So recently I've revisited this book again recently after my first read in academia back in 2007. All I have to say is that it's definitely worth the read again. 10 years makes a lot of difference. What I find really amazing is that the authors James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg made plenty of bold, but educated predictions about the future, many of which seems to becoming part of reality.
Their hypothesis revolved around the notion that micro-processing is transforming our societies into information-based ones, significantly reducing the returns of violence, leading to the slow death of politics and nation states. The sovereign individuals of the future will organise their own communities mainly out of cognitive capabilities, and there will be many intersecting societies in cyberspace.
I think the book is quite an important read, especially to understand about personal empowerment and independence. It certainly resonates with me since I've always been cultured by the Internet since I was a kid, unable to relate to the idea of nations and the things I see on television. The tyranny of place is something I really wish more would come to comprehend.
There's also a 30-item list of strategies for achieving financial independence in the Information Age. There are just too many great chapters in the book, especially knowing that it was published 20 years ago! I don't agree with everything in there, but it remains to be a fascinating read. Anyway, to conclude this little book recommendation post, here are some excerpts:-
On Cybercash
Now the advent of the Information Age implies another revolution in the character of money. As cybercommerce begins, it will lead inevitably to cybermoney. This new form of money will reset the odds, reducing the capacity of the world's nation states to determine who becomes a Sovereign Individual. A crucial part of this change will come about because of the effect of information technology in liberating the holders of wealth from expropriation through inflation. Soon, you will pay for almost any transaction over the Net or World Wide Web at the same time you place it, using cybercash. This new digital form of money is destined to play a pivotal role in cybercommerce. It will consist of encrypted sequences of multihundred-digit prime numbers. Unique, anonymous, and verifiable, this money will accommodate the largest transactions. It will also be divisible into the tiniest fraction of value. It will be tradable at a keystroke in a multitrillion-dollar wholesale market without borders.
On Investor Control over Capital
It should not be forgotten that governments waste resources on a large scale. Wasting resources makes you poor. A dramatic improvement in the efficiency of resource use will arise when revenues historically engrossed by governments come to be controlled instead by persons of genuine talent. Tens of billions, then ultimately hundreds of billions of dollars will be controlled by hundreds of thousands, then millions of Sovereign Individuals. These new stewards of the world's wealth are likely to prove far abler than politicians in utilizing resources and deploying investment. For the first time in history, megapolitical conditions will allow the ablest investors and entrepreneurs rather than specialists in violence ultimate control over capital. It is not unreasonable to expect that the rates of return on this dispersed, market-driven investment could be double or triple the meager returns from the politically driven budget allocations of the nation-state era.
On Customized Government
Lest this sound millenarian, consider that microtechnology miniaturizes and disaggregates. It facilitates customization rather than mass production. You can now go into a store and purchase blue jeans that will be cut from a pattern customized to your measurements and sewn up half a world away. When new institutions at last evolve to fit the new megapolitical realities of the Information Age, you will be able to obtain governance at least as well customized to meet your personal needs and tastes as blue jeans.
