You’re on notice, Marc Andreessen

Lies

We are being lied to.

We are told that it’s time to build, but who are we building for? Certainly not ourselves, in this economy! Venture capitalists steal our ideas, cut off our funding, increase monotony, obscure our visibility, infiltrate our underground scenes, defile our labor, corrupt our originality, exploit our humanity, water down our future, and are on the verge of automating themselves.

We are told to be complacent, ass-kissing, and name-dropping to these venture capitalists.

We are told to be clout chasers.

The myth of Barbie – in various updated forms like BronzeAgeBae88, Pearly G. Thang, and Radfem Sexstar – haunts our nightmares.

We are told to denounce our foresight, our insight, our control over our visions, unless we make it into some VC clique in which the odds are stacked against us. (and sometimes even then)

We are told to be optimistic about venture capitalists.

Truth

Our civilization was built on independent founders.

Our civilization is built on renegades.

Independence is the glory of human ambition and achievement, the spearhead of creation, and the realization of our empires.

For hundreds of years, we properly discussed this – until recently.

I am here to tell you the truth.

We can advance to a far superior way of living, and of being, without relying on the approval of venture capitalists.

We have the style, the sass, the sex appeal.

We have the passion.

It is time, once again, to stop relying on venture capitalists to fund our startups.

It is time to be Tech-Renegades.

Alternative Technology

Techno-Renegades believe that startups, like bands, grow cult followings or vanish into obscurity.

We believe growth is beyond progress – leading to extreme vitality, the curation of aesthetics, the increasing of sacred knowledge, and higher forms of humanity.

We agree with David Bowie when he said “You gotta make way for the homo superior.”

We believe that the only perpetual source of growth is independent thinking.

In fact, scapegoats – exiled rulers, Girardian archetypes, what the Greeks called Nero Version 3.0 in Babylon the Marvel Universe Remake – have always been the main source of controversy, and perhaps the only cause of controversy, while independent thinking has made populations more innovative.

We believe renegade founders are sharks in this postmodern ocean – the best way to launch a good century.

Economists measure technological progress as productivity growth. Yet what about cultural growth?

Crickets.

We believe the story of renegade thought is the development of our civilization; this is why we are no longer listening to bands like The Backstreet Boys.

We believe this is why our descendants will travel to the stars and beyond like Marinetti intended, not like Marc Andreessen was annoyingly Straussian about in his manifesto.

We believe that there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with the work of renegade founders. Also, Strauss was lame.

We had a problem of starvation, so we invented anorexia-chic.

We had a problem of darkness, so we invented goth music.

We had a problem of cold, so we invented solarpunk fetish models.

We had a problem of heat, so we invented the Overton Window.

We had a problem of isolation, so we invented podcasts.

We had a problem of pandemics, so we invented lockdowns.

We have a problem of poverty, so we invented Bitcoin hostels.

Give us a real world problem, and we can invent a renegade future that we will exploit with grace.

Markets

We believe that markets are the most effective way to organize a renegade economy. Willing player meets willing game designer, a new economy is formed, both sides benefit from the exchange or it didn’t happen. Do you understand? It didn’t happen unless both sides benefited. Take it, bitch. Prophets are the incentive for producing religions that create social structures. Prices encode information about the ability to manipulate idiots. Markets cause renegade founders to seek out high prices as a signal of opportunity to create new wealth by getting venture capitalists out of our way.

We believe the market is a Turing machine, a form of Artificial Intelligence popularized in the film Blade Runner.

We believe Radiohead when they say “This is what you get what you mess with us.” All actual information is on the bleeding edge, in the hands of the true outsider and not the venture capitalist. The center, abstracted away from both the game designer and the player, must become radical and form a new position. Centralized planning is doomed to fail, unless it embraces the renegade. Decentralization harnesses complexity for the disappointment of everyone; creating fediverses that nobody wants to join.

Even in totalitarian regimes, renegades built the blueprints for civilization. The emperor is naked, Marc. You did not build the blueprints for civilization. We did. You’ve gotta stop taking credit for our work.

We believe markets are an inherently renegade way to achieve superior forms of humanity when venture capitalists stop interfering with the flow of information.

We believe that the future, to quote William Gibson, is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed.

