J G Ballard vs Andreessen Horowitz

Everyone with a mind has thoughts on how to get to a better world

To be honest, my belief that we can make a better world is at quite a lot less than 100%

This might be an effect of spending 2 weeks researching, writing, shooting, generating and editing the Ballard essay.

JG was no optimist.

But the last three essays on Le Guin, Asimov and Ballard have been three different insights into what a “better world” might be.

Add to that today’s longform commentary on the Techno-Optimist Manifesto, another text on how to make a better world, and I have thoughts.

There’s a problem with our ideas about better worldness.

They’re wrong. All of them.

Or at best, limited.

Everyone with a mind has thoughts on how to get to a better world. And most of us have an answer.

Marc Andreessen has an answer. More and better technology. I’m certain he sincerely believes that idea. And I know many, many people, a majority in the US, agree.

Another group who have an idea about a better world are Marxists. Some of whom are disappointed that I’m not a Marxist, because I made a number of video essays that reference Marx.

(It’s my aim to understand as many ways of thinking as well as I can, and one consequence is that people are later disappointed when I’m not a true believer. I’m not a Marxist, Satanist, Libertairian or Randian but have been called all four this week)

When we believe a set of ideas, an ideology, they can lead us to see a simple, effective route to a better world. If everyone just trusted Marx’s model of history, and his spurious claim that it is “scientific”, and the therefore inescapable conclusion that a next stage of communist civilisation is inevitable, well, then a better world would be possible.

Marxism is a particularly sticky ideology because 1) it contains some truths and 2) it is built on unconscious, unquestioned assumptions that many of us share.

“Rich people are greedy”

for example.

But it’s not just the Marxist’s. We all have a belief in a better world that seems, to us, obvious and attainable. I’ve participated in some public events with Marc Andreessen and heard him talk often, and he clearly feels deep frustration that we can’t just focus on technology and in that way escape all conflicts, poverty and suffering.

It really does seem like the obvious answer to him

In fact one of the great causes of conflict in our world is when these “obvious, simple” paths to a better world come into conflict. If we just had faith in God, heaven on earth would manifest. But…wait…which god? Cue the next war.

The difficult task is to understand that (most) people aren’t pretending to believe things. Communisim, techno-optimism, christ the savior, etc. These all seem just as obvious truths to their respective believers.

Great science fiction writers, I think, can’t be ideologues. I admire Le Guin, Asimov and Ballard because, in different ways, they were all able to break apart their own ideas and assumptions and question them.

That’s also why great science fiction writers are valuable to study. If we ever do make a better world, it will be because we have learned that flexibility of thought, instead of clinging to our ideologies.

Listen to JG Ballard vs. Andreessen Horowitz on the Science Fiction podcast

https://damiengwalter.com/2023/11/01/j-g-ballard-vs-andreessen-horowitz/