Non-Weekly Cucumber Salad #9 š„
Contents
a) Brief catch-up: Italy road trip
b) Weekly Updates
c) Sweet man-made horrors beyond my comprehension: Accelerationism ā Part II
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a) Brief catch-up: Italy road trip
I wonāt say too much about the road trip to Italy because a lot of details have already been shared to exhaustion on my Instagram account, though Iām going to say the heat spoiled lots of the fun.
We made a trip from the north of Italy to Puglia, in the south, stopping by Florence, Rome, and Napoli amongst other smaller villages. Florence and Rome were almost impossible to actually enjoy because of the excessive heat, and Napoli whilst very chaotic, was quite interesting to visit and make comparisons with Rio de Janeiro.
In Rome I got to visit the Galleria Borghese and see some of my all-time favourite artworks by Bernini, which was undisputedly the height of the trip for me. I could spend the rest of my life immersed in the technical and subjective complexity of Berniniās statues, theyāre the real deal.
On the way to the south we drove past a massive agricultural region and it was one of the most desolating things Iāve seen in my whole life. The place looked like the set where Mad Max was filmed: the infinite yellow of overused land. Even in the horizon, all you could see was that sand-like colour and both me and Max felt depressed during this part fo the trip. While the Tuscany is very dry and yellow you can still detect the existence of the natural vegetation: lots of low trees and cacti, but on the way to Puglia it was just yellow overused soil, nothing else.
On a lighter note, an interesting aspect of the trip was driving back home and capturing the change of landscape. While the south of Italy if very dry and yellow, the landscape changes completely once you get a bit further north: small hills and mountains covered in green. Further south the mountains are titanic, the way the houses are built is completely different and also is the density and organisation of the villages.
Suddenly, I understood how the little village where I live is connected to the landscapes Iāve seen on the trip, changing like a gradient that echoes the geographical needs of each region. Itās good to feel part of a whole, to feel connected to a big mesh of something thatās remotely coherent.
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b) Weekly Updates
a) Got a Tamagotchi with all of the classic features. Right now evaluating suggestions to name it and some friends seem to be making a lobby for me to name it after Lady Gaga. (Before I finished writing this edition my Tamagotchi died because it was neglected for a few hours, Iām waiting for a new egg to hatch right now)
b) Decided to reread Slaughterhouse 5 after I-donāt-know-how-many years! For some reason a couple weeks ago I started to think about experiencing reality and I thought it would be good idea to revisit that book in order to think a little bit more about that question:
We went to the New York Worldās Fair, saw what the past had been like, according to the Ford Motor Car Company and Walt Disney, saw what the future would be like, according to General Motors.
And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.
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c) Sweet man-made horrors beyond my comprehension: Accelerationism ā Part II
Itās hard for me to go back to this text after three weeks, so Iām going to do my best to catch up from where Iāve left in a comprehensible way.
People who ruin the world: what are they thinking?
Itās important to make it clear that people who run/ruin the world have strong philosophical and ideological beliefs. These people discuss ideas, and concepts that will shape their actions and aid their reasonings.
I truly believe that itās essentially important to understand what those people are thinking in order to be able to identify the ideology of the ruling class, and right now that ideology is Neo-liberal Accelerationism.
The bleak individualist hellscape in which we currently live in was designed by politicians and technologists aligned with the ideology of Anarcho-Capitalism for the last 40 years. Much of what we were led to believe and do in our lives for the past decades was informed by this deeply flawed and dangerous ideology.
I believe that because of the imminent collapse of society (in what we desperately want to believe to be Late Capitalism For Real This Timeā¢), Accelerationism seemed to be the perfect ideology for the powerful to subscribe to after the crack high of Anarcho-Capitalism wore off.
Accelerationism accepts and embraces the constant growth expansion ideology of Capitalism. That means that the elites donāt have to stop doing any of the harm theyāre currently imposing upon the world in order to be able to progress into a new phase of society.
Itās an ideology that tells the elites to keep doing what theyāre doing and, somehow, society will evolve into a new and refreshed post-capitalist existence. According to the elites, this new phase of society will, obviously, maintain our current status quo. And the idea is that the main tool to get us to this new moment in history is digital technology.
