The Technology Tsunami

The Opportunity

Sovereignty is defined as the authority of a state to govern itself. So personal sovereignty is the ability to govern your life, without any assistance from the outside world.

This is the ultimate freedom. To follow your heart without any regard for the judgement or interference of another entity.

The good news is that our current environment is creating the perfect mix of pressures to support individuals who do want to take full responsibility for their lives and detach themselves from the institutional dependency that so many have been relying on without question.

This golden opportunity is being fueled by our compounding technological advancements. Those who are comfortable enough to embrace change will be the ones dominating the next several decades.

The Ingredients

The rapid pace of technological development that has been unfolding in front of our eyes for the past several decades is finally beginning to manifest itself in the form of societal disruption.

The internet is the biggest contributor, but more specifically, the capabilities that have been erupting out of it have flipped our standard operating procedures of life upside down.

Even though the internet has been around for quite some time now, it's still a frontier territory.

In the 1800’s when the American pioneers pushed westward to expand their options, they we’re treading in uncharted territory. There weren’t many enforceable rules and regulations.

Oftentimes, they were raided by hostile native tribes. They were constantly being exposed to new viruses and harsh conditions. And frankly, the majority of the American pioneer class died harsh deaths.

But the ones that we’re lucky enough to survive earned the rights to the fruits of a vast new territory of endless opportunities and carved a path for future generations to expand on their accomplishments.

In the same sense that the western expansion produced the pioneer class, the internet is producing a far bigger cyber class.

The physical downsides of the cyber class aren’t nearly as gruesome, but the upside is essentially infinite.

The great news is that this emerging breed of cyber caste is not limited to those of inherited wealth or prestige. And it doesn’t require any type of institutional recognition to join. Because the legacy societal structures don’t apply to the internet.

The everyday norms that we were taught to follow are nonexistent in the cyber world.

The cyber caste do not play games in the tangible world governed by elitists and militaries.

They are building new systems of wealth creation in the borderless cloud of code that connects the entire world in real time. Insane to think about.

You can play any avatar you want. You can build global communities. Fund any project you can imagine. Even build entire startup cities and countries (this is already happening).

The dynamics of day to day life are changing faster than our current systems can fathom. Any law that was written before the internet will either need to be reassessed or it will collapse under the weight of technological progress.

The internet offers a platform for this cyber caste to test better ways to enter the information age than our current toolset.

It's easy to complain about fiat money and inflation, but it's more beneficial to society to build a decentralized currency.

It's easy to complain about our outdated education system, but it's more beneficial to society to build an alternative environment for people to learn.

It's easy to complain about the difficulty of catching a taxi in your city, but it's more beneficial to society to build a decentralized ride sharing service.

That's the mission behind companies like Bitcoin, Skool, and Uber.

When the legacy systems are past the point of saving, stop complaining and start building. That’s the power of the internet. And that’s what the cyber caste are doing.

A sovereign revolution has unfolded in front of our eyes.

Here are the 4 trends that have been fermenting together over the past decade or so (depending on how long you want to trace it back) that have granted the everyday commoner with the opportunity to join the next rising caste of humanity.

• remote work & automation

• evolving financial landscape

• globalization & shifting political dynamics

• expansion of decentralized information sources

Ingredient #1: Remote work & automation

Remote work was already on the rise in the late 2010’s, but covid quickly expedited the shift to the digital age. Immediately, all of the world’s industries were forced to upload the most possible amount of labor into the internet.

To the advantage of corporations, they learned very quickly that rent on physical office space was a huge weight on their balance sheets. They also learned that remote work environments were more preferred by employees.

The employees figured out they could do more with less time from home. And they also got back hours of commute into their lives.

The rising number of automation tools continue to bring cyber based workers more leisure time. Low cost software also lowered the barrier of entry to starting online businesses or job stacking (working multiple remote jobs and then using automation and virtual assistants to carry as much workload as possible).

The rise of remote work has also led to some significant population swings. Many people have fled oppressive cities for warmer climates and more laissez faire governments over the past few years.

And on a global scale, many people used their remote opportunities to leverage geographic arbitrage - by earning in high value currencies, and spending in countries with lower value currencies (or hiring labor in lower income areas of the world).

