Who, exactly, are the effective accelerationists?

And just who is this daring fellow who wants to raise billionaires to astral godhood? Beff Jezos. This is Beff Jezo’s profile pic on Twitter, presumably intended as a Chadified version of Jeff Bezos:

He describes himself as follows:

founder @ e/acc // thermodynamic priest // Kardashev gradient climber // memetic warlord // building

Beff believes that the moral purpose of life is to maximize the creation of entropy.

Behold, a saint.

Beff is one of the founders of Effective Accelerationism. He is certainly one of its more colorful characters, but not alone in his neon hues. I used data from Scott Alexander’s 2024 reader survey to find out some info about the Effective Accelerationists (E/ACC) and today we will review it. But first, what is Effective Acclerationism? Wikipedia summarises Effective Accelerationism as follows:

Effective accelerationism, often abbreviated as "e/acc", is a 21st-century philosophical movement that advocates for an explicitly pro-technology stance. Its proponents believe that unrestricted technological progress (especially driven by artificial intelligence) is a solution to universal human problems like poverty, war and climate change.[1] They see themselves as a counterweight to more cautious views on technological innovation, often giving their opponents the derogatory labels of "doomers" or "decels" (short for deceleration).[1][2]

The movement carries utopian undertones and argues that humans need to develop and build faster to ensure their survival and propagate consciousness throughout the universe.[3] Its founders Guillaume Verdon and the pseudonymous Bayeslord see it as a way to "usher in the next evolution of consciousness, creating unthinkable next-generation lifeforms."[4]

Although effective accelerationism has been described as a fringe movement, it has gained mainstream visibility in 2023.[4][5] A number of high-profile Silicon Valley figures, including investors Marc Andreessen, Garry Tan, and Martin Shkreli explicitly endorsed it by adding "e/acc" to their public social media profiles.[4][5]

They want to race to create superintelligent AI either because it will be great for everyone, or because it will kill us all but that’s good actually, or some superposition of these possibilities, depending on which E/ACC you talk to. For an E/ACC, I think, what matters is not so much the goal as the method and the preferred method -the only method- is acceleration.

I have been able to procure some statistical and demographic data on E/ACC backers. Would it shock you if I were to tell you that the effective accelerationists are exactly who you would expect they would be? Given how well the data confirms the stereotypes, I should probably say at the outset that my purpose here isn’t exorciation. I do, of course, detest ‘effective accelerationism’, but my observations here should be read as wry, yet weighed down by fatigue and not excited by wrath.

Our data comes from Scott Alexander’s reader survey, the results of which he kindly makes publicly available. Scott’s readers can be described as the nexus of a variety of communities- rationalism, effective altruism, futurists, the Bay Area, and tech. The sample of effective accelerationists who took Scott’s survey is small (111). Most of Scott’s readers are on the other side of the debate. However, the sample is large enough to note a few practically and statistically significant differences. Where we need to, we can double-check the results through comparison to those who say they are ‘sorta’ effective accelerationists- over five hundred respondents say this. We also have a natural comparison sample- the other denizens of the tech world, rationalism, and Scott Alexander’s blog who filled out the survey.

Unsurprisingly, accelerationists are much less likely to think AI poses a risk to the survival of humanity than other readers

When asked about the likelihood that AI poses a threat to humanity’s survival, accelerationists average answer was 2/5, compared to a sample average of 3.2/5. It’s worth remembering that the bottom of the scale is 1, so the gap between these is better thought of as the gap between 1/4 and 2.2/4. This is about the size of the standard deviation in responses- a strong effect.

The accelerationists are significantly to the right of the sample as a whole

If we count libertarianism as a right-wing ideology, 59% of effective accelerationists subscribe to a right-wing political philosophy. By comparison, 31% of non-accelerationists do so. If we toss libertarianism in the too-hard basket and discard it from the sample, 34% of effective accelerationists subscribe to a rightwing political philosophy, versus 15% of the non-accelerationists.

When we look at philosophies I would consider to be of the left- social democracy and Marxism, 33% of the non-accelerationists subscribed, whereas 15% of the accelerationists did.

One of the most notable political differences was on the question of “Non-coercive Eugenics”. The most supportive answer possible was 9. About 13% of non-accelerationists gave 9, whereas about 49% of Accelerationists did.

Almost half of them feel they have become significantly more rightwing in the past few years

47% report having moved further to the right recently. By contrast, 19% of non-accelerationists in Scott’s sample say this. Only 8% of E/ACC supporters report having moved left recently. I hazard a prediction- E/ACC is going to get more rightwing over time. I suspect many relatively non-political people are attracted to E/ACC and then drawn right, sometimes hard right, by its currents.

E/ACC are more likely to be cis-men than most of the people who hang out in these circles

94% report being cis men, versus 84% of non-accelerationists. Since the sample is small and the variable categorical, I compared with this the 526 people who said they were ‘sorta’ effective accelerationists. 92% of these were cis men. E/ACC is a men’s sub-culture in a community that is already highly male (Scott’s readers, the rationalsphere and, for want of a better phrase, tech).

I’ve been involved in, for want of a better word, social movements. I understand many of them have lopsided gender ratios. This, in and of itself, is no grounds for any kind of final judgment. Nevertheless, it is still incredible to me that a subculture can have half as many women as the already quite heavily male rationalist community represented by Scott Alexander’s readers.

I’ll let Eleanor have the last word: