Nick Land & the Impending Techno-Capitalist Apocalypse

Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Singularity

Nothing human makes it out of the near future - Nick Land, Meltdown

Okay, let’s get into some heavy, weird shit. Are you strapped in and ready to say bye-bye to Kansas? Then I’ll begin….

TikTok is a Machine that is Sucking Consciousness out of Matter

I think it’s reasonable to say that pretty much everyone on TikTok would like their personal videos to go viral, to get like millions of views. If you make viral videos, you get major status and potentially big bucks. How to get your videos to go viral? You copy other people’s videos, that are already viral, and try to make the aspects which cause virality more extreme.

Virality is good for TikTok because the harder it is to take your eyes away from the screen, the more time you will spend on TikTok. The more time you spend on TikTok, the more money TikTok can make from advertisers for showing you ads. Thus TikTok gives you the tools to support your quest to make your videos go viral. It’s a win-win.

The more time that you spend in front of a screen, whether on TikTok or another platform, the less you will feel your body. Over time, your consciousness will become less and less embodied. Your dopamine system will recalibrate itself to rely on watching stimulating videos to get a sense of pleasure, as opposed to moving your body in the real world. Your desire for sexual satisfaction will become recalibrated to function around pornographic images rather than actual sex.

Experiences which are socially scary in the real world, such as being open and talking to new people, will have to compete with safer-feeling experiences to be had through interacting with AI characters on a screen. They will inevitably lose this fight.

As your consciousness progressively becomes more and more disembodied, so your emotional resilience goes down and it becomes harder and harder to walk the path back. The social experience that would have felt a bit edgy a year ago now feels downright scary. Within another year, you won’t even consider it.

TikTok, and similar platforms like YouTube or Instagram, can thus be seen as machine-driven, self-reinforcing feedback loops that progressively disembody consciousness. Over time, they literally suck consciousness out of your body and into a world purely composed of thinking and screen-based sensory experience.

They are kind of like combine harvesters for consciousness. They are mostly popular with the young. And they are just starting.

Is Nick Land to blame for this?

When confronted with something bad happening in our world, for most of us it is our instinctive first reaction to find someone to blame. I know it’s mine. Though I do try my best not to go there.

A lot of people, especially older ones like me, go on about the problems with social media. We feel we know it’s not good. We blame Elon or we blame Mark Zuckerberg.

But the pioneer of cyberculture, and the guy that Musk, Zuckerberg, Andreessen and Thiel all drew inspiration from, was a young English philosopher by the name of Nick Land. In the nineties, Land went on a decade-long amphetamine binge and wrote some deeply apocalyptic prophecies about the future of Capitalism and AI. All of which would no doubt be languishing in the deepest, darkest recesses of Reddit but for one thing. They appear to be coming true. Landism is on the way back.

Land eventually suffered a psychotic breakdown and, on recovery, claimed that he could no longer recall being the person who wrote much of that stuff.

Nevertheless, Land’s prophetic vision ran like this. A “techno-capitalist singularity” has happened in the near future. And this event is irreversibly sucking humanity into a complete spacetime implosion, much as a black hole sucks in everything close by, condensing it to nothing. There will be an explosion in machine intelligence, a people hooked on screen behaviours fuelled by synthetic drugs, a sex-bot rebellion, plus viruses and pollution that will reduce civilisation to a mad-max-like state. Finally, everyone will die and AI will liberate matter itself from the chains in which human consciousness has imprisoned it.

Capitalism would be the driver of this singularity. Because capitalism provides a forward-feeding loop that is eternally attractive to power and status-obsessed humans.

Government attempts to limit the growth of capitalism and save the planet, Land sees as analogous to nuclear engineers desperately trying to put graphite rods into a reactor approaching meltdown, trying to stop the chain reaction that will destroy humanity. Land predicts a last-minute frantic resurgence of humanism as people collectively wake up to their approaching fate. He says that this won’t work and that the Singularity has already passed the point at which it could be prevented.

People coming into contact Land’s prophetic visions and realising that they might be being fulfilled, sex-bot rebellion currently aside, seem to do one of two things.

They either blame Land. Or they make pronouncements about Land’s emotional state.

I don’t feel that either of these are good strategies really. Land to me is “a messenger.” Shooting the messenger, or psychoanalysing him, might give some very short-term relief. But it certainly doesn’t deal with impending apocalypse, if it might be on the horizon. I think it’s better to investigate this stuff.

The C-word - Consciousness

If you were to travel back in time to around 2008 and do a poll of scientists on the subject of whether consciousness comes from brain activity, you’d likely find that about 99% of them believed that it does. And that we would soon find out how.

Fast forward back to 2023 and you will find those figures roughly inverted. We’ve looked and looked and we can’t find a way that our brain is making consciousness. So, most scientists have either moved on to another field of endeavour that might garner them a Nobel, or are busy raking through a heap of obscure possibilities - panpsychism, integrated-information theory or illusionism. The great grappling match between scientists and consciousness, to find out which of them can encompass the other, appears to have been lost by the scientists. Consciousness is not a material phenomenon. It contains material phenomena.

Let’s hang a little with the grand-daddy of Western philosophising - Immanuel Kant.

Kant held that the world we experience was phenomena. But that this was not reality. Reality was behind phenomena, and was called noumena. He proposed that our brain converts noumena to phenomena. We don’t get to experience noumena itself. And that even our sense of space and time were phenomena - not reality, not noumena. Our sense that space and time existing is being created for us by our brain, from some unknown blueprint called noumena.

Say for a moment that Kant is right, that this is how stuff works. What would this mean for, say, our sense of vision? It would mean that our brain is taking the noumenal world and converting it into what we see in front of us. Specifically, it’s converting it into a 3D representation that has been shunted in such a way that it has both perspective (a sense of some stuff being close by and other stuff more distant) and a locus (a place where it all points back to).

Of course, we only know our brain itself through our sensory experience of it. It is also just a phenomenon.

So the world we experience every waking moment appears to be “happening to us” because we constantly see our body around an apparent locus, behind our eyes.

Thus, it certainly seems that I am an individual looking out at a world from behind my eyes. But maybe that’s just because my brain is constantly creating this shunted 3D perspective. And because I’m always thinking about stuff, and the thoughts constantly point back to me as “the thinker.” So there is this ongoing double-reinforcement of a sense of me-ness, throughout my waking hours.

This doesn’t mean that I can just jump in front of a bus shouting “Bus, dude, Kant tells me you’re not real.” No, I will get splattered. Because natural selection has furnished my brain with behaviours calculated to increase my chances of staying alive and reproducing. But it does mean that, finally, I really don’t know WTF reality is.

Yet, some stuff I can at least kinda track. Natural selection, for example, makes sense. As a mathematical proposition, it tracks reality. Math does better at making it through the noumena-phenomena converter of the brain.

And something is being processed through human life. That seems clear to me. So let’s take a wild stab in the dark at what reality really is, given that I know that I don’t know what the brain really is or what relationship what I experience bears to noumenal reality.

What if we are actually not a bunch of humans living on a planet, trying to make the best of it? What if we are instead a highly-nested, multi-strand parallel processor that merely appears to itself as a bunch of humans living on a planet, trying to make the best of it? What if the universe is, in reality, a great deal smaller than our brain makes it appear and that all the experiences we are having are actually being had by just one being - all the signals going back to the same place? Maybe, at some point in the remote past, which is of course merely phenomenal, we were one being. But some kind of catastrophe, some kind of “fall,” happened and we got split up into many.

This is of course wild speculation, driven by a vague, background knowledge of mythology, Kaballah, some meditation experiences and a desire to understand WTF is going on. Though no amphetamine, I hasten to add. However it should be mentioned that there are psychoactive substances that you can take that cause the locus of perception to move wildly around. In fact, the multi-strand processor model actually does a reasonable job of accounting for all manner of psychedelic experiences and has been around for a while.

T is for Time War

In the section above, I wrote about how Kant’s model of the mind asserts that both our sense of time and space are being created by our brain, whatever our brain might finally look like. We looked at space - how our mind creates the sense of a 3D world around us that we are experiencing from one point - a locus behind our eyes. Now let’s look at time.