Ingredient #2: Evolving Financial Landscape

The talk of fiat currency has been a buzzing topic. It doesn’t take an economics degree to notice that the U.S. dollar has been plummeting in value after a decade long money printing fiesta.

Look around the grocery store. A carton of eggs has tripled in price in 2 years. But the official inflation rate, as of writing this, is listed at 3.10%.

And here lies the root of the problem…

It’s blatantly obvious that the people printing the money are not accurately reporting its value. So the trust of the people using the currency is rapidly dissolving.

Which leads people to explore alternative options to store their wealth.

Decentralized electronic currencies or offshore investments offer great opportunities to protect some wealth from national currencies that might be on the decline.

E-currencies allow people to exchange value without government regulations or surveillance. They allow you to hedge against the oppressive overreach into your everyday finances.

There’s a reason why the biggest investment groups in the world are becoming some of the most aggressive buyers of alternative decentralized currencies.

On top of alternative currencies, developers are creating powerful tools for financial management that are accessible to consumers.

Not long ago, online banking didn’t exist. You had to go to the bank to cash in your paycheck.

If you wanted to buy some stocks, you’d find a broker that would do it on your behalf.

Now, any kid with a job can download a trading app on their phone and buy into any public corporation they want. Pair this with online communities where people can collaborate, and consumers have the power to compete against institutional investors - such as the case with Gamestop in 2021.

Ingredient #3: Globalization & Shifting Political Dynamics

The process of globalization is nothing new. But its effects have exploded alongside the ease of access into the internet age.

We have the ability to speak with people on the opposite side of the world and see them in live time. We can collaborate on projects with people in Latam, Asia, and Australia at the same time.

This type of international cooperation has given a huge rise to the world of contract work and virtual assistants. Many U.S. businesses are discovering that they can hire employees in Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe who have PhD’s but will do the work for a tenth of a U.S. salary.

Even microbusinesses are leveraging these abilities. Resources like Fiverr and Upwork make it effortless to build out an international workforce that operates 24 hours per day.

10 years ago, if you wanted to hire overseas, you would’ve had to personally travel overseas to meet with the people you were hiring and establish a physical location. Now you can put out job offerings for projects, have a worldwide network of professionals bid on them instantly, and hire a contractor by the end of a business day.

Not only has the ease of information sharing across the world dramatically increased, but the physical movement of people and goods is also becoming more accessible to the everyday person.

Think about the variety of foods you eat on a day to day basis. Bananas from southeast Asia that are grown in Central America and shipped to the local grocery store before they even ripen. Salmon from Alaska that’s caught, put on a boat, and shipped off faster than it has time to freeze.

What about the device you’re reading this on?

Microchips from Taiwan, metals from the Congo, sensors from Germany - it goes on and on.

Our global economy has become immensely interconnected.

It’s also becoming very accessible for people to travel across borders. As the volume of international flights increase, the prices decrease.

Some countries, who are in tune with the changing world dynamics, have even implemented new types of visas for people who work remotely.

They understand that they can incentivize digital workers to come live in their countries for extended periods of time, where they will contribute foreign capital into the local economies, and bridge the development gap between different regions of the world.

It's a win-win.

However, this is just one small factor contributing to the changing global dynamics.

Since the end of World War II, the U.S. has been the undisputable global leader. But the rampant pace of China’s technological and economic development, and the growing force of other emerging countries like Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, and Brasil, for example, has already been shaking the international hierarchy.

On top of this, the World Economic Forum and NATO have plans of their own to divide and conquer the globe - currently being showcased in the war in Eastern Europe.

Within our lifetimes, we will see some major changes in the global world order. This is why the way of the sovereign individual is becoming more important than ever before in history.

When states see their power eroding, they tend to become more oppressive and violent. They’ll use every tool in the arsenal to keep their flock unaware and content from entertainment (ex: Roman Gladiators), to propaganda (ex: Hitler with newspapers & media), to military force against the civilians (ex: Soviet Gulags).

