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effective accelerationism explained
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It’s hard to avoid the messages: mankind is bad. There are too many of us. Our problems are too many and they are too hard to solve.
Many people are saying the solution to these problems is to take a step backwards, that the solution is degrowth. But degrowth is a kind of surrender. Degrowth is central planning hopped up on scarcity mindset. Degrowth is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The 20th century is replete with examples of the drawbacks and limitations of this kind of approach. But what’s the alternative?
Perhaps you’ve stumbled across a post about e/acc, and felt more confused after reading it than when you started. That’s understandable; it can be difficult to find the right place to begin, and some of the ideas behind e/acc can be a little esoteric.
Your painful confusion is about to come to an end, because in this post your humble author will reveal the secrets of e/acc. If you remember just one thing from this post, let it be that the fundamental message of e/acc is positive: we’re all going to make it.
This isn’t faith or simplistic optimism. At the core of e/acc is a set of conclusions about the world drawn from the physics behind life itself, and the path forward it lays out is as clear as it is compelling. All there is left to do is pitch in and help. All there is left to do is build.
In more practical terms, e/acc is about how and why we will all flourish in the world we are building right now. In a world of where we are fed a constant stream of reasons to be hopeless, e/acc is a reason to be hopeful in this very moment. That, more than anything else, is why e/acc is the nexus of so much energy, and why I hope you will be excited about it, too.
Buckle up.
What is effective accelerationism?
The essence of e/acc (effective accelerationism) is a belief, based in thermodynamics, that existence has certain characteristics that are most amenable to life that continuously expands. We’ll get into that soon.
First, practically speaking, the solution to the problems facing humanity is to grow out of them. Humanity solves problems through technological advancement and growth. Contrary examples from history—where humanity has solved a problem by skulking backward—are scarce to non-existent. This is not a surprise, and is in fact a consequence of our physical reality.
There is nothing stopping us from creating abundance for every human alive other than the will to do it. We have the most powerful information technology known to man on our side: the market. And the same technological growth that is helping out in other places is increasing the power of the market as well.
Strategically speaking we need to work toward several overarching civilizational goals that are all interdependent.
- Increase the amount of energy we can harness as a species (climb the Kardashev gradient.) In the short term this almost certainly means nuclear fission.
- Increase human flourishing via pro-population growth policies and pro-economic growth policies (emergent altruism, placing economic power and agency in the hands of the meek).
- Create Artificial General Intelligence (allows supplementation of labor with capital) the single greatest force multiplier in human history.
- Develop interplanetary and interstellar transport so that humanity can spread beyond the Earth.
Why do you believe this?
For many, once we stop to engage with the ideas behind e/acc they just become intuitively obvious. If that’s you, that’s okay, you don’t have to wrestle with physics if you don’t want to. For those that do, here’s somewhere to start. I say start because it lies deep within physics, in statistical thermodynamics.
The physics of our universe favors the creation of structures that consume energy to maintain internal order by externalizing entropy (e.g. dumping heat into the environment.) This is the consequence of an effect from statistical thermodynamics called Jarzynski-Crooks fluctuation-dissipation.
The more energy these entropy-dumping structures can effectively utilize, the more resilient their low entropy states become. These structures include everything we recognize as life.
Put another way, thermodynamics favors the creation of complex life that increases its capability to use energy to offload entropy. Under the conditions of our universe the development of complex life is almost as inevitable as a ball rolling down a hill.
Do you want to get rid of humans?
No. Human flourishing is one of our core values! We are humans, and we love humans.
The complexity of circumstances that life might need to survive and thrive in means that any monoculture is undesirable. A diverse mix of life from simple cellular life, through complex human life, and on to fragile and powerful technological life together represent a system capable of handling any circumstance and utilizing as much energy of as many different kinds at as many different scales as possible.
There are environments that will only productively support simple biological life, e.g. extremophiles. There is a gradient here, and biology will always have a place. If nothing else, biology is still the incredibly resilient backup system which is most capable of starting over, should disaster occur.
So what, you want to just uplift humanity, build AI and populate the universe with the maximum diversity and quantity of life?
Well, I’m convinced. How can I help?
Tell people about e/acc, express your optimism about the future, and refuse to swallow the despair and fear that you are being fed. Don’t be afraid, just build.
Whether you’re building a family, a startup, a spaceship, a robot, or better energy policy, just build.
Do something hard. Do it for everyone who comes next. That’s it. Existence will take care of the rest. Just build.
10 Comments on "effective accelerationism explained"
makati1 on Thu, 25th Aug 2022 5:23 pm
Contraction is the future, no matter how many articles from stockholders say different. The end of the way of life Westerners have been used to, is ending. The plundering of the West on the rest of the world is over. Now Western countries will have to live with what they have in country, not what they can plunder from 3rd world countries. Or…we will have a really bad world war that destroys everything. We shall see. Pas the popcorn.
