Accelerationism

[coerced]

The other day, Hillary Clinton made a speech about the 'alt-right', summing it up as a continuation of long-running right wing ideologies that have existed in the US and the world for decades. In many ways this is true, but there is a deeper philosophical underpinning of the 'alt-right' that actually comes from Marxist analyses of capitalism. The key figure behind this philosophy is a bloke from the University of Warwick named Nick Land, and his philosophy is accelerationism.

A primer from September last year (worth reading the whole thing):

https://theawl.com/the-darkness-before-the-right-84e97225ac19#.8jrl1tt3v

Land’s greatest legacy was a philosophy now known as “Accelerationism,” a heady cocktail of nihilism, cybernetic Marxism, complexity theory, numerology, jungle music, and the dystopian sci-fi of William Gibson and Blade Runner. Land identified the critique that progressively dissolved all claims to truth as the philosophical correlate of a capitalist economic system locked in constant revolutionary expansion, moving upwards and outwards on a trajectory of technological and scientific intelligence-generation that would, at the limit, make the leap from its human biological hosts into the great beyond. For Land, as for Nietzsche, the death of God results ultimately in the desire to be destroyed, with capitalism the agent of this destruction.​

The author in the above article goes deeper into the idea below:

https://pmacdougald.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/accelerationism-left-and-right/

Absent LTV [labor theory of value], all that Left Accelerationism can really hope for is a sort of socialist voluntarism that subjects production and exchange to supervenient political aims. But here we’re back to the problem of central planning, and thus have lost whatever libidinal futurist appeal Left Accelerationism had in the first place . More strikingly, absent LTV, the problem posed to humanity by the technological drive of capital is not how to reach the New Jerusalem that the elimination of human labor from the production process will allow, but that this elimination will simply result in humans becoming superfluous to an increasingly autonomic system of machine production. What we will do with a warming planet of 10 billion people when progressively fewer of them can be productively integrated into the global economy, the marginal cost of their labor sinks below the cost of their own social reproduction, and states are obliged to provide for larger and larger numbers of unproductive workers at the expense of smaller and smaller numbers of high-skill workers who can still be plugged in to economically-productive roles? This is an entirely different economic, political, and ethical problematic. In this landscape, Land’s killer AI, speciation, and Galt’s Gulch-style ‘exit’ all begin to look like provisional speculative (if malevolent) answers to the question of: what do you do with all these (economically) useless people?​

 

[Shane Hird]

Could you sum all this up in a few sentences for simpletons like myself ?

Explain it like you're talking to a 10 year old.

 

[Werewolf]

Something about robots taking people's jobs and what to do with the masses of unemployed?

 

[Brick Loosener]

The Matrix is on blu-ray????

 

[Exe Gesis]

Could you sum all this up in a few sentences for simpletons like myself ?

Explain it like you're talking to a 10 year old.

Nazism in Techno-Sheep Clothing

 

[coerced]

Something about robots taking people's jobs and what to do with the masses of unemployed?

Pretty much.

Also that the mechanisms that will put people out of jobs are inevitable and will only accelerate.

 

[coerced]

Nazism in Techno-Sheep Clothing

Right-accelerationists tend to advocate political systems like Singapore or China, one party states with strongly capital intensive economies. But they are pretty much a kind of fascist.

 

[Shane Hird]

Great. Something else for me to worry about.

 

[Mofra]

Also that the mechanisms that will put people out of jobs are inevitable and will only accelerate.

Interesting thread.
Supporting the theory is the changing face of employment worldwide - much has been written on the casualization of the global workforce and the rise of the 'precariat'.

Given we can barely estimate the under-employment rates in Australia with our reasonable analysis/research organisations we do have a significant issue with LTV and the 'old models' of what capitalism looks like. The concept of 'basic income' is one which continue to be debated (although recently voted down in Switzerland) and could well be adopted by more progressive countries in the near future.

 

[Ratts of Tobruk]

There is an easy answer to maintain social cohesion if technology benefits 'the 1%' over workers: re-distributive taxation.

In it likely this won't need to be major, because humanity adapts as it always has, and people will find new jobs, while the provision of base living requirements will get cheaper. It's only if we run out of resources that we will have real trouble. Renewable energy and educating the world should solve a lot of the concerns about fossil fuels, climate change and over-population.

The basic income thread talked about this, without the dystopian stuff or US Politics references (US GDP is healthy, climbing in a similar way to 95-00).

