The Portuguese scholar Bruno Maçães—Harvard PhD, former adviser to the Prime Minister of Portugal and ex‑Secretary of State, now with Flint Global and a researcher at both Renmin University (Beijing) and the Hudson Institute (Washington)—has just granted an interview about his new book. World Builders: Technology and the New Geopolitics
Maçães argues that contemporary geopolitics is shifting from territorial competition to a paradigm of systemic world-building, in which states serve as architects of technological and symbolic realities. Power is no longer defined by tanks and borders but by control over operating systems—in energy, technology, and narrative frameworks. According to Maçães, we are entering a new civilizational stage in which the boundary between reality and fiction is collapsing. In this context, world-building replaces objective truth as the primary source of influence. As he bluntly states: “Whoever doesn’t build a technological world will be defeated.”
Nevertheless, Maçães’s thesis opens a dangerous door: If truth is no longer central and world-building becomes the ultimate source of power, isn’t this just a sophisticated justification for propaganda, manipulation, and tech-driven authoritarianism? Moreover, if truth is to be deliberately sidelined in the spheres of power and policy, then it becomes all the more urgent—indeed, imperative—that academia, as the last bastion of critical inquiry and intellectual integrity, reaffirms its uncompromising commitment to truth as a non-negotiable principle. And that defense starts within: academia must purge those who scale its heights through nepotism, political patronage, or any manner of corrupt practice.
PS - A few years ago, the same Bruno Maçães shared a message on Twitter from his Chinese publisher, informing him that the release of his book "The Dawn of Eurasia" had been postponed due to censorship by the Chinese government.
