r/Showerthoughts • u/yesthisiskyle • 1d ago
Casual Thought If the elite ended up living in bunkers while we all die from some catastrophic event, they wouldn’t actually have the skills to survive on their own.
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u/TheWolphman 1d ago
I dunno. If they have a good bunker, they could potentially survive and die of old age. Though, surviving isn't thriving.
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u/mike_pants 1d ago
The lovely bit, the truly lovely bit, is most of them will never reach their bunkers anyway.
There have been leaked conversations between bunker billionaires and their staff where the billionaires have asked if they can be reliably transported to their bunkers. You need to ensure the loyalty of your pilots and drivers if the AI apocalypse happens when you're in Tokyo and your bunker is in Vegas.
The conversations are not complimentary towards the billionaires. Turns out, drivers and pilots also want to be with their families when the world is ending.
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u/cant_take_the_skies 1d ago
Douglas Rushkov, in his book Survival of the Fittest, talks about a speech he was giving to a bunch of jackwad CEOs. They asked how to keep their staff loyal during such an event.
He said to treat them like people now... Pay them well... Have plans in place to get them and their families to the bunker and go over the plans with them so they know they will be taken care of.
One guy pipes up and says "Oh, I was thinking maybe shock collars or something". The conversation devolved from there.
Why do we let the worst people be in charge of our economy and society?
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u/CoffeeFox 1d ago
If such an event happens, we won't.
Those people will be totally on their own and their employees will enjoy the nice shelters they didn't have to pay for.
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u/URPissingMeOff 1d ago
Yep. Billionaires will last about 30 seconds before their security staff guts them like pigs.
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u/0ldgrumpy1 1d ago
Rich knights used to have 3 horses, the comfortable palfrey, his war horse and a courser, his get the fuck out of here horse. If they were routed, he would ride his heavy low stamina warhorse to where a squire was holding his escape horse, which had money, provisions and clothing.
I have no idea how that ever worked, if you were lucky you'd get to where you parked your escape horse just in time to see it going over the horizon with your squire on it.671
u/Elberik 1d ago
This was during an era where your personal reputation actually mattered. If you had no one to vouch for you, folks would assume you were on the run from a crime.
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u/flatdecktrucker92 1d ago
And horse theft would get you hanged with no trial. Even the people who wanted to kill your knight would make sure you hanged for stealing that horse
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u/CallBoth 1d ago
Completely unrelated where do people learn these niche medieval facts? I need to do a lot of research for a book I’m writing
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u/Admirable_Risk8156 1d ago
Personally I read a lot of books, when I'm reading I see something that sounds like a lie. Go and check it, find out not a lie. Then I am usually repulsed by the rest of the story.
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u/Enlightened_Gardener 1d ago
Hit up your nearest Library andd make a Librarian really happy with that super interesting reference request.
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u/JACL2113 1d ago
Unfortunately, it's a lot of research between books, websites, and (depending how far down the rabbit hole you want to go) research papers. This current era of the internet is awful for it cause of all the misinformation, but you can still rely on some of the old institutions to remain accurate
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u/Reagalan 1d ago
The current internet is like hunting for diamond earrings in a minefield. You really have to know what to look for and how to look for it and most folks don't have that skill.
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u/Li_liminal_spaces 1d ago
And if you killed a knight and weren't a knight they'd torture you to death, publicly. You killed one of God's anointed and as such would be blamed for everything that was wrong in people's lives.
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u/I_travel_ze_world 1d ago
"quick, make it look like he fell on his own sword"
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u/Sciencetor2 1d ago
"God wouldn't let his anointed fall on his own sword, it's the fault of the treacherous (whoever is nearby at the time)". They weren't big on "innocent until proven guilty" back then.
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u/Dirty-Soul 1d ago
Plus, your squire would basically escape on one of your other horses.
You get the courser (fastest) and escape. The squire mounts your destrier (warhorse, most valuable,) and might escape. If he escapes, great. Your most valuable horse and your squire remain in your employ. The squire has demonstrated their honour and earns a point towards becoming a knight.
Most squires, when caught out in the open without their knight, would be expected to yield, usually without a fight. They're squires - basically knight-interns. They can't be held to the same standards of martial prowess and tenacity as their fully-sworn masters. Additionally, most squires were teenagers. Some squires might fight to the death, but most would be sensible and surrender to enemy forces if there was no chance of winning.
If the squire is captured and you escaped, you make sure to pay the ransom for his safe return. He honourably ensured your escape, so now you honourably ensure his release. Additionally, the squire is probably noble-born and is the son of one of your colleagues. Simply abandoning them to their fate is not wise.
