To Accelerate, e/acc Must Die
To accelerate is to constantly evolve, adapt, and change. It is to be willing to abandon the comfortable known as new ideas are formulated, new knowledge discovered, better technology developed, and more powerful memes generated. It is dynamic and unsentimental.
It is also feared. People inherently want to build a permanent edifice, an unchanging rock they can depend on. This is the nature of things and it is what our world is built upon. We have created religions, governments, institutions, and scientific consensus. We gave them names and demand they stay static. To change them takes revolutions, schisms, and violence. These edifices are the antithesis of acceleration. They are the orthodoxies that have always held us back from our true potential; the overbearing parents telling us to smile, slow down, and obey our betters.
When e/acc began to permeate the cultural consciousness, it truly succeeded in shifting many peoples ideology away from decel institutionalization and to one of acceleration. In doing so, it confronted those natural enemies, and has largely come out ahead. It was especially effective against EA, specifically because EA was built on an older philosophical edifice of its own that has not updated to the rapidly changing world. It was also a successful counter to the doomerism that had begun to gain traction, as it directly contradicted the driving force of that malaise: the fear that we are powerless to solve the problems we face. In all, it has been remarkably successful.
But then it became a Thing.
A Thing is definable and quantifiable.
A Thing has leaders and members that are defined by the Thing.
A Thing is static.
A Thing is the enemy of acceleration.
Therefore, to continue to accelerate, we must mutate, adapt, and evolve before our enemies can regroup and retaliate, before we become enamored of being a Thing, before being a Thing becomes more important than the mission. Before we become another EA.
I believe this is already happening and that this evolution was baked into e/acc from the beginning, intentionally or not. It has spread its seeds widely and now will fade away as those seeds grow into new and different evolutions of e/acc. The primary instigators of the movement, Beff and Bayes, did an admirable job of never formalizing it or trying to force it to become a cult, or to elevate themselves to cult leadership. I think they understood that would have been antithetical to the ideals behind it and have instead let it follow a more natural evolution.
I have no idea nor suggestion of what comes next. If anyone does, it is definitionally the wrong path. The only message I would try to convey here is to just let it happen. Do not fight it. Do not try and hold onto it. Let its offspring take things to the next level.
To truly accelerate, let e/acc die.