 

[coerced]

Interesting thread.
Supporting the theory is the changing face of employment worldwide - much has been written on the casualization of the global workforce and the rise of the 'precariat'.

Given we can barely estimate the under-employment rates in Australia with our reasonable analysis/research organisations we do have a significant issue with LTV and the 'old models' of what capitalism looks like. The concept of 'basic income' is one which continue to be debated (although recently voted down in Switzerland) and could well be adopted by more progressive countries in the near future.

The problem is who grants basic income and who pays for it? Most multinationals pay zero tax as do high net worth individuals. Redistribution takes the form of well paid labour paying for lower paid labour and the unemployable through tax. If both these groups have their income rationalised to zero because capital prevails over labour everywhere, how do you force redistribution from the very wealthy to increasing mass of poor?

It seems pretty unlikely to happen. The tension in societies has always been between those who hold all the wealth through land and capital and the people they need to employ to work the fields or monitor the machines. There has also always been a mediating class - either warrior or clerical - that makes sure the labour class doesn't or can't revolt, either due to application of force or law.

But if the working class and the mediating class can fully be replaced by technology, why do the wealthy class need to worry about keeping those classes alive and happy?

 

[skilts]

What a ghastly, pretend word.

 

[coerced]

There is an easy answer to maintain social cohesion if technology benefits 'the 1%' over workers: re-distributive taxation.

What if 'the 1%' are not interested in social cohesion?

 

[Procrastinator35]

Could you sum all this up in a few sentences for simpletons like myself ?

Explain it like you're talking to a 10 year old.

 

[Procrastinator35]

What a ghastly, pretend word.

Straight out of 17th Century England; which coined such beauts as: Antidisestablishmentarianism, Latitudinarianism etc, etc

Though it does capture the essence of the hyper-capitalist ethos....Entailing all the post modern core elements of Nietzschean Drives, Marxist/Hegelean Dialectics & Freudian libido.

Galt’s Gulch-style ‘exit’ all begin to look like provisional speculative (if malevolent) answers to the question of: what do you do with all these (economically) useless people?

Crimony....Atlas Shrugged hey. And to think I swallowed that crud holus-bolus as a teenager....Dumb, impressionable kid.

 

[Mofra]

The problem is who grants basic income and who pays for it? Most multinationals pay zero tax as do high net worth individuals. Redistribution takes the form of well paid labour paying for lower paid labour and the unemployable through tax. If both these groups have their income rationalised to zero because capital prevails over labour everywhere, how do you force redistribution from the very wealthy to increasing mass of poor?

It seems pretty unlikely to happen. The tension in societies has always been between those who hold all the wealth through land and capital and the people they need to employ to work the fields or monitor the machines. There has also always been a mediating class - either warrior or clerical - that makes sure the labour class doesn't or can't revolt, either due to application of force or law.

But if the working class and the mediating class can fully be replaced by technology, why do the wealthy class need to worry about keeping those classes alive and happy?

The wealthy classes have never really worried about keeping workers alive and happy, save for the odd outlier who benefitted from such supposed altruism anyway (Henry Ford). A distraction is enough - and the concept of 'capital' is as fluid as it ever has been.

As for taxation, in an era of perpetually low inflation the spectre of hyper-inflation as a result of government-issued capital is diminished to almost zero. Who, outside of Nordic nations with nationalized oil-wealth and APEC nations who are cosy with the US, are the governments actually posting surpluses? Iceland, Hong Kong, Singapore - one outlier and virtual city states.

The rise of ultra-nationalism and the war on terror as "perpetual war" is enough to keep a large swathe of people occupied.

What if 'the 1%' are not interested in social cohesion?

Like the military-industrial complex? They seem to be going ok.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, "war on terror", etc.

 

[coerced]

The wealthy classes have never really worried about keeping workers alive and happy, save for the odd outlier who benefitted from such supposed altruism anyway (Henry Ford). A distraction is enough - and the concept of 'capital' is as fluid as it ever has been.

Really? A large body of workers has always had to till the fields, work in the factories and transport the goods. It is likely none of these people will be necessary in the next 50 years. What happens then?

As for taxation, in an era of perpetually low inflation the spectre of hyper-inflation as a result of government-issued capital is diminished to almost zero. Who, outside of Nordic nations with nationalized oil-wealth and APEC nations who are cosy with the US, are the governments actually posting surpluses? Iceland, Hong Kong, Singapore - one outlier and virtual city states.

