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I think they know the system is unfair. They are just greedy fucks who’d prefer to squeeze it completely dry to benefit themselves.
Capitalism being about companies competing to provide value to society is a myth we tell. Otherwise no one would have a problem.
- 1 year
I don’t remember who said it, but I think about this comment a lot:
All these billionaires would rather spend their wealth building bunkers for when their actions cause social collapse, instead of trying to prevent social collapse in the first place.
- 1 year
The thing is, none of these bunkers are built by billionaires. Would be real unfortunate if they had some design flaws in them lol
- Omgpwnies@lemmy.worldEnglish1 year
Doesn’t need to be any design flaws, a few minutes with a welder and/or a truck load of concrete at the door once they’re in there would render the whole billionaire problem “solved”, Hotel California style.
- 1 year
Given we’re talking about the total collapse of society, the goal in such an event would be less “keep the billionaire in” and more “get all the food and ammunition he’s hoarding out. And any women.”
1 yearThe women will likely just open the door for you to get away from the creepy weirdos inside
- 1 year
lol any woman in there being kept under the implication would be happy to kill them and get out, the bunkers would eat themselves from the inside
- Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish1 year
Probably won’t protect them from things like direct conventional bombardment of bombs or even bunker busters. Or even a nuke
- dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish1 year
These assholes always fantasize that their wealth and accumulation of luxury items will grant them the leg up to become rulers during the social collapse. They don’t realize that in case of a social collapse the world won’t immediately look like Mad Max, and they certainly aren’t Immortan Joe. It will look more like Children of Man. Very slow and very gradual and with a lot mass governmental violence, not small arms violence.
Further, they don’t have what it takes to survive off the land, nor the intimidation to warlord after.
Other than a pensioners its difficult to imagine someone more dependant on the systems.
- Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish1 year
No wilderness survival skills, how do they know which berries to eat and which will poison you, or which animal carcass have a ton of parasites you should never eat, never eat a carnivore or an animal that eats mostly carrion.
- 1 year
Because becoming a billionaire itself contributes to society’s collapse. They are opposite goals.
- 1 year
I don’t think they necessarily “prefer” it. It’s more just that they have what is an unimaginable amount of money in comparison to us, why not invest to preserve your long term survival?
They have already dealt with the normal shit the rest of us have to. They have a house, car, enough money for them and their families to never work again, to do whatever hobbies they like with no restriction.
If you are someone with a worth of a billion, this bunker development will cost something like 10m. That’s 1% of your wealth. It would be the same as the median American spending $1920 in pure relative terms, but probably would have an effect more like $500 on their real finances (again, every other need has been financially met long, long ago)
- Soggy@lemmy.worldEnglish1 year
Well, because I’m not a sociopath I think preserving the world’s ecosystems is more important than a few years at the tail end of my life. Doomsday bunker with a Mad Max stockpile wouldn’t occur to me as a thing to actually do.
- 1 year
Okay, cool. Probably so do a lot of billionaires, at least from a pure pragmatic POV of them not wanting their skull cracked open. The point is that for a tiny portion of their wealth, they can insure against a lot of more realistic severe problems (unrest, riots, communism arising in the US, war, assassination, widespread famine), in addition to more extreme and less likely problems (doomsday, machine uprising, environmental collapse).
Frankly, were I a billionaire and able to see the choices Trump is making to make the average civilian in America jobless, penniless and hopeless, I would also be making a bunker in the wilderness or distant nation.
- Soggy@lemmy.worldEnglish1 year
Or you could use your indescribable wealth to prevent the things you need a bunker for.
- 1 year
Yeah but you can’t though. Like let’s be real, you have 1bn, you’re not Elon Musk or Bill Gates level - and even they would not be able to stop an angry Donald Trump
Not enough to fight the bigger fish, but 1 billion dollars is more than enough to make public works that aren’t just a front (all these assholes have some foundation that is, at best, a zero sum charity), making better community spaces so they’ll actually see you as a “good guy” instead of yet another fucking greedy asshole.