“As states lose their trust, their soft power declines. Less deference to the state means less voluntary compliance. Then only hard power is left. The more states use hard power (coercion), the less soft power (persuasion) the have. Which means yet more use of hard power. Its a negative feedback loop.” - Eric Jorgenson

There are a growing number of people seeking multiple citizenships and passports. Not just for preservation of wealth, but for preservation of liberty!

Having multiple citizenships gives you the insurance to vote with your feet, which is the most powerful form of voice.

Humans are not trees. We do not have roots. We are not meant to be confined in the same plot of land our whole lives soaking in whatever conditions arrive.

Understand that civilizations go through life cycles just like organisms. Don’t fool yourself that the way of life as you know it will continue on automatically.

A healthy society, like a healthy body, requires proper inputs to retain its functionality. And when these inputs are no longer feeding the system, it begins to break down.

If you begin to recognize the signs of a degrading society, go where you’re treated better. Your sovereignty is not restricted to the arbitrary human concept of patriotism. Your sovereignty expands beyond national borders. You are a human of the Earth.

Ingredient #4: Alternative Information Sources

If you ever want a surefire way to lower your IQ and boost your cortisol levels every morning, just start your day by consuming 30 minutes of mainstream media.

50 years ago, our legacy media companies were the only way to get consistent information about what was happening around the country. So over the course of a half century, these sources were incredibly successful at earning the trust of the majority of the nation’s citizens.

These organizations also became wildly lucrative at printing money and swaying the masses. And naturally, as any publicly traded corporation is legally obligated, profits became the key metric to their survival.

There are also several key factors to be mindful of when considering the topic of media.

First, humans have an innate negativity bias. Negativity pulls more emotional weight than positivity. Even if the negative things you hear about in the news will never directly affect you, they’re guaranteed to grab more attention.

Its easier to align people behind an emotion than behind a difficult but productive cause.

Second, positive news, generally takes years to play out. For example, a medical breakthrough must go through years of experimentation and independent reviews before it can even be tested on humans. Then after years of sample tests can it be rolled out to the public. Then only after several more years of follow up studies, can we determine that the new breakthrough has the capability to save millions of lives.

So even if this single development saved an entire generation, we never hear about it in the news because the time horizon is far to long to hold attention.

It's much more lucrative to report on wars, famines, trafficking, earthquakes, etc.

Third, media distribution is one of the most powerful tools in governing a population. Machiavelli wrote about this in the 16th century. Hitler wrote about this his book.

Media distributors have an agenda of their own. Usually influenced by the elites. And usually not aligned with your agenda.

Isn’t it interesting that every news outlet claims that they are the main source of truth even through they disagree about most topics?

This is one of the reasons why journalist are losing trust as quickly as politicians.

The rise of technology is giving more power back to the people to create smaller information outlets.

CNN was launched in 1980 and they currently get about 250,000 viewers for their primetime episodes. Joe Rogan launched his podcast in 2009 and currently gets about 11,000,000 views per episode.

The dynamics are taking a massive shift towards decentralization in our media outlets. The population now has access to more information than the media has the ability to report on.

At the same time, people have more opportunities to follow their individual curiosities, rather than the stories that are reported on by the mainstream.

So this information abundance is also a majority contributor to the decline in trust in both media and government - who are typically in bed together. And the legacy authorities are sensing this pressure more than ever.

But to be against technological development is to be on the wrong side of history. Its far too late to put the cat back in the bag.

So now the question becomes, how do we fix the media problem?

The key is to embrace the decentralization of information sources. This always gives more power back to the people.

Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg understand the sheer power of owning their own distribution channels. People thought Elon was insane for paying $44 billion to buy Twitter. But his mission behind the purchase was to secure the freedom of speech.

And now his company is more powerful than some of the biggest countries in the world. For example, Brasil (7th largest population in the world) recently tried to force Twitter to apply restrictions by hitting them with massive fines and threatening to arrest their domestic employees if their demands were not met.

Elon responded by lifting all the restrictions on his platform even though he now has to shut down his Brasil office and will lose all revenue from the country. His principles are more important to him than profits.

Plus, since his platform is big enough, he’ll be able to keep the lights on while battling a major global power. This example gives us a peek into the world of possibilities when private organizations or even individuals have more influence than national governments.

