> he vengefully bankrupted a website because he didn’t like how they wrote about him.
This is so uncharitable and dishonest. Sure it's technically true, but I think outing someones sexuality deserves to be noted as more than just 'didn't like how they wrote about him.'
The usual concern about outing someone's sexuality is the impact it might have on their personal safety or ability to obtain or maintain employment. Not in Thiel's case. There was no negative repercussion whatsoever -- the dude is super-villain rich. The bankrupting was just spite.
or perhaps it was making a stand on principle. for an ordinary person, outing can completely and thoroughly ruin their life. bankrupting them was a just desert.
Ordinary people are more likely to be outed by companies Thiel has invested in, like Facebook[1]. Interestingly, he has yet to sue Facebook “on principle”.
I'm pretty sure if Gawker's expose was due to a "privacy glitch" (like here) and not a conscious effort, they wouldn't have suffered any consequences...
Or does FB go out of its way to expose LBGT people for some profit of its own?
Also Thiel has a history to supporting anti-gay people. Like the anti-gay politicians who get outed, I don't have any sympathy for him and how he has harmed the community.
>For sure Trump is probably indifferent to sexuality, but his voters are not.
Trump is also for X other things one might agree with and Y they might disagree. People vote wholesale, not on individual matters, so other attributes might matter more to Thiel (or any voter). And similarly, X or Y pros or cons on the other side might also matter more (negatively in this case).
Besides, if Trump is indifferent to sexuality, what's the argument? Not to give his supporters (some of which might not be) the pleasure of seeing their candidate becoming president?
I don't think anyone would claim that. To flip the strawman: are you OK with any feasible retaliation for such an outing, no matter the repercussions?
It's not inconsistent to think that Gawker was a bad site which did a bad thing for which they should be punished and that suing them into oblivion was a worse thing with worse effects for society.
Yeah, sure you are, just keep saying that when The Globalists come for Sinclair or whoever for doing nothing but printing one offensive truth. You don't actually think that, you just fooled yourself because you considered Gawker your enemy.
[1] To repeat: what Gawker did was awful. But silencing the whole organization for one sin is not what you want.
Personally I’m not “ok” with it, but I don’t think it’s much different than many other things that get reported about public figures. So many stories have been written about folks’ sexuality in gossip rags over the years. The reaction in this particular case was bizarre.
Are you saying the court ruling (in the Hulk Hogan vs Gawker case, that Theil financially supported) was unjust, or compromised somehow, because of his involvement?
I can't help but laugh that a guy who calls himself 'Smirking Revenge' is a stan for Peter Thiel's revenge by proxy lawsuit. If you were a fictional character, I'd think the author was being a bit heavy-handed with your aptronym.
I think you unfairly are blaming the "billionaires" here and failing to acknowledge the organization bankrupted themselves by violating the law.
They didn't have to violate the law and expose themselves to a lawsuit for damages. Even then, they didn't have to spend themselves into bankruptcy fighting the lawsuit. They could have saved all the legal costs and accepted a judgement. Of course they could have not violated the law and avoided the lawsuit altogether. It seems to make sense the person who was damaged by the organization personally dislikes them, but that has nothing to do with the company going bankrupt, their own behavior is what lead to them going bankrupt.
Did you know that Peter Thiel, in his own words, decided to "create a shell company to hire former investigative reporters and lawyers to _find_ causes of action against Gawker", and to then give it a starting timeline and budget of "three to five years and $10 million"?
>"create a shell company to hire former investigative reporters and lawyers to _find_ causes of action against Gawker"
Cool.
As I said, you can point the finger at the "Billionaire" but at the end of the day Gwaker's is liable for their unlawful behavior resulting in damages, that can't be blamed on Thiel. A Jury found Gwaker liable and awarded Hogan $140M, that bankrupted Gawker, not Thiel.
If Gawker didn't willfully publish stolen sex tapes of Hulk Hogan in violation of his rights, then Thiel would have wasted $10M and 3-5 years looking for something that doesn't exist, and they would still be in business.
Most small businesses would suffer no harm at all from an adversary with an initial $10MM allocated toward an attack. After all, most businesses have no employees who have ever done anything even remotely questionable. And besides, it's super cheap and easy to win in court if truth and justice are on your side. (and the same in print; there's no way to for an investigative journalist to create disproportionately bad press)
You're definitely correct, right, and very smart. I agree with all of your points.