Besides, squires are low-value prisoners. They have minimum useful intel to share with the enemy, they're not exactly valuable to anyone except the knight they serve, and they don't have positions of influence within the governance of a region or kingdom. They are also borderline expendable, which means that the amount of money an enemy can extort from you for their safe release is minimal, in the grand scheme of things.
If YOU get captured, you're a far more valuable hostage. At that point, you're kinda fucked. The dude who captured you will expect the kind of ransom that will bankrupt your family. If you can't pay it, and your family can't pay it, and your peers won't pay it for you, then the petition would come before the King... And if he says "no," then you have two options... Either die with honour at the gallows... Or realise that you have been forsaken by all those who you swore to protect and serve, and subsequently switch sides to serve your captors. If your king does not value your continued service sufficiently to save your life, why continue to give it?
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u/TheRetarius 1d ago
To expand on this: A knight could actually become rich simply by capturing the right guy. A good warhorse and the suit of armor you capture alone can make you rich. And all of this is before the ransom (although sometimes you sold the horse and armor back to its original owner since at least the armor could have been an inheritance and people got bitchy over that).
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u/Shaex 1d ago
Knights were frequently captured and ransomed instead of just killed. That squire would be a dead man walking if that knight ever came back
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u/GrayEidolon 1d ago
Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system, and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?” The event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, solar storm, unstoppable virus, or malicious computer hack that takes everything down.
This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from raiders as well as angry mobs. One had already secured a dozen Navy Seals to make their way to his compound if he gave them the right cue. But how would he pay the guards once even his crypto was worthless? What would stop the guards from eventually 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”.
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u/SABorge 1d ago
Exactly, the apocalypse doesn't start when someone says it starts. Personally (living in Norway where hunting with bows is illegal because its consider animal cruelty), I would define the world to have ended the second anyone doesn't care if they get a fine for hunting food with a crossbow/bow and arrow. Personally I'm gonna end it all when they stop making toilet paper, because that's not a world I wanna live in
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u/Top-Base4502 1d ago
Most of them will get there and then people like me on the outside will mess with their air intakes and let nature do its thing.
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u/Inkstainedfox 1d ago
That doesn't even matter... For a bunker to be useful it has to be immediately at hand the moment Nukes start flying.
Most folks rich or the poor crazy pepper won't be able to get anywhere close before impact or be warned.
A 17 hour flight does squat against a ballistic burn time of 30 minutes.
Worse your connecting airport may not be there on the other side.
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u/Bobbith_The_Chosen 1d ago
I’d be very interested to see these leaked conversations. Do you have any more specifics?
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u/asterboy 1d ago
If I’m thinking of the right thing, it’s not a leaked convo, but instead an article interviewing some dude paid by billionaires to consult on their security. Had some interesting insights. He recommended they invest in making their security loyal, which instead of treating them better, the billionaires decided shit like exploding neck collars would work, or having the only key to the pantry.
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u/TexasPeteEnthusiast 1d ago
What kind of peasant only has one bunker? You need to have them strategically located at all the places you may be when you need a bunker.
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u/Oriellien 1d ago
There was an AMA on here of a guy that builds these things a while ago. Supposedly even the best would only last five years max before supplies started to run out.
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u/hacksong 1d ago
Unless you have a full solar set up, with hydroponic garden, you're not making it. And that's assuming no debris covering the panels, no radiation in the water, nobody messing with your air vents... That your staff doesn't just kill you and take it for themselves...
It's not gonna go well if it's needed.
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u/tevert 1d ago
And when have you ever known a big pile of technology to work without needing replacement or repair for more than a few years?
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u/Soggy_Parking1353 1d ago
Especially if managed by the likes of Zuck, Musk and Bezos
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u/Flowing_and_Growing 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nah man i mean it depends on the scale, im not sure what these types are able to actually build, but hydroelectric will last longer and can potentially be maintained. You can treat and process water. You create redundancies for your air supply, and redundancies for those. Staff will probably eat you at some point though, yeah. Maybe that’s why Elon is so focused on the humanoid robots.
ETA: a lot of this is massively expensive and difficult to build. That’s why I voice hesitation. Money helps a lot but it doesn’t just make anything possible.
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u/NoxiousVaporwave 1d ago
What if you just care for the staff and their families by proving a large enough facility for a hundred or so people to survive.
Once you get up there in population the boredom solves itself.
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u/WhoAreWeEven 1d ago
The problem is, the notable people who buys these dooms day bunkers don't care about the staff. Just look at how they conduct their bussinesses. Not to mention if they medle in politics.
