Far-Right Accelerationism & the Collapse of Empire

The future is now. Rather than an abstract sense of "later", some unknown point far from today when scenarios like those portrayed in Black Mirror play out, our concept of "the future" is currently happening. All the sci-fi books that told of the sacrifice of privacy in the name of progress, the blurred lines between humanity and technology, dictators and madmen creating an authoritarian world—these are happening now. The Umbrella Corporation of Resident Evil is Google, Amazon, X. Cars drive themselves. Fully functioning brains are being grown from stem cells in labs or are receiving implants of computer chips (Neuralink, Elon Musk's company is responsible for this one). AI-powered mass surveillance systems like Flock are being installed all across the country, and not just in the US. The future is here, and it's not pretty. It's not harmless or just "progress". It is terrifying. The extremely wealthy minority is cracking the whip on the 99%, shaping the laws and the government itself to benefit them and to control, manipulate and break us. The goal: a nation of servants to the wealthy? A culling of the human race only leaving billionaires and slaves? We don't know. Even though most of us aren't discussing what's going on out loud, we feel it. We know that something is incredibly wrong. We are setting off flares in a dark, empty sky, hoping for rescue. The answer is a silence that only increases our fears.

The Increasing Speed of Collapse

Accelerationism, a fringe ideology that has been associated with billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, as well as Donald Trump, has also been gaining popularity with white supremacist groups. There are several types of accelerationism, and the definition below is a rough description of the type of accelerationist thinking that is driving our current government.

Accelerationism: The belief that action must be taken to intentionally drive societal collapse in order to create a new world order.

Basically, the rich and powerful want to burn it all down, get rid of as many "undesirables" as possible (i.e. the homeless, immigrants, minorities, and non-wealthy people), automate as much as possible, and build everything back up in their image. Ironically, most of the non-rich white supremacists that also subscribe to this ideology don't realize that the undesirables list also includes them. Of course, we were warned. The widely circulated Project 2025 is, if anything, a playbook for this administration—but at this point, the government has taken it even further.

During the 2024 election, Trump told his conservative voters "you won't have to vote anymore" if he was elected. Major cities are being taken over by the military, and state's rights, human rights, and civil rights are all being challenged or ignored. And many who voted for Trump are angry, because this wasn't what they wanted. Rather than a country ruled by conservative values, we are now in a country on the verge of collapse with our rights being stripped away. Then, there are those who voted for Trump that may stay in denial until they are homeless and have no health insurance. And there is that faction that supports the accelerationist agenda, despite the fact that in the end, it will only do them and the people they love harm, but they are a minority. No matter what side you are on, we are, undeniably, all in this together.

We are in a country ruled by the rich and being rebuilt for the rich. Our lives are run by billionaire tech men that dream of the days when there will be less of us, with a remaining population that is half-robot, ready to serve. At the same time, the rate of climate change is increasing, fueled by sudden and erratic environmental deregulation. Natural disasters are getting worse and happening more often, yet FEMA's existence is in question. This may feel like the "end of the world", but most likely, it is the end of our world. All empires collapse. We are now living above the ruins of civilizations that came before us, and one day, we will meet the same fate, buried under centuries of dust and ash.

It is difficult to accept the cyclical nature of being, that we (humans) have been here before, and that we will be here again. In the United States and much of the "western world", we have been enjoying a long time of peace and prosperity on our own soil (we continued to bomb and destroy many other countries). The majority of people alive now in the US did not live through the Great Depression. Many were only children during World War II. We are soft, hopeful. We are used to everything turning out okay for our country. But now, we are witnessing the destruction of our democracy happening in real time. We see our cities being taken over by armed military forces. We see our country providing weapons support for genocide overseas. We see endless news stories that make us feel as though the ground we stand on is crumbling under our feet. We assume that things may look bad, but it will get back to normal.

This is America, so it has to. . . right?

"The future is a door. Two forces—forces that we drive like horses and chariots, whips to their backs, wheels in ruts, great froth and furious vigor—rush to that door. The first force is evolution. humanity changing, growing, becoming better than it was. The second force is ruination. Humanity making its best effort to demonstrate its worst tendencies. A march toward self-destruction. The future is a door that can only accommodate one of these two competing forces.

Will humanity evolve and become something better?

Or will we cut our own throats with the knives we made?"

—Chuck Wendig, Invasive