JA Westenberg

The doomers and the accelerationists share a singular trait: they've both decided the future is already determined and that human agency is irrelevant to whatever happens next. Both positions are comforting, because both relieve you of the burden of actually doing something.

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/a-soft-landing-manual-for-the-second-gilded-age/

A soft-landing manual for the second gilded age

By the summer of 1945, West Berlin had been reduced to rubble. Allied bombing, the Soviet ground assault and Hitler's insistence on Götterdämmerung had destroyed roughly a third of the city's buildings and left most of the rest damaged. There was no functioning government, no reliable electricity, no clean water

Westenberg.
Mar 4 at 3:01amTypefully
Show threadbkMar 4
@Daojoan
Both relieve me of the burden of actually caring about these people…
Show threadFlash Mob Of OneMar 4
@Daojoan I'll be bright eyed and hopeful when the day comes that my 80 year old parents don't have to drive for door dash to survive. Thanks.
Show threadkn_fkMar 4

@Daojoan

Human agency can be simultaneously relevant and limited.

Show threadinkMar 4
@Daojoan thank you for this generous, pragmatic and historically grounded picture of human agency & cooperation. The conceit of The Rubble is doing some interesting work in your essay, in that it somehow concedes that both viewpoints are true.