These people are overwhelmingly responsible for the viciation of our world and societies, and claim the profits from it.
An INT value only goes up to 2B, these people have orders of magnitude more money than that. Knowing our living planet's active course of destruction, this is literally the smartest way they could spend that money. The alternative is for them to have some kind of empathetic awakening, reorient their own existence and the existence of their enterprises, and recognize meaningful ways to spend their money... but if all the resource in the world couldn't give them that perspective, I doubt anything can.
It's crazy, because they could build a world in which there where good ways to spend that money, or spend that money on the multitude of extant causes that could use it. But they would rather hoard wealth and steal the collective future of the planet (including their own, and their offspring), and then delusionally try to seclude themselves away.
Their power only exists in the world they're bent on destroying.
You can't make a problem in one place, and do some good elsewhere and then call it even. Thats not how being responsible works. Dont sugar coat the man and his nonsense with a scant act of charity.
That really feels like the emptiest of promises. "Oh, I'm going to give away all my money once I'm done living my life of impossible excess". They don't get points for that. They could give away a massive portion of it RIGHT NOW and be able to live in the exact same excess, but they won't. I won't give them credit for future promises that cost them nothing to make.
More realistically (because 100% seems like a big ask), he could give away 99% of it right now and he'd still have enough for himself and his descendants to never have to work again.
This kind of thing just reeks of shortsightedness.
Having one lucky prick who sure maybe worked a little hard maybe not decide what to do for humanity with his money that he won through predatory means is dumb. Garbage in garbage out, anyone who is focused on mind fucking the worlds population in order to get a little richer is not going to give away anything in an effective manner.
When we stop having zuckerbergs, gates buffets and so on we probably will see improvement.
You're not wrong, but more puzzling is that this is Zuckerberg's bunker.
I mean, it takes a pretty dumb billionaire to not realize that when a real crisis hits, you'll be a sitting duck (mostly for your own guards / security), in your fancy bunker or forest ranch.
That's more of a naive plan for your run-of-the-mill rich guy, the lower echelon of "rich". Mere $100M-1Bs.
I always thought Zuck-level money gives you better options, such as building your own loyal community. At least village-sized and quite diverse. Which is what you really need when the shit hits the fan.
But maybe Zuck's building that too? And the bunker only a red herring, a hedge for minor temporary hiccups.
> I always thought Zuck-level money gives you better options, such as building your own loyal community
Zuck-level money wouldn't matter in a situation where a bunker is needed though. In a post-money situation, Zuck doesn't have anything to offer compared to a random man, so nobody will have any reason to join and partake in his "village" plan.
A really serious (or at least as close to serious as we can get when imagining apocalyptic scenarios) plan would be to stockpile goods/food/a means of production - those things are what's going to be valuable once shit hits the fan and might actually convince more people to join him.
> Zuck-level money wouldn't matter in a situation where a bunker is needed
We're entertaining actions the rich take in preparation for a societal meltdown: build a bunker vs build a community. They take them now (hence the article).
Starting to build a bunker (or a community) in a post-apo world would indeed be a little too late for Mr. Zuckerberg & co.
> A really serious plan would be to stockpile goods/food/a means of production
You need loyal people first and foremost. Leadership and trust. Otherwise disloyal people (historically, your own guards / companions) take whatever you've stockpiled. Yours is that Grade B strategy I was talking about.
Your "goods/food/a means of production" are only useful insofar other powers uphold the overarching social structures & rules. To the extent that premise is fulfilled, I'd call such meltdown only a minor temporary hiccup. Beyond that, your stockpile and remote fortress is not much use. You need loyal people.
> However, it’s essential to note that the majority of these assertions lack concrete evidence, raising questions about the validity of such widespread speculations.
It's not internet journalism. It's just journalism, or more accurately, Yellow journalism which has been a thing for as long as there has been industrialized media: at least since the 1890s[1].
I have no idea how you could think that bullying generates empathy. Bullying doesn't make people more empathetic, it makes them angry and vengeful. Your suggestion will do nothing but damage.
New Zealand has been the traditional home for billionaires' bunkers. This is just a first for Hawaii. His abuse of the legal system to force neighbors to "sell" to him should have been a warning sign. When do we get to see the white cat with a diamond necklace?
which seems far more reasonable than your characterization. From what I can tell it's equivalent to doing a title search, and asking the state to declare that there's no competing ownership interests.
