We now seem to see degrowth as an irresistible future. Degrowth, hypercompetition, and polarization are the new normal. While I agree with this idea, I question whether we should all be preoccupied with adapting to an irresistible future. In my opinion, we should have both a movement to resist the future and a movement to adapt to this irresistible future, so that we can hedge our risks against each other. But right now, it seems like most people are only trying to adapt. Maybe even pointing fingers at those who want to resist the undeniable future.
Marc Anderssen, the most prominent techno-optimist, wrote The Techno-Optimist Manifesto, in which he made the very bold claim that technology has always solved humanity's problems and will continue to do so. Since its publication, Wired, NY Times, and Financial Times have all published articles criticizing the article and Marc Anderssen. As I'll explain later, I don't agree with all of Marc Anderssen's claims. However, I think Marc Anderssen was trying to use his position and speaking power to expand the spectrum of the public's view of the future by showing the most extreme end of technology-driven optimism. By placing the flag on the far right of the graph below, people can now think about the whole graph, whereas before they could only choose the left half.
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While I fully support the critics of Marc Anderssen's argument, I have a hard time agreeing with those who say that because he is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, his argument is solely for his own personal experience and benefit. If Marc Anderssen is following the path of a venture capitalist because he believes that technology can bring about a better future, then perhaps he is a good example of aligning his beliefs with his work for a better future. In the same way that environmentalists are dedicating their lives to a better future, he may be following the same path, albeit in a different way.
So is the era of high growth really over, and while technology can't eliminate economic polarization, it can make everyone a little richer? Is it really impossible to make tomorrow better than today?
Riskophobia is an ideology that has come to dominate our society in the wake of low growth. Packy McCormick's 'Riskophilia' describes it very well. According to his article, we humans have become more risk-averse over time.
If we're going to accept and adapt to a period of degrowth and stagnation, as is the current trend, we don't have to, but if we want to make an effort to resist an undeniable future, we need to start by changing this culture of riskophobia to riskophilia. As its mentioned in Packy's article, rather than forbidding a child to ride a bike, we should make them wear a helmet before letting them ride. If we make movements solely for the purpose of minimizing risk, we will inhibit the resilience and growth of our society, which will make it impossible to even try to resist an irresistible future.
We must accept that every choice will have "both" costs and benefits. No decision can be completely free of downsides. For example, many of the things we enjoy today may not have been possible without fossil fuels, but they certainly came at a cost. What's clear is that fossil fuels have an excellent net cost-benefit ratio. In our current culture, even if we found the "next big thing," we would never adopt it by focusing solely on the cost. We need to take a hard look at the costs and benefits of any technology, and ultimately decide if it will net benefit humanity. If we think it has net benefit, then we should embrace although it has risk.
The world can be divided into two main areas. One is the digital world, or the world of bits, and the other is the physical world, or the world of atoms.
The internet, AI, and blockchain are all innovations in the Bits world. As the time and cost of moving Bits approaches zero, things we can only imagine are becoming possible. For another era of high growth, we now need innovation in the physical world. More specifically, we need innovation at the intersection of Atoms & Bits. The most representative example is the AI x Bio field. By taking an advanced technology from the Bits world, such as AI, and using it to synthesize chemicals in the Atoms world, new things can become possible.
If we can reduce the time and cost of moving an atom to near zero, flying cars may no longer be the stuff of science fiction. The reason why flying cars still exist in science fiction, despite our technological advances, is that innovation in the Atoms world is relatively small compared to Bits.
Therefore, we need more so-called "hard tech startups" dreaming of innovating in the Atoms world, and we need more VCs focusing on them. In fact, according to Leo Polovets, hard tech investments have better results than SaaS, so there's no reason not to. You can check more in this article.
Earlier, I argued that we need a culture of risk-taking and careful cost/benefit comparisons, and secondly, we need innovation in Atoms, if we are to even attempt to resist the irresistible future. Along with this, here's a blueprint of the overall future society I envision.
First of all, technology and capital are the two biggest pillars that drive our society. This is based on Accelerationism's concept of the Techno-capital Machine, which is the foundation of technological optimism. The Techno-capital Machine is a perpetual engine for growth in Accelerationism, where technology and capital are the two main pillars and require energy and intelligence as fuel. The end goal of this engine is to make human life richer and better, and all of these activities operate within the boundaries of a system of institutions, namely government. The differences between my future blueprint and traditional techno-optimism are as follows.
Purpose of the techno-capital machine: It's a small difference, but I believe that the purpose of the techno-capital machine is ultimately to make life better for humanity. This is not explicitly stated in traditional accelerationism, but I want to emphasize that humanity should be at the center.
The importance of governments and institutions: In traditional techno-optimism, the role of governments and institutions is often downplayed, or even viewed as beneficial without them. However, there are several problems with this view. First, it's unrealistic. Since we already have an institution called government, and since that system exists, it makes no sense to assume that it doesn't exist, or to argue that it shouldn't exist. Rather, we should be thinking about how we can create a better system. Second, government has had a huge impact on the development of our society. For example, SpaceX would not have gotten as far as it has without NASA's COTS. Similarly, in the world of Atom, which requires large capital and a long time to produce results, government support and cooperation is crucial for big innovations.
The concepts related to each actor are as follows:
Tech: Includes all engineering technologies in each industry, such as batteries and semiconductors.
Capital: Various ways of raising capital, such as venture capitalists, stock markets, and crypto.
Energy: Cheaper, greener ways to produce energy, such as nuclear fusion, fission, solar, and geothermal.
Intelligence: AI.
Human: Technologies that directly impact human life, such as bio & healthcare.
Institution: Current systems, such as politics, and concepts for building new systems, such as Network States.
As such, I hope that more people will take an interest in how to resist the irresistible future, so that the ratio of those working to adapt to the irresistible future to those working to resist the irresistible future is at least 6:4, so that, just in case, we can find a glimmer of hope that we can resist the irresistible future. Given the choice, I'd rather live in a world where everyone is more prosperous, where we grow more, where more science fiction technologies are realized, and where we use more energy than we do now.
I don't think everyone should mandatorily deny degrowth and only embrance for a high growth era. We all have the freedom to live our lives the way we want to, so it's up to us. However, I would like to see more people realize that if society has been explaining to us that we only have one option, there are now ways to resist an irresistible future.
Moyed
