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Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich (2017)
- collectordrx 5y agoPart of me wonders if the “Super-Rich” have some sort of insider knowledge that is leading them to prep for the end of civilization. In reality, i imagine it is more than likely an excuse to spend money to feed their own neurosis.
- lostcolony 5y agoI think most people feel a lot of anxiety over the future. Any members of the super rich who are donating a lot of their money to social causes, A. Don't remain super rich, B. Are probably less likely to have ever have been super rich, and C. Aren't reported on in these kinds of articles. What you're left with are the people focused on "me and mine" over "them and theirs", and couple that with the vague unease most of us have over the future...you get this. For perspective, I've known working class preppers too. Lots of survival skill practice, storage dedicated to large amounts of shelf stable foods and water, etc. They're just not as 'interesting' to warrant as much reporting, as even though they're spending the same percentage of their income on it as the super rich, it's not as extravagant.
- api 5y agoThe super rich are also subject to the same cynicism as you and me. Some don't donate to social issues or try to fix things because they feel like sure they could throw money at the problem but nothing would change because the problems are just intractable. The super rich are just people with a lot of money. You'd find that some traits are distributed differently from the general population, but they are not cognitively superhuman or exempt from anything humans normally think. The super rich also get conned, join cults, jump on cultural or ideological bandwagons that eventually look embarrassing, have mental illness, get addicted to substances or behaviors, etc.
- Zababa 5y agoIt's about how much money they have. If I estimate it to a 1% risk, I can't invest all of my income, and even if I did, I could maybe own a rural home, but that's it. For them, by investing the same proportion, they get way more.
- refurb 5y agoMy theory: - humans need things to do - rich CEOs doubly so, their drive got them to where they are; BBQs and baseball games with their kids won’t scratch that itch - the problem that occupy the minds of the 99%, most of which revolve around money, don’t concern them - hence they move to the next “problem” and put 100% of their effort into that. Some other rich CEO asks what they’ll do if the world collapses and suddenly that voice in their head says “find a solution” It’s nothing more than the ultra high level of Maslow’s hierarchy. Shit us common folks don’t have time to think about.
- EdwardDiego 5y agoDear super rich US CEO type people, Aotearoa New Zealand isn't your lifeboat. And you have a unique way of irritating the locals. Perhaps use your resources to stop your own country sinking. Cheers.
- zz865 5y agoYeah I dont know why super rich would ever want to live in NZ. It has a very egalitarian outlook. No one will talk to you and all the locals will just want to burn down your house.
- refurb 5y agoBut I’m building a bunker. It literally made so you can’t burn it down.
- throwdecro 5y agoPatton: Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man. If mountain ranges and oceans can be overcome, then anything built by man can be overcome.
- gabenz 5y ago> Aotearoa New Zealand isn't your lifeboat. If the government allows rich people to purchase citizenship then yea it is
- bryanrasmussen 5y agoso while things are going good they give us a bunch of their money, and then when things go bad they come here and we can kill and eat them!
- dukeofdoom 5y agoSecond home in the caribbean is nicer
- JKCalhoun 5y agoOr New Zealand. With your own landing strip. And jet.
- tekstar 5y agoCory Doctorow writes a fictional version of this topic well in one of the short stories in the book Radicalized.
- netfl0 5y agoWhy is this nectar for HN? When I saw the headline I just knew it would rocket to the top. Serious question.
- rgrieselhuber 5y agoAlso, people who think in terms of systems, incentives, and externalities see a lot of risk around the corner.
- api 5y agoWatch HBO's Silicon Valley and then consider that they really had to tone it down to make it believable as fiction.
- netfl0 5y agoOne of my favs, hit too close to home in some cases... Side note, this article appears to be removed from the front page now... interesting.
- amelius 5y ago1. Part of HN thinks their next app will make them super-rich, so this affects them. 2. Another part of HN sees this as an opportunity. "In a gold-rush, sell shovels". 3. Yet another part of HN has been trying hard to get rich without results, and sees the super-rich as having had unfair advantage, and therefore now has an aversion against this group. This leads to upvoting to fuel discussions about survivor bias, wealth inequality, fairness of the economy etc.