I don't understand the point re hyperinflation. States may no longer be able to go into debt because they don't have the tax base to service it: see Greece.

The rise of ultra-nationalism and the war on terror as "perpetual war" is enough to keep a large swathe of people occupied.

Like the military-industrial complex? They seem to be going ok.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, "war on terror", etc.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but perpetual violence being the lot of the majority while the wealthy withdraw to gated communities and private islands keeps the majority occupied and eventually dead through said violence.

 

[Mofra]

Really? A large body of workers has always had to till the fields, work in the factories and transport the goods. It is likely none of these people will be necessary in the next 50 years. What happens then?

In most parts of the world those people are still needed and will be for some time.
The majority of agricultural production outside of OECD nations is still fairly primitive - and service economies will still require a significant proportion of the population to provide some form of selling their labour.
The bigger question is the changing nature of employment rather than a sudden and rapid redundancy of labour itself.

I don't understand the point re hyperinflation. States may no longer be able to go into debt because they don't have the tax base to service it: see Greece.

We're a long way from that for the majority of nations and politicians care more about the election cycle than 15-20-25 years into the future.
The major concern over issuing government debt has traditionally been hyperinflation and an unintended consequence (see Weimer for an extreme example). Without that threat governments are far less concerned with debt than they once were, even accounting for the fact that issuing capital in excess of taxation is not the technical cause of hyperinflation but the issuing of capital in excess of a nation's productive capacity - and new technologies have a way of increase gross productive capacity.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but perpetual violence being the lot of the majority while the wealthy withdraw to gated communities and private islands keeps the majority occupied and eventually dead through said violence.

It's already the case in the US - the Bush and Trump 'military' careers as an example.
Poor kids keep signing up cause, you know, 'murica. Nationalism as a feted attribute.

 

[Ratts of Tobruk]

What if 'the 1%' are not interested in social cohesion?

That's unrealistic. The 1% are very interested in their own safety and protecting their own wealth. It is fine for sci fi films to imagine alternatives, but in truth there is no way for such a minority to defeat the rest of the world. We are educated and active in more ways than one. Nazis attacked minorities to try and grant themselves free workers and free wealth. Attacking the majority in the same way is highly unrealistic. It is also generally in the business interests of 'the 1%' to have customers they can continue to sell to. It is also in their social interests. Lliving the high life' tends to involve enjoying the art, culture, parties, etc that the rest of society creates. Rich people may want to keep as much money as possible and have themselves elevated in the social consciousness by claiming to be 'the job creators', but they are doing it through political means because it has a sense of legitimacy and lasts longer than through anything nefarious. And, of course, plenty of rich people already have no need for workers, but that does not turn them into immoral psychopaths.

 

[coerced]

In most parts of the world those people are still needed and will be for some time.
The majority of agricultural production outside of OECD nations is still fairly primitive - and service economies will still require a significant proportion of the population to provide some form of selling their labour.
The bigger question is the changing nature of employment rather than a sudden and rapid redundancy of labour itself.


We're a long way from that for the majority of nations and politicians care more about the election cycle than 15-20-25 years into the future.
The major concern over issuing government debt has traditionally been hyperinflation and an unintended consequence (see Weimer for an extreme example). Without that threat governments are far less concerned with debt than they once were, even accounting for the fact that issuing capital in excess of taxation is not the technical cause of hyperinflation but the issuing of capital in excess of a nation's productive capacity - and new technologies have a way of increase gross productive capacity.

The argument behind accelerationism is that these things are closer than we think. The technological advances are rolled out (think driverless trucks in five years) and the competition behind these motivate further technological advances, and within 10 years most low wage jobs are automated (think about how long before McDonald's CYT or Dominos highly technological 'Gamechanger' plans obviate the need for workers anywhere in the production of fast food). By the time policymakers have thought of a response the world will have already shifted. From the article in the OP:

The step from lunatic science fiction speculation to established technoscientific procedure is increasingly taken in advance of any engaged discussion, without an interval for serious social reflection. That’s acceleration as it concretely happens. It’s not a new topic for prolonged thought, it’s the fact that the time for prolonged thought — and its associated space for collective ethico-political consideration — is no longer ever going to be available.​

 

[coerced]

That's unrealistic. The 1% are very interested in their own safety and protecting their own wealth.

What do you think Boston Dynamics is building? What do you think drones are for?