This is a huge threat to the state. To all states. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Several important lessons to take away from this:

1. Legacy media is entertainment. They are not incentivized to tell the truth. They are incentivized to attract attention (profit).

2. Decentralization of information is granting more power back to the people. This will create turbulence in the form of a power struggle.

3. It has become more accessible than ever before to create your own distribution channel. Use this to contribute a net positive to the world around you.

The Freedom Ladder

Now that we’ve unpacked the macro societal forces that have granted us the prime opportunity to chase sovereignty, let’s dive into the specificities of each type.

Only by mastering these 4 main categories, can we truly become a sovereign individual. This is a long term game, and should be treated as such.

Level 1: Geographic Sovereignty

The ability to choose one’s physical location freely. For many people, this is more a psychological battle than a physical one. They believe that because they were born in a certain town and they’ve become accustom to a specific environment, they can’t get out and explore the rest of the world.

Or perhaps they’ve acquired too many physical objects that they have become slaves to their materialistic desires. Whatever the case, this seems to be a much more difficult trait to obtain than it needs to be.

Geographic sovereignty, at the end of the day, comes down to an individuals level of openness. It can consist of moving to a different state full time because you disagree with the local politics. Or even moving to a different country because their culture aligns more with your ideal lifestyle.

It also encompasses idea of diversifying citizenships. The main idea behind this concept is to go where you are treated best. The more openness and flexibility you have as to what is out there, the more geographic sovereignty you will gain.

Do not stay in the same location your whole life just because that is the card you’ve been dealt. If you love it, that’s great. You should still leave because you’ll appreciate it more when you return.

Digital nomadism is a trend that’s been on the rise recently. A remote job that allows you to work from anywhere in the world is a great first step in the right direction. Waking up in any environment you please, and changing locations whenever your heart desires, knowing you have more money coming is a great sense of freedom!

While income is mandatory to sustain a life of long term geographic freedom, a remote job will only unlock the first level of sovereignty.

That brings us to the next category…

Level 2: Financial Sovereignty

Financial freedom is the second level of sovereignty. Being location independent is great. But it still sets restrictions on what you can do.

Let’s say you have a remote job in the U.S. Technically, you can work from anywhere and still make an income. However, you likely won’t want to work from Asia because you’d opt in for the night shift. You can work from Europe, but you’d still have to align on time zones for collaboration.

On top of this, a remote job still makes you trade your time for money. So while it's great to have the flexibility to earn a steady paycheck from anywhere, you can understand why geographic freedom is only the first step in the ladder of sovereignty.

Financial freedom is when you don’t have to rely on an employer or any other entity to fund your life. Some people build their own companies from the bottom up to achieve this. Some people buy businesses. Some people invest in real estate and use the cash flow to pay themselves.

There are countless ways to achieve this state, but typically a 9-5 job is not the answer (unless perhaps you get equity in a startup, bust your ass for a couple years, and then cash out when they sell). This is usually achieved from more of an entrepreneurial journey.

The ultimate lesson to understand is that financial sovereignty is achieved when you no longer have to depend on outside sources for your income. You have built revenue streams that you get to operate. Equity is always greater than income.

This position brings us to the third step in the freedom ladder.

Level 3: Time Sovereignty

Freedom of time is the next step up from financial freedom. Financial freedom gives you the leverage to support yourself. Time freedom comes from buying back more of your time through outsourcing and automation.

Once you have some capital acquired, and you’ve built a steady flow of revenue, you can use it as a tool to multiply your output. And this is much more obtainable than you might think.

For example, let’s say you earn an average of $30/hr as a bartender at nights. Let’s also pretend that you use your free time during the day to build a web design agency.

You’ve landed your first client and you plan to build their website for $500. Assuming that its going to take you a total of 20 hours to complete, you can calculate that you’ll make about $25/hr for the work when it’s said and done.

That’s decent. You’ve found a way to almost cancel out your job. But its still not scalable because you’re trading your time for money. We still need to get more out of less.

