The Auron MacIntyre Show - March 22, 2024


Cybernetics and Accelerationism | 3⧸22⧸24


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 6 minutes

Words per Minute

157.81854

Word Count

10,466

Sentence Count

568

Misogynist Sentences

5

Hate Speech Sentences

9


Summary

In this episode, I discuss the concept of Accelerationism and how it can be applied to the current political and economic system. I read an essay by Nick Land that lays out the basic concepts and definitions of accelerationism and explain why we need to accelerate them.


Transcript

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00:00:30.720 Hey everybody, how's it going?
00:00:32.820 Thanks for joining me this afternoon.
00:00:34.740 I am Oren McIntyre.
00:00:37.400 So, a subject that I've touched on previously in another video
00:00:42.780 is the concept of accelerationism.
00:00:45.960 I've done an entire series on Nick Land
00:00:48.620 and the many ideas that he has contributed,
00:00:51.620 particularly in the political theory area called neoreactionary theory.
00:00:56.840 He's well-known in that sphere,
00:00:59.400 and he's written a lot when it comes to politics.
00:01:03.060 And one of the ideas that he has discussed is accelerationism.
00:01:07.640 Like I said, I did a short explainer on that.
00:01:11.060 Previously, it was only about six or seven minutes of the actual explanation.
00:01:14.340 It's one of my most widely viewed videos,
00:01:17.620 but this is a very complicated topic.
00:01:20.620 And so, while I'm proud of that video,
00:01:22.720 I'm glad that I made it and so many people enjoyed it
00:01:25.380 and got an introduction to what accelerationism is in that video,
00:01:30.180 I've been meaning to go back and do a deeper dive on it
00:01:33.820 because I think it's something that only increases in importance,
00:01:37.260 a concept that is only having more impact on our daily lives.
00:01:42.940 And I think it's worth diving into and understanding at a deeper level.
00:01:47.180 And so, this is kind of my first step into exploring the idea in more detail.
00:01:52.660 And that means I'm going to not just give you that quick and dirty explanation,
00:01:56.040 but ironically, I'm going to read an essay by Nick Land,
00:01:58.920 which is kind of the foundational text of accelerationism.
00:02:03.040 It's called A Quick and Dirty Introduction to Accelerationism,
00:02:06.100 but I'm going to take my time with it this time
00:02:08.720 instead of just going through it and boiling it down to the most basic terms
00:02:13.120 like I did originally.
00:02:14.500 I want to go ahead and do a deep dive
00:02:17.340 so we can understand all the different facets of this
00:02:20.080 and explore a little more.
00:02:21.760 I also want to go ahead and clarify a few things
00:02:24.740 about what accelerationism is
00:02:26.960 because a lot of people have misunderstandings.
00:02:30.620 That terminology is thrown around a lot.
00:02:33.640 And so, I want to explain what he's talking about specifically here
00:02:36.740 and kind of clarify that for a lot of people.
00:02:39.620 But before we do, guys,
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00:03:53.700 All right.
00:03:54.640 So, let's go ahead and talk about accelerationism.
00:03:58.000 Now, just to clarify, like I said,
00:04:00.300 first, we need to lay the kind of the ground understanding
00:04:03.000 of what we're talking about here.
00:04:04.520 A lot of people will just talk about the idea of political accelerationism.
00:04:10.120 And in that sense, what they're talking about
00:04:12.620 is the idea that, well, things are going to fall apart.
00:04:18.160 Things are going to collapse.
00:04:20.240 There's going to be a fundamental breakdown of institutions
00:04:24.660 or, in some way, things need to get worse
00:04:28.300 before things can get better, basically.
00:04:32.260 The current system is unsolvageable.
00:04:35.800 And so, we need to go ahead and accelerate its demise
00:04:38.960 so that we can bring about the institution of a new system.
00:04:43.200 People will only go ahead and go along with the revolution
00:04:46.820 or whatever if we accelerate how bad things are.
00:04:51.960 That's what some people mean when they say accelerationism.
00:04:55.720 Now, that is not what Nick Land is talking about here,
00:04:59.180 or it's not strictly what Nick Land is talking about here.
00:05:01.760 We'll get into the details again.
00:05:04.040 This is the deep dive.
00:05:05.040 So, I can't break it all down at the very beginning.
00:05:08.220 But that's not strictly what he's talking about here.
00:05:11.820 Now, a few notes on political accelerationism.
00:05:16.180 Now, I am someone who does think that our institutions
00:05:19.140 are in a pretty serious situation.
00:05:23.420 In fact, I think one of the major problems,
00:05:26.220 in fact, I addressed this on Twitter yesterday,
00:05:28.000 a lot of people got very angry or upset, whatever.
00:05:32.200 But I think one of the major problems that people don't recognize
00:05:35.100 is how many of our institutions have already failed.
00:05:38.500 They have already gone through this process,
00:05:41.120 and they are just wearing the names of old institutions.
00:05:45.160 We still pretend that they do what they used to do
00:05:49.100 instead of doing what they actually do.
00:05:51.240 And so people just don't recognize how many of our institutions
00:05:54.560 have already failed and collapsed
00:05:56.980 and are no longer doing what they're supposed to be doing.
00:06:00.900 However, the point is that while I am someone who does think
00:06:06.900 that our institutions are heading directly for the iceberg
00:06:09.940 in a lot of ways, and they will have this problem,
00:06:12.660 I am not someone who ever counsels the acceleration of that process
00:06:18.580 in the sense that you would actually take steps to make things worse.
00:06:24.000 And I think that's wrong on a lot of levels.
00:06:26.520 First, I think it's morally wrong.
00:06:28.200 I think it's morally wrong to accelerate the destruction
00:06:31.020 of your own society, the worsening of your own society.
00:06:34.780 I think that while you can recognize that a problem is happening
00:06:40.220 and that something might be inevitable,
00:06:43.020 hastening it, attempting to artificially hasten it
00:06:45.780 by making things worse, is personally immoral.
00:06:49.400 I also think that there is a danger in assuming
00:06:53.940 that you understand too much of a complicated process.
00:06:57.600 So even if you think that institutions or systems might break down
00:07:03.180 and that they might have to break down for something to change,
00:07:06.780 that doesn't mean you understand the way in which that needs to happen
00:07:10.600 or that you can somehow manufacture a better way of that.
00:07:14.360 In fact, by attempting to accelerate it,
00:07:16.420 you might break something fundamental to that process
00:07:19.600 that makes the eventual restoration or revolution
00:07:23.520 or whatever you're trying to bring about unable to happen.
00:07:27.800 So you might break things in a way that you don't understand.
00:07:31.540 This is always the danger.
00:07:32.940 This is what the left does so often.
00:07:34.920 They think they understand very complex systems
00:07:37.160 and they try to go ahead and gain mastery over them.
00:07:40.700 They try to manipulate them
00:07:41.920 when they don't really understand what they're doing.
00:07:44.520 And so they make things much worse than they already are.
00:07:48.160 And of course, that's actually the point of political acceleration of business
00:07:51.520 is to make things specifically worse.
00:07:54.080 And so there are many reasons that I think that's a bad idea
00:07:58.020 and I don't counsel it.
00:07:59.700 But I want to be really clear.
00:08:00.760 That's not what we're talking about here.
00:08:03.460 What we're going to be talking about here
00:08:04.840 is the problem of technological acceleration
00:08:08.800 and what that does to the civilization that it's affecting,
00:08:15.300 what it does to its ability to make decisions
00:08:18.020 and govern itself and take action on its own behalf.
00:08:22.820 And so these things overlap to some extent.
00:08:25.680 You'll certainly see,
00:08:27.140 especially when Nick Land talks about leftist acceleration
00:08:30.360 and the things that they have tried to do
00:08:32.720 or might want to do in order to bring about the Marxist utopia,
00:08:36.640 that there are some echoes of political acceleration
00:08:41.480 that people have taken out of this.
00:08:44.000 But that is not what I really want to discuss here.
00:08:47.480 What I really want to discuss is the problem of accelerationism,
00:08:51.840 what it means for our ability to address things politically,
00:08:56.080 to address things as a society
00:08:57.960 and to think about the problems that we're facing.
00:09:01.480 So I'm going to go ahead and start reading the essay.
00:09:04.280 And as I do so, I'll stop
00:09:06.760 and we'll talk about the different aspects
00:09:09.480 that we need to go ahead and explore.
00:09:11.280 So a quick and dirty introduction to accelerationism by Nick Land.
00:09:15.920 Anyone trying to work out what they think about accelerationism
00:09:19.260 better do so quickly.
00:09:20.940 That's the nature of the thing.
00:09:22.560 It is already caught up with trends
00:09:24.620 that seemed too fast to track when it began
00:09:27.300 and began to become self-aware decades ago.
00:09:32.260 It's picked up a lot of speed since then.
00:09:34.780 Accelerationism is old enough to have arrived in waves,
00:09:38.380 which is to say, incessantly or recurrently.
00:09:41.880 And each time the challenge is more urgent.
00:09:44.320 Among its predictions is the expectation
00:09:46.500 that you'll be too slow to deal with it coherently.
00:09:50.120 Yet if you fumble the question it poses,
00:09:52.620 because rushed, you lose perhaps very badly.
00:09:56.800 It's hard.
00:09:57.720 For our purpose here,
00:09:59.060 you are standing in as a bearer for the opinions of mankind.
00:10:03.380 Time pressure by its very nature is difficult to think about.
00:10:08.560 Typically, while the opportunity for deliberation is not necessarily presumed,
00:10:14.100 is at least, with overwhelming likelihood,
00:10:16.720 mistaken for a historical constant rather than a variable.
00:10:20.980 If there's ever time to think,
00:10:22.600 we think there still is and will always be.
00:10:26.480 The definite probability that the allotment of time to decision-making
00:10:31.500 is undergoing systemic compression remains a neglected consideration,
00:10:36.080 even among those paying explicit and exceptional attention
00:10:39.940 to the increased rapidity of change.
00:10:42.740 All right.
00:10:43.080 So what does all that mean?
00:10:45.040 He's starting out by explaining that accelerationism creates a problem.
00:10:51.180 What we're looking at is the idea that we have to make decisions as a culture.
00:10:58.240 We have to think about problems.
00:11:00.360 And what we assume about thinking about a problem
00:11:03.260 is that we'll always have time to do it.
00:11:05.720 We'll always have time to consider and explore and discuss and deliberate issues, right?
00:11:13.440 And so whenever we think about any problem,
00:11:16.760 even when we think about the problem of things speeding up,
00:11:21.480 we assume that we'll be able to address it.
00:11:23.980 We'll be able as a society to think about it.
00:11:27.200 Our institutions will be able to communicate about it
00:11:29.880 and think of things over.
00:11:30.960 And the hive mind will come to a decision and we'll work through it.
00:11:35.100 What he's presenting here is the fact that actually the space in which you make a decision,
00:11:42.120 the space in which you deliberate and think about issues as a society,
00:11:46.020 is not actually a constant.
00:11:48.260 It's a variable.
00:11:49.620 And if you're thinking about the fact that things are accelerating,
00:11:53.260 that the rapidity of change is increasing,
00:11:57.320 that probably means that the amount of time you have to think about problems
00:12:01.900 is itself collapsing.
00:12:04.180 It's reducing.
00:12:05.800 Which means you have a more and more limited amount of time
00:12:09.640 to think about the fact that things are changing more and more.
