The super-rich 'preppers' planning to save themselves from the apocalypse

[róisín_dubh]

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff?fbclid=IwAR2dzp_7ts0NTjBiXjBgv6OV79dpNNIIREvwG0hOPn8C7RL87p5KxN_2Yuo
"As a humanist who writes about the impact of digital technology on our lives, I am often mistaken for a futurist. The people most interested in hiring me for my opinions about technology are usually less concerned with building tools that help people live better lives in the present than they are in identifying the Next Big Thing through which to dominate them in the future. I don’t usually respond to their inquiries. Why help these guys ruin what’s left of the internet, much less civilisation?

Still, sometimes a combination of morbid curiosity and cold hard cash is enough to get me on a stage in front of the tech elite, where I try to talk some sense into them about how their businesses are affecting our lives out here in the real world. That’s how I found myself accepting an invitation to address a group mysteriously described as “ultra-wealthy stakeholders”, out in the middle of the desert."


Way more at the link. Super disturbing, but fascinating article. Kind of made me want to by the end.

[Native]

1. Wow

[dalton99a]

2. Kick

They started out innocuously and predictably enough. Bitcoin or ethereum? Virtual reality or augmented reality? Who will get quantum computing first, China or Google? Eventually, they edged into their real topic of concern: New Zealand or Alaska? Which region would be less affected by the coming climate crisis? It only got worse from there. Which was the greater threat: global warming or biological warfare? How long should one plan to be able to survive with no outside help? Should a shelter have its own air supply? What was the likelihood of groundwater contamination? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system, and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?” The event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, solar storm, unstoppable virus, or malicious computer hack that takes everything down.

This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from raiders as well as angry mobs. One had already secured a dozen Navy Seals to make their way to his compound if he gave them the right cue. But how would he pay the guards once even his crypto was worthless? What would stop the guards from eventually choosing their own leader?

The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers – if that technology could be developed “in time”.

Taking their cue from Tesla founder Elon Musk colonising Mars, Palantir’s Peter Thiel reversing the ageing process, or artificial intelligence developers Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether. Their extreme wealth and privilege served only to make them obsessed with insulating themselves from the very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is about only one thing: escape from the rest of us.

[yardwork]

6. Sounds like Navy SEALS might rule the world.

Sounds like a science fiction story where the weak billionaires get their stuff taken away from them.

[ret5hd]

3. OK...hear me out...just thinkin' out loud...

How could we convince them “the incident” is occurring, sending them all to their hides-holes, then we follow and weld the doors shut behind them?

[dalton99a]

4. +1

[2naSalit]

13. +1

[LuvLoogie]

15. Brilliant

LOL

[crickets]

22. I love this plan. nt

[Buns_of_Fire]

42. One of my darker apocalyptic fantasies

is to be the guy happily manning the ready-mix concrete truck that's dumping its entire load on the access portals.

[pecosbob]

46. Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B

[Kaleva]

5. Long term survival is almost impossible w/o community

A network of family, neighbors and friends can provide safety in numbers, division of labor and a variety of skills.

[Delphinus]

25. I think

that is the biggest thing they are missing. There are parts of me that desire to be far away from folks and then other parts of me that want to be in community, helping and being social, etc.

[Kaleva]

40. Being part of a stable, cooperative community offers the best hope,

I've watched numerous prepper videos on YouTube where people talk about how long they can survive on what they have stocked. They do not say what they will do after the supplies are exhausted.

it's the rare person who can go it alone, it with their nuclear family, and be able to grow, scavenge, or make all that they need to survive . A family of four needs about 2 acres of land to grow enough vegetables to last until the next harvest. An acre is about the size of 15 1/2 tennis courts so a plot of land equivalent to 30 tennis courts would be required. A skilled gardener using intensive gardening techniques may be able to get by with a 1/4 of an acre for 4 people, a tennis court per person, but the general rule of thumb is 2 acres for a family of 4. And that's just for vegetables. It does not include meat, grain, dairy products or fruit.

Also, one is going to need to use various methods of storing the produce from the vegetable garden. It could be a root cellar, fermentation, pickling, dehydration, freezing or canning. Canning probably is the most common and popular method but ones needs certain items to be able to do it. Bottles and rings can be reused year after year but lids cannot. At some point, one will run out of lids. A family of four can use a few hundred lids in just one season. Assuming they are canning enough vegetables to last a whole year

Then there is the issue of harvesting seeds so one can plant a garden the following year. Many people like to plant hybrid vegetables for maximum production but one can't harvest viable seeds from them. One needs heirloom plants. The seeds of some plants are relatively easy to harvest and store for use the following year but others are not. The latter requires skill and experience and it's not something one will be able to learn on the fly in an emergency.

