The Sovereign Individual - 1/11/2024
how I think about living in a post-America world
The Sovereign Individual, if you haven’t read it, is a pretty fascinating book. It’s like if Henry Kissinger was the editor-in-cheif of Info Wars. It’s one of those reads that you see recommended by VC thought leaders like Balaji Srinivasan and Peter Theil, which to me is becoming an increasingly normie signal due to to podcasts like All-in becoming mainstream. However this book’s thesis is so insane that despite prominent influencers like Andrew Tate promoting it, nearly anyone I discuss it with becomes emotionally enraged at the idea. The thesis is, in short:
The West is done, South Africa is the new status quo and indiduals need to use the Internet/crypto to shield themselves from the collapse
Rees-Mogg attributes this to the collapse of the Welfare state, which is democracies degenerating to entitlement schemes and hence becoming toxic to entrepreneurship and progress.
Despite the book’s forecast being extremely bleak, it seems like there are very few people who actually take it seriously. There’s a lot of books like this — the Bible, for instance, has a massive readership yet maybe like 2% actually behave as if its prognostications will be true. Even before reading the book I generally agreed with the premise. When I was 18 I really liked watching the channel Nomad Capitalist, which is a youtube channel that shows you how to leave America and have properties abroad
Anyways, I count myself in the few who try to live by the book’s forecast (which imo has basically already become true). Here’s my plan:
- Own assets that are independent of the failed states of the 21st century
- Live in multiple countries, have multiple residencies
- Have means to protect myself when governments are no longer able to
I can go into the specifics of how I’ll accomplish each three in a future blogpost, but I can tell that you’re probably reading this and assuming that I’m either being ironic or that I am deeply out of touch with reality. I don’t believe I am, and if you have a genuine rebutal please email me.