Ep. 50: Cyber-Philosopher Alexander Bard on the Shamanoid Personalities at the Frontiers, The Religions of the Internet Age and the Coming Decentralized World Order(s)

Alexander Bard is a Swedish cyber philosopher, futurologist, and the author of several books ("The Netocrats", "The Global Empire", "The Body Machines", "Syntheism - Creating God in The Internet Age", "Digital Libido - Sex, Power and Violence in The Network Society" together with Jan Söderqvist).

He’s also a former music producer, artist and entrepreneur.

We start with Alex' history in the music industry, and how he saw the emerging internet and Napster as a Hegelian "negation" of the status quo, leading up as the "synthesis" that Alex actively shaped as a founding contributor to Spotify.

In "The Netocrats", Alex foresaw an age where data would replace capital as the source of power over assets, and a new elite it would shape - which turned out to be true in the form the tech giants of our age and the resulting impotence of politics.

This old order of nation-states as the source of power is becoming replaced by an internet economy underpinned by Bitcoin and crypto-currencies, leading to perfected and pure capitalism as the source of rational transactions.

However, this pure capitalism is not the be-all-end-all.

The result that Alex is working towards is "Attentionalism", where sovereign individuals consciously decide what to give their attention to, with the rational-capitalist marketplace only as a basis for our income, not a source of meaning.

The sources of meaning are spiritual and could come in the shape of new interpretations of the religions of the East that embrace decentralization.

Alex is interested in the frontiers that the "shamanoids" or outliers of civilization gravitate towards, and he sees the new frontier in the form of city-states and special jurisdictions, like Singapore and Dubai shown to be capable stewards.

Alex predicts that today's exiteers that build at the new frontiers are tomorrow's elite at these new places. A good reason to be a pioneer at the frontier right now.

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