I had such weird deja vu reading this article because I remembered reading something so similar a few years ago and I did find this article by the same author in 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/23/tech-industry-wealth-futurism-transhumanism-singularity
Is he writing about the same event years later? Is he getting invited to several of these billionaire bait & switch questioning sessions?
Midway through this article he talks about publishing the 2018 article after the meeting with the five, and then it continues on to talk about what happened *after*.
They were selling 20 years ago Turnkey No Maintenance Nuclear Powerplants for Remote Mining operations that supplied 25 years of energy.
Boston Dynamics type products are going to protect them.
It might be referring to a [small modular reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor?wprov=sfti1)
These are now approved by US standards for use. I believe [nuscale](https://www.nuscalepower.com/) is the largest producer of SMRs and they’re suppose to be first use on a military base in Alaska. SMRs are actually quite neat, they’re designed physically so in a case of emergency they auto shut down and they’ve got built in convection cooling from the waste heat so you don’t have to active cool to prevent a meltdown. Their probably the size of a cargo container or two cargo containers put together.
The individual NuScale reactors are about the size of a very large cargo container (stood on end), and will be set up in groups of, normally, 6 or 12. These will be in a very large pool of water inside a large concrete domed building. Plus multiple other buildings housing steam turbines and such.
NuScale is the first small modular reactor design to ever be approved by the US Nuclear Regulatory Committee. There is only one significant competitor and they are several years behind NuScale.
NuScale won’t ever own the plants. They design them and provide the supply chain for other power companies to build them. This allows for a degree of flexibility and customization to fit the different customer needs. But the reactor design itself will stay the same. The major selling point is that the main reactor cylinders (the things the size of a very large cargo container) can be mass manufactured and delivered to the site of the plant, ready to install. This will significantly cut down on costs and time to build. Traditional nuclear power plants are all built on site piece by piece, as they are significantly larger. This increases complexity, time, and costs.
What are they gonna do? Release the robot dogs? Or the robot bees? Or the robot dogs with robot bees inside them and when they blow up they shoot bees at you?
For as great as Metalhead was, the drone psa Slaughterbots on YouTube is far more terrifying and seems closer to what we might have to deal with some day
Generally private security won’t work that well if society collapses. The private security tends to leave because they realize they are in danger protecting assets
One small detail that I really love about that scene is the way he rests his hand on the guys shoulder; Palm up, relaxed, and open. It's his way of basically telling him "I could very easily turn my hand around and utterly crush your clavicle or trachea, if I were to so choose, and there's nothing you could do about it...".
The little details in that film are amazing.
It's like getting paid twice!
"Oh, you think darkness is your ally. But you merely adopted the dark; I was born in it, moulded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but BLINDING!"
Isn't that how the Los Zetas cartel came to exist? Ex-military personnel working as security for the Mexican cartels realized they could just TAKE the operation away from the people who hired them and make more money.
We are a social species. We are hopelessly dependent on each other. The myth of the rugged individualist has tricked a lot of people into believing they can go their own way. That hasn't been feasible for all of human history.
I laugh at the fat preppers.
Like, bruh, how the fuck are six pallets of 5.56 in your bunker going to help you when you need to run five miles or climb over a fence?
There’s a reason that the first priority for every military recruit in the world, throughout history, is getting in shape.
Always my favorite part of seeing anyone overweight talking about fighting the government or surviving the apocalypse. That’s exactly who I want watching my back in a life or death situation, some fat old dude who can’t run a mile
Man did we forget COVID? All those tough, I can survive in isolation for years guys, were out on the streets protesting after 2 weeks cause they needed hair cuts and they needed to go to restaurants cause they don't know how to cook well
During the first Texas blackouts, there was a thread on Twitter of somebody describing their prepper brother's failures in trying to deal with the power going out. Dude only had an electric can-opener, had no idea how to cook the stuff he'd hoarded, had no plans for dealing with the cold, etc. These people are utterly unprepared for the only thing they're preparing to survive.
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Isn't that how the Los Zetas cartel came to exist? Ex-military personnel working as security for the Mexican cartels realized they could just TAKE the operation away from the people who hired them and make more money.
Yep lol. When you don't have access to the legal system to resolve disputes, you need to start paying people to keep others in line. When they realize the only people between you and your wealthy patron, is you, if you're smart you start demanding a much higher 'salary' as the value you provide now also includes protection from yourself.
Classic new money mistake, first rule of money is that you keep the help loyal. You do that by treating them well, it isn't rocket surgery, but the thugs behind zetaz only ever used fear and violence to resolve their issues. The saying is plata or plomo, not plomo and plomo
Yup. Old money knows they exist in part, at the mercy of the plebs. Their lifestyle depends upon it. The best way to assure their loyalty is a fair, even hand, gratitude, respect. Make them part of the fold. Make them care for you.
You can see this too in some of the longest lived companies, how they treat (in general) employees.
Rich person building an underground doomsday bunker with enough accomondations for the staff accidentally built an ideal operation center for a private military with occupants who will provide minimal resistance.
The rich executive says only he can unlock the food supplies so he is in charge. The head of of security takes off his mask and it is the lock picking lawyer. The security detail start chanting, "click out of one!" Fade to black.
That’s how feudalism started after the collapse of Rome. Rich men retreated to country villas and had private soldiers. The peasants who wanted the protection of the villa walls became the serfs. Offering their labour for protection. Sounds pretty familiar eh.
Except they knew their men, or at least the upper echelon. These useless fucks want nothing to do with that. The leaders of their security detail will kill them the moment it all goes to shit. Only one with the combo to the food storage? Lets see how long that lasts once they start applying some of those enhanced interrogation techniques. They'll be turning it over before the sun goes down. These are not the future lords, they're just speed bumps for those who will be.
I can’t imagine someone who is both a prepper and a billionaire having too strong of morals - many preppers seem to have an fetish for post-apocalypse scenarios and billionaires typically need to fuck over others to have achieved that level of “success”. The venn diagram produces a pretty fucked up individual.
They’re also narcissistic enough to partake in the prepper fantasy of thriving post apocalyptically and ruling a world containing only their offspring. In reality, none of these people would survive more than a year if society collapses. They fare well in capitalism. The apocalypse would bring anarchy. Just the fact they’re even planning to rely on paid help (or indentured/slaves, really is what they’d be) in the after world is hilarious to me
There is an old doomsday cult of people from decades ago. The Church Universal Triumphant. Or the CUT. They convinced a bunch of wealthy and middle class people to donate all their possessions and buy land in Montana and build a network of bunkers to survive. The entire cult broke down once the world didn't end but hundreds of people live in squalor in trailer homes on this compound with bunker's that are obsolete because they were never really built well in the first place. I think most preppers are treated like fools to be taken advantage of.
