From 084b12f05966c0773fe5505a9c13b91d54ab8e26 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: sdiehl Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2022 15:55:30 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] accelerationism page --- concepts/ideologies/accelerationism.md | 8 +++++++- site/content/about.md | 2 +- 2 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/concepts/ideologies/accelerationism.md b/concepts/ideologies/accelerationism.md index 35bfa2b..dfb80aa 100644 --- a/concepts/ideologies/accelerationism.md +++ b/concepts/ideologies/accelerationism.md @@ -1,2 +1,8 @@ -# Financial Accelerationism +# Accelerationism +Accelerationism is reactionary belief system that proposes that processes like capitalist growth and technological change should be drastically intensified or "accelerated" as a mechanism to effect radical social change. + +The notion coincides with crypto advocacy as some believe that an acceleration to a variant of [hypercapitalism](capitalism.md) with no regulation, caveat emptor investments, and extreme financialization of all aspects of human life as a means to accelerate the collapse of capitalism itself or to build a new financial system like a phoenix from the ashes of the old one. + ## References +1. Husain, Syed Omer, Alex Franklin, and Dirk Roep. 2020. ‘The Political Imaginaries of Blockchain Projects: Discerning the Expressions of an Emerging Ecosystem’. Sustainability Science 15 (2): 379–94. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-020-00786-x. +1. Hussain, Syed Omer. 2020. ‘Prefigurative Post-Politics as Strategy: The Case of Government-Led Blockchain Projects’. The Journal of The British Blockchain Association 3 (1): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.31585/jbba-3-1-(2)2020. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/content/about.md b/site/content/about.md index 922bfea..136b40f 100644 --- a/site/content/about.md +++ b/site/content/about.md @@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ We will be steel-manning the key claims made by proponents of web3 through consc **A lot of energy and attention are going into this area**: There is also a lot of energy and attention being channeled into this area across the spectrum from tech to change-makers. This is energy that could be used elsewhere—it has an [opportunity cost](../../claims/is-opportunity-cost.md). If web3 can’t deliver on its promise this would be a significant waste of energy. Furthermore, given some of the elevated claims, there is a risk that disappointments here would not only tarnish web3 but reduce the energy for other types of innovation or change-making. Whilst there are opportunity costs to any action, they are particularly important in the context of web3 precisely because so much energy and good-will are being channelled here. -**This is a runaway phenomenon presenting special risks and requiring special attention**: Finally, this is a "runaway phenomenon" with [exponential growth](../../concepts/bubble.md) in interest, [use](../../concepts/use-value.md) and investment. To take just one illustrative example, blockchain based assets are the [fastest growing](../../concepts/bubble.md) asset class we have ever seen in human history; The crypto market cap -- the value of all the cryptocurrency tokens in circulation -- is currently sitting at $2.6 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap data. This huge velocity of expansion means web3 has the potential to significantly impact the organization of society -- for good or ill. It also renders the risks of wasted resources and energy even greater, as our "spend" is increasing so rapidly. Furthermore, runaway phenomena present special risks because things can happen before we notice and have time to react (cf. AI, climate change, nuclear weapons). The need for discourse and understanding, in other words, is not one that can wait. +**This is a runaway phenomenon presenting special risks and requiring special attention**: Finally, this is a "runaway phenomenon" with [exponential growth](../../concepts/bubble.md) in interest, [use](../../concepts/use-value.md) and investment. To take just one illustrative example, blockchain based assets are the [fastest growing](../../concepts/bubble.md) asset class we have ever seen in human history; The crypto market cap—the value of all the cryptocurrency tokens in circulation—is currently sitting at $2.6 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap data. This huge velocity of expansion means web3 has the potential to significantly impact the organization of society -- for good or ill. It also renders the risks of wasted resources and energy even greater, as our "spend" is increasing so rapidly. Furthermore, runaway phenomena present special risks because things can happen before we notice and have time to react (cf. AI, climate change, nuclear weapons). The need for discourse and understanding, in other words, is not one that can wait. ### We need better sensemaking. How do we get there?