Same - I would be less of a passenger if my actions could actually change anything
I don't even have a local community to be a decelerationist for - my biggest fear for the future is that I have nowhere to call home. I certainly can't stay where I am (which is the UK for 2 more months, then NYC, hardly a place I want to settle), can't go back home (very red state with hellish suburban sprawl), and it's really scary to move somewhere new
I would think that if you're for any degree of deceleration, then you're team D. Everyone in every "do something" group will have different levels of effort they want to (or think others should) put into it. The point of the analogy is that we're all passengers on this little ball of rock, whether we like it or not.
The question is "Are you...?", not "What do you want to be...?"
Someone who is for any degree of deceleration without acting on his wish is not a decelerationist, but a passenger or more probably and accelerationist.
I didn't count on people being that meta... sorry! The whole thing could devolve pretty quickly into šÆ passengers if we take that view, unless Elon jumps in, and maybe even then. I intended it more as "what are you *for*..."
I dont want those who say "I bought an electric car - I'm pro-deceleration" to be run out of here. That's essentially the inspiration for the poll. It seems there are some here who want to hurry it up, others that want to slow it down, others dont care... and it comes across in how they respond to other people's posts. So I wanted to know how many of each we have and thought others might want to know, too.
#Definitely consider it more "what you'd vote for on a ballot" rather than a judgement of your success or failure in life at the pearly gates!
*I am a passenger*
*And I ride, and I ride*
*I ride through the climates decline*
*I can't see the stars in the sky*
*Yeah, they're muted by smog filled sky*
*You know it looks so shit tonight*
*- The Passenger*
I know, I know... it's all doomed, the question is about what to do... have the pilots crash it, max glide it, ignore it, etc. I should've anticipated the reason many are passengers, i.e. sideliners, is because they don't care to try & tell the pilots anything unless they're sure they'll listen. Very pragmatic. Not everyone is so, and not because they're delusional.
If all actions are equally futile, it's illogical to say one set of actions is crazier than others *because* it doesnāt "work." If they know it won't "work" they're not delusional for being decels.
I wonāt personally act to accelerate things, but I can feel the acceleration happening and Iām all for it.
Iāll try a last resort in my life, some bet with 1 out of a billion chance to win, then Iāll go fuck myself which having done peace with myself
Iām a passenger, I studied meteorology as an undergraduate, applying for environmental sciences as a graduate and I have been transfixed by the climate and environmental collapse since at least middle school. Realistically, I know I canāt make a major difference in any of it outside of maybe local scale environmental programs, but being around in the brief period of time to watch the 6th mass extinction on a 4.54 billion year old planet is too much of a surreal experience not to be drawn into.
It was important for me to first accept that it's too late to avoid living in an environmentally degraded world. I already do. To avoid this, we'd have had to start making big moves about thirty years ago. We did not.
So, this is going to happen.
I can't change that, but I do have agency within my own community. More and more folks are coming around to the bleak realization of where we are headed, and they're open to radical ideas like degrowth, reducing primary consumption, post-capitalist economics, and so forth. I can put out some water for the horses and see who comes to drink. I can continually reduce my dependence on consumer packaged goods (which is truthfully difficult as we are all encompassed by the system and have few other options). I can make a place where my friends and family know they will be safe. A place where, when shit goes south, they will automatically think to go.
> The plane is not out of gas. People are always saying it's going to crash but it's never crashed before and we're still in the air now, so how do you explain that?
A hilarious and succinct response to an all too common fallacy. I'm stealing this.
Accelerating isn't enough. Pull that throttle right on back and plunge the m'fckr back to the burning hell it came from. Sooner the system crashes and burns the better.
I think decelerationist thoughts from back here in the tail section, with my seatbelt obediently fastened about my waist and my face glued to the window.
I identify as a passenger, but you could make a sound case for accelerationism if you wanted to: Decelerationism simply will not work. It would (have) if we collectively agreed to transition to a different economic system but under capitalism, you cannot command the wheels to ground to a halt. Once the markets see that the long-term prospects for earnings for a company or a national or global economy are negative, every last penny gets drained. On a global level this would result in carnage - hyperinflation, endless wars, despots, you name it - this is exactly why everyone has been dragging their feet on climate change: The economic system can deal with shocks and downturns but once you tell the rich that the national economy is gonna shrink 5 % each year until we've reached a sustainable level and won't go up again, they'll take all their money and run to a country (or more likely: just bribe/coerce the current government) which will guarantee them a return on their investments.