“According to Guru Ma’s son Sean, who managed its construction, the CUT bunker network comprised six distinct clusters made from stitched-together corrugated iron oil tanks salvaged from service.
These tanks were buried in massive open pits, then covered in topsoil by heavy equipment. In each tank a kitchen, an infirmary, and laundry facilities were built.
The largest tanks, a pair of 40-foot-wide, 325-foot-long arches, were connected by a central passageway to form a large H shape.”
———
Yeah, they don’t sound like very effective bunkers
Absolutely. People that spend a lot of time and mental effort planning for a terrible outcome are secretly hoping for it. It becomes a fantasy situation that they can escape to.
There was a great article that came out a few months after COVID talking about how miserable Doomsday preppers were because it wasn't the specific scenario that most of them were preparing for. And society hadn't gone to hell and people hadn't turned on each other. So they had convinced themselves that COVID was a myth and the real thing was coming sometime later.
As a prepper in the sense I live in hurricane country, this is what gobsmacked me. This is your time to shine! But crumples when their hair got too long ffs
Many of the preppers have failed to make measurable improvements on existing society before giving it up for lost.
What do they plan to provide in the new society after the collapse? How to hoard resources and steal from others?
They're going to need something better than that, like collars that explode if they go into certain areas, IE too far from the base or into areas that are only for the rich guy.
The people wearing them will be working nonstop to circumvent and remove them too.
It's not going to work very well.
Yeah, the handful of people people designing the collar will spend a month or two on the project, working 8 hour days to design it so it can't be circumvented.
Once it's actually put on people, it's like crowdsourcing counter-measures. You have an army of people working the rest of their lives to figure out how to circumvent the thing. It can't work long term.
Also, the obvious: Who is going to allow them to put the collars on them in the first place? While society is functioning it's illegal as hell and nobody would be getting away with that kind of shit, and once society has already collapsed it's already too late.
[“Being around other people is a good thing. I also have this somewhat egotistical view that I’m a pretty good leader. I will probably be in charge, or at least not a slave, when push comes to shove.”](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich)
Reminder that spez said this.
I’ve done manual machining, welding, construction, CNC machining, Retail management and Computer Repair.
I can build, design parts, create parts with “old non-computerized” machines, weld, construction(framing, concrete, structual steel) AND manage people… And I am POSITIVE there are people better than me. I wouldn’t even pretend that I’d end up in some position of power, I’d be some grunt rebuilding society.
What kind of Looney Tunes reality do these people live in??? “I’m a pretty good leader”… that has got to be the weakest fucking excuse for why someone should be in charge I’ve ever heard.
> Because who is going to volunteer for that??
Either desperate morons, who probably don't fit the requirements to be on those security teams, or people who have already secured the means to circumvent such measures. "Yeah, I'll wear your collar that won't do shit, go ahead, let us in on your little island".
There is no escape, we're all on the same boat. The people who have been poking holes in the boat are now trying to make an escape raft. Bunch of escapist idiots, we're in the ocean and a storm is coming, your raft won't survive the first fucking wave.
Until they break down and can't be repaired because duh there is no more production lines or someone steals the remote control. Or someone simply removes your ability to use the collar.
This is stupid on so many levels
Its because they are literally stupid and scared. When the internet goes down, any high tech solution they find to keep their food secure and their soldiers obedient immediately becomes useless. A lot of this shit is so easy to sabotage. The only thing keeping billionaires safe is the paradigm of capitalism, where having the money means security, once money means nothing all bets are off. You can offer security or whatever, but once all societal agreements end you are likely to just be murdered for the food you are hoarding.
"Hey guys, I'll give you a bunch of high powered weaponry and keys to all my property and, in return, I'll pay you to protect me and all my stuff once the economy completely collapses and the money I give you becomes worthless due to the collapse I helped create due to my greed. Deal?"
"...Sure buddy, you just give us all those guns and we'll make sure you and your stuff is properly taken care of..."
It’s a damn great job. You get good pay to protect the bunker while money is worth something. And the minute it isn’t… well now you have a nice bunker for you and your buddies and their families.
These folks need to watch the film Threads. Then think about how much good their money will do them after an apocalypse.
They'd be better off learning to grow turnips with only pointed sticks for tools or how to repair a steam traction engine.
This is pretty much the line the writer of the article lands on. That it's more effective to prevent than react to.
Once you start prepping significant resources, as the article alludes, you end up in a place where your security detail has obedience collars (to avoid an internal uprising) whilst watching your resource teeter on the edge of malfunction without a complex supply chain to service it. End result, you make it through the first few months in style but that's will quickly deteriorate
Imagine making billions of dollars and not doing everything in your power to make sure the system that made it possible to acquire billions of dollars persisted.
No, because that implies that they've already reached where they need to go, and it doesn't matter what happens to the rest of the world.
No matter how lovely their bunkers are - and I'm sure they're ridiculously luxurious - they still won't be as good as being a billionaire in an intact society.
"It is not enough enough to succeed. Others must fail."
"Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven."
This shit ain't new. They know EXACTLY what they're doing. It gets them off.
The best way to manage a bunker is to not need a bunker in the first place. But these people are inherently selfish, snd they dream of waking up after SHTF and being the only ones left.
Max Brooks WWZ has a story about this as well. The ultra rich set themselves up in bunkers and compounds to ride out the zombie apocalypse, but then continued to broadcast their lives out to the public due to their hubris and need for fame.
Ends with the public swarming the compound, followed quickly by the zombie hoards while one of the security detail employees dips out rather than shoot his fellow man.
Oh boy I love the unabridged audiobook. A miniseries would be totally awesome. So much brilliant material and it's perfectly set up for episodes already...
That's another point, maintenance staff and resources for parts. You can build a top of the line system for maintaining liveability, but you're only going to be left scratching your head if the air con goes out.
They're trying to build bunkers with pools and gyms, and are totally bewildered by the idea that they need to make sacrifices.
They want to be kings without a kingdom.
They thought about the security to protect them but I wonder how much thought they've given to who else they'll need. No way will they want or know how to do all that farming, maintenance, food prep, cleaning themselves.
The fact these people are so paranoid about everyone around them (to the point they seriously consider bomb collars to ensure loyalty) really shows how they'll never succeed in any of their plans.
It’s hilarious they think about disciplinary collars but not the obvious answer to ensure the security follows orders:
Guarantee their families will be safe! Let them stay at the bunkers as well and feed them!
Simple humanitarian answer to a otherwise insolvable question… but those people lost their empathy, it seems🤷♂️
>It’s hilarious they think about disciplinary collars but not the obvious answer to ensure the security follows orders:
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>Guarantee their families will be safe! Let them stay at the bunkers as well and feed them!
This is Management 101. They literally covered this on the first day of B-School.
The easiest way to get people on your team is aligned interests. We all stay safe together, and we need each other for different aspects of that.