00:12:14.520 That's a huge problem.
00:12:16.440 And even as you start to think about that problem,
00:12:19.820 you realize that if things really are accelerating,
00:12:22.400 oh no, we might actually be behind the eight ball
00:12:26.520 about thinking about that problem in the first place.
00:12:29.720 Continuing with the essay here.
00:12:31.780 In philosophical terms, the deep problem of acceleration is transcendental.
00:12:36.800 It describes an absolute horizon and one that is closing in.
00:12:41.340 Thinking takes time.
00:12:42.600 And accelerationism suggests that you're running out of time
00:12:45.480 to think that through, if you haven't already.
00:12:48.580 No contemporary dilemma is being entertained realistically.
00:12:52.440 Until it's also acknowledging the opportunity for doing so is fast collapsing.
00:12:57.320 So, just reiterating here the point that
00:13:00.260 as we think about the fact that we are accelerating,
00:13:05.000 that things are moving faster,
00:13:07.340 we also have to acknowledge
00:13:10.440 that the time in which we could actually address these things is collapsing.
00:13:14.460 And so, if we're going to address these things at all,
00:13:18.180 we have to get better at addressing them quickly.
00:13:20.500 And it could be that, in fact, that has already escaped us.
00:13:25.020 And that's something that we have to consider,
00:13:27.400 or maybe we can't consider,
00:13:29.220 which I know isn't something that's super comfortable to think about,
00:13:32.300 but is something that might be true.
00:13:35.060 Back to the essay here.
00:13:36.140 The suspicion has to arrive that if a public conversation about acceleration is beginning,
00:13:41.760 it's just in time to be too late.
00:13:44.280 The profound and institutional crisis that makes the topic hot
00:13:48.140 has at its core an implosion of social decision-making capability.
00:13:54.460 Doing anything at this point would take too long.
00:13:58.180 But instead, events increasingly just happen.
00:14:01.040 They seem ever more out of control,
00:14:03.860 even to a traumatic extent.
00:14:06.040 Because the basic phenomenon appears to be a brake failure.
00:14:10.220 Accelerationism is picked up again.
00:14:13.220 So, I don't think I'm the only one who feels those last words.
00:14:20.300 Right?
00:14:20.580 That last phrase there, it really impacts you.
00:14:24.080 So, instead, events increasingly just happen.
00:14:28.040 They seem ever more out of control, even to a traumatic extent.
00:14:32.060 And doesn't that feel like where we're at right now?
00:14:34.920 One of the things to think about here is the fact that we have increasingly
00:14:40.100 distributed responsibility, decision-making responsibility,
00:14:47.220 in almost all of our structures.
00:14:49.180 The bureaucratic, oligarchic nature of our country, our politics, our corporations,
00:14:59.460 everything.
00:15:00.680 Everything in our society is built around these bureaucratic institutions
00:15:04.080 that distribute decision-making capability as widely as possible.
00:15:09.740 And the key to all of them is how deliberative the bodies are.
00:15:13.640 Right?
00:15:13.820 In every case, you notice this, whether you're going to the DMV,
00:15:17.480 you're calling customer service for your corporation,
00:15:20.260 you're trying to get a bill through Congress,
00:15:22.880 it's always impossible.
00:15:24.780 Right?
00:15:25.020 Because you have to check with a thousand people, a million people.
00:15:28.460 Everything needs to be kicked up to a manager.
00:15:30.640 They have to check some kind of process.
00:15:34.440 There's always...
00:15:35.420 The decision can never be made by the person in front of you.
00:15:38.380 It's always been distributed.
00:15:40.500 The authority has been distributed.
00:15:42.100 The responsibility has been distributed.
00:15:43.840 The ability to reason through, rationally make decisions,
00:15:48.180 has been spread out among as many people as possible.
00:15:52.700 And because of that fact, it's very difficult to make a decision quickly.
00:15:57.800 But the problem is the issues we're facing keep coming at us faster and faster.
00:16:03.380 So as the problems accelerate, our ability to make decisions dissipates.
00:16:11.320 Right?
00:16:11.460 We've gotten worse and worse at making decisions quickly.
00:16:14.800 And the things that are happening to us are happening to us faster and faster.
00:16:18.720 And so instead of us making deliberate decisions as a society,
00:16:24.280 or even as individuals about what is happening to us,
00:16:29.300 instead of that, it feels like things just happen.
00:16:32.440 It feels like events just occur because they're moving too fast.
00:16:38.200 They take on a life of their own because the bodies that are charged
00:16:43.280 with being able to evaluate these things are moving too slowly to deal with the issues.
00:16:50.780 Back to our essay here.
00:16:54.520 Accelerationism links the implosion of decision space to the explosion of the world.
00:17:00.420 That is, to modernity.
00:17:02.760 It's important, therefore, to note that the conceptual opposition between implosion and explosion
00:17:07.500 does nothing to impede their real mechanical coupling.
00:17:11.600 The manucular weapons provide the most vividly illuminating example.
00:17:16.160 An H-bomb employs an A-bomb as a trigger.
00:17:19.940 A fusion reaction sparks a...
00:17:21.900 Or rather, a fission reaction sparks a fusion reaction.
00:17:26.480 The fusion mass is crushed into the ignition by a blast process.
00:17:31.500 Modernity is a blast.
00:17:33.560 So what's he saying here?
00:17:35.100 He's saying as the world has exploded,
00:17:37.900 as the...
00:17:39.200 And this is really what he...
00:17:40.660 When he talks about modernity,
00:17:42.920 he means the interconnection of everything, right?
00:17:45.640 So we used to be a country on our own, right?
00:17:49.420 But as we go ahead and connect our supply chains
00:17:52.860 and connect our communications
00:17:54.200 and become more and more reliant
00:17:57.840 on foreign countries for production and energy
00:18:02.100 and we expect to be able to communicate everything,
00:18:05.140 the more the world explodes,
00:18:08.240 the more our ability to make decisions implodes.
00:18:11.940 And that might feel like a counterintuitive, right?
00:18:17.460 Like these two things, an explosion and an implosion,
00:18:19.660 they should be against each other.
00:18:21.060 But he's saying no.
00:18:22.320 Actually, even though it feels like they should be opposed,
00:18:26.040 they actually are mechanically intertwined.
00:18:29.060 The more the world explodes,
00:18:31.440 the more the world is interconnected,
00:18:32.660 the more that modernity asserts itself,
00:18:36.500 the more our decision space,
00:18:38.700 our time to make decisions actually implodes.
00:18:42.260 And again, we can feel that
00:18:43.520 because these trends seem to move across the world all at once.
00:18:48.120 Think about the pandemic, right?
00:18:50.360 That's kind of the perfect example
00:18:52.100 where decisions to some extent
00:18:54.640 did feel like they made themselves.
00:18:56.600 Now we know that actually there's a lot of
00:18:59.120 other organizations involved in that, right?
00:19:02.520 And so we can get into a much larger discussion
00:19:05.860 about how the WHO and other organizations
00:19:09.820 actually made it feel that way.
00:19:12.240 But the point is that
00:19:14.280 that the decision space collapses
00:19:17.900 as the world interconnects.
00:19:19.860 And it gives that example of the bombs
00:19:22.120 as a way for us to understand
00:19:23.880 why those two forces don't necessarily
00:19:26.300 have to be opposed.
00:19:28.740 This is all ready to be talking about cybernetics,
00:19:32.080 which also returns incessantly in waves.
00:19:35.040 It amplifies to a howl
00:19:36.600 and then dissipates into the senseless babble of fashion
00:19:39.400 until the next last wave hits.
00:19:41.660 Now you might say,
00:19:42.200 Orin, what does this have to do with cybernetics?
00:19:44.220 What are you talking about?
00:19:45.680 We're going to get more into that in a second.
00:19:47.980 But to just explain,
00:19:49.280 a lot of people think,
00:19:50.300 and I assumed this too
00:19:51.180 before I started looking more into this stuff,
00:19:54.020 that cybernetics just meant like
00:19:55.560 working with androids or something, right?
00:19:57.960 When you see cybernetics,
00:20:00.080 that's usually what you think about.
00:20:02.120 Some kind of sci-fi, cyberpunk,
00:20:04.300 you know, cyborgs, whatever, right?
00:20:06.220 Cybernetics, right?
00:20:07.420 But that's not actually what cybernetics means.
00:20:10.140 Cybernetics is the study of systems
00:20:12.520 where the feedback,
00:20:14.320 where the output is actually also an input.
00:20:18.040 And so, for instance,
00:20:20.120 you involve yourself in cybernetics processes
00:20:23.460 all the time.
00:20:24.420 For instance, let's say you're tilling a boat, right?
00:20:27.300 You're on a boat
00:20:28.500 and you're the one moving a boat
00:20:30.140 and you're going down a river
00:20:31.780 and you're constantly making small adjustments
00:20:35.160 to your boat's direction.
00:20:38.280 And you're learning during the process
00:20:40.460 about how that works
00:20:41.540 and that's impacting.
00:20:42.380 That's an example of cybernetics.
00:20:45.480 And so you could also have that,
00:20:46.740 of course, in a mechanical system
00:20:48.080 where the mechanical system
00:20:49.840 is getting feedback
00:20:51.600 and it's learning
00:20:52.980 and it's changing
00:20:53.880 and it's changing course
00:20:55.300 according to that feedback.
00:20:56.380 That would also be a cybernetic system.
00:20:59.420 So the cybernetics can be connected to technology.
00:21:03.280 They often are.
00:21:04.120 That's an important part of technology.
00:21:06.140 But you can also be involved
00:21:08.380 in a cybernetic process.
00:21:09.880 And so when he's talking about cybernetics,
00:21:12.180 he's going to talk about decision-making
00:21:14.500 where you are having these,
00:21:16.580 where the inputs are feeding back into themselves.
00:21:19.640 So we're going to dive more into that
00:21:21.560 and explain that in more detail
00:21:23.500 in just a second, guys.
00:21:24.400 But before we do,
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00:21:49.300 because that means those people
00:21:50.680 are going to go out and found new companies,
00:21:52.880 create new technologies
00:21:54.020 and figure out a way forward for our country.
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00:21:58.020 of that exciting new future,
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00:22:08.280 The companies they invest in
00:22:09.500 are defined by a simple question.
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00:22:13.240 need the company this person is building?
00:22:15.660 Look, venture investing isn't for everyone,
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00:22:28.120 Again, that's newfounding.com slash Venture Fund.
00:22:32.540 All right, so let's get back into our essay here.
00:22:35.600 For accelerationism, the crucial lesson was this,
00:22:38.660 a negative feedback circuit such as a steam engine governor
00:22:42.140 or a thermostat functions to keep some state of a system
00:22:46.580 in the same place.
00:22:48.840 Its product in the language formulated
00:22:51.640 by French philosophical cyberneticists,
00:22:56.980 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari,
00:22:59.340 is territorialization.
00:23:01.600 Negative feedback stabilizes the process
00:23:03.840 by correcting drift and thus inhibiting departure
00:23:07.260 from a limited range.
00:23:09.300 Dynamics are placed in the service of fixity,
00:23:13.420 a higher level stasis or state.
00:23:15.840 All equilibrium models of complex systems
00:23:18.540 and processes are like this.
00:23:20.700 To capture the contrary trend,
00:23:23.120 characterized by self-reinforced errancy,
00:23:26.420 flight or escape,
00:23:27.760 D&G coined the inelegant but influential term
00:23:30.960 de-territorialization.
00:23:33.720 Deterritorialization is the only thing
00:23:35.440 accelerationism has ever really talked about.
00:23:38.640 All right, so there's a lot there.
