![]() ![]() We meet an array of characters, starting with J. ![]() The early chapters take up the idea of escape in its most obvious form: exodus from society writ large. Over the course of the subsequent chapters, Rushkoff tracks a range of activities that could be ascribed to the Mindset. That they refuse to head off the End of Times by changing their behavior is the central irrationality embedded in what Rushkoff calls “The Mindset” (building on Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron’s 1995 essay “The Californian Ideology”). The catch is that the apocalyptic futures they fear are largely a consequence of their own financial, ecological, technological, and ideological commitments. Once he finally meets them the next day, he is astonished to discover that they are looking for his guidance on how to survive what they refer to as “The Event” - “the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, solar storm, unstoppable virus, or malicious computer hack that takes everything down.” In their desire to protect themselves from the worst consequences of such scenarios, these individuals have begun to develop various lines of escape: bunkers, seasteads, plans for space colonies, and the like. All of this is at the invitation and expense of an unnamed group of mysterious billionaires.ĭespite the large honorarium these billionaires offer him, the exact reason they have invited him to their retreat is initially mysterious: as best as he can figure, he is to provide general insight on technology and its future. Provided with luxuries like noise-canceling headphones and warmed nuts, he will be met by a high-end limousine and ferried to a remote desert location. Our protagonist - in this case, Rushkoff - is flying in business class to a distant airport. The opening pages of Survival of the Richest describe what could easily be a scene from a James Bond novel. The various Galt’s Gulches of the new century are only one manifestation of a range of hypercapitalist escape plans that threaten to leave the rest of us paying the financial, ecological, and political costs. ![]() But as Douglas Rushkoff’s new book Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires reminds us, having to stomach young Randians “going Galt” may be the least of our concerns. The Galt’s Gulch dream is a classic capitalist escape fantasy: wealthy captains of industry retreat to luxury compounds far from the inferior masses, where they propose to wait out the economic implosion that will result from their exodus. In the 2010s, a new crop of investors proposed a similar project - this time named Fort Galt - further south, outside the Chilean city of Valdivia. Among them was Jeff Berwick, who would subsequently move on to Mexico, where he helped found and run the annual libertarian Anarchopulco conference. Invoking Ayn Rand’s famed Atlantis-in-the-Rockies from her 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, the investors named the community Galt’s Gulch. IN THE EARLY 2000s, North American entrepreneurs purchased 11,000 acres of land in Chile’s Casablanca Valley with the novel idea, as they saw it, of building a sustainable, self-supporting refuge from society. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |