10 ms·

Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich (2017)

61 points by Ibethewalrus 8y ago

bassman9000 8y ago
Huffman, who lives in San Francisco I have a bunch of guns and ammo Rules for thee, not for me.
matte_black 8y ago
I wish more people understood Doomsday prepping is really more of a hobby than an actual concern over the total collapse of all civilization. It’s fun to prepare, and to think of every scenario no matter how outlandish, and it’s fun to make people think you are super serious about something that seems ridiculous to them. It is like a game where you collect as many resources and skills to increase your survival score as much as possible.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- makz 8y ago
  That’s informative.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Plus, actually trying out outdoors skills can be fun.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  I'm literally a national champion at a ridiculous hobby, so I feel pretty confident that many of these people are actually super serious. People get way invested in stupid shit all the time.
  - duncanawoods 8y ago
    Please share the ridiculous hobby!
rfw 8y ago
If you can spend enough money to say "well, that's not my problem", then you yourself are the problem.
ronilan 8y ago
A couple of years ago I applied for a job at Hipmunk and ended interviewing with Steve, then the CTO. I don’t remember everything but at some point he did ask me to write a program that prints out a spiral. Reading this article, and remembering that interview, made me realize that no one can really know what the collapse of civilization will look like, but it is always good to be prepared with a two dimensional array or a good GUI library.
- sgustard 8y ago
  Clearly the spiral algorithm is useful when you forgot where you buried your survival cache.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
gefh 8y ago
People love to think that they're independent from the huge society they float on top of, but at the top of the pyramid there's just further to fall. Mixing metaphors has never been my strong suit though...
nannotequalnan 8y ago
anecdotally, it feels like the tech elite are trying to outsmart the system (such as prepping for doomsday scenarios), rather than trying to improve the system to prevent, or lower the probability of the doomsday scenario in the first place
- asien 8y ago
  > rather than trying to improve the system to prevent, or lower the probability of the doomsday scenario in the first place I’m not sure Sillicon Valley billionaire can do much too save the earth from collapsing. It’s not about rich changing the world to save it, it’s about the world monetary system , capitalism and thermo-industrial economy that has climax and is now going to end. Hence , every society has cycles. Roman era disappeared, Vikings disappeared etc... this society will disappear as well and let something new come.
  - BurningFrog 8y ago
    Neither Romans or Vikings disappeared. Their societies were just called something else a few centuries later. Kings die every decade or two. States expand and shrink and occasionally disappear. But civilizations and societies mostly stay and develop.
  - nannotequalnan 8y ago
    completely disagree. SV billionaires wield enormous power and influence, through their wealth, positions of power, influential personas, companies etc. there is a very good argument to be made that elon musk pushed the EV industry forward. similarly, i think tech elite can shape society. another example: look at the enormous influence warren buffett has had on the asset management industry. i think SV billionaires could definitely make a dent in things like income inequality, if they focused on it
- chillacy 8y ago
  You definitely get more bang for your buck spending on yourself vs trying to change society.
SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
Their cover photo is a joke if you have even the slightest idea of what you’re looking at. Double stacked D&H mags with no pulls, an Anderson “poverty pony” AR, BUIS behind a 1.5x ACOG on an 18” with a cheap non-QD Mount (iron sights with a magnified optic in between doesn’t work)... I’m sure there is more. But... for the Steve Huffman and similar types, they’ll just see what they want. The real joke would be Randy and his $999 AR (with optic) will just rob Steve-types blind the second there is a without rule of law scenario.
- walrus01 8y ago
  Former combat zone contractor here: I would bet $20 that tacticool guy in the photo wishes so hard he had actually been hired as PSD by blackwater or triple canopy in 2005. Instead he probably ended up running logistics for the dfac at KAF.
  - zhoujianfu 8y ago
    I can’t imagine dfac at KAF is that much worse than running RTQ for the GIAs back down in lkp.
- rdtsc 8y ago
  > The real joke would be Randy and his $999 AR (with optic) will just rob Steve-types blind the second there is a without rule of law scenario. I've always wondered how they'd prevent that. How does Randy not shoot Steve or take him hostage and then bring his own family into the compound. I am sure there are a few schemes, ranging from benign like promise a huge payday at the end, lots of land, resources, power whatever to more sinister ones, like hire another Randy (possible a lot more than one) to watch the first one if he (she) tries to do something.
  - jsnell 8y ago
