Re: <nettime> Against techno-optimism

[Frank Rieger via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Andreessen is clearly an extremist, I think it is wise not to submit to his polarization agenda.

I have little doubt in my mind that without a huge volume of tech and innovation, mankind will not survive the current and coming crisis. I am still optimistic that we will survive with the right tech, at least in large numbers.

The problem is not tech per se. The problem is the optimization criteria for tech development goal setting, that are defined not by what is actually needed but by short term profit interests.

De-growth as a concept holds no appeal to a wide audience and never will. The math simply does not work without sacrificing half the population. We can see that already in the current  experiments run in agriculture with reducing fertilizer usage, that are run without deploying alternative, actually working tech to keep the yields up. Sure, there are some permaculture successes in the small areas where the climate is still favorable, but these will inevitably shrink. Mankind will not survive at even approximately current population count without large scale agriculture.

I think the only way out is to go full speed ahead to identify the tech that actually works to solve the problems at hand, fund these developments with high priority and roll them out widespread. Case in point is decentralized solar sea water desalination. Another is cheaper, more robust heat pump tech. Agriculture tech to reduce nitrogen and agrochemicals polution while keeping up at least the order of magnitude of current yields. And yes, this includes epigenetic engineering. Meat alternatives that are actually attractive not only to the ethically converted. Decentralized electricity grids. Most important of all electricity storage, regardless of what specific tech is used, we will need them all. And I think we will also need thermal geo-engineering, it is too late already to survive without given current trajectory.

Setting up this debate as "Techno-Optimism vs. De-Growth" is an ideological trap. The task is rather to figure out how to steer the goal-setting and funding towards tech that will help us survive.  The current systems for that are broken, driven be short-term profit interests and disassociated from the strategic needs of human survival. This has to change, quickly. Waiting for a eco-socialist de-growth utopia to come around will take way too long.

The climate movement has been captured by an ideology that refuses to talk about impact mitigation for decades now, for fear that it would be used as an excuse not to reduce emissions. This will cost hundreds of millions of lives now. We could have been already way farther along rebuilding our cities for extreme weather events, protecting coastlines, developing mitigation tech that is desperately needed right now, like passive radiation cooling. Continuing along the "climate change mitigation is bad because someone could use it as an excuse"-path is simply mass murder.

Greetings from Berlin,

Frank

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> On 18. Oct 2023, at 12:34, Vesna Manojlovic via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:
> 
> Signed PGP part
> 
> Recently published "Techno-Optimist Manifesto" by Marc Andreessen is,
> IMHO, the most vile & horrible neo-liberal nonsense,
> and I am afraid it will speak to many aspiring technocrats :(
> 
> I am proud to be into the multiple "enemy categories" of this guy:
> degrowth, sustainability, “trust and safety”, “tech ethics”, diversity..
> 
> I encourage you to be AGAINST techno-optimism, against Leviathan...
> https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman-against-his-story-against-leviathan
> 
> The antidotes?
> 
> Care, solidarity, ecofemnism, empathy, XR, intersectional environmentalism...
> https://labs.ripe.net/author/becha/ripe-community-resilience-economy-of-care/
> &
> https://labs.ripe.net/author/becha/environmental-impact-of-internet-urgency-de-growth-rebellion/
> 
> Vesna
> 
> More Links:
> 
> The content of the "manifesto" has been continuously disputed on UnCiv list since 2013, https://lists.puscii.nl/wws/info/uncivilization ,
> and in 2009 by the original "uncivilisation" manifesto: https://dark-mountain.net/about/manifesto/ ,
> by climate scientists : https://bonpote.com/en/12-climate-delay-discourses-and-how-to-debunk-them/ & https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/7B11B722E3E3454BB6212378E32985A7/S2059479820000137a.pdf/discourses_of_climate_delay.pdf
> and recently by the authors of the TESCREAL acronym ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TESCREAL
> 
> 
> Jason Lefkowitz: https:// octodon . social/@jalefkowit/111246809951833086
> 
>             ^^^^^^ (URL modified because of the spam filtering rules by my ISP!)
> 
> "a bruised ego.
> 
> Andreessen doesn't like the way people look at his investments critically these days. He doesn't like the questions he gets today about environmental impact, labor mistreatment, racial and sexual discrimination, and so forth at his portfolio companies. He bristles at assuming the responsibilities required of any grown-up business person.
> 
> What he wants instead is to go back to the oughts, when the entire global media edifice was credulously repeating the line that his investments weren't just making him and his rich friends richer, but were improving the world to boot. He liked that treatment quite well. He would very much like the rest of us to go back to giving it to him.
> 
> But he can't just, you know, SAY that. He'd be laughed out of the room if he did. So he has to dress it all up as a philosophical argument, as A Movement, even if by doing so he makes it clear just how tenuous his grasp is of the works he's quoting, and just how much of his worldview came from reading “thinkers” whose personal mission was to comfort the comfortable.
> 
> Which makes it tempting to dunk on, I know. But don't bother, because the philosophy is beside the point. It's all just window dressing placed to obscure the fundamental point: the world used to tell this guy his farts smelled like flowers; at some point, it stopped; and he'd really like it to start back up again."
> 
> 
> https://fortune.com/2023/10/16/marc-andreessen-techno-optimist-manifesto-ai-50-billion-people-billionaire-vc/
> 
> https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/17/when-was-the-last-time-marc-andreessen-talked-to-a-poor-person/?guccounter=1
> 
> https://www.axios.com/2023/10/17/marc-andreessens-ai-manifesto-hurts-his-own-cause
> 
> Images:
> 
> https://www.leolinne.com/?portfolio=discourses-of-climate-delay
> 
> https://wiki.techinc.nl/File:IMG_7881.PNG
> 
> https://labs.ripe.net/images/t1xLN7do8IYUtV0OXgl12IazUIs=/8059/width-1536/IMG_9077.jpg
> 
> 
> --
> https://becha.unciv.nl
> https://social.v.st/web/@becha/
> 
>

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