I'm sorry you don't understand how civil lawsuits work. It would probably help you immensely to learn at least the basics before forming opinions though.
>And besides, it's super cheap and easy to win in court if truth and justice are on your side.
Well if Hogan's lawsuit was frivolous and without merit, then Gawker would have actually had all its fees/costs paid for. However, as you know that isn't remotely close to reality, the case went to trial (which less than 10% do) and the Jury found Gawker liable and not just for $115M in damages but $25 in punitive damages...that is special damages designed to punish Gawker for their behavior. Tell yourself all you want Thiel is responsible.
No one forced Gawker to fight an obviously losing case, they did so at their own peril and incurred additional unnecessary fees doing so...they have no one to blame but themselves. They could have just accepted a judgment and gone straight to calculating damages.
Your position is effectively no different than blaming police and prosecutors for arresting/convicting a murder because they are well funded. Somehow you gloss over the fact that the murderer is culpable for their illegal act, and wouldn't be in prison if they didn't commit murder.
If the organization has done shitty things, like posting a private sex tape, or outing someone as gay, then yes.
They thought they could stomp on people with impunity because nobody would care / have the money to take them to court for doing so. They thought wrong.
Gawker went bankrupt because of the damages awarded to Hulk Hogan by a judge in a legitimate lawsuit. Thiel wasn't a plaintiff in the case - he paid for Hogan's defense.
I'm sure that money helped Hogan mount the best case possible, but it didn't determine the outcome of the trial.
Knowing that somebody is gay could also change how they might be received by an entire community, such as a church community that cares about child-rearing. A church might simply feel that a homosexual is not sexually safe around children, and it's not really an outsider's place to tell how people should run their own church.
But why should Peter Thiel absorb these blows for nothing? And his response? To fund somebody in a civil claim, because Gawker was depending on the fact that people are too weak to sue them. Gawker gambled wrong. The sad part isn't that Peter Thiel could choose which horse to back -- the sad part is that you need a financial backer to get justice.
It’s so funny to me that when it comes to whether YouTube or Facebook or whoever should be forced to host hate speech on their servers, the HN zeitgeist shouts “Platforms! Publishers! The right to free speech is absolute in all contexts—it’s the principle of the thing!” But then Gawker says something that one of HN’s favorite billionaires doesn’t like...
He didn't do anything about it for at least 3-4 years after the outing, and was personally content to live and let live.
He only took action after being persuaded by someone else that he had a responsibility to fight back in defence of the countless people, most of whom were vastly less powerful than Thiel, that Gawker's business was built on attacking.
Because above the Maslow pyramid, there's some insanity zone
Seriously: people with too much money quickly get surrounded with yes men, who act as an echo chamber for these persons fears, and deliver them the white elephants they want. An apocalypse is very unlikely. But yeah, have this sweet NZ bunker. It's good for the local economy I guess?
Now they have their nice bunkers, I hope they start fearing death more, and invest in anti senescence research. This could benefit a lot of people besides NZ local economy.
Yeah right. What on earth would motivate them to prolong everybody’s life? I admire your optimism to be sure, but I don’t share it unfortunately. But even if your hoped for outcome did come to pass what happens wrt world population? Old
Age is probably one of the last things saving us from dying surrounded by our own waste ...
Welcome to Amazon Prime Assisted Suicide! Now with 2-hour delivery for only 5.99 and the latest counterfeit cocktails... reviewers are gushing about them!
Or you could read someone who’s a better writer than I and check out Vonnegut’s 2BR02B.
>Yeah right. What on earth would motivate them to prolong everybody’s life?
1) Profit
2) What makes you think they can keep it secret?
>But even if your hoped for outcome did come to pass what happens wrt world population?
In case you haven't noticed, people in developed countries aren't having kids any more. The population will stabilize: people who can afford anti-senescence therapy will live a very long time, but have very few (if any kids). People who have a lot of kids won't be able to afford any therapy and will die young, but eventually their offspring will become wealthier and will stop reproducing so much.
(1) is precisely my concern. Death is the last great leveller. What happens when the rich become exempt? I think then they become gods ... on no basis then other than their ability to hoard coins.
I’m familiar with your reasoning on population dynamics, and while it does provide a nice straw to grasp at, I kind of feel its irrelevant unless you address rampant inequality?
