
Why Silicon Valley billionaires are prepping for the apocalypse in New Zealand - oldcynic
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand
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kyleschiller
I don't know, I get how the whole survivalism might seem eccentric and even
paranoid, but if I had a billion dollars I would absolutely be willing to
spend a few million on preparing for worst case scenarios.

I know wealth doesn't really work in strict linear proportions, but as someone
with a much lower net worth, I think it's reasonable to keep iodine tablets
and canned food around, and can pretty easily imaging scaling that up a bit if
I had drastically greater access to capital.

None of this is to say that I'm discounting the article, I actually liked it a
lot.

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Maarten88
I think that preparing for the worst case is understandable, but this way of
preparing seems totally misguided and very childish.

I like the way Bill Gates is preparing much more, he is actively working and
spending his billions to avoid collapse.

Peter Thiel and his likes seem to actively work toward collapse, gaming the
system and profiting from the misery of the less fortunate along the way.
Hoping to reestablish an "improved" version of their society elsewhere, even
after its collapse, is beyond belief.

I hope that having friends will help more than having property, in the event
of society collapse. At the very least, I'd hope NZ would quickly take all his
money as a special "solidarity tax", if that day would come.

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Tepix
The most likely collapse will be a societal one due to growing inequality. One
strategy to survive this type of collapse would be to move to a country with
very low inequality. For a billionaire this could be painful because the taxes
will be high (they are the reason for the low inequality). But hey, better
than being lynched by an angry mob, right?

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everdev
Peter Thiel bought a 477 acre sheep farm in New Zealand. How long can he
really expect to survive there and with what quality of life if Armageddon
happens?

I don't think he's on record saying that's why he bought it and the Sam Altman
quote taking about a deal with Thiel to fly there in the event of societal
collapse sounds more like a joke between billionaires than a means of
survival.

It seems like someone wrote an insanely long article about a rumour about why
a billionaire bought a secluded piece of land.

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mojuba
Though if you think about it, if you want to survive in a potential
societal/structural apocalypse then a remote secluded island seems like the
best option. NZ seems to be advanced enough to support decent lifestyle, and
isolated enough, too.

Not that I believe in the kind of apocalypse that New Zealand somehow would be
the safest place to hide, but seriously, why are these people buying property
there? Any rational explanation?

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eesmith
I have no reason to not believe the article when it says:

> “Look,” he said, “it might be one strand in terms of what’s motivating them
> to buy here. But in my experience it’s never been the overriding reason.
> It’s much more of a positive thing. What they see when they come here is
> utopia.”

> In one sense, I knew what he meant by this. He meant excellent wine. He
> meant world-class golf. He meant agreeable climate, endless white sand
> beaches that scarcely aroused the suspicion of the existence of other human
> beings.

The author goes into more detail about the tensions between the different and
even contradictory views of "utopia" in the history of New Zealand.

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davesque
Excessive wealth does weird things to the mind.

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rboyd
Quite a lot of fuss over not a lot of real estate.

Not much here to indicate that Peter considers this a real bug out plan. At
this stage it seems more likely that he just enjoys the views.

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moltar
Right right. But I think Thiel chose NZ for other reasons. NZ offers tax-free
living for the first 5 years of your stay.

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petraeus
Its the country best sheltered from

1\. population increase (immigration) 2\. climate change

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bantersaurus
How long is this article????

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eesmith
Just under 7,000 words, the first three of which are "The long read".

This identifies the piece as being long-form journalism, even without reading
the text. Quoting [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-
form_journalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-form_journalism) .

> Long-form journalism is a branch of journalism dedicated to longer articles
> with larger amounts of content.[1] Typically this will be between 1,000 and
> 20,000 words.