I think thats where this speculation stems from in the first place.
If they were the types to get along with people they probably wouldnt even need the bunkers to begin with.
And all some could come up with is androids and explosive collars. While thinking whos gonna pilot their planes and/or yachts to New Zealand when shit hits the fan.
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u/ZackRaynor 1d ago
It’s telling because there was one guy who was interviewed and was asked by the rich folks how to survive the end of the world and he told them “To do what you can to have it not end in the first place”
Needless to say, it was not the answer they were looking for.
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u/Flowing_and_Growing 1d ago
There are a lot of things you could do. Some might work. Some might work for a while. Machines are easy. They work or they don’t. You can fix it or you can’t.
Humans seem complicated. Want a bunch of humans to help run the machines or like repopulate earth or play chess with? You have to introduce uncertainty.
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u/GD_Insomniac 1d ago
Then you get into population control issues and tribal politics (aka might makes right) and static social hierarchy causing friction, plus it's harder to stockpile for emergencies so a major issue like a crop failure could just kill everyone.
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u/the_scarlett_ning 1d ago
Omg. That’s it. The missing piece. Quick, what do the fundamentalists want?
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u/Greedy-Pen 1d ago
I think the issue at that point is trying to have the people on hand for the maintenance. Even new stuff breaks during and after install.
And it would be unrealistic or extremely difficult for one person to do all of that themselves. Let alone some billionaire. Doubt they are going to learn how to swap valves and motors.
Also stuff breaks even under perfect maintenance. Solar panels shatter, motor burns out, bearing fails on the power generator etc.
So they’d have to have a stockpile of parts to replace things as time goes, a staff more than likely, and a ridiculous amount of money. People who build I will know about it and try to break in. Staff won’t have incentives to actually serve to billionaire.
So I think it’s possible to get a fallout type bunker but it seems very implausible.
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u/RumandDiabetes 1d ago
So few of these people have actual skills. They have gardeners to grow their tomatoes. They won't last five years on their own.
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u/Toby_O_Notoby 1d ago
Which presents problem #2: after the catastrophic event happens, your billions aren't worth shit:
"Hey you, grow me tomatoes. And you, make sure my machines work."
Well, I got a better idea. Why don't you clear our toilets because we know how to feed ourselves and keep the air pure. And right now you got nothing because all those green pieces of paper are good for is kindling.
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u/thisisjustascreename 1d ago
I sometimes wonder if our President could cook breakfast on his own.
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u/mochicoco 1d ago
I wonder if he has ever cooked his own breakfast
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u/speedingpullet 1d ago
I doubt it. I also doubt he's ever gone to a store for groceries either.
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u/Freethecrafts 1d ago
They’re built for waiting out initial fallout.
There are ways some enterprising people could extend and add functions in the waiting time. But there wouldn’t be enough of those and workers inside to make efforts viable.
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u/lookyloolookingatyou 1d ago
What little research I've done indicates the federal government isn't prepared to stay down more than 3 months. The billionaires probably don't either.
For broader advice: if there is a nuclear war and you don't get directly hit, you should only expect to shelter from fallout for two weeks to a month. Society isn't as fragile as it was when Threads came out and historical trends indicate we don't see post-apocalyptic raiding parties going door to door the moment utilities go down.
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u/mloDK 1d ago
Society is not as fragile as in the 80's? Dude, an increasing number of people cannot have an independent thought in their head unless a crackpot youtube video or AI is telling them stuff, let alone survive if they cannot go to the nearest shop for supplies
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u/DirtyHazza 1d ago
Nah, there'll be some bloke down in Southland who built the fucker and he'll have cut every corner he could without getting caught.
Those bunkers won't be worth shit when there's a mob outside blocking up the air vents
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u/sth128 1d ago
There are a couple permutations to these bunker scenarios.
A) they live completely alone. In such case they will succumb to any small injury or infection within a short time. If they don't, then insanity due to being alone in a post apocalyptic world.
B) they live amongst subordinates who do the actual work. In such case they will likely be deposed and killed immediately for having no useful skills and not having any real valuable assets to lead. After all money is useless if the country that minted it no longer exists.
Humans aren't meant to live in a bunker. Billionaire aren't meant to exist.
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u/vizard0 1d ago
I read this piece from a guy who does disaster social modeling where he was interviewed by a bunch of billionaires asking how to keep their employees subservient after the apocalypse. Ideas around having the only access to food or suicide collars were proposed. They rejected his "work with your employees and make sure they feel valued. Additionally, build stronger communities now to make this sort of thing unnecessary."