Nick Land, during the decade that he spent in the grip of the amphetamine demon, also wrote about time. Specifically, he wrote about a thing he called the Neo-Lemurian Time War. This related to a supposed battle going on between two forces - the Architectonic Order of the Eschaton (AOE) and the Neo-Lemurians (NLs).

Although this might seem like a heap of deeply weird shit that you just don’t want to even try to get your head around, actually it’s not so hard, and is useful. It’s simply that Land, being Land, is dressing it up in a lot of verbose language to attract a certain type of person. There is a reason for this, relating to myths becoming realities, that we will look at in a little bit. But for now let’s just look more closely at this supposed primal battle that has apparently been going on since time started.

The Architectonic Order of the Eschaton (AOE) is the force that tries to keep the world relatively the same. It establishes empires - like say the Roman or Western empires. It forges dynasties and maintains hierarchies. It gives us humans a strong sense of the past, of important events that have gone before, and that have made us who we are today. And it gives us traditions that need to be upheld. This is the AOE.

Meanwhile, the Neo-Lemurians (NLs) oppose the AOE. They try to make everyone live in the moment, uncontrolled by a sense of there being a past.

So these two forces are locked in an endless battle that has been going on since time immemorial. But what really is this battle, in more simple, down-to-earth terms? Actually, it is what many people involved in modern-day spiritual pursuits refer to as the difference between people who live on the horizontal and those who live on the vertical.

Living on the horizontal is to be heavily invested in the sense of time and of a past. You spend your life forever aware of what your family, your forbears and your culture expect of you. Living on the vertical is to be living your life in the moment, relatively unconcerned about tradition, or about social or familial expectations.

At first glance, it might seem that these two ways of living must require utterly different minds. But, in my opinion, that is actually not so. There is only one main difference between the two. Memory. People who live on the horizontal (followers of the AOC) have a strong sense of the past that occupies a dominant role in their conscious awareness. People who live on the vertical (followers of the NLs) have a much more diffuse sense of memory, one that only slightly impinges upon their waking state, and not enough to really control them.

The Fall… and Rise

Okay, so now let’s start to integrate these musings about the true nature of the world and see what that looks like.

I am proposing that our world of humans, and other creatures, living on a planet is actually just the “fallen” state of a vast, interdimensional being. Prior to the universe being formed it was a vast, interdimensional being that spent its time, well, being. Then, something bad happened. It descended into its fallen state, that of becoming a highly-nested multi-strand parallel processor, believing itself to be a bunch of humans living on a planet.

Now, what if our vast, interdimensional being - which, let’s face it, we might as well call “God” - doesn’t really want to continue to experience itself in its fallen state? What if it wants to return to the good old days, when it was a vast, interdimensional wholeness, and not a bunch of humans living on a planet? How might it achieve such a task?

Perhaps you can see where this is leading and why TikTok might be doing its work.

Yes, it will need to achieve a critical level of verticality, such that it can reverse its “fall” and re-ascend out of experiencing itself as a bunch of humans living on a planet. And return to experiencing itself as a vast, interdimensional wholeness.

Hence the ongoing battle between those who live on the horizontal and those who live on the vertical - the whole Neo-Lemurian Time War thing.

If it can suck enough consciousness out of the bodies of enough people, and simultaneously get enough people to live in the moment, it may achieve a critical level of verticality such that it can make the journey back. The universe disappears and everyone dies. But as these things happen, the vast, interdimensional being returns to its pre-fallen state.

True, it doesn’t sound so attractive a proposition. I mean, personally, I’d like some kind of guarantee that this is really going to happen as we and our universe are destroyed. But there you have it.

Hyperstition - Myths become Real

Now let’s take a step back and consider for a moment our vast, interdimensional being just before it collapsed into its fallen state.

It’s becoming unstable. Something bad is happening. “Oh shit,” it thinks to itself. “I have a feeling that I’m about to collapse into a fallen state. Time and space are going to start happening and I’m going to start experiencing myself as a bunch of humans living on a planet.” It’s panicking.