Why spend all this money to build bunkers in likely the first places to be fully underwater when global catastrophes/climate shit goes down? Lol. I'd build mine in the middle of Wyoming or something.
In general it is better to act as those who tell you things are going to be a certain way do, not as they say. That means it is unlikely for e.g. Martha's Vineyard to end up fully underwater when global catastrophes/climate shit goes down given the fact that the Obamas moved there to a property which lies about 4 metres (13 ft.) above the high tide line. With an average sea level rise of 3 mm/year it will take a while for the island to be flooded.
Who wants to stick around through the apocalypse? What event would be a) well in advance with time to transit to NZ or Hawaii b) require a bunker rather than just isolating in your estate and c) what is the long game assuming society collapses?
Presumably the AI will know where all the bunkers are, unless some of these billionaires are so paranoid they make the contractors use all paper records. Come to think of it, probably at least one or two are that paranoid.
Sure, but you still have a better chance in NZ than in US. And you'll still have to deal with the other people panicking in an AI scenario. Maybe the AI doesn't particularly care about you, but civilization still collapses.
Can you imagine the complexity of hiding a bunker digitally? Starts with paper records. Then no phones on crew working the site, no gps devices probably, surveillance satellite records would need to be avoided… on and on.
What AI? ChatGPT? Is the final remnant of humanity going to be a blinking prompt on a screen in the blackened ruins of a dead civilization? Or is Skynet out there already and we just don't know about it?
If you're wealthy and civilisation collapses then nothing is preventing you from emerging as a monarch if you wish. Assuming you have enough guns, food and personal you'll basically be able to do whatever the hell you want in a lawless society.
But you need people to use those guns. And those people need to stay loyal. Sure, you have stuff, but how do you keep your stuff safe from others who are bettered skilled at taking your stuff?
They appealed to "god says I'm the monarch", plus personal charisma, plus playing off one group against another group. There also existed a state and laws, even if primitive compared to what we have today. Even so I doubt it was an easy thing being a European monarch.
A whole social structure was built up and around them. When they took power the board was largely already set. When societal unrest hit the people who were at the top tended to change. I don't think the uber powerful building bunkers will be able to change that.
By being the centre of a network of long-term two-way relationships with 'nobles' who had delegated authority to control the wider population (and who in turn delegated power downwards). Ultimately the base provided food and other essentials, and in turn the monarch maintained / enforced the necessary social constructs, by violence if necessary. If the monarchs lost the support of their immediate subordinates, they were toast. The wider population had very little power at an individual level, and lacked the means to sustain widespread uprisings.
None of these monarchs were oligarchs in a bunker.
[Edit]. Control of vast tracts of land was essential: your ability to maintain a powerbase depended a lot on how well you could marshal the necessary natural resources (primarily food). It was common for the nobles to be rewarded with large tracts of land from which luxuries could be skimmed off, and armies raised if necessary. Again, this is nothing like a bunker. The rulers (and their subordinates) had to maintain a continuous strong presence across their land to ensure the continual flow of raw material and manpower, which they couldn't do while hiding.
The past tense in your sentence is telling. Basically when people realized the reasons for absolute monarchy are all invented, they did away with it, often decapitating the rulers or sometimes delegating them to a representative position.
No, that's comic book logic. You no longer have any money, because that collapsed with civilization. Maybe you have assets in crypto, but that isn't going to do you much good once the internet and global communications go down. You don't have enough guns, because no matter how many you have, the rest of the world has more. Your personnel (who likely have the majority of your guns,) who are no longer being paid and are now in just as desperate a mode of survival as you are, would be foolish to take orders from you. You take orders from them now.
You're just a soft, privileged, formerly rich asshole in a desperate world full of actual cartels, gangsters, mafias and rogue armies sitting on a pile of dollars that are only fit to burn for warmth. Or would be, if you could find a bank to cash you out. All of the power you had depended on the existence of a state, its laws, its currency and culture, all of which are gone. You aren't taking over anything. In the real world you either get traded as a hostage or shot in the back within a week.
The bunker itself, the focus of tfa, is an example of a "hard asset" which is not only still an asset when dollars no longer are, it's actually a liability until then.
You don't really get to accuse anyone else of comic book logic while missing basics like that.
