Amazonian Accelerationism

By Ricardo Evandro S. Martins

In one of the chapters of his book Against Progress (2025), Slavoj Žižek offers an interesting concept of Accelerationism: “Accelerationism, a recent form of historic determinism, is a notion whose basic core should not be confused with its different versions and aspects (neofeudalism against egalitarian democracy, abundancy communism, and so on). (Žižek, 2025, p. 23). However, I believe that this way of interpreting Accelerationism could be further developed, but firstly it is necessary to understand its conceptual origin.

I would prefer to note the important article published by Rodrigo Santaella and Victor Marques titled Towards a Future-Oriented Politics: The Philosophical and Strategic Provocation of “Left-Wing Accelerationism (2021), in which those researchers trace the genealogy of the term “Accelerationism.” In the article, the researchers state that the term “Accelerationism” was first used by Roger Zelazny in his science fiction work called Lord of Light (1967), and they also note that its academic debut occurred in the book wrote by Benjamin Noys titled The Persistence of the Negative (2010) (Marques & Santaella, 2021, p. 374).

However, I believe that the most fundamental philosophical idea around Accelerationism is indeed found in the famous Anti-Oedipus (1972), in which Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari formulated the notion that while Capitalism tends toward a threshold of decoding and deterritorialization (as well as reterritorialization) – giving rise to a “body without organs” –, the challenge lies not in resisting this process, but precisely in accelerating it.

Deleuze and Guattari asked themselves: Is there a revolutionary path against the processes of social and subjective transformation driven by capitalism? Do we withdraw from the global market, or do we further intensify deterritorialization? In other words, Deleuze and Guattari question whether we should avoid the destabilizing effects that the market exerts on society and individuals, or whether we should radicalize these very effects to bring about their exhaustion. And they answer to those questions: “Not to withdraw from the process, but to go further, to ‘accelerate the process’, as Nietzsche put it: in this matter, the truth is that we haven’t seen anything yet” (Deleuze; Guattari, 2004, p. 239-240).

In other words, Accelerationism is a set of ideas arguing that the historical processes inherent to the techno-scientific progress of Capitalism – at least since to the First Industrial Revolution or even since to the Colonialism – should not be halted, but rather accelerated, with the deterministic aim of ensuring the exhaustion of its model of producing commodities and subjects. Based on Noy, Deleuze and Guattari, the problem with Capitalism would not be that it deterritorializes relations and subjects through a form of “unbridled capitalism” (Nick Land), but rather that it fails to deterritorialize them enough – that is, radically and sufficiently. Thus, the aim is not to bet on the contradictions immanent to Capitalism, but rather, as Santaella and Marques said, “to refunctionalize its infrastructure for post-capitalist objectives” (Santaella; Marques, 2021, p. 401).

The theme on Accelerationism can be even more complex because some preliminary explanations are required to formulate finally a concept of “Amazonian Accelerationism” that aligns with the name of the collective I belong to – a group that has been publishing essays on its own blog at Medium. It is necessary to develop some singularities on Accelerationism in general before I explain what “Amazonian Accelerationism” could be.   Having explained the origin and the general idea in response to the previous question, I can now address the existence of a certain bifurcation within the general concept of Accelerationism: right-wing Accelerationism and left-wing Accelerationism.

While there is, on the one hand, a perspective advocating for the acceleration of the processes of deterritorialization driven by Capitalism – precisely to achieve the dissolution of its reifying, oppressive forms and foster the emancipation of subjects within a post-capitalist world free from nostalgia for pre-industrial life –, there exists, on the other hand, a right-wing accelerationist perspective that also seeks to accelerate these same processes, but for a different purpose: to supercharge Capitalism to the point of ushering in a transhuman or even post-human era, creating a zone of indistinction between the human body (with its organic nature) and the cyborg, such that one could no longer speak of “humanity,” but rather of a different one, post-human entity indistinguishable from the machine.