The issue with seeds can be partly addressed by the fact that the seeds in the packages one buys can remain viable for 1 to 5 years, depending on variety and assuming proper storage. With research and planning, one may be able to keep a stock of seeds on hand to be be able to plant a garden for a few years but in time, that stock will run out so this is just a temporary method. For a long term solution, one will need to aquire the skill of harvesting and storing seeds.

The overall point I'm trying to make here is that for a person or nuclear family to be able to go it alone for a long time would be extremely difficult. A network of people may be able to pool resources, particularly labour, to make a go out of it. As long as that group is prepared. Preparation is key. A prepared solitary person or nuclear family has a much better chance then an unprepared large group.

[Kid Berwyn]

7. "How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?"

Frustrated despots want to know!

Survival of the Richest

The wealthy are plotting to leave us behind

by Douglas Rushkoff
One Zero, July 5, 2018

Excerpt...

The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.

This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.

That’s when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape.

Continues...

https://onezero.medium.com/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1

Billionaires are doing a number on the present day, too.

[jaxexpat]

21. There is a proportional relationship between what these billionaires...

are seeing as their security personnel loyalty problem and the problem small businesses have maintaining labor for any purpose. The problem revolves around the fact that no employer offers to provide, can realistically provide, anything to secure their employee's uncertain future. There's also a similar proportional relationship to the number of beds in for-profit prisons and the number of residents living behind the gates in gated communities.
Donald Trump is not the only connection between felonious losers and billionaires.

[Kid Berwyn]

24. Organizations fail when loyalty does not go in both directions.

In 1914, Henry Ford paid labor $5 a day to make cars. He wanted those building the machines to be able to buy one for themselves. As competitors raised pay to attract workers, unionization helped speed and preserve progress. In the process, all had a stake. That cooperation also built the middle class.

Fast forward to the present day, the wealthiest times in human history: The poor get poorer, the middle classes are shrinking, and the rich get richer. The fault is avarice, 41 years of trickle-down economics, and a leadership vacuum that has created an “every man for himself” mindset.

[jaxexpat]

33. Avarice perpetrated by every media hero since the Beatles.

And which seruous political player hasn't used the concept of stardom to ensure their electability, their sales value.
The unhealthy dependence on materialism for every metric of life cheapens the value of integrity. For most, integrity is the only commodity they
own. When so many sell it so cheaply, is it any wonder how devalued life has become?

[Hekate]

29. Ah, now I see the problem. They want to reinstitute slavery but don't want to use the word...

“Disciplinary collars”?! Gods help us all.

[empedocles]

8. Interesting post. Question.

roisin,

are you familiar with historian/sci-fi writer Ada Palmer - who says, the past we think we know is wrong. Interesting speculations.
[My info on this comes from Wired magazine, March 2022 issue].

[Btw, the movie, Reminiscence, makes a visual, emphatic feel for an aspect of disaster survival, in a global warming flooded Miami - that feels compelling to me].

[róisín_dubh]

10. Nope, I've never heard of it...

but I'll have to check it out, as I'm a historian. Thanks.

[empedocles]

12. TY. Hope to hear more from you.

[Chainfire]

9. If billionaires want to build supermax prisons for themselves, who am I to complain.

In a world or chaos, it would be the guards that are the real power structure, not the billionaire. Sometimes I think that people watched too many or too few James Bond movies.

[empedocles]

11. I vaguely recall the rich Ted Turner bought himself a whole Montana town, with a survival eye.

This indicates some of the Turner scope. https://knoffgroup.com/top-five-largest-land-owners-in-montana/

[2naSalit]

14. He's owned most of...

His Montana holdings for quite a while. I don't know much about the other properties but I have been to the Flying D a couple times and drive by it whenever I drive between Bozeman and West Yellowstone.

Ted is a conservationist and has quite the ethic for his workers in the properties and has conservation easements for wildlife on them. He also has a foundation specifically intended to fund programs for wildlife habitat protection around the world.

He's a bit different from the other uber wealthy holding large tracts of land in the state.

Just sayin'. I will stick up for Ted, he's a good neighbor around here.

[empedocles]

18. I agree, I read about the nature preserves. The Montana town, he was reported to own

pretty much outright.

I don't know which crisis, the 2008, the 2002, or an ealier one, that I remember the 'retreat' connected to.

[2naSalit]

19. Towns in Montana...

In some cases, are not hard to acquire and are often smaller then you might imagine. I was seriously attempting to buy a town about ten years ago, it was a whopping two acres but had a multi-business, one boardwalk town complete with a dance hall and saloon among other things. Could have had the whole thing, including liquor license and insurance for about a million bucks. And some towns for sale are ghost towns as that town owned by Turner. An old mining town with several buildings standing. There are quite a few of them in the state. Some are state parks.