- Zababa 5y ago4. Part of HN may be doing doomsday prep, and see this as a confirmation that they are doing the right thing 5. For myself, I always find doomsday prep stuff interesting
- LinuxBender 5y ago6. And some of us grew up with relatives that survived the great depression and WWII. We learned to preserve and stock up on foods, save up money, have enough supplies to last for rough times. We learned to not entirely trust and rely on institutions like banks or the governments that regulate them to save us.
- sailorganymede 5y agoA bunch of super creative successful people in one area trying of a way to prevent the worst thing that could possibly happen to them. What could possibly go wrong?
- harikb 5y agoIsn’t it a shallow article? One picture of a bunker in Kansas with an unrelated story of a CEO who fixed his eye - this could be any one of the “poor” 99%. I bet Reddit CEO was being sarcastic with that reply.
- quacked 5y agoI agree with what another commenter said; these are the elite, the powerful, the untouchable. Instead of leading us, they're fleeing with the fortunes they made off of the land and society that we have to live in. Compared to the elite statesmen of old, who are these pretenders?
- jvanderbot 5y agoI'm pretty sure "Castles" are exactly what these elite are looking for.
- swayvil 5y agoAnd a robot army. Because you just can't trust people. https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/14/22726111/robot-dogs-with-guns-sword-international-ghost-robotics https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/14/22726111/robot-dogs-with...
- crispyambulance 5y agoThe ones who build bunkers, castles, or remote homesteads believe that "the apocalypse" (or whatever they call what they're preparing for), will last a certain amount of time and then blow-over. They think they'll be able to go back to normal after some kind of social system-reset. The problem, for them, is that no one actually knows how "doomsday" will actually unfold. What kind of doomsday, exactly, are we talking about anyway? How many different scenarios can one actually prepare for? I think there's a lot of different ways doomsday can happen, a lot of different ways, in wildly different timescales: a global warming catastrophe occurring over a span of a century and lasting forever is very different from, say, an asteroid impact or global war or the second coming or the serfs revolting and coming after you with pitch-forks. There was a talking head on the internet about 10 years ago that spoke about social collapse and theorized upon it based on what he observed when the Soviet Union collapsed (Dimitri Orlov). A lot of what he said was just predicting a future collapse in terms of stages but that was mostly forgettable because predicting the future is, IMHO, a fool's errand at best. The thing that stuck with me, however, was Orlov's assertion that how well you fare during collapse is all about how adaptable you are to new situations and the resiliency of your social network (your physical social network). Ultimately the "bug-out bag" people are going to run out of bullets, beef-jerky and clean socks. They'll need to adapt themselves to a new social group or just die alone in the woods. The same goes for rich people in bunkers. The fresh water, freeze-dried peaches and toilet paper will only last so long.
- HenryKissinger 5y agoI remember reading this article when it came out. I thought the people interviewed in the piece were lunatics then, and I still believe they're lunatics now. > In private Facebook groups, wealthy survivalists swap tips on gas masks, bunkers, and locations safe from the effects of climate change. One member, the head of an investment firm, told me, “I keep a helicopter gassed up all the time, and I have an underground bunker with an air-filtration system.” Children play with toys and video games. Adults play with sports and cars. And ultra high net worth individuals play with luxury bunkers and doomsday prep. I don't make a distinction, really. Bored people with too much money can be creative, and doomsday prep is the latest trend, the latest cool 'game' to play. A global collapse of society is ... not a realistic scenario. If it were to happen, you'd have bigger problems than surviving a few months underground and air filtration systems. > To Levchin, prepping for survival is a moral miscalculation; he prefers to “shut down party conversations” on the topic. “I typically ask people, ‘So you’re worried about the pitchforks. How much money have you donated to your local homeless shelter?’ This connects the most, in my mind, to the realities of the income gap. All the other forms of fear that people bring up are artificial.” In his view, this is the time to invest in solutions, not escape. “At the moment, we’re actually at a relatively benign point of the economy. When the economy heads south, you will have a bunch of people that are in really bad shape. What do we expect then?” More of this please.
- h2odragon 5y agoPoor folks try to prepare for bad things too, but no one cares about their gardens and fish ponds. Possibly their landlords and HOA's. Most such seem to be: We'll look ahead and plan for the possibilities that don't scare us too much. Preparing for a time of hungry, angry, wandering people could scare the neighbors, too, of course; so some just don't talk about it.
- JasonFruit 5y agoA lot of us do care. Some of the most interesting and fulfilling conversations I have are among such people.