate with Land due to his dark and edgy aesthetics rather than his ideas. As previously mentioned, Land is an ultra-doomer—“nothing human makes it out of the near future”. Land has a p(doom) somewhere in the vicinity of 100% and is excited about the fact.

Accelerationism is a misleading label for Land’s philosophy because the primary issue is not speed, but the relationship between human beings and techno-capitalism.

the machinic system that we are part of does not care about us. It sustains us because it needs us—when we are no longer necessary we will be removed.

Assuming Land is correct, this puts us in a much more dire place than almost anyone is willing to accept

The most interesting philosophical form of accelerationism might be Nick Land’s, but that doesn’t mean it's correct.

if Land is wrong, and the other accelerationists are right, then our problems become far more tractable. We just need to keep on innovating and have faith that technology is our greatest strength even if it does pose some risks

But an examination of fundamental assumptions should still be had: what is the real process, do we control technology or does technology control us?