Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Rob Myers]

On 24/04/16 04:52 PM, Gretta Louw wrote:
> Death to the ludicrous, imperialist notion of 'mastery'!

>From the Manifesto:

"14. [...] Real democracy must be defined by its goal — collective
self-mastery. This is a project which must align politics with the
legacy of the Enlightenment, to the extent that it is only through
harnessing our ability to understand ourselves and our world better (our
social, technical, economic, psychological world) that we can come to
rule ourselves. We need to posit a collectively controlled legitimate
vertical authority in addition to distributed horizontal forms of
sociality, to avoid becoming the slaves of either a tyrannical
totalitarian centralism or a capricious emergent order beyond our control."

"21. [...] This mastery must be distinguished from that beloved of
thinkers of the original Enlightenment. The clockwork universe of
Laplace, so easily mastered given sufficient information, is long gone
from the agenda of serious scientific understanding. But this is not to
align ourselves with the tired residue of postmodernity, decrying
mastery as proto-fascistic or authority as innately illegitimate."

I allege that what is under discussion here, however unfortunate the
label and however incompletely, is the concept of "justice" rather than
that of "domination".


But Patricia Reed is also critical of this element of the Manifestio in
their response to it ("Seven Prescriptions For Accelerationism"),
arguing that:

"...the undertones of a revised Modernism peppering the Manifesto are of
deep concern: they leave untouched the violence and injustice inherent
to the universalist repercussions of the Modernist project untouched."

and:

"While the Manifesto admirably takes on the full scale of global
reality, a more nuanced version of universality (not to mention
questions of global justice) needs to take root if the ideas driving
Accelerationism are to contain the seeds of an ethics that embrace
non-totality and the constant struggle for inhuman (epistemic) revisionism."

Srnicek & Williams take up Reed's "situated universality" in their
follow-up to the manifesto ("Inventing The Future") by again referring
to the negative model of neoliberalism.

As well as critiquing the Manifesto, Reed addresses some of its critics:

"There are several aspects of the Manifesto to debate, confront, refute,
argue and so forth; but to deny the possibility for a politics of such
scale tout court (a scale we seem to have no trouble swallowing in the
context of the omnipotence of the global neoliberal economy) is as
totalising and absolutist as the claims made against the projected scale
of Accelerationism."


Laboria Cuboniks embrace this scale in the Xenofeminist manifesto,
writing of:

"...a future in which the realization of gender justice and feminist
emancipation contribute to a universalist politics assembled from the
needs of every human, cutting across race, ability, economic standing,
and geographical position. No more futureless repetition on the
treadmill of capital, no more submission to the drudgery of labour,
productive and reproductive alike, no more reification of the given
masked as critique."

and a Promethean feminism:

"In the name of feminism, 'Nature' shall no longer be a refuge of
injustice, or a basis for any political justification whatsoever!

If nature is unjust, change nature!"


(Xenofeminist music is a thing:

https://soundcloud.com/yoneda-lemma/sets/d-n-e )

___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[erik zepka]

I'm not sure there's novelty in open cultural and scientific concepts,
quite the contrary they are interested in being general/social and
consensual.  Advisory committees I think are a great example of providing
instances of some of the steps that can be taken elsewhere - take for
instance a bioethics committee - such a committee yes does consult with
non-biologists on issues of moral standing in relation to biology, and this
is absolutely an SOP as you call it, that I would be in support of.  The
next step would allow for these non-professionals to also be involved in
the research itself, to deliberate on hypotheses and subjects of research,
to go from moral consultants to open/amateur scientists (the latter which I
think could and should include the moral consultancy aspect as well).

I think your bringing up advisory committees is actually a quite nice
complement to what grounding something like accelerationism might look like
- who's on the committee, is it representative in terms of class, race,
gender, ability and whatever else would contribute to giving a voice to the
demographic affected?  And when the questions, as both Ruth and Alan have
effectively talked about, get to a realm of inhuman problematics,
ecological, species-threatening, who should advise then?  We could at least
say that for every categorical norm (a type of person, a type of organism,
a type of biosphere) there's an exception and that considering that
exception can help expand the norm.  If we imagined an accelerationist
advisory committee (maybe this is one), whatever our question, it might
choose to attempt to make accountable whatever accelerationism then meant
or did - the advisory committee then itself might be considered normative,
but it doesn't subtract from the fact that it might have been a sober move
within a given context.

I think you are right to point out that part of my position is to bring an
ethical perspective in where it might not have been so salient (and was
more, for instance, economical/technical etc).  I don't think
accelerationism is a moral project, but it is part of my perspective and
where I would come in to support/critique its collection of associated
ideas.

On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 2:04 AM, Simon Biggs  wrote:

> In response to Erik’s posting - this actually sounds as if Accelerationism
> is a moralist project, at least here: "a weird utopia of everyone [snip]
> being in the conversation and allowing that broader counterpoint to qualify
> and correct expert views”. This is why advisory committees are often
> composed of not only experts but others, like priests or lay people, who
> are expected to be the moral conscience in the process of deliberation.
> This is SOP. Where's the novelty in the argument?
>
> best
>
> Simon
>
>
> *Simon Biggs*
> si...@littlepig.org.uk
> http://www.littlepig.org.uk
> http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
> http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
> http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/school-of-art/simon-biggs
>
>
> On 30 Apr 2016, at 10:07, erik zepka  wrote:
>
> I want to reply to this and Gretta's message that preceded it in a manner
> that mediates the two perspectives.  In this way, perhaps we could talk
> about something like a dilettante accelerationism, but I will look a little
> outside this to what I might term a genealogy of the accelerationist, that
> flavours particular types of epistemology, to arrive at a kind of
> dilettante scientist.
>
> What is a genealogy of accelerationism?  Foucault might have it that in
> knowing the preconditions of a given episteme, we could talk about its
> discourses (like this one) and how, instead of being a question of what you
> know about a given topic it concerns why this topic tends to envelop
> sociological possibility - not epistemology but a set of discourses that
> prenecessitate a given epistemology.Knowing technology, technology and
> knowing, technocapitalism and the saturation of objects to the point of a
> sociological inability to not be concerned with it.  I'm often struck with
> how an author like Ben Noys - a card-carrying anti-accelerationist - for me
> touches on so many of the same issues that I find timely about
> accelerationism.  It's possible that a proper genealogy is done when an
> opinion and its disagreement yield the same contextual description - that
> is, oppose it or agree with it, you are admitting the same preconditions
> (or in a scientific or logical format, axioms and assumptions).
>
> Rob made the point that critics of accelerationism often call for
> accelerationism - from a perspective interested in genealogical axioms, we
> might say they are arguing from the same point (and are sociologically
> predisposed to the same circumstances etc).  Not only does this say that
> the perspectives are generic, but it says that they are conditioned forms
> of knowledge.  That is, to highlight the knowledge-forms that are
> 

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Simon Biggs]

In response to Erik’s posting - this actually sounds as if Accelerationism is a 
moralist project, at least here: "a weird utopia of everyone [snip] being in 
the conversation and allowing that broader counterpoint to qualify and correct 
expert views”. This is why advisory committees are often composed of not only 
experts but others, like priests or lay people, who are expected to be the 
moral conscience in the process of deliberation. This is SOP. Where's the 
novelty in the argument?

best

Simon


Simon Biggs
si...@littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk
http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/school-of-art/simon-biggs


> On 30 Apr 2016, at 10:07, erik zepka  wrote:
> 
> I want to reply to this and Gretta's message that preceded it in a manner 
> that mediates the two perspectives.  In this way, perhaps we could talk about 
> something like a dilettante accelerationism, but I will look a little outside 
> this to what I might term a genealogy of the accelerationist, that flavours 
> particular types of epistemology, to arrive at a kind of dilettante scientist.
> 
> What is a genealogy of accelerationism?  Foucault might have it that in 
> knowing the preconditions of a given episteme, we could talk about its 
> discourses (like this one) and how, instead of being a question of what you 
> know about a given topic it concerns why this topic tends to envelop 
> sociological possibility - not epistemology but a set of discourses that 
> prenecessitate a given epistemology.Knowing technology, technology and 
> knowing, technocapitalism and the saturation of objects to the point of a 
> sociological inability to not be concerned with it.  I'm often struck with 
> how an author like Ben Noys - a card-carrying anti-accelerationist - for me 
> touches on so many of the same issues that I find timely about 
> accelerationism.  It's possible that a proper genealogy is done when an 
> opinion and its disagreement yield the same contextual description - that is, 
> oppose it or agree with it, you are admitting the same preconditions (or in a 
> scientific or logical format, axioms and assumptions).
> 
> Rob made the point that critics of accelerationism often call for 
> accelerationism - from a perspective interested in genealogical axioms, we 
> might say they are arguing from the same point (and are sociologically 
> predisposed to the same circumstances etc).  Not only does this say that the 
> perspectives are generic, but it says that they are conditioned forms of 
> knowledge.  That is, to highlight the knowledge-forms that are 
> accelerationist ones, vs ones that might relatively escape that episteme.  To 
> contrast this with what Williams 
> (http://www.e-flux.com/journal/escape-velocities/ 
> ) terms Negarestani's and 
> Brassier's "epistemic accelerationism", there the idea is in "maximizing 
> rational capacity", or advocating a type of knowledge based on 
> accelerationist precepts, whereas here there is an epistemic foregrounding of 
> any accelerationist-oriented rationalism or knowledge-system whatever (which 
> no doubt will overlap in its instances).  What they have in common is the 
> exploration of an epistemic mirroring of acceleration (vs say an economic 
> one) which makes my basic point here similarly.  
> 
> So then what is epistemic acceleration in the context of genealogy?  It is 
> arguably precisely the dilettantism that constitutes generic perspectives.  
> If genealogy argues from a common grounding out of which particular 
> perspectives may arise, then dilettantism speaks to that genericness in 
> contrast to the expertise that would form particular branches of knowledge.  
> In this way the preconditions of acceleration, an ungrounding of its 
> territory, leads us to the amateur's world of non-expertise, and that 
> compatibility might suggest a fruitful coalition between the perspectives.  
> And in a particular point, I think what a dilettantist epistemologist might 
> say to the increased danger of their knowing of another's field like biology, 
> is that perhaps their general transdisciplinary perspective is a better 
> categorical context from which to understand the subject - that is, I agree 
> that no one fully understands a given area of say environmental chemistry and 
> that people need to work to do so, the question is what kind of work, from 
> what perspective and by whom.  
> 
> While the institutional chemist may have greater particular knowledge but 
> lose ideas outside the delimited precision of a research scope, the amateur 
> may have a broad, spotty and superficial knowledge.  It seems to me clear 
> that best move in terms of knowledge is to take as much from both 
> perspectives as possible to cohere a wider consensus of objective 
> approximation (that is, pro-dilettante not in the 

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[erik zepka]

I want to reply to this and Gretta's message that preceded it in a manner
that mediates the two perspectives.  In this way, perhaps we could talk
about something like a dilettante accelerationism, but I will look a little
outside this to what I might term a genealogy of the accelerationist, that
flavours particular types of epistemology, to arrive at a kind of
dilettante scientist.

