This room is too dark. If I want to open a window here, everyone definitely won’t allow it.
But if you advocate tearing off the roof, they’ll come to compromise and be willing to open a window.

—— Lu Xun

This sentence of Lu Xun’s
vividly illustrates an example of accelerationism.

Recognizing that accelerationism exists

What is accelerationism?
Accelerationism
is going along the direction a thing is developing,
pushing it all the way without stopping,
until it loses control.
In what situations does accelerationism generally arise?
When making suggestions/decisions without bearing responsibility.

Besides the classic example of tearing off the roof to open a window,
accelerationism is also common in daily life.

For example young men and women dating,
when they hit some conflict,
many onlookers stoke the flames:
“Break up quick, don’t date him!
Anyone who doesn’t buy you a gift on birthday/National Day/Double Eleven/Christmas/the arrival of winter is definitely not a good partner!”
But love is something only the lovers know the warmth and cold of.
If they really break up the bystanders don’t have to endure the loneliness,
often only leaving behind a “fast-forward to break-up” one-liner carnival.

For another example, programmers who write code,
can actually introduce some niche tech stacks they like (like Lisp) when starting a project.
But those who bear the consequences
will be the company that has no one to take over the business when staff leave.
And the I'm a Lisper on the GitHub profile becomes the best creed reflecting accelerationism at this point.

Current groups easily produce accelerationism

Under the zeitgeist of 2020,
liberalism and individual rights consciousness have largely awakened.
For individuals alone,
accelerationism is trivial,
because only the lovers know warmth and cold.
But in the context of groups,
the tide of accelerationism always sways.

Modesty is a beautiful virtue,
especially in Confucian cultural circles.
In group life, even more exaggerated behaviors than this unconsciously emerge.
For example a while ago Duoyi company
announced “the company’s performance is good, let everyone voluntarily choose to take a pay cut,”
then rewarded those who voluntarily took cuts.
This behavior looked from outside like “so dumb it makes one suspect it’s a parody,”
but those internally who enthusiastically accepted this decision,
don’t they also hold accelerationist mindsets like “full throttle, let it all be destroyed”?

The reason groups easily produce liberalism
is that groups don’t need to fully bear responsibility for outcomes.
The ceiling got torn off,
catching cold isn’t only on you,
the saying “when the sky falls, the tall ones hold it up,”
so what’s the harm in shouting about tearing off the ceiling?

Take topics like feminism and male virtue, political correctness, sexual freedom,
each in the current group context is full of accelerationist arguments.
Rather than facing accelerationism head-on,
better to step on the gas along with public opinion,
chanting “Life is precious, but freedom is worth more.”

Keep a clear awareness of accelerationism

Accelerationism is subjective, intense, irresistible.
In work and life,
I often see the shadow of accelerationism,
and many times I’m also influenced by accelerationism.

I used to have flexible work hours, arriving around 10:30 AM was fine.
But engineer colleagues tend toward lazy freedom.
On one hand, this management style was overly special,
on the other, morning client visits also affected sales situation.
Later the company discussed and changed to 10:00 AM start, with fines for tardiness.
In the discussion, based on accelerationist thinking,
I also added counting departure times and introducing clock-in systems — both non-flexible setups.
Although the clock-in didn’t end up happening,
once such a strategy was introduced,
the morning work state really took on a new look.

Sometimes pushing in the direction a thing is developing
really can yield answers different from one’s perception.

Another similar matter
is everyone at the company always felt the network was laggy.
Because total bandwidth was low, every device was throttled to low speed.
But later as everyone complained more,
the throttling per person was raised.
(Here accelerationism exists.)
The network situation got worse,
because as long as one person hogged speed,
their share of others’ bandwidth grew more.
The real method to clearly recognize accelerationism
is reasonable traffic planning, network sharding, raising total bandwidth.

Summary

In society, work, and life, you can’t avoid dealing with groups.
Standing at this current moment of 2020,
you’ll observe accelerationism existing everywhere.

When you’re a participant,
you don’t have to fight accelerationism head-on,
but use accelerationism to express your stance;
when you’re the decision-maker,
you need to clearly recognize accelerationism,
extract real value from emotions,
and work with it.

This room is too dark,
someone advocates tearing off the roof,
and you know,
he actually wants to open a window.

(End)