Climate collapse: after us the flood

It sounds like a scene from a dystopian science fiction film: Douglas Rushkoff, a professor of media theory at New York University, is invited to a luxurious resort in the desert for an exorbitant sum. He thinks he should give a lecture there. Instead, five mysterious super-rich people from the hedge fund world ask him detailed questions about their survival after the global apocalypse. How should they prepare for “The Event”? Where should they build their bunkers to be prepared for this? In Alaska or rather in New Zealand? These technology-believing “preppers” are convinced that “The Event” will happen: triggered, for example, by climate change, a nuclear war, social unrest, a global pandemic or killer robots that have become uncontrollable.

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Preventing the catastrophe doesn’t even occur to the “bunker class.” Rather, they are convinced that they have already gone too far and that the world can no longer be saved.

The tech disciples’ method of choice is escape. Before us, the poorer, disenfranchised rest of humanity. They also worry that the guards, some of whom they have already hired, may no longer obey them if the money loses its value as a result of “The Event.” Maybe special combination locks could be attached to the food safes to stop the guards from killing their employers? Or could they possibly be put on disciplinary collars? Or would you rather use robots instead – if the technology is hopefully already ready?

The horrified Rushkoff realizes that these super-rich preppers are under the influence of a frightening mental construct. From now on he calls it “The Mindset” – a way of thinking that is familiar from Silicon Valley: you simply continue to disregard the laws of economics and physics without hindrance, and technology will sort it out in the end. Those who can afford it will survive.

In the course of his book, which is more exciting to read than a crime novel, he examines from various angles how such a hyper-individualistic, parasitic view of the world could come about. Rushkoff speaks with investors and scientists such as biologist Richard Dawkins and Colombian real estate mogul Rodrigo Niño, whose technology-believing and anti-human “mindset” has long had a decisive influence on the economy, politics and society.

Rushkoff, who has been critically concerned with digitalization since the 1990s, gives further examples, such as the exploitation of human data by companies like Facebook. According to Rushkoff, we have long since ceased to be their users, but rather products. People are seen as hardware; manipulating them is far more profitable than empowering them, he says elsewhere. He also shows how master programmers continually set out to recreate the world – as if it were just a video game. As if you could set reality to zero. The hero’s journey that screams at us from every book and every film is taken as a model, says Rushkoff. In the end everything will be fine – at least for the super rich. That’s how they think. Real life tells completely different stories.

Elsewhere, the author reflects on the trend of self-empowered “leaders” and influencers taking psychedelic drugs at the legendary “Burning Man” festival or somewhere in the Amazon region – and returning “purified” to single-handedly solve the world’s problems for us. As profitable as possible. Presented in the lurid TED Talk format. With technology as a panacea. It doesn’t occur to them to join actors around the world who have already set out on their journey – without any desire for profit. Rushkoff cites studies showing that economic elites substantially manipulate governments, while citizens and interest groups have little or no influence. At this point, but also at other points in the fact-rich book, one would have liked to go even deeper.

“Instead of ensuring our security, our financial and technological systems are now the greatest threat to our collective well-being,” Rushkoff concludes. Also illuminating in this context is his reference to research that has shown that the experience of wealth and power influences the part of the brain that is responsible for empathy and socially appropriate behavior. Poor people, says Rushkoff, are much better at judging other people’s emotions. Accordingly, Rushkoff concludes, we should not only “scrutinize with critical ears the promises of the tech titans and billion-dollar investors, but also those of the world rulers under their spell.”

We can only do it together, the author emphasizes again and again. At this point one would have wished for more comprehensive solutions to how the super-rich sociopaths could be politically and socially undermined – but that would also be an exciting topic for another book by this clever author. He will probably have time for that; after reading it, you can’t imagine that he will continue to be consulted by tech billionaires. In any case, it is to be hoped that a German publisher will now take on this volume, which is currently only available in English, for translation.

Douglas Rushkoff: Survival of the Richest. Escape Fantasies of the Billionaires. Norton & Company, 212 S., geb., 19,30 €.

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