Big Tech’s Search for the Ultimate Escape Hatch Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg may one day be remembered less for his social network or his Oculus virtual reality platform than his introduction of the term “meta” into popular awareness. With two parts desperation over a declining subscriber base and one part…

The new Troll in Chief may have undermined both authoritarianism and his hopes for a techno-monarchy — Elon Musk accomplished a lot this week. No, I’m not talking about the Twitter owner’s implementation of the 8 dollars for a blue checkmark scheme, his massive reduction in workforce before rehiring many of them the next day, or his proposal for a content moderation council to judge and delete…

Raising interest rates doesn’t increase supply, it just makes people poorer. — Inflation sucks, but fighting inflation the wrong way or for the wrong reasons sucks even worse. While I am one the last people who would suggest letting the market serve as the solution to our problems, there’s one place where I do think market solutions can work: the market. But…

The political expediency of holding one’s nose — I’m seeing the same pattern repeating in nearly all the great, progressive, countercultural, or justice inflected organizations that I’m working to support: infighting. Someone says or does something that “triggers” someone else, and then an internal struggle over righteousness or purity or even just appropriate engagement ensues. Meanwhile, the overt…

The real promise of shared virtual realities — We’re getting something about virtual reality profoundly wrong right now. It’s not about the simulation; it never was. It’s about the way a simulation can create an excuse to connect with other people in a more profound way. As I listen to the many descriptions of Web3 environments in…

The platform makes you, your friends, and family vulnerable to robbery — I had a Facebook account in the old days, and left the platform in 2013 when Zuckerberg began using people’s posts in ads without their permission. I deactivated my account, but then Facebook created its own author page to represent me. Some fans asked if they could create a Rushkoff…

Revisiting my book Life Inc, Fifteen Years Later — I’ve been on something of a virtual tour for my new book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires. It’s the first book I’ve written since Life Inc in 2008 that hasn’t recounted the process by which corporations and capitalism replaced business and commerce, and how…

On the publication of Cybersalon’s new collection of ideas about the future I wrote this introduction to a wonderful new collection of fiction/non-fiction hybrid stories from my old friends at Cybersalon Press, called 22 Ideas About the Future, which was just released today. …

We living things are here on the Ground — Apocalypse bunkers, spaceships, shock collars, and Navy Seals seem to be getting the most attention as I do the media tour for my new book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires. I suppose that’s only natural; it’s a pretty compelling hook. But while titillating and infuriating…