Pro-Tech vs. Anti-Tech - The Third Axis of the Political Compass?

New political divisions for a rapidly changing world

Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson have just published their Abundance manifesto. I didn’t find it groundbreaking, since I have been engaged with the online discourse around these topics for years (1, 2, 3). People who are less chronically online than me will find it valuable for a new vision of politics. I’ll find it useful because I can cite it approvingly rather than vaguely pointing at the discourse of my online political sphere.

My favorite section of the entire book is the very first one. They start the first few pages of the book with their vision for 2050: a vision of solar and/or nuclear energy, desalination plants, lab-grown meat, delivery drones, disease and aging-solving medications, and an AI-led economy that eliminates poverty and radically increases our leisure time. Throughout the book, they also argue for a lot more housing and investment in science. That is a vision that I share.

There are plenty of reviews about the book, some more positive (1, 2), some more negative (1, 2), as well as a lot of bad online discourse. Here, I only want to highlight one aspect. It is a book that has helped me more vividly see a crucial dimension often overlooked by the traditional axis of political alignment: your stance toward technology. Reading their arguments further clarified an intuition I've had for a while, that the two-axis political compass is woefully insufficient to capture the new complexities of contemporary political orientations.

The Traditional Political Compass.

You probably don’t need a reminder, since the political compass meme is quite popular, but just in case. The traditional political compass arranges ideologies along two axes,

• Economic Authority, ranging from economic collectivism or socialism on one end to laissez-faire capitalism on the other.

• Social Authority, ranging from authoritarianism and cultural conservatism at one end, to libertarianism at the other.

These two axes yield the four familiar quadrants: authoritarian socialism ("tankie" socialism), authoritarian capitalism (right-wing authoritarianism), libertarian capitalism (the right-wing libertarianism associated with Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and Robert Nozick), and libertarian socialism (a broad spectrum of typical liberal leftist views, as well as left-libertarianism and anarchism).

You know him. You love him. The political compass!

However, there seems to be a third axis that I think profoundly affects our political alignment and worldview, particularly in the contemporary context, the Pro-Tech versus Anti-Tech axis. Let's explore the possibility of that addition.

Pro-Tech vs Anti-Tech.

I believe that this third axis cuts across traditional left-right divides, reflecting a person’s underlying beliefs about technology and innovation. It goes like this.

The Pro-Tech side is mainly characterized by optimism toward technological innovation, openness to material transformative solutions, and an emphasis on growth, material abundance, and a variety of forms of progress. The pro-tech thinkers believe in a solution-oriented approach, expect that technology can alleviate suffering, and the most radical wing aligns with techno-optimist or transhumanist views. They might focus on growing the economic pie rather than its redistribution.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Tech side is marked by skepticism, caution, or outright hostility toward technological advancement, depending on how extreme they are, since it includes even luddites and anarcho-primitivists. It’s often grounded in fears of disruption, unintended consequences, environmental degradation, or social harm. Anti-tech thinkers will emphasize caution, advocate restraint in innovation. They will prefer moral or political solutions to problems, and prefer to prioritize stability and preservation over radical transformation. They might want to focus on current political issues, and on issues of social political recognition or wealth redistribution.

Interestingly, the pro-tech versus anti-tech divide cannot be reduced to the traditional political axis, because it manifests within both the traditional left and right, transcending our usual partisan boundaries. Of course, adding an axis quickly multiplies the number of positions we have to deal with, so let me just give a quick overview, without going into every single possibility.

Left-wing Pro-Tech includes left-wing accelerationists, techno-utopians, effective altruists, internet rationalists, who advocate transformative solutions such as renewable energy, synthetic biology, and AI-driven governance to achieve social justice, eliminate poverty, and tackle global social issues. It seems to be the focus of Ezra Klein's and Derek Thompson's Abundance, as well as Aaron Bastani's Fully Automated Luxury Communism (what a great title!).

Left-wing Anti-Tech includes from environmentalists, all the way to eco-socialists skeptical of industrial civilization. It also includes proponents of green growth, degrowth, or lifestyle simplicity movements, since they fear that unchecked technology will amplify inequality, environmental degradation, or loss of cultural values, such as community, as economic and cultural globalization progresses.