    Apparently these billionaires are wondering about exactly the same thing: https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1 https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef...
mgamache 8y ago
These guys (and Women?) are at the extreme end of the economic and social hierarchy. The only thing that might endanger their position is if society collapses. Prepping is sort of an insurance policy against the long odds of society collapsing. All societies have collapsed and once the process starts it can happen quickly. They can devote the resources to guard against rare events, because they are already protected against other concerns (they mostly have plenty of money). IMO, this type of behavior is the same as the bio-hacking crowd trying to beat aging / maximize health. They have everything else covered, so they move out further-and-further on the tail of their perceived threat.
- roywiggins 8y ago
  It's convenient when they advertise this in the media, for the roving bands to target them and their stuff.
  - solotronics 8y ago
    what if they are advertising as a decoy? "Of course I will be in a bunker community in Omaha" when actually they are in the middle of the Pacific on an island owned by a series of shell companies..
  - mgamache 8y ago
    They already anticipate maximum violence and chaos, I don't think they fear non-prepped mobs hunting them based on an old news article from the non-existent internet. I am not a prepper, but I get the allure. I just need the money :)
    - roywiggins 8y ago
      I'm thinking more that doomsday preppers who are not vastly wealthy might keep an eye on which wealthy preppers might have well-stocked bunkers to raid in the event.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  Maybe they should spend more effort on preventing societal collapse, rather than making haphazard plans for what to do when it happens.
AndrewKemendo 8y ago
Back in 2016 I followed Justin Kan on Snapchat and he used to hang out with Steve Huffman on his stories. I recall a few particular snap stories where they went out to Justin's new house and were shooting guns, throwing axes and generally doing fun outdoor stuff. I do seem to recall at some point there was talk about survivalist stuff in those snaps. I've done quite a lot of survival training with the US Government and have been in places where people lived by those skills daily. I have to say that the majority of what these guys are doing, and what most "rich guy" survivalists do, as indicated by this story, is mostly worthless. Especially long term. There's a hat tip to the most important part, forming groups and all the rest of the community building work, which is not inappropriate, but it's missing the point where you basically do that now with a diverse set of people - not just your rich friends - which is actually a sustainable strategy. There's a lot to nitpick here but I guess the most interesting thing to me is that, for all their wealth, access and smarts, none of these people seem to actually be trying to solve the systematic and endemic problems which would soften the blow of a major existential risk. In that sense Levchin and Johnson are 100% on the money here with investing in structural improvement, not some temporary escape plan that doesn't survive first contact with a handful of real actual killers.
- baxtr 8y ago
  I agree and it makes me sad. I always say: imagine all these smart people currently working on “stupid” business problems would start solving the real issues we have. In my view we’re investing too little brain power into these. And even though Musk is a bit of a weird fellow I think he’s doing that: using his connections to gather huge sums to solve some existential problems. BTW: I watched those snapchat stories too. Mark Suster had good ones as well
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > for all their wealth, access and smarts, none of these people seem to actually be trying to solve the systematic and endemic problems which would soften the blow of a major existential risk They may be. This is just a silly hobby to bond over. Sort of like zombie apocalypse preppers. The few that are serious aren’t doing press interviews.
- 8y ago
onetimemanytime 8y ago
First thing I notice in the article...(prob) an ex-military man with automatic weapons serving as a guard. In a doomsday scenario he will, eventually, kill or enslave all those nerdy guys that paid a fortune to seeking shelter there. But then you have everything else and buying these things are a drop in the bucket. Makes sense even if it has a very small chance of happening. What's an extra billion going to do to Steve Ballmer life? Nothing. Money after a while loses value, living is another matter.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  Douglas Rushkoff had a podcast where he talked about being paid by these guys to come up with ways to keep their armed guards from turning on them. The billionaires suggested shocker collars (maybe even with explosives) and controlling the food supply by a combination lock. https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1 https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef...
  - onetimemanytime 8y ago
