I’ve listened to Beff Jezos on Twitter spaces and he (+ some other e/accs in the space) support a philosophy for all intents and purposes consists of worshipping of entropy. Obviously, they would deny that their philosophy is engaging in any kind of worship and they wouldn’t be lying when they say this, because from their perspective I expect it just feels like they doing nothing more than observing the truth.
However, it makes sense to say that descriptively they worship entropy as they unironically argue that the purpose of the universe is to increase entropy as fast as possible and that it should therefore be our purpose as well.
If you try to point out that this is the naturalistic fallacy and that just because this is what the universe does, it doesn’t automatically follow that it is good, then instead of them addressing this argument, they start arguing that it is pointless to fight against the universe as you’ll lose.
I think it’s interesting to observe a fundamental contradiction in the movement. The movement presents itself as strong and brave and masculine and driving humanity forward, but when you reflect on the defeatism it becomes apparent that at least the Beff Jezos version of e/acc philosophy is weak and cowardly and definitely not masculine and completely anti-human.
I did have some hesitation in typing the previous paragraph as I know that some commentators here might feel that I’m being overly harsh/uncharitable. At the same time, when you have a movement that is mostly driven by vibes rather than by arguments, it seems important to actually talk about and consider to what extent the movement’s image actually corresponds to reality.
The e/acc movement has a lot of flagrantly macho rhetoric, and they tend to portray people concerned about AI safety as weak, effeminate, neurotic, and fearful.
On the other hand, they seem to be eager to dive into a kind of fetishistic submission to AI, which isn’t actually very macho.
I know it may be considered unseemly to psycho-analyze their movement on EA Forum, but, as you say, it’s a movement driven by vibes, image, and rhetoric, rather than by rational/empirical arguments, and they need to be confronted on that basis.
I’ve listened to Beff Jezos on Twitter spaces and he (+ some other e/accs in the space) support a philosophy for all intents and purposes consists of worshipping of entropy. Obviously, they would deny that their philosophy is engaging in any kind of worship and they wouldn’t be lying when they say this, because from their perspective I expect it just feels like they doing nothing more than observing the truth.
However, it makes sense to say that descriptively they worship entropy as they unironically argue that the purpose of the universe is to increase entropy as fast as possible and that it should therefore be our purpose as well.
If you try to point out that this is the naturalistic fallacy and that just because this is what the universe does, it doesn’t automatically follow that it is good, then instead of them addressing this argument, they start arguing that it is pointless to fight against the universe as you’ll lose.
I think it’s interesting to observe a fundamental contradiction in the movement. The movement presents itself as strong and brave and masculine and driving humanity forward, but when you reflect on the defeatism it becomes apparent that at least the Beff Jezos version of e/acc philosophy is weak and cowardly and definitely not masculine and completely anti-human.
I did have some hesitation in typing the previous paragraph as I know that some commentators here might feel that I’m being overly harsh/uncharitable. At the same time, when you have a movement that is mostly driven by vibes rather than by arguments, it seems important to actually talk about and consider to what extent the movement’s image actually corresponds to reality.
Chris—well said. I think this is accurate.
The e/acc movement has a lot of flagrantly macho rhetoric, and they tend to portray people concerned about AI safety as weak, effeminate, neurotic, and fearful.
On the other hand, they seem to be eager to dive into a kind of fetishistic submission to AI, which isn’t actually very macho.
I know it may be considered unseemly to psycho-analyze their movement on EA Forum, but, as you say, it’s a movement driven by vibes, image, and rhetoric, rather than by rational/empirical arguments, and they need to be confronted on that basis.