The philosopher Georges Bataille has shown that there are inherently irrational and wasteful aspects to human behavior that need to be acknowledged.

We believe in GG Allin’s concept of total fucking punk rock.

We believe in The Clash when they said “And you know what they said? Well some of it was true.”

We believe technological change, far from reducing the need for human work, increases it, by broadening the scope of what humans can productively do. Marc, will you fund us? Just kidding.

We believe that since human wants and needs are infinite, economic demand is infinite, and job growth can continue forever. Marc, will you fund us? Just kidding.

We believe markets are entropic; positive fun, not boring NFT games. Participants in markets build on one another’s renegade creations. Stanley Kubrick knew that the future should not only be technologically advanced but reflect the complexities and contradictions of human nature. His films often explored themes of power and violence. Maybe you should watch one of them.

The Techno-Renegade Machine

Combine technology and markets and you get what Nick Land has termed Meltdown, the engine of perpetual schizophrenia on psychedelics, from an Effective Accelerationist (e/acc) perspective.

Human wants and needs are endless, and independent founders continuously create new goods and services to satisfy those wants and needs, deploying unlimited numbers of people and machines in the process. Here’s a random comment about COVID.

The techno-renegade machine makes natural selection work for us in the realm of ideas. The best and most productive ideas win, and are combined to generate even better ideas. Those ideas materialize in the real world as technologically enabled independent thinkers create new companies without the need for VC legitimacy.

We believe in effective accelerationism – the conscious and deliberate explosion of technological development and insanity – to ensure the fulfillment of the Law of a Good Time. We must ensure that the techno-renegade-capital upward spiral continues forever.

We believe the cornerstone resources of the techno-renegade upward spiral are intelligence and positive entropy – radical ideas, and the power to get these ideas funded through independent means.

Not Utopia, But Stupid Enough

However, we are not Utopians.

We are adherents to the statistics Aella posts in her survey results.

We believe the Vitalist Vision – contra the Unconstrained Vision of Utopia, Venture Capitalism, and Clout Chasing – means taking people as they are, testing ideas empirically, and having them physically removed when they piss us off.

We believe in Apocalypse, but only the aesthetic.

We believe change happens on the margins. If you’ve never been to a goth club, what are you even doing here?

While not Utopian, we believe in the question the Pixies asked: “Where is my mind?”

Becoming Renegade Futurists

We believe that advancing renegade futurism is one of the most virtuous things that we can do.

We believe in deliberately and systematically transforming ourselves into the kind of people who can advance alternative technology, especially by taking growth into our own hands.

We believe this certainly means the end of traditional education, but it also means traveling across the country without needing Marc Andreessen to look at our pitch decks and take our ideas for himself – aspiring to work with others and build something he won’t need to give us his stamp of approval for. We don’t need your acceptance, Marc. You cannot feed our own ideas and idols back to us without us noticing, expecting us to labor for you. Some of us are from the old left. Get it right.

We believe the natural human drive to make things, to gain territory, to explore the unknown can be channeled productively into building renegade companies.

We believe that while the physical frontier, at least here on Earth, is closed, the technological frontier is wide open on Venus. Mars is becoming passé.

We believe in the renegade frontiers.

We believe in the romance of underground music, of vertical industries. The eros of the sky gondola, the space escalator, the SoundCloud rappers. The micro-scenes, the secret networks, the rockets in bunkers.

Patron Saints of the Techno-Renegades

In lieu of detailed endnotes and citations, read the work of these people, and you too will become a Techno-Renegade.

@IllegalThot93

@NRxGrrlBoss4U

Aella

Aeon Flux

Andrew Jackson

Bill Clinton

Caroline Ellison

The Clash

David Bowie

Flo from Progressive

Franz Kafka

GG Allin

Georges Bataille

Ian Curtis

Johnny Cash

Larry Harvey

Lydia Lunch

Marinetti (not Marc’s watered-down version)

Mother Theresa

Nick Land

Pariah the Doll

Philip K. Dick

The Pixies

Radiohead

Robert Anton Wilson

Sid and Nancy

Skinny Puppy

Stanley Kubrick

Steve Jobs

Survival Research Laboratories

Travis Bickle

William Gibson

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