    >>and controlling the food supply by a combination lock. And who will have the keys? Probably better dying once than dying every day for a year or two :). These "friends" will turn on each other and plot to exclude x today and then team with x to exclude z. Back millions of years ago! All layers of civilization stripped away, killing your ex-co founder so food lasts a little longer. You're better off, IMO, buying land somewhere far, far away in USA, and stock it with weapons and food. Weapons might be an issue (state laws) but with pocket change they can buy freeze dried food for 30 years. You have plenty of land and why not stock it with some seeds. Don't tell anyone, have plans to go there with no one but family. Stay low for a while, then peek out little by little. Gold, silver, food, weapons, water supplies /plans and live under the radar. No sign of life.
    - jonathankoren 8y ago
      Gold and silver are just shiny metals. Guns for hunting are fine. Guns for protection from people are not nearly as useful as gun sellers say. In a crisis, people don’t turn into ravenous hordes, instead they ban together and help each other. Again, and again this shows up across times and cultures.
gnat 8y ago
This article is from 2017.
pndd90 8y ago
It is amazing and amusing to observe how money trampoline one's feeling of self importance to unimaginable heights.
ziont 8y ago
I find it laughable that the rich think they can hide away forever in some bunker. If they are in that position it means the rule of law has eroded and anarchy is in place. The first thing pissed off people do is hang their leaders and the children of the rich. Rightfully so, nothing more than parasites on our human race, take their wealth and redistribute it to those in need.
- Johnny555 8y ago
  If society really does collapse, if they can survive for the first 6 months, there will be a lot fewer people to deal with, and they may be able to gain some power through trade, assuming they have enough manpower to protect their supplies. It wouldn't be hard for a wealthy person to stockpile years worth of food so as long as they can stay out of site, they could stay holed up for years until the big die-off is over and some semblance of order is restored. Of course, finding a place in the new order is not guaranteed.
viburnum 8y ago
Only socialism can save the rich from themselves.
deleted 8y ago
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deleted 8y ago
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jonathankoren 8y ago
Perhaps YC’s Sam can chime in with his reasoning of prepping a loaded gun, and private jet to New Zealand.[0] Also, if he could chime in with any advice he has to make sure that the hired armed guards don’t turn on him. Perhaps disciplinary collars or controlling the food supply?[1] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-val... [1] https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1 https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef...
DoreenMichele 8y ago
I cannot fathom the logic here. Movers and shakers who shape the world pissing away resources on some kind of personal "insurance" if everything goes to hell instead of investing in making sure things don't go to hell. If they put half as much time, money, thought and effort into fixing some of the glaring boils on the butt of the world, they could stop metaphorically sucking their billion dollar thumbs this way. There is plenty of evidence that a lot of the financial distress in the US of the masses is rooted in a lack of genuinely affordable housing -- and, no, I don't mean poverty housing. In 2010, an architect coined the term "missing middle housing" to describe middle class housing historically widely available in walkable urban neighborhoods that we have largely zoned out of existence. In the last roughly fifty years, we've torn down a million SRO's in this country. Health care. We need a single payer system. The ACA is not a great solution. It was just the most politically viable. Frankly, that sucks. This country already has a system where you flash an ID and get care and there is minimal paperwork and almost no billing. It's well-established and well-developed, but it only serves military members, retirees and their dependents. We don't need to look to other countries and wonder how they do "free" medical care. We have a system on US soil doing that. Research shows that proper medical coverage helps reduce homelessness. If you provide proper medical coverage and make appropriate housing available to the masses at a reasonable cost, then we can stop living in dread of the collapse of civilization. I blog, but I have no audience and can get no traction. If rich guys in SV propose ridiculous solutions, like UBI, they get interviews and yadda and everyone takes it seriously, though they aren't actually particularly qualified to propose some solution and it looks to me like BS preening. I feel like if I say too much on such subjects, I risk being banned from HN because I'm just a woman, I'm quite poor and I was homeless for years and yadda. If rich people who haven't actually studied it say something, it's charity or kindness of some nonsense like that. I've actually studied this stuff, but if I say something, it's "political" because I'm not the right kind of people and Hacker News eschews politics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-missing-middle.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-missing... I've redacted multiple paragraphs of "Doreen is finally snapping after 9.5 years of being essentially shunned and yadda." Could someone kindly tell me where and how I can successfully get an audience and some kind of engagement, in spite of being the wrong gender and the wrong socioeconomic class? I would be happy to just go the fuck away and leave you folks alone who clearly want nothing to do with me if I could find some means to get engagement elsewhere. Thanks.
