The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves | Hacker News Reader

The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves

theguardian.com

135 pointsdefrost173 comments

The late great Irish comedian Dave Allen had a sketch on his TV show in the late 70's/early 80's.

IIRC: He is shown in a dimly lit bunker fiddling with his radio, hearing static but other sounds. Screen fades. Comes back and he has stubble, scene repeats but there is more static. Screen fades. In the last scene he has a full beard and only static comes from the radio. You see him climbing out of his bunker to a scene of nuclear devastation - and he starts shouting "We won! We won!"

For these people who want to save themselves, what on earth do they expect to find after 'the event'? How will they fuel their planes, spend their money, how will they have a future?

I'm not saying that your average prepper is wrong, far from it, but the people in this article are on a very different level.

> For these people who want to save themselves, what on earth do they expect to find after 'the event'? How will they fuel their planes, spend their money, how will they have a future?

I'm not part of the club or have anything prepped but I'm guessing being alive is more than enough of a reason.

Personally if it came down to having a 100% chance of death on the spot or a 100% chance of surviving but then life being drastically different where money is valueless I'd choose survival in that world every time. Even if it meant having a high chance of suffering 40-50 years in the future from radiation exposure.

Consciousness/existence is the only valuable thing, in the face of losing it.

I can't believe all the comments are talking about "who will run their farm" and "what will they do with no jet fuel."

Everyone is so used to insulting wealthy people, they're grasping at straws here.

This seems so massively self-centered to me. There is plenty of value to be found in the idea of sacrificing oneself for others or a greater cause.

If you think your death is the worst thing that could happen to you, you're not thinking big enough.

And what do you perceive the cause would be here, or that any sacrifice was achieve?

When World War 1 was happening, it was being actively deemed "The War To End All Wars." What could possibly be more noble? Of course in the end it not only failed to end war but set directly the stage for far deadlier conflicts shortly to come. It's all just so often utterly bizarre when you look at the big picture. A Bosnian Serb assassinates an Austro-Hungarian royal, and the next thing you know Brits and Germans are killing each other over it? Commoners nobly dying for noble's ignoble causes.

And now, over a 100 years later, the same underlying issues that led to the initial assassination still exist.

I think giving your life for something else is the only altruistic act.

But in general, I think there are almost zero situations where my death is worth more to others than my continued life. I don't live in a movie plot.

I, for one, will set about hunting the rich in their little bunkers for loot and sport.

It always felt to me that this post nuclear war sounds like choosing to be tortured until you die vs just dying on the spot.

We are talking about full on nuclear annihilation.

Its not 40-50 years of suffering, it sounds like generations of suffering, early struggles not to starve to death (if you are not a remote farmer or remote isolated community with farmers - tough luck scavenging vs hordes of other survivors).

Soon if you managed to be part of community that managed so far, you will be faced with other communities. Fighting over resources or farmland, resources are scares human lives are not. Eventually everything will fall under tyrannical local warlords, who will be constantly fighting too.

Daily fighting for resources, no medications or people who can heal you. Stupid cuts can become lethal, huge number of birthing deaths as c-section is quite common (google says 31.8%) so on and on

The lone survivor rebuilding nation is a romantic view, but I think realistically staying alive will be a grim premise that I'd rather skip.

Would you still be ok going through above scenario?

The scenario you paint could easily describe most of human history and even describes some places in the world today.

That you are here to write this suggests that a long chain of people found something worth living for even in such environments.

Well yes and no, I think in my scenario people would fall to strange quasi bronze age era with modern equipment but no means to produce anything but basic primitive tools (only some would have capabilities/knowledge to produce tech)

So first gen survivors would remember the good times.

There is a difference between 'you were born and live your whole live in a 13th century hovel' vs 'you were eating pizza a year ago watchin Netflix and now you live in 13th century hovel for the rest of your life'.

I have never done heroin but I have a friend that did and stopped. Our experiences are vastly different, even though we are both not on heroin.

> Would you still be ok going through above scenario?

Yep 100%, I would take uncertain life vs certain death in the above scenario. If you truly believe this is your one shot at life then giving that up isn't an option.

I would without a second thought chose death, provided that my whole family does as well (i.e. nobody is left behind).

Death is just this: death. A blank and it is over.

This compared to barely survive in a world of desolation without any hope of improvement, the choice is crystal clear to me.

If for some reason I survived I wild like to make sure I have quick and painless means to commit suicide.

And those of us that go on, salute you! For reducing the load on necessary resources, and clearing the board for people ready to work for a future.

My choice? Ground zero, if you please.

This is a very biased western perspective - it assumes total nuclear destruction of all cities on Earth. That's not a realistic scenario.

Many unaffiliated countries would not be nuked at all.

Most ultra-rich people looking to survive nuclear war or a climate crisis, are locating their refuge in parts of the world that are agriculturally self-sufficient, and militarily unaffiliated, and physically far from the war and any fallout.

You mean New Zealand , Fiji and other pacific islands where Larry Page, Peter Thiel and every billionaire now has citizenship or property ?

the only place that is going to be physically far from any fallout is going to be off-planet. Wind & rain go everywhere.

The dose makes the poison.

Most of the fallout will all nearby. I'd try to avoid contamination a few weeks because the radioactive Iodine has a half life of 8 days. Everything else decays too fast or too slow. (I'm not sure how difficult is to get some Iodine pills, just in case. They are quite small.)

Also, "nuclear winter" will be not as hard as the initial models estimate. I hope we don't try anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Criticism_and_d...

Some are considering putting an equivalent amount of particulates in air to reduce global temperatures...

This. I get a similar feeling when the very people who got nearly mad when they were unable to go to the barber for a few weeks due to an global pandemic suddenly call for a civil war. It is just very clear that they completely lack the imagination how it would actually feel to have the gas running out, no food in the stores and everything you worked for threatened (not to speak of your bare life). In that situation you can prep all you want, but what if your wisdom teeth start acting up? What if you suddenly require medication, that you cannot even know of, because you decided fighting alone is better than actually getting to know the people in your community?