Regarding this bifurcation, it is worth citing the original passages from two key figures representing what is understood as “left-Accelerationism” and “right-Accelerationism”. On the left, we have Mark Fisher in his article A social and psychic revolution of almost inconceivable magnitude: Popular Culture’s Interrupted Accelerationist Dreams (2017), he states that “Accelerationism is also the conviction that the world desired by the Left is post-capitalist – that there is no possibility of a return to a pre-capitalist world and that there is no serious desire to return to such a world, even if we could.” (Fisher, online). On the right-wing, in his article A Quick-and-Dirty Introduction to Accelerationism (2017), Nick Land summarizes his conception of the topic thus: “Accelerationism is simply the self-awareness of capitalism, which has scarcely begun. (‘We haven’t seen anything yet.’)”. He further criticizes the revolutionary Left, arguing that: “The auto-destruction of capitalism is what capitalism is. “Creative destruction” is the whole of it, beside only its retardations, partial compensations, or inhibitions. Capital revolutionizes itself more thoroughly than any extrinsic ‘revolution’ possibly could (Land, online).

With this explanation about the two types of Accelerationism, now I can explain a possible concept of Amazonian Accelerationism. But first, it is necessary to make at least three caveats:

1) There is a strong interest in considering the theme of Accelerationism from the perspective of the Amazon, as a task undertaken by researchers from the region;

2) Our “collective” had published on own blog about the theme. In September 2025, we could organize a “I Mark Fisher Colloquium: The End of the World Begins with the Destruction of the Amazon” at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), in Belém, Brazil. Our collective of researchers does not hold a uniform set of ideas on the subject, nor does it generally advocate for an ideology termed Amazonian Accelerationism. Our approach to this topic is critical rather than apologetic, and reflective rather than a defense of a specific set of precepts – even though we did publish an inaugural text authored by our colleague Bräulio Rodrigues (2025), titled Amazonian Accelerationist Manifesto (2025), with the deliberate intention of provoking debate and stirring controversy during the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), that was realized in Belém, Pará, Bazil.

3) We are aware that the term “Amazonian” attached to “Accelerationism” in our blog’s title in Medium refers to a limited group of researchers and professors from different fields in the realm of the Human Sciences, such as: Philosophy, History, Anthropology, Psychology and Law, based in the city of Belém (including Lílian Lobato, Matheus Castelo Branco, Felipe de Campos Ribeiro, Maurício Borba Filho, Bräulio Rodrigues). Consequently, this group cannot represent the entire Amazon region, which is – as is well must know – a international and diverse in many different respects. In fact, our collective of researchers stems from a small part of the Amazon, specifically one that originated within the Brazilian public university system of the urban Eastern Amazon.

Now I can address two further points: that an Amazonian Accelerationism can be a set of ideas, an artistic imagination, can be an Amazonian-futurist science fiction. In short, the Amazonian Accelerationism is a critical theory marked not only by a localized “identity” issue driven by situated researchers, but also, and above all, by a concern to critically reflect upon the threatened forest: its peoples, cultures, and traditions – spread across diverse identities – with its sciences, technologies, and architectures, and with its histories, its fauna, and with its dreams, whether waking or otherwise.

Thus, this research collective conceived and organized the “I Mark Fisher Colloquium” in the city of Belém, in the Brazilian Amazon, in 2025. This Colloquium was made in memory of a British philosopher, certainly, but also to reflect on his provocations from this specific location and to engage with his “left-wing Accelerationism” by framing it as a starting point rather than a conclusion. In doing so, I echo a text by my colleague Bräulio Rodrigues – written in critique of the major event hosted in our city COP30, in 2026 – which asks: Why is it easier to imagine the end of the Amazon rainforest than the end of capitalism?

Amazonian Accelerationism aims to be a form of left-wing Accelerationism, following the footsteps of Mark Fisher, by seeking to construct an ontology of the present that critiques the notion that “the future has been cancelled” and that “no other worlds or temporalities are possible”. In short, it critiques the “capitalist realism” as an ideology, but it places a specific critical focus on the settler-capitalist dimension that we, in Brazilian Amazon, have experienced since the 17th century – a dimension that renews itself in our region as an “archaeo-genealogical” signature in the form of neo-imperialisms, such as the suspected link between illegal mining in the Brazilian Amazon and Starlink, part of Elon Musk’s business group.

Amazonian Accelerationism is, ultimately, a way to advance the critique of the so-called “capitalist realism” theorized by Fisher and Frederic Jameson but grounded in the reality we inhabit in the Amazon region. At the same time, it seeks to engage with the anthropological sensibilities surrounding the potential eschatology (or eschatologies) of Indigenous peoples as a paradigm. Unlike in Eurocentric political theology, for the Brazilian Indigenous the world, at least as they knew it prior to colonial capitalism, has already ended. Indeed, it has ended multiple times, with ongoing colonization constituting one of these “Apocalypses”.

