beautiful. what if we-the people- could coordinate well enough to package all psychopaths, put them on the rocket and have them do an involuntary mars MVP. this is roughly how indigenous peoples all over the planet used to deal with them. we have lost that, much to our own peril.
Thank you for this perspective. It's got me thinking more about goalposts. What if we could skirt around the techno-optimist e/acc vs decel arguments in favor of modifying the current economic system to better account for pollution and sustainable resource use? You end with "Create more. Share more. Consume less?" I like this idea. The question is, can we set up a system such that creating more consumes less? How do we create a system so individual incentives align with the collective, all within the constraints of natural resources, ecosystems, and the energy/exergy flow from the sun?
Thank you for continuing to wake me up with your words. It's so easy to fall prey to fear, and to jump back into line to serve as a cog in the machine of capitalism. And of course, capitalism isn't all bad, and free markets do indeed provide a lot of choice.
But you're helping me see clearly that with the limited decades I have on this planet, I want to serve the greater good. And for me, that indeed means encouraging people to create more, share more, and consume less.
Really enjoyed this one - intellectually and visually, thanks Jamie. Shout out to the growing population of conspiracy theorists and the puppet masters of it all? Eeek! Continuing to do my best making art and feeding the holy.
Thank you for this, Jamie. I’ll be re-reading it a few times.
For me, the root of the current and constant crazy-making (which yes, it’s “both sides” engaging in crazy-making, although personally I don’t consider it to be exactly equal) it’s that…none of this human-driven predicament, underneath all the 8th grade “debate” and bullying- and yeah, it’s so rarely actual debate- has anything to do with politics or ideology or even science.
I realize that almost everyone who talks about our earth, and how the earth *actually* works, has their political, ideological perspective. So it’s tough to both be unbiased and find “facts” that are mostly unbiased. And these days, we cherry-pick the facts we want, but there’s definitely some clever tactics with that these days, in distorting and re-organizing those extracted nuggets. But how the earth actually works? Nature, which didn’t start here on earth and doesn’t end here, either, just does what it does, how it does it, when it does it. The only way to live, in a way that actually works long-term, is to live accordingly and in ongoing agreement with earth.
And yeah, people are “debating” how earth works based on the research they choose, but a close look and listen has shown me how silly and weak those debates can often be.
The spiritual and personal transformation marketplace adds a lot to this, too. And often, wisdom from the never-perfect but also generally moreso “sustainable” cultures is just extracted from their own greater context and trotted out either as “proof” of what one side calls Marxist or liberal Disney fantasy (“no such thing as the noble savage” bros) or is used to prop up what amounts to rapture ideology. But when I’ve had the great good fortune to hear and read what elders have always been saying, and were saying hundreds of years ago, before Marx and modern politics and social media and tech bros and neoliberalism and capitalism and pretty much everything, about what would happen when colonials came, and what would happen after they overshot earth systems- it’s just not ideological. It’s not even necessarily “spiritual”, and it’s not scientific. It’s common sense. That it got extracted and warped and whatever other ingredients thrown in, does not take away from the very simple, direct common sense wisdom of just…earth does stuff the ways it does stuff. We wanna do stuff on earth too because we came from earth and are a part of earth. Does that actually work? In the short term and in the long term?
It’s good to remember that no matter what, we are a species at toddler-stage development. So there’s no such thing as perfect people- individuals or groups. There are paradigms that work, generally speaking, moreso better with how earth works. And there are paradigms that just don’t.
While I agree that the e/acc crowd are not considering all the data, I think the commie threat is more real than you give it credit for, but it's important to understand why and how. As life philosophies like religion have waned, the only "greater good" that people can grasp is the government. As we have infantilized our populations, more and more people are looking to the state as a parental figure who they want to solve their problems, and so the paternalism of the state is actually desired. Without the idea that every person has a soul that makes the individual the locus of moral consideration, we are losing deontological ethics to utilitarianism (effective altruists are the most obvious culprits and the best reductio ad absurdum of the position). Together these forces are disintegrating everything that made the west great (admittedly there is also lots that make it not great). So while it may not technically be Marxism (economically speaking) the ethos and ontology of Marx is alive and well.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane and reinforcing what I've known since Reagan was elected: that neo-con trickle down, do well and do good, just say no, bootstraps B.S. has only ever worked for those who make (and selectively break) the rules of the unending Pass Go Collect $200 spiral. And while it's nice to rant, it's hell to always be the smartest person in the room. I don't see much hope for working together with this bro crowd to find or implement solutions, so I try as hard as I can to ignore them (although they hold outsize influence and will undoubtedly support all efforts to continue building out energy-intensive computational capacity...). Just get as many people as possible to use less, buy less, re-use and recycle, grow food, and focus on regional and real economics, news, and community. Small is beautiful (and resilient), baby!
Agree, but there is something to religion that's missing from all of this e/acc... What if we accelerate towards ecotopia? Like, using technology to make more of what we and nature need to thrive (I know greed seems infinite but... Ain't that the Capitalist cog? - “The world is not driven by greed. It’s driven by envy,” - Charlie Munger)
I believe that both envy and greed can be stopped if we recapture the rapture. If people like Andreessen manages to meet the experience of God... I guess what I want to say is that State enforce measures NEVER WORK and make "The Rich" more reticent to help others. That's why I believe we need a religion that manages to wake up "the Rich" AND split humanity from Capitalism to a better way to understand what has made Capitalism a better option than Communism. (Protopianism by Alexander Bard)
Sidenote: Max Borders is teaming up with Alexander Bard exactly to create that. A sort of narratuve moment that can break the divide between e/acc and decels. "The Grey Robes": Initiation into a Global Priesthood and Fraternal Order. I hope you can give it a look
Fascinating and insightful as usual...is this a manifesto for the mythical third way, or a call to radical (returning to the source) reformation - or revolution - depending on how dire things really are?
As ever Jamie a brilliant balanced ball grabbing analysis of reality. By the by I was struck by your observation that it’s a man thing, mainly - and superficially e/ acc looks a lot like wanking….
Are the Jerks jerking off while the rest of the world burns…?
Don't you know! You need to break this down into catchy little bites that will catch everyone's attention!
"Ehy look maybe there's something in the middle?" is the most dopamine starved worldview ever postulated. Anti-centrism is the only viable ideology.
Promise abrupt change on a massive scale or just reaffirm the status quo and ignore most of the metrics that displease you... Pretty basic stuff really.
It's essentially designed to be a balancing act I find. Riding the line. Anyone who hasn't made up their mind is just too respectful for their own good.
Not me! I am an extremist I swear! I am an extremist anti ideologist. I believe in the lottocracy!
Sorry to be a troll but it's essentially how I remain sane.
beautiful. what if we-the people- could coordinate well enough to package all psychopaths, put them on the rocket and have them do an involuntary mars MVP. this is roughly how indigenous peoples all over the planet used to deal with them. we have lost that, much to our own peril.
Thank you for this perspective. It's got me thinking more about goalposts. What if we could skirt around the techno-optimist e/acc vs decel arguments in favor of modifying the current economic system to better account for pollution and sustainable resource use? You end with "Create more. Share more. Consume less?" I like this idea. The question is, can we set up a system such that creating more consumes less? How do we create a system so individual incentives align with the collective, all within the constraints of natural resources, ecosystems, and the energy/exergy flow from the sun?
Thank you for this Jamie.
eloquent rant. i appreciate your illuminated voice.
Love all your writing Jamie but this is a top 3. Helping us fish see the water (neoliberal values) around us.
Thank you for continuing to wake me up with your words. It's so easy to fall prey to fear, and to jump back into line to serve as a cog in the machine of capitalism. And of course, capitalism isn't all bad, and free markets do indeed provide a lot of choice.
But you're helping me see clearly that with the limited decades I have on this planet, I want to serve the greater good. And for me, that indeed means encouraging people to create more, share more, and consume less.
Keep on keeping on, Jamie. We need you.
Really enjoyed this one - intellectually and visually, thanks Jamie. Shout out to the growing population of conspiracy theorists and the puppet masters of it all? Eeek! Continuing to do my best making art and feeding the holy.
Thank you for this, Jamie. I’ll be re-reading it a few times.
For me, the root of the current and constant crazy-making (which yes, it’s “both sides” engaging in crazy-making, although personally I don’t consider it to be exactly equal) it’s that…none of this human-driven predicament, underneath all the 8th grade “debate” and bullying- and yeah, it’s so rarely actual debate- has anything to do with politics or ideology or even science.
I realize that almost everyone who talks about our earth, and how the earth *actually* works, has their political, ideological perspective. So it’s tough to both be unbiased and find “facts” that are mostly unbiased. And these days, we cherry-pick the facts we want, but there’s definitely some clever tactics with that these days, in distorting and re-organizing those extracted nuggets. But how the earth actually works? Nature, which didn’t start here on earth and doesn’t end here, either, just does what it does, how it does it, when it does it. The only way to live, in a way that actually works long-term, is to live accordingly and in ongoing agreement with earth.
And yeah, people are “debating” how earth works based on the research they choose, but a close look and listen has shown me how silly and weak those debates can often be.