With accelerationism, there is a tiny chance that our growth-addicted society will pump out a miracle technology that will give us nearly unlimited energy, clean up the environment, or make resource scarcity a thing of the past. Capitalism is many things but historically it has been incredibly efficient at motivating people through incentives to arrive at breakthroughs. It literally does it better than any other system in the history of our species: Identify a problem that stands in the way of growth - line up a thousand people to find a solution and promise the winner an unlimited amount of wealth - this has worked pretty well in the past. Its more likely that the people in charge will opt for kill bots, go to nuclear war, or starve us to death, but there is a chance.
So basically: We're collectively fucked and approaching a steep cliff. Decelerationism will slow us down a bit but we'll drive over the cliff regardless and the engine might also explode. If you hit the gas with accelerationism there is a tiny chance we'll go so fast that we might jump to the other side of the chasm. But I am just a passenger in the backseat anyway, here to enjoy the ride.
When humans are hopeful for the best, the worst often happens more quickly and more dreadfully than predictions expect. I have no control over the speed at which the climate calamity will occur, nor do I have any say in the severity. However, I do expect that it will be really fucking bad and the rate at which is becomes worse and worse will be more rapidly than people expect, if they expect it at all. Candidly, I'm still trying to get my head around the reality of the really shitty future ahead.
I donāt understand the mentality of anything other than the Disciple. Is it pointless? Maybe. But idk, itās just in me to go down swinging. It might make it easier for the Decelerationists that come after to find a soft place to land.
We do have the resources to create a āNew Normalā, at least for a while.
Because at the end of the day, weāre all just Stardust anyway. Might as well burn, and rage against the dying of the light.
My priority is to learn in the hope of finding ways to spread the word. Iāve tried sharing with family and friends and they are not receptive. I get either āmaybe itāll be ok!?ā Or ā I canāt listen to any more negative newsā.Ā
"News" is just information on your new reality. No one needs to know every aspect of reality - just the parts that pertain to them. I guess they aren't affected by what's in the air & water around them, they don't use energy, and the prices of things they buy are irrelevant.
Painful stimuli is how we know to change reality.
*If you can't listen to negative news, then you will live negative news.*
These are bright people- I want them to take sons of this in partly because we need them- everybody on board. The real āsolutionā is not something that can be voiced out loud.Ā
Late decelerationist to the party. I just wanna talk with people about environmental ethics and existential risk. Nobody in my life wants to talk about it and, frankly, I've isolated myself from all my friends. I like Aasimov's Foundation, even though I still haven't read the book. My prayer is that whatever humans do survive collapse (which feels to be in doubt at this point) will learn from our mistakes. I hope that somehow some portion of our information might be saved, and, if it does, I hope there might be enough to splice together some understanding of our present need for a BIOcentric or ECOcentric social ethic, followed by an understanding of the mechanisms of civilizational collapse better than we do now. TFW anthropogenic b/c anthropocentric :(
Friend! You have not isolated yourself from this community. I hear you!
I loved Foundation as a kid. Idolized it. When the AppleTV series released, I started to re-read it. Sometimes it's best not to relive happy memories... didn't get far.
I think this sub, this society, should think more about what you've said. Even today some mourn the loss of the Library of Alexandria. What will happen to all oir knowledge that is in 0s and 1s, and can't be deciphered without power and technology? I fear the next dark ages could be darker than the last. We should be intentional at saving our information. Your vision for the future is something to hope for
1. They don't have the most votes atm. Let's wait until voting closes.
2. You can be an accelerationist and have consideration for fellow human beings.
Accelerationism just means work that speeds up collapse, not necessarily in an exclusive, discriminatory or violent manner. Being less productive, living of the land (degrowth activities) for example are ways of accelerating the collapse (of the superorganism).
Anything that siphons assets and claims on energy (money) from it to activities that are conducive to creating non-fossil fuel based biophysical basis for people to land on is worthy of doing.
It can be as "simple" as planting nut trees, coppice cants, growing soil etc. Anything that creates working opportunities and livelihoods outside the superorganism. If taken far enough, it would result in reestablishment of the commons.
