# Preface to The Sovereign Individual (2020 edition)

- Speaker: Peter Thiel
- Venue: Book preface. The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age, by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg (1997), reissued 2020 with a new preface by Thiel.
- Date: 2020 (paperback published 4 Feb 2020)
- URL: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Sovereign-Individual/James-Dale-Davidson/9781982146245
- Source method: Excerpt only, taken from secondary quotation. Flag: second-hand.

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## Excerpt (as quoted by The Nerd Reich, "The Sovereign Individual: Radical Bible of Tech's 'Cognitive Elite'", https://www.thenerdreich.com/the-sovereign-individual-radical-bible-of-techs-cognitive-elite/ ; the same paragraph is quoted in several other places)

"In truth, the great conflict over our megapolitical future is only just beginning. On the dimension of technology, the conflict has two poles: AI and crypto. Artificial Intelligence holds out the prospect of finally solving what economists call the 'calculation problem': AI could theoretically make it possible to centrally control an entire economy. It is no coincidence that AI is the favorite technology of the Communist Party of China. Strong cryptography, at the other pole, holds out the prospect of a decentralized and individualized world. If AI is communist, crypto is libertarian. The future may lie somewhere between these two extreme poles. But we know the actions we take today will determine the overall outcome. Reading The Sovereign Individual in 2020 is a way to think carefully about the future that your own actions will help to create. It is an opportunity not to be wasted."

Also reported (Wikipedia, citing the preface): Thiel says the book is one he "read at a singular moment, just before starting PayPal", and that the authors' biggest misjudgment was "the rise of China and the prosperity of Hong Kong as an ideal type of government" (paraphrase in the Wikipedia entry; not a verified verbatim line).

## Not obtained

The full two-page preface is in the 2020 Touchstone/Simon & Schuster paperback (ISBN 978-1982146245). Not available online in full; only the paragraph above is verified.