Digital Nomads Aren’t The Future – They Aren’t Even Present

A guest preview by... me. Check it out on my personal substack in the link.

This article comes from my personal substack. Although very different than a regular BTL article, it touches on some of the core themes related to illicit finance. Check it out using the link below.

On a cool and overcast day at a beach club in Da Nang, Vietnam, someone asked a question that made me sad for everyone there, myself included.

“What’s your app idea?”

The person asking was naïve, having just stepped off a plane and into this strange world of infinite feedback loops and permanently blocked negative energy flows only a few days prior. The man she asked was a consummate operator in this space: early 30s, no discernable employment or source of income, visible at every booze-soaked event in town, conventionally handsome and draped in pastels. He had been baiting all of us to ask the question and now, thanks to this innocent soul, we had to listen to its answer.

I’ll spare you the details – the speech went on for many minutes none of us present will ever gain back. The app concept was essentially the same as any of a dozen or so social networking apps that were already on decline on the App Store rankings – something I’m sure he never researched, as doing so would have been ‘too negative’. He capped off his elevator pitch to Mars by lamenting that he could ‘change the world’ if only his father would believe in him enough to invest in his idea.

I didn’t make a habit of being around these types. However, I had just come off a multi-week work sprint and I knew I needed time around other humans, regardless of context. This guy was buying drinks, and although I don’t really drink anymore, it provided a convenient enough convergence point.

By now, my emotional wellbeing hinged entirely on an abrupt end to this self-indulgent and rambling monologue. I sat waiting for the man to tire himself out and take a long sip of his gin and tonic. When the moment came, I interjected with my own app idea:

“I call it PIA. The Piss Intelligence App. Submerge your phone in any liquid and it’ll tell you if it’s piss”.

The laughter was minimal and nervous at best. I didn’t even come up with the joke – I adapted it from a throwaway line in a comedy podcast. Nevertheless, it stopped this poor drunk from detailing his 30+ year history with a father who presumably didn’t love him enough.

“You don’t like my idea?” he asked me with the innocence of a child who had just fallen off a bicycle.

“Of course I do. Just trying to add a bit of levity because you’ve blown our minds,” I said, gently patting him on the shoulder while staring off at grey ocean waves.

This incident was far from isolated. From Chiang Mai to Bali and Hanoi to Kuala Lumpur, I had met many versions of the same kind of person. Young, but not that young. Edgy, but not in any kind of intellectual sense. Each had a vacancy to their eyes, as if the act of seeing had been severed from listening and speech.

One woman told me she was an SEO consultant in an age where an AI chatbot can optimize search engine results in seconds for just $20 a month. Another told me she was a therapist - without a psychology degree or any real credentials – focused exclusively on past life trauma. A man in a wellness spa hot tub once said he was a ‘sports psychology coach’ – again, no credentials – focused on professional pickleball players.

In 2022, I left Shanghai with a regular paycheck from my newly remote job and a hope of finding what the future of Western society might become in utopian dreamscapes of Southeast Asia. The landscapes were indeed utopian: smoky volcanos amid pink sunsets viewed from white sand shores. Endless rice fields in entirely novel shades of green. Cool breezes and otherworldly rock formations in the hill country of northern Thailand. Cities like Hanoi and Bangkok abound with rich cultural experiences and aromas and everyone should see Angkor Watt at sunrise at least once. But I’m talking about a different kind of landscape. Flatter, uglier, and more uniform than anything I’ve ever witnessed: that of the digital nomad expat scene.

This has been a guest post from my personal substack. To check out this and other articles I’ve written from a more personal perspective, click here.