Tech - Accelerationism, Dark Enlightenment & Techno-fascism
Dangerous, abhorrent or plainly ludicrous ideas have no place in the public discourse. While they can be uttered, they can not claim the right to be heard and to be taken seriously. After all foolish ideas are plentiful, not at all scarce these days and painstakingly dissecting them would be Sisyphean task. Yet as a reader you have unknowingly embarked in a journey with the writer who as decided to disregard their own sound advice and plunge towards the abyss which without proper care would lead to madness. Exception has been made due to special circumstances; some once marginal and fringe ideas have escaped the outbounds of acceptable speech, discreetly positioned themselves as ideological underpinning harnessed by the powerful while remaining unnoticed to the broader public. At which point ignoring them is no longer a safe option, only by shining lights on them will they revert to the shadows from whence they came.
Before analyzing the current state of affair, it is of great importance to provide the context and set of ideologies which have birthed techno-fascism, mainly accelerationism and the dark enlightenment.
Ideas are often theorized by numerous ideologues. While looking at specific figures can provide a useful illustration of the zeitgeist. Too much emphasis on them incurs the risk of presenting them as powerful whisperers and puppeteers. A colorful depiction giving them the undeserved credits that they so desperately crave. A more careful approach is required; firstly introducing the ideology and its surrounding context, secondly presenting some influential ideologues not as architect of beliefs systems built ex nihilo but as heightened embodiment of pre-existing views, amalgamation of disparate ones with the occasional addition of some original thoughts. Ideas are certainly created by internal processes of individuals but exist as a response or anticipation of external events.
From the early days of the web these ideas have propagated themselves, posted on blogs where they gained authority, were shared on newsgroups as early memes and shitpost to gain the trust and credibility of this milieu. Despite or perhaps because of the cryptic and turgid prose of some and the logorrheic and highfalutin one of others, they have garnered a substantial but discrete following. People from the tech sector who have enriched themselves to a nauseating degree during the late 90's and early aughts found legitimacy in ideas depicting them as naturally superior and rightful heirs to the throne. While the right found validity in the pro-capitalist and racist elements to further their own project.
Influential circles espousing theses ideas now include tech moguls from silicon valley, venture capital backing them, the political right sympathetic to their worldview as well as their propaganda machine from the more discrete think tanks, the more established right wing news media to their more chaotic and less polish counterparts the agitators. Although not fully aligned they share a core disdain of humanity, a propensity toward and relish of violence targeting their political enemies, minorities and marginalized groups, a quasi religious devotion to capitalism and its excess, a forceful and gleeful use of technology to advance their ideas and suppress any dissidence.
Accelerationism main premise is to unleash an unrestricted form of capitalism freed from politics and regulations viewed as agents of the status quo. Solely accountable to itself and following the ruthlessness of the free market at full speed and at any cost, its natural property as driver of modernity would bring the world to a post-human techno-capitalist utopia.
Central to the development of this idea is Nick Land, who during his time as a professor the university of Warwick in 1995 created the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) with his colleagues, most notably Sadie Plant and Mark Fisher until their disbandment in the early 2000s. With interests that can only be described as an endless litany: cinema, complexity, currencies, dance music, e-cash, encryption, feminism, fiction, images, inorganic life, jungle, markets, matrices, microbiotics, multimedia, networks, numbers, perception, replication, sex, simulation, sound, telecommunications, textiles, texts, trade, video, virtuality, war. At that time his thinking was shaped by the works of French philosophers mainly Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus (1972) / A Thousand Plateaus (1980) by Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari and Libidinal Economy (1974) by Jean-François Lyotard. As well as other thinkers like Georges Bataille, Nietzsche, Norbert Wiener, William S. Burroughsand H.P. Lovecraft.
The neo-reactionary movement (NRx) or Dark Enlightenment (a term coined by Nick Land) argues inequality as natural and democracy as antithetical to freedom. Arguments about inequality among humans are nothing more that recycled unscientific and purely racist eugenics theory to create a hierarchy between people and justify the subjugation of those deemed inferior. Hence their obsession with IQ as the most important personal trait and their approbation of slavery. From this follows the case against democracy where people should not be allowed to govern themselves. As example they take women's right to vote and civil rights movement to abolish the segregation, discrimination and disenfranchisement of African Americans as a way for minorities and marginalized groups to become the new tyrants. A point of viewed taken directly from the writings of the authoritarian Scottish philosopher and massive bigot Thomas Carlyle. Instead, democratic institutions should be replaced by neocameralism a monarchical system where tech companies would run government with their CEO as king. Ideas reminiscent of the anarcho-capitalism theory of Murray Rothbard who advocated who the dissolution of the state with no higher power than individuals and corporations and Hans-Hermann Hoppe who favored monarchy a privately owned government as opposed to democracy a publicly owned one.
The transition from monarchy to democracy during 20th century is viewed as the root cause of civilization decline. Their collapse attributed not to a flawed system rather to the numerous democratic concessions made. A monarch invested with absolute power would have long-term thinking, maximize the profit of a society and no desire to destroy their property contrary to democratically elected officials with time-limited mandates. Monarch would govern city states instead of countries with fully obedient subjects who could choose to exit and live under a different one. A laughable idea for anyone who has ever glanced at a history book or just has a sense of reality.
While they profess that such changes could happen with little violence they are not oppose to it, denouncing it only when ineffective but praising it otherwise.
Many ideas from the neo-reactionary movement come from the software engineer Curtis Yarvin, who wrote extensively on his former blog Unqualified Reservations under the pen name Mencious Moldbug and continue to do so on his current one Gray Mirror under his real name. With clear influences by libetarianism, anarcho-capitalistism and the Austrian school of economics. And people like Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard and Hans-Hermann Hoppe.
These ideas are not contained anymore but have permeated American society and ipso facto the broader world from the anti-establishment sentiment against the news media, democracy and academia; the privatization of public goods; the techno-solutionism of Silicon Valley exemplified by the Techno-Optimist manifesto of Marc Andreessen or The Technological Republic of Alex Karp; the dismantlement of government by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by Elon Musk a rebrand of Retire all government employee (RAGE) to the advancement of conservatism by Peter Thiel and his protege now vice-president of the United State JD Vance and the now infamous Project 2025 of Russell Vought a political blueprint for conservative policies spearheaded by the right wing think tank The Heritage Foundation.
Techno-Fascism is the evolution and realization of accelerationism and the dark enlightenment where the tyrannical rule of the technological elite has replaced every facet of government in the name of efficiency and progress. A ongoing project not fully realized. Institutions have not completely collapse yet, but their constant onslaught aided by the complicity, willful ignorance or criminal negligence of politicians have definitely weaken them and brought a more authoritarian type of governance.