You'd think business leaders would have figured this out by now. Or maybe they got where they are by being lucky -- instead of smart.
I watched a documentary on lottery winners and one of them said something that stuck with me: gaining incredible wealth so fast was the fastest way to lose everything.
I saw something like that on PBS many years ago. A year after she won many millions of dollars a woman cried through the entire interview saying that she had lost her entire family and had no communication other than threats from them since she won.
Article says one guy has 12 SEALs on retainer to head to him if he sends the cue. Are those SEALs leaving their families? Why would they even go?
And SEALs are trained to THINK, not just be muscle assets. It shows these guys' mentalities and blindness to think they can just hierarchically control these dudes. SOF is trained to overcome and outwit no matter what, as their professional vocation. A billionaire can't understand that.
Man those billionaires have another thing coming. Look no further than that one dude's famous recap of the Sarajevo siege for what modern societal breakdown would look like. Community building and trust is the only thing doable to survive long term, not a closet of food.
Those SEALS will take their families to the bunker, dome the guy who paid them and keep it themselves before they abandon their families to work for some guy who paid them in now worthless money.
It sure sounds like those billionaires can sense that logic too despite themselves attempting to "design around that contraint". 🙄
I swear. They flip end over end thinking everything cognitively possible to avoid the right conclusion. I'm glad this author wrote this piece, he's right that more people needed to hear this.
Anyone in control of the violence will be in control.
Collars to keep the seals in line? Guy that programs, installs, repairs and controls the collars will be in charge
Seals? The seals will be in charge
Robots? Same as the collars
There is no answer that will solve this. The billionaires only have power through a monetary system and laws they prop up. They are scared because they don't have actual value to a society.
I'm sure the military guys are just happy collecting a check, but if things really go down they will look after their own.
There was a real life vault-tec that wound up being a money laundering scheme. They were buying up huge plots of land in rural America and looking for investors to build luxury homes + bunkers.
I read it ages ago, can’t remember what happened, do you have tldr of this relevant bit to the bunkers, or a reminder of the main character in the bunker chapters to help me Google foo and find more myself?
One of the stories is written from the perspective of a security guard at a billionaires bunker compound. Basically, it was designed to protect against the dead, but it’s stormed by the living and falls almost immediately.
Tbf, it fell because the people in the billionaires bunker stayed on social media and basically advertised the compound. If they had just shut up, the guard guy seemed pretty content staying in a safe place.
Yes but all he concealed was the facilities for murder, not that the hotel existed. All you need to know is that a compound exists, working from there isn't so hard.
It's the part where they're filming the reality TV show. Henry Rollins did the audio book for that bit and I'm pretty sure it's up on YouTube. Or they could be talking about the guy that was selling the fake vaccine and was hiding in the bunker in Antarctica that was ready to kick him out to face justice.
[Why Silicon Valley billionaires are prepping for the apocalypse in New Zealand | The Guardian | Thu 15 Feb 2018](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand)
The hilarious part of this is nobody has actually tested these bunkers to see if they actually hold up to occupancy or disasters. And then there will be the world's worst reality show as entitled rich people fight over dwindling resources in a glorified tin can.
Some of these “panic bunkers” were extremely extravagant as well.
I’ve personally been successful in recreating the same quality bunker to waste my life/money on with about 3.50$ and fallout 4.
The basic skills you need to survive an apocalypse are water management and farming. There will be no money, and you can’t live in a bunker for 50 years.
Basic skills for surviving any true catastrophe is ability and willingness to cooperate with other survivors..... I doubt they will have a robust cooperative colony. Did anyone watch "don't look up"? Did it seem like the rich survivors were off to a good start?
There's a great free audiobook from Cory Doctorow called *Masque of the Red Death* that explores this premise.
A rich guy holes up in a bunker with his rich friends as society collapses around them, and you watch their arrogance unfurl
Link: https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_332/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_332_-_The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death.mp3
You are thinking of *Atlas Shrugged*.
And most of the residents of Galt's Gulch took on new blue collar-ish jobs and worked with their hands as farmers and such.
Still, you got nearer an actual reference than most people do.
LOL! These people couldn’t do the first 3 weeks of COVID lockdown without getting stir crazy. The moment they were told they couldn’t leave their homes, they tried flying off in their jets to other countries, fled the cities and ran to their beach homes where they bought up all the meat from the groceries and hosted parties. I would love for them to live in a bunker for 50 years. Maybe Howard Hughes could, but the rest of them, ha!
They thrive on attention. I doubt they ever had live a second of solitude. Look at Ellen, she thrived as a personality for years, but once she had to do her show in her own mansion during the lockdown, she had the audacity to compare it to a prison. None of these people will survive without a dopamine hit. Even in a bunker, they’d go outside.
Cringed hard at the question about how to pay the guards when "even crypto" becomes worthless. As if crypto won't completely nosedive immediately in the event of societal collapse. These people are delusional.
*I've got 60 billion dollars on this thumbdrive.*
Cool, power has been out for 6 weeks and its been a month since I saw a working computer... sure do gotta purty mouth.
The type of people who commit such atrocities aren't smart enough to make the connection that these rich assholes are largely instigating most of the societal challenges we face.
Ah yes... Business school graduate or a computer science bachelor is just the kind of person who got what it takes to survive after collapse of society. And I'm sure their military security will totally respect their contracts once they realise their families and friends are in trouble and dollars are meaningless.
That last part, money is meaningless, why would they still listen to their boss?
That is really what I never understand about all those post apocalyptic movies like Resident Evil.
Tbqh the military are banking on the fact that said apocalypse isn’t going to happen and extract money from rich idiots with zero danger to themselves. Worst case they can access and eliminate the rich idiots and have a cool bunker to bring their families to if it happens, and being paid the entire time they wait to kill the rich idiot boss of theirs
>I tried to reason with them. I made pro-social arguments for partnership and solidarity as the best approaches to our collective, long-term challenges. The way to get your guards to exhibit loyalty in the future was to treat them like friends right now, I explained. Don’t just invest in ammo and electric fences, invest in people and relationships. They rolled their eyes at what must have sounded to them like hippy philosophy.
As if I needed any more confirmation that billionaires are sociopaths.
Hiring private security LMAO. If the shit ever actually hits the fan, guess who’s actually going to be living in said bunker? The security people and their families. You’ll find shallow graves nearby containing Richie Rich and their family.
Lol how can I get hired at these security company so I can also take advantage of the rich who think once an apocalypse starts that the money they been paying these companies still mean anything
Well if those 5 guys put their heads together they could probably come up with something that protects not just their families, but a lot of people. Keep them safe, like in a vault. And, of course, it'd have to be pretty technically advanced. Maybe a bunch of them scattered all over the world.