Right-wing Pro-Tech includes the libertarian futurists and tech entrepreneurs famous in Sillicon Valley, who see technology as enabling economic growth, individual empowerment, freedom, and aim for market expansion. It is the focus of James Pethokoukis in The Conservative Futurist, I believe.

Right-wing Anti-Tech includes traditional conservatives, cultural pessimists, or reactionaries who fear technological acceleration undermines tradition, social cohesion, community values, and stability.

An alternative political compass I saw on this post, who himself borrows it from Pethokouki’s The Conservative Futurist.

Historical Optimism vs. Pessimism - A Related Dimension?

Closely related, but not identical, is another useful distinction: historical optimism versus historical pessimism. Traditionally, conservatism has been associated with historical pessimism, the view that (typically Western) civilization is fragile, human nature is unchanging, and progress is actually illusory. Many on the right fear civilizational decline, technological disruption, or moral decay. Conversely, progressivism is commonly linked with optimism about humanity's potential for improvement and societal advancement.

Yet, today, we find pessimism abundant across the political spectrum. Some leftists now adopt deeply pessimistic attitudes on climate, inequality, and capitalism's trajectory towards our complete destruction.

What distinguishes pro-tech optimism from mere historical optimism is the focus on technological innovation as the tool to alter humanity’s trajectory for the better, creating genuine abundance, well-being, and moral or social progress. Conversely, anti-tech pessimism typically assumes technological innovation actually exacerbates existing problems or introduces catastrophic new ones. Meanwhile, overall views on historical trends be independent of technology.

Why the Third Axis Matters.

I believe adding this third pro-tech versus anti-tech axis to our political understanding helps enrich conceptual clarity, and also provides crucial insights into shifting political alliances and divisions that are emerging in the 21st century, explaining why we see unlikely coalitions (such as MAGA San Francisco technocrats) or surprising disagreements among groups traditionally aligned leftists (such as ones between many of my leftist friends and me).

So I would recommend changing the political compass to something like this:

• Left←――――――――――→ Right

• Authoritarian ←――――――――――→ Libertarian

• Pro-Tech ←――――――――――→ Anti-Tech

• Optimism ←――――――――――→ Pessimism

Then you just place a nice dot wherever you are.

Why not more axes?

Since once you add more dimensions, it gives you a strong reason why you might not want to represent the compass as a two-dimensional chart anymore. Why not add more axes?

Beyond the Pro-Tech/Anti-Tech and Optimism/Pessimism axes, here are potentially other additional dimensions to consider:

• Globalism vs. Localism: Positions toward global integration and cosmopolitan universalism vs. community-centered local protectionism.

• Longtermism vs. Short-termism: Views that prioritize distant-future outcomes vs. immediate social and economic problems.

• Rationalism vs. Romanticism: Rational, enlightenment, science-oriented views vs. emphasis on tradition, emotion, authenticity, aesthetic, and cultural values.

• Humanism vs. Post-Humanism: Prioritizing traditional humanist ethics and preservation of human nature vs. embracing transhumanist views with radical alteration of the human condition.

Why not even more? At some point, it might become unwieldy, but enjoy this video. It’s mostly funny, but maybe some of them could actually work as serious suggestions.

Anyways, that’s all. Consider complicating your layers of political analysis!

Further Readings.

I haven’t read all of these, but I think they help elucidate what I’m thinking of as belonging to each category.

Pro-Tech Readings

• Aaron Bastani - Fully Automated Luxury Communism - Communist Pro-Tech.

• Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson - Abundance - Centrist Pro-Tech.

• James Pethokoukis - The Conservative Futurist - Right-Wing Pro-Tech.

• Ray Kurzweil - The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology - Well-known Transhumanist.

Anti-Tech Readings

• Jason Hickel - Less is More - Advocate of degrowth. Anti-Tech Leftist.

• Jacques Ellul - The Technological Society

Pro-Progress Readings

• Steven Pinker - Enlightenment Now - Mostly focused on the trajectory of societal progress, and why we need to boost it.

• Hans Rosling - Factfulness - Argues that we’re deeply mistaken about our pessimism on the current state of the world, and that things are doing much better than you might think.

Anti-Progress Readings

• John Gray - Straw Dogs - Progress Skeptic.

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Discourse on the Origin of Inequality - Blames private property for ruining the peace of simple, pre-societal life. Greatly inspired the romantic movement.