What is a genealogy of accelerationism?  Foucault might have it that in
knowing the preconditions of a given episteme, we could talk about its
discourses (like this one) and how, instead of being a question of what you
know about a given topic it concerns why this topic tends to envelop
sociological possibility - not epistemology but a set of discourses that
prenecessitate a given epistemology.Knowing technology, technology and
knowing, technocapitalism and the saturation of objects to the point of a
sociological inability to not be concerned with it.  I'm often struck with
how an author like Ben Noys - a card-carrying anti-accelerationist - for me
touches on so many of the same issues that I find timely about
accelerationism.  It's possible that a proper genealogy is done when an
opinion and its disagreement yield the same contextual description - that
is, oppose it or agree with it, you are admitting the same preconditions
(or in a scientific or logical format, axioms and assumptions).

Rob made the point that critics of accelerationism often call for
accelerationism - from a perspective interested in genealogical axioms, we
might say they are arguing from the same point (and are sociologically
predisposed to the same circumstances etc).  Not only does this say that
the perspectives are generic, but it says that they are conditioned forms
of knowledge.  That is, to highlight the knowledge-forms that are
accelerationist ones, vs ones that might relatively escape that episteme.
To contrast this with what Williams (
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/escape-velocities/) terms Negarestani's and
Brassier's "epistemic accelerationism", there the idea is in "maximizing
rational capacity", or advocating a type of knowledge based on
accelerationist precepts, whereas here there is an epistemic foregrounding
of any accelerationist-oriented rationalism or knowledge-system whatever
(which no doubt will overlap in its instances).  What they have in common
is the exploration of an epistemic mirroring of acceleration (vs say an
economic one) which makes my basic point here similarly.

So then what is epistemic acceleration in the context of genealogy?  It is
arguably precisely the dilettantism that constitutes generic perspectives.
If genealogy argues from a common grounding out of which particular
perspectives may arise, then dilettantism speaks to that genericness in
contrast to the expertise that would form particular branches of
knowledge.  In this way the preconditions of acceleration, an ungrounding
of its territory, leads us to the amateur's world of non-expertise, and
that compatibility might suggest a fruitful coalition between the
perspectives.  And in a particular point, I think what a dilettantist
epistemologist might say to the increased danger of their knowing of
another's field like biology, is that perhaps their general
transdisciplinary perspective is a better categorical context from which to
understand the subject - that is, I agree that no one fully understands a
given area of say environmental chemistry and that people need to work to
do so, the question is what kind of work, from what perspective and by
whom.

While the institutional chemist may have greater particular knowledge but
lose ideas outside the delimited precision of a research scope, the amateur
may have a broad, spotty and superficial knowledge.  It seems to me clear
that best move in terms of knowledge is to take as much from both
perspectives as possible to cohere a wider consensus of objective
approximation (that is, pro-dilettante not in the sense of let's only let
amateurs do things, a weird utopia of everyone engaging in anything but
what they know best (in which ur bio art point Alan I think stands as a
good one), but rather always being in the conversation and allowing that
broader counterpoint to qualify and correct expert views).  And finally,
maybe what at least part of the surge branded around the term acceleration
is about is a general condition of concern within our episteme, whatever
name might be given to it.



On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 4:17 AM, Alan Sondheim  wrote:

>
> I worry about dilettantes as much as master, for example people working in
> bioart potentially releasing organisms into the environment without
> understanding the chemical flows of biomes and organisms (no one
> understands all of this today!). One of the things I've learned to respect
> is the hardness of science; I'm interested in the foundations of math for
> example and since category theory and its offspring have flourished, I feel
> lost, and lost 

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

On Wed, 27 Apr 2016, Rob Myers wrote:


On 25/04/16 06:16 AM, Alan Sondheim wrote:


A few pieces and others we did that might be germane -

[...]

Accessgrid pieces - in which we used a multi-channel linux conferencing
system to bounce signals around the world creating video echos of
speech/ sound/movement; the delays were on the order of 1/10th second.
(around 2008)

Early synthesizer work in which we used patchcords to overload video or
audio synthesizers (including one we built) to create chaotic emergences
(similar to 'animals' in turbulence) that we'd build on. (around 1970)

Foofwa's dancerun work performing marathon movements/vectors through
cities dancing all the way followed by television crews and people who'd
join and drop out. (past decade or two)

My own overloading work in virtual worlds creating anomalies and
artifacts and zeroing in on them until the suicide crashes take place.
(past few years)

My audiotape piece involving a large stage, tape emerging from one
machine at twice the speed the other's picking it up, with feedback
loops - time gets drawn out, tape pools on the floor, things go out of
control, performance stops. (1980 or so)

Stelarc's wiring/writing himself into the Net, nodal-Stelarc. (twenty
years ago)


Ping Body! I was part of Stelarc's tech support for the performance at
the ICA in London at the time. :-)


Amazing! really loved his work at the time -


Chris Burden's early performance work heading towards the bring of
catastrophe. (1970s)

Raves. Speedmetal. Current punk debris. Parkour.


That's a wonderful list of work. The elements of these that I feel speak
most to accelerationism are their embrace of complexity and their
intensification of knowing/transgressing of systems.

That knowledge/transgression as craft comes through in Benedict
Singleton's writing about traps and the cunning needed to escape them
(invoking the classical Greek Metis, to go with Prometheus who we've met
already ;-)).

"The intelligence at work in the construction of the trap is most aptly
described as cunning, and it extends to activities that we can broadly
describe as ?technical? more generally. Many are the observers who have
seen in this the paradigm of craft more broadly writ, the ability to
coax effects from the world, rather than imposing effects on it by the
application of force alone. Following the grain of wood, knowing the
melting points of various ores, the toughening of metal through its
tempering: all these are not domineering strategies, exactly, but
situations ?in which the intelligence attempts to make contact with an
object by confronting it in the guise of a rival, as it were, combining
connivance and opposition.?"

http://www.e-flux.com/journal/maximum-jailbreak/


Yes! Exactly! I was thinking this even describes the viola pieces I put up 
tonight which rely on harmonics and octaves and the natural resonance of 
the instrument with and without mutes - the result is a kind of singing 
(for better or worse - I need comments here) which occupies spaces among 
instrument and room resonances, bow 'tremblings' of wrist/finger/arm, and 
harmonics in combination - when I analyze this stuff, I monitor the 
waveforms -


Then of course on some instruments there are wolf-notes to be avoided for 
the most part, a kind of negative wood-grain.


But I wouldn't use the word 'cunning,' so much as 'dwelling-knowledge,'
which indicates lived spaces, habitus, and habits to be pushed or broken - 
the same might apply to some of the pieces above -


Alan, thanks!

___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour




==
email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 718-813-3285
music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
current text http://www.alansondheim.org/tx.txt
==
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Rob Myers]

On 25/04/16 06:16 AM, Alan Sondheim wrote:
> 
> A few pieces and others we did that might be germane -
> 
> [...]
> 
> Accessgrid pieces - in which we used a multi-channel linux conferencing
> system to bounce signals around the world creating video echos of
> speech/ sound/movement; the delays were on the order of 1/10th second.
> (around 2008)
> 
> Early synthesizer work in which we used patchcords to overload video or
> audio synthesizers (including one we built) to create chaotic emergences
> (similar to 'animals' in turbulence) that we'd build on. (around 1970)
> 
> Foofwa's dancerun work performing marathon movements/vectors through
> cities dancing all the way followed by television crews and people who'd
> join and drop out. (past decade or two)
> 
> My own overloading work in virtual worlds creating anomalies and
> artifacts and zeroing in on them until the suicide crashes take place.
> (past few years)
> 
> My audiotape piece involving a large stage, tape emerging from one
> machine at twice the speed the other's picking it up, with feedback
> loops - time gets drawn out, tape pools on the floor, things go out of
> control, performance stops. (1980 or so)
> 
> Stelarc's wiring/writing himself into the Net, nodal-Stelarc. (twenty
> years ago)

Ping Body! I was part of Stelarc's tech support for the performance at
the ICA in London at the time. :-)

> Chris Burden's early performance work heading towards the bring of
> catastrophe. (1970s)
> 
> Raves. Speedmetal. Current punk debris. Parkour.

That's a wonderful list of work. The elements of these that I feel speak
most to accelerationism are their embrace of complexity and their
intensification of knowing/transgressing of systems.

That knowledge/transgression as craft comes through in Benedict
Singleton's writing about traps and the cunning needed to escape them
(invoking the classical Greek Metis, to go with Prometheus who we've met
already ;-)).