Johnny555 8y ago
Why would a wealthy person trust something like the Survival Condo Project? Once SHTF and society collapses and rule of law goes away, what's to keep the armed guards from taking over and eliminating their formerly wealthy clients (or just locking the place down and refusing to let anyone in)? Why bother keeping a bunch of old (formerly) rich men around when the guards can just get rid of them and take their share of the supplies to help ensure the survival of their own families and friends?
- paganel 8y ago
  > Why bother keeping a bunch of old (formerly) rich men around when the guards can just get rid of them and take their share of the supplies to help ensure the survival of their own families and friends? Nothing, really. Back when Western society was in a state of feudal anarchy (mostly after the dissolution of the Carolingian empire and up to the late 1100s) the monied people (which meant mostly the traders) had no power at all, in the words of Adalberon, bishop of Laon [1], "the whole edifice of mankind" was supported by "oratores, bellatores, laboratores", that is by the clergy ("oratores"), by the "warriors", i.e. nobles who could go to war at any one moment, and by the common people, the peasants, the people doing the actual work. The monied people were nowhere to be seen and treated quote contemptuously by the "oratores" and the "bellatores". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalberon_(bishop_of_Laon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalberon_(bishop_of_Laon)
fipple 8y ago
When society falls apart the rich won’t have anything that the poor won’t. The people who built these bunkers for the super rich are going to put a 9mm in the back of their head and invite their brother Steve to take the owners spot. “Combination locks on the food supply?” Waterboard the guy till he gives us the combo, then kill him.
- tudorconstantin 8y ago
  This could be solved with resource access requiring multiparty agreement, like the Bitcoin multisignature wallets: the location that contains the food and water for a week requires permission from 2 parties that are located in 2 separate geographical locations
  - kosmos1337 8y ago
    Apologies for the snark, but only on HN would anyone seriously suggest blockchain as a solution to having a gun pointed at your head.
    - tudorconstantin 8y ago
      Why would anyone assume the risk to put a gun to your head when they know you can't give them what they want just by yourself? With blockchain you can prove them that's the case. They would have to also put a gun to the head of the cosigner(s) in order to get it. I am not aware of any other mechanism similar to BTCs multisig that doesn't require a trusted third party.
jcoffland 8y ago
> But in recent years survivalism has expanded to more affluent quarters, taking root in Silicon Valley and New York City, among technology executives, hedge-fund managers, and others in their economic cohort. Rich people being paranoid and preparing for disasters is not exactly a new thing. I guess we are supposed to believe that the affluent are somehow more sane than the rest of us.
camillomiller 8y ago
For the non U.S. readers: worry not, my friends. Doomsday apparently only means “heavy social unrest or natural disaster in the coastal United States of America”.
steviecleveland 8y ago
January 2017 article. That said, Ted Nugent called and he still wants his shirt back.
NotANaN 8y ago
You can't prepare for the complete collapse of civilization. Even the Survivalists who go out with "nothing" and build their shelters, start their own fires, hunt their food, they still need backpacks to carry their gear. They still need gear to carry, like saws, axes, fishing poles, knives. They still need clothes to wear. They still depend on the infrastructure of society in myriad ways.
kderbe 8y ago
And then there's "doomsday prepping for less crazy folk": http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/prep/ http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/prep/ It's a guide written by the author of american fuzzy lop (afl), and while it touches on end-of-civilization, guns-n-ammo prep, much of it is about practical preparedness for more likely disasters, such as a prolonged and widespread power outage; and how to reduce the risk of financial ruin or serious injury.
dang 8y ago
Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13482107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13482107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13462865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13462865
malandrew 8y ago
Related: The Surprisingly Solid Mathematical Case of the Tin Foil Hat Gun Prepper https://medium.com/s/story/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematical-case-of-the-tin-foil-hat-gun-prepper-15fce7d10437 https://medium.com/s/story/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematic...
jondubois 8y ago
It tells you about how super rich people think. The fact that they share these doomsday beliefs implies that they understand that something is wrong with the system and maybe that they are responsible for it to begin with. I don't understand the motivation for them to leak these stories to the news though. Do they expect regular people to feel sorry for them and that this will prevent or delay the doomsday?

