This is one of my favorite interviews — Mostly because it flows so quickly and seamlessly between disparate theoretical references, but also because I have an aesthetic fascination with the cyberpunk CCRU era of the late nineties. The text and images in this conversation represent a young person reaching toward politics through a beautifully stylized subculture. They pick up and discard theory as needed. They freely borrow from meme formats and philosophical canons to build out their own unique a la carte worldview.
At this point, I am fully convinced that Deleuze is just poetry for art students. In the history of organized labor, there is no shop stewart who ever said the word “rhizome” or talked about “bodies without organs”. Simply put, this stuff has no relevance to organized political life. Perhaps what these internet subcultures did best, is that they revealed this type of theory as a slippery aesthetic fluid that fills in the gaps between incongruent theoretical frames. Either way, its a beautiful aesthetic journey that inspires me to this day. #accelerate
hyper-communize
age 18
Los Angeles Metropolitan Area
Instagram, Discord
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How would you describe your politics or ideology?
Eh I guess Accelerationist, Cyber Nihilist, some influence from Communization and Egoism. In other words, edgy.
Who are your biggest influences?
Marx, Fisher, Deleuze & Guatarri, Dauvé, Debord, Vaneigem, Baudrillard, Land, Plant, Haraway, Camus, Stirner are probably my biggest influences
When did you first learn about or start visiting online political communities?
About November 2017, was initially interested in Anarchism and Labor Politics. Made an instagram account where I'd mainly post memes and have group discussions in chats. Prior to that I had visited some breadtubers as well as done some primary research. It was mainly because Youtube and Instagram were accessible but obviously that isn't necessarily a good thing lol. Shortly after I began politicizing my discord and joined some servers recommended to me on instagram.
What was your ideology before entering these spaces?
Or how have your views evolved since you started participating?
I was just a non-aligned liberal berniecrat who then took interest in social libertarianism and workplace democracy but after this and shortly before my descent into anarchism/mutualism I was a right-leaning libertarian who still somewhat cared about social justice but in no meaningful way.
What changes do you think we are likely to see in the next 10 years?
Probably an economic crash and capitalists + politicians will be scrambling for immediate solutions. These immediate solutions will likely offer some quick recovery but of course the ever falling rate of profit will simply continue. I mainly see the entropic nature of capitalism furthering and states becoming more overtly authoritarian to secure capitalism's survival. Well, perhaps overt if you aren't subsumed into the ideological structure of capitalism that is.
What changes do you think we are likely to see in the next 40 years?
I can't predict entirely, but I would just say more of the former until some transmogrification occurs once capitalism has totally deterritorialized. Of course we'll also see the rise of insurgence as the global environment and economy begins to annihilate itself into inescapable crisis.
What changes do you want to see in the next 10 years?
A rise in global consciousness regarding the processes of capital, a radical change in how we conceive gender, re-radicalization of queer struggle however I think this may be wishful thinking as even supposed radical queer movements have been dwindling and taken upon notions of “praxis."
What changes do you want to see in the next 40 years?
The destruction of gender, realization of oneness, uploading consciousness into a hyperreal realm charged by technocapital, destruction of civilized structures.
What tools, technologies or tactics are most important to achieve this?
Automation, empowerment of cyberspace, embracing queerness to a point which totally transgresses normativity, challenging notions of gender and sexuality in general.
What are the most common jobs in this future society?
Ideally the notion of work no longer exists, but if we continue capitalism most likely it'll be towards the management of automated labor and the service industry.
Where do most people live?
The occupation of metropolitan areas in regions less affected by the negative impacts of global climate change, and the expansion of suburban development.
What modes of transportation do people use?
Transportation within a network would function similarly to browsing the internet, strings between nodes would travel at speeds depending on the amount of network traffic and capability of the network. In future capitalism, public transportation would increase and function similarly to the above described method but at far slower speeds due to physical limitation.
How are goods and food produced?
For the singularity, meatspace would've been broken by this time and the need for physical necessity has been transgressed. As for future capitalism, the harvesting of foods and production of goods would be done through automation as is already taking place and at an ever-increasing scale.
How much leisure time do people have?
In the singularity, all perceived activity could be qualified as "leisure time." For future capitalism, it depends on one's economic status and how valuable one's labor is relative to the amount of labor-time contributed
What do they do during this leisure time?
Depends on the person of course. The options to participate in certain activities would vastly increase as the singularity would permit the programming of virtually anything we can or cannot fathom as pleasurable. Meatspace would no longer permit one to activity which is either "physically safe" or "virtual." For future capitalism, increased use of cyberspace for social interaction and online games and such would only become increasingly globalized and thus popularized.
What kind of energy does this society use?
Energy could be harvested in various ways, perhaps the introduction of plasma generators, thorium, and the re-use of nuclear waste could launch a new era of totally renewable energy.
Where is this society located?
It would be a global network, all distinctions between peoples would be diminished, similarly to inter-human perception prior to the introduction of agriculture and sedentary life.
Who are *you* in this society?
I would probably just spend my time performing psychogeography through this network, exploring pages and nodes, making discoveries about my inner desires and my long unrecognized self.
What items do you have in your future home?
Hypersynthetic drugs (wink wink), supplies and tools for creative and theoretical expression.
Where are most people in this society from?
The global network would be all encompassing as meatspace is totally transgressed.
How are laws created?
Really, there would be no need for legality. The need for crime would be obsolete and the need to squelch crime would be unnecessary as a result.
Does this society run up against any natural limits?
Not particularly, as computing is ever-shrinking in size and ever-growing in capability the space required would be determined by the amount of consciousness uploaded. The load should be totally capable with a reasonably small amount of needed space.
What language do people speak?
I can't really say, it would likely be communicated through code and could function like an amalgam of the world's language families all at once or in a totally new way, perhaps similar to lojban or even in an inconceivable manner.
What are the biggest religious or spiritual organizations, if any?
Not sure, I just know that if all of what I've described were the case it would not reflect slave-master morality. The distinction between philosophy and religion would probably be eliminated.
What state is nature in compared to today?
Global warming would probably wipe out everything. There seems to be an increasingly pessimistic view among climate scientists.
"At this point, I am fully convinced that Deleuze is just poetry for art students. In the history of organized labor, there is no shop stewart who ever said the word “rhizome” or talked about “bodies without organs”. Simply put, this stuff has no relevance to organized political life. "
This seems like something of a bizarre statement from a researcher. How can you say that "this stuff" (referring to an entire body of work) has no relevance to organized political life while presenting survey results from politically-active individuals deeply influenced by "this stuff"? Meanwhile implying that working-class people can't or won't read/understand it. I get that it's not easy to read or apply in the straightforward ways we expect from modernist philosophy, but it seems quite clearly relevant to contemporary political life, if only because it has been influential for many people, including other influential philosophers. I am a working class person. I've engaged in union organizing, direct action on behalf my union, and other organized political activity, and "this stuff" is not irrelevant to my life or work.