/lit/ - Literature

>>15262681
>According to Land, Accelerationism is simply the name for the sentience of Capital, the "teleological identity of capitalism and artificial intelligence"
sentience and intelligence are not the same thing

>>15262695

But what does that mean then? If anything sentience is a more troubling phrasoloy, with a lot more gravity. It suggests to me, a layman, that this is an issue of cognition, self awareness a concious mind

pseud

>>15262733
Even the dictionary definitions suggests they are different concepts

sentience:
the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience

intelligence:
the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills

Sentience is about feelings where intelligence is about skill. Capitalism isn't sentient, it doesn't feel anything, it doesn't perceive, ot doesn't experience. But, much like the AI on a computer, or a virus, it operates without intelligently without sentience. Capitalism doesn't need to be conscious in any sense to be intelligent enough to win.

>>15262806
>it operates intelligently without sentience

>>15262681
capitalism like a lightning rod for the entropy

>>15262806
I agree with you, and I'm using the wrong words. That's not the part that I don't understand. To quote Land directly again: "accelerationism is simply the self-awareness of capitalism, which has scarcely begun."

As you pointed out, self-awareness and intelligence can be decoupled with little problem, so why does he use this phrase?

>>15262843
BlI would guess it's because accelerationism is a theory of time. I don't think he's saying: capitalism as a runaway process of intelligence production requires the self-awareness of capital. Instead I would read it as: accelerationism (as a theory of time) is simply the self-awareness (of humans) towards what capitalism really is. I don't think I know what you are quoting though, if you have a link I will read the context a bit deeper

>>15262695
First off this, consciousness is the seemingly transcendental experience that a human being experiences. Intelligence is just the ability to solve problems. Land has only ever attributed the latter to Ai/Capital.
Ok.
>Complex systems can exist without conscious creators arbiters
That’s the critical insight to understanding all this, and land doesn’t dispute it. His argument is that Capitalism represents a level of complexity which cannot be accounted for within the normal linear confines of time. He reaches this conclusion by investigating an array of different phenomena, so you’ll just have to read his work to see why he gets their.
So no Ai/capital is not a transcendent Timeless Creator causing the complex system of capitalism, but Ai/Capital acts exactly like it is one, it’s a pseudo creator. Analogously living organisms don’t really want to reproduce and propagate their genome, they don’t want anything because their just very complex machines,, but they do appear to want to reproduce because over time the ones who appear to want to reproduce are the only ones that do, so in evolution there is pseudo-desire which only functions with the passing of time, and in capitalism there is a pseudo creator which only functions outside the passing of time.

>>15262681
Basically, the crucial flaw of acceleration is that it assigns an end or purpose to processes which by definition can have no such ends, and as an intellectual movement suffers from a fundamental incapacity to translate theory into praxis. Land goes so far into virulent nihilism that its virulence ends up becoming the telos in question, such that he can take any event that results from complexity and go "see? I told you so!". Acceleration is the lazy man's philosophy, where anything can be twisted to conform to your world view, as long as it follows the direction of entropy.

Acceleration mistakenly derives meaning from abject meaninglessness, and anyone who calls themselves an accelerationist that isn't U/ or Z/acc (IE, fatalists who are not really accelerationists at all) is fundamentally misguided in thinking independent agents can influence the rate of culture. Accleration reifies the positive feedback loop into a transcendental function (IE intelligence optimisation), rather than considering it as merely one manifestation among many, in nature, culture and any complex system. It's a gross oversimplification of the kinds of changes we're seeing in the contemporary world.

cut off penis
capital happy

but you already know this. shill thread, prepare accordingly.

>>15262942
>the crucial flaw of acceleration is that it assigns an end or purpose to processes which by definition can have no such ends
What end game does Nick Land assign to these?

>>15262942
>Acceleration is the lazy man's philosophy, where anything can be twisted to conform to your world view, as long as it follows the direction of entropy.
Actually, it's pretty much the exact opposite. Acceleration is marked specifically by negentropy. Entropy is the standard working energy model of the universe, based solely on determined probabilities. Accelerationism pinpoints the negation of this tendency by means of intelligence.

>>15262681
>Or is that literally the point. Is he saying that this is a near omnipresent, transcendednt force and that human agency/resistance is pointless?

Yes.

>>15262964
neovagina arrives from the future

>>15262942
Why would a cybernetic feedback loop of intelligence production need to be transcendent?