00:23:40.300 Let's break that paragraph down a little bit.
00:23:42.460 So first, we need to talk about
00:23:44.480 the idea of territorialization.
00:23:48.720 These territorialization and de-territorialization
00:23:51.080 are key terms here.
00:23:53.000 So territorialization is the idea
00:23:56.180 that you're going to limit the feedback of something
00:24:00.340 to make sure that it does not go overboard.
00:24:02.660 It does not escape the parameters
00:24:04.800 that you've set for it.
00:24:06.640 So he gives the idea of a governor
00:24:09.380 on a steam engine here, right?
00:24:11.740 Or on a thermostat, right?
00:24:13.240 So you have a process that is making steam
00:24:16.720 or heating your house.
00:24:19.040 But of course, if it goes too far,
00:24:21.260 if it continues to do the process
00:24:23.740 without any regulation,
00:24:25.760 that will have an undesirable effect.
00:24:28.660 Even though technically the purpose
00:24:30.660 of your steam engine is to boil enough water
00:24:33.980 to create enough steam,
00:24:35.120 or the purpose of your thermostat
00:24:36.980 is to heat your house,
00:24:38.740 that's not the ultimate goal of the thing, right?
00:24:41.360 Because the thermostat,
00:24:43.180 both the thermostat and steam engine
00:24:44.480 are actually serving a human purpose.
00:24:47.440 You want the steam engine
00:24:48.980 to make enough steam
00:24:50.880 to go ahead and drive your boat forward,
00:24:53.240 but not enough to blow up your boat.
00:24:55.520 You want your thermostat
00:24:56.660 to create enough heat
00:24:59.020 to go ahead and heat your home,
00:25:01.360 but not so much that it boils you
00:25:03.540 or damages itself,
00:25:05.440 lights your house on fire.
00:25:06.980 So even though part of its job
00:25:09.140 is creating a heat, a reaction,
00:25:12.340 if it does that job too well,
00:25:13.940 if it does it without any regulation,
00:25:15.640 if you don't territorialize
00:25:18.320 and limit that process
00:25:21.080 within a specific range,
00:25:22.820 it stops being useful
00:25:24.220 to the humans that set it in motion,
00:25:26.740 and instead it becomes dangerous to them, right?
00:25:30.140 And so we can recognize
00:25:31.380 that a process that is useful,
00:25:33.900 as long as it is limited
00:25:35.660 to a particular area
00:25:37.380 that is helpful for people,
00:25:40.200 is good.
00:25:41.200 But once that process
00:25:42.780 is allowed to continue
00:25:43.980 beyond a certain point,
00:25:45.700 then it's going to go ahead
00:25:47.940 and become detrimental.
00:25:49.400 It's going to escape
00:25:50.680 its original purpose.
00:25:52.600 And so when we talk about
00:25:53.840 territorialization,
00:25:55.780 we're talking about limiting
00:25:57.140 the feedback of a process
00:25:58.980 to keep it within the desired range
00:26:01.960 in our examples here,
00:26:04.140 and I think what's most importantly,
00:26:05.940 because you'll see
00:26:06.540 this is going to impact humans a lot,
00:26:09.040 we want to limit it
00:26:10.720 inside its usefulness
00:26:12.360 to humans,
00:26:13.780 to the people who deployed it,
00:26:16.140 because if it continues that process
00:26:18.020 and escapes that,
00:26:19.440 things get bad.
00:26:21.080 And so the word for
00:26:23.280 it escaping that process,
00:26:25.600 escaping that limited feedback,
00:26:27.360 is called de-territorialization.
00:26:29.900 And when things are de-territorialized
00:26:31.960 out of their limited sphere,
00:26:34.200 instead put into this state
00:26:36.240 of constant feedback,
00:26:37.700 they tend to get out of control.
00:26:42.580 In social historical terms,
00:26:44.760 the line of de-territorialization
00:26:46.660 corresponds to uncompensated capitalism.
00:26:50.380 The basic, and of course,
00:26:52.400 to some real,
00:26:54.160 highly consequential degree,
00:26:55.960 actually installed schema
00:26:57.460 is a positive feedback circuit
00:26:59.800 within which commercialization
00:27:02.580 and industrialization
00:27:04.460 mutually excite each other
00:27:06.300 in a runaway process,
00:27:08.360 from which modernity
00:27:10.040 draws its gradient.
00:27:11.760 Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche
00:27:13.460 were among those
00:27:14.720 to capture the important aspects
00:27:16.440 of this trend.
00:27:17.680 As the circuit is incrementally closed
00:27:19.780 or intensified,
00:27:21.580 it exhibits ever a greater autonomy
00:27:24.620 or automation.
00:27:26.180 It becomes more tightly auto-productive,
00:27:28.820 which is only what positive feedback
00:27:31.000 already says,
00:27:32.380 because it appeals to nothing
00:27:33.780 beyond itself.
00:27:34.800 It is inherently nihilistic.
00:27:37.620 It has no conceivable meaning
00:27:39.340 beside self-amplification.
00:27:42.240 It grows in order to grow.
00:27:44.740 Mankind is its temporary host
00:27:46.640 and not its master.
00:27:48.340 Its only purpose is itself.
00:27:50.340 All right.
00:27:50.880 So,
00:27:51.320 what's better than
00:27:53.660 a well-marbled ribeye
00:27:54.820 sizzling on the barbecue?
00:27:56.480 A well-marbled ribeye
00:27:57.800 sizzling on the barbecue
00:27:58.860 that was carefully selected
00:28:00.240 by an Instacart shopper
00:28:01.620 and delivered to your door.
00:28:03.200 A well-marbled ribeye
00:28:04.520 you ordered
00:28:05.040 without even leaving
00:28:06.160 the kiddie pool.
00:28:07.680 Whatever groceries
00:28:08.540 your summer calls for,
00:28:10.020 Instacart has you covered.
00:28:11.820 Download the Instacart app
00:28:13.060 and enjoy $0 delivery fees
00:28:15.120 on your first three orders.
00:28:16.700 Service fees,
00:28:17.360 exclusions,
00:28:17.940 and terms apply.
00:28:19.400 Instacart,
00:28:20.320 groceries that over-deliver.
00:28:22.180 There's a lot there.
00:28:23.260 And I understand
00:28:23.860 he invoked Karl Marx
00:28:25.900 so there's going to be
00:28:26.880 in capitalism
00:28:28.180 so there's going to be
00:28:28.940 some concern here.
00:28:30.100 To be clear,
00:28:31.140 Nick Land was a Marxist
00:28:32.960 and he definitely
00:28:35.020 took a right wing,
00:28:36.920 a very hard right wing turn.
00:28:38.980 But he's definitely
00:28:40.080 using that language
00:28:41.280 and it is important to note
00:28:42.760 that there is
00:28:44.180 some insight to draw here
00:28:47.380 even if we are not
00:28:48.460 ourselves Marxists
00:28:49.380 even though Marxism
00:28:50.560 is very evil
00:28:52.140 in its implementation.
00:28:53.960 Communism is
00:28:54.900 particularly horrific.
00:28:56.640 There are some
00:28:58.000 important insights
00:28:58.860 about modernity
00:28:59.740 to draw here
00:29:00.820 from what is being said.
00:29:02.520 All right.
00:29:02.880 So what's he talking about?
00:29:04.760 What he's saying
00:29:05.780 is that
00:29:06.580 capitalism
00:29:07.740 needs to be tied
00:29:09.900 to a set of people
00:29:11.960 if it's not going to run away.
00:29:13.840 Right.
00:29:14.920 So
00:29:15.260 the creation of things,
00:29:17.800 the creation of goods
00:29:19.100 in a marketplace,
00:29:20.640 if it uncouples itself
00:29:23.020 from
00:29:24.180 if it's
00:29:25.640 de-territorialized
00:29:27.000 out of
00:29:27.860 its service
00:29:28.680 to particular peoples
00:29:30.020 and instead
00:29:31.140 works for its own good,
00:29:33.840 creates
00:29:34.480 one of these
00:29:35.460 ungoverned
00:29:36.440 feedback loops
00:29:37.320 that he was
00:29:37.800 warning about.
00:29:39.320 The cybernetic
00:29:40.060 feedback loop
00:29:40.780 that constantly
00:29:41.520 is exciting itself.
00:29:43.840 So when he says
00:29:44.900 commercialization
00:29:45.960 and industrialization
00:29:47.020 mutually excite each other,
00:29:48.500 what he's talking about
00:29:50.200 is that
00:29:50.840 the
00:29:51.180 the commercialization
00:29:52.540 process
00:29:53.620 interacts
00:29:54.500 with
00:29:55.640 the
00:29:56.220 development,
00:29:57.580 right?
00:29:57.820 Technological development
00:29:58.900 and the creation
00:30:00.200 of these things.
00:30:01.580 And they start
00:30:02.700 if they interact
00:30:03.580 with each other
00:30:04.220 all by themselves
00:30:05.520 without a
00:30:06.820 interest
00:30:07.880 in the humans
00:30:09.000 that they're supposed
00:30:09.600 to serve,
00:30:10.440 if humans are cut
00:30:11.520 out of the decision
00:30:12.460 making process,
00:30:13.580 they start
00:30:14.300 to excite
00:30:15.460 themselves
00:30:16.080 and start
00:30:16.580 to run
00:30:16.960 away
00:30:17.340 from themselves.
00:30:19.100 And this is
00:30:19.600 the
00:30:19.920 this is what
00:30:20.600 modernity
00:30:21.560 draws this gradient
00:30:22.360 from.
00:30:22.720 This is what
00:30:22.980 creates the
00:30:23.880 direction
00:30:24.560 of globalization.
00:30:26.040 The process
00:30:27.040 he's describing
00:30:27.820 here is
00:30:28.480 globalization.
00:30:29.460 It's the idea
00:30:30.920 that
00:30:32.220 if
00:30:32.920 capital
00:30:33.740 stops
00:30:34.460 serving
00:30:35.160 the people
00:30:36.040 of a nation
00:30:36.900 and serves
00:30:38.320 itself,
00:30:38.840 the inevitable
00:30:39.700 result
00:30:40.240 is
00:30:40.840 globalization,
00:30:42.420 right?
00:30:43.040 Because
00:30:43.520 the capital
00:30:44.580 no longer
00:30:45.420 cares
00:30:46.080 the production
00:30:46.920 of this,
00:30:48.260 the commercialization
00:30:50.020 and production
00:30:50.560 no longer
00:30:51.400 care about
00:30:51.860 the specific
00:30:52.300 people
00:30:52.680 they
00:30:53.020 were designed
00:30:53.900 to serve.
00:30:54.820 Instead,
00:30:55.680 they only
00:30:56.120 serve themselves.
00:30:57.120 Now,
00:30:57.360 you might say,
00:30:57.800 okay,
00:30:58.000 that's super
00:30:58.860 abstract.
00:30:59.520 Give me
00:30:59.760 something concrete.
00:31:00.760 No problem.
00:31:01.660 So,
00:31:02.020 for instance,
00:31:02.620 we look
00:31:04.240 at
00:31:04.680 companies
00:31:05.520 destroying
00:31:07.440 the towns
00:31:08.560 that they
00:31:08.880 used to
00:31:09.260 serve,
00:31:09.700 right?
00:31:09.920 You look
00:31:10.260 at these
00:31:10.540 companies
00:31:10.860 who leave
00:31:11.860 the towns
00:31:12.400 that they
00:31:12.800 used to
00:31:13.160 serve
00:31:13.460 a wasteland,
00:31:14.520 right?
00:31:15.000 These companies
00:31:15.840 were originally
00:31:16.580 designed
00:31:17.300 to go ahead
00:31:18.500 and create
00:31:19.940 jobs and
00:31:20.780 products for
00:31:21.720 the people
00:31:22.320 of the
00:31:22.800 country,
00:31:23.400 right?
00:31:23.700 My American
00:31:24.660 Auto Company
00:31:25.480 is here to
00:31:26.460 serve America
00:31:27.820 and to
00:31:28.680 create cars
00:31:29.640 and create
00:31:30.520 jobs.
00:31:31.400 And,
00:31:31.780 yes,
00:31:31.920 it's there
00:31:32.280 to make
00:31:32.580 money,
00:31:33.060 but it's
00:31:33.940 fundamentally
00:31:34.360 serving
00:31:34.840 particular
00:31:35.400 people and
00:31:36.560 it cares
00:31:36.960 about its
00:31:37.400 community,
00:31:38.140 right?
00:31:38.900 However,
00:31:40.200 as the
00:31:40.800 incentives
00:31:41.360 line up,
00:31:43.420 if you
00:31:44.080 only care
00:31:44.920 about the
00:31:45.280 making of
00:31:45.720 the money
00:31:46.060 and you
00:31:46.400 don't care
00:31:47.020 about the
00:31:47.420 people you're
00:31:47.960 serving,
00:31:49.360 then you
00:31:50.580 start to
00:31:51.140 de-territorialize
00:31:52.480 because the
00:31:52.860 things that
00:31:53.300 limited the
00:31:54.620 capitalist
00:31:55.240 experience
00:31:57.560 were its
00:31:59.440 desire to
00:32:00.080 help particular
00:32:00.700 people.
00:32:01.160 So if
00:32:02.180 you stop
00:32:02.780 caring about
00:32:03.620 helping
00:32:03.980 particular
00:32:04.480 people,
00:32:05.140 you stop
00:32:05.500 caring about
00:32:05.900 the country,
00:32:06.740 you serve
00:32:07.300 the people,
00:32:08.000 you serve
00:32:08.560 the community,
00:32:09.680 you serve
00:32:10.380 the employees,
00:32:11.580 your customers,
00:32:12.640 and instead
00:32:13.100 you only care
00:32:13.760 about the
00:32:14.260 money,
00:32:15.220 then you
00:32:15.560 start to
00:32:15.980 make decisions
00:32:16.900 that no
00:32:18.180 longer factor
00:32:19.340 in those
00:32:21.040 humans,
00:32:21.920 right?
00:32:22.200 I only care
00:32:23.120 about the
00:32:23.600 money I'm
00:32:23.980 making.
00:32:24.320 I don't care