 

[Ratts of Tobruk]

What do you think Boston Dynamics is building? What do you think drones are for?

And you ignored the rest of the post that suggests you and/or the author's hypothesis is Science Fiction - unattached to reality. Rich people are humans just like everyone else. Democracy is run by the majority and there's no reason to think the majority will give up their ability to be educated and be active (both in terms of agitating change, as well as in your dystopian scenario).

It is somewhat realistic to imagine it popping up in hyper localised areas (e.g. a large estate), and of course without technology it already happens to a much lesser extent in some larger areas (e.g. African dictators/warlords) but the trend there hopefully continues to be away from those models.

And it goes without saying that humans are vasty superior to machines and computers in many ways, and their presence will continue alongside technological advancement.

 

[coerced]

And you ignored the rest of the post that suggests you and/or the author's hypothesis is Science Fiction - unattached to reality. Rich people are humans just like everyone else. Democracy is run by the majority and there's no reason to think the majority will give up their ability to be educated and be active (both in terms of agitating change, as well as in your dystopian scenario).

Are you asserting that something being science fiction means it can never happen? I'll let the North Koreans know that 1984 is a work of fiction.

Democracy doesn't have to be given up by the majority it just has to be rendered useless. Imagine a scenario where all unskilled labor is replaced by machines, resulting in unemployment rates of 40% or larger.

The machinery of democratic government acts too slowly to solve the issue of a massive impoverished underclass. What happens then?

Does democracy prevail? Do people revolt? If they revolt against the wealthy, what is the reaction by the wealthy?

And it goes without saying that humans are vasty superior to machines and computers in many ways, and their presence will continue alongside technological advancement.

In what ways that employ vasts number of people, especially those with below average intelligence?

 

[Ratts of Tobruk]

Are you asserting that something being science fiction means it can never happen? I'll let the North Koreans know that 1984 is a work of fiction.

I'm asserting, as I said, that your scenario was Science Fiction and would not happen. You're being silly to suggest that means all Sci-Fi is therefore impossible, given Sci-Fi is a very broad genre, given I didn't say that. I'm sure there's a neat term to describe people who exaggerate their opponent's argument in a discussion in order to try and make them sound unrealistic. Also, 1984 is not North Korea and was written in the fall-out from WWII when zones of control were being divvied up by the Allies, and when propaganda, surveillance, militarism, etc. had all been in full force throughout the war. It is also heavily influenced by the Russian novel We written after the Communist revolution there. It's ideas bring together most of those concepts with a some exaggeration. Real life scenarios inspired books like these and those real life things still happen in part. Real life, both past and present, is a very good indicator of how things will happen in real life. Where are the real life examples that feed into your widespread dystopian scenario?

The greatest flaw IMO in your and/or the author's scenario is that technological change is gradual. There is zero reason to think huge swathes of under-employed people would not act as technology gradually pushed more and more people out of meaningful work. This is not the way humans behave. And of course rich people are humans too, and are not going to want to persecute billions of people, nor enjoy living in comfort in the knowledge that billions of people out there would love to kill them if only they could get past Skynet or whatever you're imagining. It's Science Fiction and can be enjoyed as such - apocryphal warnings and all.

In what ways that employ vasts number of people, especially those with below average intelligence?

It doesn't need to employ vast numbers of people. While people are still required in the process then your imagined drones v poor scenario won't play out. The sort of expense and expertise required to hypothetically defend every mechanical/technological aspect of that world would be astronomical. Not to mention that if it existed and if it was such an immoral time, then whoever you gave the responsibility for controlling it to would be able to use it to attack the rich. And why would another rich person not decide to use their drone army against that other dude's drone army. Succession planning would be a nightmare. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Etc. Etc.

Oh, and the joy people get from Sci-Fi is the same reason the internet is full of people spreading conspiracy theories or trying to suggest the world is getting darker and darker. We like grand stories. But it is entertainment. Real life is different.

 

[Mofra]

And you ignored the rest of the post that suggests you and/or the author's hypothesis is Science Fiction - unattached to reality. Rich people are humans just like everyone else. Democracy is run by the majority and there's no reason to think the majority will give up their ability to be educated and be active (both in terms of agitating change, as well as in your dystopian scenario).

Democracy itself is an interesting topic - how much democracy do we actually have?
Media influence, party donors and short-termism are huge influences on voting, and ISDSs under RFTAs circumvent the whole process.