61 points by Ibethewalrus 8y ago

Huffman, who lives in San Francisco I have a bunch of guns and ammo Rules for thee, not for me.

I wish more people understood Doomsday prepping is really more of a hobby than an actual concern over the total collapse of all civilization. It’s fun to prepare, and to think of every scenario no matter how outlandish, and it’s fun to make people think you are super serious about something that seems ridiculous to them. It is like a game where you collect as many resources and skills to increase your survival score as much as possible.

deleted 8y ago
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makz 8y ago
That’s informative.
village-idiot 8y ago
Plus, actually trying out outdoors skills can be fun.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
I'm literally a national champion at a ridiculous hobby, so I feel pretty confident that many of these people are actually super serious. People get way invested in stupid shit all the time.
- duncanawoods 8y ago
  Please share the ridiculous hobby!

rfw 8y ago

If you can spend enough money to say "well, that's not my problem", then you yourself are the problem.

ronilan 8y ago

A couple of years ago I applied for a job at Hipmunk and ended interviewing with Steve, then the CTO. I don’t remember everything but at some point he did ask me to write a program that prints out a spiral. Reading this article, and remembering that interview, made me realize that no one can really know what the collapse of civilization will look like, but it is always good to be prepared with a two dimensional array or a good GUI library.

sgustard 8y ago
Clearly the spiral algorithm is useful when you forgot where you buried your survival cache.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

gefh 8y ago

People love to think that they're independent from the huge society they float on top of, but at the top of the pyramid there's just further to fall. Mixing metaphors has never been my strong suit though...

nannotequalnan 8y ago

anecdotally, it feels like the tech elite are trying to outsmart the system (such as prepping for doomsday scenarios), rather than trying to improve the system to prevent, or lower the probability of the doomsday scenario in the first place

asien 8y ago
> rather than trying to improve the system to prevent, or lower the probability of the doomsday scenario in the first place I’m not sure Sillicon Valley billionaire can do much too save the earth from collapsing. It’s not about rich changing the world to save it, it’s about the world monetary system , capitalism and thermo-industrial economy that has climax and is now going to end. Hence , every society has cycles. Roman era disappeared, Vikings disappeared etc... this society will disappear as well and let something new come.
- BurningFrog 8y ago
  Neither Romans or Vikings disappeared. Their societies were just called something else a few centuries later. Kings die every decade or two. States expand and shrink and occasionally disappear. But civilizations and societies mostly stay and develop.
- nannotequalnan 8y ago
  completely disagree. SV billionaires wield enormous power and influence, through their wealth, positions of power, influential personas, companies etc. there is a very good argument to be made that elon musk pushed the EV industry forward. similarly, i think tech elite can shape society. another example: look at the enormous influence warren buffett has had on the asset management industry. i think SV billionaires could definitely make a dent in things like income inequality, if they focused on it
chillacy 8y ago
You definitely get more bang for your buck spending on yourself vs trying to change society.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago

Their cover photo is a joke if you have even the slightest idea of what you’re looking at. Double stacked D&H mags with no pulls, an Anderson “poverty pony” AR, BUIS behind a 1.5x ACOG on an 18” with a cheap non-QD Mount (iron sights with a magnified optic in between doesn’t work)... I’m sure there is more. But... for the Steve Huffman and similar types, they’ll just see what they want. The real joke would be Randy and his $999 AR (with optic) will just rob Steve-types blind the second there is a without rule of law scenario.

walrus01 8y ago
Former combat zone contractor here: I would bet $20 that tacticool guy in the photo wishes so hard he had actually been hired as PSD by blackwater or triple canopy in 2005. Instead he probably ended up running logistics for the dfac at KAF.
- zhoujianfu 8y ago
  I can’t imagine dfac at KAF is that much worse than running RTQ for the GIAs back down in lkp.
rdtsc 8y ago
> The real joke would be Randy and his $999 AR (with optic) will just rob Steve-types blind the second there is a without rule of law scenario. I've always wondered how they'd prevent that. How does Randy not shoot Steve or take him hostage and then bring his own family into the compound. I am sure there are a few schemes, ranging from benign like promise a huge payday at the end, lots of land, resources, power whatever to more sinister ones, like hire another Randy (possible a lot more than one) to watch the first one if he (she) tries to do something.
- jsnell 8y ago
  Apparently these billionaires are wondering about exactly the same thing: https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1 https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef...

