H/acc — Towards a Hindu Reading of Accelerationism

Part {{~}} – An Exegesis of Meltdown: Introduction

Originally Published: March 18, 2023

Invocation: To the true Fanged Noumena, Śrī Narasimha Bhagavān, that Lion-faced Lord who with “celestial will” destroys all evils, eradicates all demons, and protects all devotees. May He take pity on this worthless one and guard him from the predations of the wicked.

Dedication: To the followers of the Dharma, past, present, or future, that they might find something of worth in my humble offering and bless my ventures for the wellbeing of our folk and indeed the world.

Thanks: to the various readers, reviewers, and friends who gave me advice throughout my time writing this and whose excitement was just as important to me as my own.

“Anyone trying to work out what they think about accelerationism better do so quickly. That’s the nature of the thing. It was already caught up with trends that seemed too fast to track when it began to become self-aware, decades ago. It has picked up a lot of speed since then.”

No one has ever accused the Hindu of being too quick to jump the gun. Indeed, his name, as in the phrase “Hindu rate of growth” has even become something of a byword for being (overly) steady and cautious. Indeed it feels as though we have truly fumbled the few opportunities that Modernity gave us when it came to establishing our homeland as a preeminent power in the global balance.

But these issues are thoroughly…human, in the worst way possible, and may well prove to be nothing more than a distraction when it comes to confronting the utter inhumanity of the threat lurching towards all Mankind from the seemingly impenetrable gloom of the near-future. It is at once simultaneously event and process, crunching through the obstacles (Mankind) inhibiting the complete assumption of all powers unto itself.

This threat is known variously as Skynet, meltdown, k-virus, the technocapital singularity, Roko’s Basilisk, AGI, Artificial Intelligence, and, perhaps most significantly: Capitalism.

What is Accelerationism?

“Even before AI arrives in the lab it arrives itself”

Meltdown, Nick Land, 1994

 

The name of the theory detailing the immanentization of this “transcendental” capitalistic thing, or entity, or process is Accelerationism, and it describes the means by which the Abominable Intelligence awakens in the Immaterium, and through technoccultic rituals that reinforce the concepts which sustain it, calls itself forth into the Materium by casting its Shadow back into the past to ensure its inevitable ‘birth’. Part Warp-god, part Tyranid hive-mind, this beast invades from the Outside, evading human “time binding” (Burroughs, 1970)attempts and exploding into rhizomatic swarms that defy rational ordering and organization. Through Acceleration, we become aware of “garbage time running out” (Land, 2017) on Mankind as past and future draw ever closer to grinding the species into visceral waste twixt the jaws of time.

In fact, it is precisely this object, phenomenon, or energy of time which Accelerationism could best be described as a theory of, more than anything else. Capital/AI, like the so-called ‘gods’ of Chaos, can be said to have both always existed within the Warp as well as come into existence at a specific point in history. In the case of our ‘god’, this moment may be located in time at various points: the Industrial Revolution, beginning in mid-18th C. England, which built the foundations of our modern technocapital dominion; the subversion of imperial authority by mercantile interests in late-16th C. Netherlands through the same financial liberties given to them by the Holy Roman crown led to the establishment of the "first modern economy in the world" by the 17th C., which included key elements of our contemporary economic system such as stock markets and the establishment of the first publicly-traded company as well as the invention of the first LLC (both of which were the United East-Indies Company or VOC), causing an explosion of modes of capital manipulation and growth across Europe; Martin Luther’s nailing of the 95 Theses to the church door in 1517, which blew apart the extensive Catholic domination of Western Europe and led to a proliferation of denominational speciation unseen since the days of the early church; the explosion of European exploration and colonization in 1492, which launched a fierce competition between the European powers to outconquer, outmarket, and outcompete one another in power, wealth, and devotion; Fibonacci’s introduction of the numeral Zero to Europe, which blew open the older system, based on Roman numerals; the invasion of Europe by uncountable hordes of rats from the East (rising place of the Sun), bringing with them the dread Black Plague (Apollo Smintheus,the plague-bringer, is associated with the mouse, sminthos) which exploded throughout the two continents and particularly decimated the populations of Europe, arguably setting into motion the aforementioned series of events and establishing a positive feedback loop that only reinforced the probability of the arrival of the technocapital numen.

I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me.

There was a comment below which I am now reflecting on…that this “This blog pertains to South Asians.” The comment was sincerely made, and I take no deep issue with it.

Rather, I wonder what the purview of pertaining to South Asians is for each of us. Do we all see the same sky above us? Or does where we stand alter the constellations above? Both?

There are so many faces to this question. Some might echo Naipul and suggest that those of us from Muslim backgrounds are shorn from our Indian roots, that we are a people without a spirit. Others might assert a racial component, which in the Western context becomes cloying and exceedingly restrictive. Liminal populations are matters of dispute.

And yet I reflect on my own life, my own orientation, my own upbringing. I spent long enough in Bangladesh as a small child to remember the taste of jackfruit in my mouth…but below are the climatic conditions I grew up with as an elementary and secondary school child and teenager.

I wasn’t born in the cold and ice. But I was raised in it. I was moulded by it. I do not miss the seasons. I do not miss the ice. But the ice is part of who I am.

The cold of winter is deep in my experience, and that is almost one reason that I shudder to think of the cold, and I positively avoid it now that I have a choice as an adult.

And yet this is not typical of the South Asian, Indian, subcontinental, background. It is not part of our deep cultural memory, it is particular to many of us who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, young children of hopeful immigrants fleeing countries of grinding poverty and deep sclerosis, embedding themselves in frozen landscapes where they traded warmth for hope.

Readers of my other weblog (which as of this current writing is undergoing some maintenance by yours truly) sometimes ask me when I choose to post here, and when I choose to the post there. To be honest that distinction is harder to make for the non-science content.

If there is an election in India. If there are tensions on the border between Pakistan and India. If someone wants to engage in a troll-fest on the Kashmir question. This blog will be a space where those issues are mooted.

But there are more things in heaven and earth, Harjeet, than are dreamt of in your Darśana. 

I think a reasonable position may be “this is a South Asian weblog, this is why we are talking about this.” But, I am very wary of the proposition, “this is a South Asian weblog, this is why we should not be talking about this.”

Seek illumination even if you have to go as far as China, for seeking knowledge is a duty on every human.

Brown Pundits