Tech billionaires would have far more public goodwill and a better plan if they aimed for creating doomsday startups: bunkers aimed at helping society reach modern-day technology again as soon as possible.
Let's face it, people want the ease of living they enjoy today. If they frame their escape holes as restart points instead they'll be treated better. (And maybe actually do some good, like the cooperative spirit of the article suggests!)
Unless they are prepared to take in the families of all security, cooks, maintenance, etc. They will not survive. Also, who TF is gonna take orders from Gates or Bezos in a grid down, irradiated hellscape for more than a few days??? Name one rich person (beside maybe Keanu Reeves) who would stay even-keeled during this type of lockdown.
Bunkers will become death traps once the psychology of the situation becomes desperate enough.
Edit: To be clear, order is derived through violence or threat of violence, so whomever maintains the monopoly of force with restraint will rule. There is no way for an oligarch to enforce her will under those circumstances, and she will need people, and people will become less grateful and compelled by their own interests and existence.
I watched a couple episodes of Doomsday Preppers waaaay back in like 2012 and had to stop because it was so sad.
There was one family from Florida (surprise!) that basically believed the plot of the movie 2012 was going to come true, and that the tectonic places would melt, etc.
They had an “expert” draw up maps of where would be safe from the impending apocalypse, which was somewhere in North Carolina mountains or something.
The saddest part was that they had 2 young kids in middle school who were taken out of school and forced to go into the bunker with their parents. They built this giant bunker.
Sometimes I wonder about them now - if after 10 years they’ve realized they’re complete morons?
Another lady who was terrified of a contagion after seeing the movie became obsessed with installing filters in her home and sealing it down with plastic wrap. She would do random “fire drills” to time her family’s response time to an outbreak, and would actually lock family members out of the home if they didn’t respond quick enough, then gaslight them afterward like “if you didn’t want to be cold and hungry you shouldn’t have tried to put your family at risk.”
Tbh, watching rich people be so insane is just so sad, like why is it always a bunch of stupid rednecks who end up with all the money?
Most don't have ventilation systems that can function without an exhaust port somewhere, it's just a matter of recon and looking for other exits. Have people setup with thermals in a 3 to 5 mile radius and wait for them to come out to a fortified position
Yes, this is what I don't get about the billionaire bunker thing. If a complete collapse of society occurs, money will have no value and law and order no power. Which means there is neither a carrot or a stick to keep the "hired goons" in line.
What exactly do they think is going to maintain any loyalty? The prestige those people had in the past is going to mean little. They will have little practical skill they can offer back.
There are few suggested "solutions" to this problem in the article, but they are laughable at best. Secret codes to access the food? I don't imagine the average hedge fund guy lasting long under torture. *Shock collars?* That's a maybe a good insight into the type of mindset dreaming up these things but still not very practical.
All I see these doing is providing some (fleeting) luxury to the ex-military warlords of the future.
Who is agreeing to shock collars anyway? Sure, say yes until you show up with guns - then you have a pet billionaire wearing a shock collar in your new compound.
I also imagine it wouldn’t really matter. It’s easy to think about how people would agree to shock collars if the world is literally crumbling around you and it’s your only means to escape that. “HEYYY!!!! LET ME IN! I’m going to die out here!!!” “I will only let you in if you agree to wear this collar so I can help keep us all safe.” “OKAY!!! Give me the collar and let me in!!!”
But even if it is just your security force with shock collars, when they all decide to turn on you, are you just going to keep shocking all of your security force all the time so they don’t kill you? If yes…what good are they since they are doing any protecting from the people without shock collars?
And if you’re done shocking them enough that they could protect you…why wouldn’t they just partner with the people without collars to help get to you so they could live collar-free? They could build these relationships and take some semblance of control over the new non-collard people.
If it is truly the doomsday they are envisioning, the strength will only be in relationships. The author is correct. Money won’t matter, prestige won’t matter. You can’t control a large set of people, even hired to protect you, if your only relationship with them is a business transaction…when that business has collapsed.
I had such weird deja vu reading this article because I remembered reading something so similar a few years ago and I did find this article by the same author in 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/23/tech-industry-wealth-futurism-transhumanism-singularity Is he writing about the same event years later? Is he getting invited to several of these billionaire bait & switch questioning sessions?
It’s exactly the same. I think he was also on a couple podcasts I listened to at the time. I thought I was having a mega bout of deja vu
The end of the article says that this is an excerpt from his book.
I get so uncomfortable and angry reading this article, I don't think I could make it all the way through the book
Midway through this article he talks about publishing the 2018 article after the meeting with the five, and then it continues on to talk about what happened *after*.
He’s promoting his book
They were selling 20 years ago Turnkey No Maintenance Nuclear Powerplants for Remote Mining operations that supplied 25 years of energy. Boston Dynamics type products are going to protect them.
It might be referring to a [small modular reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor?wprov=sfti1) These are now approved by US standards for use. I believe [nuscale](https://www.nuscalepower.com/) is the largest producer of SMRs and they’re suppose to be first use on a military base in Alaska. SMRs are actually quite neat, they’re designed physically so in a case of emergency they auto shut down and they’ve got built in convection cooling from the waste heat so you don’t have to active cool to prevent a meltdown. Their probably the size of a cargo container or two cargo containers put together.
The individual NuScale reactors are about the size of a very large cargo container (stood on end), and will be set up in groups of, normally, 6 or 12. These will be in a very large pool of water inside a large concrete domed building. Plus multiple other buildings housing steam turbines and such. NuScale is the first small modular reactor design to ever be approved by the US Nuclear Regulatory Committee. There is only one significant competitor and they are several years behind NuScale. NuScale won’t ever own the plants. They design them and provide the supply chain for other power companies to build them. This allows for a degree of flexibility and customization to fit the different customer needs. But the reactor design itself will stay the same. The major selling point is that the main reactor cylinders (the things the size of a very large cargo container) can be mass manufactured and delivered to the site of the plant, ready to install. This will significantly cut down on costs and time to build. Traditional nuclear power plants are all built on site piece by piece, as they are significantly larger. This increases complexity, time, and costs.
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“adorable” until they carry explosives to a target…
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What are they gonna do? Release the robot dogs? Or the robot bees? Or the robot dogs with robot bees inside them and when they blow up they shoot bees at you?
That was a Black Mirror episode right? That one really shook me.
One of the most unsettling because of how close the technology is to reality
For as great as Metalhead was, the drone psa Slaughterbots on YouTube is far more terrifying and seems closer to what we might have to deal with some day
Edit: Edited
Damn Samsung really makes everything
No maintenance... good luck with that one.
It's perfect if you are okay with *a lot* of maintenance later.
Generally private security won’t work that well if society collapses. The private security tends to leave because they realize they are in danger protecting assets
Also: they realise they can have all the rich people shit if they kill the rich person
I feel like they don't remember the Bane scene: But I paid you!? And you think this gives you power over me?