For my part, while I am interested in the topic of Accelerationism, and in considering it from an Amazonian perspective alongside Fisher’s critique of capitalist realism, I also maintain a critical and a dialectical stance regarding the progressive nature of the accelerationist agenda, even when it comes from the left wing. I find the dimension of Walter Benjamin’s Marxist heterodoxy particularly compelling, specifically in relation with his idea of ​​the necessity to apply the brakes to the deterministic historical locomotive of progress – whether that of capitalist realism or even Sinofuturism. It is through this critical conception of technological progress that I believe it is both possible and desirable to escape the accelerationist historical determinism found across the political spectrum.

This critical stance of mine regarding accelerationism is specifically justified by my skepticism concerning the prediction of any acceleration when viewed from the perspective of the Amazon. I am referring here to the approach proposed by Michael Löwy, as outlined in his interview with Boitempo Press, called Ecosocialism by Michael Löwy (2011),[1] which envisions a convergence between ecological and socialist thought aimed at realizing “(…) not only a new mode of production and a society that is more egalitarian, more grounded in solidarity, and more democratic, but also an alternative way of life, a new civilization, an ecosocialist one, beyond the realm of money, consumption habits artificially induced by advertising, and the infinite production of useless commodities.” (Löwy, online).

In the name of a post-capitalist life, even the advocacy by Fisher for accelerating the process of deterritorialization, but in a way that avoids primitivism, requires critical reflection when viewed from the Amazon. It calls for a reflection that considers the ecosocialist critique of Accelerationism in all its forms. The post-capitalist outcome remains open-ended, as it must also reckon with the barbarism that futurist projects – even socialist ones – threaten to usher in. This is by no means a defense rooted in nostalgia or a vulgar, melancholic romanticism; rather, it points perhaps to a different kind of romanticism: the romanticism critically embraced by Benjamin.

Regarding this, Löwy argues in a text from his book Romantic Anticapitalism and Nature: The Enchanted Garden (2021):[2]

(…) Benjamin articulates several classic topoi [commonplaces] of Romantic Zivilisationskritik [Critique of civilization]: the transformation of human beings into “work machines” the degradation of labor into mere technology, the desperate submission of individuals to social mechanics, and, above all, the replacement of the “heroic and revolutionary” endeavors of the past by “the lamentable march of progress that crab-like gait of evolution.” What this last observation reveals most clearly is the specific turn Benjamin gives to the Romantic tradition. The deconstruction of the ideology of progress is undertaken not in the name of conservatism or restoration, but of revolution. (…) Against the “amorphous tendency of progress” with its linear conception of time, Benjamin champions the critical power of utopian images, such as the idea of ​​the French Revolution of 1789 and the messianic kingdom. Another type of utopian moment is found in the “Tolstoyan spirit” [Leon Tolstoy] of service to the poor, a spirit that grew out of the “ideas of the profoundest anarchists and Christian monastic communities.” In a move that is both typically Romantic and revolutionary, the religious past and the utopian future become linked under the shared inspiration of the Russian writer, a figure who was both a libertarian socialist and a Christian (Löwy, 2021, p. 115–116).

Regarding the possibility of breaking free from accelerationist determinism, I would like to point out that the Benjaminian-Löwy “exit” confronts a paradox: the act of pulling the brake on the locomotive of the history of capitalist progress, which leaves wreckage in its wake, as marks of the barbarism wrought by a settler-imperial civilization, that is racist, slave-holding, patriarchal, atomic, and which now manifests in a neoliberal guise, in fact, it is an interruption of the forces holding back the redemptive messianic-revolutionary advent; an act that is, in turn, also an “emergency brake” on the accelerated movement of bourgeois history.

To put it even more simply: the acceleration of capitalist deterritorialization triggers an apocalyptic anomie while, contradictorily, enabling the arrival, the opportunity (kayros) of the Messianic force. But, as it possible to see, this way of acceleration is given from a Judeo-Christian perspective. What I would like to know from here, in the Amazon, is: How is the Amazonian territory affected by the acceleration of its capitalist deterritorialization, which began with the Iberian colonial invasion? And to what extent do the Amazon and its peoples have something to contribute to this discussion, fraught as it is with so many theological-political and temporal paradoxes? How can one conceive of Accelerationism in a territory where “the end of the world” has already occurred?