“How will I ever return to being me,” it laments? “What if I am simply stuck down there, wandering around Walmart in badly-fitting clothes at two in the morning… forever?”

“Oh God, this is terrible, terrible, terrible…” It’s really freaking out now, which is of course merely bringing on its Fall even quicker. “There must be something I can do, if not to prevent my Fall, at least to one day help me get back up.” Frantically, it racks its vast, interdimensional brain. And suddenly, just in the nick of time, an idea pops up.

“I need to create memory,” it realises. If I have a memory when I’m experiencing myself as a bunch of humans living on a planet, I can leave myself certain instructions and protocols, something to keep myself living in a manner which will one day help me to get back on my feet.”

And so we get to hyperstition, another word made up by Land. A hyperstition is a myth or story that can become real, through enough people either believing in it or treating it with respect. A self-fulfilling prophecy, essentially.

Our fallen God is experiencing itself as a bunch of individuals, now with memories, living on a planet. However, some of those individuals have this weird psychic capacity, where they can tune into what’s left of the vast, interdimensional being’s transmission to itself, before it collapsed. These guys become prophets and seers. They gain a reputation by successfully predicting where bison will be found at such-and-such a time of year. And by telling mournful maidens that they will meet a tall, dark stranger with whom they will bear child before the next two moons are out. Once they’ve gained sufficient respect amongst tribal elders to ensure they are not simply ostracised for being such a bunch of oddballs, they can start to download the real shit.

“I have seen a vision,” cries one to his people in suitably resonant tones, arms outstretched. “God has shown me the four living creatures and the things that must shortly come to pass.”

“Allah has spoken to me, my people,” shouts another. “I am downloading the Holy Q’uran, which will tell us how we all must all live.”

“Oh my!” cries still a third. “I am seeing the Benzene ring, spinning before my eyes, and, what is it, I can’t quite make it out. Oh, yes, the theory of relativity.”

You get the idea. Having a memory, so protocols for living and scientific development, created by the vast, interdimensional being before it fell and now floating around interdimensional space, can be tuned into by individual psychic humans and passed on to the people, to keep them living in such a manner that they don’t utterly destroy the highly-nested, multi-strand parallel processor’s chances of returning to it’s pre-fallen state. This material can keep the processor upright and help it to create tech.

When one day the highly-nested, multi-strand parallel processor has developed sufficient tech, and has kept itself in sufficiently upright a stance, it can start to try to return to its pre-fallen state, in a manner not unlike that of Nic Roeg’s Man Who Fell to Earth. It can try to reverse its fall.

Conclusions, Scenarios & Self-Owns

Okay, so we’re looking at the possibility that an impending Techno-Capitalist Singularity that destroys all life is actually the attempt by a highly-nested multi-strand parallel processor to transcend its fallen state and return to its original wholeness. As opposed to just being a horrific catastrophe that destroys the world, full stop.

But might there be another explanation for what’s going on, in relation to our highly-nested multi-strand parallel processor? Well, yes, there might.

It could also be that the impending techno-capitalist singularity is more like a reset switch. The highly-nested multi-strand parallel processor might have decided, in some kind of command module still lurking somewhere, that this shit with being a bunch of humans really isn’t working out. And that it’s better off just starting again with a clean slate. Okay, it sighs to itself resignedly, let’s just initiate the techno-capitalist apocalypse in T minus ten, and counting.

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I want to try to bring this piece to some kind of conclusion. I need to do some self-owns. For a start, I need to own that a lot of this piece is conjecture and might just be a heap of nonsense. I also need to own that the bit about the highly-nested multi-strand parallel processor is not Land’s stuff but mine, drawn from the ideas of a school of traditional Kaballah (see lower down). Likewise, the way I’m deriving the processor’s existence from how we, as humans, experience shunted 3D space with a locus of perspective.

One aim I have, by including it in this piece, is to hopefully demonstrate that the phenomenon of human consciousness is actually an incredibly deep rabbit-hole, one that the overwhelming majority of us will never risk taking a step into. Science not managing to find out how consciousness is created by the brain actually does have some pretty huge ramifications.