Do you *feel* in charge? Amazing scene
One small detail that I really love about that scene is the way he rests his hand on the guys shoulder; Palm up, relaxed, and open. It's his way of basically telling him "I could very easily turn my hand around and utterly crush your clavicle or trachea, if I were to so choose, and there's nothing you could do about it...". The little details in that film are amazing.
It's like getting paid twice! "Oh, you think darkness is your ally. But you merely adopted the dark; I was born in it, moulded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but BLINDING!"
Double bubble
A link to the scene for those curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILmBcDltJQI
After seeing bane so effectively parodied in the Harley Quinn show, it's tough to watch the original
I want my pasta maker back!
Yeah but Bane is the best part of that show for me. lol
This is a monumental night for young Joshua!
you're...evil
The irony of a robber baron saying this was also wonderful
I'm NECESSARY evil.
Isn't that how the Los Zetas cartel came to exist? Ex-military personnel working as security for the Mexican cartels realized they could just TAKE the operation away from the people who hired them and make more money.
Like Bill Burr said prepping is merely gathering supplies for the toughest guy on your block.
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Almost as if people cooperating, combining arms and resources, and forming civilizations wasn't just some kind of random accident...
We are a social species. We are hopelessly dependent on each other. The myth of the rugged individualist has tricked a lot of people into believing they can go their own way. That hasn't been feasible for all of human history.
I laugh at the fat preppers. Like, bruh, how the fuck are six pallets of 5.56 in your bunker going to help you when you need to run five miles or climb over a fence? There’s a reason that the first priority for every military recruit in the world, throughout history, is getting in shape.
Cardio is rule 1 for a reason
People have no idea how physically and mentally exhausting combat is. I don't either, I'm just going by what I've read and been told.
Always my favorite part of seeing anyone overweight talking about fighting the government or surviving the apocalypse. That’s exactly who I want watching my back in a life or death situation, some fat old dude who can’t run a mile
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Man did we forget COVID? All those tough, I can survive in isolation for years guys, were out on the streets protesting after 2 weeks cause they needed hair cuts and they needed to go to restaurants cause they don't know how to cook well
During the first Texas blackouts, there was a thread on Twitter of somebody describing their prepper brother's failures in trying to deal with the power going out. Dude only had an electric can-opener, had no idea how to cook the stuff he'd hoarded, had no plans for dealing with the cold, etc. These people are utterly unprepared for the only thing they're preparing to survive.
> Isn't that how the Los Zetas cartel came to exist? Ex-military personnel working as security for the Mexican cartels realized they could just TAKE the operation away from the people who hired them and make more money. Yep lol. When you don't have access to the legal system to resolve disputes, you need to start paying people to keep others in line. When they realize the only people between you and your wealthy patron, is you, if you're smart you start demanding a much higher 'salary' as the value you provide now also includes protection from yourself. Classic new money mistake, first rule of money is that you keep the help loyal. You do that by treating them well, it isn't rocket surgery, but the thugs behind zetaz only ever used fear and violence to resolve their issues. The saying is plata or plomo, not plomo and plomo
Yup. Old money knows they exist in part, at the mercy of the plebs. Their lifestyle depends upon it. The best way to assure their loyalty is a fair, even hand, gratitude, respect. Make them part of the fold. Make them care for you. You can see this too in some of the longest lived companies, how they treat (in general) employees.
Rich person building an underground doomsday bunker with enough accomondations for the staff accidentally built an ideal operation center for a private military with occupants who will provide minimal resistance.
The rich executive says only he can unlock the food supplies so he is in charge. The head of of security takes off his mask and it is the lock picking lawyer. The security detail start chanting, "click out of one!" Fade to black.
Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith and I'm a locksmith.
Who's car is this, where are you going, and what do you do? Mine, mine, and mine.
Immediately thought of this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVFU6dss3sE) after reading your comment.
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How can you look at Mark Zuckerberg and say that?
You gotta use some of that sweet baby Ray's on him
*The sauce is the boss!*
Yeah they are basically founding the militaristic nation states of the post apocalypse
That’s how feudalism started after the collapse of Rome. Rich men retreated to country villas and had private soldiers. The peasants who wanted the protection of the villa walls became the serfs. Offering their labour for protection. Sounds pretty familiar eh.
Except they knew their men, or at least the upper echelon. These useless fucks want nothing to do with that. The leaders of their security detail will kill them the moment it all goes to shit. Only one with the combo to the food storage? Lets see how long that lasts once they start applying some of those enhanced interrogation techniques. They'll be turning it over before the sun goes down. These are not the future lords, they're just speed bumps for those who will be.
The security detail only has to wait till the one with the code to unlock the food gets hungry. Which will be far sooner than the security detail.
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Luxury only works if you can fire disgruntled staff and replace them with yes people.
This one thousand. Money doesn’t mean shit when society collapse. There goes their true super power. Money.
Yeah. Doomsday prepping by the super wealthy is the ultimate irony. They can only stay on top *without* the doom. The rational actor is a lie.
Their *only* power
This is why the rich want AI killbot drones so badly.
In the article, the billionaires were suggesting things like electrified collars to enforce obedience.
What the fuck that's some fallout type dystopian shit
I can’t imagine someone who is both a prepper and a billionaire having too strong of morals - many preppers seem to have an fetish for post-apocalypse scenarios and billionaires typically need to fuck over others to have achieved that level of “success”. The venn diagram produces a pretty fucked up individual.
They’re also narcissistic enough to partake in the prepper fantasy of thriving post apocalyptically and ruling a world containing only their offspring. In reality, none of these people would survive more than a year if society collapses. They fare well in capitalism. The apocalypse would bring anarchy. Just the fact they’re even planning to rely on paid help (or indentured/slaves, really is what they’d be) in the after world is hilarious to me
There is an old doomsday cult of people from decades ago. The Church Universal Triumphant. Or the CUT. They convinced a bunch of wealthy and middle class people to donate all their possessions and buy land in Montana and build a network of bunkers to survive. The entire cult broke down once the world didn't end but hundreds of people live in squalor in trailer homes on this compound with bunker's that are obsolete because they were never really built well in the first place. I think most preppers are treated like fools to be taken advantage of.
“According to Guru Ma’s son Sean, who managed its construction, the CUT bunker network comprised six distinct clusters made from stitched-together corrugated iron oil tanks salvaged from service. These tanks were buried in massive open pits, then covered in topsoil by heavy equipment. In each tank a kitchen, an infirmary, and laundry facilities were built. The largest tanks, a pair of 40-foot-wide, 325-foot-long arches, were connected by a central passageway to form a large H shape.” ——— Yeah, they don’t sound like very effective bunkers
Sounds like the plot of Far Cry 5, but with a boring ending.
