I’ve decided to take 2024 off. No social media, no apps, and following as little news as I can manage. Sure, I’ll vote at some point, and I’ll follow some basketball, but otherwise I’m just going to ignore y’all. I’m pretty excited about it, too, and I’m only telling you1 as a way of holding myself accountable. I’m telling you for me.
But before I go, I want to briefly rant about the burgeoning e/acc movement2. This is something I don’t really know well and don’t care to learn much more about, yet I would nevertheless like to have a strongly worded, albeit ill-informed, opinion on—in the spirit of the very internet discourse that I seek to avoid in the coming year.
For the unfamiliar, the e/acc movement is basically a simplified rehash of Objectivism for our modern world of trillion-dollar market caps and billionaire techno-celebrities, with messaging that can be distilled into meme-sized portions and slogans. It purports that technology alone can save us from an almost certain oblivion, and that any regulatory efforts to curb advancements in tech is fundamentally immoral. The fact that the loudest voices are from within the tech world itself should surprise no one.
The most worrisome thing about the e/acc movement is that I even know about it in the first place. A shallow philosophy that should be confined to the rotting husk of Twitter has instead taken off in 2023, with interest ramping up considerably over the past few weeks. Then again, when so much of our media now comes from guys like Zuckerberg, Musk, and Bezos, it’s no wonder that the latest movement to extoll the virtues of selfishness has found an audience.
The flaw at the center of e/acc is the belief that market success somehow correlates with greatness, so we should allocate resources toward the rapid acceleration of financially lucrative endeavors, particularly technological advancements that run ahead of pesky regulatory interference. If only we’d let the imagineers have their way, we’d be on the fast track to a multi-planetary utopia, but “the man” always ends up getting in the way, what with their strict rules against polluting public waterways or dehumanizing labor conditions3. The problem here is believing that capitalism is a meritocracy, and that it can be self-regulating if we rely on the wisdom of markets to weed out bad actors and maintain a functioning system—but that’s simply not true. Sustainable capitalism requires regulation to protect itself from its worst impulses.
In my novel, Modern Problems4, I tried to examine the myth of the heroic capitalist by creating the ultimate Ayn Randian super-industrialist, Erol Zane—he’s the richest man in the world, has secured a green light to do as he pleases from a federal government that’s dependent upon his success, and he’s amassed a cult-like following of angry young men who blindly support his every whim. If he were real, the e/acc crowd would fetishize him.
But the problem with Erol is the same problem with so many actual billionaires—they eventually come to believe in the mythologies that they inspire, which then becomes self-perpetuating and drifts into the absurd. Because it’s not enough to be rich and powerful, it’s also important to be tough and cool, and to have a kick-ass yacht, and to Tweet about your dick. Maybe spend a little time in space just ‘cuz. These are the sort of men5 who the e/acc movement rallies around.
As I prepare to spend 2024 with my head in the sand, I’d like to shout into the void one last time: please don’t make billionaires your heroes. Exploiting holes in undercooked regulatory systems, defrauding investors, commodifying data—these are not bold innovations that we’re talking about here, and they don’t bring us any closer to the utopian future that e/acc acolytes are promising. Where is the net gain for humanity when we consider the existence of Amazon, Meta, or even Tesla? If these are the kind of accomplishments that award status and power, then perhaps there are systemic flaws that should be addressed.
Maybe we don’t deserve it, but we should at least aspire for more admirable heroes than some cosplay space cowboys with fragile egos.
1 By “you” I mean “no one.” No one actually reads this crap.
2 e/acc = effective accelerationism. It’s a play on “effective altruism,” which was popularized by Sam Bankman-Fried, and was also just self-congratulatory bullshit masquerading as a philosophy.
3 You know, things that serve the broader public interests. Go take a look at the environmental impact of your favorite tech companies and consider who is looking out for you: the companies that are beholden to their shareholders, or the regulators who are trying to detoxify your drinking water.
4 Obviously this whole thing is just an elaborate ruse in order to plug my book to the few people who stumble across this website. Shameful! I might as well name the whole site after myself while I’m at it!
5 I don’t mean to say it’s only men, of course. No one is going to accuse the tech world of being a boy’s club.