Their whole point with the bunkers and stockpiles is that those assets don't need the state to be valuable and confer power and security. The asset itself provides the power and security that the state no longer does.
And they don't need the state to define and assert who is the owner and protect the asset. They use one asset to protect another asset.
They get other people to work for them the same way people have always done.
Or it's better exposed by phrasing from the other direction: People participate in organizations for the same reason they always have. They get something they want from it. At the top and at the bottom it's both just variations of the same thing which is the structure gives them safety that they can't get on their own. And they overwhelmingly value that more than freedom.
At the top they defend the leader because the leader is what grants the legitimacy of their own high position within the organization. I don't mean that they think the leader comes from god and actually has some higher authority and right to grant other authority, I mean as a #3 or #12 etc, you have a much easier time justifying your own position and authority and privilege when it came from some larger structure. It removes the focus and blame from yourself. So you love the structure and you defend it and enforce for it and rat out any subversive talk you overhear about it etc.
At the lower end, a lot of people, maybe even most people, value the safety of being within any structure way more than the freedom of being outside it. They don't have to like the guy at the top at all.
Why do you abide by civilized norms right now? Everyone in an apartment building could totally overpower the landlord at any time. 50 to 1 no contest. The biggest problem really is just getting the others to go along, but let's say the landlord is such a dick that you manage it. So the next problem is what, the police will come and you'll all go to jail? But what makes the police do that? Why do they agree to follow orders from just one pudgy little chief?
It's no different "after the fall" just at a smaller scale. The big structure broke down, but most people still want what it provided and will latch on to whatever smaller structure is available to replace it, and it's all the same interlocking dynamics of everyone holding each other in place, not any one magic person holding everyone else in place by mind force or something.
Even if the actual guy at the top is detestable, they will be surrounded by people who benefit from having that guy at the top. Do you really think all the politicians who supported Trump actually considered him superior to themselves? They universally think they themselves are superior to everyone else. Yet there they all were defending him like crazy, for years.
I find the different stories that people make up around this topic pretty interesting. These stories seem to be a litmus test for the authors, reflect more on their desires, but are treated as statements of fact.
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.
> but like in feudal Europe people would instead be paid with food, safety, and status
what happened to feudal Europe? what do you think the serfs are going to do when the crops fail that year and half the bunker is projected to die and the god-king refuses to input his password to his personal food vault?
I think a big part of these bunkers is just that these folks have SO much money they can afford to spend millions or hundreds of millions just in case. And part of making it so "nice" is that it's not really a "get a text about the world ending in Cali and hop a flight to Hawaii" it's "get a text about anything in Hawaii and drive to the bunker." I'm sure the main estate has security and amenities too, but in some sort of eat-the-rich social disturbance, geographic isolation is extraordinarily valuable.
To your last point, I think the long game is actually the same as all the typical end of the world movies and fantastical zombie apocalypse things - just survive. Assuming some sort of societal collapse, regardless of how long it lasts, the idea is just to survive another day and that's going to be a hell of a lot easier behind some thick concrete walls in an island in the middle of the Pacific than it is in suburban California.
What interests me is how he's going to incentivise his guards to keep guarding him, after an apocalypse that wipes out both his money and the usefulness of money itself.
Presumably the bunker would have significant stores of food and supplies with which to pay them and offer protection for their families. Additionally there would also be the promise of eventually getting to other bunkers that he has with more supplies and people. Which may or may not exist.
I think armed security will be able to get their own food from the stores. No single man no matter who they are in a SHTF scenario could realistically convince enough people to keep them safe.
In fact his security would be the ones with all the power, he would have none.
This can make him up at night. He needs to come up with a very convincing way of promising them some more resources that cannot be just grabbed by torturing him. It's not going to be easy. In traditional setups you have a higher reason such as protecting the president for the sake of the whole nation etc., with Zuck you have none.
>I think armed security will be able to get their own food from the stores. No single man no matter who they are in a SHTF scenario could realistically convince enough people to keep them safe. In fact his security would be the ones with all the power, he would have none.
That all depends on how you are creating this fantasy narrative in your head.
Realistically, a billionaire-in-a-bunker's only choice is to
1. pick guards he likes and who like him,
2. be really nice to them,
3. make peace with becoming their peer after the apocalypse.