00:32:25.100 about anything
00:32:26.580 else that my
00:32:27.240 company used to
00:32:27.840 do.
00:32:28.100 Well, what
00:32:28.460 starts to
00:32:28.960 happen?
00:32:29.220 Well, you
00:32:29.900 start saying
00:32:30.460 things like,
00:32:31.240 well, maybe
00:32:32.300 I go ahead
00:32:34.060 and move
00:32:35.080 my factories
00:32:36.000 offshore because
00:32:37.300 I don't really
00:32:37.840 care about the
00:32:39.180 jobs I used to
00:32:39.920 provide anymore.
00:32:40.620 I only care about
00:32:41.480 bringing down the
00:32:42.600 cost of my car.
00:32:44.580 And maybe you
00:32:45.120 say, well, I'm
00:32:45.600 going to cut
00:32:45.920 these safety
00:32:46.560 features because
00:32:47.720 they're too
00:32:48.300 expensive and I
00:32:49.460 don't really care
00:32:50.320 about the
00:32:50.820 customers using
00:32:51.960 my car.
00:32:53.060 I only care
00:32:53.860 about the
00:32:54.380 money I can
00:32:54.940 make.
00:32:55.240 And yeah,
00:32:56.360 maybe there's
00:32:57.060 some market
00:32:57.760 feedback where
00:32:58.700 people stop
00:32:59.160 buying my
00:32:59.640 cars because
00:33:00.100 they're more
00:33:00.480 dangerous.
00:33:01.460 But overall,
00:33:02.260 I'm going to
00:33:02.840 stop making
00:33:03.880 decisions based
00:33:05.020 on the
00:33:05.980 people and
00:33:06.780 the actual
00:33:07.100 consequences to
00:33:08.200 them.
00:33:08.480 And I'm only
00:33:09.100 making the
00:33:09.540 decisions about
00:33:10.620 what the
00:33:11.480 market will
00:33:11.980 bear.
00:33:12.760 And so if I
00:33:13.200 can get away
00:33:14.040 with putting
00:33:14.860 more people in
00:33:15.500 danger to
00:33:16.020 make more
00:33:16.380 money, then
00:33:17.440 I will.
00:33:18.420 I mean, if I
00:33:18.940 can't, then I'll
00:33:19.640 put in the
00:33:20.000 safety features.
00:33:20.860 But overall, my
00:33:21.600 motivation is the
00:33:22.420 money and not
00:33:23.160 the actual
00:33:23.820 people.
00:33:25.680 And so
00:33:25.860 therefore, we
00:33:27.040 start to see
00:33:27.620 the capital
00:33:28.160 de-territorialize.
00:33:29.780 That car
00:33:30.080 company starts
00:33:31.040 moving its
00:33:31.700 factories overseas
00:33:33.080 and the
00:33:33.860 investors and
00:33:36.220 the CEOs
00:33:37.180 start moving
00:33:37.860 their money
00:33:38.440 into offshore
00:33:39.180 banks, right?
00:33:40.160 And they try
00:33:40.600 to avoid as
00:33:41.520 much as
00:33:41.840 possible any
00:33:42.620 ties directly
00:33:43.700 to the
00:33:44.640 nation itself
00:33:45.600 because the
00:33:46.160 ties to the
00:33:46.680 nation create
00:33:47.380 restrictions.
00:33:48.800 They try to
00:33:50.160 avoid paying as
00:33:50.780 many taxes as
00:33:52.020 they can.
00:33:52.520 All of these
00:33:53.380 things, right?
00:33:53.980 They go ahead
00:33:54.760 and de-territorialize
00:33:56.660 this as much
00:33:57.960 as possible.
00:33:59.500 And all of a
00:33:59.980 sudden, they're
00:34:00.340 not making
00:34:01.300 the car,
00:34:02.540 American cars,
00:34:03.440 for the things
00:34:04.240 that Americans
00:34:04.840 want, but they
00:34:05.740 start to spread
00:34:06.320 their business
00:34:06.780 to other
00:34:07.280 places, right?
00:34:08.040 Well, what
00:34:08.360 about the
00:34:09.360 Europeans?
00:34:10.580 What about
00:34:10.920 people in
00:34:11.400 India?
00:34:12.600 Maybe we
00:34:13.220 need to go
00:34:13.580 ahead and
00:34:13.900 change the
00:34:14.560 product we
00:34:15.020 make for
00:34:15.440 them.
00:34:16.060 And over
00:34:16.400 time, all
00:34:18.160 of these
00:34:18.540 things completely
00:34:19.800 remove the
00:34:20.460 human element
00:34:21.360 and they're
00:34:22.320 only making
00:34:23.080 decisions based
00:34:24.280 on what can
00:34:25.880 make more
00:34:26.360 money and
00:34:27.260 with no ties
00:34:28.420 to the actual
00:34:29.680 people they're
00:34:30.140 supposed to
00:34:30.540 serve.
00:34:31.300 And so
00:34:31.600 at every
00:34:32.820 step that you
00:34:33.660 dehumanize the
00:34:35.180 decision-making
00:34:35.860 process, you
00:34:37.400 instead make
00:34:38.500 it more
00:34:38.860 automatically,
00:34:40.680 you know,
00:34:41.520 make it more
00:34:42.320 automatic.
00:34:42.960 It's self-exciting.
00:34:43.940 It feeds back
00:34:44.540 into itself.
00:34:45.680 And this is why
00:34:46.180 we see insane
00:34:46.940 things like the
00:34:47.640 fact that we
00:34:48.280 don't make
00:34:49.200 antibiotics or
00:34:50.120 things in the
00:34:50.700 United States,
00:34:51.660 right?
00:34:52.340 Because we
00:34:53.040 found this out
00:34:53.700 during the
00:34:54.060 pandemic.
00:34:54.420 We don't make
00:34:55.060 critical medical
00:34:55.960 equipment.
00:34:57.220 Why?
00:34:57.500 Because we
00:34:57.820 don't care about
00:34:58.720 the United States
00:34:59.680 as such.
00:35:00.540 The companies
00:35:00.860 only care about
00:35:01.520 making money.
00:35:02.760 And so the
00:35:03.080 fact that all
00:35:04.320 of your drugs
00:35:06.100 that you need
00:35:06.860 to maybe solve
00:35:07.840 some pandemic
00:35:08.520 are made in
00:35:09.360 the very country
00:35:10.680 that created
00:35:11.320 that pandemic,
00:35:12.120 it doesn't
00:35:12.560 matter to that
00:35:13.300 company anymore
00:35:13.960 because they're
00:35:14.480 no longer
00:35:15.000 tied in any
00:35:16.440 way.
00:35:16.680 They're no
00:35:16.980 longer
00:35:17.220 territorialized.
00:35:19.000 There's no
00:35:19.260 limiting factor
00:35:20.400 on it.
00:35:20.860 They're just
00:35:21.140 running away,
00:35:22.200 right?
00:35:22.780 And so that's
00:35:23.580 the process
00:35:24.500 that they're
00:35:24.920 talking about
00:35:25.700 is that
00:35:26.340 everything is
00:35:28.120 becoming less
00:35:29.120 human and
00:35:30.060 it starts
00:35:30.400 automating
00:35:31.180 itself as
00:35:32.880 this continues.
00:35:34.660 Let's dive
00:35:35.100 back into
00:35:36.040 our essay
00:35:36.700 here.
00:35:37.700 Accelerate
00:35:38.300 the process
00:35:39.040 recommend
00:35:39.640 Deleuze
00:35:40.240 and Guattari
00:35:41.100 in their
00:35:41.740 anti-Oedipus
00:35:42.980 in the 1972
00:35:44.060 anti-Oedipus
00:35:44.860 citing Nietzsche
00:35:45.500 to reactivate
00:35:46.280 Marx.
00:35:46.980 Although it
00:35:47.520 would take
00:35:48.960 another four
00:35:50.420 decades before
00:35:51.200 accelerationism
00:35:52.160 was named
00:35:53.580 as such
00:35:54.400 critically by
00:35:56.000 Benjamin
00:35:56.380 Noyes,
00:35:56.940 it was
00:35:57.420 already there
00:35:58.320 in its
00:35:58.720 entirety.
00:35:59.600 The relevant
00:35:59.960 passage is
00:36:00.740 worth repeating
00:36:01.420 in full.
00:36:02.760 All right,
00:36:02.980 so these
00:36:03.300 guys are
00:36:03.900 Marxists,
00:36:04.400 right?
00:36:04.560 So they
00:36:04.940 want to
00:36:05.320 get rid
00:36:05.660 of
00:36:05.820 capitalism.
00:36:07.320 They don't
00:36:07.760 like the
00:36:08.100 capitalist
00:36:08.480 process.
00:36:09.620 And so
00:36:09.940 their answer,
00:36:10.920 they said,
00:36:11.300 rather than
00:36:11.740 trying to
00:36:12.300 destroy
00:36:13.040 capitalism,
00:36:14.200 what we
00:36:14.600 should be
00:36:15.200 doing is
00:36:15.720 accelerate
00:36:16.540 globalism,
00:36:18.160 accelerate
00:36:18.820 this
00:36:19.380 de-territorialization.
00:36:21.700 If we
00:36:22.300 can just
00:36:23.060 accelerate the
00:36:24.160 speed at which
00:36:25.060 capital is not
00:36:26.140 bound to any
00:36:27.360 particular nation
00:36:28.340 or even to
00:36:29.260 the human
00:36:29.620 experience,
00:36:30.700 the faster we
00:36:31.940 can go ahead
00:36:32.580 and guarantee
00:36:33.520 its own
00:36:34.720 destruction.
00:36:35.600 Now,
00:36:35.760 this goes back
00:36:36.360 to the actual,
00:36:37.100 remember I told
00:36:37.600 you this would
00:36:37.960 have some
00:36:38.400 overlap with
00:36:38.960 political
00:36:39.380 accelerationism.
00:36:40.180 So what
00:36:40.800 they're
00:36:40.980 suggesting is
00:36:41.760 we basically
00:36:42.880 we can't
00:36:43.880 defeat
00:36:44.200 capitalism
00:36:44.800 in its
00:36:45.280 current
00:36:45.560 form,
00:36:46.020 but if
00:36:46.560 we can
00:36:46.820 accelerate
00:36:47.420 it out
00:36:49.280 of its
00:36:49.820 governed
00:36:50.900 territorialized
00:36:52.140 form into
00:36:53.220 this
00:36:53.580 de-territorialized
00:36:54.740 form,
00:36:55.440 then we
00:36:56.700 can go ahead
00:36:57.340 and solve
00:36:58.160 this problem
00:36:58.840 by collapsing
00:36:59.620 it that way.
00:37:01.260 And so
00:37:01.600 as Marxists
00:37:02.540 who want to
00:37:03.040 see this
00:37:03.400 process collapse,
00:37:04.680 that's what
00:37:05.360 they're suggesting.
00:37:06.560 Now,
00:37:07.140 this quote
00:37:07.520 here from
00:37:08.520 Noise is very
00:37:09.420 interesting.
00:37:09.900 Let's go ahead
00:37:10.280 and read
00:37:10.460 that real
00:37:10.760 quick.
00:37:11.820 Which is
00:37:12.380 the
00:37:12.540 revolutionary
00:37:13.120 path?
00:37:14.200 Is there
00:37:14.620 one?
00:37:15.260 To withdraw
00:37:15.840 from the
00:37:16.440 world market
00:37:17.140 as Samir
00:37:17.940 Amen,
00:37:18.740 probably the
00:37:19.800 right way to
00:37:20.440 say that,
00:37:20.780 I don't know,
00:37:21.540 advises the
00:37:22.400 third world
00:37:23.060 countries to
00:37:24.080 do in a
00:37:25.020 curious revival
00:37:25.860 of the
00:37:26.300 fascist
00:37:26.740 economic
00:37:27.200 solution,
00:37:28.020 or might
00:37:28.680 it be to
00:37:29.200 go in the
00:37:30.560 opposite
00:37:30.940 direction,
00:37:31.860 to go
00:37:32.240 further,
00:37:33.040 to go
00:37:33.460 still further,
00:37:34.340 that is,
00:37:35.140 in the
00:37:35.560 movement of
00:37:36.240 the market,
00:37:37.140 of decoding
00:37:37.800 and de-territorialization.
00:37:39.420 For perhaps
00:37:40.240 the flows
00:37:40.840 are not yet
00:37:41.660 de-territorialized
00:37:42.660 enough,
00:37:43.600 not decoded
00:37:44.260 enough,
00:37:45.340 from the
00:37:45.700 viewpoint of
00:37:46.320 a theory
00:37:46.840 and a
00:37:48.780 practice of
00:37:49.380 a highly
00:37:49.780 schizophrenic
00:37:50.500 character.
00:37:51.420 Not to
00:37:52.220 withdraw from
00:37:53.120 the process,
00:37:53.780 but to go
00:37:54.140 further in,
00:37:54.820 to accelerate
00:37:55.560 the process.
00:37:56.380 As Nietzsche
00:37:56.840 put it,
00:37:57.480 in this
00:37:57.820 matter,
00:37:58.180 the truth
00:37:58.560 is that
00:37:59.300 we haven't
00:37:59.840 seen anything
00:38:01.060 yet.
00:38:01.860 All right,
00:38:02.180 what he's
00:38:04.140 talking about
00:38:04.720 there,
00:38:04.960 and many
00:38:05.420 people don't
00:38:05.880 know this
00:38:06.400 because in
00:38:07.040 our today's
00:38:08.040 world,
00:38:08.720 fascism is
00:38:09.400 just this
00:38:09.800 catch word,
00:38:10.640 right?
00:38:10.780 It's kind of
00:38:11.440 a contentless
00:38:12.280 word,
00:38:12.520 it just
00:38:12.720 means evil.
00:38:14.280 However,
00:38:14.960 most people
00:38:15.500 don't know
00:38:15.820 that fascism
00:38:16.400 is a
00:38:16.780 specific
00:38:17.240 reaction
00:38:17.980 to political
00:38:20.020 and economic
00:38:20.700 liberalism.
00:38:22.040 It,
00:38:22.060 like Marxism,
00:38:24.060 was attempting
00:38:24.580 to stop
00:38:26.440 this process.
00:38:27.620 However,
00:38:28.080 it had a
00:38:28.640 different
00:38:28.880 solution.
00:38:29.460 solution was
00:38:31.140 to completely
00:38:32.040 withdraw from
00:38:33.680 the world
00:38:34.280 market,
00:38:34.900 to go ahead
00:38:35.340 and try to
00:38:36.080 as much as
00:38:36.520 possible limit
00:38:38.740 its impact
00:38:39.800 on society.
00:38:41.140 They saw
00:38:42.200 that capitalism
00:38:43.620 had a tendency
00:38:44.440 towards globalization
00:38:46.160 and they did
00:38:46.840 not like that,
00:38:47.800 they did not
00:38:48.260 want that,
00:38:49.140 and so their
00:38:49.700 idea was to
00:38:50.320 go ahead and
00:38:50.940 remove that
00:38:52.280 as much as
00:38:52.780 possible.
00:38:53.740 And many
00:38:54.500 Marxists
00:38:55.580 at this
00:38:57.200 point were
00:38:57.640 saying,
00:38:57.960 well,
00:38:58.100 maybe these
00:38:59.320 third world
00:38:59.980 people,
00:39:00.440 if they
00:39:00.520 don't,
00:39:00.880 these third
00:39:01.540 world
00:39:01.680 countries,
00:39:02.420 if they
