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To investors,
Growth has been demonized over the last decade as something that we should fear. The technology industry is chastised for “growth at all cost.” The energy industry is protested for growth in consumption and production. Numerous billionaires warn of the risks associated with overpopulation. The message is clear — growth is bad.
But I have long disagreed with this idea.
For years, I have been trying to articulate that the opposite is true. Growth is not only good, but it is essential to human flourishing.
I wrote a letter to each of you earlier this year titled, “Grow or Die,” where I argued this must be the motto for the United States of America over the next 80 years. Economic growth is the only rational answer to our financial and technological problems:
“This leads to the multi-trillion dollar question — how do we potentially double the GDP growth of America?
There is really only one viable path in my opinion. We have to double and triple down on technology and innovation. We have to create new products and services. We have to be the leader across artificial intelligence, bitcoin, space, genome sequencing, psychedelics, and much more. If the idea is fringe and potentially disruptive today, the United States must pour immense resources into the sector.
Many things won’t work. That is perfectly fine. The venture capital model is proven for driving innovation. If the US government, and private investors, can unilaterally pursue a similar strategy of funding innovation, we may have a shot of turning this problem around. If not, the United States will continue to erode away as every great nation has done in the past.
Grow or die. That is the motto for America over the next 80 years. History tells us what happens if we fail at the mission. Hopefully we are smart enough to avoid that fate.”
In public talks at conferences I have discussed the importance of the technology industry to accelerate growth. We have to grow out of our problems or we risk being swallowed by them.
A quick Twitter search turns up tweet-after-tweet on this idea as well.
As if that wasn’t enough, I even started a company that is focused on training and employing people to put certain industries in a better position to accelerate economic growth.
This is the single most important idea of our generation in my opinion — we must grow.
There has only been one problem though…I have struggled to articulate the idea in a simple manner. Grow or die is a cute phrase, but it doesn’t fully encompass the different aspects of the issue. None of the existing movements or schools of thought fit perfectly with this problem and proposed solution.
Thankfully, this has recently changed.
A group of pseudonymous Twitter accounts have also identified the same problem and been championing growth as the solution. They appear to be much better at branding and marketing too.
Their chosen name for this movement? “e/acc” which is short for Effective Accelerationism.
In a Substack post explaining the idea, the founders of the e/acc movement write an explanation of the problem:
“It’s hard to avoid the messages: mankind is bad. There are too many of us. Our problems are too many and they are too hard to solve.
Many people are saying the solution to these problems is to take a step backwards, that the solution is degrowth. But degrowth is a kind of surrender. Degrowth is central planning hopped up on scarcity mindset. Degrowth is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Not exactly an optimistic message from the doomers amongst us. The founders go on to explain why e/acc is the counter-argument. An argument for optimism:
“At the core of e/acc is a set of conclusions about the world drawn from the physics behind life itself, and the path forward it lays out is as clear as it is compelling. All there is left to do is pitch in and help. All there is left to do is build.
In more practical terms, e/acc is about how and why we will all flourish in the world we are building right now. In a world of where we are fed a constant stream of reasons to be hopeless, e/acc is a reason to be hopeful in this very moment. That, more than anything else, is why e/acc is the nexus of so much energy, and why I hope you will be excited about it, too.”
The founders explain what e/acc is from their prospective:
“The essence of e/acc (effective accelerationism) is a belief, based in thermodynamics, that existence has certain characteristics that are most amenable to life that continuously expands. We’ll get into that soon.
First, practically speaking, the solution to the problems facing humanity is to grow out of them. Humanity solves problems through technological advancement and growth. Contrary examples from history—where humanity has solved a problem by skulking backward—are scarce to non-existent. This is not a surprise, and is in fact a consequence of our physical reality.
There is nothing stopping us from creating abundance for every human alive other than the will to do it. We have the most powerful information technology known to man on our side: the market. And the same technological growth that is helping out in other places is increasing the power of the market as well.”
And lastly, the founders of the e/acc movement identify concrete goals that humanity should work towards in order to grow out of our problems, create a more prosperous world, and improve the lives of billions of people:
“Strategically speaking we need to work toward several overarching civilizational goals that are all interdependent.
Increase the amount of energy we can harness as a species (climb the Kardashev gradient.) In the short term this almost certainly means nuclear fission.
Increase human flourishing via pro-population growth policies and pro-economic growth policies (emergent altruism, placing economic power and agency in the hands of the meek).
Create Artificial General Intelligence (allows supplementation of labor with capital) the single greatest force multiplier in human history.
Develop interplanetary and interstellar transport so that humanity can spread beyond the Earth.”
Given my previous focus on the importance of growth, and the immense disagreement with the degrowth argument, I find myself nodding in violent agreement or saying “exactly!” as I read more about the effective accelerationism movement.
The things that I have been writing, talking, and tweeting about now have a banner to fall under. There is a movement of people who agree and are working to bring this idea to fruition. As @basedbeffjezos said on Twitter recently, investors allocating dollars in venture capital have been e/acc all along:
“VCs were e/acc all along without knowing it. They are the intelligence of the capital-allocation organism, allocating $$$ towards tech/organizational units that have an expected ability to attract further capital and grow.
A monetary version of thermo dissipative adaptation.
Capital allocators are local control nodes for the greedy bottom-up self-adaptive system that is our techno-capital machine.
Capitalism is a form of intelligence.”
The problem of slow growth has been identified by critical thinkers for years. They have been screaming from the roof top on the importance of growth, innovation, and technology. Now that the idea has turned into a movement, and there is a memorable name associated with it, my expectation is that this idea will explode in popularity globally.
That may be the most important thing to inspire a generation of young people to invest their time and energy into building solutions for the hardest problems our society faces.
I’ll leave you with the wise words of the e/acc founders:
“Whether you’re building a family, a startup, a spaceship, a robot, or better energy policy, just build.
Do something hard. Do it for everyone who comes next. That’s it. Existence will take care of the rest. Just build.”
Hope you all have a great start to your week. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
-Pomp
Jaime Leverton is the CEO of Hut8 Mining, one of North America’s largest innovation-focused digital asset mining pioneers and high-performance computing infrastructure providers.
In this conversation, we cover their diversified approach to mining, capital allocation, geographic approach, regulation, & more.
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