He can probably buy survival, but he can't keep his power after the legal system (and his money) is useless. I'm guessing the required characteristics of post-apocalyptic warlord and a tech CEO have important areas of non-overlap. Zuckerberg certainly lacks the necessary charisma.
Wasn't there some older billionaires-in-bunkers story that had them musing about using shock collars or something and the opportunity for survival to maintain control over the guards?
> ...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”.
Personally, I think there needs to be a citizen mapping project to document the precise location of these billionaire bunkers, to make sure the quantity of looters in an apocalypse will overwhelm any guard force.
I'm not one of these guys, but what I imagine is that it's purely ego-driven. They just see themselves as too important to die in squalor with the rest of the masses. When "the end" comes their estate would be too vulnerable compared to a protected bunker.
The one in the article will apparently include 30 offices, so I imagine he'll make sure social media will emerge from the other side of the apocalypse, so expect lots of selfies with people holding their enemy's head and howling at the moon?
The last thing is I bet these guys at least feel connected enough to get more advance warning than the normals.
Can you imagine trying to hold stand ups and drive product in a post apocalyptic world at what's left of Meta? Tremendous. "Netflix! You're green lit!" The parody writes itself.
>I'm not one of these guys, but what I imagine is that it's purely ego-driven. They just see themselves as too important to die in squalor with the rest of the masses.
I struggle to understand where you are coming from. Do you want to die in squaller with the rest of the masses? If you are in a tower on fire, do you not want to leave and survive?
I see where you're coming from. To me we all _are_ figuratively in a tower on fire. The fire's just started, but nobody's doing much about it. As one of the masses I try to do my part in my personal and professional life.
The oligarchs and plutocrats might have the collective power to put out that fire, but they'd rather take a fire escape. I say that, but I bet they donate more to different causes than I'll see in a lifetime. So -- who am I to fault them for hedging their bets right?
I think you just have to wait until everybody starves and the radiation from the nukes is not so bad. Not sure what you do after that. Hunt deer? Fly to South America? Hawaii is a uniquely terrible bug-out spot because its a highly valuable naval asset right between the warring superpowers, hard to get to and hard to leave. My billionaire bug out location would be Patagonia.
> It's the story of a plute who brings his pals to his luxury bunker during civlizational collapse in the expectation of emerging once others have rebuilt.
based on news, sounds precisely like what the Zuck is doing. he has enough money to pay them for their loyalty, and he's already challenging other billionaires to cage fights sooo...
Money would become meaningless once society collapses. Things like food and shelter would be more valuable... but as guards they're already inside the bunker and have access to those, so why would they need Zuck?
Presumably the guards can bring their families, and the punishment of leaving the bunker (or worse) for everyone would be enough to keep them in line for at least a little while.
lol mma skills... the man does not fight, he will never be able to. Just learning some "skills" and spa'ing is not actual fighting and is nothing the same.
Mob bosses rarely use skill to extol violence. So I agree, step 1 is to "demonstrate" who is in charge...
No matter how much martial arts training you have, the moment it's a 3:1 or higher ratio of assailants, even with minimal combat skills, it's over.
Mob boss mentality is the only way to keep violent individuals under your control, and money in the scenario of an apocalyptic event requiring such bunkers will be useless, the only tool left for a mob boss would be violence against the guards. That also usually backfires when a group of your underlings feel unfairly treated, or have any kind of camaraderie, or just want your food...
Hide valuables like medicine or food in not too dinstant remote locations that only u know along with few months of buffer in the bunker. U announce next portion as soon as one is empty. Keep the locations encrypted and maybe connected to your life signal.
Keep up the poison pill just for case that there is an irrational plan of torture to get that info.
Mhmm... I am really good at this. Maybe I should make a bunker.
There is a fun book about this phenomenon called Survival of the Richest by Douglas Rushkoff. He met other billionaires who were planning to build apocalypse bunkers with private security forces, They were all flummoxed by his question: how will you prevent your security from turning on you when your money is worthless?
The security forces must have family and they agree to a kill-switch being embedded in their family members that only the billionaire has access to. End of days, leverage over family is all you got.
I suppose I'm glad there are people in the world who are so comfortable and carefree that they don't feel the need to prepare for disaster scenarios, nor can they conceive of scenarios between 'all is well' and 'total apocalypse'.