So instead of doing the 20 hours of work yourself, for $25/hour, you can spend $5/hr to hire a web developer in The Philippines to do the project. Now you made $400 profit and freed up 18 hours (assuming 2 hours for hiring your contractor and passing on the workload). Or, you can use the invoice from your first client to fund the labor for your next 5 clients.

In that case, you could make $2500 in revenue, spend $500 to get the projects completed, and pocket $2000. To make that paycheck as a single person business, that would’ve taken 100 hours, or 2.5 weeks of 8 hour days.

Which option sounds better to you? Which sounds like it will make more money in the long run? Which one sounds like it would require less time? Which one sounds more scalable?

This isn’t just a matter of outsourcing. Software tools and AI are automating more and more of our daily tasks.

Tim Ferris published his book The 4-Hour Work Week back in 2007. At that point in time, people had already built fully automated, 1 person internet businesses making well into the 7 figures.

Those people had a fraction of the tools that we have available almost 2 decades later. Plus, the amount of internet users has increased 400% since then, meaning even more consumers catching up to the digital world.

At the pace we are going, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the first single person, billion dollar business within the next decade.

The important lesson is that passive income streams are backbone of time sovereignty (unless you become a monk and take a vow of poverty). But the deeper take away is that anyone with an income has the ability to buy back time. Even if you only make $10/hr.

Look at money as stored units of energy. If a $10 bill is a reflection of an hours worth of your energy, and you can hire someone to do that work for $5, then you can endlessly scale your operation to the point where you don’t have to work.

Start looking for creative ways to buy back your time. Use money to make money. Even better, use other peoples’ money to make money. That’s what banks and lenders do. There’s no reason you can’t do this on a smaller scale with the income you already have.

Level 4: Philosophical Sovereignty

The freedom to think independently of what those around you are thinking is by far the most valuable form of sovereignty. The information age has brought us an overflow of data that humans are not physiologically adapted to process.

With that came a massive decline in critical thinking skills. People are eager to outsource their ideas to authority figures without doing any thinking or research themselves.

There’s a huge correlation between a lack of critical thinking and a blind trust in social authority.

Never accept a statistic for its face value. Statistics are boiled down from raw data sets for the average layman to understand. Instead, ask for the entire data table so you can truly dissect what’s happening.

Question everything that’s presented to you in life. Use your natural curiosity to get to the bottom of the things that impact you.

This is the backbone of the Socratic method which laid the groundwork for the West’s system of logic. Socrates thought that philosophy would establish an ethical system of human reason, rather than religious doctrine.

He reasoned that human choice was motivated by the desire for happiness, and that only by questioning everything, can we really come to know ourselves - which is the source of ultimate wisdom. The more wisdom a person develops, the greater their ability to reason and make choices that will bring them happiness.

A good rule of thumb for contrarians, is to observe what the masses are doing, and to do the opposite.

That’s an understandable ideology, but not the most effective since the masses are not always incorrect.

Instead, observe what the masses are doing, and question the cause behind why they are doing it. That will give you the clarity to decide what direction to go in.

Assuming everyone else is wrong doesn’t make you better than them unless you actually run through the thought exercises yourself.

Don’t be a contrarian for the sake of disagreement. Use the contrarian lens to deepen your understanding of why something is happening. Then resort to your internal wisdom to make your decision. And act with 100% certainty.

Read classic philosophy. Study the greats. And exercise your use of “why?”

The ability to think for yourself is one of the most important forms of mastery you can develop.

The Decision

Technology is always found at the turning points of history. And we are currently living through the most fruitful time of technological development known to man. Be prepared for some turbulence as society adjusts to the new norm.

Keep in mind that governments will never intentionally limit themselves. Only technology can force that.

And when the government regulations in place are too old to apply to emerging technologies, we tend to see turmoil.

As states lose trust in their citizens, they resort to force. And when they go down, they don’t give up easily.

Now is the time to create a higher degree of sovereignty for yourself and your loved ones. No one else is coming to help you.

Our civilization is shifting rapidly in the information age. The legacy systems as we know it will not survive the quakes. The people who turn to them for help will be left to fight over the scraps.

Make the decision to take responsibility for every aspect of your own life. You are the only source of dependence you need.