The thing with prepping is that the energy you put into one-upping your neighbours should maybe just be put into fizing the issues you might be bracing against.

There are really several levels of concern as far as I can tell.

1. Temporary disruptions (short term)

2. Temporary disruptions (drawn out)

3. The World Has Changed

1 is really about everyone hoarding TP, "the wheat runs out" between $whenever and the next harvest, etc. It's annoying, but nobody really dies. Just a lot of discomfort.

2 is more when you have to do a cold start of a national grid after a REAL blackout. No electricity for weeks or months. Maybe some deaths, but in the end society basically stays running even though a big thing happens.

3 is a nuclear war, an air-transmissible disease with a 30% fatality rate, etc. The event will eventually end but the world has definitely changed.

Lots of people are prepared for 1, and "the preppers" that folks like to make fun of are in pretty good shape for 2. Almost nobody is prepared for 3 and to try and be prepared for it in a way other than building a self-sustaining community seems like a fool's errand.

The history of man is famines. Mass starvation deaths. We live in an era of unprecedented abundance. For now. The next famine will happen and like every long delayed event will be much worse than the last one thanks to collective loss of planning for now to weather it during the long summer of plenty. The alternative is famine has been solved forever…this seems very unlikely.

Considering the that the average weight loss of a morbidly obese person that stops eating any food for months is 0.7 pounds per day, I'm sure many Americans can survive months without calories.

Ad 3: knowing your neighbours and having a good judgement of their special skills and knowledge (and being on good terms with them) is not an fools errand, but something that might help you with all 3 points and maybe even in your daily life.

There's a good chance than almost nobody in the city knows how to farm in scale.

> The thing with prepping is that the energy you put into one-upping your neighbours should maybe just be put into fixing the issues you might be bracing against.

If anything, the past few years have shown me how pretty much impossible it is to fix things. A pandemic exposing people's willful ignorance and callousness towards their own neighbors, multiple flood/drought/fuel/shipping crises exposing just how fragile our standard of living and infrastructure can be (at least in the first world, it's been more obvious in the third world for a while), and any proposed technological fixes for environmental catastrophe still requiring a ton of resources that the world doesn't have to implement it at the scale necessary.

Meanwhile each country is at each other's throats more than ever before, sparked by Russia's invasion (but it was really there before, just exacerbated). Feels like we just reverted about 20 years there, I hadn't had to worry about nuclear annihilation since high school, and now that's at least somewhat on the table again, great. Love to know how I'm supposed to 'fix' that.

If Dennis Rodman feels it's not safe taking a trip to Russia to be our ambassador, I don't think that makes my chances any better!

I'm not bunker prepping or anything, just making sure the pantry stays stocked and learning some practical, non-technical skills, and I'm likely pretty screwed if SHTF for several reasons, but any time I try to think of directing my energy towards 'fixing' things, I'm pretty much just left with a helpless feeling after trying to think of things to do (beyond just donating some money to a few causes, like the recent floods in Pakistan... but that's not fixing anything, just a drop in the bucket to help alleviate one of endless catastrophes that are happening and will keep getting worse over the next few decades).

The looming sense of existential dread is real. I only hope that the end is swift and painless for most.

Also, the first thing folks who learn to survive in the world after “the event” will probably do will be to raid these bunkers or just pour cement down the chutes / roll a big rock in front of the door. The leaders that led us to this point should not be the leaders in the world after it.

Those leaders will be enjoying retirement in South America.

As an aside, I'd say shows like "The Walking Dead" do preppers a disservice in that its not realistic. I don't mean the zombies - obviously those aren't realistic - but its unrealistic how the actors stay healthy & beautiful while living in such desperate conditions, without sanitation or routine health care.

(OTOH the world that awaits them on recovery will be a paradise! Why? Because zombies represent infinite clean energy. Just put a bunch of zombies on a big mouse run with some bait to motivate them to walk, and boom they can turn a crank indefinitely without any other input, like food.)

Rare for any post-apocalyptic setting to accurately depict the shelf-life of gasoline. Despite its whole "WE are the walking dead" schtick the cast seems to mostly prefer cruising around in trucks and RVs even several seasons in.

https://www.bobvila.com/articles/how-long-does-gasoline-last...

Same. This misunderstanding of gas (and batteries) is prevalent in all post-apocolyptic fiction.

Speaking personally, I would watch a more realistic apocalypse scenario where people had to relearn/reinvent older ways of doing things in the ruins of modern civilization, like how to ride/tame/breed/maintain horses for everyday use, how to heat/cook/survive at scale without electricity, running water, or fossil fuels. It's not just the technical challenge of it, but the emotional challenge, the humility required to "go backward", that would make interesting drama.

One show that was unfortunately canceled too soon and looked like it was putting a more realistic spin on the whole "end of the world" trope was "Jericho". It was quite slow and the characters spent a lot of time trying to figure out stuff like how to heat their house, how to make sure they'll have food in the next few weeks, etc. Maybe that's why it didn't work.

I recall actually seeing something like that on that old "Last Man on Earth" sitcom. One episode revolves around the stored petrol having gone off so they start trying to install solar kit.

True. One thing TWD didn't show was the massive scale of death from drinking non-potable water. That would have killed more people than the zombies.

I think it's like panic buying of toilet paper: you do it because it makes you feel you have some control over your future, not because it makes sense/would work out in practice.

Why are you assuming they are the same people?

Another assumption: why do you think the people involved are the ones concerned with one-upping their neighbors? And one can both work to fix societal problems and prepare for a worst case scenario.

> What if you suddenly require medication

Or how about people who already require medication? With type 1 diabetes, I'd die horribly within a week without a steady supply of insulin - possibly as little as 2 days. The "let's disrupt society and have a civil war because -tyranny-!!" folks don't seem particularly concerned about issues like that.