These questions remain rooted in the lexicon forged not only by the theology of Saint Paul – for whom “the time is short” – as stated in the First Letter to the Corinthians (7:29), but also by Carl Schmitt, Benjamin, Jacob Taubes, Giorgio Agamben, and Massimo Cacciari. What is of greatest interest, however, is: How we might bring such political theology into dialogue with the thought of Fisher – “that 21st Century Walter Benjamin,” as Amauri Gonzo described him in his Introduction to the Brazilian edition of Ghosts of My Life (2014) (p. 12) – as well as with other possible eschatological worldviews, viewed from an Amazonian perspective.

In early March 2026, the Eurasianist philosopher Alexander Dugin published a text proposing a form of “Russian Accelerationism.” Dugin defends the Government of Vladimir Putin and opposes what he calls the “Eschatology of Baal,” asserting that the entire liberal accelerationist ideology of Silicon Valley leads to Epstein and his perversions. The text wrote by Dugin appears to advocate the Katechon (2 Thessalonians, 2:6–7): the force that has restraining the Antichristian lawlessness accelerationist from both, right and left. And, at the same time, Dugin also seems to advocate a type of regionalized Accelerationism: a distinctively Russian – that is Eurasian and Orthodox – Accelerationism. This version is grounded in different terms and stands against Liberalism, Zionism, the so-called “woke agenda” and the agenda of Silicon Valley’s technocapitalists – or technofascists.

Speaking only by myself – and I imagine that the collective behind our blog would largely agree with it –, I believe that Amazonian Accelerationism is an object of research and critique, but rather a one that can also be reformulated through the lens of left-Accelerationism. This involves engaging with Fisher – and moving beyond him – in a dialogue with Amazonian perspectives to critique Capitalism, all while avoiding any surrender to reactionary, Neo-reactionary, supremacist, oligarchic, techno-occultist, technofascist or conservative ideals, and without succumbing to a form of vulgarized, romantic isolationism raised from a naive Relativism.

The goal is to reflect on the practice of emancipation for the Amazon and its traditional peoples. In doing so, one must be wary of embracing Accelerationism, even in its left-wing variant. Because, if “the future is ancestral”, as the Brazilian indigenous philosopher Ailton Krenak defends, standing against the flourishing of the deterritorialization processes discussed by Deleuze and Guattari, he might also caution: “When I speak of postponing the end of the world, I am not referring to this world in collapse. That one operates on such a violent scheme that I would actually prefer that it disappears (…)” (Krenak, 2022, p. 21).

In this regard, the text wrote by my colleague Lílian Lobato highlights the differences between Krenak and Fisher: “The ‘end of the world’ to which Krenak refers is not limited to an environmental collapse; it symbolizes the breakdown of an illusory state of pleasure and consumption that blocks the perception of other forms of existence. Within this horizon, the fall is not to be feared, but rather experienced as a form of enjoyment and an opening for creation.” (Lílian Lobato, online).

Amazonian Accelerationism, therefore, can open space for potential dialogues with other worldviews. As it is in the text wrote by my other colleague called Matheus Castelo Branco, from our blog, we can see his effort to place limits on Accelerationism from the perspective of the Amazon and its peoples: “Accelerationism operates within a framework that presumes the possibility and desirability of a uniform acceleration of social and technological processes. Amazonian worldviews, on the other hand, remind us that different modes of existence may demand different temporalities, different rhythms and different velocities.” (Matheus Castelo Branco, online).

Therefore, I believe that it is essential to maintain what Hans Jonas termed the “heuristics of fear” and the “responsibility principle”: a stance of care, of apprehension, indeed, a stance of critical scrutiny regarding technological promises, coupled with ethical responsibility toward future generations and technical decisions. As the same way that Frankfurt School critiqued the Enlightenment, it is necessary also to formulate a proper “Dialectic of Accelerationism.” This dialectic could offer a way out of the historical determinism that Žižek discussed in relation to this topic. It would be a dialectic that considers the “decolonial turn” and, consequently, the fact that “acceleration” may simply be another form of the “falling of the sky” (Davi Kopenawa, 2010): the genocide or of the end of a world, or even of worlds.

The Amazonian contribution to Accelerationism remains open. And offering a way to escape, once again, from the grip of the accelerationist historical determinism, it is also open is the Amazonian capacity to envision other possible futures. This may occur even through the lens of a dystopian negative, serving as an ethical-aesthetic warning via a counterexample that does not rob us of our redemptive and utopian imagination (Ernst Bloch), but rather alerts us to the future with a sense of dread (Hans Jonas). I am referring here to artists from Belém, such as those contemplating the urban future in the Amazon, exemplified by the graphic art and academic research of Keoma Calandrini (2025), as well as the science fiction of Clara Gianni (2019).

