climate change
Dear friends,
I have been necessarily pondering “end times” – conceptually a troubling thought. We’re seeing the slow motion collapse of ecology, social fabric, and empire. However, we are not seeing, as Marx and Engels infamously foretold, the end of capital concomitant with these collapses. Instead, capitalism’s hegemonic stranglehold on thought, production, ideology, community and more is ceaselessly suffocating any revolutionary potential. So powerful have the oligarchs become that alternatives are endlessly forestalled in capitalist realism.
Who voices “different” in these times? And what possible alternatives exist to create a new world, a new way, and some hope? This is what occupies my thoughts - cheery, ey?
Borrowing from some of the best of philosophy and ontology, let’s consider that time is cyclical. Imagining that the “end” of an era is, in fact, the beginning of something new. At the moment, I feel a grim and troubled modernity encapsulating the very way we speak, think and interact – bound in a deep evil, capitalism. This endless intensification of a singular mode of production, such that it has embraced a truly global exploitative and extractive way of working (ontology), feels inescapable – and that is part of the problem. If I, too, accept that capitalism is the end of humanity, then I have succumbed to capitalist realism. Instead, we need radical hope in the face of these times.
So, in practicing what I preach, let’s really think about what the future might be – the end of the world is the end of capitalism, but the end of capitalism is the beginning of something new and different. My hope is that humanity, this too often selfish, manipulated, and narcissistic being, flourishes and finds its positive transformation. Instead of negativity, social and cultural disintegration, and fatalism in capital’s grasping of ecology and economy, that rather we collectively wake up, pump the breaks, and seize capitalism’s fall, not as the end of ecology, but as the beginning of a new form of truly grassroots participatory democracy and change.
There is an inevitability in collapse, fatalism, capitalism, this will either lead to our collective heat death – the intensification of the already back-to-back record breaking global catastrophes, including floods, tornadoes, fires, and more that currently grip our ecology. Or, it could lead to the end of the expropriative and pathologically evil capitalist class. Redistributing resources, knowledge, and power back to the people to whom it belongs - the 99%. I hope that we are able to realise the damage that this sociopathic class enact on us every single day, and that we assert a better way. Not a new group of capitalists – but genuine distributive decision making.
This doesn’t mean, as some racists have suggested, a return to sticks, rocks and foraging – not that this is a true depiction of history, but rather a fallacy manufactured by capitalism to enable its realism. Rather, that we turn the tools of technology away from profit and instead focus on creating globally a better way of living. One that really embraces diversity, that finds strength and hope in human invention, and marvels at the possible. Our collective creative, inventive, and fundamentally intelligent energies turned towards survival, thriving, and lifting “all the boats” could truly see the end of expropriative capitalism.
Yes, such a thing as socialism, or anarchy, or whatever you want it to be - it could be. We could assert our values as “care for each other and for the planet”. This is our true role, and it always has been - responding to the needs of our ecology, not destroying it for profits. When we fall out of relation with place, environment, whatever you want to call it, we disconnect from each other, from reality, and allow the narcissistic, manipulative, and despotic reign to ruin us. This needs to end - and the planet will ensure that it does. So how do you want this to go? Work to create collective change now, or give up and let the capitalists make the 99%‘s lives even more impossible before they escape in Elon’s bullshit spaceships?
I think we are past due for serious collective rethinking of governance, collectivity, participation, purpose, and so on. We – the working class – need to assert something new, that cares, that values each other, that builds comradery, before heat death. Because, I, for one, don’t want to see this beautiful planet further damaged by vanity and corporate profits. Its a fake, empty, and bullshit system. Only together can we create hope, alternative ways, and a better world. So let’s do that instead, yeah?
The task before us is always feels monumental, as does anything transformative, but it is never impossible. We can reimagine our relationship with labour, with each other, and with the planet. This reimagining requires a fundamental shift in our ontology – our way of being in relation to the earth. We can move beyond the capitalist realism that has infected our collective imagination and embrace what Gramsci might call a new common sense [1]. This new common sense must be rooted in solidarity, mutual aid, and ecological stewardship.