What do you think would be the minimal requirement to trigger social collapse? I'd claim it's much less than nuclear annihilation. We live in a deeply interdependent society with a society that demands excesses of consumption. Like the article mentions, one possible cause of social collapse could be something as innocuous as a solar storm. Or maybe there might be no cause at all.

The Great Depression is interesting in that there was no external physical mechanism of the sort of famine, plague, or war behind it. It was driven entirely by economics. One day everybody is doing everything as they do and society is moving along fine. The next day, society is collapsing. And today we live in a more interdependent society with greater consumption and lower self sufficiency. The impact would be greater; the original wasn't exactly a walk in the park.

So ultimately I don't really see the end of society as being the same as doomsday. It's likely to just be a liminal phase. And the optimist in me would like to imagine that at the end of the tunnel, we might even be able to come out as a much better people. It seems we, both as individuals and as societies, only seem to learn by sticking our finger in the fire. But at least once we do, we tend to learn not to do it again.

I read somewhere that we are three meals away from civil chaos.

We are a very fragile civilization.

In the past (up to say the 18th century) the main that was a contagious disease, or a very harsh winter. Other than that people were basically self-sustaining.

Today the smallest glitch in electricity, gas, water, banking, ... means immediate chaos.

For these people who want to save themselves, what on earth do they expect to find after 'the event'?

I can't answer all your questions but this specific one I can answer for myself. I am not wealthy but if I can survive a major event then I have a chance to see what is on the other side of it. It might not be as bad as some imagine. If it turns out to be as bad as any of the apocalyptic movies that portray a post-nuclear fallout wasteland then I can always nitrogen tank/cyanide pill my way out of it on my own terms.

how will they have a future?

Some won't. Some might. Those with the will to fight and survive might struggle for some time and those willing to struggle might have a chance. I am willing to take that chance. I am aware of the struggles I will face. The freeze dried food and water tanks will only last for so long. I will have to either build a functional underground greenhouse using solar that rogue people might try to steal or an above ground greenhouse. Maybe I can save a few chickens in the bunker accepting ventilation becomes more important.

That assumes mutually-assured destruction. The way to win a nuclear war is with a surprise attack that takes out the opponent's nuclear capabilities, then demand their surrender.

Bell pointed out that while the United States has always had the "technical capability" to implement a policy of launch on warning, it has chosen not to do so. "Our policy is to confirm that we are under nuclear attack with actual detonations before retaliating," he said.

Robert Bell, senior director for defense policy and arms control at the National Security Council

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-11/news/clinton-issues-...

I think this was probably more true in the past than present. US nuclear targets for the Soviet Union were declassified some time back [1]. And the Soviet targets probably looked pretty similar. And like you proposed the top priority was indeed for air superiority, because that's primarily how nuclear weapons were deployed. But ICBMs changed the game. In modern times our nuclear silos are intentionally spread out far and wide, not only in America but the entire world, and specifically designed to withstand a nuclear strike. This is without even mentioning the weapons deployed on mobile platforms such as ships or submarines.

Nuclear war in modern times is going to go for the second tier of targets: industry/economic, civilian population, and medical resources. A bomb detonated around a nuclear silo in the middle of nowhere would most likely have next to no impact on the US. A bomb detonated in the economic center of New York or California would have an unimaginable impact. The scary thing about this sort of stuff is that a "small" blast could easily have the exact opposite effect, and create a rally around the flag effect such as 9/11. And everybody knows this. So should this ever happen, the attacker is going to make sure to leave more than just a mark.

[1] - https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear...

These same people are the ones who end up jumping off a bridge, because their net worth plummeted several billions, even though they would still be millionaires. Moreover most of their lives revolves around their status.

They would not survive a civilization collapse, mentally. They would still lose everything that gives them meaning and purpose.

This is a "beautiful women must also stupid" fallacy. These people are much better equipped to withstand a societal collapse than someone like yourself and your family, who might be the victim of a wandering horde or be subsumed into one.

What are they equipped with? True preppers are people investing in their skills among other things, getting ready for a time where supplies will not be delivered by Amazon. These people have money, and thus power now, but if society collapses money becomes worthless and they will have no power. They will have their bunkers, but somebody needs to keep the lights on there and supply them with food. Nobody will do that, they will just take it for themselves.

That's why they are getting bunkers. Stocked with fuel, food, water and weapons. Maybe money will be worthless, but their bunker will be valuable. And people will happily serve them for a place in that bunker. And about money, rich peppers probably have gold and a few other resources that can resist a financial system collapse.

Feudalism is a typical result of a society collapse, and these guys are building castles. If you are rich and worried about society collapse, that the most logical thing to do.

> people will happily serve them for a place in that bunker.

More likely a group of people will happily murder them for everything in that bunker. If you want to prep, be a fit male in your 20s or 30s with some military experience, charisma and the willingness to be cruel. Property rights won't exist.

>gold

What good is gold when money is worthless? What intrinsic value does gold have in a society that isn’t manufacturing electronics?

It depends on the exact circumstances if crypto, fiat currencies, gold, bullets, or potable water will be the most valuable.

Gold has always been valuable in all civilizations I am aware of. It is rare, compact, easy to work with, hard to counterfeit due to its density, resistant to chemicals and doesn't degrade over time. And though it is subjective, most people find it beautiful. If you want to make a form of currency, gold is the perfect candidate.

Fiat currency is worthless when the government that backs it fails. Cryptocurrencies are unusable without some global network (i.e. the internet). Potable water and bullets may be super valuable, but they don't make for good currency, and of course, any self respecting bunkers will have a lot of these too.

Many things can be valuable in a post apocalyptic world. But gold is a pretty good candidate. Not only that but it is also a rather good investment now, apocalypse or not.

Gold has only ever had value in a trading network. All the properties you describe are important for long-distance long-term trade between parties who don't particularly trust each other.

If the entire society you interact with is concentrated in a luxury bunker, gold is much worse than Monopoly money as a means of exchange.

Not that you would actually need a means of exchange in a society where nothing is being produced, mind you. Rationing would be the key, and rationing is not trade.