The spiritual and personal transformation marketplace adds a lot to this, too. And often, wisdom from the never-perfect but also generally moreso “sustainable” cultures is just extracted from their own greater context and trotted out either as “proof” of what one side calls Marxist or liberal Disney fantasy (“no such thing as the noble savage” bros) or is used to prop up what amounts to rapture ideology. But when I’ve had the great good fortune to hear and read what elders have always been saying, and were saying hundreds of years ago, before Marx and modern politics and social media and tech bros and neoliberalism and capitalism and pretty much everything, about what would happen when colonials came, and what would happen after they overshot earth systems- it’s just not ideological. It’s not even necessarily “spiritual”, and it’s not scientific. It’s common sense. That it got extracted and warped and whatever other ingredients thrown in, does not take away from the very simple, direct common sense wisdom of just…earth does stuff the ways it does stuff. We wanna do stuff on earth too because we came from earth and are a part of earth. Does that actually work? In the short term and in the long term?
It’s good to remember that no matter what, we are a species at toddler-stage development. So there’s no such thing as perfect people- individuals or groups. There are paradigms that work, generally speaking, moreso better with how earth works. And there are paradigms that just don’t.
While I agree that the e/acc crowd are not considering all the data, I think the commie threat is more real than you give it credit for, but it's important to understand why and how. As life philosophies like religion have waned, the only "greater good" that people can grasp is the government. As we have infantilized our populations, more and more people are looking to the state as a parental figure who they want to solve their problems, and so the paternalism of the state is actually desired. Without the idea that every person has a soul that makes the individual the locus of moral consideration, we are losing deontological ethics to utilitarianism (effective altruists are the most obvious culprits and the best reductio ad absurdum of the position). Together these forces are disintegrating everything that made the west great (admittedly there is also lots that make it not great). So while it may not technically be Marxism (economically speaking) the ethos and ontology of Marx is alive and well.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane and reinforcing what I've known since Reagan was elected: that neo-con trickle down, do well and do good, just say no, bootstraps B.S. has only ever worked for those who make (and selectively break) the rules of the unending Pass Go Collect $200 spiral. And while it's nice to rant, it's hell to always be the smartest person in the room. I don't see much hope for working together with this bro crowd to find or implement solutions, so I try as hard as I can to ignore them (although they hold outsize influence and will undoubtedly support all efforts to continue building out energy-intensive computational capacity...). Just get as many people as possible to use less, buy less, re-use and recycle, grow food, and focus on regional and real economics, news, and community. Small is beautiful (and resilient), baby!
Agree, but there is something to religion that's missing from all of this e/acc... What if we accelerate towards ecotopia? Like, using technology to make more of what we and nature need to thrive (I know greed seems infinite but... Ain't that the Capitalist cog? - “The world is not driven by greed. It’s driven by envy,” - Charlie Munger)
I believe that both envy and greed can be stopped if we recapture the rapture. If people like Andreessen manages to meet the experience of God... I guess what I want to say is that State enforce measures NEVER WORK and make "The Rich" more reticent to help others. That's why I believe we need a religion that manages to wake up "the Rich" AND split humanity from Capitalism to a better way to understand what has made Capitalism a better option than Communism. (Protopianism by Alexander Bard)
Sidenote: Max Borders is teaming up with Alexander Bard exactly to create that. A sort of narratuve moment that can break the divide between e/acc and decels. "The Grey Robes": Initiation into a Global Priesthood and Fraternal Order. I hope you can give it a look
Fascinating and insightful as usual...is this a manifesto for the mythical third way, or a call to radical (returning to the source) reformation - or revolution - depending on how dire things really are?
As ever Jamie a brilliant balanced ball grabbing analysis of reality. By the by I was struck by your observation that it’s a man thing, mainly - and superficially e/ acc looks a lot like wanking….
Are the Jerks jerking off while the rest of the world burns…?
But they want to kill everyone:
https://www.businessinsider.com/effective-accelerationism-humans-replaced-by-ai-2023-12?amp
Don't you know! You need to break this down into catchy little bites that will catch everyone's attention!
"Ehy look maybe there's something in the middle?" is the most dopamine starved worldview ever postulated. Anti-centrism is the only viable ideology.
Promise abrupt change on a massive scale or just reaffirm the status quo and ignore most of the metrics that displease you... Pretty basic stuff really.
It's essentially designed to be a balancing act I find. Riding the line. Anyone who hasn't made up their mind is just too respectful for their own good.
Not me! I am an extremist I swear! I am an extremist anti ideologist. I believe in the lottocracy!
Sorry to be a troll but it's essentially how I remain sane.