00:39:02.700 don't want
00:39:02.920 to go
00:39:03.280 down this
00:39:03.880 capitalist
00:39:04.260 route,
00:39:04.540 if they
00:39:04.740 want to
00:39:04.940 unhook
00:39:05.240 themselves
00:39:05.700 from the
00:39:07.080 world market,
00:39:08.440 then their
00:39:08.980 solution could
00:39:09.740 be this
00:39:10.120 economic
00:39:12.160 isolationism,
00:39:13.280 right?
00:39:13.520 They could
00:39:14.100 actually go
00:39:14.520 back to
00:39:14.960 the fascist
00:39:15.860 solution.
00:39:16.940 However,
00:39:17.520 he's suggesting
00:39:18.220 that instead,
00:39:19.760 perhaps,
00:39:20.460 again,
00:39:20.700 it's to
00:39:21.020 accelerate
00:39:21.580 that process,
00:39:23.140 to go ahead
00:39:23.880 and make
00:39:25.340 break it down
00:39:26.560 as thoroughly
00:39:27.380 as possible
00:39:28.540 so that it
00:39:29.440 collapses in
00:39:30.200 on itself.
00:39:31.300 Back to
00:39:32.240 Land's
00:39:34.480 essay here.
00:39:35.500 The point
00:39:35.920 of an
00:39:36.260 analysis of
00:39:37.160 capitalism or
00:39:38.220 nihilism is
00:39:39.060 to do more
00:39:39.760 of it.
00:39:40.500 The process
00:39:40.980 is not to
00:39:41.680 be critiqued.
00:39:42.760 The process
00:39:43.180 is the
00:39:43.860 critique,
00:39:44.680 feeding back
00:39:45.740 into itself
00:39:47.560 as it
00:39:48.160 escalates.
00:39:48.980 The only way
00:39:49.640 forward is
00:39:50.700 through,
00:39:51.600 which means
00:39:52.160 further in.
00:39:53.760 All right,
00:39:54.120 so this is a
00:39:54.980 very fascinating
00:39:56.000 passage here,
00:39:58.280 this couple
00:39:59.120 sentences here,
00:39:59.920 because we
00:40:00.400 actually see
00:40:00.960 this all the
00:40:01.540 time,
00:40:01.900 right?
00:40:02.340 So,
00:40:02.660 for instance,
00:40:03.180 people will
00:40:03.580 often point
00:40:04.280 out correctly
00:40:05.060 that Marxists
00:40:06.580 will try to
00:40:07.360 sell things.
00:40:08.080 They'll try to
00:40:08.540 sell,
00:40:09.180 they'll try to
00:40:09.620 market
00:40:10.060 different
00:40:11.700 products.
00:40:13.500 For instance,
00:40:14.780 someone was
00:40:15.300 just making
00:40:15.740 fun of
00:40:16.240 Hassan Piker
00:40:17.300 today.
00:40:17.560 I'm not super
00:40:18.040 familiar with
00:40:18.720 him,
00:40:19.140 but I know
00:40:19.520 he's a
00:40:19.920 streamer.
00:40:20.680 I think
00:40:21.180 he's related
00:40:22.080 to
00:40:22.980 Shank Uygur
00:40:24.460 from the
00:40:24.800 Young Turks,
00:40:25.540 and he's
00:40:26.300 selling his
00:40:27.460 capitalism in
00:40:29.380 decay merchandise,
00:40:30.500 which is
00:40:30.860 pretty hilarious,
00:40:32.440 right?
00:40:32.660 Like,
00:40:32.860 I'm going to
00:40:33.480 go secure
00:40:33.980 the bag,
00:40:34.520 I'm going to
00:40:34.720 make a bunch
00:40:35.140 of money
00:40:35.560 by selling
00:40:36.580 merch on my
00:40:38.040 website about
00:40:38.940 how capitalism
00:40:39.740 is over.
00:40:41.140 However,
00:40:41.920 this is Nick
00:40:42.420 Land kind of
00:40:42.960 capturing that
00:40:44.580 this would
00:40:45.000 happen,
00:40:45.740 right?
00:40:46.160 He was
00:40:46.740 capturing that
00:40:47.580 this would
00:40:47.880 happen by
00:40:48.380 saying that
00:40:49.080 if you have
00:40:49.680 a critique of
00:40:51.140 capitalism,
00:40:51.560 you're actually
00:40:52.240 going to just
00:40:52.680 end up doing
00:40:53.360 more of that.
00:40:53.940 And we can
00:40:54.180 see this over
00:40:54.700 and over again,
00:40:55.360 right?
00:40:55.800 I'm a
00:40:56.180 Marxist,
00:40:56.740 go contribute
00:40:58.460 to my
00:40:58.860 Patreon,
00:40:59.520 right?
00:40:59.720 Like,
00:40:59.940 these kind
00:41:00.240 of things.
00:41:01.440 I've got to
00:41:02.120 crank out more
00:41:02.660 episodes so I
00:41:04.120 can sell you
00:41:04.920 another storyline
00:41:05.760 about how
00:41:06.480 we're just on
00:41:07.420 the edge of
00:41:08.220 the revolution.
00:41:09.940 Now,
00:41:10.240 go buy some
00:41:11.220 more of my
00:41:11.600 merch,
00:41:11.900 right?
00:41:12.380 This is
00:41:12.680 something that
00:41:13.200 you would
00:41:13.540 expect,
00:41:14.320 and what he's
00:41:15.380 saying here is
00:41:16.920 that there really
00:41:17.540 is no escape
00:41:18.700 from this
00:41:19.300 acceleration of
00:41:20.200 capital.
00:41:20.580 And even
00:41:21.240 your attempt
00:41:21.860 to critique
00:41:22.560 it will
00:41:23.360 simply do
00:41:24.660 more of it.
00:41:25.220 It will just
00:41:25.600 create more
00:41:26.380 of the thing
00:41:26.980 that you are
00:41:27.740 trying to
00:41:28.720 critique,
00:41:29.180 the thing that
00:41:29.580 you're trying
00:41:29.920 to fight
00:41:30.260 against.
00:41:30.620 It's feeding
00:41:31.200 back into
00:41:31.860 itself.
00:41:32.380 It's feeding
00:41:33.300 back into
00:41:33.640 that feedback
00:41:34.000 loop.
00:41:34.900 It's creating
00:41:35.540 the cybernetic
00:41:36.260 feedback loop
00:41:37.880 that already
00:41:38.800 accelerates what's
00:41:40.400 happening.
00:41:41.380 Back to the
00:41:42.000 essay here.
00:41:43.080 Marx has his
00:41:44.260 own accelerationist
00:41:45.440 fragment,
00:41:46.360 which anticipates
00:41:47.300 the passage from
00:41:48.080 Anti-Oedipus
00:41:48.720 remarkably.
00:41:49.340 He says in
00:41:50.480 an 1848 speech
00:41:52.720 on the question
00:41:53.280 of free trade,
00:41:54.020 he's quoting
00:41:54.460 Marx here,
00:41:55.420 in general,
00:41:56.140 the protective
00:41:56.620 system of our
00:41:57.620 day is
00:41:58.500 conservative,
00:41:59.580 while the
00:41:59.900 free trade
00:42:00.300 system is
00:42:00.940 destructive.
00:42:02.060 It breaks
00:42:02.420 up old
00:42:03.060 nationalities
00:42:03.960 and pushes
00:42:04.560 the antagonism
00:42:06.460 of the
00:42:07.220 proletariat
00:42:07.800 and the
00:42:08.260 bourgeoisie
00:42:08.900 to the
00:42:09.260 extreme point.
00:42:10.720 In a word,
00:42:11.500 the free trade
00:42:12.000 system hastens
00:42:13.240 the social
00:42:13.840 revolution.
00:42:14.480 It is in
00:42:17.220 this revolutionary
00:42:18.060 sense alone,
00:42:19.580 gentlemen,
00:42:20.240 that I vote
00:42:21.080 in favor of
00:42:22.500 free trade.
00:42:23.720 All right,
00:42:24.160 so we can
00:42:24.700 see what he's
00:42:26.040 pointing out
00:42:26.540 here is from
00:42:27.320 the beginning,
00:42:28.600 Marxism,
00:42:29.340 and a lot of
00:42:29.820 people forget
00:42:30.460 this about
00:42:31.000 Marx because
00:42:31.980 Marxism tended
00:42:33.800 to only take
00:42:34.480 hold in these
00:42:35.200 third world
00:42:35.940 countries.
00:42:37.580 You know,
00:42:37.820 Marx's original
00:42:39.000 prediction was
00:42:40.120 that capitalism
00:42:40.980 would collapse
00:42:42.760 into Marxism,
00:42:44.200 that capitalism
00:42:44.960 would destroy
00:42:46.340 itself,
00:42:47.240 it would go
00:42:47.660 too far,
00:42:48.840 its contradictions
00:42:49.500 would overwhelm
00:42:50.300 itself,
00:42:51.040 and then the
00:42:51.980 necessary communist
00:42:53.340 revolution would
00:42:54.020 come out of
00:42:55.140 these capitalist
00:42:56.680 bourgeoisie
00:42:58.100 nations.
00:42:58.960 And I know
00:42:59.540 I'm saying that
00:43:00.040 wrong,
00:43:00.400 there's a right
00:43:00.820 way to say it,
00:43:01.340 but I always
00:43:01.780 mispronounce it,
00:43:02.340 people yell at me,
00:43:03.620 we move on.
00:43:04.620 I can't speak
00:43:05.180 French.
00:43:05.720 Here we go.
00:43:06.440 So,
00:43:07.040 the collapse
00:43:09.300 of these things
00:43:09.960 was supposed to
00:43:10.600 be the way
00:43:11.060 that Marxism
00:43:11.660 took hold,
00:43:12.180 but of course
00:43:12.580 Marx was wrong.
00:43:13.460 Marxism is wrong.
00:43:14.680 Marx fail,
00:43:15.840 right?
00:43:16.080 And we can see
00:43:16.740 that because the
00:43:17.360 places that
00:43:17.780 Marxism actually
00:43:19.400 took hold
00:43:20.540 were all these
00:43:21.780 third world
00:43:22.640 nations that
00:43:23.300 needed to
00:43:23.740 accelerate their
00:43:24.540 development.
00:43:25.560 So,
00:43:25.920 what you notice
00:43:26.520 is that China
00:43:27.540 and Russia
00:43:28.560 become Marxist
00:43:30.660 and not places
00:43:31.480 like England
00:43:32.360 or the United
00:43:33.260 States,
00:43:34.120 the places that
00:43:34.620 you would expect
00:43:35.120 to become Marxist.
00:43:36.300 And that's because
00:43:36.780 Marxism failed
00:43:37.940 as an economic
00:43:38.720 theory,
00:43:39.260 but what it
00:43:39.600 succeeded in
00:43:40.820 was creating
00:43:42.160 an alternative
00:43:43.000 form of
00:43:43.780 modernization
00:43:44.660 for third
00:43:45.500 world countries
00:43:46.020 that didn't
00:43:46.540 want to join
00:43:47.160 the liberal
00:43:47.640 world order.
00:43:48.660 So,
00:43:48.860 if you're Russia
00:43:49.340 or you're China
00:43:50.080 and you want
00:43:50.760 to go ahead
00:43:51.240 and modernize
00:43:52.220 at a higher
00:43:53.940 rate,
00:43:54.540 but you don't
00:43:55.080 want to join
00:43:55.720 the United
00:43:56.340 States and
00:43:56.940 England and
00:43:57.380 others in
00:43:57.740 the liberal
00:43:58.000 world order,
00:43:58.960 you pick
00:43:59.400 Marxism.
00:43:59.980 Not because
00:44:00.540 it's economically
00:44:01.500 sound,
00:44:02.340 in fact,
00:44:02.680 we found out
00:44:03.160 it was
00:44:03.360 economically
00:44:03.800 disastrous,
00:44:04.920 but because
00:44:05.240 it allows you
00:44:05.700 to basically
00:44:06.100 centralize power
00:44:07.160 and modernize
00:44:08.420 as rapidly
00:44:08.920 as possible
00:44:09.640 by kind
00:44:10.900 of just
00:44:11.360 grasping
00:44:11.900 everything,
00:44:12.500 grasping
00:44:12.760 the means
00:44:13.060 of production
00:44:13.460 and smashing
00:44:14.140 them until
00:44:14.640 you can go
00:44:15.700 ahead and
00:44:16.060 start cranking
00:44:16.700 out AK-47s
00:44:17.920 and a space
00:44:19.420 program.
00:44:20.440 And so
00:44:20.960 Marxism
00:44:22.880 failed in
00:44:23.600 the economic
00:44:24.280 sphere.
00:44:24.960 And so
00:44:25.300 what we see
00:44:26.240 here is
00:44:26.740 in many ways
00:44:28.060 Marx encouraged
00:44:29.560 free trade,
00:44:30.280 right?
00:44:30.460 Because what
00:44:31.020 Marx did
00:44:31.740 notice,
00:44:32.140 and he's got
00:44:32.880 some points
00:44:33.380 here,
00:44:33.620 guys,
00:44:34.160 whether you
00:44:34.420 like it or
00:44:34.740 not,
00:44:35.280 is that
00:44:35.640 free trade
00:44:36.340 actually
00:44:37.460 causes a
00:44:38.220 problem
00:44:38.520 for nations.
00:44:39.640 Marx wanted
00:44:40.260 to destroy
00:44:40.720 nations.
00:44:41.300 He did
00:44:41.560 not like
00:44:42.060 them,
00:44:42.500 right?
00:44:42.700 That's the
00:44:43.300 whole point
00:44:44.080 here.
00:44:44.880 And so
00:44:45.320 they want
00:44:46.140 to get rid
00:44:46.600 of nationalism.
00:44:47.380 They want
00:44:47.620 to get rid
00:44:48.120 of nationalities
00:44:50.160 of the
00:44:50.760 nation-state.
00:44:51.880 And so
00:44:52.560 what's the
00:44:53.040 best way
00:44:53.320 to do
00:44:53.580 that?
00:44:53.820 Well,
00:44:53.960 you go
00:44:54.200 ahead and
00:44:54.500 accelerate
00:44:55.060 their
00:44:55.340 deterioration
00:44:56.200 through
00:44:56.560 free trade.
00:44:57.760 And so
00:44:58.040 he says
00:44:58.380 free trade
00:44:58.980 causes a
00:44:59.640 problem
00:44:59.960 for the
00:45:00.440 existence
00:45:00.960 of nations.
00:45:01.640 And because
00:45:02.000 I like
00:45:02.780 that,
00:45:03.120 I like
00:45:03.440 the antagonism
00:45:04.260 it creates
00:45:04.940 inside the
00:45:05.440 proletariat.
00:45:05.960 I like
00:45:06.420 the fact
00:45:07.080 that it
00:45:08.440 goes ahead
00:45:08.900 and creates
00:45:09.420 this animosity
00:45:10.260 between the
00:45:11.080 proletariat
00:45:12.020 and the
00:45:12.380 bourgeoisie.
00:45:13.980 I want to
00:45:14.900 accelerate that.
00:45:15.740 And so
00:45:15.940 in this
00:45:16.380 case,
00:45:16.820 in this
00:45:17.180 way,
00:45:17.560 I am
00:45:18.200 a free
00:45:19.160 trader.
00:45:20.020 And that
00:45:20.320 was Karl
00:45:21.320 Marx
00:45:21.580 basically
00:45:22.240 prefiguring
00:45:24.320 the idea
00:45:25.080 of
00:45:25.680 accelerationism,
00:45:26.960 that he
00:45:27.800 would indulge
00:45:28.560 in the
00:45:29.480 acceleration
00:45:30.160 of capital
00:45:31.040 only to