A cachet of nudie magazines would presumably become quite valuable in lieu of a global network.

Gotta have those in the bunker, strictly for barter. ;)

That turns into a different dynamic. Your money no longer has power so you become much more accessible and vulnerable. If you happen to be rich and a great leader, you'll probably remain on top though.

> a great leader I doubt a post-apocalyptic society will look kindly upon aristocrats of the before time. I suspect it’s in at least some of their strategies to just blend in and not let their previous status be known. It’s a huge privilege in the current world to be an unrecognizable billionaire. The people on the Forbes lists are the narcissistic ones. There are plenty of people out there who don’t talk about their wealth and power, don’t dress or really live ostentatiously, etc. Some people would ask what the point of wealth and power is in that situation, and those are probably the same people who would be featured in Forbes articles if asked.

They're probably equipped with enough food stores to last their lifetimes. That's what I'd be equipped with.

Ways to make fresh water and food, ways to generate electricity, and as we can all guess, an enormous stockpile of toilet paper.

Enough food is not enough. You need a way to defend your food stores against armed gangs who will want to take it from you. So you probably need enough people to man 24-hour shifts on the watch towers. And now you need enough food to feed them for their lifetime. And then you need a plan for the end-game when everyone is too old to stand guard any more.

In the face of true societal collapse, lifetime supply of food is more of a problem than it is a solution.

Only if they find me.

If I'm too old to defend my food, either all the raiders have starved, or they've started farming.

A nice food forest would probably be the best option. Camouflaged to most laypeople who can't identify plants. Only collectable some parts of the year. Attracts wildlife.

People in large cities have different problem sets than people in remote areas. I don't lock my doors, either. People don't wander by. I'm bordered by bluffs and wilderness.

Food stores can be buried etc. I have buried things on my property in the past for a couple of years, came out unchanged.

In a situation like that, it's a question of when, not if, someone will find you.

They'll find me, but they wouldn't if I were a billionaire.

Also I just think you haven't thought through many of the problems you presented, most are easily solved.

24h guard? No, I'll make good use of zoneminder, moron detection, loud alarms, and a lot of cameras.

I mean I already have that and I'm not wealthy, for an American.

It's not hard to hide a place underground or in a remote wilderness when you have a lot of money.

Or just somewhere easily defensible, with one path up, that requires heavy equipment to alter.

There's a good chance that someone will just go over your alarms and shoot you. They just advertised that there's stuff worth stealing inside.

My alarms are to wake me up so I can sleep sometimes. Hopefully they alert me without alerting the raiders. I would be intending to shoot them, not the other way around.

As a billionaire, I believe I would have built some fortified positions to fire from without much chance of being hit myself.

Also I doubt I'll have any kind of obvious entrance to wherever I am.

Even on my own real-life property (I'm not a billionaire), I'm not just going to be like...in the living room. In an end-of-the-world scenario, I'll be camping discreetly somewhere on my own property, which is mostly a hardwood forest with a pretty dense understory. It wouldn't be any more inviting than hundreds of thousands of similar acres, so security through obscurity is pretty good.

I'll have access to all the tools I need, a house, my own water source. I'm not particularly likely to survive on my own permanently, but I think I've got a shot to wait out a storm for a year or two.

Ever play the later Far Cry games?

I haven't played any of them, no.

>These people have money, and thus power now, but if society collapses money becomes worthless and they will have no power.

stockpile vodka, coffee and tobacco. problem solved.

How long can you actually keep coffee and tobacco good?

Vodka, yes. E0 with fuel stabilizer, also.

I disagree. Many, not all, billionaires are extreme outliers of wealth because of extreme leverage. They are very exposed to an economic downturn and the extreme stress it could cause to someone highly leveraged.

What value would a billionaire provide? Could they work a field for a day? Work with their hands to make things? They seem too pampered to survive.

Some might not even know how to iron a shirt.

Did any of the current billionaires grow up so wealthy that they don't know how to function?

I think you're being way over the top.

I think they're quite likely to be one of the most valuable people. Way, way more likely than an average guy. Same with their health and ability to work. Bodies adjust quickly, their softness will diminish in a month or two.

If you don't agree with that, you must be surrounded by really competent, non average people.

I haven't seen it mentioned in the conversation so here it goes: you really want to survive a disaster? Focus on building a strong community. This individualist approach to survivalism seems to be based on a complete fear of others, or a selfishness of grabbing for oneself and hoping to ride it out (you won't).

The best reason, in my opinion, for individuals to be prepared for disaster is that it takes pressure off the community. One less family for the first responders to have to worry about, more time to focus on the less fortunate.

Want to survive a disaster? Be a good neighbor, and start building a strong community today.

Domsday prepping is a really interesting pyschological phenomenon.

First, this seems to be way more common in the US than other countries.

Second, there seems to be a strong correlation between preppers and certain politics (eg pro guns, anti government).

Third, there are a lot of people who have imagined victimhood as a core part of their identity (eg [1][2]).

So this brings up to a subset of these: the rich prepper. For me, rich people are the biggest reason why doomsday prepping is a complete waste of time because rich people (who have disproportionate power in politics) have the most to lose.

So why would rich people be preppers? To me it shows the power of the underlying psychology (eg the persecution aesthetic).

[1]: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-white-victimhood-fu...

[2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/08/the-eva...

"Prepping" in North America is tied up with Book of Revelations apocalypse fantasy, settler-colonial "rugged individualist" entitlement, like you say, victimhood identity. Ted Kaczynski stuff, or "Red Dawn" or religious fundamentalist. Often with a nice tinge of "might makes right" and "I need to prep before the guvmint' takes over"

But compare and contrast with the Swedish "preppers" in this DW documentary:

https://www.dw.com/en/swedish-preppers-a-nation-rehearsing-d...

The personalities and motivations of most of the people are night and day different from what you find among US "preppers." Neighbourhood preparedness groups. Using words like "solidarity." Talking about how important it is for communities to "stick together" in case of war or other problems. Government assistance in planning for emergency -- state produced pamphlets and rationing kits. Inviting Syrian refugees in to talk about their experiences in the civil war and strife, and what they can learn from them. Stuff that would make US preppers squirm in their seats.

