Wild with Sarah Wilson

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF: Navigating the sad “Mindset” of the billionaire tech bros

Mar 21, 2023

Douglas Rushkoff, cyberpunk OG, discusses the mindset of tech billionaires and their obsession with luxury bunkers. He offers solutions rooted in returning to humanity, including bringing back the Sabbath and embracing de-growth economics. The podcast explores the lack of empathy among billionaires and the need for them to reconnect with humanity and address environmental issues. It also delves into the fear and uncertainty driving billionaire preppers.

55:39

Creator website

Episode guests

Douglas Rushkoff

AI Summary

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

The mindset of billionaire tech bros behind their escape fantasies is driven by irrational fear and a desire for control and insulation from the unpredictable nature of reality.

To counteract the anti-human trajectory of society, we need to prioritize embracing our humanity, fostering human connections, and choosing empathetic, compassionate, and sustainable ways of living.

Deep dives

Billionaire preppers and the anti-human trajectory

This podcast episode discusses the phenomenon of billionaire preppers and explores the larger anti-human trajectory that is prevalent in the world today. It highlights the irrationality and fear-based thinking behind the actions of tech billionaires who are investing in luxury bunkers and planning to escape to Mars in anticipation of the apocalypse. The conversation delves into the mindset of these billionaires, their fear of the feminine, and their desire to control and insulate themselves from the unpredictable nature of reality. It emphasizes the need to challenge and reject their solutions and instead focus on embracing humanity, fostering human connections, and finding ways to live in harmony with each other and the planet. The episode concludes by urging listeners to make conscious choices to support a more empathetic, compassionate, and sustainable way of living.

Introduction

4min

Tech Billionaires' Survival Strategies and Mindset

29min

Challenging Economic Growth and Embracing Circulation of Money

4min

The Benjamin Franklin Effect and the Lack of Empathy Among Billionaires

2min

Reconnecting with Humanity

12min

The Fear and Uncertainty of Billionaire Preppers

4min

Douglas Rushkoff (author, cyberpunk OG (!) and documentarian) is named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, and studies humans struggling to live in an increasingly unhuman world. Which is to say most of us in 2023. I tracked down this big, excitable mind to continue an earlier WILD chat about billionaire apocalypse preppers (August 2022, with Mark O’Connell).

Rushkoff has a wild theory – which he spells out in his latest book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires - for why it is all such a “thing”. It’s The Mindset. He also has an antidote, equally wild: we just need to be more human. We get chatting circular economies, Timothy Leary and how fleeing to Mars is fear of the feminine. Also, stay tuned for a follow-up bonus episode (for my Substack subscribers) in which Rushkoff bangs out intimate life hacks.

Do listen to Douglas' podcast Team Human

Get your copy of Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

Listen to my previous chat with Mark O'Connell

If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" page

Subscribe to my Substack newsletter for more such conversation

Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious Life

Let’s connect on Instagram! It’s where I interact the most

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.