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Human Categorization and Self-Organization

[ DISCLAIMERISM: I'm not an expert in anything. This is just something I've been thinking about. ]

Prescriptivism


The first thing you need to know about Accelerationism is that it is not a normative ideology.

Please bear with me.

Accelerationism cares about the acceleration of technocapital. But to be an "Accelerationist", at least in the original (?) sense of the word, is not to be someone who wants to accelerate, or someone who thinks we should accelerate. An Accelerationist is someone who thinks technocapital IS accelerating.

My understanding is that the average person who identifies as an "Accelerationist" does not understand this. Or rather, they've redefined the word to work it into their normative nonsense. Accelerationism as an online community has, so I'm told, collapsed into standard, boring left/right politics, and it seems that this is why. People are apparently incapable of understanding a theory as "describing the world" without getting it wrapped up in some moral framework. I'm sure you could understand all this in terms of the discourse evolving to meet the needs of technocapital, using Accelerationist theory to explain why Accelerationist discourse evolved the way it did, but that's beyond the scope of this post.

Point is, people took a descriptive theory, and implicitely twisted it into a prescriptive, normative one. Most did it intuitively, without a second thought, seemingly without even realizing it was happening. I think the tendency for people to do this sort of thing is an incredibly broad phenomenon. People want to be told what to do, I guess. I find it insufferable, personally.

Tribalism


People are categorized largely by their behavior. People who do [action] are [action]ers, or [action]ists, or [action]ians, or whatever. "Accelerationist" sounds like an identity, like a category of person, a secret club, or cult, or something. So natually, people wanted to identify with the label. But, because identities are usually defined by actions, they assumed there must exist some "Accelerationist behavior" which would put them in that category.

People care a lot about identity. I don't think this is a controversial statement. Social animals, and whatnot. Categories are useful, of course. You can't just memorize every single possible piece of information about the world, because there's way too much. You have to compress the information somehow, by finding patterns and tendencies. Patterns are also important for their power in predicting future information. The problem is just that humans are extremely complicated and heterogenius, so it's very difficult to categorize them in a way that actually tells you something meaningful about their behavior, in a predictive sense. And yet, humans are exactly the thing we most enjoy categorizing. Usually in very simple, static ways, no less. Maybe it's because they're so complicated, that the illusion of understanding them has such a strong allure. Maybe broad categories are just the easiest tool available for achieving that. Whatever the reason, it's hard-wired behavior, I think.

Philosophy is about concepts, not types of people. Politics is also about ideas, alongside wants, probably. Again, not about types of people.

What about Human typologies? Enneagrams, and so on? Surely these are about types of people? To my understanding, Enneagrams are about motivation. When you use them to describe people, you are assuming that all humans have some "core motivation", or something. I don't buy that this is a useful idea. As usual, you're bending over backwards to make it about types of people, when it works much more naturally as purely a description of the motivations themselves. Neurotyping is about thoughts. Again, there's no need to assert that all people have some unique, intrinsic way of thinking that they consistently adhere to, so that you can make Neurotyping about types of people. Just let it be about thoughts.

Some categorization systems really are about people, of course. They tend to be entirely arbitrary. Race, gender, and so on. MBTI probably belongs here. "Social constructs".

But social constructs do exist, yes? This is where it becomes apparent that I've been ignoring an important ingredient. In Accelerationist terms, I think that would be "Hyperstition".

Typology Realism


Because human typologies are so fundamental to the way people think about themselves and others, they actually tend to organize themselves based on them. Humans want their oversimplified categorization systems to be true so badly that they alter their behavior to better fit them. Human behavior is the slave of self-image. Often also their understanding of others' perception of them. Or otherwise, the way they want others to percieve them.

But even if you think you've transcended social identity and don't care what others' think, you surely still act according to your own understanding of your behavior. It's my understanding that the body actually, tangibly changes behind the scenes to fit this, as well. Placebos are the obvious example, but it seems to be a more general phenomenon.

So, effectively, even if these human categories are initially useless, people's belief in them makes them true. It's the mechanism that converts irony to sincerity, makes self-confidence super important, and creates technocapital singularities (allegedly).

I find this whole thing to be frusterating. I suppose it's just a useful principle of human self-organization. I'm sure it's very useful if you want to get people to do things. There are lots of large-scale effects we may want to create, and this identity structure is a powerful tool for getting people to collaborate (Perhaps why it evolved in the first place). But there's still a big part of me that wants to say, "Why are you doing that? Don't you know these categories are made up?"

It also makes it very difficult to analyze oneself. How can you be sure whether you "are a certain way", when any attempt to analyze your own behavior will influence it, tending to align it with however you most think you are? I suppose it makes it easier, actually. Whatever you think you are, you're probably right, because the fact that you think it will tend to make it true. It seems that any self-analysis might inherently create extremification, picking out whatever bias you have and making it a reality.

It's unsettling, a bit. But probably empowering, if you're good at convincing yourself of things without evidence. We should all strive to become more delusional, I guess.

Conclusionism


Where are all the hyperstitional attack helicoptors? I am extremely disappointed in transphobes (transphobists?) for their lack of commitment to the bit.