00:45:32.040 the point
00:45:32.440 where he
00:45:32.880 thinks it's
00:45:33.400 going to
00:45:33.580 go ahead
00:45:33.840 and collapse
00:45:34.420 itself.
00:45:35.160 So back
00:45:35.840 to the
00:45:36.680 essay here.
00:45:37.720 In this
00:45:38.580 germinal
00:45:39.020 accelerationist
00:45:39.880 matrix,
00:45:40.580 there is no
00:45:41.080 distinction
00:45:41.800 to be made
00:45:42.900 between the
00:45:43.360 destruction of
00:45:43.920 capitalism
00:45:44.360 and its
00:45:45.560 intensification.
00:45:46.960 The auto
00:45:47.240 destruction of
00:45:47.920 capitalism
00:45:48.400 is what
00:45:49.180 capitalism
00:45:49.600 is.
00:45:50.540 The creative
00:45:50.960 destruction
00:45:51.480 is the
00:45:52.140 whole of
00:45:52.720 it.
00:45:53.280 Besides
00:45:53.560 only its
00:45:54.620 retardations,
00:45:55.920 partial
00:45:56.180 compensations,
00:45:57.100 and
00:45:57.680 inhibitions,
00:45:59.440 capital
00:45:59.800 revolutionizes
00:46:00.980 itself more
00:46:01.820 thoroughly than
00:46:02.720 any extrinsic
00:46:04.320 revolution possibly
00:46:05.660 could.
00:46:06.440 If subsequent
00:46:06.940 history has not
00:46:08.120 vindicated this
00:46:09.060 point beyond all
00:46:09.940 question, it
00:46:10.900 has at least
00:46:11.520 simulated such
00:46:14.160 a vindication
00:46:15.100 to a maddening
00:46:16.640 degree.
00:46:17.920 So what he's
00:46:18.760 saying there is
00:46:19.680 that for many
00:46:20.880 of these Marxists,
00:46:22.080 the thing they
00:46:23.500 kind of arrived
00:46:24.160 at is we
00:46:25.000 can't get,
00:46:26.300 we can't like
00:46:26.800 defeat capitalism.
00:46:28.120 Like capitalism
00:46:28.680 is basically
00:46:30.220 not going to
00:46:32.160 like be
00:46:32.640 dismantled.
00:46:34.080 And so it's
00:46:34.840 the only thing
00:46:35.520 that's going to
00:46:36.540 kind of pull
00:46:37.220 apart the
00:46:37.960 tensions of
00:46:38.660 capitalism is
00:46:39.720 to accelerate
00:46:40.540 it, to move
00:46:41.420 it beyond its
00:46:42.540 caring about the
00:46:43.600 individual and
00:46:44.540 the family, the
00:46:46.240 community, and
00:46:47.260 the nation.
00:46:48.340 And to accelerate
00:46:49.100 it to the point
00:46:49.560 where it no longer
00:46:50.140 serves those
00:46:51.000 things.
00:46:51.920 And it creates
00:46:52.820 this globalism
00:46:53.960 and that is
00:46:55.140 so, and that
00:46:56.460 is going to
00:46:56.980 create so
00:46:57.740 many problems
00:46:58.320 that it will
00:46:58.920 kind of collapse
00:46:59.600 in on itself,
00:47:00.480 right?
00:47:01.060 And he says
00:47:01.560 to some degree,
00:47:02.480 obviously, we
00:47:03.200 can look at the
00:47:03.840 globalization
00:47:04.340 process and
00:47:06.200 realize there's
00:47:07.100 some truth to
00:47:07.580 this, right?
00:47:08.380 Again, Marx's
00:47:09.320 solution is
00:47:10.000 terrible and
00:47:11.280 it's been proven
00:47:12.060 entirely wrong.
00:47:13.620 However, the
00:47:14.220 problem that if
00:47:16.040 capital is
00:47:18.040 de-territorialized,
00:47:19.240 if it decouples
00:47:20.000 itself from the
00:47:21.700 people it's
00:47:22.180 supposed to
00:47:22.600 serve, from the
00:47:24.060 nations it's
00:47:24.940 supposed to
00:47:25.240 serve, from
00:47:25.620 the communities
00:47:26.080 it's supposed
00:47:26.520 to serve, if
00:47:27.520 it removes
00:47:28.140 itself from
00:47:28.720 its original
00:47:29.200 human purpose
00:47:30.160 and is allowed
00:47:31.040 to accelerate
00:47:31.920 on its own,
00:47:33.320 it does create
00:47:34.360 many of the
00:47:35.040 problems that
00:47:35.880 Marx and
00:47:36.340 others anticipated.
00:47:37.720 Their desire
00:47:38.460 to accelerate
00:47:39.900 that process is
00:47:41.580 the desire to
00:47:42.280 destroy nations,
00:47:43.460 right?
00:47:43.640 Is to destroy
00:47:44.500 what we
00:47:46.480 understand as
00:47:48.040 kind of good
00:47:48.540 social order.
00:47:50.100 And so that's
00:47:50.880 that's why
00:47:51.980 Marx wanted
00:47:53.860 uninhibited
00:47:55.180 capitalism, at
00:47:56.640 least for a
00:47:57.180 short time,
00:47:57.800 because he
00:47:58.380 hoped that its
00:47:59.040 meltdown process
00:48:00.120 would then bring
00:48:00.920 about his
00:48:02.100 revolution that
00:48:05.020 he wanted so
00:48:05.580 much.
00:48:06.160 Now, here he's
00:48:06.860 going to dive
00:48:07.420 into the
00:48:08.200 differences between
00:48:08.960 left and right
00:48:09.860 accelerationism, and
00:48:11.740 this gets pretty
00:48:12.600 into the weeds.
00:48:13.660 If you would
00:48:13.900 like to read
00:48:14.760 this essay for
00:48:15.760 yourself, I
00:48:16.780 would go ahead
00:48:18.520 and encourage you
00:48:19.240 to do so.
00:48:19.940 But this is
00:48:20.940 going to get
00:48:21.340 a little
00:48:21.680 particular, and
00:48:22.580 some of this
00:48:23.080 is kind of no
00:48:24.060 longer relevant.
00:48:24.740 He wrote this
00:48:25.180 essay a while
00:48:27.180 ago, and so I
00:48:28.240 think that's
00:48:28.920 going to fly
00:48:29.400 over our
00:48:30.160 head in some
00:48:32.420 ways.
00:48:33.240 But I will go
00:48:34.280 ahead and jump
00:48:34.780 to this paragraph
00:48:35.780 here.
00:48:36.260 He says,
00:48:36.820 Capital in its
00:48:37.460 ultimate self-definition
00:48:38.540 is nothing besides
00:48:39.420 the abstract
00:48:40.140 accelerative social
00:48:42.180 factor.
00:48:43.180 Its positive
00:48:43.740 cybernetic
00:48:44.360 schema exhausts
00:48:45.780 it.
00:48:46.340 Runaway consumes
00:48:48.140 its identity.
00:48:49.000 Every other
00:48:50.080 determination is
00:48:51.580 shucked off as
00:48:52.880 an accident at
00:48:55.460 some stage of
00:48:56.820 its intensification
00:48:58.240 process.
00:48:59.540 Since anything
00:49:00.140 able to
00:49:00.820 constantly feed
00:49:01.640 social historical
00:49:02.520 acceleration will
00:49:03.680 necessarily by its
00:49:04.820 essence be
00:49:05.540 capital, the
00:49:06.500 prospect of any
00:49:07.740 unambiguously left
00:49:09.300 accelerationism gaining
00:49:11.040 serious momentum can
00:49:12.480 be confidently
00:49:13.280 dismissed.
00:49:14.240 Acceleration is
00:49:15.000 simply the self-awareness
00:49:16.180 of capitalism which
00:49:17.180 has scarcely begun.
00:49:18.540 So he's
00:49:19.200 saying that the
00:49:20.080 left-wing
00:49:20.760 understanding of
00:49:21.740 accelerationism
00:49:22.620 basically ends
00:49:24.040 up failing.
00:49:24.700 It's not actually
00:49:25.520 going to do its
00:49:26.140 job.
00:49:27.340 And so he
00:49:28.340 ends up
00:49:28.820 kind of
00:49:30.320 siding with a
00:49:31.800 right-wing version
00:49:32.580 of accelerationism.
00:49:33.600 Again, a little
00:49:34.640 beyond what we're
00:49:35.320 talking about today.
00:49:37.340 But then he says,
00:49:38.460 as blockchains,
00:49:39.580 drone logistics,
00:49:40.560 nanotechnology,
00:49:41.540 quantum computing,
00:49:42.880 computational
00:49:43.360 genomics,
00:49:44.540 and virtual reality
00:49:46.540 flood in,
00:49:47.260 drenched in ever
00:49:48.020 higher densities of
00:49:49.660 artificial intelligence,
00:49:50.860 accelerationism won't
00:49:52.740 be going anywhere
00:49:53.720 unless ever deeper
00:49:56.500 into itself.
00:49:57.480 To be rushed by the
00:49:59.080 phenomenon to the
00:50:00.300 point of terminal
00:50:01.360 institutional paralysis
00:50:02.580 is the phenomenon.
00:50:04.340 Naturally, which is to
00:50:05.740 say completely
00:50:06.460 inevitably, the human
00:50:08.000 species will define
00:50:09.300 this ultimate terrestrial
00:50:11.100 event as a problem.
00:50:12.300 To see it is
00:50:14.520 all ready to say
00:50:15.480 we have to do
00:50:16.620 something, to which
00:50:17.660 accelerationism can
00:50:18.740 only respond, you're
00:50:19.840 finally saying that
00:50:20.660 now, perhaps we
00:50:21.700 ought to get
00:50:22.360 started.
00:50:23.240 In its colder
00:50:24.480 variants, which are
00:50:25.880 those that went
00:50:26.660 out, it tends to
00:50:28.080 laugh.
00:50:28.640 All right, so what
00:50:29.440 he's saying there is
00:50:30.800 that accelerationism is
00:50:31.980 not going away, as
00:50:32.920 we can see by the
00:50:34.180 number of
00:50:34.880 technologies that
00:50:35.700 have continued to
00:50:36.840 collapse our
00:50:37.300 decision space,
00:50:38.200 continue to
00:50:38.880 accelerate as our
00:50:39.600 world only gets
00:50:40.180 more interconnected
00:50:41.440 and decisions
00:50:42.860 impact more and
00:50:45.000 more people
00:50:45.540 simultaneously, the
00:50:47.500 ability to make
00:50:49.060 actual decisions
00:50:50.060 starts to fall
00:50:50.980 apart.
00:50:52.480 And so this is
00:50:54.900 not going away.
00:50:56.400 And again, we can
00:50:57.120 see the way that
00:50:57.820 this impacts the
00:50:59.380 world around us.
00:51:00.320 The fact that our
00:51:01.380 leaders can
00:51:03.420 recognize certain
00:51:04.880 problems, right?
00:51:06.220 Like, we're
00:51:07.020 starting to figure
00:51:07.800 out that mass
00:51:08.780 immigration, that
00:51:09.500 open borders is a
00:51:10.500 problem.
00:51:10.840 We're starting to
00:51:11.860 figure out that
00:51:13.300 having companies
00:51:14.080 that don't care
00:51:14.920 about family
00:51:15.960 formation, having
00:51:17.940 governments that
00:51:18.660 don't care about
00:51:19.500 the next generation,
00:51:20.480 don't care about
00:51:21.060 human concerns is
00:51:22.320 an issue.
00:51:23.500 But we don't
00:51:24.380 really know what
00:51:25.000 to do about it.
00:51:25.880 For the left, it's
00:51:26.840 just kind of like,
00:51:27.500 oh, well, let's
00:51:28.260 tax it or something,
00:51:29.700 right?
00:51:30.140 But ultimately,
00:51:31.720 they side with the
00:51:33.660 globalization.
00:51:34.520 They kind of want
00:51:35.360 the one world
00:51:36.020 community.
00:51:36.880 They want anyone
00:51:37.540 to be able to move
00:51:38.400 here.
00:51:38.700 They want the
00:51:39.400 free flow of
00:51:40.120 people and capital
00:51:41.300 to continue really
00:51:42.400 at the end of the
00:51:42.940 day.
00:51:43.560 They just want to
00:51:44.080 be able to milk it
00:51:45.100 for as much power
00:51:45.960 as they can.
00:51:47.180 And the right is
00:51:47.960 starting to recognize
00:51:49.100 the problems that
00:51:49.840 this causes for the
00:51:50.780 nation, but they
00:51:52.380 don't understand how
00:51:53.200 you could limit it
00:51:53.960 because any
00:51:56.120 understanding of how
00:51:57.640 you could limit it
00:51:58.300 would require us to
00:51:59.220 make decisions that
00:52:00.160 would limit our
00:52:00.880 ability to, say,
00:52:01.760 use particular
00:52:02.460 technologies.
00:52:03.140 We would have to
00:52:04.340 reconnect corporate
00:52:06.540 profits and the
00:52:07.920 actions of corporations
00:52:08.960 with the good of the
00:52:10.820 nation, with the good
00:52:11.700 of the community,
00:52:12.880 the people it's
00:52:13.640 supposed to serve.
00:52:14.480 We might have to
00:52:15.300 limit certain
00:52:15.840 practices.
00:52:16.660 We might have to
00:52:17.520 reground the
00:52:18.600 decisions that we
00:52:19.480 make about the
00:52:20.820 way that we create
00:52:21.740 businesses or
00:52:22.560 communities to
00:52:24.380 actual people in the
00:52:26.180 way they live.
00:52:27.060 But each of these
00:52:27.660 things would limit
00:52:28.320 the ability for the
00:52:29.300 line to go up,
00:52:30.280 right?
00:52:30.460 So in our line-go-up
00:52:31.780 culture, in our
00:52:32.920 line-go-up even
00:52:33.840 conservatism, it's
00:52:35.780 hard for us to think
00:52:36.700 about actually limiting
00:52:38.140 these processes back
00:52:40.140 to serving specific
00:52:41.400 people.
00:52:42.460 And so that is the
00:52:43.600 problem that
00:52:44.220 accelerationism presents
00:52:45.780 to us.
00:52:46.660 We have an ever-
00:52:47.820 accelerating world.
00:52:50.100 We have a world that
00:52:51.140 is more connected
00:52:51.920 where technology and
00:52:53.480 capital feedback for
00:52:54.520 themselves constantly
00:52:55.660 interact with each
00:52:56.420 other, move things
00:52:57.460 faster and faster.
00:52:58.980 And we are just
00:52:59.800 starting to recognize
00:53:00.460 that that is an
00:53:02.100 issue.
00:53:02.980 But we have made
00:53:04.340 our deliberating