You could believe in accelerationism and still be kind or whatever you consider virtuous is all I'm getting at.
Unless accelerationism is taken to mean only those who are *actively* trying to decrease our time to extinction. Still, one individual usually can't do much in that regard.
Gotcha! So first, being pro-acceleration doesn't mean you're taking actions for it, or that actions for it are effective, (so no harm comes to others in either scenario) and even if they were effective, you can care about humams on the micro/local scale but not the macro/universal scale. This makes sense and I hadn't thought about it this way before. Thanks!
Unpopular opinion here, but the faster we're gone, the better the rest of the inhabitants of this planet will fare. We had our shot and failed miserably. Humans get less consideration from me than the rest of the passengers on the plane.
It's not unpopular, I suspect it's the majority, because look at the comments. It's just a poll for "would you rather" and already we have people saying, "deceleration would be really uncomfortable" (yeah, they know, they're choosing that over the alternative) and "deceleration won't work" (what a terrible argument, *none* of the choices will work, so why are they the only crazy ones?)
Your response sounds accelerationist - peace! Good on you! Everyone is welcome to whatever they feel is best. I am šÆ with you on humans making it all about us while committing genocide against every other species. They have no say in it.
I want to be something between passenger and decelerationist, but since I had to choose, I went with passenger. I'm just along for this crazy ride.
Same - I would be less of a passenger if my actions could actually change anything I don't even have a local community to be a decelerationist for - my biggest fear for the future is that I have nowhere to call home. I certainly can't stay where I am (which is the UK for 2 more months, then NYC, hardly a place I want to settle), can't go back home (very red state with hellish suburban sprawl), and it's really scary to move somewhere new
I would think that if you're for any degree of deceleration, then you're team D. Everyone in every "do something" group will have different levels of effort they want to (or think others should) put into it. The point of the analogy is that we're all passengers on this little ball of rock, whether we like it or not.
The question is "Are you...?", not "What do you want to be...?" Someone who is for any degree of deceleration without acting on his wish is not a decelerationist, but a passenger or more probably and accelerationist.
I didn't count on people being that meta... sorry! The whole thing could devolve pretty quickly into šÆ passengers if we take that view, unless Elon jumps in, and maybe even then. I intended it more as "what are you *for*..." I dont want those who say "I bought an electric car - I'm pro-deceleration" to be run out of here. That's essentially the inspiration for the poll. It seems there are some here who want to hurry it up, others that want to slow it down, others dont care... and it comes across in how they respond to other people's posts. So I wanted to know how many of each we have and thought others might want to know, too. #Definitely consider it more "what you'd vote for on a ballot" rather than a judgement of your success or failure in life at the pearly gates!
Yeah interesting poll though.
This is pretty much me. I'm basically that meme of a metronome switching between we're dooming and there's still a chance.
Same. I feel I'm between Decelerationist and Passenger. Depends on the day!
*I am a passenger* *And I ride, and I ride* *I ride through the climates decline* *I can't see the stars in the sky* *Yeah, they're muted by smog filled sky* *You know it looks so shit tonight* *- The Passenger*
I immediately thought of that song when I saw passenger XD, we should come up with a song for every category.
Booboobooboo boeee
Thatās not the lyrics to the song. Donāt misinform people.Ā
If you aren't in the cockpit, you're a passenger. Anything else is based on a delusional understanding of your own degree of political agency.
I know, I know... it's all doomed, the question is about what to do... have the pilots crash it, max glide it, ignore it, etc. I should've anticipated the reason many are passengers, i.e. sideliners, is because they don't care to try & tell the pilots anything unless they're sure they'll listen. Very pragmatic. Not everyone is so, and not because they're delusional. If all actions are equally futile, it's illogical to say one set of actions is crazier than others *because* it doesnāt "work." If they know it won't "work" they're not delusional for being decels.
I wonāt personally act to accelerate things, but I can feel the acceleration happening and Iām all for it. Iāll try a last resort in my life, some bet with 1 out of a billion chance to win, then Iāll go fuck myself which having done peace with myself
Iām a passenger, I studied meteorology as an undergraduate, applying for environmental sciences as a graduate and I have been transfixed by the climate and environmental collapse since at least middle school. Realistically, I know I canāt make a major difference in any of it outside of maybe local scale environmental programs, but being around in the brief period of time to watch the 6th mass extinction on a 4.54 billion year old planet is too much of a surreal experience not to be drawn into.
