DOOMSDAY PREP FOR THE SUPER-RICH
Last edited Tue Jan 24, 2017, 11:11 AM - Edit history (1)
Article from the New Yorker. Wow! Warning if you really don't like prepper stories don't read.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich
Some of the wealthiest people in Americain Silicon Valley, New York, and beyondare getting ready for the crackup of civilization.
Steve Huffman, the thirty-three-year-old co-founder and C.E.O. of Reddit, which is valued at six hundred million dollars, was nearsighted until November, 2015, when he arranged to have laser eye surgery. He underwent the procedure not for the sake of convenience or appearance but, rather, for a reason he doesnt usually talk much about: he hopes that it will improve his odds of surviving a disaster, whether natural or man-made. If the world endsand not even if the world ends, but if we have troublegetting contacts or glasses is going to be a huge pain in the ass, he told me recently. Without them, Im fucked."
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Over the years, Huffman has become increasingly concerned about basic American political stability and the risk of large-scale unrest. He said, Some sort of institutional collapse, then you just lose shippingthat sort of stuff. (Prepper blogs call such a scenario W.R.O.L., without rule of law.) Huffman has come to believe that contemporary life rests on a fragile consensus. I think, to some degree, we all collectively take it on faith that our country works, that our currency is valuable, the peaceful transfer of powerthat all of these things that we hold dear work because we believe they work. While I do believe theyre quite resilient, and weve been through a lot, certainly were going to go through a lot more.
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(Aside...Robert A. Johnson was a managing director at Soros Fund Management and much more)
By January, 2015, Johnson was sounding the alarm: the tensions produced by acute income inequality were becoming so pronounced that some of the worlds wealthiest people were taking steps to protect themselves. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Johnson told the audience, I know hedge-fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway.
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Most preppers dont actually have bunkers; hardened shelters are expensive and complicated to build. The original silo of Halls complex was built by the Army Corps of Engineers to withstand a nuclear strike. The interior can support a total of seventy-five people. It has enough food and fuel for five years off the grid; by raising tilapia in fish tanks, and hydroponic vegetables under grow lamps, with renewable power, it could function indefinitely, Hall said. In a crisis, his SWAT-team-style trucks (the Pit-Bull VX, armored up to fifty-calibre) will pick up any owner within four hundred miles. Residents with private planes can land in Salina, about thirty miles away. In his view, the Army Corps did the hardest work by choosing the location. They looked at height above sea level, the seismology of an area, how close it is to large population centers, he said.
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Four paragraphs are not enough to represent this article. Long read but very interesting.
WhiteTara
(29,676 posts)why don't they voluntarily redistribute? For the good of the world?
N_E_1 for Tennis
(9,593 posts)probably not to the extent most of us would think was enough but it is in there.
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,848 posts)I can tell you in a barter situation, "What the hell am I supposed to do with that, dummy?!"
yellowcanine
(35,692 posts)tools, seeds (but they have to be replanted and kept viable), how-to books.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)CrispyQ
(36,231 posts)N_E_1 for Tennis
(9,593 posts)I added it to the post.
Thanks again.
CrispyQ
(36,231 posts)Off to read it now.
braddy
(3,585 posts)Raster
(20,996 posts)Ovida11
(12 posts)Though in a "worst case scenario" if say Trump really was a hardcore fascist versus just a blowhard, there might be some type of populist revolt all around the country
yurbud
(39,405 posts)it so much worse, the rest of us will die while they hide in their bunkers and domes.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)They are behind just about every world problem there is.
And we keep letting them destroy us because they played a money game better than most (or their parents did, or their grandparents...)