VIDEO: Faster Slower Future #1
Inventing the future
Despite the extreme crises that the capitalist system has recently undergone, a post-capitalistic alternative seems more unthinkable than ever. We simply thunder on at an ever-faster pace. What we describe as ‘the left’ is breathlessly searching for ways out. New social, grassroots movements are increasingly calling for things to slow down. On the other hand, in recent years a new way of thinking about this speeding up has arisen – why not destroy capitalism using its own methods? Why not allow society to go into overdrive and pass into a new order?
During a two-day programme, we will be taking a detailed look at this Faster-Slower contradiction. Central to this is the philosophy of a recent political-philosophical movement: left accelerationism. This movement is part of a larger (abstract) philosophical movement: speculative realism. We give both supporters and opponents the chance to speak, but above all seek out challenging suggestions as to how to rethink the future.
The central guests are Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, who together wrote the #ACCELERATE MANIFESTO for an Accelerationist Politics and the book Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work.
SATURDAY 22/10
14:00 – Nick Srnicek & Alex Williams: Inventing the future
In recent months a range of studies has warned of an imminent job apocalypse due to automation. This is not simply a rich country problem either, as low-income economies look set to be hit even harder. It would seem that we are on the verge of a mass job extinction. But is this the case? Some point to the longer history of automation, suggesting there is nothing to worry about. This talk examines some of the issues and sets the conditions and progressive potentials for a world without work.
• Nick Srnicek is a lecturer at City University London. He is the author of Platform Capitalism (Polity, 2016), and Inventing the Future (Verso, 2015 with Alex Williams). He is currently writing After Work: What's Left and Who Cares? (Verso, 2017 with Helen Hester).
• Alex Williams is a PhD student at the University of East London working on a thesis entitled Complexity & Hegemony.