00:53:05.380 bodies as
00:53:06.540 distributed as
00:53:07.700 possible, so they're
00:53:08.420 getting worse and
00:53:09.120 worse at dealing
00:53:09.780 with that very
00:53:10.560 problem.
00:53:11.760 And we're running
00:53:13.740 out of time to
00:53:14.540 actually go ahead
00:53:15.380 and investigate
00:53:16.960 that problem.
00:53:18.540 So no immediate
00:53:19.880 solutions here,
00:53:20.720 obviously.
00:53:21.440 Sorry, this is not
00:53:22.220 a happy fun time
00:53:24.760 essay.
00:53:25.900 But it is something
00:53:26.900 that matters, right?
00:53:27.800 And it helps us
00:53:29.160 think about the
00:53:30.080 way that we
00:53:31.520 should be addressing
00:53:32.280 these issues, if
00:53:33.320 these issues can
00:53:33.940 even be addressed
00:53:34.640 at a civilizational
00:53:35.780 level.
00:53:36.440 I think the
00:53:37.080 ultimate answer to
00:53:37.940 this is actually
00:53:38.820 localization.
00:53:40.420 It's the
00:53:41.200 understanding that
00:53:42.500 these decisions
00:53:43.520 won't be solved
00:53:44.480 globally, that this
00:53:45.520 process is probably
00:53:46.520 going to run away
00:53:47.340 to some extent no
00:53:48.420 matter what.
00:53:49.260 And the best thing
00:53:50.040 that we can do is
00:53:51.740 go ahead and make
00:53:52.520 our communities
00:53:53.340 stronger, make our
00:53:54.480 states stronger, make
00:53:55.720 our families stronger,
00:53:56.440 make all of these
00:53:57.220 things more
00:53:57.700 resistant and
00:53:59.220 resilient, because
00:54:00.480 this process seems
00:54:02.180 like it's going to
00:54:02.920 escape the ability
00:54:04.100 of our decision
00:54:04.960 makers to go ahead
00:54:05.840 and do anything
00:54:06.300 about it.
00:54:06.760 I mean, obviously
00:54:07.820 Joe Biden's not
00:54:08.500 going to fix any
00:54:09.000 of this stuff.
00:54:09.540 And if you look
00:54:09.920 at the Republicans,
00:54:10.800 it doesn't feel
00:54:11.500 like they have
00:54:12.000 any solution
00:54:12.920 to these problems
00:54:13.600 either.
00:54:14.380 However, if we
00:54:15.060 localize this stuff,
00:54:16.460 if we stop
00:54:17.180 exploding the world,
00:54:18.120 if we stop
00:54:18.600 interconnectivity as
00:54:19.660 much as possible
00:54:20.460 as we can, we
00:54:21.840 might be able to
00:54:23.080 go ahead and make
00:54:25.160 things better for
00:54:26.160 our own families,
00:54:26.960 our own communities
00:54:27.820 as much as
00:54:28.460 possible.
00:54:29.220 All right, guys,
00:54:29.640 I'm going to go
00:54:30.040 ahead and switch
00:54:31.060 over to the
00:54:32.040 questions of the
00:54:33.020 people here.
00:54:35.620 Jesse D says,
00:54:37.380 the Jesus movement,
00:54:38.720 moral majority,
00:54:39.540 liberty, you,
00:54:40.520 apocalyptic,
00:54:41.380 shaped our world
00:54:42.300 from support for
00:54:44.180 Israel to abandonment
00:54:45.100 of the future,
00:54:45.860 made patriotism
00:54:46.960 absurd.
00:54:49.180 Yeah, there's a
00:54:50.360 lot there.
00:54:52.480 I will say this,
00:54:54.040 it certainly
00:54:55.240 helps if our
00:54:56.820 nation is
00:54:59.840 considering its
00:55:01.280 own well-being
00:55:02.320 first.
00:55:03.620 I find it kind
00:55:04.760 of absurd that
00:55:05.720 we have a
00:55:06.320 political movement
00:55:06.980 that says it's
00:55:07.860 for America
00:55:08.420 first, but
00:55:10.120 doesn't do so.
00:55:11.640 I don't think
00:55:12.000 our money should
00:55:12.500 go to Ukraine.
00:55:13.440 I don't think
00:55:13.780 our money should
00:55:14.260 be going to
00:55:14.660 Israel.
00:55:15.140 I don't think
00:55:15.440 our money should
00:55:15.780 be going to
00:55:16.180 foreign nations
00:55:16.720 at all.
00:55:17.580 I think that
00:55:18.240 our money should
00:55:19.060 be staying here.
00:55:19.940 It's the same
00:55:20.320 with our military,
00:55:21.320 the same with
00:55:21.820 everything that we
00:55:22.600 can.
00:55:22.900 our efforts
00:55:23.780 should be
00:55:24.280 focused on
00:55:25.040 making America
00:55:25.880 and its people
00:55:26.680 as prosperous
00:55:27.900 and healthy
00:55:28.560 and safe
00:55:29.180 and give them
00:55:29.740 the best lives
00:55:30.500 that they can
00:55:30.920 have.
00:55:31.780 And the fact
00:55:32.940 that many in
00:55:34.920 the conservative
00:55:35.340 movement seem
00:55:36.180 very interested
00:55:37.960 with the well-being
00:55:38.820 of other nations
00:55:40.180 that are not
00:55:41.480 our own,
00:55:43.300 to the detriment
00:55:44.180 of our own,
00:55:45.020 does seem to
00:55:46.160 make that brand
00:55:49.040 of patriotism
00:55:50.060 somewhat of an
00:55:51.900 absurdity.
00:55:53.240 Let's see
00:55:53.740 here.
00:55:55.260 Cooper Weirdo
00:55:55.840 says,
00:55:56.240 I was always
00:55:56.740 under the
00:55:57.120 impression
00:55:57.440 that Land
00:55:58.140 was spewing
00:55:59.100 literal
00:55:59.540 commie
00:55:59.940 gobbledygook.
00:56:00.640 I never
00:56:00.940 really understood
00:56:01.520 it,
00:56:01.820 though.
00:56:02.420 That was my
00:56:02.920 impression.
00:56:03.480 Yeah,
00:56:03.860 and to some
00:56:04.260 extent,
00:56:04.800 that's true.
00:56:05.580 Obviously,
00:56:05.980 we can see
00:56:06.400 the Marxism
00:56:06.940 that is
00:56:07.420 certainly
00:56:08.420 tinged in
00:56:08.940 there.
00:56:09.240 Like I
00:56:09.500 said,
00:56:10.500 Land has
00:56:10.980 taken quite
00:56:11.820 a journey
00:56:12.300 on this,
00:56:13.580 to be sure,
00:56:14.340 but that is
00:56:14.940 certainly
00:56:15.620 somewhere in
00:56:16.160 his analysis.
00:56:17.260 I've seen
00:56:17.840 Land say
00:56:18.600 that the
00:56:19.520 reason he
00:56:19.900 used so much
00:56:20.340 of this
00:56:20.580 language,
00:56:21.140 it was the
00:56:22.600 language of
00:56:23.060 the academy
00:56:23.600 at the
00:56:23.980 time,
00:56:24.880 and so
00:56:25.220 that's kind
00:56:25.660 of just
00:56:25.940 the soup
00:56:26.660 he was
00:56:26.980 swimming in.
00:56:28.020 I think
00:56:28.580 that's true
00:56:29.160 to some
00:56:29.500 extent,
00:56:29.880 but I think
00:56:30.200 also he
00:56:30.680 probably,
00:56:31.280 having read
00:56:31.640 some of his
00:56:32.000 earlier essays,
00:56:32.780 believed in
00:56:33.400 that stuff
00:56:33.800 pretty heavily
00:56:34.340 at the time,
00:56:35.940 so maybe
00:56:36.640 that's a
00:56:37.020 little bit
00:56:37.280 of cope
00:56:37.580 on his
00:56:37.940 part,
00:56:38.660 but that
00:56:39.320 said,
00:56:39.900 you're right
00:56:41.280 that some
00:56:41.580 of that's
00:56:41.880 there,
00:56:42.180 but I do
00:56:42.540 think there's
00:56:43.000 value in
00:56:44.280 what we're
00:56:44.940 looking at
00:56:45.380 here.
00:56:45.560 I think
00:56:45.860 it does
00:56:46.120 say
00:56:46.360 something
00:56:46.700 important
00:56:47.260 about the
00:56:47.980 problem
00:56:48.200 that we're
00:56:48.520 facing,
00:56:49.080 even though
00:56:49.480 obviously,
00:56:49.880 as we
00:56:50.260 say,
00:56:50.940 the Marxist
00:56:51.420 solutions are
00:56:52.060 horrific and
00:56:53.120 should not be
00:56:54.000 followed at
00:56:54.760 all.
00:56:55.600 Let's see,
00:56:56.240 Creepy Reardon
00:56:56.620 says,
00:56:57.000 it's like he's
00:56:57.520 describing AI
00:56:58.220 art,
00:56:58.780 that's spooky,
00:56:59.760 yeah,
00:57:00.080 isn't it,
00:57:00.660 right?
00:57:02.400 It's,
00:57:02.940 remember,
00:57:03.500 this essay,
00:57:04.160 I want to say
00:57:04.860 it was written,
00:57:05.380 it's at least
00:57:05.780 a decade ago,
00:57:06.480 maybe more,
00:57:07.740 and so it's
00:57:08.500 interesting how
00:57:09.720 predictive it is,
00:57:10.900 right?
00:57:11.080 So I think
00:57:11.860 there is some
00:57:13.460 merit to it
00:57:16.380 in its ability
00:57:17.240 to predict
00:57:17.620 a certain
00:57:17.900 phenomenon.
00:57:18.540 Again,
00:57:18.680 you don't have
00:57:19.120 to take the
00:57:19.480 whole thing
00:57:19.720 to heart,
00:57:20.080 guys,
00:57:20.660 just because
00:57:21.100 we explore
00:57:21.600 an idea
00:57:22.020 does not
00:57:22.440 mean that
00:57:22.780 you have
00:57:23.100 to swallow
00:57:23.540 it whole,
00:57:23.980 that you
00:57:24.200 have to
00:57:24.440 embrace all
00:57:25.500 aspects of
00:57:26.320 it,
00:57:26.820 but I want
00:57:28.080 to bring
00:57:28.440 these different
00:57:28.880 sources to
00:57:29.520 you,
00:57:29.800 that's part
00:57:30.380 I think
00:57:30.700 why people
00:57:31.120 come and
00:57:32.100 watch this
00:57:32.620 show as
00:57:33.120 opposed to
00:57:33.520 others,
00:57:34.100 if you want
00:57:35.280 to get the
00:57:35.600 news of the
00:57:35.960 day,
00:57:36.600 if you want
00:57:36.900 someone screaming
00:57:37.500 about Candace
00:57:38.180 Owens or
00:57:38.780 something right
00:57:39.580 now,
00:57:39.820 you can go
00:57:40.200 do that,
00:57:40.520 there's a lot
00:57:40.780 of people
00:57:40.980 doing that,
00:57:41.820 there's plenty
00:57:42.560 of people
00:57:42.880 talking about
00:57:43.520 whatever,
00:57:44.420 what's going
00:57:45.160 on,
00:57:45.580 and that's
00:57:46.700 a legitimate
00:57:47.360 service for
00:57:47.940 a lot of
00:57:48.200 people to
00:57:48.640 provide,
00:57:49.500 but I try
00:57:50.520 to bring
00:57:50.920 in some
00:57:51.520 out-of-the-box
00:57:52.660 stuff so
00:57:53.740 people can
00:57:54.040 explore it,
00:57:54.520 but that
00:57:54.700 doesn't mean
00:57:54.980 that you
00:57:55.260 have to go
00:57:55.620 ahead and
00:57:56.360 jump into
00:57:57.300 everything that
00:57:58.140 we look at
00:57:58.660 with both
00:57:59.080 feet.
00:57:59.600 There are
00:57:59.940 certainly
00:58:00.300 things I
00:58:00.760 disagree with
00:58:01.360 Nick Land
00:58:01.760 on,
00:58:02.500 and that
00:58:03.740 doesn't mean
00:58:04.480 that his
00:58:04.820 insights aren't
00:58:05.280 valuable,
00:58:05.940 but that also
00:58:06.540 doesn't mean
00:58:06.920 I need to
00:58:07.320 follow every
00:58:07.800 step that
00:58:08.180 he's taking.
00:58:09.540 Creepy
00:58:09.900 Weirder says
00:58:10.360 fascism equals
00:58:12.220 not leftism
00:58:13.020 and therefore
00:58:13.440 bad.
00:58:13.840 Yeah,
00:58:14.020 that is very
00:58:15.020 much the
00:58:15.420 formulation.
00:58:16.620 Anything that's
00:58:17.060 not leftism
00:58:17.760 is fascism
00:58:18.420 and therefore
00:58:18.880 everything that
00:58:19.940 opposes leftism
00:58:20.740 is the worst
00:58:21.480 thing ever
00:58:22.380 because we know
00:58:23.080 that that's the
00:58:23.620 worst thing ever.
00:58:24.580 All we can do
00:58:25.140 is debate these
00:58:25.920 movements from
00:58:26.820 last century.
00:58:28.560 We can't have
00:58:29.280 any understanding
00:58:30.500 of our current
00:58:31.020 situation.
00:58:31.780 We just keep
00:58:32.640 screaming about
00:58:33.420 dead ghosts.
00:58:35.900 Fuller to
00:58:36.380 Henry says,
00:58:36.900 are we just
00:58:37.960 now seeing
00:58:38.420 that we are
00:58:38.800 trapped in
00:58:39.300 the beginning
00:58:39.680 of a
00:58:40.680 dystopia?
00:58:42.220 Yeah,
00:58:42.760 so,
00:58:43.460 you know,
00:58:44.660 obviously that
00:58:45.440 language is
00:58:46.440 pregnant with
00:58:48.340 a lot of
00:58:48.740 meaning.
00:58:49.580 I think it
00:58:50.520 means that
00:58:50.860 we're going
00:58:51.160 through a
00:58:51.540 process,
00:58:52.240 right?
00:58:52.500 And one
00:58:53.440 of the
00:58:53.660 things to
00:58:54.120 understand
00:58:54.780 is that
00:58:56.420 many times
00:58:58.040 throughout
00:58:58.500 history,
00:58:59.360 civilizations
00:59:00.360 have gone
00:59:01.200 through great
00:59:02.300 changes and
00:59:04.440 upheavals,
00:59:05.560 right?
00:59:05.740 And those
00:59:06.260 changes are
00:59:06.860 only accelerating
00:59:07.880 as our
00:59:09.420 technology and
00:59:11.120 other things
00:59:11.920 accelerate.
00:59:13.560 You know,
00:59:13.780 we've moved
00:59:14.480 through different
00:59:14.900 modes of
00:59:15.340 production,
00:59:16.160 economic
00:59:16.520 understandings,
00:59:17.580 social arrangements
00:59:18.460 throughout,
00:59:19.720 you know,
00:59:20.420 many different
00:59:20.920 times in
00:59:21.380 history.
00:59:21.680 And oftentimes
00:59:22.520 those changes
00:59:23.640 are violent
00:59:24.880 and not good
00:59:25.440 for the people
00:59:25.880 involved with
00:59:26.480 them.
00:59:26.760 We don't want
00:59:27.420 to encourage
00:59:28.080 that.