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u/Arinvar 1d ago
That is the likely goal of most of them. Live in a luxury bunker until they decide to off themselves or die of old age, while also secretly hoping they can emerge from their bunker and rebuild society as our new emperor.
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u/Roland_T_Flakfeizer 1d ago
Who would they be the emperor over? The penguins? Pretty sure they already have some of those.
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u/NotTheRocketman 1d ago
The thing is, their hired help is gonna turn on them, and THAT is their fatal flaw.
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u/skubaloob 1d ago
Weird how they’re all dumping money into AI and humanoid robots now. Eh…it’s probably unrelated
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u/Drix22 1d ago
Really? Can you imagine the likes of Trump, Elon, Zuckerberg, Bezos, etc. all living in the same bunker?
What the fuck would get done? Who would do it?
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u/NotoriousEMB 1d ago
They would have their own separate bunkers. I imagine they can chat remotely to each other and it will eventually devolve into high school tier drama. The final keyboard warriors.
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u/Soggy_Parking1353 1d ago
"Hey, guys? This is cool and all, hate to say it but I think we should have just paid more taxes. I miss pizza."
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u/Sweatroo 1d ago
I’m always curious what would keep the security guys they will necessarily bring with them loyal. If you are the one who knows military tactics and fighting and has the guns, you’re not taking orders once you’re in the bunker
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u/cest_va_bien 1d ago
As long as they are happy they will do it, being leaderless is not a great time. If not then yeah just look at the praetorian guard in Rome.
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u/ijuinkun 1d ago
Yah but why would the captain of the guards not overthrow the boss and install himself as the new boss? The only believable check on that would be if the leader of the guards would be unable to gain the loyalty of the other key servants (e.g. medical and engineers).
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u/Shamino79 1d ago
That’s kinda it. Bunkers would almost be set up like a mars mission. Key staff for survival. Before outside contact and interaction again it might be counter productive to have a hostile takeover. Later when there is resources to leverage with the outside world again all bets are off.
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u/pattrk 1d ago
That is not true at all. You are either inexperienced in hierarchy like that or naive if you think that everyone wants to be at the top. Sometimes its much more comfortable to be somewhere high enough but not ,,at the sunshine" high. Even more if you are the one enabling the highest ones. The fact that you COULD overthrow them is enough in most scenarios.
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u/Irish618 1d ago
Same reason the military in every country doesn't just launch coups constantly: contentment with stability, fears over instability, and at least some respect for de jure positions of power.
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u/Sweatroo 1d ago
Until the end times event happens and they realize US dollars count the ame as sea shells. Clint Eastwood said in one of his westerns: there’s two types of people, people with guns and people who dig.
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u/fredthefishlord 1d ago
Explosive collars are easily doable with modern tech.
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u/down_up__left_right 1d ago
That sounds like a quick way to ensure the guards with guns are resentful and disloyal.
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u/WhoAreWeEven 1d ago
Why would any competent person wear that?
It's a genuine question. I think some sort of kill switch on a person is just juvenile fantasy of a person with below average social intelligence. Perhaps even with some sort of diagnosable condition.
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u/whisperedifspoken 1d ago
There's a movie or series (I've only seen clips) where people on a cruise ship get stranded and the cleaning lady puts herself in charge because she's the only one who knew how to start a fire and catch fish. Someone questioned why she's in charge and she told them they were useless and offered nothing, and said they didn't have to eat what she was offering. Everyone else realised their own incompetency and smartly followed her lead.
So yeah, you're right lol
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u/ObliterateOxygen 1d ago
Triangle of sadness is the name of the movie. One of the better Danish comedys in the last decade.
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u/law-st_student 1d ago
Triangle of Sadness! I just mentioned it in a comment above before I saw your comment. The actress who plays the cleaning lady is a veteran actress from the Philippines.
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u/whisperedifspoken 1d ago
Right, I remembered she was Asian but couldn't remember specifically from where. Loved her just from the one clip that I saw. Thanks!
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u/Key-Possibility1725 1d ago
This reminds me of Madagascar with the old lady helping the tourists survive.
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u/pm_ur_tit_pics_pls 1d ago
Bold of you to assume they won’t have slaves in their bunker to do their dirty work.
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u/SuperCleverPunName 1d ago
But how do they maintain authority over the slaves? How do they maintain authority over the guards?
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u/Peaurxnanski 1d ago
This is the part they haven't thought through. Because the thing that gives them power now? Money? It isn't going to be worth the paper it's printed on.