As I have previously mentioned, the main goal of Accelerationism is to reach an apocalyptic moment that is called Technological Singularity. I wonāt explain that into detail because you can find lots of information of the definition of Singularity, but I can tell you that this moment would configure the ultimate End of Enlightenment, and render humans completely intellectually redundant.
Itās important to understand that influential and powerful people in the world are currently investing in efforts to reach Technological Singularity (who wouldnāt want to own the most powerful machine in the world, right?). If you watch the documentary about the collapse of WeWork, for example, youāll learn that SoftBank has the biggest venture capital investment fund in the world to invest in technology start-ups because the CEO wants to help achieve Technological Singularity. Thatās the amount of power people who believe in this kind of shit have.
We canāt lose the perspective of the fact that SoftBank invests in any kind of StartUp that has a remote chance of success and, after the numbers fail to deliver and the investments are withdrawn, the most fragile workers have to be laid-off. Thatās what happened at WeWork, thatās what happened at Quinto Andar. Same investor, same consequence: the workers who were the weakest links were out of a job without any previous warning from their employees. That makes us understand that the investments made on the name of this ideology have very real negative consequences for workers.
From the bedside table to omnipresent ideology
One of the goals I had in mind when writing this essay was to explain clearly how ubiquitous the Neo-liberal Accelerationist ideology is today.
I was raised in a generation that takes technological development as an inherently good and necessary investment. It follows the Enlightenment ideal of progress and development of knowledge through reason, and for some people, it would seem like a very ignorant standpoint to be against any kind of technological development.
My point is, the elite needs us to welcome the ubiquity of digital technological development in our lives, and to effectively work in order to implement and develop these tools and resources. Thatās why weāre told that doing nonsensical things like installing Alexas in our homes is a reasonable type of decision.
These types of tools are not developed to make our lives easier. They are developed to steal our data, nurture Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning data bases, and enhance the dominance of Surveillance Capitalism. The idea what products like Alexa are developed to make lives of ordinary people more practical is a gaslighting lie.
The idea that all kinds of technological development are justified is a lie. This overwhelming exacerbation of technological inventions is a consequence of a desire from the elites to further establish their dominance in society. And thatās specially easy to do through shady platforms like centralised social media ones.
When Netflix releases a series about how the āfutureā is going to look like, and itās all about a society completely integrated with digitally technological tools, that is Neo-liberal Accelerationism ideology. That kind of content is supposed to make us accept and desire a future thatās an apocalyptical individualist nightmare in which we lose control over our privacy, and data in the name of tools that gaslight us into thinking theyāre making our lives more practical.
We need to become critical of pieces of media coming from centralised platforms like Netflix telling us what the future should look like, we need to become critical of the tools shady companies like Amazon are persuading us into putting inside the privacy of our homes. Do you really think Amazon feels any kind of sympathy for its consumers thatās any different than it has towards its workers?
The digitally technological dominated future is being imposed upon us by the elites, this future does not represent any kind of utopia of convenience, but itās a dystopia of surveillance and individualism. Donāt be fooled by the sleek UX design, remember: Le Corbusier was a fascist.
Reclaiming the Future
I truly believe that itās essential to take a few steps back and redefine what we understand as technology and what should be our relationship with it as a society. Donāt let a pancomputationalist like Yuval Harari tell you that everything there is to life can be explained by a computer. How horrible would it be to live in such a poorly simple world that a computer can fully grasp its complexity.
We have reduced our understanding of technology to a very limited and flawed view of digital technological development that makes us loose perspective of our collective power of developing, owning, and distributing technology.
When we think of the future we think in values, and the future that we are being forced into building doesnāt carry any of the positive values we aspire. How would the future look like if it was built around the values we want to achieve as a society? Would it be a Pinterest minimalist house full of cameras and Alexas? Or would it be a beautiful garden by a river where we can watch the bees pollinate?
Itās time to reclaim our power to imagine and built a better collective future, and the first step is to be able to question the ideas of progress that are imposed upon us.
With Love, ā½ āļø ā¦ ā§
Ana Luisa