Survival of the Richest Quotes

“Their extreme wealth and privilege served only to make them obsessed with insulating themselves from the very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migration, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is about only one thing: escape from the rest of us.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“But further research has suggested that after people have gained power, they tend to behave like patients with damage to the brain’s orbitofrontal lobes. That is, the experience of wealth and power is akin to removing the part of the brain “critical to empathy and socially appropriate behavior.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“future that had less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“Anchoring bias” refers to our tendency to rely on the first information we hear.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“This “out of sight, out of mind” externalization of poverty and poison doesn’t go away just because we’ve covered our eyes with VR goggles and immersed ourselves in an alternate reality.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“For them, the future of technology is about only one thing: escape from the rest of us.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“Not everyone can have Richard Branson’s private island.” VR is the new solution to climate change—or maybe the ultimate surrender to its inevitability. As resources vanish and economic conditions worsen, technological simulations can fill in where real wealth has disappeared. “The promise of VR is to make the world you wanted.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“We are not products of these platforms so much as the labor force. We dutifully read, click, post, and retweet; we become enraged, scandalized, and indignant; and we go on to complain, attack, or cancel. That’s work. The beneficiaries are the shareholders.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“The only real answer, the really simple one that neither philanthrocapitalists nor green technologists want to hear, is that we have to reduce our energy consumption altogether.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“Even accepting that EVs and solar panels are or will one day be more energy-efficient than coal- and gas-burning technologies, the bigger question is how fast we attempt to transition. For renewables to provide a majority of our power, we would have to increase wind and solar twenty-fold. But there are not enough rare earth metals on the planet to build such an energy system and then replace it every couple of decades. Replacing a majority of our coal and gas industries with electric ones would exhaust all of our power and resources at one time, massively increasing emissions and environmental degradation in the short run. It could also increase energy inequality, by diverting power and resources to the rebuilding of the energy sector itself. Transitioning slowly, on the other hand, as things wear out, might not create such stresses, but would take many decades to bring us to zero net emissions. Both approaches result in catastrophe. The”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“The problem is, while conversion of the energy grid to solar would make a lot of money for the companies building and installing solar panels, the total carbon footprint and environmental impact may not be so much better—if at all. The sun may be a renewable energy source; solar panels are anything but. They don’t grow on trees, but require the mining of aluminum, copper, and rare earth metals, already in low supply. The manufacturing of solar panels is itself an extremely energy-intensive process that involves the superheating of quartz into silicon wafers, vast quantities of water, and large quantities of toxic byproducts and runoff. The solar panels themselves begin degrading just a few years after installation, and need to be replaced every decade or two. Solar panel disposal creates a host of other toxicity and environmental problems, and as long as it remains cheaper for manufacturers to dump them as landfill, we won’t be seeing a robust recycling program for them anytime soon.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“A few employees are fine while a company is getting going, but eventually all of those skills need to be automated in order for the company to “scale” infinitely. This is why Facebook wants AIs or—at worst—its users to monitor and tag offensive posts instead of paid human employees.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“Honestly, I am less concerned about gangs with guns than the woman at the end of the driveway holding a baby and asking for food.” He paused, and sighed, “I don’t want to be in that moral dilemma.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“It’s as if they want to build a car that goes fast enough to escape from its own exhaust.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

“Don’t just invest in ammo and electric fences, invest in people and relationships.”
― Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires