I don’t remember who said it, but I think about this comment a lot:
All these billionaires would rather spend their wealth building bunkers for when their actions cause social collapse, instead of trying to prevent social collapse in the first place.
Doesn’t need to be any design flaws, a few minutes with a welder and/or a truck load of concrete at the door once they’re in there would render the whole billionaire problem “solved”, Hotel California style.
Given we’re talking about the total collapse of society, the goal in such an event would be less “keep the billionaire in” and more “get all the food and ammunition he’s hoarding out. And any women.”
These assholes always fantasize that their wealth and accumulation of luxury items will grant them the leg up to become rulers during the social collapse. They don’t realize that in case of a social collapse the world won’t immediately look like Mad Max, and they certainly aren’t Immortan Joe. It will look more like Children of Man. Very slow and very gradual and with a lot mass governmental violence, not small arms violence.
No wilderness survival skills, how do they know which berries to eat and which will poison you, or which animal carcass have a ton of parasites you should never eat, never eat a carnivore or an animal that eats mostly carrion.
I don’t think they necessarily “prefer” it. It’s more just that they have what is an unimaginable amount of money in comparison to us, why not invest to preserve your long term survival?
They have already dealt with the normal shit the rest of us have to. They have a house, car, enough money for them and their families to never work again, to do whatever hobbies they like with no restriction.
If you are someone with a worth of a billion, this bunker development will cost something like 10m. That’s 1% of your wealth. It would be the same as the median American spending $1920 in pure relative terms, but probably would have an effect more like $500 on their real finances (again, every other need has been financially met long, long ago)
Well, because I’m not a sociopath I think preserving the world’s ecosystems is more important than a few years at the tail end of my life. Doomsday bunker with a Mad Max stockpile wouldn’t occur to me as a thing to actually do.
Okay, cool. Probably so do a lot of billionaires, at least from a pure pragmatic POV of them not wanting their skull cracked open. The point is that for a tiny portion of their wealth, they can insure against a lot of more realistic severe problems (unrest, riots, communism arising in the US, war, assassination, widespread famine), in addition to more extreme and less likely problems (doomsday, machine uprising, environmental collapse).
Frankly, were I a billionaire and able to see the choices Trump is making to make the average civilian in America jobless, penniless and hopeless, I would also be making a bunker in the wilderness or distant nation.
Yeah but you can’t though. Like let’s be real, you have 1bn, you’re not Elon Musk or Bill Gates level - and even they would not be able to stop an angry Donald Trump
Not enough to fight the bigger fish, but 1 billion dollars is more than enough to make public works that aren’t just a front (all these assholes have some foundation that is, at best, a zero sum charity), making better community spaces so they’ll actually see you as a “good guy” instead of yet another fucking greedy asshole.
Just people building their own tombs. Being a part of society is what keeps you alive. They already crossed the boundary by essentially removing themselves from it. It’s already over for them
To be fair, what could a single billionaire do? They are far more powerful than most, but they would have to cooperate with other billionaires to make that change.
There are 3000 billionaires. Who is going to stick their head out if the necessary changes will be opposed by many billionaires as well as huge parts of the regular population?
It would be better for society to improve itself instead of waiting for a solution by the billionaires. Difficult while being trained to be a consumer, but possible.
And they all already have, insane, there is our trickle down economics at work, they would rather hoarde and spend every last cent on a bunker right before they drop dead from old age than give back to the world
I don’t remember who said it, but I think about this comment a lot:
The thing is, none of these bunkers are built by billionaires. Would be real unfortunate if they had some design flaws in them lol
Many Bothans have died to bring us this intel.
Doesn’t need to be any design flaws, a few minutes with a welder and/or a truck load of concrete at the door once they’re in there would render the whole billionaire problem “solved”, Hotel California style.
Given we’re talking about the total collapse of society, the goal in such an event would be less “keep the billionaire in” and more “get all the food and ammunition he’s hoarding out. And any women.”
The women will likely just open the door for you to get away from the creepy weirdos inside
lol any woman in there being kept under the implication would be happy to kill them and get out, the bunkers would eat themselves from the inside
Probably won’t protect them from things like direct conventional bombardment of bombs or even bunker busters. Or even a nuke
These assholes always fantasize that their wealth and accumulation of luxury items will grant them the leg up to become rulers during the social collapse. They don’t realize that in case of a social collapse the world won’t immediately look like Mad Max, and they certainly aren’t Immortan Joe. It will look more like Children of Man. Very slow and very gradual and with a lot mass governmental violence, not small arms violence.
Further, they don’t have what it takes to survive off the land, nor the intimidation to warlord after.
Other than a pensioners its difficult to imagine someone more dependant on the systems.
No wilderness survival skills, how do they know which berries to eat and which will poison you, or which animal carcass have a ton of parasites you should never eat, never eat a carnivore or an animal that eats mostly carrion.
Because becoming a billionaire itself contributes to society’s collapse. They are opposite goals.
I don’t think they necessarily “prefer” it. It’s more just that they have what is an unimaginable amount of money in comparison to us, why not invest to preserve your long term survival?
They have already dealt with the normal shit the rest of us have to. They have a house, car, enough money for them and their families to never work again, to do whatever hobbies they like with no restriction.
If you are someone with a worth of a billion, this bunker development will cost something like 10m. That’s 1% of your wealth. It would be the same as the median American spending $1920 in pure relative terms, but probably would have an effect more like $500 on their real finances (again, every other need has been financially met long, long ago)
Well, because I’m not a sociopath I think preserving the world’s ecosystems is more important than a few years at the tail end of my life. Doomsday bunker with a Mad Max stockpile wouldn’t occur to me as a thing to actually do.
Okay, cool. Probably so do a lot of billionaires, at least from a pure pragmatic POV of them not wanting their skull cracked open. The point is that for a tiny portion of their wealth, they can insure against a lot of more realistic severe problems (unrest, riots, communism arising in the US, war, assassination, widespread famine), in addition to more extreme and less likely problems (doomsday, machine uprising, environmental collapse).
Frankly, were I a billionaire and able to see the choices Trump is making to make the average civilian in America jobless, penniless and hopeless, I would also be making a bunker in the wilderness or distant nation.
Or you could use your indescribable wealth to prevent the things you need a bunker for.
Yeah but you can’t though. Like let’s be real, you have 1bn, you’re not Elon Musk or Bill Gates level - and even they would not be able to stop an angry Donald Trump
It’s more than enough to inject a little fear into the ruling class.
Not enough to fight the bigger fish, but 1 billion dollars is more than enough to make public works that aren’t just a front (all these assholes have some foundation that is, at best, a zero sum charity), making better community spaces so they’ll actually see you as a “good guy” instead of yet another fucking greedy asshole.
Just people building their own tombs. Being a part of society is what keeps you alive. They already crossed the boundary by essentially removing themselves from it. It’s already over for them
If an apocalypse happens I’d rather be in the bunker with all the goodies instead of outside with the roving gangs vying for control.
The worst criminals would be in there with you.
New Zealand mostly
Douglas Rushkoff
Author, media theorist, and cool guy
Does the Team Human podcast
To be fair, what could a single billionaire do? They are far more powerful than most, but they would have to cooperate with other billionaires to make that change.
There are 3000 billionaires. Who is going to stick their head out if the necessary changes will be opposed by many billionaires as well as huge parts of the regular population?
It would be better for society to improve itself instead of waiting for a solution by the billionaires. Difficult while being trained to be a consumer, but possible.
The solution is to cull billionaires. They can lose their wealth or their heads, either will make a better society
They might start fighting turning on themselves
And they all already have, insane, there is our trickle down economics at work, they would rather hoarde and spend every last cent on a bunker right before they drop dead from old age than give back to the world