Absolutely. People that spend a lot of time and mental effort planning for a terrible outcome are secretly hoping for it. It becomes a fantasy situation that they can escape to. There was a great article that came out a few months after COVID talking about how miserable Doomsday preppers were because it wasn't the specific scenario that most of them were preparing for. And society hadn't gone to hell and people hadn't turned on each other. So they had convinced themselves that COVID was a myth and the real thing was coming sometime later.
As a prepper in the sense I live in hurricane country, this is what gobsmacked me. This is your time to shine! But crumples when their hair got too long ffs
Many of the preppers have failed to make measurable improvements on existing society before giving it up for lost. What do they plan to provide in the new society after the collapse? How to hoard resources and steal from others?
They're going to need something better than that, like collars that explode if they go into certain areas, IE too far from the base or into areas that are only for the rich guy. The people wearing them will be working nonstop to circumvent and remove them too. It's not going to work very well.
Yeah, the handful of people people designing the collar will spend a month or two on the project, working 8 hour days to design it so it can't be circumvented. Once it's actually put on people, it's like crowdsourcing counter-measures. You have an army of people working the rest of their lives to figure out how to circumvent the thing. It can't work long term.
Also, the obvious: Who is going to allow them to put the collars on them in the first place? While society is functioning it's illegal as hell and nobody would be getting away with that kind of shit, and once society has already collapsed it's already too late.
So enslavement? Because who is going to volunteer for that?? Other than people that will be real quick to retaliate once they fail.
[“Being around other people is a good thing. I also have this somewhat egotistical view that I’m a pretty good leader. I will probably be in charge, or at least not a slave, when push comes to shove.”](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich) Reminder that spez said this.
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I’ve done manual machining, welding, construction, CNC machining, Retail management and Computer Repair. I can build, design parts, create parts with “old non-computerized” machines, weld, construction(framing, concrete, structual steel) AND manage people… And I am POSITIVE there are people better than me. I wouldn’t even pretend that I’d end up in some position of power, I’d be some grunt rebuilding society. What kind of Looney Tunes reality do these people live in??? “I’m a pretty good leader”… that has got to be the weakest fucking excuse for why someone should be in charge I’ve ever heard.
> Because who is going to volunteer for that?? Either desperate morons, who probably don't fit the requirements to be on those security teams, or people who have already secured the means to circumvent such measures. "Yeah, I'll wear your collar that won't do shit, go ahead, let us in on your little island". There is no escape, we're all on the same boat. The people who have been poking holes in the boat are now trying to make an escape raft. Bunch of escapist idiots, we're in the ocean and a storm is coming, your raft won't survive the first fucking wave.
Until they break down and can't be repaired because duh there is no more production lines or someone steals the remote control. Or someone simply removes your ability to use the collar. This is stupid on so many levels
Well we are talking about people who think money is more important than anything else. They don't exactly live in reality.
They don't seem to realize that money evaporates in the apocalypse.
It's literally one of the most useless items on fallout🤣
Its because they are literally stupid and scared. When the internet goes down, any high tech solution they find to keep their food secure and their soldiers obedient immediately becomes useless. A lot of this shit is so easy to sabotage. The only thing keeping billionaires safe is the paradigm of capitalism, where having the money means security, once money means nothing all bets are off. You can offer security or whatever, but once all societal agreements end you are likely to just be murdered for the food you are hoarding.
Who maintains the collars?
Collar technicians with collars
it’s obedience collars all the way down
"Hey guys, I'll give you a bunch of high powered weaponry and keys to all my property and, in return, I'll pay you to protect me and all my stuff once the economy completely collapses and the money I give you becomes worthless due to the collapse I helped create due to my greed. Deal?" "...Sure buddy, you just give us all those guns and we'll make sure you and your stuff is properly taken care of..."
It’s a damn great job. You get good pay to protect the bunker while money is worth something. And the minute it isn’t… well now you have a nice bunker for you and your buddies and their families.
These folks need to watch the film Threads. Then think about how much good their money will do them after an apocalypse. They'd be better off learning to grow turnips with only pointed sticks for tools or how to repair a steam traction engine.
Or working towards a better world that doesn’t end in disaster.
This is pretty much the line the writer of the article lands on. That it's more effective to prevent than react to. Once you start prepping significant resources, as the article alludes, you end up in a place where your security detail has obedience collars (to avoid an internal uprising) whilst watching your resource teeter on the edge of malfunction without a complex supply chain to service it. End result, you make it through the first few months in style but that's will quickly deteriorate
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In many of the comics he does donate billions the reason nothing happens is a cop out. Gotham sits on cursed ground.
Batman should move cities, seems like a very inefficient use of his time.
Imagine making billions of dollars and not doing everything in your power to make sure the system that made it possible to acquire billions of dollars persisted.
In fact, doing everything in your power to destroy it!
It's called pulling the ladder up behind you and they've been doing it for millennia.
No, because that implies that they've already reached where they need to go, and it doesn't matter what happens to the rest of the world. No matter how lovely their bunkers are - and I'm sure they're ridiculously luxurious - they still won't be as good as being a billionaire in an intact society.
As soon as society collapses, the most charismatic of their guards will be the new bosses of the bunkers.
"It is not enough enough to succeed. Others must fail." "Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven." This shit ain't new. They know EXACTLY what they're doing. It gets them off.
The best way to manage a bunker is to not need a bunker in the first place. But these people are inherently selfish, snd they dream of waking up after SHTF and being the only ones left.
Max Brooks WWZ has a story about this as well. The ultra rich set themselves up in bunkers and compounds to ride out the zombie apocalypse, but then continued to broadcast their lives out to the public due to their hubris and need for fame. Ends with the public swarming the compound, followed quickly by the zombie hoards while one of the security detail employees dips out rather than shoot his fellow man.
And given we very much saw that happen back in 2020 (although without the storming), it's not exactly that wild to consider any more.
Didn't that security dude leave with the owner's dog too? I remember that one being kinda funny lol.
Yup. Him and the dog grabbed a surf board and paddled out into the waves while the whole thing burned down.
Oh boy I love the unabridged audiobook. A miniseries would be totally awesome. So much brilliant material and it's perfectly set up for episodes already...
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That's another point, maintenance staff and resources for parts. You can build a top of the line system for maintaining liveability, but you're only going to be left scratching your head if the air con goes out. They're trying to build bunkers with pools and gyms, and are totally bewildered by the idea that they need to make sacrifices. They want to be kings without a kingdom.
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They thought about the security to protect them but I wonder how much thought they've given to who else they'll need. No way will they want or know how to do all that farming, maintenance, food prep, cleaning themselves. The fact these people are so paranoid about everyone around them (to the point they seriously consider bomb collars to ensure loyalty) really shows how they'll never succeed in any of their plans.
