Naomi Alderman’s latest novel, “The Future,” explores this topic. It’s a good read.
11 Likes
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has an arrangement with Peter Thiel, first revealed to The New Yorker, where the pair will take a jet to one of Thiel’s New Zealand properties in the case of an apocalyptic event.
Well there’s one CEO who won’t be making it through the apocalypse. Who else is supposedly getting on the plane, Hulk Hogan?
7 Likes
Also, I’m sceptical about the “self-sustaining” bit. That takes substantially more than a storage room full of emergency food buckets.
19 Likes
Seems like a conflict of interest: Billionaires are preparing to be the sole survivors of an apocalypse event while actively contributing to the likelihood of its occurrence.
And - even if they “survive” whatever it is - they can’t really do anything, can they? They would never be able to feed themselves or fix anything.
18 Likes
Maybe I’ve absorbed too many doomsday books/movies/TV shows, but honestly when shit goes south… I’m getting a bottle of good scotch and sleeping pills. The last thing I want to be doing is dodging nut-job cannibals.
10 Likes
Seems like a conflict of interest: Billionaires are preparing to be the sole survivors of an apocalypse event while actively contributing to the likelihood of its occurrence.
Sounds more like synergy to me!
10 Likes
Is there some way we can convince him the end is about to happen and fool him into locking himself in the bunker?
It may require some work to keep the charade going indefinitely, a la the 2003 German film “Goodbye Lenin.”
11 Likes
My favorite take on these dumb fantasies is the Love Death + Robots episode “Three Robots: Exit Strategies.” During their tour of the post-apocalyptic earth the robots find out exactly how well the sea-steading, underground bunker and mars colony plans worked out.
17 Likes
He is raising cattle fed only macadamia nuts and beer, what else would you ever need? /s
8 Likes
May the indigenous Hawaiians regain their land rights soon.
ETA: Madame Pele don’t play.
14 Likes
Considering Thiel’s regular blood transfusions from young children…lets say a phlebotomist.
5 Likes
8 Likes
I always wondered at which point they’ll start locking themselves in early. The worst case scenario is spending all that time and money on a bunker, but being too far away to reach it when disaster strikes. We’ve seen that scenario multiple times in sci-fi, but I guess these folks don’t want to seem too paranoid. 
17 Likes
My favorite part of “The Postman” by David Brin was that in the preceding slow apocalypse, all the preppers with their doomsday bunkers basically became loot boxes for the real bad guys.
You gotta make society actually work, “fuck you got mine” is not a long term strategy.
17 Likes
I haven’t read it, but I can imagine gangs of armed looters raiding prepper bunkers, eating all the food and drinking all the booze then moving on to the next bunker, until several months/weeks/days later they starve to death because there are no more bunkers to loot.
8 Likes
Can’t imagine the pain of riding out the apocalypse with any of these people.
I’ll take being a zombie thanks.
8 Likes
Indeed.
8 Likes
10 Likes
You’re not a proper supervillain until you have a secret lair inside an active volcano.
Of course it usually just takes a guy in a tuxedo and his bikini-clad sidkick to make the whole thing go boom.
12 Likes