"The intelligence at work in the construction of the trap is most aptly
described as cunning, and it extends to activities that we can broadly
describe as “technical” more generally. Many are the observers who have
seen in this the paradigm of craft more broadly writ, the ability to
coax effects from the world, rather than imposing effects on it by the
application of force alone. Following the grain of wood, knowing the
melting points of various ores, the toughening of metal through its
tempering: all these are not domineering strategies, exactly, but
situations “in which the intelligence attempts to make contact with an
object by confronting it in the guise of a rival, as it were, combining
connivance and opposition.”"

http://www.e-flux.com/journal/maximum-jailbreak/
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

A few pieces and others we did that might be germane -

Ennui - Azure singing and F and I dancing and playing as fast as possible 
for as long as possible - the piece usually bottoms out around ten 
minutes. (started around 2002)


Accessgrid pieces - in which we used a multi-channel linux conferencing 
system to bounce signals around the world creating video echos of speech/ 
sound/movement; the delays were on the order of 1/10th second. (around 
2008)


Early synthesizer work in which we used patchcords to overload video 
or audio synthesizers (including one we built) to create chaotic 
emergences (similar to 'animals' in turbulence) that we'd build on. 
(around 1970)


Foofwa's dancerun work performing marathon movements/vectors through 
cities dancing all the way followed by television crews and people who'd 
join and drop out. (past decade or two)


My own overloading work in virtual worlds creating anomalies and artifacts 
and zeroing in on them until the suicide crashes take place. (past few 
years)


My audiotape piece involving a large stage, tape emerging from one machine 
at twice the speed the other's picking it up, with feedback loops - time 
gets drawn out, tape pools on the floor, things go out of control, 
performance stops. (1980 or so)


Stelarc's wiring/writing himself into the Net, nodal-Stelarc. (twenty 
years ago)


Chris Burden's early performance work heading towards the bring of 
catastrophe. (1970s)


Raves. Speedmetal. Current punk debris. Parkour.

Etetetetc
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

[NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Edward Picot]

I can kind of see where Accelerationism's coming from - assuming that I 
understand Accelerationism correctly, which I more than likely don't. 
After you've repeated a certain number of times the usual breast-beating 
and groaning about the commodification of personal space and 
relationships, the world-domination of monster Web-based corporations, 
the failure of monetarist democracy to deliver either equality or 
political enfranchisement, the destructiveness of the endless-growth 
model of capitalism, the damage it does to our environment, the damage 
being done to our minds and our souls as the online/virtual/social 
media/gaming/dating app world comes to dominate our attention more and 
more thoroughly at the expense of the here-and-now, etc. etc. - after 
you've repeated those things a certain number of times, they start to 
feel not only tiresome and futile, but inadequate as a response to the 
situation in which we find ourselves. You can't keep simply rejecting 
and vilifying the new reality which is now our everyday world. You have 
to find a way of responding to it, representing it, coming to term with 
it, living in it. So perhaps the answer is to embrace it. Instead of 
running for the hills, ride the surf. Go with it. Use its energy. Find 
ways of making it work for you. As Rob says in his article about 
Accelerationist art, the idea is to 'grab the wheel rather than slam on 
the brakes'.


The example of Futurism, however, is a deterring one. The 
Accelerationists, from what I can gather, are at pains to say that 
they're not like the Futurists, but the parallels are difficult to 
ignore - here's Wikipedia's take: 'The Futurists admired speed, 
technology, youth and violence, the car, the airplane and the industrial 
city, all that represented the technological triumph of humanity over 
nature... They repudiated the cult of the past and all imitation... 
dismissed art critics as useless, rebelled against harmony and good 
taste, swept away all the themes and subjects of all previous art, and 
gloried in science.' And despite their objectionable ideas, the 
Futurists produced some strikingly original and challenging work. Their 
determination to embrace the new and their contempt for 'established' 
art with its traditions, its nostalgia, its sentimentality about nature 
and landscape, its distrust of urban environments and technology, 
allowed them to wipe the artistic slate (almost) clean and stake a big 
claim for themselves in an area into which (almost) nobody had ventured 
before. And like the Accelerationists, their agenda was political as 
well as artistic. Of course it's difficult to discuss the political 
aspects of their ideas now without flinching at their Fascist tendencies 
- actually 'tendencies' is putting it mildly - "We will glorify war — 
the world's only hygiene — militarism, patriotism, the destructive 
gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn 
for woman." But the feeling behind this inhumane super-macho posturing 
was that just as existing art, existing criticism and existing aesthetic 
perspectives were not only inadequate but rotten to the core, based on 
falsehoods, and needing to be junked before anything of real value could 
be constructed, so too with society and its values - everything would 
have to be smashed to pieces and scoured clean by technology, war, or 
better still techno-war, and only then could proper foundations be put 
in place and a proper society be constructed.


The problem is, of course, that when society actually reaches the 
melting-point, what follows is not a rebirth, a clean slate, a chance to 
start all over again, but terrible human suffering on a massive scale, 
followed by a slow and painful, often tyrannical, process of 
reconstruction. The meltdown-and-rebirth process has been envisioned 
before: here is the poet Robert Graves writing in the 1961 edition of 
The White Goddess: 'No: there seems no escape from our difficulties 
until the industrial system breaks down for some reason or other, as it 
nearly did in Europe during the Second World War, and nature reasserts 
herself with grass and trees among the ruins.' But the reality, as we 
ought to be able to see with the benefit of fifty years of hindsight, is 
more likely to look like post-revolutionary Russia or China than some 
kind of return to primal innocence, assuming that there ever was such a 
thing as primal innocence.


Of course, the Accelerationists would probably argue that the 
let's-crank-everything-up-until-it-breaks philosophy, or the 
let's-step-on-the-gas-until-we-achieve-escape-velocity philosophy, are 
only minor strands of what they've got to say, and perhaps only 
expressed by a few nutcases on the fringe of the movement. Just as 
important is the attempt to create some kind of new hacktivist politics 
that gets beyond the 'folk politics' of the Occupy movement. Just 
sitting down and protesting isn't enough: that's been 

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Simon Biggs]

I elaborated in a previous post. Manifesto’s are rarely discursive and I don’t 
really see why they require such a response.

best

Simon


Simon Biggs
si...@littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk
http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/school-of-art/simon-biggs







> On 25 Apr 2016, at 12:02, BishopZ  wrote:
> 
> "The soul of wit, is the very body of untruth." -Aldous Huxley
> 
> So sharp? So definitive? Is there not room for debate?
> at least can you e-lab-or-ate?
> Bz
> 
> On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 6:15 PM, Simon Biggs  > wrote:
> Nope - don’t buy it. Quackery…
> 
> best
> 
> Simon
> 
> 
> Simon Biggs
> si...@littlepig.org.uk 
> http://www.littlepig.org.uk 
> http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs 
> http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs 
> 
> http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/school-of-art/simon-biggs 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 25 Apr 2016, at 03:36, Pall Thayer > > wrote:
>> 
>> From Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics 
>> (http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/
>>  
>> ):
>> 
>> "21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over 
>> society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global 
>> problems or achieving victory over capital. This mastery must be 
>> distinguished from that beloved of thinkers of the original Enlightenment. 
>> The clockwork universe of Laplace, so easily mastered given sufficient 
>> information, is long gone from the agenda of serious scientific 
>> understanding. But this is not to align ourselves with the tired residue of 
>> postmodernity, decrying mastery as proto-fascistic or authority as innately 
>> illegitimate. Instead we propose that the problems besetting our planet and 
>> our species oblige us to refurbish mastery in a newly complex guise; whilst 
>> we cannot predict the precise result of our actions, we can determine 
>> probabilistically likely ranges of outcomes. What must be coupled to such 
>> complex systems analysis is a new form of action: improvisatory and capable 
>> of executing a design through a practice which works with the contingencies 
>> it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial 
>> artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that 
>> seeks the best means to act in a complex world."
>> 
>> On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 1:22 PM Alan Sondheim > > wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Can you say more?
>> 
>> On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, Pall Thayer wrote:
>> 
>> > Alan: But isn't that the whole idea behind left-acceleration?
>> >
>> > On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:46 AM Alan Sondheim > > > wrote:
>> >
>> >   I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the biosphere
>> >   doesn't
>> >   adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of sealions,
>> >   walrus,
>> >   migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a form of
>> >   holding-back,
>> >   learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental
>> >   problem I
>> >   think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy,
>> >   micro-
>> >   biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being
>> >   rewritten as
>> >   we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of
>> >   ignorance.
>> >   Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me
>> >   that
>> >   accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps
>> >   man-based for all
>> >   that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do
>> >   we do, for
>> >   example, with the increasingly violent drought in the Mid-East
>> >   which is
>> >   exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow, dirty work
>> >   to deal
>> >   with it, culture theory which listens, not only to humans, but
>> >   to life and
>> >   lives everywhere -
>> >
>> >   Alan
>> >
>> >
>> >   On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:
>> >
>> >   > Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
>> >   >
>> >   > All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in
>> >   an acid bath
>> >   > of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
>> >   >
>> >   > What this passage does not describe though is a situation
>> >   where the wider
>> >   > ecologies of non-human planetary 

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Rob Myers]

On April 24, 2016 1:08:38 PM PDT, Anthony Stephenson  wrote:
>Doctors, lawyers and anyone who knows that what the market will bear
>sometimes knows no limit, will only contribute this disparity until,
>let’s
>say, a personal version of something like Chile’s Cybersyn is made into
>an
>app freely available to help each citizen of the world.

I like this example. Cyberstride (the part of Cybersyn that provided feedback 
on a given enterprise's day-to-day performance) was a simple Bayesian filtering 
algorithm. This would fit on a smart watch now with plenty of room to spare. 
Cybersyn was part of a project to enlarge the socially owned sector of the 
economy, using less than cutting-edge technology. Accelerationism needn't be 
techno-hype...

In contrast to quantitative projects like Cybersyn, one of the key proposals of 
the follow-up to the "Manifesto For An Accelerationist Politics" is support for 
universal basic income (as part of the welfare state). This would free people 
up more to concentrate on the qualitative aspect of things...

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

I worry about dilettantes as much as master, for example people working 
in bioart potentially releasing organisms into the environment without 
understanding the chemical flows of biomes and organisms (no one 
understands all of this today!). One of the things I've learned to respect 
is the hardness of science; I'm interested in the foundations of math for 
example and since category theory and its offspring have flourished, I 
feel lost, and lost for good reason - these things are complicated and 
require a lot of study and commitment. So the dilettante worries me as 
well...


- Alan, but yes !

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016, Gretta Louw wrote:


Oh, and let's revive the dilettantes! No more supposed experts, would-be 
'masters'. Surely no one who uses this language - even in relation to 
ostensibly abstract problems or inanimate matter - has read and understood 
anything about intersectional feminism, digital colonialism and the corrupt 
power structures that permeate every aspect of human 'progress'.

