Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/10/01/why-silicon-valley-doomsday-pr.html
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The problem with prepping for some future global disaster is you don’t know what that disaster will be. You can move north looking for better weather after global warming, but if there’s an asteroid strike and a new ice age you’re screwed. NZ is a nice place, but it’s also part of the Pacific “ring of fire”, so it’s dotted with small volcanoes.
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Yep, and pyroclastic flow ain’t no joke.
There is no full-proof survivalist strategy, and merely having oodles of money is no guarantee that one will survive at all, let alone “comfortably.”
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Um, they will, because they will be responsible for it.
People of New Zealand: Feel free to hunt these people for sport. But don’t eat them. They’re toxic. Just burn the bodies somewhere where you don’t want to live.
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The thorniest problems always surround the pilots, personal physicians, blood boys (in Thiel’s case), and especially the goons-for-hire that these plans always require. From Douglas Rushkoff’s article on this same topic:
They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or 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.
The only thing I’ll give them credit for here is vaulting the ultra-low bar that their heroine Ayn Rand couldn’t.
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President Thomas Whitmore: I saw… its thoughts. I saw what they’re planning to do. They’re like locusts. They’re moving from planet to planet… their whole civilization. After they’ve consumed every natural resource they move on… and we’re next. Nuke 'em. Let’s nuke the bastards.
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"Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every resource is consumed.
The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern… a virus."
~ Agent Smith
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Actually given where most of these bozos are building their lairs the real issue is earthquakes - most of the length of the South Island is a stuck fault, it regularly has 7s at either end but the bit in the middle has been stuck far longer than geologically normal rate, we’re expecting an 8 or 9 any day now - probably better to build your bolt hole above ground, out of straw
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Yep, this is the thing - they’re fairly specific about the type of global calamities they expect to happen because they’re fully aware that they’re up to their eyeballs in furtherance of them.
This article functions as another reminder that someone needs to eat Peter Thiel.
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The irony here from the article is that they build hidden bunkers that you can only find by GPS, and in case of a global disaster GPS may well be dead by the time they get there. Wouldn’t it be amusing if they starved to death aimlessly walking through the countryside looking for their hidden fortress filled with luxurious food?
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Doomsday Preppers are useless deadweight.
Instead of preparing for realistic things like natural disasters with the idea that we preserve order and society after such events, these dillholes waste time, energy and resources for events that are either unlikely to happen, be survivable, or unlikely one would want to survive.
The resources, emergency food, batteries, generators and equipment are far more useful in the hands of people like the Red Cross and FEMA than in the hands of useless rednecks who have seen one too many cheesy SF films.
I do my own minor token towards “prepping” because I live in a flood zone. But I know my survival depends on the help and cooperation of society and its infrastructure. Not whether I am armed and have a stockpile of Campbells soup.
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I think the solution to that is to convince all the preppers that IT has happened, they all go underground and get to live their fantasy, , we stop getting their spam and get onliving without them
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My mom went thru a bit of a “prepper” phase after 9/11 - convinced another attack would target the public infrastructure enough to cause disruptions to water and electricity. She hoarded batteries and canned goods, stashed buckets of water in the closet and put together several “Bug Out” bags in case they needed to evacuate the city.
Needless to say I had a bunch of crap to throw away when she moved out of her house this past summer. Even homeless shelters turned away cans of 17 year old Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and Kraft Mac n Cheese.
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And once they sit in their bunkers, better make sure to seal them from the outside, just to make sure.
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When they get to their bunkers, we can just bury them in concrete and forget about them.
(See below)
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This was my first thought, too:
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New Zealand’s isolation, lack of global enemies, lovely climate, and perks for luring tech workers have sealed its reputation in the Bay Area.
Colonialism continues apace, ladies and gentleman.
Side note: is there a term for mega-rich people populating an already-colonized part of the globe, and then proceeding to flex their political muscle on the local yokels once set up there?
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