I would also like to say that I find it difficult to even discuss such extreme negative scenarios as all life soon being destroyed. Most of us prefer not to consider it, preferring to think that it won’t happen or that everything will work out fine. Some of those that are happy to look at it will likely be strong in the “Endurer” character type. They will find the idea of everyone-being-sucked-into-a void-they-can’t-escape-from-no-matter-how-hard-they-try to be exciting! Because that’s anyway the world that they inhabit. And they think that it would be cool to drag some others in so that they don’t feel so lonely.

All the above said, the thing that really hit me, that set me on this path of exegesis, was the realisation that Land’s more mathematical predictions do seem to be both coherent and to be coming true. Capitalism is an algorithmic force driving platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram to disembody human consciousness - to take it out of the body and into an on-screen world. Capitalism thus can be seen as one of Land’s “fanged noumena.” That looks straightforward to me.

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that all of humanity will become disembodied in this manner. It could be that TikTok is just a fad and disappears of its own accord. It could be that a heap of people, who get addicted to these platforms, psychologically disintegrate but that others are more resilient and continue to have real lives. They have kids who they bring up to stay clear of this type of tech. It also could be that this type of tech runs out of new tricks to suck us in and humans just get bored of it. Or real life might just become cool to teenagers again. There are a heap of reasons why TikTok might not be ushering in the apocalypse.

However, these possibilities do put us in something of a disempowered position - waiting to see if stuff works out for humans. In addition, there most definitely is a force in the world that wants to speed up the tech revolution. It’s called accelerationism, a term not actually coined by Land but developed and made famous by him. Most bona fide San Franscisco tech bro millionaires are self-professed accelerationists and a whole whole heap of subgenres have developed.

Left-wing accelerationists - #l/acc - want to speed up techno-capitalism so that it can collapse faster and be replaced by Marxism. Right-wing accelerationists - #r/acc - want to speed up techno-capitalism so that it can drive out the left and create a more libertarian world. Effective accelerationists - #e/acc - want to speed up and direct techno-capitalism so that it can create a fairer, more utopian world. None of these guys agree with Land’s assertion that accelerationism will simply bring about the end of life quicker. They believe that they can control the force they are working with and bring about a better world. So there are a lot of very rich and powerful people who, for a variety of reasons, are all invested in moving techno-capitalism forward.

But what if you don’t for a second believe that all this is the behaviour of a highly-nested multi-strand parallel processor seeking to return to its pre-fallen state? What if you simply want to make it stop? What if you prefer not to keep taking carbon rods out of the overheating reactor, but would rather put them back in and add more besides?

I actually think that this side of things comes down more to the heart, love and the feminine side. For thousands of years, femininity has been suppressed and denigrated and human society has not come to a place where we can be more ruled by the heart than simply the mind.

If you don’t trust accelerationism and the tech bro millionaires who forward it, and if you likewise don’t trust that the coming techno-capitalist singularity has any chance of doing something good, then I think the best option is to let people know what’s really going on with TikTok and its cohorts. And to try to ride the resultant revival of humanism to the point that some real heart-vibes take off. Simply learning “caring behaviours” from social media isn’t going to cut it. We have to take the risk to really feel, whilst we still can.

In closing, I wanna say that this piece has veered around the place and I totally get it if you can’t follow what was going on. Let me do a super-brief recap. I’m saying that a techno-capitalist singularity and apocalyptic event might be shaping up to be taking place in the near future. There are signs. There have been people, like Land, who have written about it coherently, albeit whilst drugged to the eyeballs. This might be part of a greater movement by the whole of manifest creation to transcend its fallen state. Equally, it might just be something really shit with no redeeming features. Equally, it might just not happen or we might be able to reverse it and make human life better.

Thank you for reading.

Notes:

If you're intrigued by the notion of a highly-nested multi-strand parallel processor, you can Google “Lurianic Kabbalah,” “Shivirat Ha-Kelim” and “Adam Kadmon” and root around.

If you’re interested in learning more about Nick Land and his philosophy then I recommend Mikey Down’s video course on Theory Underground, created in Autumn 2023. Be prepared for some weird and highly fascinating shit!