Techno-Optimist Manifesto
* Manifesto: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. By Marc Andreessen.
URL = https://pmarca.substack.com/p/the-techno-optimist-manifesto?
Excerpt
Marc Andreessen:
"Techno-Optimists believe that societies, like sharks, grow or die.
We believe growth is progress – leading to vitality, expansion of life, increasing knowledge, higher well being.
We agree with Paul Collier when he says, “Economic growth is not a cure-all, but lack of growth is a kill-all.”
We believe everything good is downstream of growth.
We believe not growing is stagnation, which leads to zero-sum thinking, internal fighting, degradation, collapse, and ultimately death.
There are only three sources of growth: population growth, natural resource utilization, and technology."
(https://pmarca.substack.com/p/the-techno-optimist-manifesto?)
Summary
N.S. Lyons:
"Andreessen’s manifesto is a statement of faith in Progress. Its basic argument can be summarized as follows:
Growth is the ultimate Good, and the purpose of life is to pursue growth: “Techno-Optimists believe that societies, like sharks, grow or die… We believe everything good is downstream of growth.”
Growth = progress: “We believe growth is progress – leading to vitality, expansion of life, increasing knowledge, higher well being…”
The potential for growth is infinite: “We believe that since human wants and needs are infinite, economic demand is infinite, and job growth can continue forever.”
Technology is the ultimate source of growth, and therefore of the Good: “[T]he only perpetual source of growth is technology.”… “Combine technology and markets and you get what [neo-reactionary writer] Nick Land has termed the techno-capital machine, the engine of perpetual material creation, growth, and abundance.”… “Technology is the glory of human ambition and achievement, the spearhead of progress, and the realization of our potential. For hundreds of years, we properly glorified this – until recently. I am here to bring the good news.”
Technology’s power is infinite: “We believe that there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology.”
With enough technological magic we can achieve utopia: “We believe that technology ultimately drives the world to what Buckminster Fuller called ‘ephemeralization’ – what economists call ‘dematerialization’. Fuller: ‘Technology lets you do more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing.’” … “We believe in making everyone rich, everything cheap, and everything abundant.”
Technology is a reflection of our intelligence, which is humanity’s highest virtue: “We believe intelligence is the ultimate engine of progress. Intelligence makes everything better… Intelligence is the birthright of humanity; we should expand it as fully and broadly as we possibly can.”
If our intellect can build technological machines that can in turn expand our intelligence this will be the infinity key that transfigures us into the equivalent of gods: “We believe we are poised for an intelligence takeoff that will expand our capabilities to unimagined heights. We believe Artificial Intelligence is our alchemy, our Philosopher’s Stone – we are literally making sand think. We believe Artificial Intelligence is best thought of as a universal problem solver.”
Because progress is the source of everything good, opposing technological progress is a moral crime: “We believe in accelerationism – the conscious and deliberate propulsion of technological development… To ensure the techno-capital upward spiral continues forever.” … “We believe any deceleration of AI will cost lives. Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder.”
Technology and progress are sources of human vitality, greatness, and virtue: “We believe in ambition, aggression, persistence, relentlessness – strength… We believe in what the Greeks called eudaimonia through arete – flourishing through excellence. We believe technology makes greatness more possible and more likely.”
Technology liberates us by expanding the power of our will over the world: “We believe technology is liberatory. Liberatory of human potential. Liberatory of the human soul, the human spirit. Expanding what it can mean to be free, to be fulfilled, to be alive. We believe technology opens the space of what it can mean to be human.”
Technological progress is a form of struggle, and struggle (to grow and expand) is the essence of life: “We believe in nature, but we also believe in overcoming nature… We believe in greatness.” … “To paraphrase a manifesto of a different time and place [by Italian fascist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, in 1909]: ‘Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Technology must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.’”
Restraint, humility, egalitarianism, weakness, and deference to the past are all enemies of mankind: “Our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades – against technology and against life.” … “Our enemy is stagnation. Our enemy is anti-merit, anti-ambition, anti-striving, anti-achievement, anti-greatness. Our enemy is statism, authoritarianism, collectivism, central planning, socialism. Our enemy is bureaucracy, vetocracy, gerontocracy, blind deference to tradition.” … “Our enemy is Friedrich Nietzsche’s Last Man.”
But, somehow, all this isn’t utopian or egomaniacal: “However, we are not Utopians. We are adherents to what [conservative] Thomas Sowell calls the Constrained Vision.”
(https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-the-right-wing-progressives?)
Discussion
From the Critique by
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“We are told to denounce our birthright — our intelligence, our control over nature, our ability to build a better world.”
Did he really just say it is our birthright to control nature? Can we just sit with this for a half second and marvel at its anthropocentricity?
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“We believe growth is progress — leading to vitality, expansion of life, increasing knowledge, higher well being.”
How anyone as smart has him cannot plainly see indefinite growth that utilizes materials on a finite planet is fatal is beyond me.
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“Our civilization was built on technology.”
Yes. And. This misses the vital point that the incentive structure underlying that technology dictates whether it is net beneficial or detrimental to life on this planet. Tech as he preaches it alongside market fundamentalism / neoliberalism = suicide.
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“We believe that there is no material problem — whether created by nature or by technology — that cannot be solved with more technology.”
The fundamentalism and lack of nuance here is unreal. Seriously who is going to play him on SNL — no need for a script it’s already written in the post.
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“Profits are the incentive for producing supply that fulfills demand.”
Can we envision a world where purpose is the incentive for producing supply that fulfills demand? The lack of purpose, btw, is one of the things driving the global rise of anxiety and depression. Again, narrow thinking on display here. We are spiritually bereft in the culture of profits that capitalism has broght forth.
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More information
- Book: The Coming Wave. By Mustafa Suleyman.