mgamache 8y ago

These guys (and Women?) are at the extreme end of the economic and social hierarchy. The only thing that might endanger their position is if society collapses. Prepping is sort of an insurance policy against the long odds of society collapsing. All societies have collapsed and once the process starts it can happen quickly. They can devote the resources to guard against rare events, because they are already protected against other concerns (they mostly have plenty of money). IMO, this type of behavior is the same as the bio-hacking crowd trying to beat aging / maximize health. They have everything else covered, so they move out further-and-further on the tail of their perceived threat.

roywiggins 8y ago
It's convenient when they advertise this in the media, for the roving bands to target them and their stuff.
- solotronics 8y ago
  what if they are advertising as a decoy? "Of course I will be in a bunker community in Omaha" when actually they are in the middle of the Pacific on an island owned by a series of shell companies..
- mgamache 8y ago
  They already anticipate maximum violence and chaos, I don't think they fear non-prepped mobs hunting them based on an old news article from the non-existent internet. I am not a prepper, but I get the allure. I just need the money :)
  - roywiggins 8y ago
    I'm thinking more that doomsday preppers who are not vastly wealthy might keep an eye on which wealthy preppers might have well-stocked bunkers to raid in the event.
KozmoNau7 8y ago
Maybe they should spend more effort on preventing societal collapse, rather than making haphazard plans for what to do when it happens.

AndrewKemendo 8y ago

Back in 2016 I followed Justin Kan on Snapchat and he used to hang out with Steve Huffman on his stories. I recall a few particular snap stories where they went out to Justin's new house and were shooting guns, throwing axes and generally doing fun outdoor stuff. I do seem to recall at some point there was talk about survivalist stuff in those snaps. I've done quite a lot of survival training with the US Government and have been in places where people lived by those skills daily. I have to say that the majority of what these guys are doing, and what most "rich guy" survivalists do, as indicated by this story, is mostly worthless. Especially long term. There's a hat tip to the most important part, forming groups and all the rest of the community building work, which is not inappropriate, but it's missing the point where you basically do that now with a diverse set of people - not just your rich friends - which is actually a sustainable strategy. There's a lot to nitpick here but I guess the most interesting thing to me is that, for all their wealth, access and smarts, none of these people seem to actually be trying to solve the systematic and endemic problems which would soften the blow of a major existential risk. In that sense Levchin and Johnson are 100% on the money here with investing in structural improvement, not some temporary escape plan that doesn't survive first contact with a handful of real actual killers.

baxtr 8y ago
I agree and it makes me sad. I always say: imagine all these smart people currently working on “stupid” business problems would start solving the real issues we have. In my view we’re investing too little brain power into these. And even though Musk is a bit of a weird fellow I think he’s doing that: using his connections to gather huge sums to solve some existential problems. BTW: I watched those snapchat stories too. Mark Suster had good ones as well
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> for all their wealth, access and smarts, none of these people seem to actually be trying to solve the systematic and endemic problems which would soften the blow of a major existential risk They may be. This is just a silly hobby to bond over. Sort of like zombie apocalypse preppers. The few that are serious aren’t doing press interviews.
8y ago

onetimemanytime 8y ago

First thing I notice in the article...(prob) an ex-military man with automatic weapons serving as a guard. In a doomsday scenario he will, eventually, kill or enslave all those nerdy guys that paid a fortune to seeking shelter there. But then you have everything else and buying these things are a drop in the bucket. Makes sense even if it has a very small chance of happening. What's an extra billion going to do to Steve Ballmer life? Nothing. Money after a while loses value, living is another matter.

