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

[LiberalArkie]

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.

A limo was waiting for me at the airport. As the sun began to dip over the horizon, I realised I had been in the car for three hours. What sort of wealthy hedge-fund types would drive this far from the airport for a conference? Then I saw it. On a parallel path next to the highway, as if racing against us, a small jet was coming in for a landing on a private airfield. Of course.

The next morning, two men in matching Patagonia fleeces came for me in a golf cart and conveyed me through rocks and underbrush to a meeting hall. They left me to drink coffee and prepare in what I figured was serving as my green room. But instead of me being wired with a microphone or taken to a stage, my audience was brought in to me. They sat around the table and introduced themselves: five super-wealthy guys – yes, all men – from the upper echelon of the tech investing and hedge-fund world. At least two of them were billionaires. After a bit of small talk, I realised they had no interest in the speech I had prepared about the future of technology. They had come to ask questions.

Snip

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff?utm_source=digg

[Girard442]

1. "If you're so rich, why ain't you smart?"

Added on edit:

If they think punishment devices are a good way to keep the peons in line, they might want to get a different perspective by watching recent episodes of "The Orville'"

[leftyladyfrommo]

2. There is a prepper store and a gun store in a run down

Strip mall not far from me. So I got interested and went out on Amazon and searched their prepper products.

It's amazing what survival stuff you can buy.

[intrepidity]

3. Excellent read.

I had just somehow listened to this in podcast form the other day.

The bottom line:

That’s because it wasn’t their actual bunker strategies I had been brought out to evaluate so much as the philosophy and mathematics they were using to justify their commitment to escape. They were working out what I’ve come to call the insulation equation: could they earn enough money to insulate themselves from the reality they were creating by earning money in this way? Was there any valid justification for striving to be so successful that they could simply leave the rest of us behind –apocalypse or not?

I wish I could recall the name of a movie I watched last year about a guy trying to put together such a survival-compound-group, and how quickly and horribly it failed--and the moral/ethical issues it raised.

It's a topic worth pondering.

[karin_sj]

4. Wow

Well, that was enlightening, scary, and depressing. The utter selfishness of these people is monstrous.

[Treefrog]

5. Lmao. There's a couple here who talk about "defending

the northern states" from the southern hordes in the event of climate crisis.

[Timeflyer]

6. Sounds like they'll be the feudal lords in the coming Dark Ages--good times!