Will tech billionaires get rid of democracy by getting rid of people?

In this episode of The Nerd Reich podcast, I talk with renowned historian Quinn Slobodian, author of Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism and Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and The Dream Of A World Without Democracy.

Slobodian’s work helped inspire my own, so it was great to interview him. His writing illuminates the extremist ideas underlying billionaire fantasies of “exit” from democracy.

In this episode, we explore:

• The Hong Kong Blueprint: How a colonial relic became the template for 21st-century capitalism.
• Authoritarian Capitalism: Why Silicon Valley elites are obsessed with models of control.
• The Post-Human Zone: Why the future of “sovereignty” might belong to Manhattan-sized data centers, not citizens.
• The Octavia Butler Reality: What if future isn't about escaping the “company town,” but fighting to get into one?