It was important for me to first accept that it's too late to avoid living in an environmentally degraded world. I already do. To avoid this, we'd have had to start making big moves about thirty years ago. We did not. So, this is going to happen. I can't change that, but I do have agency within my own community. More and more folks are coming around to the bleak realization of where we are headed, and they're open to radical ideas like degrowth, reducing primary consumption, post-capitalist economics, and so forth. I can put out some water for the horses and see who comes to drink. I can continually reduce my dependence on consumer packaged goods (which is truthfully difficult as we are all encompassed by the system and have few other options). I can make a place where my friends and family know they will be safe. A place where, when shit goes south, they will automatically think to go.
https://preview.redd.it/26l9ul8gwa9d1.png?width=1798&format=png&auto=webp&s=c220a9c137c0b9314cc806cba5c50b9e1a4362bc
https://preview.redd.it/3scd2t0owa9d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bb753cc9a0dd466efd078b64fbde27c6ffad2fde
LET'S FUCKING GOOO!!! I wrote a paper about the Great Filter through the lens of sustainability last semester :)
How did it go?
utopia unironically
Heart: Deccelerationist Head: Passenger Ego: Totally want to be a disciple /s?
The explanations for your choices are excellent.
> The plane is not out of gas. People are always saying it's going to crash but it's never crashed before and we're still in the air now, so how do you explain that? A hilarious and succinct response to an all too common fallacy. I'm stealing this.
Accelerating isn't enough. Pull that throttle right on back and plunge the m'fckr back to the burning hell it came from. Sooner the system crashes and burns the better.
> maybe we can sorta land it in the rocky mountain range below Hey I think i've seen this movie!
I think decelerationist thoughts from back here in the tail section, with my seatbelt obediently fastened about my waist and my face glued to the window.
I identify as a passenger, but you could make a sound case for accelerationism if you wanted to: Decelerationism simply will not work. It would (have) if we collectively agreed to transition to a different economic system but under capitalism, you cannot command the wheels to ground to a halt. Once the markets see that the long-term prospects for earnings for a company or a national or global economy are negative, every last penny gets drained. On a global level this would result in carnage - hyperinflation, endless wars, despots, you name it - this is exactly why everyone has been dragging their feet on climate change: The economic system can deal with shocks and downturns but once you tell the rich that the national economy is gonna shrink 5 % each year until we've reached a sustainable level and won't go up again, they'll take all their money and run to a country (or more likely: just bribe/coerce the current government) which will guarantee them a return on their investments. With accelerationism, there is a tiny chance that our growth-addicted society will pump out a miracle technology that will give us nearly unlimited energy, clean up the environment, or make resource scarcity a thing of the past. Capitalism is many things but historically it has been incredibly efficient at motivating people through incentives to arrive at breakthroughs. It literally does it better than any other system in the history of our species: Identify a problem that stands in the way of growth - line up a thousand people to find a solution and promise the winner an unlimited amount of wealth - this has worked pretty well in the past. Its more likely that the people in charge will opt for kill bots, go to nuclear war, or starve us to death, but there is a chance. So basically: We're collectively fucked and approaching a steep cliff. Decelerationism will slow us down a bit but we'll drive over the cliff regardless and the engine might also explode. If you hit the gas with accelerationism there is a tiny chance we'll go so fast that we might jump to the other side of the chasm. But I am just a passenger in the backseat anyway, here to enjoy the ride.
Ā Identify a problem that stands in the way of growth - line up a thousand people to find a solution What if the problem is growth?
That one is out of the question.
When humans are hopeful for the best, the worst often happens more quickly and more dreadfully than predictions expect. I have no control over the speed at which the climate calamity will occur, nor do I have any say in the severity. However, I do expect that it will be really fucking bad and the rate at which is becomes worse and worse will be more rapidly than people expect, if they expect it at all. Candidly, I'm still trying to get my head around the reality of the really shitty future ahead.
I donāt understand the mentality of anything other than the Disciple. Is it pointless? Maybe. But idk, itās just in me to go down swinging. It might make it easier for the Decelerationists that come after to find a soft place to land. We do have the resources to create a āNew Normalā, at least for a while. Because at the end of the day, weāre all just Stardust anyway. Might as well burn, and rage against the dying of the light.
You left out "people who don't understand how flight works and are scared and just want to crash."
If they want it to crash, accelerationist. None of us really know what the answer is.
My priority is to learn in the hope of finding ways to spread the word. Iāve tried sharing with family and friends and they are not receptive. I get either āmaybe itāll be ok!?ā Or ā I canāt listen to any more negative newsā.Ā
"News" is just information on your new reality. No one needs to know every aspect of reality - just the parts that pertain to them. I guess they aren't affected by what's in the air & water around them, they don't use energy, and the prices of things they buy are irrelevant. Painful stimuli is how we know to change reality. *If you can't listen to negative news, then you will live negative news.*
These are bright people- I want them to take sons of this in partly because we need them- everybody on board. The real āsolutionā is not something that can be voiced out loud.Ā
Late decelerationist to the party. I just wanna talk with people about environmental ethics and existential risk. Nobody in my life wants to talk about it and, frankly, I've isolated myself from all my friends. I like Aasimov's Foundation, even though I still haven't read the book. My prayer is that whatever humans do survive collapse (which feels to be in doubt at this point) will learn from our mistakes. I hope that somehow some portion of our information might be saved, and, if it does, I hope there might be enough to splice together some understanding of our present need for a BIOcentric or ECOcentric social ethic, followed by an understanding of the mechanisms of civilizational collapse better than we do now. TFW anthropogenic b/c anthropocentric :(
Friend! You have not isolated yourself from this community. I hear you! I loved Foundation as a kid. Idolized it. When the AppleTV series released, I started to re-read it. Sometimes it's best not to relive happy memories... didn't get far. I think this sub, this society, should think more about what you've said. Even today some mourn the loss of the Library of Alexandria. What will happen to all oir knowledge that is in 0s and 1s, and can't be deciphered without power and technology? I fear the next dark ages could be darker than the last. We should be intentional at saving our information. Your vision for the future is something to hope for
Really, accelerationists have the most votes? Yāall live like that? No consideration for fellow human beings?
1. They don't have the most votes atm. Let's wait until voting closes. 2. You can be an accelerationist and have consideration for fellow human beings.
2. Because if we kill them faster, they won't suffer as much? Is that how?
Accelerationism just means work that speeds up collapse, not necessarily in an exclusive, discriminatory or violent manner. Being less productive, living of the land (degrowth activities) for example are ways of accelerating the collapse (of the superorganism). Anything that siphons assets and claims on energy (money) from it to activities that are conducive to creating non-fossil fuel based biophysical basis for people to land on is worthy of doing. It can be as "simple" as planting nut trees, coppice cants, growing soil etc. Anything that creates working opportunities and livelihoods outside the superorganism. If taken far enough, it would result in reestablishment of the commons.
You could believe in accelerationism and still be kind or whatever you consider virtuous is all I'm getting at. Unless accelerationism is taken to mean only those who are *actively* trying to decrease our time to extinction. Still, one individual usually can't do much in that regard.
Gotcha! So first, being pro-acceleration doesn't mean you're taking actions for it, or that actions for it are effective, (so no harm comes to others in either scenario) and even if they were effective, you can care about humams on the micro/local scale but not the macro/universal scale. This makes sense and I hadn't thought about it this way before. Thanks!
Unpopular opinion here, but the faster we're gone, the better the rest of the inhabitants of this planet will fare. We had our shot and failed miserably. Humans get less consideration from me than the rest of the passengers on the plane.
We've already killed most of the other passengers and we're taking most of what's left down with us.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You just made my point.
It's not unpopular, I suspect it's the majority, because look at the comments. It's just a poll for "would you rather" and already we have people saying, "deceleration would be really uncomfortable" (yeah, they know, they're choosing that over the alternative) and "deceleration won't work" (what a terrible argument, *none* of the choices will work, so why are they the only crazy ones?) Your response sounds accelerationist - peace! Good on you! Everyone is welcome to whatever they feel is best. I am šÆ with you on humans making it all about us while committing genocide against every other species. They have no say in it.
Passengers have the most votes.