Let's have the *delight* in (self/personal) discovery, knowledge, exchange, 
exploration, and the humility of non-experts joining fields of knowledge, 
bridging gaps, applying so-called expert knowledge. Marion Schwehr (German 
literature and media scholar) and I are working on a new lecture performance 
loosely titled 'Dilettantes Unite!', which I am beginning to think will include 
a critique of accelerationalist/neo-liberalist notions of mastery...

Sent from the road


On 25 Apr 2016, at 07:52, Gretta Louw  wrote:

Death to the ludicrous, imperialist notion of 'mastery'!

I lean more towards Alan's thoughts on the role/impact of humans but think that 
this is probably besides the point because, yes, we are all heading towards an 
end and a new beginning and more ends anyway. I'm the meantime, though, this 
idea of 'mastery' - the belief that anything approaching it is even possible - 
seems to be at the heart of the majority of suffering; that which we cause 
ourselves (humans) internationally, inter-culturally, locally, personally, 
psychologically, but also the damage that we inflict on environments and other 
species. This is where #additivism is inflential: embrace the abyss; surrender 
rescue/savior fantasies; find the best and weirdest thing to do in the 
meantime. Queer everything.

g.

Sent from the road


On 25 Apr 2016, at 03:01, John Hopkins  wrote:



"21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global


...snip...


it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
seeks the best means to act in a complex world."


Good excerpt -- I couldn't manage the patience to drive through that whole 
manifesto -- I feel the answers do not need such bloviating -- & anyway, I've 
got to work on my water-harvesting landscaping, prune my grape vines, and turn my 
worm farm :-)

What is said there, I've been writing into a practice-based curriculum at 
http://ecosa.org -- the idea of systems-thinking approaches to holistic 
un-mastery of the biosphere that we are merely transitory parts of. I 
fundamentally do not like the concept of design, though, as it pre-supposes 
changing that which flows around us. Maybe an adaptive, consciousness-raised 
going-with-the-flow ... sensual improvisation that would include, perhaps, the 
removal of our selves from living viability. If this approach was wide-scale 
enough, the population drop would start the process of a post-human 
re-balancing of the planet's dynamic equilibrium.

jh
--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour




==
email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 718-813-3285
music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
current text http://www.alansondheim.org/tx.txt
==
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[BishopZ]

"The soul of wit, is the very body of untruth." -Aldous Huxley

So sharp? So definitive? Is there not room for debate?
at least can you e-lab-or-ate?
Bz

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 6:15 PM, Simon Biggs  wrote:

> Nope - don’t buy it. Quackery…
>
> best
>
> Simon
>
>
> *Simon Biggs*
> si...@littlepig.org.uk
> http://www.littlepig.org.uk
> http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
> http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
> http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/school-of-art/simon-biggs
>
>
>
> On 25 Apr 2016, at 03:36, Pall Thayer  wrote:
>
> From Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics (
> http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/
> ):
>
> "21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
> society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global
> problems or achieving victory over capital. This mastery must be
> distinguished from that beloved of thinkers of the original Enlightenment.
> The clockwork universe of Laplace, so easily mastered given sufficient
> information, is long gone from the agenda of serious scientific
> understanding. But this is not to align ourselves with the tired residue of
> postmodernity, decrying mastery as proto-fascistic or authority as innately
> illegitimate. Instead we propose that the problems besetting our planet and
> our species oblige us to refurbish mastery in a newly complex guise; whilst
> we cannot predict the precise result of our actions, we can determine
> probabilistically likely ranges of outcomes. What must be coupled to such
> complex systems analysis is a new form of action: improvisatory and capable
> of executing a design through a practice which works with the contingencies
> it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
> artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
> seeks the best means to act in a complex world."
>
> On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 1:22 PM Alan Sondheim  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Can you say more?
>>
>> On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>
>> > Alan: But isn't that the whole idea behind left-acceleration?
>> >
>> > On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:46 AM Alan Sondheim 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >   I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the biosphere
>> >   doesn't
>> >   adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of sealions,
>> >   walrus,
>> >   migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a form of
>> >   holding-back,
>> >   learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental
>> >   problem I
>> >   think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy,
>> >   micro-
>> >   biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being
>> >   rewritten as
>> >   we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of
>> >   ignorance.
>> >   Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me
>> >   that
>> >   accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps
>> >   man-based for all
>> >   that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do
>> >   we do, for
>> >   example, with the increasingly violent drought in the Mid-East
>> >   which is
>> >   exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow, dirty work
>> >   to deal
>> >   with it, culture theory which listens, not only to humans, but
>> >   to life and
>> >   lives everywhere -
>> >
>> >   Alan
>> >
>> >
>> >   On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:
>> >
>> >   > Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
>> >   >
>> >   > All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in
>> >   an acid bath
>> >   > of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
>> >   >
>> >   > What this passage does not describe though is a situation
>> >   where the wider
>> >   > ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend,
>> >   are also
>> >   > fatally eroded.
>> >   > We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with
>> >   "our kind"
>> >   > (expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES
>> >   Gretta!)), but
>> >   > beyond, with other species, and materials.
>> >   >
>> >   > This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to
>> >   which Simon
>> >   > points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to
>> >   validate the
>> >   > 'use' of humans.
>> >   >
>> >   >
>> >   >
>> >   >
>> >   > On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
>> >   >   Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
>> >   >
>> >   >   "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly
>> >   revolutionising
>> >   >   the instruments of production, and thereby the relations
>> >   of
>> >   >   

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Simon Biggs]

Nope - don’t buy it. Quackery…

best

Simon


Simon Biggs
si...@littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk
http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/school-of-art/simon-biggs



> On 25 Apr 2016, at 03:36, Pall Thayer  wrote:
> 
> From Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics 
> (http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/
>  
> ):
> 
> "21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over 
> society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global problems 
> or achieving victory over capital. This mastery must be distinguished from 
> that beloved of thinkers of the original Enlightenment. The clockwork 
> universe of Laplace, so easily mastered given sufficient information, is long 
> gone from the agenda of serious scientific understanding. But this is not to 
> align ourselves with the tired residue of postmodernity, decrying mastery as 
> proto-fascistic or authority as innately illegitimate. Instead we propose 
> that the problems besetting our planet and our species oblige us to refurbish 
> mastery in a newly complex guise; whilst we cannot predict the precise result 
> of our actions, we can determine probabilistically likely ranges of outcomes. 
> What must be coupled to such complex systems analysis is a new form of 
> action: improvisatory and capable of executing a design through a practice 
> which works with the contingencies it discovers only in the course of its 
> acting, in a politics of geosocial artistry and cunning rationality. A form 
> of abductive experimentation that seeks the best means to act in a complex 
> world."
> 
> On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 1:22 PM Alan Sondheim  > wrote:
> 
> 
> Can you say more?
> 
> On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, Pall Thayer wrote:
> 
> > Alan: But isn't that the whole idea behind left-acceleration?
> >
> > On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:46 AM Alan Sondheim  > > wrote:
> >
> >   I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the biosphere
> >   doesn't
> >   adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of sealions,
> >   walrus,
> >   migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a form of
> >   holding-back,
> >   learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental
> >   problem I
> >   think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy,
> >   micro-
> >   biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being
> >   rewritten as
> >   we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of
> >   ignorance.
> >   Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me
> >   that
> >   accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps
> >   man-based for all
> >   that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do
> >   we do, for
> >   example, with the increasingly violent drought in the Mid-East
> >   which is
> >   exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow, dirty work
> >   to deal
> >   with it, culture theory which listens, not only to humans, but
> >   to life and
> >   lives everywhere -
> >
> >   Alan
> >
> >
> >   On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:
> >
> >   > Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
> >   >
> >   > All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in
> >   an acid bath
> >   > of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
> >   >
> >   > What this passage does not describe though is a situation
> >   where the wider
> >   > ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend,
> >   are also
> >   > fatally eroded.
> >   > We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with
> >   "our kind"
> >   > (expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES
> >   Gretta!)), but
> >   > beyond, with other species, and materials.
> >   >
> >   > This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to
> >   which Simon
> >   > points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to
> >   validate the
> >   > 'use' of humans.
> >   >
> >   >
> >   >
> >   >
> >   > On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> >   >   Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
> >   >
> >   >   "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly
> >   revolutionising
> >   >   the instruments of production, and thereby the relations
> >   of
> >   >   production, and with them the whole relations of
> >   society.
> >   >   Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered
> >   form,

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Simon Biggs]

I agree with Alan.

The human species has evolved to the point where it is no longer adapted to its 
environment. Humans now seek to adapt the environment to the species. That is 
not working. If the human species was to become extinct today that would be the 
best thing that could happen to the planet (putting aside the power-plant 
melt-downs, dam breaches and chemical disasters that would be the consequence 
of lack of infrastructural maintenance). But it will take us longer to go 
extinct than that… biology is not as slow as geology, but it is slow compared 
to human history. We will devolve. The current migration crisis is a phenomena 
of devolution, as the species panics in the face of the ecological destruction 
it has wrought.

best

Simon


Simon Biggs
si...@littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk
http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/school-of-art/simon-biggs