What happens when one segment gets immortality and a far larger population gets nothing? History is littered with the scattered remains of socieities who tgought theyd have it all for themselves. Have a look into the genesis of Gengis Khan maybe, or more recently Cambodia ...
>(1) is precisely my concern. Death is the last great leveller. What happens when the rich become exempt? I think then they become gods ... on no basis then other than their ability to hoard coins.
What exactly is the problem here? If you don't want them becoming gods, then it's very simple: pass some laws forcing wealth redistribution. Rich people aren't gods, and don't have super-powers. They are as easily stopped or killed as any other human. And they're just as subject to laws as the rest of us, in a country that has rule-of-law. So it's very simple: pass a law. If your country refuses to do that and lets the rich become god-like, that's because the people in your country want it that way.
>What happens when one segment gets immortality and a far larger population gets nothing?
What happens when one segment of the population gets advanced computing equipment, like smartphones, and a far larger population gets nothing? How are things working out right now, where only a very, very small portion of our population has smartphones and personal computers, while most of our population has landlines at best, or has to write letters and mail them, and has to do all their work with pencil and paper? Oh wait, it isn't like that at all: even poor people have smartphones and computers.
Why do you think that immortality will be some highly limited thing?
Is it actually so unlikely considering the sheer number of ways it could happen? We live in a society where it's obvious that one event, one invention, and one person can have an outsize effect on all the rest. Thankfully, these end up usually being positive changes, but not always.
If you asked folks in 1920 how likely it would be that in less than 20 years there would be another awful World War and millions of civilians would be systematically slaughtered and turned into ashes, they probably would have said that is "very unlikely" too.
These people are educated, understand tail risks and have the means to try and hedge them. They are not insane, not even close.
I'm not saying that's insane - just that the probability multiplied by the consequences means they're misguided in being afraid of a global collapse instead of being afraid of their death that is GUARANTEED given our limited technology.
They might be spending 0.1% of their wealth (which they could never spend in 10 lifetimes anyway) on protection from an event (war on US soil or loss of their US assets) that has 0.5-5% chance of happening during their lifetimes. Put it like that, it is quite rational.
While even their entire wealth won't make them life forever. 100 billion is a drop in bucket for senescence research, especially if it has to yield results within 20-30 years.
Do you invest 0.1% of your wealth in things you considered to have 0.5-5% chance of happening? I don't. And I have a rather clear example in mind, something I do consider at a 5% risk and yet refuse to bother about.
I don't, because it's not just the amount of wealth, but the consequences, and the complexities it creates by snowball effect.
I don't want to talk about my stuff, but let's talk about their escape plans, as I can easily imagine how it would require some similar planning.
These properties in NZ will require upkeep. It will keep their mind thinking about that too. It will also cause other slight increases in costs (the example of getting into a plane: add the costs of a 24/7 on-call flight team + a spare plane in case the first one has some unexpected failure)
Even if they have someone whose job 24/7 is to take care of that, they may want to visit the NZ properties time to time, to make sure things are proceeding according to plan. Because you can't trust people for something as important as that.
And their mind will incorporate these limits into whatever other calculations. For example, a juicy business deal in Europe? A concert or a conference where they can physically meet with some key person? Sorry but they shouldn't go to that conference as it may be too far from NZ in a catastrophic scenario, with the airspace closed, if they don't have another plane+team in Europe too. What's another 0.1%? Sure, add this plane and team in Europe. Then you need a manager, a company, etc. Then you want to have that on every continent. Then you think, what if disaster strikes in APAC? Might as well get started buying other properties in Chile!
I guess it may be fun for preppers, but when you reevaluate the practical consequences, you come to the conclusion some things are better left undone, to have razor sharp focus on the things you want done.
Simplicy has many virtues, especially in planning. Burning some ships is not just an exercise in removing concentration - it also increases focus.
> Do you invest 0.1% of your wealth in things you considered to have 0.5-5% chance of happening? I don't.
Powerball and Mega Millions seem like an existence proof to the contrary. I'm won't argue the upthread point that such an investment is logical, but it's not senseless either.
"Prepper enclaves as scratch tickets for billionaires" sounds about right to me.
Exactly; the bunkers aren't helping anyone and are a complete waste. But advancing medical research can have all kinds of great by-products; look at all the technologies that came from pouring money into the Apollo program. Even if they don't succeed in totally conquering aging, there's likely to be other very useful discoveries made and therapies developed.
i don't think the blood boys benefit in any ways. And just wait until Thiel and the likes learn how to have "kidney/liver boys".
