This TED Talk features author and documentarian Douglas Rushkoff recorded live at TED Salon

Samsung 2018.

I got invited to an exclusive resort to deliver a talk about the digital future to what I assume

would be a couple of hundred tech executives.

And I was there in the green room waiting to go on, and instead of bringing me to the stage,

they brought five men into the green room, who sat around this little table with me.

They were tech billionaires.

And they started peppering me with these really binary questions, like Bitcoin or Ethereum,

virtual reality or augmented reality. I don't know if they were taking bets or what. And as they

got more comfortable with me, they edged towards their real question of concern. Alaska or New Zealand?

That's right.

These tech billionaires were asking a media theorist

for advice on where to put their doomsday bunkers.

We spent the rest of the hour on the single question,

how do I maintain control of my security staff after the event.

By the event, they mean the thermonuclear war or climate catastrophe or social unrest that ends the world as we know it, and more importantly, makes their money obsolete.

And I couldn't help but think these are the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world,

yet they see themselves as utterly powerless to influence the future.

The best they can do is hang on for the inevitable catastrophe

and then use their technology and money to get away from the rest of us.

And these are the winners of the digital economy.

The digital renaissance was about the unbridled potential of the collective human imagination.

...