> On 25 Apr 2016, at 02:51, Alan Sondheim  wrote:
> 
> 
> You know well that the diff. between this and the Perm. for example is this 
> is the result of a particular species running amuck. And with 40-50 % of 
> ocean life scheduled to disappear, etc. as a result of climate, 
> microspherules, etc., the situation is a mess. Yes, there will be something 
> afterwords. But we're slaughterers trashing the planet, and for me that's 
> unacceptable.
> 
> - Alan
> 
> On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, John Hopkins wrote:
> 
>>> learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental problem I
 think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy, micro-
 biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being rewritten as
 we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of ignorance.
 Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me that
 accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps man-based for all
 that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do we do, for
>> 
>> Acceleration, in mechanical physics, is the result of the application of 
>> directed (vector) energy to a body. It is a quantity -- 
>> meters-per-second-per-second (how fast am I going faster!) -- that results 
>> in ever-increasing velocity -- meters-per-second (how fast am I going?). 
>> Acceleration cannot occur without an ever-increasing energy input to the 
>> system. Velocity can be maintained with a steady-state energy input. Stasis, 
>> death, requires no energy input.
>> 
>> In a system with finite energy, acceleration has a limit, as does velocity.
>> 
>> We are not destroying the planet, we are temporarily altering the local 
>> energy balance. We are merely another expression of Life on the planet. 
>> Doing its thing. Pulsing, expanding temporarily.
>> 
>> Acceleration occurs in the presence of locally excessive eneergy. This is 
>> demonstrated at many scales in living systems where there is an energy 
>> excess. When that energy is entropically dispersed through a combination of 
>> expansion/growth, it slows down...
>> 
>> Pulsing (temporal, spatial) is a regular feature in bio-systems.
>> 
>> When we fixate on particular material manifestations of Life (as in a 
>> particular species), we miss the fact that Life is a continuous feature of 
>> the planet, and will continue long after we are gone *no matter what we do*. 
>> In my mind, the fixation on the material is what brings us to the hubris of 
>> the Anthropocene. Which, okay, plutonium makes a fine geo-marker. But what 
>> about the traces of Life from the Late Carboniferous? Talk about geo-marker, 
>> and Life leaving traces! The huge Applachian coal beds are the remains of 
>> Life at that time -- accelerated based on temperate climates (Appalachia was 
>> at the Equator), and abundant energy sources. And it altered the chemistry 
>> of the planet...
>> 
>> So it goes.
>> 
>> jh
>> 
>> PS -- as for all the preparatory conceptualizing on the word 
>> 'accelerationism' -- it seems mostly to be a symbolic discussion that has 
>> little to do with the real world except as simply another 'ism' to be 
>> discussed ad infinitum. if it cannot be connected to the real world, what's 
>> the point? Maybe we need to calculate how much carbon is emitted from 'The 
>> Cloud' each time we email the word.
>> 
>> PPS -- I heartily support the concept of listening in any and all contexts. 
>> It has the effect of healing many problems!
>> -- 
>> ++
>> Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
>> grounded on a granite batholith
>> twitter: @neoscenes
>> http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
>> ++
>> ___
>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
>> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>> 
>> 
> 
> ==
> email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
> web 

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Gretta Louw]

Oh, and let's revive the dilettantes! No more supposed experts, would-be 
'masters'. Surely no one who uses this language - even in relation to 
ostensibly abstract problems or inanimate matter - has read and understood 
anything about intersectional feminism, digital colonialism and the corrupt 
power structures that permeate every aspect of human 'progress'.

 Let's have the *delight* in (self/personal) discovery, knowledge, exchange, 
exploration, and the humility of non-experts joining fields of knowledge, 
bridging gaps, applying so-called expert knowledge. Marion Schwehr (German 
literature and media scholar) and I are working on a new lecture performance 
loosely titled 'Dilettantes Unite!', which I am beginning to think will include 
a critique of accelerationalist/neo-liberalist notions of mastery...

Sent from the road

> On 25 Apr 2016, at 07:52, Gretta Louw  wrote:
> 
> Death to the ludicrous, imperialist notion of 'mastery'!
> 
> I lean more towards Alan's thoughts on the role/impact of humans but think 
> that this is probably besides the point because, yes, we are all heading 
> towards an end and a new beginning and more ends anyway. I'm the meantime, 
> though, this idea of 'mastery' - the belief that anything approaching it is 
> even possible - seems to be at the heart of the majority of suffering; that 
> which we cause ourselves (humans) internationally, inter-culturally, locally, 
> personally, psychologically, but also the damage that we inflict on 
> environments and other species. This is where #additivism is inflential: 
> embrace the abyss; surrender rescue/savior fantasies; find the best and 
> weirdest thing to do in the meantime. Queer everything.
> 
> g.
> 
> Sent from the road
> 
>> On 25 Apr 2016, at 03:01, John Hopkins  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> "21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
>>> society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global
>> 
>> ...snip...
>> 
>>> it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
>>> artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
>>> seeks the best means to act in a complex world."
>> 
>> Good excerpt -- I couldn't manage the patience to drive through that whole 
>> manifesto -- I feel the answers do not need such bloviating -- & anyway, 
>> I've got to work on my water-harvesting landscaping, prune my grape vines, 
>> and turn my worm farm :-)
>> 
>> What is said there, I've been writing into a practice-based curriculum at 
>> http://ecosa.org -- the idea of systems-thinking approaches to holistic 
>> un-mastery of the biosphere that we are merely transitory parts of. I 
>> fundamentally do not like the concept of design, though, as it pre-supposes 
>> changing that which flows around us. Maybe an adaptive, consciousness-raised 
>> going-with-the-flow ... sensual improvisation that would include, perhaps, 
>> the removal of our selves from living viability. If this approach was 
>> wide-scale enough, the population drop would start the process of a 
>> post-human re-balancing of the planet's dynamic equilibrium.
>> 
>> jh
>> -- 
>> ++
>> Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
>> grounded on a granite batholith
>> twitter: @neoscenes
>> http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
>> ++
>> ___
>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
>> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Gretta Louw]

Death to the ludicrous, imperialist notion of 'mastery'!

 I lean more towards Alan's thoughts on the role/impact of humans but think 
that this is probably besides the point because, yes, we are all heading 
towards an end and a new beginning and more ends anyway. I'm the meantime, 
though, this idea of 'mastery' - the belief that anything approaching it is 
even possible - seems to be at the heart of the majority of suffering; that 
which we cause ourselves (humans) internationally, inter-culturally, locally, 
personally, psychologically, but also the damage that we inflict on 
environments and other species. This is where #additivism is inflential: 
embrace the abyss; surrender rescue/savior fantasies; find the best and 
weirdest thing to do in the meantime. Queer everything.

g.

Sent from the road

> On 25 Apr 2016, at 03:01, John Hopkins  wrote:
> 
> 
>> "21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
>> society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global
> 
> ...snip...
> 
>> it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
>> artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
>> seeks the best means to act in a complex world."
> 
> Good excerpt -- I couldn't manage the patience to drive through that whole 
> manifesto -- I feel the answers do not need such bloviating -- & anyway, I've 
> got to work on my water-harvesting landscaping, prune my grape vines, and 
> turn my worm farm :-)
> 
> What is said there, I've been writing into a practice-based curriculum at 
> http://ecosa.org -- the idea of systems-thinking approaches to holistic 
> un-mastery of the biosphere that we are merely transitory parts of. I 
> fundamentally do not like the concept of design, though, as it pre-supposes 
> changing that which flows around us. Maybe an adaptive, consciousness-raised 
> going-with-the-flow ... sensual improvisation that would include, perhaps, 
> the removal of our selves from living viability. If this approach was 
> wide-scale enough, the population drop would start the process of a 
> post-human re-balancing of the planet's dynamic equilibrium.
> 
> jh
> -- 
> ++
> Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
> grounded on a granite batholith
> twitter: @neoscenes
> http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
> ++
> ___
> NetBehaviour mailing list
> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Anthony Stephenson]

While the original Nietzschean wish for capital to play itself out, I’m
thinking that the (Left) Accelerationism of the past twenty years might
have more to do with a flash on the possibility to "Seize the Means of
Production". With the popularization of computing and cybernetics, some
might have felt that DIY will finally bring utopia.

As a graphic designer, I have worked alongside those who had started their
careers with a centuries old technique of using hand-set type (hot type) as
we moved from cold type (photographic) output to computerized systems. This
type of publishing was very expensive. We continued to evolve from
all-in-one, turn-key systems to what I later found to be referred to (by
government contractors) as off-the-shelf (OTS) components made possible by
the personal computer. Then came the internet. And now the smart phone.
Distribution and material are not as pricey for someone in online
publishing. Theoretically, almost anyone can be a publisher today.

But what I think we are really seeing is that as OTS becomes today’s
appliances, news, entertainment, and who knows what with 3D printing,
stratification becomes more apparent as economics plays itself out.
Doctors, lawyers and anyone who knows that what the market will bear
sometimes knows no limit, will only contribute this disparity until, let’s
say, a personal version of something like Chile’s Cybersyn is made into an
app freely available to help each citizen of the world.

-- 

- *Anthony Stephenson*

*http://anthonystephenson.org/* 
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

The crux, again, is this - you say -

I doubt the
capabilities of our species are any more than any other in the ability 
to alter the fundamentals of Life.


- but from everything I've read and researched, this just isn't true.

The disagreement is deep; for one thing I don't feel guilty, but a need to 
act. The argument that 'this too shall pass away' can be applied to 
anything - seriously, why worry about what ISIS is doing, when ISIS won't 
last, any more than we will? Why do anything? I'm not trying to be 
specious here; perhaps I feel an urgency that you don't, or an urgency 
that involves withdrawal and listening as well as acting; too often fast 
actions result in fast disasters...


Again, I may be missing the point (and if I carry decelerationism to the 
limit I'll turn into a rock) -


- Alan


On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, John Hopkins wrote:


Hi Alan -

You know well that the diff. between this and the Perm. for example is this 
is
the result of a particular species running amuck. And with 40-50 % of ocean 
life
scheduled to disappear, etc. as a result of climate, microspherules, etc., 
the

situation is a mess. Yes, there will be something afterwords. But we're
slaughterers trashing the planet, and for me that's unacceptable.


I hear where you are coming from, and no disrespect, just disagreement about 
how to act/react.


It's there I disagree -- in the differentiation of us as some special 
life-form, separate from everything, above, better at trashing, whatever. We 
are doing what Life always does: helping wind down the universe to its heat 
death, whatever, by expending available energy to maximize our (Life's!) need 
to project itself into the future.


In terms of historical geological epoch, I was not talking about an 
extinction event, but more of the geodynamics of Life at that point in 
history. Carboniferous coal beds came from a vast anaerobic dead/dying zone 
that evolved on Pangea's equatorial region -- as a result of a massive 
fluorishing of Life that came from the easy availability of energies at that 
time. The life-forms that fluorished in that environment gave their lives 
into creating higher-level (energy packaging) hydrocarbon bonds that our 
life-form is now releasing, eventually, back into space as waste heat. We are 
not special.


Guilt driven by ethereal or unrealized altruism needs to be replaced by 
active awareness and actions that the species is capable of. I doubt the 
capabilities of our species are any more than any other in the ability to 
alter the fundamentals of Life. Consume available energy until it is gone, 
then pass away. At best, offer ones own body as sustenance for others to gain 
from, for a time, until they too shall pass... etc.


JH
--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour




==
email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 718-813-3285
music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
current text http://www.alansondheim.org/tx.txt
==
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[John Hopkins]

Hi Alan -


You know well that the diff. between this and the Perm. for example is this is
the result of a particular species running amuck. And with 40-50 % of ocean life
scheduled to disappear, etc. as a result of climate, microspherules, etc., the
situation is a mess. Yes, there will be something afterwords. But we're
slaughterers trashing the planet, and for me that's unacceptable.


I hear where you are coming from, and no disrespect, just disagreement about how 
to act/react.


It's there I disagree -- in the differentiation of us as some special life-form, 
separate from everything, above, better at trashing, whatever. We are doing what 
Life always does: helping wind down the universe to its heat death, whatever, by 
expending available energy to maximize our (Life's!) need to project itself into 
the future.


In terms of historical geological epoch, I was not talking about an extinction 
event, but more of the geodynamics of Life at that point in history. 
Carboniferous coal beds came from a vast anaerobic dead/dying zone that evolved 
on Pangea's equatorial region -- as a result of a massive fluorishing of Life 
that came from the easy availability of energies at that time. The life-forms 
that fluorished in that environment gave their lives into creating higher-level 
(energy packaging) hydrocarbon bonds that our life-form is now releasing, 
eventually, back into space as waste heat. We are not special.


Guilt driven by ethereal or unrealized altruism needs to be replaced by active 
awareness and actions that the species is capable of. I doubt the capabilities 
of our species are any more than any other in the ability to alter the 
fundamentals of Life. Consume available energy until it is gone, then pass away. 
At best, offer ones own body as sustenance for others to gain from, for a time, 
until they too shall pass... etc.


JH
--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

sounds good to me, the idea of unmastery resonates -

thanks -


On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, John Hopkins wrote:




"21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global


...snip...


it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
seeks the best means to act in a complex world."


Good excerpt -- I couldn't manage the patience to drive through that whole 
manifesto -- I feel the answers do not need such bloviating -- & anyway, I've 
got to work on my water-harvesting landscaping, prune my grape vines, and 
turn my worm farm :-)


What is said there, I've been writing into a practice-based curriculum at 
http://ecosa.org -- the idea of systems-thinking approaches to holistic 
un-mastery of the biosphere that we are merely transitory parts of. I 
fundamentally do not like the concept of design, though, as it pre-supposes 
changing that which flows around us. Maybe an adaptive, consciousness-raised 
going-with-the-flow ... sensual improvisation that would include, perhaps, 
the removal of our selves from living viability. If this approach was 
wide-scale enough, the population drop would start the process of a 
post-human re-balancing of the planet's dynamic equilibrium.


jh
--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour




==
email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 718-813-3285
music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
current text http://www.alansondheim.org/tx.txt
==
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[John Hopkins]

"21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global


...snip...


it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
seeks the best means to act in a complex world."


Good excerpt -- I couldn't manage the patience to drive through that whole 
manifesto -- I feel the answers do not need such bloviating -- & anyway, I've 
got to work on my water-harvesting landscaping, prune my grape vines, and turn 
my worm farm :-)


What is said there, I've been writing into a practice-based curriculum at 
http://ecosa.org -- the idea of systems-thinking approaches to holistic 
un-mastery of the biosphere that we are merely transitory parts of. I 
fundamentally do not like the concept of design, though, as it pre-supposes 
changing that which flows around us. Maybe an adaptive, consciousness-raised 
going-with-the-flow ... sensual improvisation that would include, perhaps, the 
removal of our selves from living viability. If this approach was wide-scale 
enough, the population drop would start the process of a post-human re-balancing 
of the planet's dynamic equilibrium.


jh
--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

Hi Pall,

Here's the crux of the problem:

" whilst we cannot predict the precise result of our actions, we can 
determine probabilistically likely ranges of outcomes. What must be 
coupled to such complex systems analysis is a new form of action: 
improvisatory and capable of executing a design through a practice which 
works with the contingencies it discovers only in the course of its 
acting, in a politics of geosocial artistry and cunning rationality. A 
form of abductive experimentation that seeks the best means to act in a 
complex world."


-- but "precise" is what is needed. Note: with fungi, almost all of them 
are still unknown, unclassified - yet the 'woodnet' of forests which 
relies on them for carbon etc. transport - is absolutely critical. the 
instrumentality described here won't do, either will "cunning rationality" 
- what's absolutely necessary is a form of declerationism if you will, 
again, one that _listens_ environmentally. as you know, even deforestation 
is increasing rapidly, 'bushmeat' has critically endangerd almost every 
primate on the planet except ourselves (so far); something slow is 
necessary to understand and combat these things. when I read acc. texts - 
and this is surely my own shortcoming here - I don't find listening; I 
find rhetorical responses.


How do you deal with "geosocial artistry" without understand ocean 
currents and the carbon cycle? This is the problem. The world is speaking 
to us, in a sense (sorry for the poetics), and we're just speaking _back._


- Alan


On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, Pall Thayer wrote:


From Manifesto for an Accelerationist 
Politics(http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-ac
celerationist-politics/):
"21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global
problems or achieving victory over capital. This mastery must be
distinguished from that beloved of thinkers of the original Enlightenment.
The clockwork universe of Laplace, so easily mastered given sufficient
information, is long gone from the agenda of serious scientific
understanding. But this is not to align ourselves with the tired residue of
postmodernity, decrying mastery as proto-fascistic or authority as innately
illegitimate. Instead we propose that the problems besetting our planet and
our species oblige us to refurbish mastery in a newly complex guise; whilst
we cannot predict the precise result of our actions, we can determine
probabilistically likely ranges of outcomes. What must be coupled to such
complex systems analysis is a new form of action: improvisatory and capable
of executing a design through a practice which works with the contingencies
it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
seeks the best means to act in a complex world."

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 1:22 PM Alan Sondheim  wrote:


  Can you say more?

  On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, Pall Thayer wrote:

  > Alan: But isn't that the whole idea behind left-acceleration?
  >
  > On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:46 AM Alan Sondheim
   wrote:
  >
  >       I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the
  biosphere
  >       doesn't
  >       adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of
  sealions,
  >       walrus,
  >       migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a
  form of
  >       holding-back,
  >       learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The
  fundamental
  >       problem I
  >       think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems,
  energy,
  >       micro-
  >       biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are
  being
  >       rewritten as
  >       we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of
  >       ignorance.
  >       Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems
  to me
  >       that
  >       accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps
  >       man-based for all
  >       that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And
  what do
  >       we do, for
  >       example, with the increasingly violent drought in the
  Mid-East
  >       which is
  >       exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow,
  dirty work
  >       to deal
  >       with it, culture theory which listens, not only to
  humans, but
  >       to life and
  >       lives everywhere -
  >
  >       Alan
  >
  >
  >       On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:
  >
  >       > Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
  >       >
  >       > All human traditions, values and communities are
  dissolved in
  >       an acid bath
  >       > of everlasting 

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Rob Myers]

Some of the epistemic accelerationists are interested in the work of the 
philosopher Robert Brandom, who talks about rational, revisable norms. There's 
been some criticism of that from the point of view of "Risk Society" (Suhail 
Malik in Collapse Journal VIII).

I'm uncomfortable about normativity. But I suspect that normativity is 
unavoidable, so if I had to have it I'd rather it be easily revisable.

On April 23, 2016 6:12:31 PM PDT, Simon Biggs  wrote:
>This quote from Marx and Engels certainly describes current management
>practices. I have experience of management workshops where the socially
>and psychologically disruptive methods outlined in the quote below are
>promoted and explicitly employed. The aim is to keep workers on their
>toes - constantly off balance, not certain where next they will be
>required to jump. It’s quite nasty and all done in the name of economic
>efficiency. The workers are considered as a raw resource, that can be
>made redundant if they don’t do what is required of them, whether they
>are an administrator, researcher or Professor. It is pure McKinsey
>poison and they predicate it on pseudo-science - which makes it even
>worse because the theory is so flakey. The latest wheeze is to employ
>neuro-science to validate their practices.
>
>Foucault would role in his grave - but I imagine he would also role in
>his grave if he read the Accelerationist Manifesto. I’ve not read it,
>but the quote Ruth gave from Gottlieb’s review makes it sound like the
>other side of the same coin as McKinsey. It is also promoting normative
>values, just with a different character. I’m pretty sure I’m not an
>Accelerationist (or that I consciously subscribe to any other ism).
>
>best
>
>Simon
>
>
>Simon Biggs
>si...@littlepig.org.uk
>http://www.littlepig.org.uk
>http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
>http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
>http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/school-of-art/simon-biggs
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> On 24 Apr 2016, at 01:08, Michael Szpakowski 
>wrote:
>> 
>> Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
>> "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the
>instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and
>with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes
>of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first
>condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant
>revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social
>conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the
>bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen
>relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and
>opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before
>they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is
>profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his
>real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind." <>
>>This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything written since
>and it still stands perfectly well...
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> ___
>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
>> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>
>
>
>
>
>___
>NetBehaviour mailing list
>NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
>http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Pall Thayer]

>From Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics (
http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/
):

"21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global
problems or achieving victory over capital. This mastery must be
distinguished from that beloved of thinkers of the original Enlightenment.
The clockwork universe of Laplace, so easily mastered given sufficient
information, is long gone from the agenda of serious scientific
understanding. But this is not to align ourselves with the tired residue of
postmodernity, decrying mastery as proto-fascistic or authority as innately
illegitimate. Instead we propose that the problems besetting our planet and
our species oblige us to refurbish mastery in a newly complex guise; whilst
we cannot predict the precise result of our actions, we can determine
probabilistically likely ranges of outcomes. What must be coupled to such
complex systems analysis is a new form of action: improvisatory and capable
of executing a design through a practice which works with the contingencies
it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
seeks the best means to act in a complex world."

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 1:22 PM Alan Sondheim  wrote:

>
>
> Can you say more?
>
> On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, Pall Thayer wrote:
>
> > Alan: But isn't that the whole idea behind left-acceleration?
> >
> > On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:46 AM Alan Sondheim 
> wrote:
> >
> >   I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the biosphere
> >   doesn't
> >   adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of sealions,
> >   walrus,
> >   migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a form of
> >   holding-back,
> >   learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental
> >   problem I
> >   think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy,
> >   micro-
> >   biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being
> >   rewritten as
> >   we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of
> >   ignorance.
> >   Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me
> >   that
> >   accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps
> >   man-based for all
> >   that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do
> >   we do, for
> >   example, with the increasingly violent drought in the Mid-East
> >   which is
> >   exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow, dirty work
> >   to deal
> >   with it, culture theory which listens, not only to humans, but
> >   to life and
> >   lives everywhere -
> >
> >   Alan
> >
> >
> >   On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:
> >
> >   > Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
> >   >
> >   > All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in
> >   an acid bath
> >   > of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
> >   >
> >   > What this passage does not describe though is a situation
> >   where the wider
> >   > ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend,
> >   are also
> >   > fatally eroded.
> >   > We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with
> >   "our kind"
> >   > (expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES
> >   Gretta!)), but
> >   > beyond, with other species, and materials.
> >   >
> >   > This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to
> >   which Simon
> >   > points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to
> >   validate the
> >   > 'use' of humans.
> >   >
> >   >
> >   >
> >   >
> >   > On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> >   >   Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
> >   >
> >   >   "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly
> >   revolutionising
> >   >   the instruments of production, and thereby the relations
> >   of
> >   >   production, and with them the whole relations of
> >   society.
> >   >   Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered
> >   form,
> >   >   was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence
> >   for all
> >   >   earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of
> >   >   production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social
> >   conditions,
> >   >   everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the
> >   bourgeois
> >   >   epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen
> >   relations,
> >   >   with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and
> >   >   opinions, are swept away, all 

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

Can you say more?

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, Pall Thayer wrote:


Alan: But isn't that the whole idea behind left-acceleration?

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:46 AM Alan Sondheim  wrote:

  I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the biosphere
  doesn't
  adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of sealions,
  walrus,
  migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a form of
  holding-back,
  learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental
  problem I
  think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy,
  micro-
  biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being
  rewritten as
  we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of
  ignorance.
  Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me
  that
  accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps
  man-based for all
  that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do
  we do, for
  example, with the increasingly violent drought in the Mid-East
  which is
  exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow, dirty work
  to deal
  with it, culture theory which listens, not only to humans, but
  to life and
  lives everywhere -

  Alan


  On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:

  > Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
  >
  > All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in
  an acid bath
  > of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
  >
  > What this passage does not describe though is a situation
  where the wider
  > ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend,
  are also
  > fatally eroded.
  > We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with
  "our kind"
  > (expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES
  Gretta!)), but
  > beyond, with other species, and materials.
  >
  > This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to
  which Simon
  > points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to
  validate the
  > 'use' of humans.
  >
  >
  >
  >
  > On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
  >       Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
  >
  >       "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly
  revolutionising
  >       the instruments of production, and thereby the relations
  of
  >       production, and with them the whole relations of
  society.
  >       Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered
  form,
  >       was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence
  for all
  >       earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of
  >       production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social
  conditions,
  >       everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the
  bourgeois
  >       epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen
  relations,
  >       with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and
  >       opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become
  antiquated
  >       before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into
  air, all
  >       that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled
  to face
  >       with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his
  relations
  >       with his kind."
  >
  >          This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything
  written
  >       since and it still stands perfectly well...
  > Sent from my iPhone
  >
  >
  > ___
  > NetBehaviour mailing list
  > NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
  > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
  >
  >
  >
  > --
  > Co-founder Co-director
  > Furtherfield
  >
  > www.furtherfield.org
  >
  > +44 (0) 77370 02879
  > Meeting calendar - http://bit.ly/1NgeLce
  > Bitcoin Address 197BBaXa6M9PtHhhNTQkuHh1pVJA8RrJ2i
  >
  > Furtherfield is the UK's leading organisation for art shows,
  labs, & debates
  > around critical questions in art and technology, since 1997
  >
  > Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company limited by Guarantee
  > registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.
  > Registered business address: Ballard Newman, Apex House, Grand
  Arcade, Tally
  > Ho Corner, London N12 0EH.
  >
  >

  ==
  email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
  web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 718-813-3285
  music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
  current text http://www.alansondheim.org/tx.txt
  ==___
  NetBehaviour mailing list
  NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
  

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

You know well that the diff. between this and the Perm. for example is 
this is the result of a particular species running amuck. And with 40-50 % 
of ocean life scheduled to disappear, etc. as a result of climate, 
microspherules, etc., the situation is a mess. Yes, there will be 
something afterwords. But we're slaughterers trashing the planet, and for 
me that's unacceptable.


- Alan

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, John Hopkins wrote:


learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental problem I

think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy, micro-
biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being rewritten as
we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of ignorance.
Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me that
accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps man-based for all
that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do we do, for


Acceleration, in mechanical physics, is the result of the application of 
directed (vector) energy to a body. It is a quantity -- 
meters-per-second-per-second (how fast am I going faster!) -- that results in 
ever-increasing velocity -- meters-per-second (how fast am I going?). 
Acceleration cannot occur without an ever-increasing energy input to the 
system. Velocity can be maintained with a steady-state energy input. Stasis, 
death, requires no energy input.


In a system with finite energy, acceleration has a limit, as does velocity.

We are not destroying the planet, we are temporarily altering the local 
energy balance. We are merely another expression of Life on the planet. Doing 
its thing. Pulsing, expanding temporarily.


Acceleration occurs in the presence of locally excessive eneergy. This is 
demonstrated at many scales in living systems where there is an energy 
excess. When that energy is entropically dispersed through a combination of 
expansion/growth, it slows down...


Pulsing (temporal, spatial) is a regular feature in bio-systems.

When we fixate on particular material manifestations of Life (as in a 
particular species), we miss the fact that Life is a continuous feature of 
the planet, and will continue long after we are gone *no matter what we do*. 
In my mind, the fixation on the material is what brings us to the hubris of 
the Anthropocene. Which, okay, plutonium makes a fine geo-marker. But what 
about the traces of Life from the Late Carboniferous? Talk about geo-marker, 
and Life leaving traces! The huge Applachian coal beds are the remains of 
Life at that time -- accelerated based on temperate climates (Appalachia was 
at the Equator), and abundant energy sources. And it altered the chemistry of 
the planet...


So it goes.

jh

PS -- as for all the preparatory conceptualizing on the word 
'accelerationism' -- it seems mostly to be a symbolic discussion that has 
little to do with the real world except as simply another 'ism' to be 
discussed ad infinitum. if it cannot be connected to the real world, what's 
the point? Maybe we need to calculate how much carbon is emitted from 'The 
Cloud' each time we email the word.


PPS -- I heartily support the concept of listening in any and all contexts. 
It has the effect of healing many problems!

--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour




==
email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 718-813-3285
music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
current text http://www.alansondheim.org/tx.txt
==
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[John Hopkins]

learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental problem I

think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy, micro-
biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being rewritten as
we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of ignorance.
Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me that
accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps man-based for all
that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do we do, for


Acceleration, in mechanical physics, is the result of the application of 
directed (vector) energy to a body. It is a quantity -- 
meters-per-second-per-second (how fast am I going faster!) -- that results in 
ever-increasing velocity -- meters-per-second (how fast am I going?). 
Acceleration cannot occur without an ever-increasing energy input to the system. 
Velocity can be maintained with a steady-state energy input. Stasis, death, 
requires no energy input.


In a system with finite energy, acceleration has a limit, as does velocity.

We are not destroying the planet, we are temporarily altering the local energy 
balance. We are merely another expression of Life on the planet. Doing its 
thing. Pulsing, expanding temporarily.


Acceleration occurs in the presence of locally excessive eneergy. This is 
demonstrated at many scales in living systems where there is an energy excess. 
When that energy is entropically dispersed through a combination of 
expansion/growth, it slows down...


Pulsing (temporal, spatial) is a regular feature in bio-systems.

When we fixate on particular material manifestations of Life (as in a particular 
species), we miss the fact that Life is a continuous feature of the planet, and 
will continue long after we are gone *no matter what we do*. In my mind, the 
fixation on the material is what brings us to the hubris of the Anthropocene. 
Which, okay, plutonium makes a fine geo-marker. But what about the traces of 
Life from the Late Carboniferous? Talk about geo-marker, and Life leaving 
traces! The huge Applachian coal beds are the remains of Life at that time -- 
accelerated based on temperate climates (Appalachia was at the Equator), and 
abundant energy sources. And it altered the chemistry of the planet...


So it goes.

jh

PS -- as for all the preparatory conceptualizing on the word 'accelerationism' 
-- it seems mostly to be a symbolic discussion that has little to do with the 
real world except as simply another 'ism' to be discussed ad infinitum. if it 
cannot be connected to the real world, what's the point? Maybe we need to 
calculate how much carbon is emitted from 'The Cloud' each time we email the word.


PPS -- I heartily support the concept of listening in any and all contexts. It 
has the effect of healing many problems!

--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Pall Thayer]

Alan: But isn't that the whole idea behind left-acceleration?

