The New Accelerationism ๐โ๏ธ
/ACCELERATION is a hot and controversial topic and there are many differing perspectives and interpretations floating around within our contemporary post-political landscape and they aim to somewhat direct, guide, influence and steer the acceleration process in different directions. Naturally these diverse factions are polarised and varied, they aim towards quite different cultural and ideological outcomes and they paint a complex picture of future society in regards to what shape and trajectory humanity, or post-humanity might take in the near future.
The most common currents in accelerationism are undoubtedly split between the political left and right โ to summarise the divide, you could assume that left accelerationism aims to accelerate modernism beyond marketised, capitalistic alienation and towards some kind of, probably technocratic, post-capitalist and centrally controlled system of governance that maximises egalitarianism and aims to raise the welfare conditions of its populace. Nick Srnicek and perhaps also Benjamin Bratton fall into this camp.
In contrast to this, right accelerationism sees in this wing a loss of political and sovereign autonomy, economic freedom and individual liberty. In turn it forsees increased subjugation and limitation - Landian (Nick Land) accelerationism suggests that any attempt to control and limit the process of techno-capiatilistic desire is actually a hindrance to its development since capital seems to be tied up in the modernist/machinic apparatus and has emerged as an entity in its own right, one which seeks to maximise its own (inhuman) self interest and avoid containment and control.ย
Right accelerationism sees the motivation to control and allocate resources towards socialist-statist ends as an undesirable chastisement and instead favours something like Neoreaction (NRx) - which, instead of being a totalising and all encompassing centralisted state, you have a divorce of sorts where the state is broken up and areas of land are bought up and run like corporations (Gov-Corps) so if you donโt like the businesses practices in one of those states, you could theoretically go and live somewhere else, if theyโll have you.
These two polarities -- one a melting pot, all encompasing and centrally controlled world state and the other, a pluralistic world of broken up and decentralised, corporatised microstates are more-or-less the antithesis of each other and stay pretty true to the timely and classical political wings that emerged after the French Revolution. Yet they both aim to overcome, or accelerate outside of democratic liberalism - with automation, machine learning and techno-computational complexity thrown in to speed up the process.
Both of these paradigms are conservative and lack imagination, Land is certainly imaginative but NRx becomes pragmatic and somewhat boring. NRxโs lack of consideration for ethical boundaries paints a picture of a kind of fascist futurism or Elysium implemented by the use of biotech and neo-eugenics - which although transformative, appears as pure muscular libertarian-fascism rather than something more dynamic.ย
Left Acceleration, on the other hand appears to inevitably lead us towards totalitarian control - 1984 or Brave New World. As such, both the left and rights axis of acceleration appear to be orientated towards either patriarchal or matriarchal trajectories characterised by authoritarianism and state/corporate controlโ they are like even worse versions of modernism.
For this reason alternative interpretations of acceleration have emerged such as U/Acc (Unconditional acceleration), Z/Acc (Zero accelerationism), g/Acc (gender accelerationism) and bio/Acc (bio accelerationism).
These interpretations move the acceleration debate beyond the left/right polarity and away from the linear phallago-male or smothering-female thinking characterised by the persuit of wealth, power, control and possession, gratification, materiality, excessive nannying, domestication and entertainment.
They aim to interpret acceleration in a much more queer, dynamic and poly-scalar way, rather than desiring specific political outcomes. These interpretations hope that acceleration will take us into multiple new dimensions of shifting post-human and alien morphology, deterritorialization and change outside of our current biopilitical paradigms or, in the case of Z/Acc - nowhere particularly.
The problem with these new factions of accelerationism is that they tend to be characterised by the debasing, nihilistic, existential and hedonistic tropes of post-englitenment post-modernity and they do little to shift us outside of or beyond modernism other than to accelerate the human form into something no longer recognisable, they appear to buy into the promethean and hubristic promises of transhumanism and cyborgiansm.
In the case of Slime ๐ข Accelerationism or slime mold, the ideology is orientated towards the creation of an undifferentiated, superintelligent group (goop) consciousness - it is so hyper left that it posits that the autosophistication of machinic production and technological development within modernism will lead us towards something like the planet Terra featured in the Netflix series, Alien Worlds - a biosynthetic mass of intelligence which has absorbed all differentiated parts and become one giant slime mold-type organism, iconoclastically consuming and liquefying all of humanity and human civilisation in the process.
Needless to say that these versions of Accelerationism seem to be lacking a spiritual dimension and have little or no regard for retaining or preserving the human character, leading both everywhere and nowhere at the same time, they appear as destitute and lost in their own atheistic, humanistic or post-humanistic fantasies or ennui.
There is little use having a theory of acceleration if it is self gratifying and indifferent.
More recently, and undoubtedly reflecting the increasing radicalisation and politicisation of Gen Z - new currents of acceleration have emerged which are even more extreme and apocalyptic than that of Landian accelerationism.
Kaliacc (>) (Kali Yuga Accelerationism) is a highly controversial faction of /Acc which has emerged over the last two years, it has been accused of being a pro-anorexia cult which grooms and recruits teenage girls into esoteric-racism and its core members Sunny (vedic_cybergod) and Miya (black hearted angel baby) are self described national socialists.ย
Kaliaccโs critical, theoretical basis seems to be rooted in the traditionalist school of philosophy, such that of Evola and the Esoteric Right. In this respect, it is a whole lot more illiberal and anti-modern than Landian Accelerationism yet at the same time shares Lands interest in Human Biodiversity, whereas bio-genetic eugenics is replaced with spiritual racism and is also influenced by CCRUโs theoretical work on cybernetics, cyber-cultures and technological change.ย
The cult takes its influence from the cyclical transformation and rebiths of great ages and civilisations which inevitably come to an end as a new cycle begins, and in turn it is influenced by the Vedic scriptures and traditional primordial spiritual doctrines - including their cast systems and inegalitarianism. In the case of Kaliacc, what is accelerating is a wheel which turns and represents cosmic, spiritual, cyclical death and rebirthย โธ๏ธย เฟย - the Kali Yuga, which is no way close to ending and is considered to be speeding up as we accelerate into an even darker period of the cycle.
It seems clear that acceleration - at this stage of the process, whether it is orientated towards left, right, authoritarian, libertarian, spiritual, atheist, human or inhuman ends is very much coloured by our sapien mammalian fantasies and perversions as much as we may try to escape to the outside or theorise otherwise.ย
Observationaly, as we enter the bottleneck and change begins to speed up as we frantically rush through the filter, literally anything and everything appears to be accelerating, in every direction - gender, race, tradition, fascism, communism, transhumanism, primtivism, globalism, consciousness, slime, faith, apathy, extremism, domestication, nothing, everythingโฆ
Which is why we should return again to the central question of accelerationism;
What is Accelerating ?
The question is commonly considered in political terms - that we should accelerate capitalism towards something else...
But it's not really that.
To boil it down as much as possible, there are a few things. The first is undoubtedly complexity - or entropy. As entropy in the universe increases it causes more disorganisation which causes more complexity - computational complexity is accelerating as computers become more powerful and intelligent. The process of accelerating complexity and intelligence in the universe manifests as increased novelty.
This is what Terrance Meckenna called TimeWave Zero, itโs what the Mayans calledย 13.0.0.0.0 4ย Ahau 8 Kumku (Cosmogenesis), the Zoroastrians called it Frashokereti, the Chrstian Apocalypse and Jewish New Jereselum.
Futurists call it The Technological Singularity
Apocalypse actually means the great renewal, the time when everything is transformed.
Many interpretations of The New Earth are in reality a kind of spiritual communism (rather than Marxist-Leninist, statist, bureaucratic, algorithmic, totalitarian or atheistic) because they prophesise that the new world will be a time of abundance, delivered by God, rather than the state or through class struggle - for all who crossover and inhabit it (hint, it's abundance for half a billion post humans > )
We are accelerating through the great filter, because it's a bottleneck and a physical system we are in a kind of excited, frantic state, a Y2panic of sorts, it might be 2021 but it's also 2012 - The New World is here, consciousness is accelerating, spirituality and love are becoming more important in peoples lives rather than selfishness and desire, you can actually accelerate upwards, towards God, or downwards, into the Earth/ or Underworld. This process of acceleration is spinning on an axis and it manifests as Geotrauma - spirals
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It's going to get bumpy so you have to hold on tight, try to think about how lucky we are that we have so many different kinds of people here, of different races and cultures and religions, with different perspectives on reality and who can contribute a huge variety of ideas and meaning to the world, which enrich and brighten our lives. Then think of all of the fear, the hatred, the indifference and the unnecessary suffering, the control and the ignorance, the lies and the gasligting and just say no, no thank you -ย
Slow down, you can't stop it, the current is too strong
Things are going to get wierd and interesting and there are going be huge challenges ahead - you must help othersย ๐ฟ
/ New Earth Accelerationism (contact us)
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Nice text, I appreciate you putting this together!