The Fascist Atmosphere | Team Human Podcast w/ Douglas Rushkoff

“Politics may be downstream of culture – as Gramsci and later Bannon observed. But solidarity is downstream of rapport.”

Here Douglas Rushkoff, American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist, and documentarian on how the ‘fascist atmosphere’ is ‘less an ideology than an environment. A digital one.’

“I thought of psychedelics as intrinsically liberating. That’s because pretty much everybody I knew in college who tried mushrooms or LSD had similar realizations. We’re all connected! Life is love! The trees can feel us! The planet is alive!

But the world’s wealthiest tech bros take psychedelics – and they’re having an entirely different trip. It’s showing them dreams of monarchy and feudalism and leaving the earth behind. Sadly, I’ve had to accept that when a tech bro takes acid, he is just a tech bro on acid.

That’s because psychedelics are what we could call Non-Specific Amplifiers. They amplify whatever you put in.

Technology is, too! College professors, Deadheads, and fantasy role-players saw digital technology as a way to model new realities. And they built one sort of playful, imaginative digital landscape. But a lot of the boys developing technology saw it as a path to safe isolation and perfect individuality. They made an iPhone, not an usPhone.”

See also: Douglas Rushkoff: “we’ve disabled the cognitive and collaborative skills needed to address climate change”