Just people building their own tombs. Being a part of society is what keeps you alive. They already crossed the boundary by essentially removing themselves from it. It’s already over for them
- 1 year
If an apocalypse happens I’d rather be in the bunker with all the goodies instead of outside with the roving gangs vying for control.
- Sunsofold@lemmings.worldEnglish1 year
Douglas Rushkoff
Author, media theorist, and cool guy
Does the Team Human podcast
- plyth@feddit.orgEnglish1 year
To be fair, what could a single billionaire do? They are far more powerful than most, but they would have to cooperate with other billionaires to make that change.
There are 3000 billionaires. Who is going to stick their head out if the necessary changes will be opposed by many billionaires as well as huge parts of the regular population?
It would be better for society to improve itself instead of waiting for a solution by the billionaires. Difficult while being trained to be a consumer, but possible.
The solution is to cull billionaires. They can lose their wealth or their heads, either will make a better society
- r.EndTimes@lemm.eeEnglish1 year
And they all already have, insane, there is our trickle down economics at work, they would rather hoarde and spend every last cent on a bunker right before they drop dead from old age than give back to the world
- Boddhisatva@lemmy.worldEnglish1 year
I read a book called Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven many years ago about a comet hitting the Earth. There was a scene in the book, after the impact, where a rich guy manages to finally reach a place up in the mountains where he has supplies stashed, only to find that his employees have claimed it for themselves and won’t let him in because he’s basically useless in the new world of survival.
If you were working for Huffman or Musk or any of the rest of them, and a there was a huge society ending disaster, would you let them in when they showed up or would you just shoot them down with their own guns? I know what I would do. I can’t imagine anyone letting them in.
- null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish1 year
It doesn’t even have to be so combative.
Imagine being thrown together with 99 other survivors of the apocalypse and 1 of them was musk.
There’s going to be medical people and trades people and farmers and naturalists and even people with governance experience from community groups et cetera.
Imagine how utterly useless a billionaire would be in that context. Their entitlement would make them worse than useless. Like I’d rather be stuck with nanna who is just a drain on resources rather than someone who’s only skill is self interest.
- 1 year
Nanna is the keeper of the stories and the only person who has the entire new testament memorised.
That is such a great book.
And yeah, fuck them. I would absolutely never let them in.
Now ask yourself why these guys are suddenly so obsessed with AI, chatbots, and getting rid of roles previously staffed by humans.
- 1 year
I hope the virtual doorman hallucinates that they’re a radioactive dog or some shit
- 1 year
lol
A delivery guy I know couldn’t make his (scheduled, daily) pickup at an Amazon warehouse because the robot security didn’t recognize him that day (despite being the usual guy, with a badge).
So yeah, that probably will be the most likely scenario.
- Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish1 year
Which is just a thousand times fucking funnier to me given that i’m someone with actual technical knowledge who works in the industry as opposed to a kholed nepo baby with parental funds.
- 1 year
Cory Doctorow’s Masque of the Red Death novella (named after Poe’s story of the same name) explores this theme a lot, especially how short sighted the rich can be and how well the poor band together to rebuild.
Here’s the free audio book:
- Boddhisatva@lemmy.worldEnglish1 year
Ooh, free Edgar Allen Poe book? Are you trying to be my new best friend?
- 1 year
well it’s not EAP, its CD - but using an EAP title. Sure we can be BFFs, but ill need a credit card number and PIN code
- Boddhisatva@lemmy.worldEnglish1 year
Ah, I shouldn’t have skimmed your post. Thanks again, I’ll give it a listen.
- 1 year
Didn’t read the book but I get the scenario after a hypothetical world changing disaster, it’s going to be a ratrace for high ground. It’s a false sense of security to believe hoarding cash or guns or vehicle would be your ticket out of it, it’s called pride and hubris.
A motor/car can’t swim. Weapons are a sign of hostility. Cash could be useless. Even having access to an escape satellite doesn’t guarantee you’ll be hit by space trash or cosmic plasma streams. The Road is a example how depressing the aftermath really is.
- 1 year
The Road is a good example; this thread also has me thinking about the Amos and Clarissa arc after the meteors hit in The Expanse.