(FWIW I grew up rural Alberta, Canada and my parents were big into the outdoors. Backcountry camping, archery, guns, wilderness canoeing, etc. were a big part of my life. But my father was German and very left wing / social democratic. His tone and emphasis on these topics was night and day from many other people we'd meet.)

> Neighbourhood preparedness groups

That's really interesting. Thanks for posting this.

You raise a good point: for people in Europe, the risks of war are much more recent and more likely given all the land borders and thousands of years of history combined with different cultures and languages.

So what you point is not individualist prepping but communal prepping.

It's also worth noting Switzerland where "prepping" is basically government policy. There are bunkers, stores, weapons caches, etc. American prepping is inherently anti-government so I'm not sure you'd qualify what the Swiss do as "prepping" per se.

Yes, though I'd say: Risks of conflict and history of recent conflict are potentially just as high in North America. But those risks are broadly internal or civil rather than external. And so that's how the form the "prepper" ideology takes. Swedes fear the Russians; North Americans fear themselves or their own oppressed internal populations.

What I mean by this is: North America has a very recent (and actually still current) history of the seizure and occupation of internal "unsettled" lands by force -- from the indigenous people that lived there. And also I guess in the US from Mexico. 200 years ago this took the form of explicit physical genocide -- physical warfare and displacement of the natives. 50-100 years ago the form of explicit social genocide (residential schools, reservation system &the Indian Act in Canada, the Potlach ban, forbidding indigenous languages). These days its economic.

So the frontier settler mentality is strong and tied deeply into North American culture. The idea that this is a "land for the taking" in which the strong survive and the model of successful individuality is to carve out a piece of self-sufficiency in it.

Combine with the history of slavery in the US south and the ongoing cultural/racial war built around racial ideology there.

imho the self-sufficiency meme in North American culture has always fantasy been mostly cover for what is really a form of organized state violence and racial injustice.

(FWIW my own family on my mother's side was granted [or sold for very cheap] a section of land on the Albertan parkland by the British crown as long as they cleared and settled and farmed it. From which my grandfather had his subdivided section and a portion of the extended family still owns. The sale of my grandfather's farm directly funded at least a year of my university education (and my sibling's), and also the purchase of my first tractor here on my own hobby farm.)

I am curious how you have come to this conclusion in characterizing the motivations and reasoning for preppers in the US.

>...apocalypse fantasy, settler-colonial "rugged individualist" entitlement...

Is this based on any conversations with any of them? This reads like a fantasy and very at odds with the actual humans I have met who are "preppers."

Individual prepping might be more common in the USA but Sweden has a big public bunker programme which is being expanded at present.

See the sibling comment I just posted. The philosophy behind these kinds of efforts is polar opposite of "preppers" in the US. Community driven and focused on social cohesion and working together instead of the "my family/religion/self above all else"

We’ve had a preview of how this would play out with COVID — many idiots dying needless deaths because they were so adamant about being selfish, refusing to take even the most basic of precautions, and people who did care about others also dying needless deaths due to the selfishness of the first group.

My impression is that prepping is about the future, in the same way that science fiction is about the future. It's about the here and now. It also involves a social consensus about what's going to happen, that isn't necessarily grounded in reality. For instance there's no reason to believe that warp drive will be achieved, but it's a necessary plot device in most sci-fi movies.

Yep, it's an ideology in the broad sense. A description of the person's experience of the material forces of the present, projected out into a fantasy of the future.

Parent's link about the persecution complex in modern evangelical Xians is dead on. I grew up in this community. Despite being one of the most powerful lobby forces in North American society -- with their fingers in every aspects of public life -- they are constantly crowing about their persecution and using language reminiscent of martyrdom of the early Churches or the crucifixion of Christ.

To them, the physical world will always be a corrupted and sinful place that they must only endure while waiting for the next -- and to bring as many people with them to that next world as they can through evangelism.

And a significant wing of them believes strongly that we're in an end-times scenario. Or desires to be in that situation, because that scenario involves the return of their Messiah.

In its worst form, it is a death cult, and the "prepper" community in large part circles around that. Or around virulent anti-communism/anti-socialism. Many of these people are the exact opposite of the kind of people you'd want managing a transition into an actual society-wide crisis -- because they are anti-society itself.

Pretty fun situation we’re in with the highest court in the US composed of these people.

It's easy to think today is different, but historically- war/scorched earth tactics, famine, genocide, raiders, etc... Are all problems that humans dealt with for ten thousand years.

It's hard to know if prepping for the next disaster will matter, but I think it's silly to pretend we are in a post-disaster time period.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/21/us/kentucky-bunker-civil-...

Repeat after me:

There is actually little you can do to prepare for a total collapse, especially to survive the following desperate 0 trust environment.

If you think a partial one of sorts is coming: be near family, learn handy skills, and focus on building a local community - great things to have regardless :)

Reminds me of Cory Doctorow's last story in Radicalized: "Masque of the Red Death". summary from Wikipedia: A wealthy financier builds and manages a doomsday vault, designed to withstand societal collapse.

Interesting story, as are the others in that collection.

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_332/Cory_...

Am I the only one who thinks this author is absolutely full of it?

Sorry, but he writes like an 8th grader. 99% of the sentences in this article could be popped into /r/iamverysmart.

Why would a group of 5 random billionaire preppers "trick" him into coming to talk about their elaborate doomsday compounds. They gain absolutely nothing by talking to this guy.

And why are they asking this random author "Should my compound have its own air supply?"

Sorry but I genuinely think this author just made this whole thing up, or is severely exaggerating what actually happened.

Do billionaires have preparation for global economic collapse or planetwide warfare, up to and including a security compound for them to flee to? Definitely.

Would they talk about it with this pseudointellectual, for absolutely no reason at all.. to ask him questions about their builds, or whether or not they should have their security guards wear collars? Absolutely not.

