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Comment by I_am_uncreative | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, this is an interesting project, but the author's belief that society is going to completely collapse by 2030 is... odd.

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And he's removed all the updates where he said the collapse was happening and then turned out to be wrong.

He's basically just another doomsday cultist.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

Pretty much by definition the first people to prepare for any disaster will be people who are or at least appear to be unreasonable.

We benefit from a diversity of opinions, even when some of the opinions are wrong.

This cartoon always comes to mind. People have been saying this since before civilizations probably. Eventually they are right.

https://dustoffthebible.com/Blog-archive/2012/05/25/the-end-...

saying society will collapse by 2030 is more reasonable than saying people will run a niche operating system after it does. Societal collapse looks different to different people but I'd be surprised if the western world hasn't radically declined by 2050.

If society doesn't collapse by 2030, who's harmed by this project existing?

And if you're going to pick a date, why one over another?

+7 years seems a reasonable goal to make progress towards

By this project? No one, probably. By this "society is doomed, the world is gonna collapse" type of thought? Many people. Loads of people for a myriad of reasons get conned into this dillusion and either (a) stripped out of their hard earned cash or (b) spiral further and further into a dillisuonal state where they either hurt themselves or people around them.

Also it's effin goofy. Nerd CEOs building their underground fantasy post apocalypse shelter, thinking that not only that the society will collapse I their life time into a Fallout-ish World, but that their shelter is going to be of big help. But the goofyness is just that, it's the promotion and prophecies that are harmful.

And at a slightly higher level: the likes of Thiel and company buying up remote property. I wonder if they have figured out how they're going to get there when they have to. In their worldview NZ is probably next door but when the lights go out getting there is going to be a serious challenge, probably much more risky than simply staying put wherever you find yourself.

I'd understand if we were dedicating substantial resources to prepping... but we're not.

The number of people and amount of treasure spent on it is a rounding error.

Let other people have their hobbies.

It's pretty dangerous when those that are in a position to make a difference are also able to position themselves in such a way that they won't go down with the ship if they don't.

That's getting into Illuminati territory.

Thiel is rich and powerful, but he isn't that rich and powerful. There are more than enough counterbalancing forces.

And it starts to be way too thought policy (for me) deciding "You can't be rich and worry about civilization collapsing."

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-val...

That used so many words to say "Thiel bought some land in New Zealand and thinks the current world is going to end."

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