omniharmonicDefensive Accelerationism (d/acc)
Defensive accelerationism, or d/acc, is a framework proposed by Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, for deliberately accelerating the development of technologies that make authoritarianism more difficult, that protect individual privacy and autonomy, and that distribute power rather than concentrate it. The core argument is deceptively simple: technology shapes society, and the question is not whether to develop technology but which technologies to develop, and toward what ends. Defense over offense. Decentralization over consolidation. Protection over control.
D/acc emerged as a direct counter-thesis to the techno-capitalist accelerationism of figures like Nick Land and the techno-optimism of Marc Andreessen, as well as the surveillance-authoritarian trajectory being actively constructed by figures like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Where these actors see acceleration as serving either an inhuman singularity or centralized control, Buterin argues that technologies which are defensive, democratic, decentralized, and differential can subtly but powerfully shift the game-theoretic landscape toward freedom. If the technologies we build make surveillance cheap, authoritarianism becomes easier. But if they make privacy robust and manipulation costly, human agency is preserved. As Benjamin Life analyzes, the race between these two visions — technologies of control versus technologies of defense — is not metaphorical but is measured in lines of code written, standards adopted, and infrastructure deployed.
D/acc is understood in this body of work as necessary but insufficient. It knows what it defends against — the techno-authoritarian capitalist endgame — but not what it builds toward. The defensive posture is a holding action, crucial for creating space, but that space must be filled with something generative. This is where regenerative accelerationism (re/acc) complements d/acc, providing the constructive vision of post-capitalist, life-affirming systems. D/acc also connects to zero-knowledge-proofs as a primary technical tool and to technological-sovereignty as the broader goal of community capacity to shape rather than be shaped by technology.