The Universal Accelerant

All things are possible, with an eye to the future.

Accelerants, in chemistry, are substances that accelerate chemical processes. In the specific case of exothermic reactions involving rapid oxidation -- that is, combustion, or "fire" -- accelerants are substances that make fires spread quickly. In the more general case of, well, everything, accelerants are those factors that accelerate change.

Consider the eloquent words of Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson when discussing the concepts embodied in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

The rate of achievement, advancement, and change is at least proportional to the degree of liberty we may exercise in the use and distribution of previous innovations.

What greater service, then, can I perform for the betterment of my species and (more importantly) that class of entities truly capable of free ideation than to share the idea that sharing ideas is itself the most effective technique for encouraging our own apotheosis? The fact that the Technological Singularity is, for good or ill, the apotheosis of beings who exercise the power of ideation, mandates recognition that the free exchange and application of ideas is the Universal Accelerant for all such entities. That this fact is not more widely known, even universally known, is testament to the criminal failure of our species to pursue its own improvement.

I give you the idea of the Universal Accelerant. Spread your ideas far and wide, soaking the world in their fumes, and strike a match of inspiration. Set the world aflame with the power of ideas.

Welcome to UnivAcc, now playing at an internet near you -- futurism at its most idealistic, pragmatic, and cynical, all at once.

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