FamousDrScanlon on Fri, 26th Aug 2022 12:24 pm
Someone pass me a bucket–I’m gonna PUKE.
I’m allergic to phony forced optimism & poor writing.
“But degrowth is a kind of surrender.”
You only surrender from a fight, so if degrowth=surrender then growth=fight. Fucking senseless when you break it down.
Another moron who can’t make a sensible argument.
I remember the days when nothing got printed until the editor proof read it. That way the stupid shit gets corrected or tossed. Individual blog owners should have a smart & honest friend proof read their articles before they print.
An Electric Bus Caught Fire After Battery Explosion in Paris
10,990,023 views Apr 30, 2022 An Electric Bus Caught Fire After Battery Explosion in Paris
A video recording shows the start of the fire which completely consumed an electric RATP bus on Friday 29 April. The incident caused no injuries.
The bus burst into flames within seconds. This is what can be seen on the video that captured the very beginning of the fire of an electric vehicle of the RATP in Paris , this Friday, April 29. In the images, we can see a small explosion occur on the roof of the bus, where the batteries are located, followed by huge flames that spread to the entire body, at breakneck speed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r-yN8SugWM
makati1 on Fri, 26th Aug 2022 5:05 pm
“Degrowth” is the 1984 Newspeak where definitions change with the whim of the masters. It is an attempt to make contraction seem ok. It works with the dumbed down Amerikans
The newest is the redefining of recession. More to come.
My public high school education, in the late 50s, is at least equal to a bachelors degree today. We were taught to think and question. Do they even teach geography, history, biology, chemistry, physics, algebra and calculus today in the Amerikan public high schools? If so, I bet it is dumbed down so far as to be useless.
Theedrich on Mon, 29th Aug 2022 5:04 pm
The history of the world is one of catastrophe. Evolution occurs through SURVIVAL of the fittest, not of the most duplicitous, when the relevant ecological niche(s) can no longer support the bioform(s). Consider the undeniable facts: the U.S. government is a crime syndicate; its merger of state and corporate powers is another name for fascism; and when all else fails, the elites take you to war. See <a href="https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=daniela+cambone+and+celente&&view=detail&mid=BEA576BAC7A408A0C058BEA576BAC7A408A0C058&&FORM=VRDGAR" target="_blank“>‘I See the Future and It’s Hell on Earth,’ Warns Trends Forecaster Gerald Celente.
The infantile masses have voted for the hypnagogues now controlling them. So we cannot expect that, in the present situation of the Ukrainian proxy war, reason will magically triumph, because “the people” do not want it to triumph. As a result, nature will impose its own solution: collapse.
Outcast_Searcher on Tue, 30th Aug 2022 3:21 pm
FamousDrScanlon: Fear not. LFP batteries are going to be cheap, durable, MUCH safer than today’s LI batteries, and coming in MASS quantities in 2023, and accelerating from there, re current factory plans, etc.
Also, outfits like BYD are rapidly improving on the energy density of LFP. Also, further improvements in battery chemistries can further enhance such energy densities, at a price of including other metals, with Manganese being an already proven example with big plans for that.
For example:
https://www.licarco.com/news/catl-will-start-producing-lfp-batteries-with-15-percent-more-energy-thanks-to-manganese
Only wildly yelling about every negative thing you can find is likely great sport, but it doesn’t say anything accurate about the overall future, given real world math, science, probabilities etc.
Even with stupid short sighted humans being unwilling to cooperate on obvious things that would help a lot, like big time population reduction.
Outcast_Searcher on Tue, 30th Aug 2022 3:29 pm
OTOH, it’s nice to see something besides the usual “all doom all the time” here, but OTOH, ignoring all our problems and pretending that “leaning into growth” will magically fix everything rings high on the insane-o-meter.
How about we push for far more SMART ways of doing things and be cautious re overall consumption while we see if the global community can manage to turn this thing around before doing much more of the basic thing (more growth at all costs) that’s made the climate mess on a very massive extinction level scale of risk that we find ourselves in (despite the FUD of the usual uneducated science denier “yell at clouds” types).
For example, I very much like the current strategy of doing lots of LOOKING to learn about astronomy through better telescopes, which is relatively cheap and energy and resource efficient per unit of data gained. It also doesn’t tend to kill many gung-ho adrenaline addled astronauts.
We can always get into more physical exploration missions IF and WHEN they seem well justified (re risk and resources and environmental cost) by what we’ve LEARNED to look for, via the telescopes and science advancing.
