e/acc (Effective Accelerationism)

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@colossusofdoubt Of course you think that about Al. You're a first year swe, you were reading some LessWrong bs -- Yud probably. You're gonna be convinced of that 'til next week when you read some e/acc tweets and then it's gonna be all about how Al is going to bring us utopian post-scarcity 4:55 PM - Mar 10, 2023 - 178.5K Views 88 Retweets 9 Quotes 1,190 Likes 137 Bookmarks

Chris @knowclarified E/acc s tpost, I'm trying man Nooooo we must reduce our energy consumption or we'll all die 0:04 129.9K views EEE made with mematic 10:18 AM Jan 30, 2023 417.4K Views : Mankind has a history of ingenuity. We can invent a new world of abundance. 68 Retweets 10 Quotes 1,109 Likes 39 Bookmarks

bowser @browserdotsys my biggest beef with e/acc is that they're just not nearly weird enough to claim the title of /acc. the accs i like are writing manifestos about forcefem (pro) and how cybernetic beings retrocausally invented capitalism to give birth to themselves, not worshipping gpt4 2:05 AM. Apr 24, 2023 26.3K Views 19 Retweets 4 Quotes 425 Likes 28 Bookmarks

Beff Jezos-e/acc @BasedBeffJezos e/acc Christian faction blessing the GPUs before their GPT5 training run, circa 2025 12:23 AM Dec 14, 2022

州 willy nilly @colossusofdoubt Of course you think that about Al. You're a first year swe, you were reading some LessWrong bs -- Yud probably. You're gonna be convinced of that 'til next week when you read some e/acc tweets and then it's gonna be all about how Al is going to bring us utopian post-scarcity 4:55 PM Mar 10, 2023 178.5K Views : 88 Retweets 9 Quotes 1,190 Likes 137 Bookmarks

Chris @knowclarified E/acc shitpost, I'm trying man Nooooo we must reduce our energy consumption or we'll all die WEEEE 0:04 129.9K views made with mematic 10:18 AM Jan 30, 2023 417.4K Views : Mankind has a history of ingenuity. We can invent a new world of abundance. 68 Retweets 10 Quotes 1,109 Likes 39 Bookmarks

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About

E/acc is an acronym for the phrase Effective Accelerationism, which is an ideology and movement that draws from Nick Land's theories of accelerationism to advocate for the belief that artificial intelligence and large language models (LLMs) will lead to a post-scarcity technological utopia. The name is also a play on Effective Altruism. E/acc communities on X were primarily fostered on Twitter Spaces, with e/acc manifestos being shared using the newsletter platform Substack.

History

Accelerationism is an ideology primarily derived from conservative British philosopher Nick Land's theories about capitalism and societal collapse. Early camps in "/acc" communities on Twitter were comprised of "left/acc," "right/acc" and "u/acc (unconditional/acc) teams on Twitter.

The earliest known reference to e/acc or effective accelerationism is from May 31st and June 1st, 2022, with Twitter users @zetular, @BasedBeff and @creatine_cycle taking credit for "inventing a new philosophy with the boys" (seen below).^[1]^[2]

jayden (SF 05/18 - 06/04) @creatine_cycle 2m Just invented a new philosophy with the boys, nbd @zestular @BasedBeff @bayeslord 2 swarthy @zestular 27 2 Replying to @creatine_cycle @Based Beff @bayeslord e/acc. effective 12:12 AM - 31 May 2022 27 accelerationism Follow

Beff Jezos-e/acc @Based Beff Effective accelerationism is what you get when ML engineers have had enough of technocrats and authoritarians trying to insert themselves in the power hierarchy of Al as the gatekeepers and controllers of its power. Help unleash the beast, or get out of the way. 3:20 AM Jun 1, 2022

On May 31st, "swarthy" or @zestular published a Substack newsletter defining effective accelerationism at length, defending the concept from "misconceptions" about it being the same as effective altruism or right/accelerationism.^[3] On July 10th, 2022, Beff Jezos and Bayelord posted another Substack article detailing various tenets of e/acc.^[4]

swarthy May 31 swarthy's sensibles Elon Musk @elonmusk Accelerationism is simply the self-awareness of capitalism, which has scarcely begun. ("We haven't seen anything yet.") 1. The overarching goal for humanity is to preserve the light of consciousness. 8 This is why we must preserve the light of consciousness by becoming a spacefaring civilization & extending life to other planets https://t.co /UDDP811zsS June 25th 2018 6,174 Retweets 37,080 Likes bayeslord (e/acc) @bayeslord 2. Technology and market forces (technocapital) are accelerating in their power and abilities. 3. This force cannot be stopped. 4 I am a bit apprehensive about all of this, and I ofc understand why other ppl are O. But the train isn't slowing down. You cannot reengineer the economy to avoid this. You cannot melt the GPUs. Every problem must be solved online. May 30th 2022 ↑

$6. Technology is leverage. As it advances, it becomes easier to extinguish all conscious life in our corner of the universe. Attempting to stall progress isn't risk free. 7. Society and the individual's context within it are rapidly changing, which leads to greater societal instability and mind viruses. (deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation). 8. Those who are the first to usher in and control the hyper-parameters of Al/technocapital have immense agency over the future of consciousness. We have to do something. To which accelerationism can only respond: You're finally saying that now? Perhaps we ought to get started? 9. HUMANS HAVE AGENCY RIGHT NOW. WE CAN AFFECT THE ADVENT OF THE INFLECTION IN THIS PROCESS. 10. Effective Accelerationism, e/acc, is a set of ideas and practices that seek to maximize the probability of the technocapital singularity, and subsequently, the ability for emergent consciousness to flourish. Beff Jezos - e/acc @BasedBeff @BlochChinas at least in our conversation, we focused on post-humanist angles. There is a fractal optimization algorithm that created life, intelligence, and every meta-organism we know. Effective accelerationism is aiming to expand the scope and scale of this dynamic multiscale adaptation May 31st 2022 1 Retweet 3 Likes$

Online Reactions

In consecutive months, e/acc ideas and their proponents gained moderate virality on Twitter. Some discussions around the ideology revolved around people weighing the benefits and risks of AGI as proposed by e/acc proponents. Other discussions revolved around people criticizing the notion of e/acc as irrational heresy.

On June 19th, 2022, Twitter^[5] user @Andr3jH posted a tweet joking about their proposition for the e/acc flag, gathering over 200 likes in 10 months (seen below, left). On July 28th, Twitter^[6] user @utsu__kun posted a tweet about e/acc as well (seen below, right).

Stat ANDREJ (imposter) @Andr3jH I've designed this flag for e/acc: The red symbolizes (the red shift of) unstoppable progress. The small stars individually stand for technology, market, alignment and poasting, and collectively symbolize mankind's drive towards the stars. The big star is for the singularity. 5:01 PM Jun 19, 2022 : 11 Retweets 2 Quotes 211 Likes 2 Bookmarks

Liberation-Kun @utsu__kun Blessed are the e/acc For they will inherit the earth 11:53 PM Jul 28, 2022 :

On October 16th, 2022, Twitter^[7] user @bryancsk posted a tweet about e/acc, gathering over 170 likes in six months (seen below, left). On October 17th, Twitter^[8] user @growing_daniel also posted a tweet about e/acc, gathering over 200 likes in six months (seen below, right).