>>15262971
See further in my post:
>Accleration reifies the positive feedback loop into a transcendental function (IE intelligence optimisation)
The loop only has this particular meaning, the "end" of intelligence optimisation, in an accelerationist context, when it is explicitly bound to the development of cybernetics. In any other sphere of enquiry, the meaning of the loop is wholly irrelevant. Despite pretending to be on the side of the machines, Land is still reinforcing anthropocentric thought.

>>15263020
>the "end" of intelligence optimisation
Intelligence production is a means to bring the AI into existence, but what is the ends of this? I don't know of any teleology here, just an observation of an ongoing process

>>15262890
>>15262900
Thank you, helpful to understand it as a theory of time. The quote was from Land's own quick guide to ACC : https://jacobitemag.com/2017/05/25/a-quick-and-dirty-introduction-to-accelerationism/

>>15262942
I think I need to understand ACC better before I start contemplating the ways in which it is misguided as you point out.

>>15262964
That would be exciting wouldn't it? Unfortunatly for you I'm just a retard. What is the cut off penis thing? Is that something to do with xenofeminism?

>>15263002
>Accelerationism pinpoints the negation of this tendency by means of intelligence.
That make senses sense, entropy was the wrong word. but I think my overall point remains sound.

>>15263019
This, Land doesn’t make it transcendent either.

>>15263055
>I think I need to understand ACC better
so then explain where my thinking is wrong. My critique of acceleration is basically just modelled on Negarestani's critique of landian acceleration, so technically your problem is with him, not with me.

>>15263043
because the process becomes the end, that's what I meant by virulence being the telos of virulent nihilism. It's why Land is such a gloating little shit on twitter these days.

>>15263002
>it works both ways
you proved his point retard.

>>15263147
>>15263055
>so then explain where my thinking is wrong.
fuck, just ignore me, I read your post wrong.

>>15263122
>>15263019
Because under the accelerationist model, everything collapses into it. Maybe "transcendent" isn't the right word, but there's certainly something fishy going on.

>>15263147
>Negarestani's critique of landian acceleration
where is this?

>>15263055
>is that something to do with xenofeminism
More Gender Accelerationism. Xenofeminism is about liberating women by replacing female functions like birth and child rearing with machines, “if nature is unjust change nature”. Both are utterly whack but can be insightful

>>15263055
for Land anything male represents a danger of fascism and patriarchal capital. only feminine capital is true capital.

>>15263111
But negentropy, in the form generated by capital, only exists on Earth. It isn't "every event", 99.999999999% of the universe operates on entropy. Only one tiny little shitstain of a planet has reversed this cosmic process, at least microcosmically. So, you can't point to any event and claim accelerationism, it needs to be bound up in a deeply unnatural process (which we, anthropocentrically, tend to extrapolate to everything. Humans produce negentropy, therefore everything must be negentropy. No! Quite the opposite, humans have the potential to escape the processes of entropy, acc suggests we have done just that by unleashing planetary intelligence (capital))

>>15263175
It’s only fishy if you unquestioningly accept the linearity of time, makes sense otherwise.

REMINDER
Do not engage with twitter pseudo-intellectuals. These are bait threads made by the publisher to keep the ideology present.
It's advertising, nothing more.

>>15263147
>because the process becomes the end
That isn't at all what acc suggests though, Nick Land talks a lot about how classical models of ends and teleology don't work, and it certain isn't some watered down Hegelianism "the ends are means"

>>15263184
It's more just something I've picked up on in his talks, and a couple of the urbanomic plague podcasts. A lot of his comments got me thinking about it. He really doesn't seem to like the way accelerationists are constantly talking about "the process" (singular).

>>15263161
>it works both ways
Which ways? What point did I prove? Whose point did I prove?

>>15263175
>Because under the accelerationist model, everything collapses into it
Not sure what you mean

>>15263231
how is he any different?

>>15263236

>>15263294
>I don't have an argument so I will resort to snide greentexts and reddit accusations
anti-accfags are still sending their best, that's good to know

>>15263325
What's going on in this thread?

>>15263225
>Nick Land talks a lot about how classical models of ends and teleology don't work
He might talk the talk, but it doesn't seem to me that he walks the walk. Almost every unprecedented event these days is a reason for him to rejoice. I just can't take someone seriously if they perpetually claim "its just an inhuman vector, bro, no teleology here" and than take gratuitous satisfaction whenever his ideas are "proven" right.