Wrt. original post - NZ is just temporarily and just for meager billionaires. The Moon&Mars are for really rich people, ie. the trillionaires we're going to have in the coming few years. Private Starship on a private launchpad, private penthouse in high LEO, ... Sergey/Larry are the first people to live to 200, Zuck - to the time dilluting spaceships.
I wish the author had spent more time dissecting the actual merits of the Sovereign Individual thesis and why SV billionaires find it credible, and less time hurling bilious invective at Thiel.
Also, his summary of the whole Gawker affair is absurdly skewed -- Gawker was a terrible website that used the protections of our free society to ruin people's lives, and Thiel used our free society's libel laws to bankrupt it. He played by the rules and won in that case.
Anti barratry/champerty statutes went away because people were harassing the NAACP, not because we wanted to enable any rich guy squashing people saying things he doesn’t like about him. What next? UK libel laws? The class system all over again?
I pity some of the ultra rich. Personal paranoias and neuroticisms like this can be indulged. Most involve loss of money or life, so you have quacks selling life-extending treatments, bunkers for when society collapses, and so on.
I don't see many people point this out, but societal collapse would be gradual, and there will be no safe haven. Plenty of people with boats will be able to make it to NZ, and money loses value outside of the societal structure that allows it to be traded for goods (you will not sell your food in a famine for any amount of money). The only way out is to prevent the collapse in the first place.
It's the usual Atlas Shrugged secret canyon pipe dream by the ultrarich.
Of courses that canyon was an imaginary sexual paradise of Ayn Rand and 100 millionaires, a strangely feminist construct for the bible of the idiot right.
Like if the collapse happens, the idiot rich will be doing all the work that they used to pay people with? What will they pay people with? Bitcoin? Zeroes in a nonexistent computer system? Gold?
i dont know why the focus on Thiel, it's not like he s the sole libertarian in the world , and the idea that maximum freedom and democracy are not compatible is not uncommon among libertarians. even some democrats circa 2016 would agree
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 37.4 ms ] threadThis is so uncharitable and dishonest. Sure it's technically true, but I think outing someones sexuality deserves to be noted as more than just 'didn't like how they wrote about him.'
[1] https://thinkprogress.org/facebook-privacy-policy-outs-lgbt-...
Or does FB go out of its way to expose LBGT people for some profit of its own?
EDIT
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/technology/peter-thiel-do...
$1.25M is fairly sizable
2 weeks before the election is timely
For sure Trump is probably indifferent to sexuality, but his voters are not.
Trump is also for X other things one might agree with and Y they might disagree. People vote wholesale, not on individual matters, so other attributes might matter more to Thiel (or any voter). And similarly, X or Y pros or cons on the other side might also matter more (negatively in this case).
Besides, if Trump is indifferent to sexuality, what's the argument? Not to give his supporters (some of which might not be) the pleasure of seeing their candidate becoming president?
It's not inconsistent to think that Gawker was a bad site which did a bad thing for which they should be punished and that suing them into oblivion was a worse thing with worse effects for society.
No, but I'm OK with suing them to bankruptcy.
[1] To repeat: what Gawker did was awful. But silencing the whole organization for one sin is not what you want.
They didn't have to violate the law and expose themselves to a lawsuit for damages. Even then, they didn't have to spend themselves into bankruptcy fighting the lawsuit. They could have saved all the legal costs and accepted a judgement. Of course they could have not violated the law and avoided the lawsuit altogether. It seems to make sense the person who was damaged by the organization personally dislikes them, but that has nothing to do with the company going bankrupt, their own behavior is what lead to them going bankrupt.
Did you know that Peter Thiel, in his own words, decided to "create a shell company to hire former investigative reporters and lawyers to _find_ causes of action against Gawker", and to then give it a starting timeline and budget of "three to five years and $10 million"?
Cool.
As I said, you can point the finger at the "Billionaire" but at the end of the day Gwaker's is liable for their unlawful behavior resulting in damages, that can't be blamed on Thiel. A Jury found Gwaker liable and awarded Hogan $140M, that bankrupted Gawker, not Thiel.