00:59:28.420 Again,
00:59:28.560 that's why
00:59:28.900 I'm not for
00:59:29.300 political
00:59:29.720 accelerationism.
00:59:31.140 However,
00:59:31.640 we should
00:59:32.160 probably understand
00:59:32.860 that we're not
00:59:33.280 immune from
00:59:33.860 that process.
00:59:34.560 One of the
00:59:34.880 things,
00:59:35.200 again,
00:59:35.360 that I try
00:59:35.760 to get
00:59:36.360 people away
00:59:36.840 from is
00:59:37.640 this idea
00:59:38.280 that America
00:59:38.880 is in this
00:59:39.600 magical bubble
00:59:40.520 where we're
00:59:41.060 never going to
00:59:41.640 run into
00:59:42.020 these problems.
00:59:42.800 We're never
00:59:43.020 going to face
00:59:43.560 any of these
00:59:44.040 issues that
00:59:44.980 have impacted
00:59:45.520 people throughout
00:59:46.360 history.
00:59:47.400 And so,
00:59:47.720 yeah,
00:59:47.860 we might be
00:59:48.440 on the cusp
00:59:49.120 of a serious
00:59:49.960 revolution in
00:59:50.940 the way that
00:59:51.380 certain things
00:59:51.840 about our
00:59:52.140 society work.
00:59:53.300 Does that make
00:59:53.780 it a dystopia?
00:59:55.100 Maybe to some
00:59:56.460 extent.
00:59:56.940 Maybe it just
00:59:57.420 means that
00:59:58.300 things are going
00:59:58.720 to look very
00:59:59.420 different than
01:00:00.200 they did
01:00:00.740 previously in
01:00:02.240 certain areas
01:00:02.900 and we need
01:00:03.360 to prepare for
01:00:04.560 ourselves for
01:00:05.540 that.
01:00:06.920 But I don't
01:00:08.840 think that that
01:00:09.260 means that
01:00:09.660 things have to
01:00:10.260 be terrible.
01:00:11.420 Again,
01:00:12.000 the thing to
01:00:13.900 always remember
01:00:14.660 is that you
01:00:15.400 can only really
01:00:16.100 control the
01:00:16.680 sphere around
01:00:17.320 you, right?
01:00:18.120 And as much
01:00:19.440 as the, you
01:00:20.220 know, Jordan
01:00:20.640 Peterson clean up
01:00:21.380 your rune thing
01:00:21.980 is a cliche,
01:00:23.360 there's a lot
01:00:24.180 of truth in it,
01:00:24.820 right?
01:00:25.000 These are the
01:00:25.340 things that you
01:00:25.780 can control.
01:00:26.240 These are the
01:00:26.720 only things that
01:00:27.400 you can control.
01:00:28.340 That doesn't
01:00:28.880 mean that the
01:00:29.460 things around you
01:00:30.080 don't matter.
01:00:30.640 It doesn't mean
01:00:30.940 that you're not
01:00:31.300 going to be
01:00:31.560 impacted greatly
01:00:32.340 by world
01:00:32.960 historical forces.
01:00:34.680 But, you know,
01:00:35.260 as Oswald Spengler
01:00:36.360 said, optimism
01:00:37.160 is cowardice.
01:00:38.200 You know,
01:00:38.320 basically get over
01:00:39.580 it, right?
01:00:40.040 Like you're not
01:00:40.640 the first person
01:00:41.460 to be in a
01:00:42.080 difficult situation.
01:00:43.460 There's a lot of
01:00:43.960 people who have
01:00:44.320 been in difficult
01:00:44.820 situations and they
01:00:46.120 still met them
01:00:46.980 with a great degree
01:00:48.640 of virtue and valor
01:00:49.840 and strength.
01:00:50.980 And you need to
01:00:51.620 do the same thing.
01:00:52.580 You don't get to
01:00:53.240 escape the turn
01:00:54.460 of the wheel.
01:00:55.480 And that can be
01:00:56.460 a little concerning
01:00:58.320 when we were
01:00:59.660 watching, you
01:01:00.660 know, our parents
01:01:01.880 or grandparents
01:01:02.580 enjoy some of
01:01:04.280 the highest levels
01:01:05.160 of prosperity
01:01:05.880 throughout human
01:01:06.620 history.
01:01:07.180 And we thought
01:01:07.880 that, like, we
01:01:08.460 were just going
01:01:08.900 to get to enjoy
01:01:09.740 that, too.
01:01:10.740 But, you know,
01:01:11.480 that we may not
01:01:12.980 be there.
01:01:13.560 That may not be
01:01:14.400 your ultimate fate.
01:01:15.840 But that's okay.
01:01:16.960 You know, that's
01:01:18.000 all right.
01:01:18.420 That's not the end
01:01:19.060 of the world in the
01:01:19.900 same way that the
01:01:21.220 fall of the Roman
01:01:21.820 Empire wasn't the
01:01:22.700 end of the world.
01:01:23.520 You know, it
01:01:24.120 certainly wasn't
01:01:24.940 the time, perhaps,
01:01:26.220 that you wanted
01:01:26.620 to be born into.
01:01:27.600 Maybe not the
01:01:28.200 greatest thing.
01:01:29.060 But that doesn't
01:01:29.540 mean that you
01:01:30.200 as a person
01:01:31.240 can't be virtuous.
01:01:32.880 It doesn't mean
01:01:33.260 that you can't
01:01:33.840 build, you know,
01:01:34.600 strong families,
01:01:35.340 strong communities.
01:01:36.300 It doesn't mean
01:01:36.740 that you can't
01:01:37.380 live a meaningful
01:01:38.480 life.
01:01:39.240 So I think that
01:01:39.940 that's always
01:01:40.920 something to keep
01:01:41.740 in mind, even
01:01:42.360 when we talk
01:01:42.960 about how
01:01:43.980 changes are
01:01:45.140 inevitable and
01:01:45.780 some of them
01:01:46.140 might not be
01:01:47.100 so great.
01:01:49.420 Alexander
01:01:49.860 Jean says,
01:01:52.600 without
01:01:52.920 Catholicism,
01:01:54.080 the West
01:01:54.740 is dead.
01:01:56.360 Well, I mean,
01:01:57.560 I'm not a
01:01:58.280 Catholic.
01:01:58.960 I don't know
01:01:59.720 that that's
01:02:00.300 necessarily the
01:02:01.100 case.
01:02:01.520 America has
01:02:02.180 always been a
01:02:02.740 Protestant nation.
01:02:03.380 Maybe you would
01:02:03.820 say that's
01:02:04.780 America's problem.
01:02:05.800 You can make
01:02:06.760 those arguments
01:02:07.260 if you like.
01:02:08.220 I would say
01:02:08.920 that without
01:02:09.860 Christianity,
01:02:11.080 that is certainly
01:02:12.040 the case.
01:02:12.580 I think that is
01:02:13.080 the defining
01:02:13.660 trait and identity
01:02:15.200 of what most
01:02:16.000 people mean when
01:02:16.780 they say the
01:02:17.180 West.
01:02:17.920 They're really
01:02:18.520 referring to
01:02:19.240 Christendom.
01:02:19.760 and I
01:02:21.840 think without
01:02:22.300 that, I
01:02:23.420 think you
01:02:23.900 certainly are
01:02:24.480 in a very
01:02:24.840 serious state.
01:02:27.420 He also
01:02:28.240 follows up
01:02:28.780 with, don't
01:02:29.660 you think a
01:02:30.080 return to
01:02:30.620 tradition will
01:02:32.920 fix our
01:02:33.220 problem?
01:02:33.820 The
01:02:33.980 Enlightenment
01:02:34.560 activists tore
01:02:35.700 down that
01:02:36.280 which came
01:02:37.360 before.
01:02:38.160 Now the
01:02:38.560 moderns are
01:02:39.340 doing the
01:02:39.760 same thing.
01:02:40.760 It will
01:02:41.200 certainly help.
01:02:42.100 So I think
01:02:42.560 there's two
01:02:46.700 things to think
01:02:47.240 about here.
01:02:47.680 I think that
01:02:49.500 the strict
01:02:50.260 return to
01:02:51.180 tradition line
01:02:51.940 is kind of
01:02:52.640 a failure in
01:02:53.880 the sense that
01:02:54.520 you can never
01:02:55.060 truly go back
01:02:55.920 to something.
01:02:56.620 You can never
01:02:57.020 truly return to
01:02:58.620 a past.
01:03:00.100 That's not how
01:03:01.020 things work.
01:03:02.440 You cannot,
01:03:03.180 you know,
01:03:03.600 we are creatures
01:03:04.860 of our own
01:03:05.440 time.
01:03:05.860 We have to
01:03:06.200 face the
01:03:06.560 problems and
01:03:07.600 solve the
01:03:08.040 problems of
01:03:08.520 our own
01:03:08.860 times.
01:03:09.700 We can draw
01:03:10.220 wisdom and
01:03:11.820 strength from
01:03:12.580 traditions and
01:03:14.180 there are
01:03:14.660 certainly eternal
01:03:15.600 truths that are
01:03:17.160 encapsulated in
01:03:18.060 traditions that
01:03:18.740 continue into
01:03:19.460 our own
01:03:19.840 times and
01:03:21.260 the dismantling
01:03:22.020 of those
01:03:23.000 traditions is a
01:03:24.560 large part of
01:03:25.220 a problem.
01:03:25.640 You're right
01:03:25.880 about that.
01:03:26.700 At the same
01:03:27.180 time, I think
01:03:28.740 that for
01:03:29.160 traditions to
01:03:29.800 survive, and
01:03:31.120 this is from
01:03:31.740 this is from
01:03:32.700 Alisdell
01:03:33.560 McIntyre,
01:03:34.740 a philosopher
01:03:35.480 who I like
01:03:36.440 quite a bit.
01:03:37.120 He says that
01:03:37.760 they have to
01:03:38.180 confront their
01:03:39.300 crises and
01:03:40.080 they have to
01:03:40.500 be able to
01:03:41.020 go ahead and
01:03:42.240 overcome those
01:03:43.480 crises and move
01:03:44.520 forward to prove
01:03:45.540 the robustness of
01:03:46.360 a tradition is
01:03:47.620 for it to
01:03:48.300 go ahead and
01:03:49.380 meet the
01:03:50.820 problems of a
01:03:51.720 new generation
01:03:52.380 and overcome
01:03:52.940 them.
01:03:53.600 I think we're
01:03:54.060 going to find
01:03:54.480 that here.
01:03:55.000 I think we're
01:03:55.280 going to find
01:03:55.900 and I think
01:03:56.440 in many ways
01:03:57.000 we're starting
01:03:57.440 to find that
01:03:58.380 many of the
01:03:58.820 traditions that
01:03:59.280 we dismantled,
01:04:00.180 traditions like
01:04:00.720 the family,
01:04:01.220 traditions like
01:04:01.800 the nation,
01:04:02.680 were critical
01:04:03.540 and they were
01:04:04.480 ones that were
01:04:05.020 necessary and
01:04:06.080 the fact that
01:04:06.440 we dismantled
01:04:06.900 them is causing
01:04:07.420 us a large
01:04:07.940 amount of
01:04:08.260 problems and
01:04:08.980 a return in
01:04:10.400 some sense to
01:04:11.020 those traditions
01:04:11.540 is critical.
01:04:12.500 However, even
01:04:13.180 when we return
01:04:13.980 to them in
01:04:14.700 some sense,
01:04:15.680 it will still
01:04:16.600 be a version
01:04:17.280 of them that
01:04:18.100 is addressing
01:04:19.580 the issues of
01:04:20.160 our time.
01:04:21.140 So the truths
01:04:21.680 of those
01:04:22.000 traditions will
01:04:22.580 continue forward
01:04:23.360 but the way
01:04:24.100 that we assign
01:04:24.960 them, the way
01:04:25.400 that we go
01:04:26.660 ahead and act
01:04:27.360 them out and
01:04:27.780 live them out
01:04:28.360 in our kind
01:04:29.700 of modern
01:04:30.300 problem to
01:04:31.760 address our
01:04:32.200 modern problems
01:04:32.860 will be unique
01:04:33.620 to our time.
01:04:34.520 And so in
01:04:34.940 that way, they
01:04:36.140 will be new,
01:04:37.180 they will be
01:04:37.640 modified in some
01:04:38.540 sense, but that
01:04:39.380 is always true of
01:04:40.020 traditions.
01:04:40.640 No traditions are
01:04:41.600 internal in the
01:04:42.200 sense that they
01:04:42.680 never, ever, ever
01:04:43.520 change.
01:04:44.040 But they are
01:04:44.940 internal in the
01:04:45.420 sense that they
01:04:45.920 contain a way
01:04:46.920 of being, an
01:04:48.200 archetype, that
01:04:49.240 is necessary to
01:04:50.340 human flourishing.
01:04:51.600 And so to the
01:04:52.160 extent in which we
01:04:52.800 will return to
01:04:53.620 things that are
01:04:54.360 bettering our
01:04:55.060 human flourishing,
01:04:56.180 we will return
01:04:56.780 to tradition.
01:04:57.720 The idea that we
01:04:58.300 will simply return
01:04:59.140 to the traditions
01:05:00.160 one-to-one of
01:05:01.680 a previous time
01:05:02.420 without any
01:05:03.080 modification and
01:05:03.960 understanding of
01:05:04.640 our current
01:05:05.280 modern scenario
01:05:06.540 or problems, I
01:05:08.180 think that one
01:05:10.160 is incorrect.
01:05:10.900 I think that being
01:05:11.880 completely stuck in
01:05:13.180 the past,
01:05:14.040 is a problem.
01:05:15.060 As Nick Land
01:05:15.780 would say, the
01:05:16.640 only way out is
01:05:17.580 through.
01:05:18.380 And so I think we
01:05:19.140 are going to have
01:05:19.780 to face modernity
01:05:21.160 and its challenges
01:05:22.000 and post-modernity
01:05:22.960 and its challenges,
01:05:24.240 but we will face
01:05:25.620 them with the
01:05:27.060 eternal truths that
01:05:28.360 tradition provides
01:05:29.160 us.
01:05:30.000 All right, guys,
01:05:30.740 let's go ahead and
01:05:31.920 wrap things up.
01:05:32.920 Thank you, everybody,
01:05:33.660 for coming by.
01:05:34.480 It's always a
01:05:35.280 pleasure to talk
01:05:36.480 to you.
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01:06:01.020 And guys, if you'd
01:06:01.720 like to go ahead and
01:06:02.540 pre-order my book,
01:06:03.780 The Total State,
01:06:04.460 which will be coming
01:06:04.940 out May 7th, you can
01:06:06.380 do so on all your
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01:06:14.800 Thank you once again
01:06:15.580 guys for watching and
01:06:16.800 as always, I'll talk
01:06:17.860 to you next time.