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If you're wealthy and civilisation collapses then nothing is preventing you from emerging as a monarch if you wish. Assuming you have enough guns, food and pers

by kypro 3y ago

If you're wealthy and civilisation collapses then nothing is preventing you from emerging as a monarch if you wish. Assuming you have enough guns, food and personal you'll basically be able to do whatever the hell you want in a lawless society.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
But you need people to use those guns. And those people need to stay loyal. Sure, you have stuff, but how do you keep your stuff safe from others who are bettered skilled at taking your stuff?
- gruez 3y ago
  How did the monarchs of europe stay in power?
  - rwmj 3y ago
    They appealed to "god says I'm the monarch", plus personal charisma, plus playing off one group against another group. There also existed a state and laws, even if primitive compared to what we have today. Even so I doubt it was an easy thing being a European monarch.
    - RetroTechie 3y ago
      Besides: no doubt being in a ruler's private army had its perks. A stable job, status, coins etc. Iirc not rarely a ruler met its demise after failing to pay their mercenaries.
  - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
    A whole social structure was built up and around them. When they took power the board was largely already set. When societal unrest hit the people who were at the top tended to change. I don't think the uber powerful building bunkers will be able to change that.
  - KineticLensman 3y ago
    > How did the monarchs of europe stay in power? By being the centre of a network of long-term two-way relationships with 'nobles' who had delegated authority to control the wider population (and who in turn delegated power downwards). Ultimately the base provided food and other essentials, and in turn the monarch maintained / enforced the necessary social constructs, by violence if necessary. If the monarchs lost the support of their immediate subordinates, they were toast. The wider population had very little power at an individual level, and lacked the means to sustain widespread uprisings. None of these monarchs were oligarchs in a bunker. [Edit]. Control of vast tracts of land was essential: your ability to maintain a powerbase depended a lot on how well you could marshal the necessary natural resources (primarily food). It was common for the nobles to be rewarded with large tracts of land from which luxuries could be skimmed off, and armies raised if necessary. Again, this is nothing like a bunker. The rulers (and their subordinates) had to maintain a continuous strong presence across their land to ensure the continual flow of raw material and manpower, which they couldn't do while hiding.
  - benterix 3y ago
    > How did the monarchs of europe stay in power? The past tense in your sentence is telling. Basically when people realized the reasons for absolute monarchy are all invented, they did away with it, often decapitating the rulers or sometimes delegating them to a representative position.
krapp 3y ago
No, that's comic book logic. You no longer have any money, because that collapsed with civilization. Maybe you have assets in crypto, but that isn't going to do you much good once the internet and global communications go down. You don't have enough guns, because no matter how many you have, the rest of the world has more. Your personnel (who likely have the majority of your guns,) who are no longer being paid and are now in just as desperate a mode of survival as you are, would be foolish to take orders from you. You take orders from them now. You're just a soft, privileged, formerly rich asshole in a desperate world full of actual cartels, gangsters, mafias and rogue armies sitting on a pile of dollars that are only fit to burn for warmth. Or would be, if you could find a bank to cash you out. All of the power you had depended on the existence of a state, its laws, its currency and culture, all of which are gone. You aren't taking over anything. In the real world you either get traded as a hostage or shot in the back within a week.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  The bunker itself, the focus of tfa, is an example of a "hard asset" which is not only still an asset when dollars no longer are, it's actually a liability until then. You don't really get to accuse anyone else of comic book logic while missing basics like that. Their whole point with the bunkers and stockpiles is that those assets don't need the state to be valuable and confer power and security. The asset itself provides the power and security that the state no longer does. And they don't need the state to define and assert who is the owner and protect the asset. They use one asset to protect another asset. They get other people to work for them the same way people have always done. Or it's better exposed by phrasing from the other direction: People participate in organizations for the same reason they always have. They get something they want from it. At the top and at the bottom it's both just variations of the same thing which is the structure gives them safety that they can't get on their own. And they overwhelmingly value that more than freedom. At the top they defend the leader because the leader is what grants the legitimacy of their own high position within the organization. I don't mean that they think the leader comes from god and actually has some higher authority and right to grant other authority, I mean as a #3 or #12 etc, you have a much easier time justifying your own position and authority and privilege when it came from some larger structure. It removes the focus and blame from yourself. So you love the structure and you defend it and enforce for it and rat out any subversive talk you overhear about it etc. At the lower end, a lot of people, maybe even most people, value the safety of being within any structure way more than the freedom of being outside it. They don't have to like the guy at the top at all. Why do you abide by civilized norms right now? Everyone in an apartment building could totally overpower the landlord at any time. 50 to 1 no contest. The biggest problem really is just getting the others to go along, but let's say the landlord is such a dick that you manage it. So the next problem is what, the police will come and you'll all go to jail? But what makes the police do that? Why do they agree to follow orders from just one pudgy little chief? It's no different "after the fall" just at a smaller scale. The big structure broke down, but most people still want what it provided and will latch on to whatever smaller structure is available to replace it, and it's all the same interlocking dynamics of everyone holding each other in place, not any one magic person holding everyone else in place by mind force or something. Even if the actual guy at the top is detestable, they will be surrounded by people who benefit from having that guy at the top. Do you really think all the politicians who supported Trump actually considered him superior to themselves? They universally think they themselves are superior to everyone else. Yet there they all were defending him like crazy, for years.