But it's not crazy to be prepared. "Preppers" seemed to get a bad wrap because the ones you probably know are motivated by Alex Jones saying the Aliens are about to emerge from the mothership.
Meanwhile, find someone who either came from a less comfortable country (Basically not a G20+ country), or find a person who's spent time there in some capacity (military/non-profit/private contractor) and ask them if it's crazy to have a cache/bunker with everything you need to survive for a month or 6.
They're probably going to look at you and say "No, it's called being prepared. It's everyone else who's lost it."
If you live in the US, you could find someone who lived through hurricane Katrina, a brutal Tornado, or other relatively isolated incidents. Ask them if storing 6 months worth of food and shelter is something only 'conspiracy theorists' would do.
Many people got a glimpse of where things could go during Covid, and in the United States we didn't really begin to go down that path. If you want to keep so much faith in our supply chains, corporations, and debt loaded government that you place your family's disaster readiness in their hands then I invite you to read about any of the above.
The Expanse S05E09 offers a valid scenario on what would happen to such a bunker (scavengers exploit their resources, with the employees inside helping them).
Almost seems like these misanthropes have a vested interest in seeing the collapse of society. The humanistic society into which they failed to assimilate. If nothing happens, this is no small of amount of time, money and effort that went into building these bunkers. Perhaps they will become museums.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 143 ms ] threadThese people are overwhelmingly responsible for the viciation of our world and societies, and claim the profits from it.
An INT value only goes up to 2B, these people have orders of magnitude more money than that. Knowing our living planet's active course of destruction, this is literally the smartest way they could spend that money. The alternative is for them to have some kind of empathetic awakening, reorient their own existence and the existence of their enterprises, and recognize meaningful ways to spend their money... but if all the resource in the world couldn't give them that perspective, I doubt anything can.
It's crazy, because they could build a world in which there where good ways to spend that money, or spend that money on the multitude of extant causes that could use it. But they would rather hoard wealth and steal the collective future of the planet (including their own, and their offspring), and then delusionally try to seclude themselves away.
Their power only exists in the world they're bent on destroying.
https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-explains-giv... https://www.statnews.com/2023/10/19/mark-zuckerberg-priscill...
https://time.com/6217730/myanmar-meta-rohingya-facebook/
You can't make a problem in one place, and do some good elsewhere and then call it even. Thats not how being responsible works. Dont sugar coat the man and his nonsense with a scant act of charity.
That really feels like the emptiest of promises. "Oh, I'm going to give away all my money once I'm done living my life of impossible excess". They don't get points for that. They could give away a massive portion of it RIGHT NOW and be able to live in the exact same excess, but they won't. I won't give them credit for future promises that cost them nothing to make.
He could give away 100% of his money and assets right now.
Having one lucky prick who sure maybe worked a little hard maybe not decide what to do for humanity with his money that he won through predatory means is dumb. Garbage in garbage out, anyone who is focused on mind fucking the worlds population in order to get a little richer is not going to give away anything in an effective manner.
When we stop having zuckerbergs, gates buffets and so on we probably will see improvement.
I mean, it takes a pretty dumb billionaire to not realize that when a real crisis hits, you'll be a sitting duck (mostly for your own guards / security), in your fancy bunker or forest ranch.
That's more of a naive plan for your run-of-the-mill rich guy, the lower echelon of "rich". Mere $100M-1Bs.
I always thought Zuck-level money gives you better options, such as building your own loyal community. At least village-sized and quite diverse. Which is what you really need when the shit hits the fan.
But maybe Zuck's building that too? And the bunker only a red herring, a hedge for minor temporary hiccups.
Zuck-level money wouldn't matter in a situation where a bunker is needed though. In a post-money situation, Zuck doesn't have anything to offer compared to a random man, so nobody will have any reason to join and partake in his "village" plan.
A really serious (or at least as close to serious as we can get when imagining apocalyptic scenarios) plan would be to stockpile goods/food/a means of production - those things are what's going to be valuable once shit hits the fan and might actually convince more people to join him.
We're entertaining actions the rich take in preparation for a societal meltdown: build a bunker vs build a community. They take them now (hence the article).
Starting to build a bunker (or a community) in a post-apo world would indeed be a little too late for Mr. Zuckerberg & co.