jonathankoren 8y ago
Douglas Rushkoff had a podcast where he talked about being paid by these guys to come up with ways to keep their armed guards from turning on them. The billionaires suggested shocker collars (maybe even with explosives) and controlling the food supply by a combination lock. https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1 https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef...
- onetimemanytime 8y ago
  >>and controlling the food supply by a combination lock. And who will have the keys? Probably better dying once than dying every day for a year or two :). These "friends" will turn on each other and plot to exclude x today and then team with x to exclude z. Back millions of years ago! All layers of civilization stripped away, killing your ex-co founder so food lasts a little longer. You're better off, IMO, buying land somewhere far, far away in USA, and stock it with weapons and food. Weapons might be an issue (state laws) but with pocket change they can buy freeze dried food for 30 years. You have plenty of land and why not stock it with some seeds. Don't tell anyone, have plans to go there with no one but family. Stay low for a while, then peek out little by little. Gold, silver, food, weapons, water supplies /plans and live under the radar. No sign of life.
  - jonathankoren 8y ago
    Gold and silver are just shiny metals. Guns for hunting are fine. Guns for protection from people are not nearly as useful as gun sellers say. In a crisis, people don’t turn into ravenous hordes, instead they ban together and help each other. Again, and again this shows up across times and cultures.

gnat 8y ago

This article is from 2017.

pndd90 8y ago

It is amazing and amusing to observe how money trampoline one's feeling of self importance to unimaginable heights.

ziont 8y ago

I find it laughable that the rich think they can hide away forever in some bunker. If they are in that position it means the rule of law has eroded and anarchy is in place. The first thing pissed off people do is hang their leaders and the children of the rich. Rightfully so, nothing more than parasites on our human race, take their wealth and redistribute it to those in need.

Johnny555 8y ago
If society really does collapse, if they can survive for the first 6 months, there will be a lot fewer people to deal with, and they may be able to gain some power through trade, assuming they have enough manpower to protect their supplies. It wouldn't be hard for a wealthy person to stockpile years worth of food so as long as they can stay out of site, they could stay holed up for years until the big die-off is over and some semblance of order is restored. Of course, finding a place in the new order is not guaranteed.

viburnum 8y ago

Only socialism can save the rich from themselves.

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jonathankoren 8y ago

Perhaps YC’s Sam can chime in with his reasoning of prepping a loaded gun, and private jet to New Zealand.[0] Also, if he could chime in with any advice he has to make sure that the hired armed guards don’t turn on him. Perhaps disciplinary collars or controlling the food supply?[1] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-val... [1] https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1 https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef...

DoreenMichele 8y ago

I cannot fathom the logic here. Movers and shakers who shape the world pissing away resources on some kind of personal "insurance" if everything goes to hell instead of investing in making sure things don't go to hell. If they put half as much time, money, thought and effort into fixing some of the glaring boils on the butt of the world, they could stop metaphorically sucking their billion dollar thumbs this way. There is plenty of evidence that a lot of the financial distress in the US of the masses is rooted in a lack of genuinely affordable housing -- and, no, I don't mean poverty housing. In 2010, an architect coined the term "missing middle housing" to describe middle class housing historically widely available in walkable urban neighborhoods that we have largely zoned out of existence. In the last roughly fifty years, we've torn down a million SRO's in this country. Health care. We need a single payer system. The ACA is not a great solution. It was just the most politically viable. Frankly, that sucks. This country already has a system where you flash an ID and get care and there is minimal paperwork and almost no billing. It's well-established and well-developed, but it only serves military members, retirees and their dependents. We don't need to look to other countries and wonder how they do "free" medical care. We have a system on US soil doing that. Research shows that proper medical coverage helps reduce homelessness. If you provide proper medical coverage and make appropriate housing available to the masses at a reasonable cost, then we can stop living in dread of the collapse of civilization. I blog, but I have no audience and can get no traction. If rich guys in SV propose ridiculous solutions, like UBI, they get interviews and yadda and everyone takes it seriously, though they aren't actually particularly qualified to propose some solution and it looks to me like BS preening. I feel like if I say too much on such subjects, I risk being banned from HN because I'm just a woman, I'm quite poor and I was homeless for years and yadda. If rich people who haven't actually studied it say something, it's charity or kindness of some nonsense like that. I've actually studied this stuff, but if I say something, it's "political" because I'm not the right kind of people and Hacker News eschews politics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-missing-middle.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-missing... I've redacted multiple paragraphs of "Doreen is finally snapping after 9.5 years of being essentially shunned and yadda." Could someone kindly tell me where and how I can successfully get an audience and some kind of engagement, in spite of being the wrong gender and the wrong socioeconomic class? I would be happy to just go the fuck away and leave you folks alone who clearly want nothing to do with me if I could find some means to get engagement elsewhere. Thanks.

