The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Why are billionaires prepping for the apocalypse?

Nov 10, 2022

Douglas Rushkoff, a media theorist and author of "Survival of the Richest," delves into the unsettling world of billionaires prepping for an apocalypse. He explores the paradox of wealthy individuals investing in luxury survival strategies while neglecting the collective societal issues they contribute to. Rushkoff critiques their detachment from empathy, highlighting the absurdity of extreme wealth in times of crisis. He argues for the importance of community resilience and human connection over isolation and tech-driven solutions.

55:27

Episode guests

Douglas Rushkoff

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Intro

4min

Billionaire Doomsday Prep

17min

Tech Billionaires: Utopian Visions and Existential Escape

6min

The Mindset of the Ultra-Wealthy

13min

Building Resilient Communities in Crisis

2min

Cultural Reflections of Billionaire Mindsets

3min

Wealth, Ethics, and Societal Impact

3min

Humanism and Resilience in the Age of AI

5min

Sean Illing talks with technologist, media theorist, and author Douglas Rushkoff, whose new book Survival of the Richest explains how the ultra-wealthy are obsessed with preparing for the end of the world — and the troubling mindset that leads many rich and powerful people down this road. They discuss the blend of tech utopianism and fatalism behind this doomsday prepping, how Silicon Valley and "tech bro" culture have incentivized a kind of misanthropy, and why the world's billionaire class can't see that the catastrophes they fear are of their own making.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Douglas Rushkoff (@rushkoff), author; professor, media studies, CUNY Queens College

References:

Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires by Douglas Rushkoff (W.W. Norton; 2022)
"Epson boobytrapped its printers" by Cory Doctorow (Medium; Aug. 7)
"Cosmism: Russia's religion for the rocket age" by Benjamin Ramm (BBC; Apr. 20, 2021)
The Selfish Gene (1976) and The God Delusion (2006) by Richard Dawkins
Francis Bacon, Redargutio Philosophiarum (1608), tr. by Benjamin Farrington in The Philosophy of Francis Bacon (1964): "Nature must be taken by the forelock . . . lay hold of her and capture her" (p. 130).
"Power changes how the brain responds to others" by Jeremy Hogeveen, et al., Journal of Experiential Psychology (Apr. 2014)
What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill (Basic Books; 2022)
Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff (W.W. Norton; 2021)

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This episode was made by:

Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Editor: Amy Drozdowska
Engineer: Patrick Boyd
Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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