If you’re new to my blogs, check the index at the right for links to what those blogs are: this one, Control Room, BizMo Diaries, and Coffee Shops Network (CSN). This last is subtitled “Philosophy Talk” and in my most recent post (as of this post) I’m doing some catching up, mentioning some of the names associated with so-called “accelerationism”.
Say what? What’s that?
I’m more an outsider looking in, than insider looking out, so my thoughts might sound naive if you’re a veteran of accelerationist talk. My spellchecker doesn’t even know the word. My thinking drifts back to Future Shock by Alvin Toffler, which I’m surprised is not more cited in the literature, but then I haven’t sicced a lotta chatbots on the issue (yet). He coined “accelerating acceleration” didn’t he?
Put succinctly: if Toffler was right (let’s say he was) then there’s no need to “step on the gas pedal” and no, there’s no brake to speak of. We’ve entered an exponential phase and that’s the new status quo, so how is one to be an “ist” about it? You wanna boost what’s already boosting? You wanna self boost? Why pull yourself up by your own bootstraps when you’re already “up” i.e. already accelerating?
To slow it down we might always get pedantic. I associate the “ped” in “pedantic” with “pedestrian” meaning “the pace of walking” which is slow, relative to some other forms of travel.
To walk it back a bit, acceleration doesn’t just mean speeding up or slowing down; it means changing direction. The laws of inertia suggest that directional changes are proportional to speed and mass in the sense that heavy things don’t turn on a dime.
Sharp turns (a kind of acceleration) require less force at lower speeds. That’s some First Person Physics (or call it rollercoaster physics). You know from driving that taking sharps requires slowing down.
Now, with those Newtonian mechanics out of the way, let’s distill all of the above into a question to myself: am I myself an accelerationist?
At this juncture I’d answer: I accept the premise of a somewhat shocking future in the sense Alvin Toffler anticipated, but I don’t see a need to make it more shocking than it already is. On the contrary, I think less shocking would be fine.
Predictability is not ruled out by the fact of butterfly effects meaning minimizing surprisal in the Active Inference sense is a sensible response in the face of inevitable chaos.
Learn to drive safely, is a good motto to steer by. Practice makes perfect.
But then the perfect is the enemy of the good, meaning don’t expect perfection (or beat yourself up for falling short of it) but nevertheless aim for it in practice.
We’re down to re-minting some old cliches here, some sayings. We get down to maxims.