Johnny555 8y ago

Why would a wealthy person trust something like the Survival Condo Project? Once SHTF and society collapses and rule of law goes away, what's to keep the armed guards from taking over and eliminating their formerly wealthy clients (or just locking the place down and refusing to let anyone in)? Why bother keeping a bunch of old (formerly) rich men around when the guards can just get rid of them and take their share of the supplies to help ensure the survival of their own families and friends?

paganel 8y ago
> Why bother keeping a bunch of old (formerly) rich men around when the guards can just get rid of them and take their share of the supplies to help ensure the survival of their own families and friends? Nothing, really. Back when Western society was in a state of feudal anarchy (mostly after the dissolution of the Carolingian empire and up to the late 1100s) the monied people (which meant mostly the traders) had no power at all, in the words of Adalberon, bishop of Laon [1], "the whole edifice of mankind" was supported by "oratores, bellatores, laboratores", that is by the clergy ("oratores"), by the "warriors", i.e. nobles who could go to war at any one moment, and by the common people, the peasants, the people doing the actual work. The monied people were nowhere to be seen and treated quote contemptuously by the "oratores" and the "bellatores". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalberon_(bishop_of_Laon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalberon_(bishop_of_Laon)

fipple 8y ago

When society falls apart the rich won’t have anything that the poor won’t. The people who built these bunkers for the super rich are going to put a 9mm in the back of their head and invite their brother Steve to take the owners spot. “Combination locks on the food supply?” Waterboard the guy till he gives us the combo, then kill him.

tudorconstantin 8y ago
This could be solved with resource access requiring multiparty agreement, like the Bitcoin multisignature wallets: the location that contains the food and water for a week requires permission from 2 parties that are located in 2 separate geographical locations
- kosmos1337 8y ago
  Apologies for the snark, but only on HN would anyone seriously suggest blockchain as a solution to having a gun pointed at your head.
  - tudorconstantin 8y ago
    Why would anyone assume the risk to put a gun to your head when they know you can't give them what they want just by yourself? With blockchain you can prove them that's the case. They would have to also put a gun to the head of the cosigner(s) in order to get it. I am not aware of any other mechanism similar to BTCs multisig that doesn't require a trusted third party.

jcoffland 8y ago

> But in recent years survivalism has expanded to more affluent quarters, taking root in Silicon Valley and New York City, among technology executives, hedge-fund managers, and others in their economic cohort. Rich people being paranoid and preparing for disasters is not exactly a new thing. I guess we are supposed to believe that the affluent are somehow more sane than the rest of us.

camillomiller 8y ago

For the non U.S. readers: worry not, my friends. Doomsday apparently only means “heavy social unrest or natural disaster in the coastal United States of America”.

steviecleveland 8y ago

January 2017 article. That said, Ted Nugent called and he still wants his shirt back.

NotANaN 8y ago

You can't prepare for the complete collapse of civilization. Even the Survivalists who go out with "nothing" and build their shelters, start their own fires, hunt their food, they still need backpacks to carry their gear. They still need gear to carry, like saws, axes, fishing poles, knives. They still need clothes to wear. They still depend on the infrastructure of society in myriad ways.

kderbe 8y ago

And then there's "doomsday prepping for less crazy folk": http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/prep/ http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/prep/ It's a guide written by the author of american fuzzy lop (afl), and while it touches on end-of-civilization, guns-n-ammo prep, much of it is about practical preparedness for more likely disasters, such as a prolonged and widespread power outage; and how to reduce the risk of financial ruin or serious injury.

dang 8y ago

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13482107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13482107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13462865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13462865

malandrew 8y ago

Related: The Surprisingly Solid Mathematical Case of the Tin Foil Hat Gun Prepper https://medium.com/s/story/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematical-case-of-the-tin-foil-hat-gun-prepper-15fce7d10437 https://medium.com/s/story/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematic...

jondubois 8y ago

It tells you about how super rich people think. The fact that they share these doomsday beliefs implies that they understand that something is wrong with the system and maybe that they are responsible for it to begin with. I don't understand the motivation for them to leak these stories to the news though. Do they expect regular people to feel sorry for them and that this will prevent or delay the doomsday?