In the middle of the pandemic venture capitalist, Mark Andreeson, co-founder of Netscape and founder Andreeson Horowitz put out an essay It's Time to Build. He takes the techno-utopian-determinist line of needing to pull our socks up and build more stuff to get us out of this hell hole. To fix our institutions. To fix the failures of capitalism.

There's a Marx quote I like about how while philosophers think a lot about the world, the point is to change it. Zizek in an interview last year, rejects this. He says that we have done too much without enough thinking. That we should stop and really consider why. Why our institutions are the way they are. Why capitalism is failing.

I'd call myself a recovering techno-determinist, for a good chunk of my 20s, I was a start-up bro. I saw the world as a series of problems to be solved. There's a general line when people in technology sell themselves. They say, they just like solving problems, that it is inherent to them. That the whole silicone valley techno-determinist mindset is inherent. This, I used to say.

Since the pandemic, I have done a 180 on this view. The way of thinking within the problem-solution-build paradigm is doomed to not create real change. To really think of a proper solution, you have to think hard about what the world truly is. You have to understand the historical and institutional forces that created not just the world around you, but the way you think about it.

Thinking in this way, the true pragmatist is not the techno-determinist. It is not Mark Andreeson or Zuckerberg or Thiel. The true pragmatist is the philosopher. It's people who question our institutions and society. It's Zizek. It's Marx. Since it is the only real proper starting point for change. The doers are scoring a whole lot of points, playing a whole lot of game, but they're playing on the wrong field. In a way, the techno-determinist is the one who theorises with their material experiments in the world, and it is the philosopher that creates the solid theoretical foundation for those experiments to become meaningful.

Such is the purpose of this blog. To find the starting point, at least in the world around me, for change. However, while I have done a 180 on the ideology of techno-determinism, I still maintain a sense of material urgency. The pragmatism that it purports itself to have. I don't think my body would allow myself to merely think, it needs to build.

And so, the plan is to hold both of these mindsets in parallel. To think and build. To be the ultimate pragmatist on both sides of the coin. I will think both about historical, political, and economic forces that have created the world we are in and where we are headed- and also look at the opportunities in the present that can help it. Is Web3 and the decentralisation of society just mirroring past utopian ideals? Maybe. But it must be explored.

I sum this up as thinking about both theory and technology. Thinking about the past and the future. The why and the what. Where we are, and where we could go. Pessimism and optimism.

The latter part of this binary, I believe, is what the progressive movements in the world do not have. In the fusion of these two, I hope to model the next iteration of the lifecycle of the Left. Post-2016 It's been mired in nihilism and political depression. It is currently stuck eating its own tail. Retreating. Logging off from their institutions.

However where the Left sees an end. Or a capitalist non-end. (See: Mark Fisher) I see a starting point for change. Zizek likes to say only a Christian can be a true atheist. In the same line of thought, I believe only a pessimist has the potential to be a true optimist. Pessimism is the very true knowledge of the dark and murky forest that surrounds you, and only in this knowledge can you find your way out.

I'm not sure how to get out of this forest, or if we can. I'm only certain of two things; that I'm going to make a sincere attempt, and that I'm going to need your help to do so.