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u/Magimasterkarp 1d ago
I think some of them were brainstorming that. Iirc explosive collars came up in that context.
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u/XiruFTW 1d ago
Id rather have my head blown off than slave away for them.
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u/Inside7shadows 1d ago
Shock collars, combination locks, and robots.
https://medium.com/@monde500/elites-bunkers-and-pitchforks-9dbb7bf40d1
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u/ketchupmaster987 1d ago
Probably get a few loyalists to keep the rest in line by using eviction as a threat, with the loyalists to actually do the evicting. Hold regular meals and a place to sleep over their heads. Tell them they're lucky to have such a good deal while others on the surface fight to survive
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u/BitOBear 1d ago
Douglas Rushkoff wrote a book called Survival of the Richest where he discusses ending up giving a presentation on building bunkers to 4 billionaires who were obsessed with what they called The Event. The billionaires wanted to know if there were any high-tech sci-fi ways to keep control of their guards and staff once money didn't mean anything and the bunker doors were closed. Like they were asking about things like explosive colors and brain implant chips if memory serves
The billionaire who paid for everything but has no useful skills in the New World is the first piece of dead weight any bunker would discard.
And if the billionaire tried to make it so that they're biometrics operated all the key facilities and stuff they would just become a very expensive key on a very short keychain once the toughest guy who decided to take over decided to take over.
The only real way to successfully have a billionaire bunker is if the billionaire is effectively a cult leader and the cult has already been functioning before the bunker doors need to be closed.
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u/cantlogintomyacc0unt 1d ago
They don’t need to go so far as too be a cult leader all they need to do is make sure their guards like them. They also need to make sure there isn’t a shortage of resources in the bunker so pruning the population isn’t necessary.
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u/low_amplitude 1d ago edited 1d ago
They have specialists on their payroll who would likely go with them.
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u/rugernut13 1d ago
Who would promptly murder them for their nifty bunker. Why would someone capable serve someone useless?
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u/Mythosaurus 1d ago
Imagine being a billionaire and accidentally recreating sword nobility as your bodyguards realize they have the actual power
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u/Chicory-Coffee 1d ago
Bingo. The rules of the game we're playing is what keeps other people in our society from knocking them down and stealing it all from them right now. Survival has an entirely different set of rules.
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u/Nihilikara 1d ago
Because they have an explosive collar around their neck. Granted, this wouldn't work very well or for very long.
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u/rugernut13 1d ago
Yeah... Who the fuck is taking that job? "You'll wear this collar as part of your employment".
"Uh... No."
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u/Nihilikara 1d ago
Presumably someone who doesn't want to die in the radioactive/zombie-infested/whatever wasteland.
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u/rugernut13 1d ago
Again, the plot of stupid movies aside, anyone capable enough to keep a billionaire alive is just going to smoke their ass or put them out on it the moment they have access to the bunker.
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u/sygnathid 1d ago
>access to the bunker
key concept, lots of ways to tie the access to the person who wants to be in charge, including but not limited to:
have the power shut off unless the password is input once a week
have passwords/pins to various necessary areas, only the owner knows them
create a large enough society/with enough specialists who don't know each other that killing the owner would require more of a societal upheaval than people are ready for
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u/Ptricky17 1d ago
Only the last idea (create a large enough society…”) has any real chance of working.
A password? Are you kidding me? Lol. Imagine how long it would take to get someone like Muskrat to spill the password once the person trying to take control starts water-boarding him. I give it 30 minutes max.
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u/Nihilikara 1d ago
I'd be shocked if the average tech bro even lasted 30 minutes from waterboarding. I doubt I could.
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u/ChibbleChobble 1d ago
Water boarding? I think we can go straight to mediaeval methods given that we're talking about a complete breakdown of society.
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u/GD_Insomniac 1d ago
The cool thing about waterboarding is how easy it is. More violent torture methods take a toll on the torturer's mental state; waterboarding is just giving someone a really unfriendly shower.
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u/mike_b_nimble 1d ago
The thing to remember about locks and password-protected power is that these systems were built by men with tools, and they can be un-built by men with tools. Bank vaults don't keep people out permanently, they just require several hours and a lot of noise to open. If the power requires a password to turn on the switch you can just rip out the switch and hardwire the connection. You can't put the special switch inside something that is forever inaccessible because then you can't repair it if it breaks. None of these people's plans take into account the infrastructure required or the ease with which that infrastructure can be dismantled, modified, or repurposed.