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:46 AM Alan Sondheim  wrote:

>
> I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the biosphere doesn't
> adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of sealions, walrus,
> migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a form of holding-back,
> learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental problem I
> think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy, micro-
> biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being rewritten as
> we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of ignorance.
> Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me that
> accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps man-based for all
> that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do we do, for
> example, with the increasingly violent drought in the Mid-East which is
> exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow, dirty work to deal
> with it, culture theory which listens, not only to humans, but to life and
> lives everywhere -
>
> Alan
>
>
> On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:
>
> > Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
> >
> > All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in an acid
> bath
> > of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
> >
> > What this passage does not describe though is a situation where the wider
> > ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend, are also
> > fatally eroded.
> > We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with "our kind"
> > (expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES Gretta!)),
> but
> > beyond, with other species, and materials.
> >
> > This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to which Simon
> > points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to validate the
> > 'use' of humans.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> >   Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
> >
> >   "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising
> >   the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of
> >   production, and with them the whole relations of society.
> >   Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form,
> >   was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all
> >   earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of
> >   production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions,
> >   everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois
> >   epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations,
> >   with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and
> >   opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated
> >   before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all
> >   that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face
> >   with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations
> >   with his kind."
> >
> >  This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything written
> >   since and it still stands perfectly well...
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> >
> > ___
> > NetBehaviour mailing list
> > NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
> > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Co-founder Co-director
> > Furtherfield
> >
> > www.furtherfield.org
> >
> > +44 (0) 77370 02879
> > Meeting calendar - http://bit.ly/1NgeLce
> > Bitcoin Address 197BBaXa6M9PtHhhNTQkuHh1pVJA8RrJ2i
> >
> > Furtherfield is the UK's leading organisation for art shows, labs, &
> debates
> > around critical questions in art and technology, since 1997
> >
> > Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company limited by Guarantee
> > registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.
> > Registered business address: Ballard Newman, Apex House, Grand Arcade,
> Tally
> > Ho Corner, London N12 0EH.
> >
> >
>
> ==
> email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
> web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 718-813-3285
> music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
> current text http://www.alansondheim.org/tx.txt
> ==___
> NetBehaviour mailing list
> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

-- 
P Thayer, Artist
http://pallthayer.dyndns.org
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the biosphere doesn't 
adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of sealions, walrus, 
migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a form of holding-back, 
learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental problem I 
think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy, micro- 
biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being rewritten as 
we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of ignorance. 
Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me that 
accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps man-based for all 
that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do we do, for 
example, with the increasingly violent drought in the Mid-East which is 
exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow, dirty work to deal 
with it, culture theory which listens, not only to humans, but to life and 
lives everywhere -


Alan


On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:


Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.

All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in an acid bath
of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.

What this passage does not describe though is a situation where the wider
ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend, are also
fatally eroded.
We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with "our kind"
(expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES Gretta!)), but
beyond, with other species, and materials.

This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to which Simon
points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to validate the
'use' of humans.




On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
  Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:

  "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising
  the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of
  production, and with them the whole relations of society.
  Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form,
  was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all
  earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of
  production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions,
  everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois
  epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations,
  with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and
  opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated
  before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all
  that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face
  with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations
  with his kind."

     This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything written
  since and it still stands perfectly well...
Sent from my iPhone


___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour



--
Co-founder Co-director
Furtherfield

www.furtherfield.org

+44 (0) 77370 02879
Meeting calendar - http://bit.ly/1NgeLce
Bitcoin Address 197BBaXa6M9PtHhhNTQkuHh1pVJA8RrJ2i

Furtherfield is the UK's leading organisation for art shows, labs, & debates
around critical questions in art and technology, since 1997

Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company limited by Guarantee
registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.
Registered business address: Ballard Newman, Apex House, Grand Arcade, Tally
Ho Corner, London N12 0EH.




==
email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 718-813-3285
music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
current text http://www.alansondheim.org/tx.txt
==___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Gretta Louw]

Absolutely agree with this Ruth. The imperialist and colonialist attitudes that 
dominate most contemporary, western thinking are extended, of course in 
exaggerated form, into thinking about other species, non-human structures etc. 
The anthropocene is colonialistic. 

On this, I would highly recommend everyone to look into the work that Chris De 
Lutz and Regine Rapp are doing at Art Laboratory Berlin. They put out an 
excellent publication last year on bio art projects and are currently working 
on non-human subjectivities.

g.

Sent from my iPhone

> On 24 Apr 2016, at 18:15, ruth catlow  wrote:
> 
> Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
> 
> All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in an acid bath of 
> everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
> 
> What this passage does not describe though is a situation where the wider 
> ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend, are also fatally 
> eroded.
> We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with "our kind" 
> (expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES Gretta!)), but 
> beyond, with other species, and materials. 
> 
> This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to which Simon 
> points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to validate the 
> 'use' of humans.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
>> Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
>> "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the 
>> instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with 
>> them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of 
>> production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of 
>> existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant 
>> revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social 
>> conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois 
>> epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their 
>> train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all 
>> new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid 
>> melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled 
>> to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations 
>> with his kind."
>>This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything written since and it 
>> still stands perfectly well...
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> 
>> ___
>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
>> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
> 
> 
> -- 
> Co-founder Co-director
> Furtherfield
> 
> www.furtherfield.org
> 
> +44 (0) 77370 02879 
> Meeting calendar - http://bit.ly/1NgeLce 
> Bitcoin Address 197BBaXa6M9PtHhhNTQkuHh1pVJA8RrJ2i 
> 
> Furtherfield is the UK's leading organisation for art shows, labs, & debates 
> around critical questions in art and technology, since 1997
> 
> Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company limited by Guarantee 
> registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205. 
> Registered business address: Ballard Newman, Apex House, Grand Arcade, Tally 
> Ho Corner, London N12 0EH.
> ___
> NetBehaviour mailing list
> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Michael Szpakowski]

Hi Ruth 
I couldn't agree more. Of course there are areas which for all sorts of reasons 
M  didn't have anything to say about, and there were things about which they 
were plain wrong. I'm not interested in a cult or religion.My point is about 
baby and bathwater or, more, about not doing work that has already been well 
done.I would say in passing that M & E were not indifferent or ignorant to the 
kind of questions you raise. Here's an interesting review of a book on the 
topic - http://monthlyreview.org/2015/12/01/marxism-and-ecology/and here's a 
short article from the international Socialism Journal by the book's 
author:http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj96/foster.htm
warmest wishesmichael






  From: ruth catlow <ruth.cat...@furtherfield.org>
 To: netbehaviour@netbehaviour.org 
 Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2016 11:15 AM
 Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism
   
 Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
 
 All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in an acid bath of 
everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
 
 What this passage does not describe though is a situation where the wider 
ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend, are also fatally 
eroded.
 We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with "our kind" 
(expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES Gretta!)), but 
beyond, with other species, and materials. 
 
 This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to which Simon points 
with his example of improper use of neuro-science to validate the 'use' of 
humans.
 
 
 
 
 On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
  
 
Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
 "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the 
instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with 
them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of 
production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of 
existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of 
production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting 
uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier 
ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and 
venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become 
antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that 
is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his 
real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."    This does the 
*descriptive* job as well as anything written since and it still stands 
perfectly well... Sent from my iPhone 
  
 ___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour 
 
 -- 
 Co-founder Co-director
 Furtherfield
 
 www.furtherfield.org
 
 +44 (0) 77370 02879 
 Meeting calendar - http://bit.ly/1NgeLce 
 Bitcoin Address 197BBaXa6M9PtHhhNTQkuHh1pVJA8RrJ2i 
 
 Furtherfield is the UK's leading organisation for art shows, labs, & debates 
 around critical questions in art and technology, since 1997
 
 Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company limited by Guarantee 
 registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205. 
 Registered business address: Ballard Newman, Apex House, Grand Arcade, Tally 
Ho Corner, London N12 0EH.  
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

  ___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[ruth catlow]

Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.

All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in an acid 
bath of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.


What this passage does not describe though is a situation where the 
wider ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend, are 
also fatally eroded.
We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with "our kind" 
(expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES Gretta!)), 
but beyond, with other species, and materials.


This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to which Simon 
points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to validate the 
'use' of humans.





On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:

Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:

"The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the 
instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, 
and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old 
modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first 
condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant 
revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social 
conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the 
bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen 
relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and 
opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before 
they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is 
profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his 
real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."


   This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything written since 
and it still stands perfectly well...

Sent from my iPhone


___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour



--
Co-founder Co-director
Furtherfield

www.furtherfield.org

+44 (0) 77370 02879
Meeting calendar - http://bit.ly/1NgeLce
Bitcoin Address 197BBaXa6M9PtHhhNTQkuHh1pVJA8RrJ2i

Furtherfield is the UK's leading organisation for art shows, labs, & 
debates

around critical questions in art and technology, since 1997

Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company limited by Guarantee
registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.
Registered business address: Ballard Newman, Apex House, Grand Arcade, 
Tally Ho Corner, London N12 0EH.
___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Simon Biggs]

This quote from Marx and Engels certainly describes current management 
practices. I have experience of management workshops where the socially and 
psychologically disruptive methods outlined in the quote below are promoted and 
explicitly employed. The aim is to keep workers on their toes - constantly off 
balance, not certain where next they will be required to jump. It’s quite nasty 
and all done in the name of economic efficiency. The workers are considered as 
a raw resource, that can be made redundant if they don’t do what is required of 
them, whether they are an administrator, researcher or Professor. It is pure 
McKinsey poison and they predicate it on pseudo-science - which makes it even 
worse because the theory is so flakey. The latest wheeze is to employ 
neuro-science to validate their practices.

Foucault would role in his grave - but I imagine he would also role in his 
grave if he read the Accelerationist Manifesto. I’ve not read it, but the quote 
Ruth gave from Gottlieb’s review makes it sound like the other side of the same 
coin as McKinsey. It is also promoting normative values, just with a different 
character. I’m pretty sure I’m not an Accelerationist (or that I consciously 
subscribe to any other ism).

best

Simon


Simon Biggs
si...@littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk
http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/school-of-art/simon-biggs







> On 24 Apr 2016, at 01:08, Michael Szpakowski  wrote:
> 
> Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
> "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the 
> instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with 
> them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of 
> production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of 
> existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of 
> production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting 
> uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier 
> ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and 
> venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become 
> antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that 
> is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses 
> his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind." <>
>This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything written since and it 
> still stands perfectly well...
> Sent from my iPhone
> ___
> NetBehaviour mailing list
> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

[NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Michael Szpakowski]

Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
"The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the 
instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with 
them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of 
production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of 
existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of 
production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting 
uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier 
ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and 
venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become 
antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that 
is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his 
real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."
   This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything written since and it 
still stands perfectly well...
Sent from my iPhone___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour