Accelerationists seem unaware, wilfully or not, that they're not merely bringing the world closer and faster to collapse, they're making collapse qualitatively worse. Alas.
I think that's not true, although it needs to be said at the outset that no one can predict the future and the possibilities are countless. I think the sooner collapse happens the LESS bad it will be because there will be less people to suffer it, climate change will not have advanced as far, species depletion will not have advanced as far, horrible new things like bioweapons and space-based weapons and universal surveillance and control will not have been fully implemented--so the survivors will be able to pick up the pieces and go on. The longer it's postponed the more complete the collapse will be because the environmental bedrock we depend on will have been further damaged.
I've been researching this very topic and unfortunately I think your logic is flawed, Mary.
How do you define "accelerating collapse"? Because to me it implies that certain tipping points will be reached, and that things get worse before they get better. Let's say we put our faith in the techno-optimists of this world, and let them build more energy-guzzling AI infrastructure in the hopes of solving the climate problem. If we fail to decelarate global warming (thereby accelerating climate collapse) — if we push global climate systems that far — the damage will set us on a slippery slope of self-destruction. This is what Dahlia spoke to with "making collapse qualitatively worse".
Philip, I don't see "collapse" as "climate collapse." Perhaps this idea comes from the absurd notion often spouted, that AI will be so smart so it will "solve climate." In fact I think preventing the buildout of those data centers is the most urgent task now, not only because they're accelerating environmental damage, but because they're destroying the remnants of democracy--being rammed through without even the pretense of consulting the communities where they're built, and the primary reasons for them are to fuel cryptocurrency--primarily used for fraud and graft--and to build a panopticon, where all the data our lords and masters have collected on each and every one of us can be collected in one place, so that when the inevitable rebellion comes, they'll have AI sift through it all and pinpoint who the potential leaders are and they can be eliminated. Yeah, it has some benefits for ordinary people too, helping us cheat on our homework so we can avoid learning anything, comforting us with illusion when we're alienated from each other, making deepfakes of our enemies and exes--wait, are any of those really benefits?
What I'm saying is that we cannot solve any of these problems by democratic means--electing better people, lobbying our supposed representatives, having big demonstrations. A massive, well-coordinated general strike in which we refuse to work OR buy anything--ideally including long-term work to permanently cease supporting large corporations by shifting to self-provisioning, mutual support, and buying from local mom-and-pops--could conceivably give us a shot at real change, but I don't see the coordination happening. A sociopathic ruling class has been working for several decades to consolidate its power and has been very successful. At this point those at the top are not only sociopathic but plain nuts, with delusions of moving to Mars, living forever, building a race of androids to replace humanity.
Fortunately the people in power are not only vicious, utterly selfish and short-sighted--they are also stupid and incompetent. So collapse of the sort I had in mind, which could be helped along some by the environmental damage but is mostly about breakdown of economic and political systems, is much more likely and is, I think, the one thing that will break their hold on power. After which, people will be reorganizing locally, with results that will vary greatly, from horrible warlord-led places with slavery, to genuinely democratic groups where the focus is on ensuring everyone's wellbeing--not just the humans. I've been saying the best each of us can do is to prepare, locally for that, so that "the ideas that are lying around" when collapse hits are positive ones. And meanwhile, fight whatever stupid, destructive project is being proposed. I live in West Virginia, where those ideas involve coal or gas, and 100% of our politicians will support them, and the DEP issues all permits regardless of what's said at public hearings.
I vote for acceleration, from a left perspective but I need to clarify: I certainly don't think technology is the answer. To use your car speeding to a cliff metaphor, the car contains humanity and the cliff is collapse of civilization. The reason I vote for speeding up is that the road and the car are RAPIDLY destroying ecosystems, the climate, Earth's systems--about three more decades, given the increasing rate of damage, and we will have brought these things beyond the ability to recover, at least within millennia. Add in the items that haven't happened yet, some in the ecological realm and some in the sociopolitical--AI, space-based weapons, AI-guided bioengineering, universal surveillance and perhaps means of control...and this needs to be averted by any means possible. Sure it would be better to have a carefully controlled descent via degrowth, so that most of humanity survives and we can keep some of the best aspects of modernity. It's probably even still technically possible, as long as all eight billion of us work together in perfect harmony, with the world's rich and middle class rapidly cutting consumption, war and the militaries being eliminated as the stupid and wasteful things they are,dangerous things like nuclear and biological weapons being carefully disposed of, fossil fuels, plastics and nuclear power being phased out...so what are the odds of this? I can answer that! The odds are exactly 0.0% Given that most people want to consume at least as much as they presently do, and react with outrage if you suggest slowing down --or reducing our birth rate--and that the 1% who make all the collective decisions are determined to keep enriching themselves beyond the bounds of sanity, and many of them have crazed dreams of emigrating to Mars or downloading into robots, etc.--degrowth IS the answer but who's asking the question? Only a few of us. So I want to see the end of this destructive civilization while there is still a chance of ecological recovery, and before the mad scientists inflict even worse things on us.