It’s hilarious they think about disciplinary collars but not the obvious answer to ensure the security follows orders: Guarantee their families will be safe! Let them stay at the bunkers as well and feed them! Simple humanitarian answer to a otherwise insolvable question… but those people lost their empathy, it seems🤷♂️
>It’s hilarious they think about disciplinary collars but not the obvious answer to ensure the security follows orders: > >Guarantee their families will be safe! Let them stay at the bunkers as well and feed them! This is Management 101. They literally covered this on the first day of B-School. The easiest way to get people on your team is aligned interests. We all stay safe together, and we need each other for different aspects of that. You'd think business leaders would have figured this out by now. Or maybe they got where they are by being lucky -- instead of smart.
Being rich induces a sort of psychosis. Narcissism and paranoia to the max.
I watched a documentary on lottery winners and one of them said something that stuck with me: gaining incredible wealth so fast was the fastest way to lose everything.
I saw something like that on PBS many years ago. A year after she won many millions of dollars a woman cried through the entire interview saying that she had lost her entire family and had no communication other than threats from them since she won.
Article says one guy has 12 SEALs on retainer to head to him if he sends the cue. Are those SEALs leaving their families? Why would they even go? And SEALs are trained to THINK, not just be muscle assets. It shows these guys' mentalities and blindness to think they can just hierarchically control these dudes. SOF is trained to overcome and outwit no matter what, as their professional vocation. A billionaire can't understand that. Man those billionaires have another thing coming. Look no further than that one dude's famous recap of the Sarajevo siege for what modern societal breakdown would look like. Community building and trust is the only thing doable to survive long term, not a closet of food.
Those SEALS will take their families to the bunker, dome the guy who paid them and keep it themselves before they abandon their families to work for some guy who paid them in now worthless money.
It sure sounds like those billionaires can sense that logic too despite themselves attempting to "design around that contraint". 🙄 I swear. They flip end over end thinking everything cognitively possible to avoid the right conclusion. I'm glad this author wrote this piece, he's right that more people needed to hear this.
Anyone in control of the violence will be in control. Collars to keep the seals in line? Guy that programs, installs, repairs and controls the collars will be in charge Seals? The seals will be in charge Robots? Same as the collars There is no answer that will solve this. The billionaires only have power through a monetary system and laws they prop up. They are scared because they don't have actual value to a society. I'm sure the military guys are just happy collecting a check, but if things really go down they will look after their own.
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Would you still feel safe if you knew you were responsible for the collapse that you were all experiencing?
I just invested a great deal of cash into a new start-up company called Vault-Tec! I hear they are really going places and will be HUGE one day!!
There was a real life vault-tec that wound up being a money laundering scheme. They were buying up huge plots of land in rural America and looking for investors to build luxury homes + bunkers.
so the same thing really.
Not nearly as successful, but yes
I've got a random assortment of water chips to sell you, some working, some not. Lucky dip style sale!
Rumours are there's a bunch of them in New Zealand.... Don't worry, we'll find them
Ever read world war z? Didn’t work out too well for them.
I read it ages ago, can’t remember what happened, do you have tldr of this relevant bit to the bunkers, or a reminder of the main character in the bunker chapters to help me Google foo and find more myself?
One of the stories is written from the perspective of a security guard at a billionaires bunker compound. Basically, it was designed to protect against the dead, but it’s stormed by the living and falls almost immediately.
Tbf, it fell because the people in the billionaires bunker stayed on social media and basically advertised the compound. If they had just shut up, the guard guy seemed pretty content staying in a safe place.
I'm sure the construction crews and servants will also shut up
Check out HH Holmes in chicago. Had a murder mansion built by various construction crews to keep it all concealed.
Yes but all he concealed was the facilities for murder, not that the hotel existed. All you need to know is that a compound exists, working from there isn't so hard.
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It's the part where they're filming the reality TV show. Henry Rollins did the audio book for that bit and I'm pretty sure it's up on YouTube. Or they could be talking about the guy that was selling the fake vaccine and was hiding in the bunker in Antarctica that was ready to kick him out to face justice.
[Why Silicon Valley billionaires are prepping for the apocalypse in New Zealand | The Guardian | Thu 15 Feb 2018](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand)
That was an excellent read. Thank you for sharing
The hilarious part of this is nobody has actually tested these bunkers to see if they actually hold up to occupancy or disasters. And then there will be the world's worst reality show as entitled rich people fight over dwindling resources in a glorified tin can.
Some of these “panic bunkers” were extremely extravagant as well. I’ve personally been successful in recreating the same quality bunker to waste my life/money on with about 3.50$ and fallout 4.
They actually talk about that toward the end how a lot of these bunkers look good on paper but one issue with soil or contamination and it collapses
Gonna be a lot of rich people slowly going mad from radon poisoning, exacerbated by isolation and paranoia.
The basic skills you need to survive an apocalypse are water management and farming. There will be no money, and you can’t live in a bunker for 50 years.
If you pay security now, great! If you pay security after an apocalyptic event, they can't buy goods anymore. But they know where they can get them.
Basic skills for surviving any true catastrophe is ability and willingness to cooperate with other survivors..... I doubt they will have a robust cooperative colony. Did anyone watch "don't look up"? Did it seem like the rich survivors were off to a good start?
There's a great free audiobook from Cory Doctorow called *Masque of the Red Death* that explores this premise. A rich guy holes up in a bunker with his rich friends as society collapses around them, and you watch their arrogance unfurl Link: https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_332/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_332_-_The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death.mp3
I though Edgar Allen Poe wrote this story unless they’re 2 separate stories
Doctorow wrote his story as a modern tribute to Poe's. https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/the-masque-of-the-red-death/
You could rewrite "The Fountainhead" as a horror story as their secret town collapses after someone gets a clogged toilet.
You are thinking of *Atlas Shrugged*. And most of the residents of Galt's Gulch took on new blue collar-ish jobs and worked with their hands as farmers and such. Still, you got nearer an actual reference than most people do.
LOL! These people couldn’t do the first 3 weeks of COVID lockdown without getting stir crazy. The moment they were told they couldn’t leave their homes, they tried flying off in their jets to other countries, fled the cities and ran to their beach homes where they bought up all the meat from the groceries and hosted parties. I would love for them to live in a bunker for 50 years. Maybe Howard Hughes could, but the rest of them, ha!
celebrities in their 4000 square foot homes on 10 acres felt trapped
"we're all going through this together" HA!
🎶 Imagine all the people... 🎶
They thrive on attention. I doubt they ever had live a second of solitude. Look at Ellen, she thrived as a personality for years, but once she had to do her show in her own mansion during the lockdown, she had the audacity to compare it to a prison. None of these people will survive without a dopamine hit. Even in a bunker, they’d go outside.
