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You and almost everybody else in this thread are missing the core of the idea, which stems from Land, and tries to hammer in the fact that humanity has no agen

You and almost everybody else in this thread are missing the core of the idea, which stems from Land, and tries to hammer in the fact that humanity has no agency. Rather than being a philosophy of our continued evolution - things we do - , it speaks about our imminent transformation/extinction - things being done to us -. Under that light, accelerationism is nothing else but our collective acceptance we're as powerless against the technocapital positive feedback loop as against the movement of tectonic plates. It's this separation from and casting out of the "human security system", that allows one to look at the phenomenon with objectivity, and it's this separation that most critics and readers that look at accelerationism from the prism of conventional human-centered philosophy are missing.

jowday 7y ago
I can't emphasize this enough. Land had two stages of thought. The first is what's described by armitron in the parent here, and was developed at Warwick University in the 90s. During his time at Warwick, Land developed some substance issues (amphetamines, mostly) and from what I've gathered ended up having a breakdown and moving to China. A few years after that he started writing his Neoreactionary work. While you could probably draw some links between the two phases of his work if you wanted to, they're at odds with one another. In the Accelerationist framework layed out by Land in the 90s, neoreactionary thought would have been futile - everything, including reactionary social mores, would be deterritorialized by capital.
dropit_sphere 7y ago
I don't think I have missed the point. I think you're more versed in Land's thinking than I am, but I have been reading his blog for years, and I've had a good deal of mental anguish over the humanity-has-no-agency problem. I get it, capitalism is an alien AI and we're just the hardware, and if not capitalism substitute in something like sexual selection instead. And our coordination problems are such that we cut any tall reeds that try to stand against this. Moloch! Nightmare in Moloch! So, OK, "humanity" has no agency. But I think individuals do. At the very least, they can not make things worse. They can become the kind of people who, if dropped into a perfect society, wouldn't drag it down. And then they can (a harder task, in computation as well as effort!) become the kind that soften the blows of the elder gods, even while paying them proper respect. I tend to hold with Nyan, as quoted in Meditations on Moloch(http://web.archive.org/web/20140801022058/http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://web.archive.org/web/20140801022058/http://slatestarco...): And then there’s us. Man has his own telos, when he is allowed the security to act and the clarity to reason out the consequences of his actions. When unafflicted by coordination problems and unthreatened by superior forces, able to act as a gardener rather than just another subject of the law of the jungle, he tends to build and guide a wonderful world for himself. He tends to favor good things and avoid bad, to create secure civilizations with polished sidewalks, beautiful art, happy families, and glorious adventures...The project of civilization being for man to graduate from the metaphorical savage, subject to the law of the jungle, to the civilized gardener who, while theoretically still subject to the law of the jungle, is so dominant as to limit the usefulness of that model.
- armitron 7y ago
  Individuals may or may not have agency, but it doesn't amount to much. Climate change is but the tiniest and most benign of the forces Land is evoking. We're dealing with an emergent runaway overseer: globe-spanning positive feedback in all its doom and glory. Look at the multiplicity of hairless apes around you and subsequently the apes-in-charge of this shrewdness. Do we stand a chance? It is a joke even to joke.
  - dropit_sphere 7y ago
    You're not wrong, but I place a lot of hope in "[not] much." One thing individuals can do is act so that groups do have agency. But I know what you're seeing. I wish I could shake your hand. Best wishes. I upvoted you.
CrackerNews 7y ago
I don't think it's universally accepted in accelerationist circles that humanity strictly has no agency. Jehu[1], a left-accelerationist, advocates for decreased working hours as that will apply pressure on the capitalist system to drive down labor value even more. This will lead to capitalism's collapse as that will disrupt capitalism's reliance on surplus value (profit) of goods and services produced from labor (based on the labor theory of value). The capitalists will eliminate each other through competition until only state capitalism is left, and then the nation state will be overthrown under the weight of its own contradictions. (This is in opposition to Marxists usually citing the state as a necessity for socialism.) Granted, this tendency will happen whether or not people push for it, but there is collective agency to accelerate towards the next phase of society. [1] https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/ https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/ [2] https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/exacerbating-the-tendency-why-labor-hours-must-be-reduced/ https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/exacerbatin... [3] https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2019/04/18/society-chose-barbarism-and-it-has-its-own-peculiar-political-economy/ https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2019/04/18/society-cho...