> A really serious plan would be to stockpile goods/food/a means of production
You need loyal people first and foremost. Leadership and trust. Otherwise disloyal people (historically, your own guards / companions) take whatever you've stockpiled. Yours is that Grade B strategy I was talking about.
Your "goods/food/a means of production" are only useful insofar other powers uphold the overarching social structures & rules. To the extent that premise is fulfilled, I'd call such meltdown only a minor temporary hiccup. Beyond that, your stockpile and remote fortress is not much use. You need loyal people.
Meanwhile, here's some more wild speculation..
Internet journalism at its finest.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
Scum.
Also... your bright idea in an apocalypse is to isolate yourself on a remote island that already has problems shipping out resources?
Source?
What did he do?
Can you elaborate on this? I did some searching and turned up this: https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/19/zuckerbergs-moving-in...
which seems far more reasonable than your characterization. From what I can tell it's equivalent to doing a title search, and asking the state to declare that there's no competing ownership interests.
All what money? Scaled for a net worth of 100k, this would cost less than $200.
Iirc not rarely a ruler met its demise after failing to pay their mercenaries.
By being the centre of a network of long-term two-way relationships with 'nobles' who had delegated authority to control the wider population (and who in turn delegated power downwards). Ultimately the base provided food and other essentials, and in turn the monarch maintained / enforced the necessary social constructs, by violence if necessary. If the monarchs lost the support of their immediate subordinates, they were toast. The wider population had very little power at an individual level, and lacked the means to sustain widespread uprisings.
None of these monarchs were oligarchs in a bunker.
[Edit]. Control of vast tracts of land was essential: your ability to maintain a powerbase depended a lot on how well you could marshal the necessary natural resources (primarily food). It was common for the nobles to be rewarded with large tracts of land from which luxuries could be skimmed off, and armies raised if necessary. Again, this is nothing like a bunker. The rulers (and their subordinates) had to maintain a continuous strong presence across their land to ensure the continual flow of raw material and manpower, which they couldn't do while hiding.
The past tense in your sentence is telling. Basically when people realized the reasons for absolute monarchy are all invented, they did away with it, often decapitating the rulers or sometimes delegating them to a representative position.
You're just a soft, privileged, formerly rich asshole in a desperate world full of actual cartels, gangsters, mafias and rogue armies sitting on a pile of dollars that are only fit to burn for warmth. Or would be, if you could find a bank to cash you out. All of the power you had depended on the existence of a state, its laws, its currency and culture, all of which are gone. You aren't taking over anything. In the real world you either get traded as a hostage or shot in the back within a week.
You don't really get to accuse anyone else of comic book logic while missing basics like that.
Their whole point with the bunkers and stockpiles is that those assets don't need the state to be valuable and confer power and security. The asset itself provides the power and security that the state no longer does.
And they don't need the state to define and assert who is the owner and protect the asset. They use one asset to protect another asset.
They get other people to work for them the same way people have always done.
Or it's better exposed by phrasing from the other direction: People participate in organizations for the same reason they always have. They get something they want from it. At the top and at the bottom it's both just variations of the same thing which is the structure gives them safety that they can't get on their own. And they overwhelmingly value that more than freedom.
At the top they defend the leader because the leader is what grants the legitimacy of their own high position within the organization. I don't mean that they think the leader comes from god and actually has some higher authority and right to grant other authority, I mean as a #3 or #12 etc, you have a much easier time justifying your own position and authority and privilege when it came from some larger structure. It removes the focus and blame from yourself. So you love the structure and you defend it and enforce for it and rat out any subversive talk you overhear about it etc.
At the lower end, a lot of people, maybe even most people, value the safety of being within any structure way more than the freedom of being outside it. They don't have to like the guy at the top at all.
Why do you abide by civilized norms right now? Everyone in an apartment building could totally overpower the landlord at any time. 50 to 1 no contest. The biggest problem really is just getting the others to go along, but let's say the landlord is such a dick that you manage it. So the next problem is what, the police will come and you'll all go to jail? But what makes the police do that? Why do they agree to follow orders from just one pudgy little chief?
It's no different "after the fall" just at a smaller scale. The big structure broke down, but most people still want what it provided and will latch on to whatever smaller structure is available to replace it, and it's all the same interlocking dynamics of everyone holding each other in place, not any one magic person holding everyone else in place by mind force or something.
