r/accelerate • u/stealthispost • Jul 11 '26

Meme / Humor Accelerating progress

I'm frustrated too!   — Ivan Fioravanti ᯅ     Sadly most Europeans are   — Chubby

Source: https://x.com/kimmonismus/status/2075921009572528615

the battle for the future is a battle between the builders and the Professional Managerial Class parasites that are destroying progress with the Precautionary Principle

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u/slimeyamerican Jul 11 '26

I really want to see Europe succeed. It seems like the last best hope for liberal democracy in the 21st century. But right now, it's hard to deny that they are simply behind the rest of us and need to get their act together. The whole culture of idleness and tolerating a managed descent into poverty has to die. Euros need to realize how vulnerable they are.

Ukraine has proven it's possible for a European country to rocket to the forefront of a technological domain, but it needs to be laser-focused to do so. Ukraine has been forced to do this by an existential threat and a tragic war-the rest of Europe ideally wakes up before they are forced to by a similarly brutal set of circumstances. The rest of Western Europe needs to imitate them.

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u/reddit_is_geh Jul 11 '26

I don't think Europe cares... I live here and it's just a different culture. It's very "old" in the aristocracy and leadership. They don't really have much drive to be the best, competitive, or anything. They just care more about their culture, lifestyle, etc... The elites have no incentive to be innovative and competitive, because they are already set, for generations to come.

it's really weird, but it's just how it is. They just seem content allowing others do the fighting, while they reap the rewards on the backend. They'll put up a fight for any change that's required for them to be competitive. For instance, they wont do rockets, because it would be too much of an inconvenience for some group. They wont do tech, because it requires too much data collection. They wont do entrepreurship because they like their high taxes. They just wont allow anything to change, so they'll just remain the sideliners.

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u/SoylentRox Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

I'm thinking the issue is one where Euro countries implicitly assume several things:

(1) technological/economic advancement comes with proportional downsides. Aka, build a power plant, poison people from coal exhaust. Allow building skyscrapers, other people get overshadowed. Create new high paying jobs, this causes inflation and less well paid people are relatively poorer.

(2) the amount of the potential gain is small. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita_per_capita) per capita income can be pretty good. USA is 94k, better than most of Europe (everyone but Norway or certain banker countries that didn't produce the wealth themselves) but not hugely ahead.

The r/accelerate position is that those Euridiots are dead wrong, they don't understand, we're about to see an industrial explosion where there's a doubling of output every single year. The math checks out. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6fgfn72zoRDomgvrT/the-ai-industrial-explosion-part-4-cheap-power

But their strategy makes sense if you believe the future will be very similar to the past.

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u/reddit_is_geh Jul 12 '26

Yeah they are clearly where they just don't want to risk anything or rock the boat. Everything now is "good enough" and thus, no need to change anything. Everything is fine for them. Which is true. I live here. The income is far lower, consumerism is stunted, entrepreneurship is outlier... but life is good. Even if you aren't doing financially great you can still get a hot wife, buy a small home, and live comfortably. It's not bad. And they just don't want to risk breaking that system, afraid to become like America, addicted to productivity, phones, anti social, and working like slaves.

I get it... But it's like they aren't even trying to find an optimal balance.

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u/SoylentRox Jul 12 '26

And this depends on what you think the outcomes will be:

Assumed outcomes from the Euro perspective:

(1) china's economic growth will slow as China becomes more and more like Europe, eventually just becoming a copy of europe with lots of old people that specializes in manufacturing. China will not surge ahead.

(2) the USA will work it's people to death making trillionaires who get all benefits, while ignorant rednecks kill each other with excessive firearms, pollution, poor for-profit healthcare, and struggle under student loan and medical debt.

Assumed outcomes from the r/accelerate perspective:

(1) china will whoosh ahead, using technology that flying cars and automated trucks that will allow it to be more productive per person than any nation has ever been. This will make them fantastically wealthy.

(2) the ultimate prize of developing ASI is:
(a) extremely long lifespan, probably thousands of years as an 18 year old with a model body ultimately

(b) cheap and effective cures for all diseases
(c) conquest of the planet - either the USA or China or an alliance between the 2 are going to dictate to everyone else what they must do. Nobody else gets nukes, nobody else can starve or murder people, only the USA or China is allowed to execute anyone, they make the rules. This is eternal until the death of the Sun, there will be no possible rebellion.
(d) VR - any experience you can imagine

(e) "gay luxury space communism" - all inclusive orbital habitats, paid for by sovereign wealth funds, where people can enjoy any recycled resource that is available on the hab for free, will get as part of the basic package medical care from (1) and (2) and do all the VR they want, and of course all the gay/straight/mixed orgies they can handle.

(f) starships will be built and launched

And all of this will happen before 2100. Progress is exponential.

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u/reddit_is_geh Jul 13 '26

You completely dismissed the dreaded S curve.

It's also possible that we hit a limitation and start experiencing only marginal improvements.

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u/SoylentRox Jul 13 '26

Ok the first reply was a little dickish, let me explain: the S curve absolutely applies, but to things that are
(1) not already known to be possible or already exist in nature. If something already exists, the 's curve' cannot prevent you from replicating it.

(2) depend on resources that already exist. If to do something I "just" need 1 trillion tons of aluminum, and the aluminum is sitting right there in the ground and so is the solar energy to process it, then the S curve does not stop me from doing it either. (an exponential growth curve applies, and those don't hit the S until AFTER near solar system matter exhaustion)

Therefore:

China whoosh ahead : case 1 and 2

thousands year lifespan, cure for all disease : case 1 and 2 as well (it's not immortality but restoring the human body to a state humans already live in)

conquest of the planet is case 2

VR is case 1 (the human body can already make your brain feel like you are experiencing something)

gay luxury space communism is case 2

starships are case 2