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u/TheGinger_Ninja0 1d ago
It's really just a more dangerous ankle monitor in the end right? Not like they're going to be able to make changes to it, so eventually it will get circumvented one way or another.
Billionaires gotta sleep, and the population that supports them loses a lot of incentive to protect them once a paycheck is worthless
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u/TheGinger_Ninja0 1d ago
Payroll and currency doesn't matter in the apocalypse. Not like you can go shopping on your days off.
The thing that the rich always forget is all their wealth is built on other people actually doing shit.
Soon as paper dollars don't matter, their control disappears.
They'll be better off than the poor folks for a bit, but they would meet a grizzly end, probably at the hands of their own staff
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u/randynumbergenerator 1d ago
It's grisly... though perhaps also grizzly if they have any ursine staff.
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u/TheGinger_Ninja0 1d ago
Lol. That just gave me the greatest vision of bear security guards in explosive collars....
I should write this
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u/randynumbergenerator 1d ago
You should, I would read it! Bears with explosive collars to keep the plebs in line.
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u/Chicory-Coffee 1d ago
I think about this kind of stuff when these topics come up. They're not planning for the long term, just long enough. The world is already being wrung out for whatever they can get from it and they damn well know what effect the selfishness has.
I think they'd underestimate what they'll need and first things to go would be anyone sharing their resources. Narcissists ain't gonna care about their legacy on that side of all this. I cannot see them genuinely working together in a meaningful way.
Man, when I was young I thought I'd be getting to visit orbitting tourist hotels "in space" and get to float like they do in the ISS. Now I'm seriously doubting a sustainable future in 5 to 10 years.
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u/dayumbrah 1d ago
Why do you think they are pushing so hard for AI everything? Loyalty is not an issue if the servant has no need for self-interest.
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u/TheGinger_Ninja0 1d ago
It's pretty simple right? They want slaves, but they're trying to get it via automation now because they know people eventually revolt.
So you gotta get AI and robots to keep the poors in check.
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u/NeighborhoodSuper592 1d ago
Worse. They hire staff to take care of everything while in the bunker. Staff realize the elite are useless. and....
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u/akoOfIxtall 1d ago edited 1d ago
Even funnier, in a post apocalyptic world where the remaining humans can be counted in the hundreds at best, money is kinda useless, especially inside a bunker, and specially because the rich are no more special than the janitor now, and there's no need for subordination anymore, the chance of people to start killing each other increases by the day, especially if they already had grudges against some when going into the bunker, like, I'd rather die in the blast than survive to be in a bunker with a bunch of strangers, especially when crimes have to be judged by ourselves and if factions start to form then shit will only go downhill from there
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u/neonnaps 1d ago
Billionair arrives at his bunker while nukes exploded in the background, only to discover his staff had allready arrived and has locked the door.
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u/BathFullOfDucks 1d ago
Only the person with the key to the food or the key to the guns becomes important, and that chap has to sleep at some point.
I think most would end up failing at some point and really only the ones where everyone was friends beforehand, with a plan for survival of thr species and a common goal would last any length of time.
The problem is photosynthesis.
To feed any decent number of people needs huge amounts of space, soil, water natural light and heat. If you are eating supplies then no matter how bountifil the store rooms are, human existence had an end date.
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u/adrian_GK 1d ago
Imagine the moment the head of security realizes his direct deposit is just pixels now. The power shift from 'sir' to 'hey buddy' would be awkward as hell.
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u/PossibleConclusion1 1d ago
I'm pretty sure it would shift from 'sir' to 'get out of my bunker.'
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u/law-st_student 1d ago
There's a movie titled Triangle of Sadness, where a luxury yacht gets shipwrecked and the survivors are basically kept alive by the yacht's toilet cleaner since she's the only one who knew how to build a fire, catch fish, prepare, and cook it.
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u/Jorost 1d ago
They will find other means of control.
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u/nocturnis9 1d ago
Like when Zuck asked security expert on building site of his bunker, that if explosive collars would be good control measure.
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u/HOLEPUNCHYOUREYELIDS 1d ago
IIRC (I could be misremembering it was a while ago) I read an article years ago where a guy who helped design/build some of the billionaire bunkers told one or some of them basically “You know if you need to use this bunker, the best way to prevent the required support staff and security from revolting is to actually befriend them and treat them well. Money won’t mean anything and will not buy loyalty” and then he said that after saying that he was usually just brushed off like he was overthinking it and being unreasonable
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u/EveryAccount7729 1d ago
haha , the second anyone gets close enough for the blast to kill you also, you're done.