Even if the actual guy at the top is detestable, they will be surrounded by people who benefit from having that guy at the top. Do you really think all the politicians who supported Trump actually considered him superior to themselves? They universally think they themselves are superior to everyone else. Yet there they all were defending him like crazy, for years.
I can't see Zuck, or any of the others, lasting too long after they set up their own Praetorian Guards.
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.
what happened to feudal Europe? what do you think the serfs are going to do when the crops fail that year and half the bunker is projected to die and the god-king refuses to input his password to his personal food vault?
To your last point, I think the long game is actually the same as all the typical end of the world movies and fantastical zombie apocalypse things - just survive. Assuming some sort of societal collapse, regardless of how long it lasts, the idea is just to survive another day and that's going to be a hell of a lot easier behind some thick concrete walls in an island in the middle of the Pacific than it is in suburban California.
In fact his security would be the ones with all the power, he would have none.
That all depends on how you are creating this fantasy narrative in your head.
1. pick guards he likes and who like him,
2. be really nice to them,
3. make peace with becoming their peer after the apocalypse.
He can probably buy survival, but he can't keep his power after the legal system (and his money) is useless. I'm guessing the required characteristics of post-apocalyptic warlord and a tech CEO have important areas of non-overlap. Zuckerberg certainly lacks the necessary charisma.
You know these people look for technical solutions to social problems.
Edit: Here it is: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prep...
> ...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”.
Personally, I think there needs to be a citizen mapping project to document the precise location of these billionaire bunkers, to make sure the quantity of looters in an apocalypse will overwhelm any guard force.
The one in the article will apparently include 30 offices, so I imagine he'll make sure social media will emerge from the other side of the apocalypse, so expect lots of selfies with people holding their enemy's head and howling at the moon?
The last thing is I bet these guys at least feel connected enough to get more advance warning than the normals.
I struggle to understand where you are coming from. Do you want to die in squaller with the rest of the masses? If you are in a tower on fire, do you not want to leave and survive?
The oligarchs and plutocrats might have the collective power to put out that fire, but they'd rather take a fire escape. I say that, but I bet they donate more to different causes than I'll see in a lifetime. So -- who am I to fault them for hedging their bets right?
Me. I have kids that I love, and I want them to survive, not die.
I find it interesting that there seems to be such a big cultural divide on the topic.
Yes, I noticed my typo and fixed it.
> It's the story of a plute who brings his pals to his luxury bunker during civlizational collapse in the expectation of emerging once others have rebuilt.
Training in MMA fighting would certainly increase your chances. Or quickly adapting mobster mentality.
Makes for a good movie plot though!
Mob bosses rarely use skill to extol violence. So I agree, step 1 is to "demonstrate" who is in charge...
Mob boss mentality is the only way to keep violent individuals under your control, and money in the scenario of an apocalyptic event requiring such bunkers will be useless, the only tool left for a mob boss would be violence against the guards. That also usually backfires when a group of your underlings feel unfairly treated, or have any kind of camaraderie, or just want your food...
Hide valuables like medicine or food in not too dinstant remote locations that only u know along with few months of buffer in the bunker. U announce next portion as soon as one is empty. Keep the locations encrypted and maybe connected to your life signal.
Keep up the poison pill just for case that there is an irrational plan of torture to get that info.
Mhmm... I am really good at this. Maybe I should make a bunker.
I think it triggers a lot of jealousy, somehow in a way that having a mansion or top doctors doesn't.
But it's not crazy to be prepared. "Preppers" seemed to get a bad wrap because the ones you probably know are motivated by Alex Jones saying the Aliens are about to emerge from the mothership.
Meanwhile, find someone who either came from a less comfortable country (Basically not a G20+ country), or find a person who's spent time there in some capacity (military/non-profit/private contractor) and ask them if it's crazy to have a cache/bunker with everything you need to survive for a month or 6.
They're probably going to look at you and say "No, it's called being prepared. It's everyone else who's lost it."
If you live in the US, you could find someone who lived through hurricane Katrina, a brutal Tornado, or other relatively isolated incidents. Ask them if storing 6 months worth of food and shelter is something only 'conspiracy theorists' would do.
Many people got a glimpse of where things could go during Covid, and in the United States we didn't really begin to go down that path. If you want to keep so much faith in our supply chains, corporations, and debt loaded government that you place your family's disaster readiness in their hands then I invite you to read about any of the above.