[A HERETIC I AM]

34. Turner is also very big on the conservation of American Bison...

And owns the “Teds” chain of restaurants that specialize in Bison meat that is sustainably grown.

He’s definitely not among the asshole billionaire class.

[2naSalit]

37. That's when...

I met him, back when he was getting that all rolling, he was also a worthy foil during the early days after the reintroduction of the wolves to YNP. I almost went to work for one of the foundations when I got out of grad school but it was 2001 and September kind of changed everything in the world and the opportunity evaporated. I have never been able to recover from the loss of a whole year of unemployment after graduation. It nearly killed me but I decline.

Turner had a wake up call decades ago and he has been one of the good guys ever since. He's got to be close to 90 by now.

[A HERETIC I AM]

39. He'll be 84 in November

Born November 19, 1938 (age 83 years)

Sorry to hear about the missed opportunity. I know how that feels, as I’ve had several in my life, a couple of the major ones; 1) blowing an opportunity to go into the Army in the Warrant Officer program to fly helicopters and 2) going to work for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that were because of my own lack of foresight and stupidity.

I know it isn’t right, but I still beat myself up over those, the latter was in the 90’s.

Turner has seemed to be a decent sort, I must say and working with or for him in his wildlife efforts would have really been something.

[DFW]

44. I met him a few years ago, and can confirm that. He is a conservationist.

He cares a lot about the people who work for him, and is a dedicated conservationist, worried as hell about our deteriorating environment. This was in the Cheney-Bush years, so I can imagine he is nothing but horrified at what has happened in the meantime.

[2naSalit]

45. On top of that...

He has lamented, in more recent years, that he disagrees with what CNN had become. I can only imagine what he thinks of the most recent sale of the network.

When I was negotiating the almost job and when the let me know they were letting everyone go except family as a skeleton crew, I spoke with one of the daughters. I had handed my resume to Mike Finley, the president of the foundation, in the presence of Mr. Turner. They were all very nice and very well informed. I had interacted with a number of the employees of that foundation prior to that time too so I wasn't an unknown applicant, I didn't apply for any particular position, they knew that I could cover a couple spots so they offered me one.

The first thing Ted said when I first encountered him was, "My pleasure, ma'am." I had thanked him for putting his money to good use, wasn't all that long after he gave $1 billion to the UN and challenged other wealthy folks to engage in similar giving. Bill Gates hadn't started giving much to anything, Ted goaded every rich person to consider his challenge. Instead they trashed him and tried to make him a public pariah.

I haven't been in contact for a long time but I smile whenever I drive past the Flying D and wish everyone there well, though I wish I could live there too.

[LuvLoogie]

16. Imagine being so rich and powerful, and still so scared.

[haele]

17. Do the Super Rich think they are like Tony Stark and can just tinker a comfortable survival.

And that they can command a loyal cadre of servants who will cater to their every need throughout the generations.
Not to mention they actually believe they can keep their wealth after the global community is decimated. They have no real clue how far their "civilization" will fall once everything goes to shit. I doubt most of those pampered trust fund babies and marketing geniuses can figure out how to survive long as hunter/gatherers.
The American Frontier is where all those rugged individualists living on their own away from others went to die early. The rugged individualists who lived near trading posts or towns and worked hard enough to be able to have goods to trade for things they couldn't manufacture, grow, or hunt were the ones who could survive longer than five to six years out on their own. Even the Unibomber needed to live near a community.

Haele

[tenderfoot]

20. Maybe this will happen...

[FrankChurchDem]

23. I ran into one of these by happenstance in Idaho years ago

Near the McCall area, there are some really nice primitive hot springs. Soaking in one on a beautiful fall afternoon, we ran into a "local" enjoying his weekly bath. At one point a couple military-grade helicopters flew overhead. My face must've read WTaF as he volunteered that there was a Texas-based billionaire who was building a real Bond villain lair deep in a mountain nearby. The helicopters had be hauling in heavy duty air handlers and scrubbing equipment. Gear that was too big for forest service roads. He knew some details, redundant wells, air inlets, etc. Construction had passed through several summers.

[Brenda]

26. Hahaha!

They're deluded and will not survive.

The key for some humans surviving the coming climate apocalypse is survival skills and a sense of community, not money. No matter how many people you hire to feed you and guard your moldy lux cave, you WILL run out of something. And your "successfulness" with corporate raiding or hoarding or insider trading won't mean a damn thing.