But how do we get there? How do we find the cracks in the stranglehold of capitalist hegemony? The answer, I believe, lies in praxis – the unity of theory and practice. We need to engage in what Fraser calls boundary struggles [2], challenging the artificial separations between production and reproduction, economy and ecology, that capitalism relies upon – this is not difficult, and is a project we are continuing here in partnership, you and me. This means building alternative institutions and ways of living in the here and now – or at least finding ways of thinking about the possibilities – while simultaneously working to transform existing structures.
We might look to examples like the Zapatistas in Chiapas, who created autonomous zones of democratic self-governance [3]. Or to the growing movement for a “pluriverse” – a world where many worlds fit [4]. These are not utopian fantasies, but real, lived alternatives to capitalist domination, even if they have flaws.
Crucially, as I keep harping on, such transformative projects must be intersectional. We cannot separate the struggle against capitalism from the struggles against racism, patriarchy, colonialism, and other forms of oppression. As Bhattacharya reminds us, social reproduction theory offers a way to understand how these various forms of oppression are interconnected and essential to capital’s functioning [5]. By centring social reproduction in our analysis and our organising, we can build a truly inclusive and liberatory movement – but will we?
The ruling class will not give up their power willingly – they fight dirty. We continuously face repression, co-optation attempts, and, of course, battle at the front lines of ecological collapse. But we have no choice but to persist. The alternative – the continuation of capitalism’s death march – is simply unacceptable, or rather “the end of humanity” (and, yes, maybe that’s not the worst thing).
So, comrades, let us embrace this moment of crisis as an opportunity for radical transformation, please? Let us build networks of solidarity and mutual aid that can weather the storms ahead. Let us create spaces of prefigurative politics where we can experiment with new forms of democratic decision-making and ecological stewardship. And let us never lose sight of the world we’re fighting for – a world of justice, equality, and harmony with nature.
The end of capitalism need not be the end of the (human) world. But it will be if we don’t act. I think we could start something beautiful – if we have the courage and creativity to make it so. The future is unwritten – but it’s not looking great. We can do better.
In solidarity,
Aidan
Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. International Publishers. ↩︎
Fraser, N. (2016). Contradictions of Capital and Care. New Left Review, 100, 99-117. ↩︎
Holloway, J., & Peláez, E. (1998). Zapatista!: Reinventing Revolution in Mexico. Pluto Press. ↩︎
Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Duke University Press. ↩︎
Bhattacharya, T. (Ed.). (2017). Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression. Pluto Press. ↩︎
Dear friends,
Today I have some off the cuff thoughts about global heat death – revisiting an early theme (actually, the earliest in this particular incarnation of dispatches).
Yesterday I felt happy about expanding numbers of women-identifying YouTube creators – yes I still watch YouTube, I know ... who were interested in the intersection of technology and creativity – not because this is (or should be) rare, but because “in my day” the dominance of sexist men in that particular niche was incredibly overwhelming. But one of these creative sorts, you know how the algorithm goes – particularly with YouTube, a story for another post – popped up talking about creating a bespoke AI, fit for purpose if you like. As part of this video was discussion of the role of creativity and AI (re: “AI stealing all the creative work”) and, further, the rising electricity demands of the AI industry. This got me thinking of things to really truly test in my own environment.
Just recently I’ve been running a combination of tools on my Linux desktop machine – unfortunately “hamstrung” in AI land, at least, by an AMD CPU/GPU(Ryzen 9 7900X / RX 6750 XT / 32 GB DDR4) combo – to run local Large Language Models. I’m still a novice in this space, but I was more interested in the comparative time to response from, even a modest sized local model (i.e. 70b [1]), compared to commercial AI systems. I know this is a very unscientific test, but time to response on very short (“write me a poem about AI”) prompts is decent, probably around 1s. But the revelatory moment was in the massive spin up of fans and power draw from the wall (which I won’t pretend to have properly scientific figures for).