If Gawker didn't willfully publish stolen sex tapes of Hulk Hogan in violation of his rights, then Thiel would have wasted $10M and 3-5 years looking for something that doesn't exist, and they would still be in business.
Most small businesses would suffer no harm at all from an adversary with an initial $10MM allocated toward an attack. After all, most businesses have no employees who have ever done anything even remotely questionable. And besides, it's super cheap and easy to win in court if truth and justice are on your side. (and the same in print; there's no way to for an investigative journalist to create disproportionately bad press)
You're definitely correct, right, and very smart. I agree with all of your points.
>And besides, it's super cheap and easy to win in court if truth and justice are on your side.
Well if Hogan's lawsuit was frivolous and without merit, then Gawker would have actually had all its fees/costs paid for. However, as you know that isn't remotely close to reality, the case went to trial (which less than 10% do) and the Jury found Gawker liable and not just for $115M in damages but $25 in punitive damages...that is special damages designed to punish Gawker for their behavior. Tell yourself all you want Thiel is responsible.
No one forced Gawker to fight an obviously losing case, they did so at their own peril and incurred additional unnecessary fees doing so...they have no one to blame but themselves. They could have just accepted a judgment and gone straight to calculating damages.
Your position is effectively no different than blaming police and prosecutors for arresting/convicting a murder because they are well funded. Somehow you gloss over the fact that the murderer is culpable for their illegal act, and wouldn't be in prison if they didn't commit murder.
If those small businesses had done shitty things like Gawker, then let them suffer!
They thought they could stomp on people with impunity because nobody would care / have the money to take them to court for doing so. They thought wrong.
But him using his money to take down a website that thought it was ok to out people? I never heard about it before, but I find that damn cool.
That's not super-villain rich but Batman-level good.
How do you know without mind reading?
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-val...
I'm sure that money helped Hogan mount the best case possible, but it didn't determine the outcome of the trial.
But why should Peter Thiel absorb these blows for nothing? And his response? To fund somebody in a civil claim, because Gawker was depending on the fact that people are too weak to sue them. Gawker gambled wrong. The sad part isn't that Peter Thiel could choose which horse to back -- the sad part is that you need a financial backer to get justice.
You can see it the other way: why would gawker reveal this if not to cause a but of malice.
It's also privacy, basic human decency, and their choice to disclose or not, which are just as important.
You can't just shit on them because someone is "super-rich" and wont lose their job.
He didn't do anything about it for at least 3-4 years after the outing, and was personally content to live and let live.
He only took action after being persuaded by someone else that he had a responsibility to fight back in defence of the countless people, most of whom were vastly less powerful than Thiel, that Gawker's business was built on attacking.
Full story: https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Peter-Gawker-Anatomy-Intri...
Seriously: people with too much money quickly get surrounded with yes men, who act as an echo chamber for these persons fears, and deliver them the white elephants they want. An apocalypse is very unlikely. But yeah, have this sweet NZ bunker. It's good for the local economy I guess?
Now they have their nice bunkers, I hope they start fearing death more, and invest in anti senescence research. This could benefit a lot of people besides NZ local economy.
Many times this insanity is about feeling like a king (today billionaires are the kings of kings) or feeling like gods.
Aren’t Larry and Sergey already investing in this via Alphabet?
And by seriously, I mean spending over 50% of what they have - when they realize that if death happens, all they have accumulated will not matter.
Better spend that on increasing their lifespan that on kids!
Or you could read someone who’s a better writer than I and check out Vonnegut’s 2BR02B.
1) Profit 2) What makes you think they can keep it secret?
>But even if your hoped for outcome did come to pass what happens wrt world population?
In case you haven't noticed, people in developed countries aren't having kids any more. The population will stabilize: people who can afford anti-senescence therapy will live a very long time, but have very few (if any kids). People who have a lot of kids won't be able to afford any therapy and will die young, but eventually their offspring will become wealthier and will stop reproducing so much.
I’m familiar with your reasoning on population dynamics, and while it does provide a nice straw to grasp at, I kind of feel its irrelevant unless you address rampant inequality?
What happens when one segment gets immortality and a far larger population gets nothing? History is littered with the scattered remains of socieities who tgought theyd have it all for themselves. Have a look into the genesis of Gengis Khan maybe, or more recently Cambodia ...