> I genuinely think this author just made this whole thing up

I don't suspect that. But I do wonder how credible the story is; I've not come across Rushkoff before. His writeup in The Graun says he's a "writer and filmmaker on media, technology and popular culture", and teaches media studies. In the article he says he's also "written" a graphic novel.

So, he doesn't sound like a reporter, to me. I don't know to what extent he's using the story, whose truth isn't important to him, to make a social point.

Doesn't sound like you've bothered googling him. Read his wiki page[0]. This is literally stuff he's been writing about for close to 30 years. Of course you'd talk with him if you're a billionaire prepper.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Rushkoff

From his bio in Wikipedia, amongst other things:

“Douglas Rushkoff has been declared the 6th most influential thinker in the world by MIT, only behind Steven Pinker, David Graeber, Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman, Thilo Sarrazin and Richard Florida.”

I guess that shows up my ignorance. I've only heard of one of those names, and (without googling) I don't know what he's known for.

Perhaps I just have some kind of allergic reaction to "public intellectuals".

Yep my thoughts too. He writes like a juvenile philosophy student who has attended one too many gender studies class. The insecurity and mediocrity seeps from every sentence.

> I genuinely think this author just made this whole thing up, or is severely exaggerating what actually happened.

Was my first thought as well. Seemed far too caricatured to be real, with the Patagonia vests and the questions about “Bitcoin vs. Ethereum”. It sounds like the author’s wishful idea of what so-called tech bros must be like.

"Après moi, le déluge" (Louis XV).

For ages, people in power position have been at the same time, both nihilistic, knowingly pushing toward the cliff and afraid of an impending collapse.

This is both creepy and reassuring, despite all that humanity has survived (with blood and tears but survived). This elites on the other end? Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't, and at the very least not in the same position of power.

Good; those stashes will be useful should something happen. Hopefully those “preppers” will cooperate instead of having to be killed outright.

For coming from a background of supposedly being an influential thinker, the article is incredibly intellectually lazy. The crude labeling throughout is a betrayal of a lot of what Robert Anton Wilson wrote about. About what to expect from the Guardian these days, unfortunately.

I’ve always wondered would most of us, used to modern conveniences, even last very long mentally in an apocalyptic situation (or even want to)?

Past situations are not directly comparable but it seems that, unless actual necessities dry up, people in general weather it moderately well.

When things go horribly wrong (disasters) people pull together. When they go slightly wrong, they pull apart.

What qualities will prevent these billionaires from getting ejected by their security personnel to make room for their families?

*Everyone* plan to save themselves

IMO it's the number one responsibility of lifeforms. Survive.

And the only other thing is reproduce.

The rest we just made up.

Back here in the real world, not some nihilistic invented one, thousands of people risk their lives to save strangers after a disaster. We have entire careers dedicated to it (firefighting, mountain rescue and such). We also know regular people just do this spontaneously, especially after catastrophes - look at the 9/11 first responders, look at efforts after an earthquake or tsunami.

Far from "everyone fends for themselves", most disasters tend to bring people together, at least in the immediate aftermath.

Like Wells' eloi?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine

These clueless sociopaths trying to figure out how to construct their desperate, grim little dictatorships in the absence of the rules-based system they currently depend on for their wealth. It's almost funny.

"I hate touching the same ground as the poor. If only there were some way I could cut off my feet without reducing my mobility."

It's funny that they want their kids to live?

Most of these people have families that they are trying to shelter.

I think it's more about how they want to maintain a level of extreme power disparity beyond the point where the sources of their power are completely gone. In the article, they dismiss more community oriented ways of living which would actually shelter their families from an inevitable rebellion in these situations in favor of sci fi technical solutions like obedience collars.

Perhaps preparing for a post-apocalyptic world that they envision would be better served by improving your skills with a shovel, not a Glock.

These options are not mutually exclusive as you imply. And certainly a guy with a Glock will be very happy if you only optimise for the shovel route.

As you point out though he's likely to have his hands full dealing with the other guys with Glocks. I suppose when they all run out of bullets it's shovel time for everyone.

You base that speculation on nothing but your existing bias against this "rich white old man" strawman you've imagined.

I base it on the article. Did you read it?

>How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?

Obviously with chips in them that kill them if they disobey.

What if the prepper is on vacation when the apocalypse comes and they are nowhere near their stash and safe house?

Of course you have your bug out team with you at all times, and your helicopter to your jet to your secret volcano lair.

If poorer, each of those is replaced which cheaper alternatives until it’s a ziploc bag with a Glock, a few like-minded friends, and some motorbikes to get you back to the farm.

So, in a post apocalyptic world, all you have to do is take over a billionaires bunker to become the wealthiest person in the world? Sounds simple. Find the air intake. Block it. Wait.

It's always seemed to me that the most likely scenario for these types is that the mercs they hire for security decide to take it over a month in.

Marxist meets people who realize the inescapability of Red Queen's Race. Seriously, learn some history/biology, the one-upsmanship never ends and with the exponential increase in human abilities, the chance of unavoidable/chance apocalypse rises to uncomfortable levels.

Is it immoral that prepper mammals survived the asteroid when productive society member dinosaurs didn't?

The asteroid is man-made so the moral question is very different to what you are saying.

It really isn't. It's as unavoidable and chance as an orbit of a planetoid. Humans are barely conscious, let alone able to foresee or prevent it. Whoever would strive to deflect it too eagerly will fall back and be eaten alive.

prepper mammals survived the asteroid

◔_◔

More reasons for a 90% top marginal tax rate

Tax wealth, not income.

More specifically, tax inheritances. Dynasties are detrimental.

I wonder what you will say when you will be forced to pay 90% tax on all of the inheritance.

Want to keep your parents house? Pay 90% of it's value to the government or the government takes it.

Parents will do anything for the children to have a better life, this is a basic human drive that you cannot go against.

If you're going to strawman, why 90%? Why not a 100% inheritance tax? Then OP would feel really silly for proposing it!

