Hacker News Reader

Comment by everdev | Hacker News Reader

Peter Thiel bought a 477 acre sheep farm in New Zealand. How long can he really expect to survive there and with what quality of life if Armageddon happens?

I don't think he's on record saying that's why he bought it and the Sam Altman quote taking about a deal with Thiel to fly there in the event of societal collapse sounds more like a joke between billionaires than a means of survival.

It seems like someone wrote an insanely long article about a rumour about why a billionaire bought a secluded piece of land.

View on HN

Could you explain the joke?

Why are all those billionaires (more specifically, Thiel, Andreessen, and Srinivasan) boosters of the book "Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State"? A book, which the article points out, "identified New Zealand as an ideal location for this new class of sovereign individuals".

If the joke depends on a shared set of libertarian beliefs, then doesn't that say something about the billionaires?

While the article does spend a lot of time talking about that rumor, it was part of a larger analysis which included the concept of "utopia", and the differences between the utopian dream of "Sovereign Individual", of Thiel ("a man with a particular understanding of what a utopia might look like, who did not believe, after all, in the compatibility of freedom and democracy"), and of Kiwis in general and of Māori more specifically ("any invocation of New Zealand as a utopia was a “giant red flag”, particularly to Māori like herself").

It's not just a piece of land, he went through a fairly extensive process to gain citizenship as well.

I think Sam's original statement on this was from the New Yorker piece a while back [0], where Peter describes him as "not particularly religious, but he is culturally very Jewish—an optimist yet a survivalist, with a sense that things can always go deeply wrong”, I don't think preparing for collapse is just a joke. Earlier in the article, Sam says "I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force"

As for the sheep farm, I don't know any more than you, but I'm sure a billionaire going to these lengths is also capable of preparing a decent shelter.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-ma...

In the article, his fairly extensive process was signing a document in Santa Monica and promising to invest in NZ startups. They claim he had only spent 10 days in the country prior and hasn't been there since.

Though if you think about it, if you want to survive in a potential societal/structural apocalypse then a remote secluded island seems like the best option. NZ seems to be advanced enough to support decent lifestyle, and isolated enough, too.

Not that I believe in the kind of apocalypse that New Zealand somehow would be the safest place to hide, but seriously, why are these people buying property there? Any rational explanation?

I have no reason to not believe the article when it says:

> “Look,” he said, “it might be one strand in terms of what’s motivating them to buy here. But in my experience it’s never been the overriding reason. It’s much more of a positive thing. What they see when they come here is utopia.”

> In one sense, I knew what he meant by this. He meant excellent wine. He meant world-class golf. He meant agreeable climate, endless white sand beaches that scarcely aroused the suspicion of the existence of other human beings.

The author goes into more detail about the tensions between the different and even contradictory views of "utopia" in the history of New Zealand.

> Any rational explanation?

One person does it, then other does, and then everyone else with the means does it too because they've all got more money than they'd ever need, so why not hedge against an apocalypse.

It's beautiful country with good wine!

> How long can he really expect to survive there and with what quality of life if Armageddon happens?

And the answer to that question is, longer and with a better quality (and guarantee) of life than in Silicon Valley.

So the idea is strength in isolation rather than strength in numbers?

I would say the idea is higher chance of survival on a small island nation (inaccessible except by sea or air), in a remote location, with clean air, land and water, that is not a major military target, that is also a first-world country with a cultural background and language not too dissimilar from the U.S.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com