This is a great comment. Thank you for defending my comment better than I ever could. But yeah, the power comes from the bunker and other hard assets sheltered

This is a great comment. Thank you for defending my comment better than I ever could. But yeah, the power comes from the bunker and other hard assets sheltered in it. The apocalypse bunker would in effect become a modern castle on the hill. It's funny the commenter accused me of "comic book logic", but seemed to think that I thought the bunker owner would be paying their personal in dollars (or crypto) over the internet in a post-apocalyptic world... If civilisation collapsed and now everyone outside the bunker is starving and killing each other for food then your best bet is to pledge your loyalty to the dude with food, guns and a bunker. You're not going to try to kill him and take what he has because under his protection in the bunker you're safe and being fed. What the commenter is missing is that the arrangement is actually extremely good relative to the suffering outside of the bunker. I also don't buy the idea that it would be easy to revolt. In fact if the dude with the bunker is protecting you and feeding you you're more incentivised to report any potential revolts to prove your own loyalty rather than want to participate. It's the same reason people generally don't bad mouth their employers in public because even if you hate your job, having a job is generally better than the alternative. Moreover, if they're fed and safe I'm not sure how they'd even benefit from trying to steel – would they want more food or more safety or something? It seems like a great way to great either get yourself killed with little to no practical gain. Obviously the bunker alone isn't enough though... You'd need ample food, guns and resources as well as some social structure to ensure everyone understands their place and that rebelling against the social order wouldn't be in anyone's best interest. People wouldn't be paid in cash, but like in feudal Europe people would instead be paid with food, safety, and status. So long as the bunker leader could provide some combination of these resources then people will be willing to serve for them in a world in which those resources are otherwise scarce. I think what's most unrealistic about what I'm saying is an outcome where civilisation totally collapses yet some percentage of humanity continues to survive. If there was a nuclear war today the US president would be unlikely to be killed and I'd assume a lot of military equipment would still be operational. What you'd probably see is localised pockets of lawlessness and famine directly after the nuclear exchange, but with time I'd assume that the government would be restored.