- 1 year
I had gone quite a long time without thinking about The Road.
Day ruined.
- 1 year
Being hired as security at a billionaire’s Hawaiian apocalypse bunker has got to be the best job imaginable. You get paid to live in a tropical paradise in case The Worst should happen. If The Worst actually does happen, you just go inside the bunker and lock the doors, and if the billionaire shows up, you don’t let him in. Easy peasy.
- Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish1 year
people like musk, thiel,altman have built complexes in other countries( mostly thiel,NZ) in case billionaires finally becomes the target they richly deserved, how are they going to staff thier complexes? with harems of women in cas thiel men, and slaves, willing to go with them.
- 1 year
Dude could have been cast as a white walker and HBO would have saved a ton in VFX and makeup costs.
- 1 year
The really funny thing about Spez is that he’s far from a power player in the tech scene, nowhere near the likes of Musk and Zuckerberg. But he so desperately wants to be that he actually just looks sad and pathetic in the process.
Wtf is he going to do with his stockpile of motorbikes during the apocalypse? Start a Mad Max biker crew? What a fkn loser lol.
- Ghosthacked@lemm.eeEnglish1 year
He’s just going to the next tier of cuck that provides bikes for the raiders that get in his bunker. They should keep him alive as a manservant when his little apocalypse plan falls apart.
- fishy@lemmy.todayEnglish1 year
I can just imagine this as a scene in a fallout game. Lonely old rich fuck hidden away for years. You ring the intercom and he’s so excited to hear another voice that he invites you in. Starts spewing shit opinions. You eventually realize he could’ve helped stop the apocalypse but built the bunker and profited instead. Look at all the loot. Inform him he can either become a smear on the wall or caretaker of your new place.
- Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish1 year
He will flee to musk’s compound in Texas at the first sign of trouble, trying to be part of his harem
- 1 year
I just want to know the evidence for the motorcycles. Is it really a “stockpile” of them, or is he a rich bitch and likes motorcycles like jay leno likes cars?
- 1 year
I agree. Many people are imagining, “instead of using his vast wealth to fix the world, he dedicates all his money and mental energy to an elaborate bunker that will ensure his survival in a specific apocalyptic scenario he believes is likely to happen.”
It might be more like, "amongst all the random wealthy-person shit he’s bought, there are guns and motorcycles (because he thinks they are cool) as well as a pantry full of canned food (because everyone should have an emergency kit and you never know).
But I could be wrong.
- Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish1 year
He did what musk ask if him on moderating reddit twice, which let 2 waves of massive bans, plus the ongoing shadow and. And I heard they changed something. Recently to catch even the more sophisticated ban eveders
Where are you getting the gas, Steve? Gas is only good for a few months in storage without treatment and a couple of years with it. Have you never read a fucking book?
- GluWu@lemm.eeEnglish1 year
Petroleum distillation is incredibly simple. Give me a couple weeks in a junkyard with a welder and I can have your crude refined to any weight distillate you want. People were distilling petroleum fuels a century before penicillin was invented.
Fuck piss baby spez. But of you should see the crude “refineries” around the world run with just a tank, heated by the same crude inside, with just a long pipe as a condernsor that people manually water cool.
Key words in that sentence: give you those things. I doubt the lord tech bro could do any of that if the apocalypse happened tomorrow.
Even the janky version requires skill and knowledge, and if he doesn’t have the crude then both are useless anyway. Building a hole in the ground with motorcycles doesn’t help you when you depend on a highly connected world to fuel and maintain it.
The first thing people will do when society collapses is head to where the billionaires live to raid their stockpiles.
If any are successfully defended, I propose we simply push a bunch of rocks on top of it.
- 1 year
Shit next to the intake vents. Make that spot the communal toilet. Lets see how long the filters last
- 1 year
I always find it funny that people imagibe that in an apocalypse a modern fossil fuel vehicle would be any good. Unless you know how to modify the engine to use realistically self-producable fuel you will be able to run it for only a few months before all the fuel in the world degrades and starts destroying/not running the engine. Better off getting electric vehicles as electricity is actually easy to produce.
- 1 year
A bicycle isn’t a bad thing to have in an apocalypse. Not difficult to maintain, considerably faster and more efficient than walking, basically no infrastructure required.
- 1 year
For sure, but there would be use cases for bigger vehicles, especially if you don’t want to be on the run but rather rebuild
- 1 year
Sure, but if I’m stocking a ragnarok bunker I’m going to stick a Trek in there.
This video walks you through on how to convert a vehicle to run on wood gas. I should have posted this instead of the link I posted.
I am sure there are instructions written down in case of no electricity.
- 1 year
Depends on the battery, but sure, but they would last a few years, and some types of batteries would last even more
- 1 year
Lead-acid batteries aren’t great, and you do need some care to recycle them to make them like new, but it can be done. They’re good enough to run a small hauler that would be useful in and around your bunker.
Multiple motorcycles? What’s he gonna do, ride them all at once?
- 1 year
If you have a bunch of motorcycles going in a line and you ride another motorcycle on top of that line like a conveyor belt then you will be going twice as fast as the highest speed the single motorcycle could go.
More wheels is more faster, just like legs. That’s why horses are faster than people. This Huffman guy might be onto something
- 1 year
Obviously him (and all the other oligarchs behaving like this) are counting on their entourage of sycophants following them. I don’t think they have completely considered the fact that all of their untangible wealth will be worthless in an apocalypse situation, and instead they will just turn into golden geese sitting on a pile of stuff that everyone else, including their former sycophants, would like to sit on instead.
- 1 year
There was some guy that got to interview a bunch of billionaires for some reason and their views on an apocalypse situation are eye opening.
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”.
I say that when the billionaires retreat into their bunkers we should all cover the entrances and vents with a couple hundred layers of concrete.
- 1 year
Insane strategy, Silicon Valley execs. Sell the thing that you believe is gonna cause the apocalypse so you can afford to have apocalypse insurance. That definitely needed to happen…
- 1 year
This is it… how about these dudes stopped preparing for the apocalypse that they themselves are causing, and instead changed the reality they’ve created, thus preventing said apocalypse from taking place in the first place…
Nawww is the little piggy boy scared we’re gonna come for him?
Good.
- 1 year
Gee, it was really considerate for these folk to collect all the shit our bandit rover band needed all in one place. Shame we had to eat all of them though.
Rushkoff wrote a book about consulting for these billionaire peppers.
https://rushkoff.com/books/survival-of-the-richest-escape-fantasies-of-the-tech-billionaires/
- 1 year
All these billionaires stockpiling in their secure bunkers have clearly never heard of the word ‘siege’.
seige only works if the besieged don’t have enough supplies and food production.
- 1 year
Well, if you can find the bunker and have nothing but time on your hands, you can get through concrete.
- Korhaka@sopuli.xyzEnglish1 year
You don’t even need power tools if you have enough time. Spent about £500 on disposing of all the concrete my garden was paved with, the only tools being a sledgehammer and crowbar. And like 10 pairs of gloves.
- Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish1 year
Same here but it cost me 0 as i already had the demo tools.
Archimedes was no fool
- Korhaka@sopuli.xyzEnglish1 year
The tools were not the expensive part, it was paying for disposal of all the broken up concrete
- Korhaka@sopuli.xyzEnglish1 year
It was thick and covered the entire garden. I wanted the vast majority to be completely unpaved. Fair bit of scrap metal and rubble below it too.
- 1 year
You do that the entire time you’re working on cracking that nut out of there. But these are billionaires were talking about here. They likely have NBC filters and air scrubbers.
- archonet@lemy.lolEnglish1 year
Ah, but filters can clog, and air scrubbers can only go so far for so long. Especially if you have someone at the air intake dedicated to making them stop working.
- archonet@lemy.lolEnglish1 year
this is the thing, if you had time and nothing but time, all it takes is finding the air intake and filling it with something you really don’t want to breathe. You don’t need to get in, you just need a way to make being inside less appealing than being outside.
The nice option is shit. The less nice options… goodness, we’re spoiled for choice.