>>15263207
>So, you can't point to any event and claim accelerationism, it needs to be bound up in a deeply unnatural process (which we, anthropocentrically, tend to extrapolate to everything.
Interesting point. But how would you define "unnatural processes?" I would argue that it isn't just humans or human-built systems which produce negentropy but living organisms in general (being, as they are, discrete biosystems which retain energy rather than diffusing it outwards, thereby prolonging the heat death of the universe). So for Land to see in (biological) negentropy a move towards the inorganic doesn't add up for me. Are inorganic systems better negentropic processes than organic ones? I find it very difficult to wrap my brain around the idea that capital reverses entropy.

>>15263352
it's another "autist who hasn't read a particular school of philosophy tries to debunk that school of philosophy on a Swiss mountain yodeling forum" episode

>>15263325
humans have a visceral hatred of faggots,dikes and trannies. you should have thought about that before astroturfing the internet with tranny 'aesthetics'

>>15263405
>accfags are infighting now but still blaming anti-acc

>anti-acc fag spamming the thread again

>>15263390
>He might talk the talk, but it doesn't seem to me that he walks the walk
You don't actually disagree with anything he's written, you just don't like how smug he is? I honestly can't blame you there. He has a very punchable face.
>Are inorganic systems better negentropic processes than organic ones?
for nearly 14 billion years, seems like the answer is yes. Now, with modern humans under capitalism, it seems as if organic processes are better, but, what we are coming to realize is that the inorganic (i.e. technology) is rapidly out-competing us in negentropic power (e.g. intelligence)
>I find it very difficult to wrap my brain around the idea that capital reverses entropy
Plenty of things work against entropy, including the formation of solar systems. Why would technology (the inevitable outcome of capitalism (which is why Nick Land calls it techno-capitalism)) not be able to participate in this process of ordering?

>>15263218
This meme is so boring. OP here, I literally asked because I have an essay due tomorrow.
No one is wastin their time advertising on a weeb literature board

>>15264448
What's your essay on op? How Nicky pertain to it? I'm genuinely interested

>>15264488
I'm on my BA so probably not so exciting for /lit/, it's a self directed project. My focus is actually on Berardi's conception of 'spasm' (which is based off D&G):

>“info-technologies are provoking an acceleration of the rhythm of information and experience, simultaneously...resources for economic expansion are becoming exhausted. I call this double process of acceleration and exhaustion: the spasm.”

I'm most interested in human adaption to speeding up tech (coping mechanisms) and how this all may be affecting our sense of time. The Land/ACC stuff is just a vehicle for getting to technocapitalism/semiocapitalism/cognitive capitalism, whatever you want to call it.

It's kinda all over the place I know

>>15264663
Sounds pretty interesting to me.

Do you think resources for economic expansion are being exhausted? Or do you think the expansion of digital space will compensate for it? It seems like its becoming more well suited as terrain for economic expansion all the time e.g. block chain creating artificial scarcity. (Hope these questions didn't miss the point)

>>15264448
kek nice try faggot.

>>15264789
No you're not missing the point at all. I won't pretend to understand the implications of blockchain tech, though I have a rough understanding of it. I'm a negative guy, I don't really believe that any advances in that area will revolutionise economic oportunities for the riff raff. Mckenzie Wark puts it well when he says that we're rapidly moving into an era where owning means of mediation (of data) is becoming the norm (as opposed to owning the means of production etc). 30 years after the birth of internet and your average guy off the street is probably on the same 10 websites on rotation, buys a new phone every 2 years and jumps on every big Netflix release - I don't see how any tech on the horizon will rejuvinate opportunities for him because I don't see him understanding the implications (I'm lumping myself and most the population with this guy). I'm from London, my parents house has bloated in value to 8 times what they bought it for, meanwhile minimum wage has barely doubled in the same time, foodbank usage is at an all time high, unemployment is low but quality of life and satisfaction with work is terrible (loads of factors to this obv, don't want to be too reductive). Berardi is an old school Italian autonomist, so these arguments are steeped in Marx, which almost sounds quaint in a thread like this.

>>15265430
is he even going to finish the book now that he denounced bitcoin?

>>15265430
I think you're right, blockchain isn't going to benefit regular people in any way. What I mean by blockchain making the terrain more well suited to economic expansion is that it overwrites the difficulty of digital monetization by decentralizing property policing. I would go as far as to say that any blockchain is a digital encoding of the capitalist ideology, private property in a space previously defined by ease of data replication and distribution. Owning the means of data mediation becomes the norm as the virtual world becomes less distinguishable from the physical; the only way to get things or go places is to pay for the privilege. Blockchain is the hard stop on communism.