You will be a moving target because of your obvious inhumanity with your lack of useful life skills such as growing plants, using basic hand tools, cooking, situational awareness, lack of enduring physical hardship and mostly lack of empathy and a conscious since you are very much the root cause of our decline.

[MissB]

28. It's like they've never bothered to watch any dystopian TV show

There are plenty that show how folks survive- or don’t. Walking dead and all it’s spin-offs, Revolution… plenty of options to learn. I assume all those shows have writers that game out the possibilities.

Community. It’s important.

[Hortensis]

27. This is hardly a typical collection of people, and not because they're wealthy.

If it ever came to it, their guards would probably become nervous about being eaten by them.

I happen to like intelligent "grid down" type novels, but that's almost a complete oxymoron. Most are written by clueless RWers, and a favorite cause of the (inevitable) total collapse of society is too much deficit spending. Which is why I was amused that, though sounding a lot alike in some ways, these economic players seemingly exclude themselves from the expected causes of WTSHTF.

The typical author also thinks survival requires abandoning civilization for the wilderness, alone or with wife and kids, and quickly have to start killing a lot of people. No other relatives or friends to be concerned about leaving behind, and almost all are information hoarders -- the stupids are doomed to die, so why waste a minute explaining probable EMP to people standing around instead of getting walking?

Similar just a bit.

[Hekate]

31. Have you ever read "Dies the Fire" by S.M. Stirling?

Intriguing premise for rebuilding — I got hooked on the first novel, and while I think the first 4 or so of the series are the best, it’s always the first one that comes back to me.

In any case: community is absolutely key to survival.

[Hortensis]

32. No, I don't think so, and thank you, Hekate. I just downloaded the

first one. Even though I'm not drawn to fantasy specifically, I enjoy it when it's good and some kind person puts me onto it.

[Hekate]

35. My sis recommended it to me some years ago. Who would survive and why, and how communities

… would form around the personalities of specific leaders. How they’d have to recreate what used to work long before the Industrial Revolution. In the early chapters he specifically mocks the white power morons who think they can finally grab what’s due to them, like breeding wimminz. But no mockery for the insane medievalist from the Society for Creative Anachronism who actually does know how feudalism works. Anyway, if you carry on with it you’ll see lots of different ways aside from feudalism…

Must run.

[Hortensis]

43. Goodie. Imagining how and why of choices, the possibilities,

as people have to live on are what I like about this genre. Gun battles with cannibalistic zombie biker gangs not my thing.

[Hekate]

30. Ye gods

Yet this Silicon Valley escapism – let’s call it The Mindset – encourages its adherents to believe that the winners can somehow leave the rest of us behind.

Never before have our society’s most powerful players assumed that the primary impact of their own conquests would be to render the world itself unliveable for everyone else. Nor have they ever before had the technologies through which to programme their sensibilities into the very fabric of our society. The landscape is alive with algorithms and intelligences actively encouraging these selfish and isolationist outlooks. Those sociopathic enough to embrace them are rewarded with cash and control over the rest of us. It’s a self-reinforcing feedback loop. This is new.
Skip

Instead of just lording over us for ever, however, the billionaires at the top of these virtual pyramids actively seek the endgame. In fact, like the plot of a Marvel blockbuster, the very structure of The Mindset requires an endgame. Everything must resolve to a one or a zero, a winner or loser, the saved or the damned. Actual, imminent catastrophes from the climate emergency to mass migrations support the mythology, offering these would-be superheroes the opportunity to play out the finale in their own lifetimes. For The Mindset also includes a faith-based Silicon Valley certainty that they can develop a technology that will somehow break the laws of physics, economics and morality to offer them something even better than a way of saving the world: a means of escape from the apocalypse of their own making.

Oh yeah, and The Five who met with him were all men — he made a point of commenting on it.

Here's what I think: the historical precedent for this is walling yourself and your worldly treasures inside castle walls to escape the Black Plague. It still got them.

Aside from that, the level of hubris is hard to match.

[róisín_dubh]

47. Exactly.

The nobility fleeing to their rural manors died anyway. Same with the religious elite who fled, rather than tending to their parishioners.

[Quixote1818]

36. This would be a good movie plot. Them being taken down by regular folks after the apocalypse. nt

[ThoughtCriminal]

38. I want to survive long enough

to watch what happens when one of these dorks tells a group of Navy Seals to put on "Discipline Collars".

[Straw Man]

41. I like that these assholes are just starting to realize ...

... that when society breaks down, their money will be worthless. Money -- all wealth, really -- is a social construct. When the social fabric unravels completely, raw power will be the only currency. "Disciplinary collars" my ass; how are you going to make your guards put them on?