jowday 7y ago

I can't emphasize this enough. Land had two stages of thought. The first is what's described by armitron in the parent here, and was developed at Warwick University in the 90s. During his time at Warwick, Land developed some substance issues (amphetamines, mostly) and from what I've gathered ended up having a breakdown and moving to China. A few years after that he started writing his Neoreactionary work. While you could probably draw some links between the two phases of his work if you wanted to, they're at odds with one another. In the Accelerationist framework layed out by Land in the 90s, neoreactionary thought would have been futile - everything, including reactionary social mores, would be deterritorialized by capital.

dropit_sphere 7y ago

I don't think I have missed the point. I think you're more versed in Land's thinking than I am, but I have been reading his blog for years, and I've had a good deal of mental anguish over the humanity-has-no-agency problem. I get it, capitalism is an alien AI and we're just the hardware, and if not capitalism substitute in something like sexual selection instead. And our coordination problems are such that we cut any tall reeds that try to stand against this. Moloch! Nightmare in Moloch! So, OK, "humanity" has no agency. But I think individuals do. At the very least, they can not make things worse. They can become the kind of people who, if dropped into a perfect society, wouldn't drag it down. And then they can (a harder task, in computation as well as effort!) become the kind that soften the blows of the elder gods, even while paying them proper respect. I tend to hold with Nyan, as quoted in Meditations on Moloch(http://web.archive.org/web/20140801022058/http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://web.archive.org/web/20140801022058/http://slatestarco...): And then there’s us. Man has his own telos, when he is allowed the security to act and the clarity to reason out the consequences of his actions. When unafflicted by coordination problems and unthreatened by superior forces, able to act as a gardener rather than just another subject of the law of the jungle, he tends to build and guide a wonderful world for himself. He tends to favor good things and avoid bad, to create secure civilizations with polished sidewalks, beautiful art, happy families, and glorious adventures...The project of civilization being for man to graduate from the metaphorical savage, subject to the law of the jungle, to the civilized gardener who, while theoretically still subject to the law of the jungle, is so dominant as to limit the usefulness of that model.

armitron 7y ago
Individuals may or may not have agency, but it doesn't amount to much. Climate change is but the tiniest and most benign of the forces Land is evoking. We're dealing with an emergent runaway overseer: globe-spanning positive feedback in all its doom and glory. Look at the multiplicity of hairless apes around you and subsequently the apes-in-charge of this shrewdness. Do we stand a chance? It is a joke even to joke.
- dropit_sphere 7y ago
  You're not wrong, but I place a lot of hope in "[not] much." One thing individuals can do is act so that groups do have agency. But I know what you're seeing. I wish I could shake your hand. Best wishes. I upvoted you.

CrackerNews 7y ago

I don't think it's universally accepted in accelerationist circles that humanity strictly has no agency. Jehu[1], a left-accelerationist, advocates for decreased working hours as that will apply pressure on the capitalist system to drive down labor value even more. This will lead to capitalism's collapse as that will disrupt capitalism's reliance on surplus value (profit) of goods and services produced from labor (based on the labor theory of value). The capitalists will eliminate each other through competition until only state capitalism is left, and then the nation state will be overthrown under the weight of its own contradictions. (This is in opposition to Marxists usually citing the state as a necessity for socialism.) Granted, this tendency will happen whether or not people push for it, but there is collective agency to accelerate towards the next phase of society. [1] https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/ https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/ [2] https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/exacerbating-the-tendency-why-labor-hours-must-be-reduced/ https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/exacerbatin... [3] https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2019/04/18/society-chose-barbarism-and-it-has-its-own-peculiar-political-economy/ https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2019/04/18/society-cho...