Retro-Decelerationist Manifesto

A manifesto in paper, ink, collage, and sewing expressing a tendency to value the past believes that society should slow down and reflect criticizes exploitation of attention and abuse of efficiency and quantification, while not rejecting the future, or technology or development or mean conservative or mean anti-accelerationism.

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Progress

separate letters for collage

collaged setion titles

traced main title for sewing

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Retro-Decelerationist Manifesto

Preface

The world yearns for speed, development of speed and speed of development. You work on your next KPI frantically and desperately. You stress about your next imminent strategic endeavor. You think slowing down is dangerous, like slamming the brakes on a highway of flying cars. Yet, you forget you could. The world is not a highway, nor an infinite acceleration ramp, after all.

The Issues of Acceleration

Accelerationism calls for development and improvement, but forward is not the same as faster. They speed up for speed’s sake and optimize efficiency for efficiency’s sake. The capitalist machinery throws in infinite feeds with no memory. They optimize your working mode so you can be exploited more. They create a panopticon of overdriven and self-improvement — of burnouts — and it doesn't seek to fix any systematic problem.

Aesthetics of the Slow World

1. We envision our future. Meanwhile, we look backward for context and connectedness, believing that past aesthetics and technologies can revive and provide new insights.

2. The economy may first and foremost be impacted, but more sustainable development would come after a wave of stagnation.

3. Slowing down may feel daunting when everyone else is striving for speed, but it gives manufacturers the opportunity to create higher-quality products.

4. Emails and online meetings are convenient and efficient, but we do not forget the warmth and texture of a hand-written paper.

5. We appreciate the abundance of resources and information, but we do not forget the opportunities from empty space and being bored.

6. Emerging technologies are insightful. For example, AI is worth mastering, for what we truly want to get done.

7. We travel from one cluster of skyscrapers to another fast, but we still appreciate the smell of wind that goes through forests and seas as well as the first and last rays of sunlight over the mountain.

8. We seek progress, and we listen to how everyone else thinks about development, especially non Western-centric perspectives.

9. Details, easily missed out from the accelerating, algorithm-driven, and profit-driven flow, are meaningful as well.

10. Results help us navigate a road, but do not tell the meanings of the road on themselves.

The Retro-Decelerationist Principles

1. We value the past. We look into the future through our past.

2. We slow down and reflect.

3. We reclaim our attention and memory. We reject the overflow of information. We seek to break the panopticon created by the achievement society.

4. We are not anti-accelerationism or anti-technology, but we seek sustainable, thoughtful development and the use of technology.

5. We think development is not linear.

6. We are open-minded and inclusive. We stand with marginalized communities.

7. We do not value each other or their work based on efficiency or quantification, but love. Imperfection is fine, and we care about feelings.

8. We value each and every individual as a human being, not as a user, an account, or a set of data that can train algorithms.

9. We want to have time and mood to breathe in nature and not be blamed for doing so.

10. We support everyone’s choice, choice of lifestyle. If they choose to accelerate, we want to remind them to accelerate thoughtfully.

Epilogue

Retro-Decelerationism is warm and soft. Retro-Decelerationist doesn’t overthrow anything radically, but instead seeps the values of the past and thoughtfulness. In a mainstream society where the invisible coerces you to move farther and faster, you barely have opportunities to think of other possibilities. It is designed this way, but being mainstream doesn’t necessarily mean being correct. As a human being, you should and could have a choice to not be carried away by the acceleration. Slowness is not regression; it is repair.