What exactly is the problem here? If you don't want them becoming gods, then it's very simple: pass some laws forcing wealth redistribution. Rich people aren't gods, and don't have super-powers. They are as easily stopped or killed as any other human. And they're just as subject to laws as the rest of us, in a country that has rule-of-law. So it's very simple: pass a law. If your country refuses to do that and lets the rich become god-like, that's because the people in your country want it that way.
>What happens when one segment gets immortality and a far larger population gets nothing?
What happens when one segment of the population gets advanced computing equipment, like smartphones, and a far larger population gets nothing? How are things working out right now, where only a very, very small portion of our population has smartphones and personal computers, while most of our population has landlines at best, or has to write letters and mail them, and has to do all their work with pencil and paper? Oh wait, it isn't like that at all: even poor people have smartphones and computers.
Why do you think that immortality will be some highly limited thing?
If you asked folks in 1920 how likely it would be that in less than 20 years there would be another awful World War and millions of civilians would be systematically slaughtered and turned into ashes, they probably would have said that is "very unlikely" too.
These people are educated, understand tail risks and have the means to try and hedge them. They are not insane, not even close.
They might be spending 0.1% of their wealth (which they could never spend in 10 lifetimes anyway) on protection from an event (war on US soil or loss of their US assets) that has 0.5-5% chance of happening during their lifetimes. Put it like that, it is quite rational.
While even their entire wealth won't make them life forever. 100 billion is a drop in bucket for senescence research, especially if it has to yield results within 20-30 years.
I don't, because it's not just the amount of wealth, but the consequences, and the complexities it creates by snowball effect.
I don't want to talk about my stuff, but let's talk about their escape plans, as I can easily imagine how it would require some similar planning.
These properties in NZ will require upkeep. It will keep their mind thinking about that too. It will also cause other slight increases in costs (the example of getting into a plane: add the costs of a 24/7 on-call flight team + a spare plane in case the first one has some unexpected failure)
Even if they have someone whose job 24/7 is to take care of that, they may want to visit the NZ properties time to time, to make sure things are proceeding according to plan. Because you can't trust people for something as important as that.
And their mind will incorporate these limits into whatever other calculations. For example, a juicy business deal in Europe? A concert or a conference where they can physically meet with some key person? Sorry but they shouldn't go to that conference as it may be too far from NZ in a catastrophic scenario, with the airspace closed, if they don't have another plane+team in Europe too. What's another 0.1%? Sure, add this plane and team in Europe. Then you need a manager, a company, etc. Then you want to have that on every continent. Then you think, what if disaster strikes in APAC? Might as well get started buying other properties in Chile!
I guess it may be fun for preppers, but when you reevaluate the practical consequences, you come to the conclusion some things are better left undone, to have razor sharp focus on the things you want done.
Simplicy has many virtues, especially in planning. Burning some ships is not just an exercise in removing concentration - it also increases focus.
Powerball and Mega Millions seem like an existence proof to the contrary. I'm won't argue the upthread point that such an investment is logical, but it's not senseless either.
"Prepper enclaves as scratch tickets for billionaires" sounds about right to me.
i don't think the blood boys benefit in any ways. And just wait until Thiel and the likes learn how to have "kidney/liver boys".
Wrt. original post - NZ is just temporarily and just for meager billionaires. The Moon&Mars are for really rich people, ie. the trillionaires we're going to have in the coming few years. Private Starship on a private launchpad, private penthouse in high LEO, ... Sergey/Larry are the first people to live to 200, Zuck - to the time dilluting spaceships.
Also, his summary of the whole Gawker affair is absurdly skewed -- Gawker was a terrible website that used the protections of our free society to ruin people's lives, and Thiel used our free society's libel laws to bankrupt it. He played by the rules and won in that case.
https://www.amazon.com/Sovereign-Individual-Survive-Collapse...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/09/mystic-mogg-ja...
I don't see many people point this out, but societal collapse would be gradual, and there will be no safe haven. Plenty of people with boats will be able to make it to NZ, and money loses value outside of the societal structure that allows it to be traded for goods (you will not sell your food in a famine for any amount of money). The only way out is to prevent the collapse in the first place.
Of courses that canyon was an imaginary sexual paradise of Ayn Rand and 100 millionaires, a strangely feminist construct for the bible of the idiot right.
Like if the collapse happens, the idiot rich will be doing all the work that they used to pay people with? What will they pay people with? Bitcoin? Zeroes in a nonexistent computer system? Gold?