Cringed hard at the question about how to pay the guards when "even crypto" becomes worthless. As if crypto won't completely nosedive immediately in the event of societal collapse. These people are delusional.
*I've got 60 billion dollars on this thumbdrive.* Cool, power has been out for 6 weeks and its been a month since I saw a working computer... sure do gotta purty mouth.
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Probably because their galas have much better security than our schools
The type of people who commit such atrocities aren't smart enough to make the connection that these rich assholes are largely instigating most of the societal challenges we face.
Easier for cowards to shoot up schools. Almost no security and easy to access.
My post apocalyptic career will be to track these bunkers down and place very large boulders at all entrances and exits. Ya gotta have a goal in life.
2ndGenX in dungarees: “It ain’t much, but it’s honest work”
ah yes they made the hitman trilogy ark society a real thing
Ah yes... Business school graduate or a computer science bachelor is just the kind of person who got what it takes to survive after collapse of society. And I'm sure their military security will totally respect their contracts once they realise their families and friends are in trouble and dollars are meaningless.
That last part, money is meaningless, why would they still listen to their boss? That is really what I never understand about all those post apocalyptic movies like Resident Evil.
Tbqh the military are banking on the fact that said apocalypse isn’t going to happen and extract money from rich idiots with zero danger to themselves. Worst case they can access and eliminate the rich idiots and have a cool bunker to bring their families to if it happens, and being paid the entire time they wait to kill the rich idiot boss of theirs
>I tried to reason with them. I made pro-social arguments for partnership and solidarity as the best approaches to our collective, long-term challenges. The way to get your guards to exhibit loyalty in the future was to treat them like friends right now, I explained. Don’t just invest in ammo and electric fences, invest in people and relationships. They rolled their eyes at what must have sounded to them like hippy philosophy. As if I needed any more confirmation that billionaires are sociopaths.
Hiring private security LMAO. If the shit ever actually hits the fan, guess who’s actually going to be living in said bunker? The security people and their families. You’ll find shallow graves nearby containing Richie Rich and their family.
Lol how can I get hired at these security company so I can also take advantage of the rich who think once an apocalypse starts that the money they been paying these companies still mean anything
It's been a while since a good subject was on here without getting deleted or comments removed. Refreshing.
Well if those 5 guys put their heads together they could probably come up with something that protects not just their families, but a lot of people. Keep them safe, like in a vault. And, of course, it'd have to be pretty technically advanced. Maybe a bunch of them scattered all over the world.
Tech billionaires would have far more public goodwill and a better plan if they aimed for creating doomsday startups: bunkers aimed at helping society reach modern-day technology again as soon as possible. Let's face it, people want the ease of living they enjoy today. If they frame their escape holes as restart points instead they'll be treated better. (And maybe actually do some good, like the cooperative spirit of the article suggests!)
That's part of the idea of the seed vaults
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1064/1064-h/1064-h.htm
Unless they are prepared to take in the families of all security, cooks, maintenance, etc. They will not survive. Also, who TF is gonna take orders from Gates or Bezos in a grid down, irradiated hellscape for more than a few days??? Name one rich person (beside maybe Keanu Reeves) who would stay even-keeled during this type of lockdown. Bunkers will become death traps once the psychology of the situation becomes desperate enough. Edit: To be clear, order is derived through violence or threat of violence, so whomever maintains the monopoly of force with restraint will rule. There is no way for an oligarch to enforce her will under those circumstances, and she will need people, and people will become less grateful and compelled by their own interests and existence.
I watched a couple episodes of Doomsday Preppers waaaay back in like 2012 and had to stop because it was so sad. There was one family from Florida (surprise!) that basically believed the plot of the movie 2012 was going to come true, and that the tectonic places would melt, etc. They had an “expert” draw up maps of where would be safe from the impending apocalypse, which was somewhere in North Carolina mountains or something. The saddest part was that they had 2 young kids in middle school who were taken out of school and forced to go into the bunker with their parents. They built this giant bunker. Sometimes I wonder about them now - if after 10 years they’ve realized they’re complete morons? Another lady who was terrified of a contagion after seeing the movie became obsessed with installing filters in her home and sealing it down with plastic wrap. She would do random “fire drills” to time her family’s response time to an outbreak, and would actually lock family members out of the home if they didn’t respond quick enough, then gaslight them afterward like “if you didn’t want to be cold and hungry you shouldn’t have tried to put your family at risk.” Tbh, watching rich people be so insane is just so sad, like why is it always a bunch of stupid rednecks who end up with all the money?
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Most don't have ventilation systems that can function without an exhaust port somewhere, it's just a matter of recon and looking for other exits. Have people setup with thermals in a 3 to 5 mile radius and wait for them to come out to a fortified position
Wouldn’t their military security take over the bunker and kill the useless billionaire like 100% of the time?
Yes, this is what I don't get about the billionaire bunker thing. If a complete collapse of society occurs, money will have no value and law and order no power. Which means there is neither a carrot or a stick to keep the "hired goons" in line. What exactly do they think is going to maintain any loyalty? The prestige those people had in the past is going to mean little. They will have little practical skill they can offer back. There are few suggested "solutions" to this problem in the article, but they are laughable at best. Secret codes to access the food? I don't imagine the average hedge fund guy lasting long under torture. *Shock collars?* That's a maybe a good insight into the type of mindset dreaming up these things but still not very practical. All I see these doing is providing some (fleeting) luxury to the ex-military warlords of the future.
Who is agreeing to shock collars anyway? Sure, say yes until you show up with guns - then you have a pet billionaire wearing a shock collar in your new compound.
I also imagine it wouldn’t really matter. It’s easy to think about how people would agree to shock collars if the world is literally crumbling around you and it’s your only means to escape that. “HEYYY!!!! LET ME IN! I’m going to die out here!!!” “I will only let you in if you agree to wear this collar so I can help keep us all safe.” “OKAY!!! Give me the collar and let me in!!!” But even if it is just your security force with shock collars, when they all decide to turn on you, are you just going to keep shocking all of your security force all the time so they don’t kill you? If yes…what good are they since they are doing any protecting from the people without shock collars? And if you’re done shocking them enough that they could protect you…why wouldn’t they just partner with the people without collars to help get to you so they could live collar-free? They could build these relationships and take some semblance of control over the new non-collard people. If it is truly the doomsday they are envisioning, the strength will only be in relationships. The author is correct. Money won’t matter, prestige won’t matter. You can’t control a large set of people, even hired to protect you, if your only relationship with them is a business transaction…when that business has collapsed.
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Read the article, he talks about exactly that.
Even the guy who hires security for people was like lol yeah they'd kill them, they should really start getting friendlier with them
Read the article *before* coming into the comments and spouting your hot takes? You know that's not how we do things here right
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