Most non-strawman look like "capital gains tax after the first $1 million" or "40% excempting the first $11 million"

https://taxfoundation.org/joe-biden-estate-tax-wealth-tax/

This is off tangent, but I wish they'd find a new thing besides dollars to measure with.

Or pin it to the average income.

After laws have been in effect fifty or a hundred years, the amounts don't make sense anymore, and they usually aren't updated very often.

See the IRS reporting requirement still being 10k, or some old laws with really small fines

> I wonder what you will say when you will be forced to pay 90% tax on all of the inheritance.

Wouldn’t that be paid by the estate between the death of the deceased and the inheritor getting the assets?

> Want to keep your parents house? Pay 90% of it's value to the government or the government takes it.

My experience in the UK is the opposite problem exists in reality — the UK has inheritance tax, which my parents’ assets seem to have totally avoided, because my dad looked at the rules at made sure his assets were under the threshold by (1) giving my siblings and I a lot of gifts well before he died, and (2) turns out physical items such as the antiques (not many) and the stamp collection (how much!?!) is the kind of thing the government value (or valued past tense, IANAL) in aggregate as £1.

The cunning ploy of giving away money is, practically speaking, quite difficult to solve.

> I wonder what you will say when you will be forced to pay 90% tax on all of the inheritance.

I wonder what you say when you are forced to pay x% tax on all of your earned income every year? It only really makes sense to consider the merits of a tax in the context of other taxes it would replace.

I inherited a decent amount of money last year. It was nice, and I am of course grateful. But I would definitely still vote for significantly higher taxes on unearned wealth, in exchange for better Government services and/or a reduction other taxes.

Hard-working parents will still find ways to give their children advantages. They will still invest money and time in their development.

In a lot of ways, the extreme wealthy providing that better life deprives the majority of providing their kids a better life. The state could fund things that meaningfully improve the lives of many kids at the expensive of generational wealth transfer for a few. Conceivably, the kids of extreme wealthy would still have been given a massive leg up — it’s just that they would have to contribute (or eat a tax, realistically they’re still probably able to do nothing in many cases).

Also it’s entirely possible to set a floor before a tax kicks in to allow some token transfer of wealth, but yeah there’s a huge difference between a moderate transfer of wealth like a (average) home and rebasing millions and millions of asset wealth, a fleet of homes, etc.

Progressive taxes. Heavily tax those who inherit millions and billions.

This makes total sense if you ignore the fact that people won't just sit there and pay the tax, they'll likely gift it while alive through tax avoidance schemes.

In the US it's currently only estates larger than 11 million or so that get taxed - I'd be fine with a 90% tax rate on everything over that.

Even many of the wealthy agree that dynasties are detrimental.

Do they really agree, or are they just paying lip service to public sentiment?

I ask because it’s really difficult to tell the difference, and I’m still not sure whether I believe the ultra wealthy when they agree.

This is why crypto will remain.

Make the upper half pay for the lower half, so hike taxes on anyone making more than $68,000USD (US household median income). Once you hit double the median income (~top 10%) you should be paying >50% in total tax rate. More than 4x median income ($275,000) should be paying 67% of income in taxes.

We could fund everything with that kind of revenue.

You imagine the state could fund everything with that but it won't because we don't have the kind of voters who vote for that kind of tax policy in the first place. Or even reasonable tax policies that are more progressive than what the US has now.

Thank goodness, because even the most progressive countries in the EU realize taxation at that level would be incredibly counter-productive.

Those aren’t far off from welfare-heavy EU rates.

40% marginal rate starting at 50,000GBP in the UK.

The EU can afford high public spending because it has high taxes, including on the middle class.

That has been tried and it results in wealth exodus.

France reversed that suicidal policy within one year.

tax land and nonrenewable resources, not wealth.

Tax transactions, not income or wealth.

What is this guy on about. The entire article is just filled with pseudo conjecture and hate for some rich guys who want to build bunkers in the desert.

What is obvious is that this guy hates society and capitalism - so in that regard he stays true to form for marxists. Checked out his wikipedia page and got none the wiser.

I genuinely think this guy made this entire article up. No billionaire prepper is going to invite this nutjob to ask him questions about things like, you know, whether or not their security compound needs an HVAC system. Lol.

The author chides the rich preppers for their cynicism, then spews lines like:

"Never before have our society’s most powerful players assumed that the primary impact of their own conquests would be to render the world itself unliveable for everyone else"

I can't help but roll my eyes. This is a very marxist take on how wealth is generated and I can't take this author at all seriously. I shouldn't have to say this, but the current state of affairs is not primarily due to rich people and is far more complicated. They display a third-grade level of it economics and are even more cynical than the people he chides.

They also use the "all men" dog whistle at the start of the article. The fact that the group is all male has no bearing on the rest of the story and I suspect was inserted to create a link between this type of behavior and men. When will this type of "journalism" die out? It has become tiresome and a primary reason I don't support rags like the guardian.

I don't think "all men" is a dog whistle in this case, but being impossible to falsify is like, the intent behind a dog whistle accusation.

What was the editorial purpose for the comment? Why is the sex of the participants of the alleged conversation relevant? The author takes great pains to make the other conversants seem borderline maniacal and also wants to make sure we know that they are all men. Why not also include their heights or hair colors? It's just as relevant in the context of the article.

I'm not arguing your point, using the concept of a "Dog Whistle" might be bad style of arguing. By virtue that its not possible to exonerate yourself from it.

Strongly agree with you. A lot of the big problems, such as climate change, are things we stumbled upon as we advance as a society/economy/civilization.

You cannot expect some random individual (say for example an exec at Shell) to take it upon himself to save the world. He would not be allowed to, if he tried.

This feeling of uneasiness that we are feeling is because social and political technology has not advanced enough to keep pace with the rapid advancement of our economy.

> You cannot expect some random individual (say for example an exec at Shell) to take it upon himself to save the world. He would not be allowed to, if he tried.