by kypro 3y ago

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago

But you need people to use those guns. And those people need to stay loyal. Sure, you have stuff, but how do you keep your stuff safe from others who are bettered skilled at taking your stuff?

gruez 3y ago
How did the monarchs of europe stay in power?
- rwmj 3y ago
  They appealed to "god says I'm the monarch", plus personal charisma, plus playing off one group against another group. There also existed a state and laws, even if primitive compared to what we have today. Even so I doubt it was an easy thing being a European monarch.
  - RetroTechie 3y ago
    Besides: no doubt being in a ruler's private army had its perks. A stable job, status, coins etc. Iirc not rarely a ruler met its demise after failing to pay their mercenaries.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  A whole social structure was built up and around them. When they took power the board was largely already set. When societal unrest hit the people who were at the top tended to change. I don't think the uber powerful building bunkers will be able to change that.
- KineticLensman 3y ago
  > How did the monarchs of europe stay in power? By being the centre of a network of long-term two-way relationships with 'nobles' who had delegated authority to control the wider population (and who in turn delegated power downwards). Ultimately the base provided food and other essentials, and in turn the monarch maintained / enforced the necessary social constructs, by violence if necessary. If the monarchs lost the support of their immediate subordinates, they were toast. The wider population had very little power at an individual level, and lacked the means to sustain widespread uprisings. None of these monarchs were oligarchs in a bunker. [Edit]. Control of vast tracts of land was essential: your ability to maintain a powerbase depended a lot on how well you could marshal the necessary natural resources (primarily food). It was common for the nobles to be rewarded with large tracts of land from which luxuries could be skimmed off, and armies raised if necessary. Again, this is nothing like a bunker. The rulers (and their subordinates) had to maintain a continuous strong presence across their land to ensure the continual flow of raw material and manpower, which they couldn't do while hiding.
- benterix 3y ago
  > How did the monarchs of europe stay in power? The past tense in your sentence is telling. Basically when people realized the reasons for absolute monarchy are all invented, they did away with it, often decapitating the rulers or sometimes delegating them to a representative position.

krapp 3y ago

No, that's comic book logic. You no longer have any money, because that collapsed with civilization. Maybe you have assets in crypto, but that isn't going to do you much good once the internet and global communications go down. You don't have enough guns, because no matter how many you have, the rest of the world has more. Your personnel (who likely have the majority of your guns,) who are no longer being paid and are now in just as desperate a mode of survival as you are, would be foolish to take orders from you. You take orders from them now. You're just a soft, privileged, formerly rich asshole in a desperate world full of actual cartels, gangsters, mafias and rogue armies sitting on a pile of dollars that are only fit to burn for warmth. Or would be, if you could find a bank to cash you out. All of the power you had depended on the existence of a state, its laws, its currency and culture, all of which are gone. You aren't taking over anything. In the real world you either get traded as a hostage or shot in the back within a week.

Brian_K_White 3y ago
The bunker itself, the focus of tfa, is an example of a "hard asset" which is not only still an asset when dollars no longer are, it's actually a liability until then. You don't really get to accuse anyone else of comic book logic while missing basics like that. Their whole point with the bunkers and stockpiles is that those assets don't need the state to be valuable and confer power and security. The asset itself provides the power and security that the state no longer does. And they don't need the state to define and assert who is the owner and protect the asset. They use one asset to protect another asset. They get other people to work for them the same way people have always done. Or it's better exposed by phrasing from the other direction: People participate in organizations for the same reason they always have. They get something they want from it. At the top and at the bottom it's both just variations of the same thing which is the structure gives them safety that they can't get on their own. And they overwhelmingly value that more than freedom. At the top they defend the leader because the leader is what grants the legitimacy of their own high position within the organization. I don't mean that they think the leader comes from god and actually has some higher authority and right to grant other authority, I mean as a #3 or #12 etc, you have a much easier time justifying your own position and authority and privilege when it came from some larger structure. It removes the focus and blame from yourself. So you love the structure and you defend it and enforce for it and rat out any subversive talk you overhear about it etc. At the lower end, a lot of people, maybe even most people, value the safety of being within any structure way more than the freedom of being outside it. They don't have to like the guy at the top at all. Why do you abide by civilized norms right now? Everyone in an apartment building could totally overpower the landlord at any time. 50 to 1 no contest. The biggest problem really is just getting the others to go along, but let's say the landlord is such a dick that you manage it. So the next problem is what, the police will come and you'll all go to jail? But what makes the police do that? Why do they agree to follow orders from just one pudgy little chief? It's no different "after the fall" just at a smaller scale. The big structure broke down, but most people still want what it provided and will latch on to whatever smaller structure is available to replace it, and it's all the same interlocking dynamics of everyone holding each other in place, not any one magic person holding everyone else in place by mind force or something. Even if the actual guy at the top is detestable, they will be surrounded by people who benefit from having that guy at the top. Do you really think all the politicians who supported Trump actually considered him superior to themselves? They universally think they themselves are superior to everyone else. Yet there they all were defending him like crazy, for years.