An exit, a way out of accelerationist historical determinism may, then, lie in organized political action, when provided this practice also encompasses art and, crucially, serious academic research conducted within free public universities, even as that space is deliberately undermined by neoliberal measures – accelerated.

A final word: we must know that that is possible to give another use to the apparatuses, remembering that power is an “empty throne” (Giorgio Agamben). As Andityas Matos (2022) argues, power is fundamentally an-archic. Power, therefore, carries a fetish (a spell, a witchcraft) of its own: it conceals its own lack of foundation, even though its necropolitical (Achile Mbembe) and financial effects are quite concrete and material, entailing grave subjective, psychological, and physical consequences. If we manage to mount a proper critique of these powers and the fetish surrounding them – perhaps even in the name of a certain “Accelerationism” –, it may become possible to create new ways of living, to let obsolete worlds run their course: thereby averting the looming world war and ecological Apocalypse, and to welcome a transmuted world; a world that might not even be necessarily “futuristic”. But a coming world.

References

Castelo Branco, Matheus. “Aceleracionismo e cosmovisões amazônicas: um diálogo possível?” Aceleracionismo Amazônico (blog), 2025. https://medium.com/@aceleracionismoamazonico/aceleracionismo-e-cosmovisões-amazônicas-um-diálogo-possível-16bb24ce88f6

Deleuze, Gilles; Guattari, Félix. Anti-Édipo: Capitalismo e esquizofrenia. Lisboa: Assírio e Alvim, 2004.

Fisher, Mark. “Um olhar sobre o aceleracionismo.” São Leopoldo: Humanitas, 2024. https://www.ihu.unisinos.br/categorias/640092-um-olhar-sobre-o-aceleracionismo-artigo-de-mark-fisher

Gianni, Clara. Valsa para Vênus. Belém: Kindle Edition, 2019.

Gonçalves, Rodrigo Santaella; Ximenes Marques, Victor. “Por uma política orientada ao futuro: a provocação filosófica e estratégica do ‘aceleracionismo de esquerda’.” Das Questões 12, no. 1 (2021). https://doi.org/10.26512/dasquestoes.v12i1.34941

Gonzo, Amauri. “Prefácio.” In Fantasmas da minha vida, by Mark Fisher. São Paulo: Autonomia Literária, 2022.

Kopenawa, Davi; Albert, Bruce. A queda do céu: Palavras de um xamã yanomami. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2010.

Krenak, Ailton. Futuro é ancestral. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2022.

Land, Nick. “Uma introdução rápida ao aceleracionismo.” Devirmorte (blog). https://medium.com/@devirmorte/uma-introdução-rápida-ao-aceleracionismo-nick-land-6ab8517bd8a4

Lobato, Lílian. “Entre o realismo capitalista e o fim do mundo: diálogo entre Mark Fisher e Ailton Krenak.” Aceleracionismo Amazônico (blog), 2026. https://medium.com/@aceleracionismoamazonico/entre-o-realismo-capitalista-e-o-fim-do-mundo-diálogos-entre-fisher-e-krenak-6fa7a9876eb9

Löwy, Michael. Anticapitalismo romântico e natureza: O jardim encantado. São Paulo: Unesp, 2021.

Löwy, Michael. “Ecossocialismo por Michael Löwy.” Blog da Boitempo, 2011. https://blogdaboitempo.com.br/2011/03/01/1003/

Matos, Andityas. A na-arquia que vem: fragmentos de um dicionário de política radical. São Paulo: sobinfluência, 2022.

Matheus, Keoma Calandrini de Azevedo. “Distopia Neocabana (2021): Ficção especulativa e imaginário nos quadrinhos na Amazônia Paraense.” Master’s thesis, Universidade Federal do Pará, 2025. https://repositorio.ufpa.br/handle/2011/17723

Rodrigues, Bräulio. “Manifesto Aceleracionista Amazônico.” Aceleracionismo Amazônico (blog), Belém, 2025. https://medium.com/@aceleracionismoamazonico/manifesto-aceleracionista-amazônico-0a24247f8ee7

Žižek, Slavoj. Against Progress. London: Bloomsbury, 2025.

[1] Ecossocialismo por Micheal Löwy.

[2] Anticapitalismo romântico e natureza: O jardim encantado.