Just a quick comment. I couldn't help to notice that the Joe Scott video you linked was made about a year ago. I will check out later what he thinks now that all the accelerationist bros' and friends are in the government.
how can we possibly bring about 'degrowth' when the billionaires, techbros, authoritarians of the world who control evrything are still in full tilt neoliberal/capitalist mode.... I would say that is about 95 % of the world.
As you suggest, what is sensible and what is likely are probably not the same things. The frustration is that while there are more than enough people to create the surge that would head off the worse scenarios the despair that individualism has engendered is a huge barrier to collective action.
A few years ago I became a doomer when I watched a video of a talk given by Kate Raworth. I hope I have her name right. She explained that, for more 60 years, the so called leaders of the "free" world built everything on the premise of infinite extraction of finite resources. I realized that the corporations' mandate of infinite extraction was going to kill everything, or at least enough to render the earth seriously disabled. Life as it has existed for the last several thousand years is being destroyed. Ecosystems millions of years in the making are dying. I don't believe that the corporations can be stopped. If they can't be stopped they will suck as much life as they can until they implode. I have always held out a small hope, or unrealistic dream, that there will be survivors, human and non-human. I'm glad I won't live to see it, but I mourn nonetheless, and hope I'm wrong.
If I was on the Titanic, I would look for the children and the pets. The weak who needed protection. That is where we are. I want to encourage those who are stronger than I am. They may have a chance to find a way through. Self-sustaining, cooperative communities that will protect those that need protection are where my hope lies for the grim future. People who can find a way to live without the toxic corporate system I was born and raised to support in a deluded society based on pride and acquisition.
I failed in that society. I have lived most of my life ashamed. Now I am grateful for my failures. I don't think I would have seen the truth otherwise.
We can focus on both slowing the glide and blowing gently on any sparks of a better system that could, just possibly lurk in the ashes of the old
Accelerationists seem unaware, wilfully or not, that they're not merely bringing the world closer and faster to collapse, they're making collapse qualitatively worse. Alas.
I think that's not true, although it needs to be said at the outset that no one can predict the future and the possibilities are countless. I think the sooner collapse happens the LESS bad it will be because there will be less people to suffer it, climate change will not have advanced as far, species depletion will not have advanced as far, horrible new things like bioweapons and space-based weapons and universal surveillance and control will not have been fully implemented--so the survivors will be able to pick up the pieces and go on. The longer it's postponed the more complete the collapse will be because the environmental bedrock we depend on will have been further damaged.
I've been researching this very topic and unfortunately I think your logic is flawed, Mary.
How do you define "accelerating collapse"? Because to me it implies that certain tipping points will be reached, and that things get worse before they get better. Let's say we put our faith in the techno-optimists of this world, and let them build more energy-guzzling AI infrastructure in the hopes of solving the climate problem. If we fail to decelarate global warming (thereby accelerating climate collapse) — if we push global climate systems that far — the damage will set us on a slippery slope of self-destruction. This is what Dahlia spoke to with "making collapse qualitatively worse".
Philip, I don't see "collapse" as "climate collapse." Perhaps this idea comes from the absurd notion often spouted, that AI will be so smart so it will "solve climate." In fact I think preventing the buildout of those data centers is the most urgent task now, not only because they're accelerating environmental damage, but because they're destroying the remnants of democracy--being rammed through without even the pretense of consulting the communities where they're built, and the primary reasons for them are to fuel cryptocurrency--primarily used for fraud and graft--and to build a panopticon, where all the data our lords and masters have collected on each and every one of us can be collected in one place, so that when the inevitable rebellion comes, they'll have AI sift through it all and pinpoint who the potential leaders are and they can be eliminated. Yeah, it has some benefits for ordinary people too, helping us cheat on our homework so we can avoid learning anything, comforting us with illusion when we're alienated from each other, making deepfakes of our enemies and exes--wait, are any of those really benefits?
