Nothing we could possibly do could make things worse faster than what the liberals are doing to themselves. All we can do is try to help some of them see what they've become, and show them an alternative exists.
a lot of the
we could do would make stuff worse faster because of the backlash. maybe you could get away with 
if trump wins but liberals are so civility brained i wouldn't count on it. Nobody to the right enough to be on TV or the NYT opinion page would be willing to say "actually it's good he's dead", maybe hasan would get banned from twitch over that take.Is it ethical to be somewhat glad (not sure if this is the right word) as things get worse, as it necessarily turns people to our viewpoint?
Big assumption there that folks would break our way and not the fash way. If things fell apart right now we would be fucked. Long way to go in the way of education before the left is ready to capitalize on instability
Good point, I guess I forget how many idiots and chuds would happily cheer in fascism as things are today.
I'm not sure emotions really have an ethical valence at all. You can be happy or sad about whatever you want without it being blameworthy or praiseworthy. I don't think it's ethical to actively make things worse, though.
This. Ethics is a system of rules to follow for cya reasons. It's not much to do with personal beliefs and morality.
Accelerationism is petty bourgeois nonsense from people that don't want to contend with the struggle of organizing as leftists in the imperial core. It's also used as a boogeyman by "reformists" to juxtapose themselves against something that isn't Marxism.
The ideology of Accelerationism assumes that, in doing so, you bring about an inevitable contradiction/clash that, by working through the contradiction, will eventually result in a better world. This is not always the case, and in many cases the catastrophe/disaster resulted in a large shift Right.
I think Accelerationism preys on Leftism by pushing an over-systematizing thinking towards our current environment to the point where human agency is moot. I think both Althusser and
fell into this kind of Accelerationist thinking.Now, we can do some lower-case acceleration, like organizing a union in your workplace. That would accelerate a clash between management and your coworkers. It also means we aren't relying on hardship and pain, but good argument and comradery, to convince people of our views.
That’s pretty much what I think too. Accelerationism isn’t really something you can subscribe to, shit just happens because of circumstances WAY bigger than yourself, all you can do is form opinions and organize around them, which just makes you a Marxist/fascist.
Accelerationism implies that you actually get a choice in making things worse, or not. You, as an individual do not have that kind of power to make a society wide choice like that. It's main character syndrome to think that you make a difference
I don't think that's necessarily true. You don't have to actively make things worse to believe its a good thing when they do.
no more so than any other political project.
i think it's easy to make these sorts of claims because everyone is so vague about what "accelerationism" might even mean. most people seem to mean voting for a reactionary and not, for example, industrial sabotage.
Industrial sabotage only goes so far in the sense that you and anyone who planned it with you and definitely going to jail and are fucked. It usually doesn’t spur copycats or anything, but when they do they’re like decades apart from one another which is too long to make a difference. The funko pops still get made in the mean time unfortunately. That’s why accelerationism isn’t really a think an individual can subscribe to really. It’s much different than communism which has multiple avenues of approach ranging from super harmless to actively subversive.
left-accelerationism outside Nick Land is just the acceptance of the world as it is
Not viable. It's a vulgar materialist misunderstanding of Marxism. Class consciousness and material conditions tend to develop in concert, i.e. dialectically, but class consciousness doesn't automatically develop in response to changing material conditions. Otherwise we could sit back and let the revolution plan itself. I think socialists should lead struggles, tailored to the current material conditions, for things that will help the working class in the short-term while also making the possibility of a better, socialist, world feel more realistic in order to build class consciousness. If we're leading efforts to make things worse for working people, why the hell would working people become socialists?
Besides, it's not clear that the left has the power to "do" accelerationism anyway. Vote for trump? What would it matter, there's probably a thousand active socialists tops in each major city.
Acceleration is the brain child of libertarian meth addicts that skimmed Marx. It is not only not ethical, being even more devoid of ethical considerations than Marx, who didn't disregard them out of ignorance, unlike most of the authors of accelerationism, but out of an understanding of how these ethical considerations are themselves also irrelevant and disregarded by the ruling class. An accelerationist is a full on unexamined consequentialist, where-as a Marxist understands that the difference between deontology and utilitarianism is mostly a matter of phrasing, and is therefore only worthy of consideration when society becomes democratic.
Additionally, it is non-viable. If the ground-work is not done before the catastrophe, and education is not liberatory, the same cycles of materialism will repeat themselves.
the acceleration is happening whether you want it to or not. the questions been irrelevant at least since COVID if not before
Death to America
I mean the longer that things stay the way they are, countless people suffer and die due to capitalism. You could argue that less would suffer in a fast transition than a slow one.
that's not what i asked though. i think it's a psychologically easier premise if you expect the acceleration to kill people that aren't you. it's why the leopards eating faces party always exists despite the fact that there faces are going to be eaten.
Yeah, fair. Besides my political leanings which can be easily hidden, I don't think I would personally be targeted in said acceleration. Sometimes existing in capitalism just makes me wish for literally anything else.
That’s very ironic since you’re the one who posed the question. The acceleration literally is happening as we speak, but it’s not something any one individual could have guessed or influenced, which is why accelerationism isn’t a real thing.
If you had the power, supervillian style, probably not an ethical worldview to have. Also, not viable.
If you have no power but you know that the systems that we live within are pretty shitty, are causing massive harm by their very existence, and are in the process of failing it stops being about ethics and becomes cope. As a mental self defense mechanism its viable in a limited way but you're going to come off like a super dickhead at best or a complete psychopath at worst.
I think the point is moot because accelartionists aren't actually real. There are no actual left wing accelerationists. At best it's a fun little thought exercise. "Oh but what about X". X is some dipshit who knew Nick Land in college or something and writes essays no one reads. Whoever X is they don't matter and aren't real.
Very much this. "Accelerationism" is an internet thing, not a real world thing. How many times in the last decade has a leftist actually taken action to accelerate anything?
Accelerationism isn’t actually real. This decade imho has proven that the shifts necessary to bring about the end of capitalism or any other system are so large that there pretty much is no way you or your individual actions would mean anything. What has caused US power to weaken over these two years? Multiple wars on different fronts that were caused and exacerbated by US meddling in global politics and the inability to manage its plans. That’s just one example but there are many others. There’s no reason to call yourself an accelerationist or subscribe individually to accelerationism at that point, all you can do is form opinions and actions of the events as they unfold really, but it’s not like you can affect them one way or another. You can get involved in collective action obviously, but that doesn’t make you an accelerationist imho.
No. I'll make a short point (longer ones were already given): class consciousness isn't a prophecy that is inevitable, it has to be actively developed, by communists. To propose accelerationism is to propose that it is possible to develop class consciousness faster, which is laughable if the local communists aren't doing enough for it already, and the proposition of doing it faster may itself be impossible in any case. It also implies that the same communists are able to make progress faster than fascism, which will also develop, and compete.
In the context of the
, a communist's work is made significantly harder due to multiple important reasons