Generating a 1500 word story, basically on complete nonsense because this particular model is no where near competitive even with the free tier of ChatGPT, for instance, made my 3sqm office hot – like I’d been playing Tiny Glade for three+ hours hot. Again, anyone who knows about measuring energy efficiency, comparing apples to apples, and has an interest in genuinely benchmarking technologies against one another is flat out scrunched into a ball of cringe right now, but the purpose of this very unscientific test stands. I wanted to get a feel for time, and energy, on a machine which I control, using a data set, model, and algorithm I control. And the results of this, ignoring everything I know about streamlining, caching, using more appropriate hardware, and so on, still make me incredibly “worried” about commercial AI solutions.
I’ve shared a litany of news stories on the extreme cost on power networks that commercial AI uses – to the point where Microsoft is recommissioning a nuclear power reactor for the sole purpose of powering just some of its AI infrastructure. But until you feel the heat coming off a computer generating a three line poem about itself, it doesn’t quite feel “real”. We are seriously looking at a global power consumption footprint larger than most nations with the combined use of AI as tech bros increasingly wet themselves with excitement – and the line-go-up capitalists get their jollies by suggesting automating workers’ jobs.
This accelerationism which is lauded – and genuinely so, by capitalism and its vanguards – middle managers, for instance – is accelerating global heat death. Not to mention the continuing deep inequity in AI use, not only at an infrastructural level where resources and materials are being diverted from nations to power bourgeois CEOs email writing, but also at the use-interface. As the proletarian hype for AI dies down, something we are right in the middle of with increasingly “bored” responses to the latest AI hype, particularly from coal-face workers who have seen the hallucinations completely derail BAU, the increasing bourgeification (making up words) of AI rolls on.
Instead of using LLMs as a tool for crafting social change, we’re seeing the working class turn away from these tools. And perhaps, given their inefficiencies and inequity, rightfully so – but that won’t stop capitalists replacing you with an LLM the minute they can get it just barely passably at your “standard”. Hand in hand with the deliberate mystification of the systems and tools that make, power, and generate AI, this abstraction of workers away from the means of production is a tale as old as time in our capitalist hell.
There are genuine solutions to these problems. Running local LLMs and seeing for yourself the limitations, power use, and possibility is a start. Investing in green(er) power sources, getting involved in community projects to bring AI tools to communities, and seriously and in an activist mode debating with capitalists about the use of AI to replace humans is all a start. My fear is, not only accelerated heat death but, accelerated worker replacement into increasingly deskilled roles while a mediocre, half-baked, environmentally destructive AI takes over the creative and intellectual work of the proletariat – rapidly increasing inequity in the first world, while AI currently continues to disadvantage expropriated and poorer countries right now.
I am excited about the possibilities and capabilities of LLMs as an augmentation tool. I benefit as much as anyone from the use of ML in analysing photo libraries, telling me what plants and birds are in photos, and so on. I’m certainly not a luddite. But I think that – in conjunction with a growing awareness of how much energy these tools use, the malice of capitalists in turning machinery of production against the workers, and the unequal and problematic distribution of global resources to keep a small minority comfortable – the context is “a lot” to process. Obviously disclaimers abound about no ethical consumption under capitalism, but I think that this kind of thinking about these problems needs to happen more, and I applaud those who are having this conversation with an audience [2].
So what do you reckon? Where are we headed with these technologies? Will we be further abstracted from knowledge of systems and tools than we are now? Will schools start teaching kids how to design their own AI? Or will we keep doing stupid shit like banning phones? I’m not hopeful that we’ll see radical shift in the way technology is taught and used, because after all it is anti-capitalist to believe in access, knowledege, and understanding – and damn that’s sad.
With trepidation,
Aidan