What I'm saying is that we cannot solve any of these problems by democratic means--electing better people, lobbying our supposed representatives, having big demonstrations. A massive, well-coordinated general strike in which we refuse to work OR buy anything--ideally including long-term work to permanently cease supporting large corporations by shifting to self-provisioning, mutual support, and buying from local mom-and-pops--could conceivably give us a shot at real change, but I don't see the coordination happening. A sociopathic ruling class has been working for several decades to consolidate its power and has been very successful. At this point those at the top are not only sociopathic but plain nuts, with delusions of moving to Mars, living forever, building a race of androids to replace humanity.
Fortunately the people in power are not only vicious, utterly selfish and short-sighted--they are also stupid and incompetent. So collapse of the sort I had in mind, which could be helped along some by the environmental damage but is mostly about breakdown of economic and political systems, is much more likely and is, I think, the one thing that will break their hold on power. After which, people will be reorganizing locally, with results that will vary greatly, from horrible warlord-led places with slavery, to genuinely democratic groups where the focus is on ensuring everyone's wellbeing--not just the humans. I've been saying the best each of us can do is to prepare, locally for that, so that "the ideas that are lying around" when collapse hits are positive ones. And meanwhile, fight whatever stupid, destructive project is being proposed. I live in West Virginia, where those ideas involve coal or gas, and 100% of our politicians will support them, and the DEP issues all permits regardless of what's said at public hearings.
Best to not listen to the doom sayers at all.... most of the issues are not issues and the rest can be fixed.
I vote for acceleration, from a left perspective but I need to clarify: I certainly don't think technology is the answer. To use your car speeding to a cliff metaphor, the car contains humanity and the cliff is collapse of civilization. The reason I vote for speeding up is that the road and the car are RAPIDLY destroying ecosystems, the climate, Earth's systems--about three more decades, given the increasing rate of damage, and we will have brought these things beyond the ability to recover, at least within millennia. Add in the items that haven't happened yet, some in the ecological realm and some in the sociopolitical--AI, space-based weapons, AI-guided bioengineering, universal surveillance and perhaps means of control...and this needs to be averted by any means possible. Sure it would be better to have a carefully controlled descent via degrowth, so that most of humanity survives and we can keep some of the best aspects of modernity. It's probably even still technically possible, as long as all eight billion of us work together in perfect harmony, with the world's rich and middle class rapidly cutting consumption, war and the militaries being eliminated as the stupid and wasteful things they are,dangerous things like nuclear and biological weapons being carefully disposed of, fossil fuels, plastics and nuclear power being phased out...so what are the odds of this? I can answer that! The odds are exactly 0.0% Given that most people want to consume at least as much as they presently do, and react with outrage if you suggest slowing down --or reducing our birth rate--and that the 1% who make all the collective decisions are determined to keep enriching themselves beyond the bounds of sanity, and many of them have crazed dreams of emigrating to Mars or downloading into robots, etc.--degrowth IS the answer but who's asking the question? Only a few of us. So I want to see the end of this destructive civilization while there is still a chance of ecological recovery, and before the mad scientists inflict even worse things on us.
Just a quick comment. I couldn't help to notice that the Joe Scott video you linked was made about a year ago. I will check out later what he thinks now that all the accelerationist bros' and friends are in the government.
how can we possibly bring about 'degrowth' when the billionaires, techbros, authoritarians of the world who control evrything are still in full tilt neoliberal/capitalist mode.... I would say that is about 95 % of the world.
As you suggest, what is sensible and what is likely are probably not the same things. The frustration is that while there are more than enough people to create the surge that would head off the worse scenarios the despair that individualism has engendered is a huge barrier to collective action.
A few years ago I became a doomer when I watched a video of a talk given by Kate Raworth. I hope I have her name right. She explained that, for more 60 years, the so called leaders of the "free" world built everything on the premise of infinite extraction of finite resources. I realized that the corporations' mandate of infinite extraction was going to kill everything, or at least enough to render the earth seriously disabled. Life as it has existed for the last several thousand years is being destroyed. Ecosystems millions of years in the making are dying. I don't believe that the corporations can be stopped. If they can't be stopped they will suck as much life as they can until they implode. I have always held out a small hope, or unrealistic dream, that there will be survivors, human and non-human. I'm glad I won't live to see it, but I mourn nonetheless, and hope I'm wrong.
I hope your wrong too. I feel largely the same. I hope many of us are wrong.
If I was on the Titanic, I would look for the children and the pets. The weak who needed protection. That is where we are. I want to encourage those who are stronger than I am. They may have a chance to find a way through. Self-sustaining, cooperative communities that will protect those that need protection are where my hope lies for the grim future. People who can find a way to live without the toxic corporate system I was born and raised to support in a deluded society based on pride and acquisition.
I failed in that society. I have lived most of my life ashamed. Now I am grateful for my failures. I don't think I would have seen the truth otherwise.