OR
if they get you in range of a rock.
put an explosive collar on me to enslave me in a bunker? Im throwing the heaviest thing I can find at your head.
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u/SleepyCatMD 1d ago
That’s why they’re so hung up on crating robots and AI. Who needs whiny human farmers when you have effective robot farmers?
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u/hanniballz 1d ago
No one sane thinks they would be better off in apocalypse world.
the problem is that gross incompetence coupled with very big guns could bring armageddon about anyway.
and there's always the offchance that someone truly insane who really just wants to watch the world burn gets absolute power in a nuclear country.
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u/joseaamanzano 1d ago
I agree with this in the event of a global catastrophe. But generally, I think the real purpose of those bunkers is protection against civil unrest and class revolts, not natural disasters.
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u/Fox2quick 1d ago
They forget that the one of the classes revolting would include all the people who built the bunkers for them and probably know how to get their way in.
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u/SmellsonMuntz 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’ve always thought the same thing. I was watching this thing a while ago where this guy was selling air-stream sized fallout shelters on the same compound for 25-100k. In the event of a global catastrophe how are people supposed to get their “reserved” space? Trust? Money? (Which may or may not be valid.) clearly I’m in the wrong line of work cause that guy was just getting rich dopes to throw money at him. Those people are just absolute rubes.
Not to mention the fact that you’re populating interconnected fallout shelters with a bunch of cybertruck driving backstabbing opportunists who won’t lift a finger for the common good.
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u/varateshh 1d ago
Tensions usually rise before something disastrous breaks out. If a nuclear war was to break out then you likely would be aware of the risks days to months before it happened. World leaders (and their hiarchy) do not wake up one day and decide to start nuking with zero advance notice.
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u/Lavstory 1d ago
Did you just steal this thought from a person who posted exactly this a couple of days ago?
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u/Projectsummertime 1d ago
They did, but in their defence the other person wrote 'would' by mistake, but we knew what they meant. Man, I need to log off this lifewasting app.
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u/ParentheticalsAside 1d ago
Reddit is in its death throes. The last original post was in 2015.
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u/theirishembassy 1d ago
on that note: friendly reminder that spez says he’s a natural leader in the event of something like this.. or at least “not a slave”.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich
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u/IllVagrant 19h ago
The fact that they decided to hide in bunkers instead of actively use their wealth and influence to prevent such a disaster should tell you all you need to know about their ability to plan ahead and strategize. They fought tooth and nail to take over the world then gave up on governing it the moment things got inconvenient. Like a dog who finally caught the car.
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u/Rubysage3 1d ago edited 1d ago
Oh they wouldn't just have bunkers. They'd certainly have storehouses with massive amounts of everything. Food and supplies, technology, vehicles, infrastructure and personnel ready to immediately rebuild society.
They're evil, but they're not stupid. If they have the foresight to plan for disaster then they absolutely have plans for what comes after that. The neat thing about building underground is no one can see you. And when they can hide like that the possibilities of what's actually underneath us goes far beyond bunkers.
The danger for them is their hidey holes can very easily become tombs depending what sort of cataclysm happens and where and how. The danger for us, besides the big event, is in the aftermath they crawl out of the ground like crab people in positions of total resources and power and try to make us sign some extremely bad terms and conditions in exchange for their help.
But there's no way they haven't thought ahead or planned anything beyond the bunker step.
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u/Karmabots 1d ago
That is why they are interested in artificial intelligence and robots
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u/playsmartz 1d ago
Can we trick them into thinking the world is ending so they go live in their bunkers and leave the rest of us alone?
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u/Goodthingsaregood 1d ago
There was a tv show about that in Netflix, I think it was Spanish. It was a fun concept
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u/360walkaway 1d ago
Billionaire Bunker, and yea it was in Spain-Spanish. I got a couple of episodes in before I had to stop. The main story was starting to turn into a dumbass romantic melodrama.
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u/RadioEditVersion 1d ago
Their security/help will turn on them. Money doesn't matter once base survival is all that matters
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u/Known-Fondant-9373 1d ago
As soon as the bunker door closes, the guys with the guns will be calling the shots.
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u/seanmg 1d ago
You underestimate the resourcefulness of a billionaire offering someone a spot in their state of the art bunker who is skilled at survival.
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u/dv282828 1d ago
Ooo this is a good movie or tv series premise. At that point the billionaire will slowly have to become the bitch to whoever is actually skilled for survival
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u/mellobri 1d ago
AI and the robots aren't here to take your job, they are here to take your place.
