Billionaires building bunkers buying islands– prep for apocalypse or feudalism? | Hacker News Reader

Billionaires building bunkers buying islands– prep for apocalypse or feudalism?

phys.org

37 pointsrolph29 comments

People who are funding political chaos monkeys to "blow up the system" have a financial moat against consequences of their own destructive actions. Now they have actual moats.

I expect they'll learn the same hard lesson that the Romans and others did... fortifications only get you so far after the civilization you depend on starts to fade or fall. It's an oddly pathetic reminder that money only gets you so far, and "end of an era" is the limit.

Same with the bunkers, when money is worthless and the only truly valuable thing are access to food and force of arms, who's going to submit to some nerd because they "employ" them?

Buy islands, build bunkers... it's just an expensive version of going to sleep clutching a stuffed animal.

Some of those Romans became the nobles and royalty in the new kingdoms after Rome fell. We might not want them learning those lessons.

Some, yes, but many of them were former local overseers taking advantage of the fall of globalisation to convert their de facto control into de jure.

The Roman Britons were almost all driven into Scotland and Wales by the invading Angles and Saxons, the cities were abandoned, and pretty much everyone lived a life we'd consider primitive and awful for the next thousand or so years.

This is a really good point. I suppose the only thing I can add is that I have noticed many of those building bunkers have also hired personal chefs and personal trainers to get as built and in shape as humanly possible. Could it be just in case people get past their guards or perhaps to survive some form of muscle wasting event?

Might just be a renewed interest in living a long time. Why make all this money if you’re going to die from poor diet and obesity at 65?

That's regardless of the environment. They are isolated from the rest of society and they want to keep creature comforts no matter what. Hardship is not part of their plans.

Billionaires now have the closest thing to paradise on earth, for the first time in human history. Food, entertainment, transportation, beautiful partners - all at the snap of fingers. Of course they want to live forever. On the other end of it is either judgement or just Nothing.

What constitutes a muscle-wasting event?

Yep. Peter Thiel's antics supporting Trump and funding psyops on Facebook and Reddit to bring about a new feudalism world is a perfect example. His bunker in New Zealand was luckily exposed, so he can't hide from the consequences. I'd love to see someone develop a Billionaire Bunker locator, similar to the Elon's Jet idea.

Interested in hearing more about Thiel funding Reddit psyops when you have the time!

This has nothing to do with feudalism, "techno-" or otherwise. This is an embarrassing, tabloid level article.

Yes. Feudalism placed the lords in a very complex web of interactions (and responsibilities) with their local population. They weren't 'billionaires in bunkers' helicoptering in their food and ammo.

Maybe things will take an unanticipated turn and these "tech billioaires" will hide in their bunkers while society cleans up the mess they made. Ashamed to ever show their faces again, they will live like nerds in their mother's basement.

In the event of an apocalypse, it's optimistic for the owner to think he will remain owner against external assault and internal revolt in the post-capitalist, dog-eat-dog, mad max world that these seem to be built for.

Isn't that kind of hubris not essential part of their character? Right next to the I-achieved-all-by-myself-that-is-why-I-deserve-it attitude.

The revolt will never happen because these billionaires will just lull us to sleep with more TikTok movies and whatnot.

Some parts of world are going to be inhospitable in near future. When nations will be on the move, not just distractions, but bunkers also are going to be irrelevant.

Its unlikely us plebs will get airplanes or boats to get all the way out to Hawaii to overthrow a couple random billionaires, we’ll have much bigger issues to deal with at home.

You should probably spend some of your money if you are a billionaire, bunkers and islands seem like a good buy to me (as well as farm land or just large swaths of land in general which other articles have speculated Bill Gates and others are doing for nefarious reasons). Bunkers aren't a rare resource but there's not many existing ones now and they can be difficult to construct in some countries for code reasons or take a while, so seems reasonable to buy an existing one or start construction on one if you have the cash. Farmland and islands are a bit more obvious of a great investment, they are finite resources, always useful, and can be used to generate income.

In current market, land in general is not stupid move when you are already multi-billionaire. If you have already big enough stake on stock, debt, precious metals and property market to gain profits, yea land is extremely sensible move.

Bunkers are weird, but probably lot cheaper that yatch anyway...

Related yesterday:

A tech billionaire is quietly buying up land in Hawaii. No one knows why

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39576565

Not unlike feudal lords building castles.

Unlike in fantasy novels, feudal castles aren't found out in the middle of nowhere; they're found in places where they had control of either trade routes or a substantial local economy.

Well except that feudal lords had to interact with the local population. It's where their food and servants came from, and if they were true feudal lords, part of their wealth in the form of tithes. They also were expected to raise local troops if necessary by their bosses, higher up the aristocratic hierarchy.

If the feudal lords tried to behave as if their castles were bunkers, they wouldn't have lasted very long at all.

Most billionaires don’t have islands or bunkers. It’s a few percentage of them fulfilling their prepping fantasies.

Many people have these fantasies, but these are the few with the actual funds to do it in reality.

I can’t understand why people let themselves easily suckered by clickbait…the perpetually outraged people’s.

I would think that one of the more important aspects of a survival bunker would be to keep it a secret. I think if it were me, I'd have it built for some other purpose as cover to tell the contractors involved. It could be that there are many more out there than are known, but I suppose it's a not a particularly falsifiable idea.

Complaining about feudalism in 2024 is a sure sign of know-nothing-ism.

Interesting they mention Thiel, he had close involvement with ballistic missiles, and New Zealand is objectively the best place to survive nuclear apocalypse. His friend Elon's Strategic Defense Initiative project (Starshield) isn't getting political traction so he may want to try again on the bunkers.

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