Plus, the people are mad they're not saving the world, then making comments about how useless they'd be after the collapse, like little babies. One comment says billionaires can't iron a shirt.

But right now, that helpless baby man should be working on saving the planet?

My wealth is outsized compared to most of the planet. Actual non-wealthy people probably consider this entire discussion board a bunch of wealthy, evil baby men infighting and pointing fingers.

Except in many cases they actively hid, and lobbied against, measures that would have helped. The big oil companies all had research showing what emissions would do - and they buried them, and lobbied governments for tax breaks, to gut public transit and more.

All in the pursuit of "maximizing shareholder value".

To try and paint the people prepping now because they know what's coming in a charitable light is somewhat odd ...

What is the current state of affairs due to if not the conquests of societies most powerful players, who, by definition, are powerful because they can exert power to make shit happen?

In your post, you imply marxist takes, imply "all men" being a dog whistle (maybe it just was all men?) and dismiss a very highly regarded acadamic of hacing a "third grade level of IT economics", but present very little arguments for any of these

It doesn't sound to me like the people in this group necessarily have much influence on environmental practices and the industries involved or on geopolitics. And one can't assume other people of similar levels of wealth think similarly. Or even what the men involved in this meeting actually think.

The entire article is assumptions built upon assumptions, with specious accusations and labeling throughout. It is sad to see much of the same in the comments.

Further, I find myself questioning whether this meeting even happened. This reads like scenario invented so the author could get paid for a "think" piece.

I wonder how much was his writing and how much was editing by others?

Douglas Rushkoff is a writer and filmmaker on media, technology and popular culture, and winner of the first Neil Postman award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. He teaches media studies at NYU and the New School University and serves as technology columnist for the Daily Beast. His most recent documentary is Digital Nation, and his most recent book, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age.

And? How does this make their opinion more or less valid? This is a classic example of appeal to authority.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

When the only argument is fallacious, you actually need to provide something non- fallacious or you are left with no argument and your premise fails, as is the case here. I find it condescending that your only reply was a link and no text. Peak intellectual laziness.

It's not an argument, and so it's not an appeal to authority, nor any other fallacious argument. It's just the blurb you see if you click on the author's byline at the head of the article.

I clicked on it, because I wanted to know who the author was.

Ah, so he's entirely unqualified to write on the topic, and also not in the list of the first 10,000 people this "elite group of billionaires" would reach out to to talk about their super secret prepper plans. 100% fake article.

>not primarily due to rich people

But?

These issues are sociaital and everyone has some level of responsibility. Finger pointing at those who were able to profit isn't particularly helpful or even true in most cases. I think people partially do this so they can absolve themselves of their own guilt. Using this line of thinking, those that obtained wealth by pushing green causes or energy are at fault for climate change and whatever impending conspiracy theory "event" for which they are prepping? I find that far too reductive.

You make it sound like they made profit and had nothing to do with environment that made that possible.

How many times did the rich block change trough lobbying to safe their business model, how many think tanks were funded to push their point of view, how many times did they threaten to change their location to other states or even countries?

For instance why is China the workbench of the world despite the human rights situation. It wasn't better when it started, but who cares if it's for profit.

I think it's exactly the opposite, they are more responsible than we know.

> I shouldn't have to say this, but the current state of affairs is not primarily due to rich people and is far more complicated. They display a third-grade level of it economics and are even more cynical than the people he chides.

Use more rigorous language and provide a rationale for your argument. “[C]urrent state of affairs” is vague and inoperative, and you point to an understanding of “far more complicated” issues but do not substantiate it.

However, your comment does serve to express your superiority over the following:

* the author, Douglas Rushkoff

* third-grade economists

* marxists

* contemporary journalists

* the guardian

All of which can be true, but it is lacking for want of certain things like evidence, synthesis, or nuance.

Seems clear enough to me. The author returns again and again to the idea that the men are "responsible" for the coming black swan event they are preparing for. They are but small men in a wider world whatever their wealth.

Such an idea is ridiculous particularly considering the event hasn't happened and is unknown.

It is sad how little the group appears to care about their fellow men. Perhaps that's the lens of the author, I don't know.

But the author also strongly links survival thinking with selfishness, which is hogwash. Poor article, snatching ideological defeat from the jaws of victory.

Before I proceed, I’d like your prespective on the following:

1) Does industrial activity reliant on fossil fuels contribute significantly to climate change?

2) Does engagement-first online political content curation contribute to political instability?

3) Does large scale arbitrage in the areas of real estate, energy, and food production significantly contribute to quality-of-life instability?

"Before I proceed I want to set up some logic traps because I'm more interested in winning than in honest exchange of opinion"

No thanks, have a nice weekend.

Are you SERIOUSLY asking for sources on my opinion on an opinion piece? You do know what opinion means, right?

Agreed. This piece panders to the common trope and adds zero unique insight.

It's really not worth reading.

> The way to get your guards to exhibit loyalty in the future was to treat them like friends right now, I explained

How can you be ultra naive and give talks and publish an article?

No wonder the billionairres rolled their eyes.

Not defending the billionaires here in case HN hippies make angry noises.

At the end of the article the author, Douglas Rushkoff, realises they didn't ask him specifically for legit advice but rather performed a philosophical and critical evaluation of their justifications for their (selfish) future safety plans. Douglas is a pretty successful media theorist - he coined the terms viral media, digital native, and social currency. I have a theory they probably all asked "great thinkers" [0] for their opinion.

[0] It wouldn't surprised me if they used some thought leader analysis, because Rushkoff is pretty high on that list. https://arxiv.org/abs/1308.1160

Douglas Rushkoff concludes the article implying his clients might be on the cusp of realizing if anyone is in a position to slow, halt, and/or reverse the forces leading to The Event it is those clients asking him questions.

Which is odd. Who thinks someone who has a couple or few hundred million from Silicon Valley-type startups and investments has any more pull than say, Madonna? Or a group from Hollywood?

Sounds like our boy Douglas is having himself some delusions of grandeur.

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