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u/tupacsnoducket 1d ago edited 1d ago
One of my favorite conversations was with a wealthy, not billionaire, but rich as fuck guy who thought the staff at his ranch who ran the whole farm would keep doing what he said cause he owned it
"I've got guns in the house, they'll do what I tell them"
He has a fucking rifle display case and body armore rack. In the main living arreas. They've 100% seen it regularly
He really thought he'd drive across the state(not a small state) to the place, and all the staff would be waiting for him with open arms after running everything on their own clock in the mean time
I asked if he treated them well and he got real quiet....real quiet. lol
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u/daemonescanem 1d ago
The elites wouldn't survive in bunkers. Their security staff would quickly do away with them.
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u/GrailThe 1d ago
That’s always the fallacy of elite bunkers… rich people need a good number of workers to sustain their lifestyle. If they bring poors into the castle to serve them, the poors will be asking what about my family? My parents? Etc. money loses its motivational power in a bunker.
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u/theolecowboy 21h ago
Why do you think they’re investing in AI humanoid robots that can do low level human labor?
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u/Voting101 1d ago
Many of them have bunkers on private islands and old missile silos with dedicated staff. They already have survival staff ready to go.
https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-inside-hawaii-compound/
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u/ajc89 1d ago
Yeah, I'm sure this dedicated staff is going to be happy to continue working for them after money and society cease to exist as we know it. Lol
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u/davismcgravis 1d ago
Dedicated staff = slaves
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u/ajc89 1d ago
Well, even then, you need to have willing people to enforce the conditions of slavery, or maybe robot guards or something, but if you had robot guards that could act as slave overseers, you probably wouldn't need the slaves in the first place. Basically you need a functioning society to hold onto power but most of these idiots don't seem too concerned with keeping society functioning.
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u/lumpyspacejams 1d ago
Billionaires who are physically weaker than the staff who have been doing manual labor for months = new slaves or delicious, delicious meat, depending on the anger and desperation
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u/hellogoawaynow 1d ago edited 1d ago
Currently, the staff are being paid with money, and money has real word value. When bunker time comes around, why would anyone do all that work to benefit one person who does nothing and provides nothing?
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u/Elberik 1d ago
Which just means they'll likely be overthrown and/or killed by their staff within the first 3 months.
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u/canadave_nyc 1d ago
No one is understanding the reality of these bunkers. These are not bunkers for "while everyone else dies", like nuclear war or an asteroid. These are temporary bunkers to shelter in during civil unrest, like revolutions or civil war.
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u/ParisPC07 1d ago
It's illustrative of the contradictions in class society. Both classes have antagonistic interests but only the ruling, non laboring class is actually dependent on the existence of the other laboring classes. Like a deer can live without a tick but a tick can't live without the deer, only in a society where the deer were convinced the relationship was reversed.
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u/damatas 1d ago
Highly recommend the movie "Don't Look Up". The very end of the movie touches on this.
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u/Oh_yeah12 1d ago
Who cares. They don’t realize they are prisoners. Who wants to live like that.
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u/NorCalFightShop 1d ago
Worker bees are free
Even drones can leave the hive
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u/provocatrixless 1d ago
As opposed to you, who knows how to farm crops, raise and domesticate animals, forge metals, weave cloth, and so on
lol fuck the billionaire class but get real
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u/dvolland 1d ago
I’m all for shitting on billionaires, but I’m positive that most Americans wouldn’t have the skills to survive on their own, regardless of wealth.
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u/logosobscura 1d ago
It’s even more brutal than that, and they got told when asked, and didn’t like it.
The moment you lock that bunker, Mr Billionaire, you just became a useless mouth, surrounded by trained killers, who are there (probably with their families) because you paid them to be. Money is now irrelevant, so, what’s your value? Is it higher or lower than a 9mm round? Not like you’ve engendered much esteem for yourself, no emotional attachment, not even value as a performing clown. Same for your wife and your kids. If you try and control access to food, water, whatever- cool, then expect to get tortured, not just killed, in fact expect to watch your family die until you hand over access.
Solution? Build a community, build a bunker not for you + security, but for the local population, build ties, be the good guy, not the bunker bitch.
But they didn’t like that frank feedback.
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u/ExtroverTom 1d ago
I mean,
In that specific situation like a catastrophic event, Is living really a better choice than dying anyway?
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u/s1nd3vil 1d ago
All the workers who are building the bunkers and the high paid security personal are the ones who will be living in them….there gonna smoke there masters on day 1
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u/ThenThereWasReddit 1d ago
Check out the movie Triangle of Sadness if seeing this theme/idea play out interests you.
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