It kinda makes sense if you have that type of money. Let's say a bunker costs $10 million and offers a 10% incremental chance of surviving an apocalypse then it's pretty much a no-brainer if you are worth a billion or more. For one, you probably make more than that in one year from the interest on your assets alone so you're not going to miss it. And if the worst comes to the worst, the rest of your money is going to be worthless so you might as well invest in an asset that might still provide you some advantage in the ultimate catasrophe.
Obviously, the "offering a 10% incremental chance of survival" part of the above is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this calculation. There's just too many ways for shit to go wrong for you to feel that confident. Still, it might be worth the expense even if you just treat it as a (very expensive) entertainment exercise.
The problem with option #1 is you can be as good as you like but you are still screwed if some other asshole pushes the button. At least with option #2, you have some control over your your survival.
Plus, these options are not mutually exclusive. You can do your best to ensure a just, peaceable world while still digging a really big bunker.
You are right, of course. If I had the money I would absolutely build a bunker, even if it was just as an entertaining project.
The fact that we hear about Zuck and Altmann being the ones prepping or building bunkers could reflect that they are the "bad" elite, not invested in the future of the planet in the same way that Gates and his ilk are. Or alternatively, it could just be that old people don't find the idea of a survival shelter nearly as interesting as the younger generation.
Those who are valuable today are not likely to be the ones valuable post-doomsday. I’d imagine the bunkered billionaires plan to use a private mercenary force to assist in recruiting whatever useful post-doomsday talent is left afterwards.
The one thing I genuinely wonder is what odds each billionaires gives their private mercenary force for not usurping the “throne” from them after an apocalypse.
Apparently the bulk of my state (Western Australia) is filled with billionaire survivalist equivilants.
Al Corbi, president and founder of Virginia-based SAFE (Strategically Armored & Fortified Environments), which caters to custom designs for the uber-rich, notes that many billionaires are particularly focused on how to survive power grid failures, including buying cars and planes that are less reliant on computer interfaces.
“A lot of these guys are buying up King Air or older planes that don’t have the electronic avionics, and keeping one or two older cars built before 1986 in their collection, so they’ll still function in an EMP [electromagnetic pulse].
We've got access to old Shrikes [1] and other vintage tech, a bunch of old tractors, and a wealth of 1930s, 40s, and 50s tech that still works all within a 10km radius of where I'm at.
Power is certainly nice to have but most people outside the capital city have backup plans and are used to getting by when it drops out.
there’s a joke in poor taste to be made here about laborers in…
you know what, never mind. let’s just get to the point.
for someone with this kind of money, bringing people from far enough away, geographically, culturally, and economically, would be a viable means of isolating them, and even silencing them.
Obviously, the "offering a 10% incremental chance of survival" part of the above is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this calculation. There's just too many ways for shit to go wrong for you to feel that confident. Still, it might be worth the expense even if you just treat it as a (very expensive) entertainment exercise.