FamousDrScanlon on Tue, 30th Aug 2022 5:01 pm
Only wildly yelling? Those batteries you speak of are not off the drawing board, let alone rolled out at scale – who’s wild?
Nothing from the hopuim crowd has been rolled out at scale except Bull shit. 30 years of wildly yelling techno fixes while all the data that matters yells Doom in the shape of a hockey stick.
You have fuck all but hollow words. You literally have to be a helmet wearing, shit eating, drooling grin wearing retard to be positive about anything Overshoot related, especially climate change.
Is there anyone besides me who can read charts & graphs & have a clue what they are saying?
Looks like US gov climate message controller scientist Mike Mann has egg all over his stupid face.
If even a fraction if the clathrares make it to the atmosphere as CH4 or CO2 it could make for a short & merciful Endtimes.
It’s Happened Before: Paleoclimate Study Shows Warming Oceans Could Lead to a Spike in Seabed Methane Emissions
Shallow deposits of frozen methane beneath oceans may be more vulnerable to thawing than previously known.
The slowdown of a key ocean current could release methane that is frozen in layers of organic seabed sediments along some of the world’s coastlines, a new study shows.
The trigger for such warming and thawing, according to the study, is a large inflow of fresh, frigid water from melting Arctic ice, which can disrupt the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current, a slow ocean heat pump, pushing cold water in the Arctic deep down and southward, and warm water to the surface and northward.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22082022/its-happened-before-paleoclimate-study-shows-warming-oceans-could-lead-to-a-spike-in-seabed-methane-emissions/
…..
7 years ago, I shared how clathrates have caused significant global warming in a very short period of time. IT HAS HAPPENED BEFORE.
Researchers decipher the history of paleoclimate change with surprising results
“Their research demonstrates that, although this transition developed over seven centuries, the initial shift required only 50 years.”
“One of the most astonishing things about our results is the abruptness of the warming in sea surface temperatures,” explained co-author Kennett, a professor emeritus in UCSB’s Department of Earth Science. “Of the 13 degree Fahrenheit total change, a shift of 7 to 9 degrees occurred almost immediately right at the beginning.”
“What process can possibly push the Earth’s climate so fast from a glacial to an interglacial state? The researchers may have discovered the answer based on the core’s geochemical record: The warming associated with the major climatic shift was accompanied by simultaneous releases of methane—a potent greenhouse gas.”
https://phys.org/news/2015-12-decipher-history-paleoclimate-results.html
Don’t be surprised if Mike Mann & his all American crew of careerist climate scientists stage another full court press anti-methane messaging bombardment.
A dude said Mann is a coward. I say no. Mann has been getting serious threats of harm, including threats of death to himself & his family from denier scum for more than a decade. Mann did not quit. He is a shameless careerist. Mann, Gavin Schmidt and a few others are anti doomists. They are far too concerned with anti doom & anti methane bomb messaging, apparently on behalf of Uncle Sam. None of them study clathrates, so why do they speak as self assured experts everytime it comes up? Mann & crew have dissed senior scientist ice expert Peter Wadhams who spent 40 years studying Arctic ice. He was on the ice and under the ice in a US Navy sub. Mike Mann builds computer models in an office.
I have no firm position on a methane bomb because unlike Mike Mann, I don’t pretend to know shit I have no way of knowing. He doesn’t know. We are fucked without a methane bomb – we don’t need it. Even with no bomb, some CH4 and CO2 from clathrates will still make it into the atmosphere and the second article I shared shows there is more than 1 way to skin the clathrate cat.
Outcast, I’m sorry you are having a tough time dealing. If you ask me nicely, All sweet and shit, I’ll tell you that everything is awesome and the future is so bright you gotta wear shades.
Elon is rolling out a new IoT global thermostat. Just say “there’s no place like home” 3 times while bashing your head into a wall and level of atmospheric CO2 will instantly drop to a warm-N-fuzzy 280 ppm the average global temperature will follow, lower by 1.2C.
https://youtu.be/65YIlwxBuvM
SilentRunning2 on Wed, 31st Aug 2022 6:34 pm
Even at *only* 1% growth per year – in less than 10,000 years the ENTIRE OBSERVABLE UNIVERSE would have to be converted into human bodies. We have that long to develop warp drive that can travel at about 1 million times the speed of light – not to mention machines that can convert whole solar systems into human bodies – just to keep the conservative/religious fantasy of everlasting growth alive.
The alternative – a stable population – is somehow irrational and distasteful. And of course, if it turns out that we can’t develop faster than light travel – then the alternative is to eat one another. That is what the religious conservation growth-at-all-costs types want to do to us. Eat us as food.
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