
Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich (2017) - Ibethewalrus
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich
======
AndrewKemendo
Back in 2016 I followed Justin Kan on Snapchat and he used to hang out with
Steve Huffman on his stories.

I recall a few particular snap stories where they went out to Justin's new
house and were shooting guns, throwing axes and generally doing fun outdoor
stuff. I do seem to recall at some point there was talk about survivalist
stuff in those snaps.

I've done quite a lot of survival training with the US Government and have
been in places where people lived by those skills daily. I have to say that
the majority of what these guys are doing, and what most "rich guy"
survivalists do, as indicated by this story, is mostly worthless. Especially
long term.

There's a hat tip to the most important part, forming groups and all the rest
of the community building work, which is not inappropriate, but it's missing
the point where you basically do that now with a diverse set of people - not
just your rich friends - which is actually a sustainable strategy.

There's a lot to nitpick here but I guess the most interesting thing to me is
that, for all their wealth, access and smarts, none of these people seem to
actually be trying to solve the systematic and endemic problems which would
soften the blow of a major existential risk.

In that sense Levchin and Johnson are 100% on the money here with investing in
structural improvement, not some temporary escape plan that doesn't survive
first contact with a handful of real actual killers.

~~~
joe_the_user
_There 's a lot to nitpick here but I guess the most interesting thing to me
is that, for all their wealth, access and smarts, none of these people seem to
actually be trying to solve the systematic and endemic problems which would
soften the blow of a major existential risk._

When the best and brightest of a society are heading for the hills, that's a
sign problems are coming. It's not that just they may have concrete reasons to
do this but it seems like the society itself by this fact has lost the
cohesion that would prevent disaster. And if powerful people don't imagine
themselves are the protectors of the common good, who does? etc.

Of course, this situation is a bit of a self-fulling prophecy.

~~~
koonsolo
You could also ask the question what they are protecting themselves from.

Maybe they expect at some point that the masses will no longer want to keep
paying taxes an lose money, while the rich have all the means to circumvent
taxes and leverage their wealth.

I don't see the breaking point yet, but there is definitely a breaking point.

~~~
elsewhen
the top 10% of taxpayers paid 70.87% of federal income taxes in 2014 [0].

and did you know that the bottom 50% paid 2.75%?

would dropping that 2.75% down to zero (which sounds fine to me) avert the
breaking point?

[0]
[https://files.taxfoundation.org/20170201145744/FF540-1.png](https://files.taxfoundation.org/20170201145744/FF540-1.png)

~~~
koonsolo
Top 10% of tax payers =/= top 10% of wealthiest people.

If you know how taxes work, and know how multinationals do taxes, you know
enough.

~~~
elsewhen
capital gains taxes represent less than 10% of total revenue [0] raised by the
IRS. sure the rates can be raised, but is that going to make a meaningful
dent?

[0] [https://pocketsense.com/percent-irs-revenue-comes-capital-
ga...](https://pocketsense.com/percent-irs-revenue-comes-capital-gains-
tax-1105.html)

------
mgamache
These guys (and Women?) are at the extreme end of the economic and social
hierarchy. The only thing that might endanger their position is if society
collapses. Prepping is sort of an insurance policy against the long odds of
society collapsing. All societies have collapsed and once the process starts
it can happen quickly. They can devote the resources to guard against rare
events, because they are already protected against other concerns (they mostly
have plenty of money).

IMO, this type of behavior is the same as the bio-hacking crowd trying to beat
aging / maximize health. They have everything else covered, so they move out
further-and-further on the tail of their perceived threat.

~~~
roywiggins
It's convenient when they advertise this in the media, for the roving bands to
target them and their stuff.

~~~
mgamache
They already anticipate maximum violence and chaos, I don't think they fear
non-prepped mobs hunting them based on an old news article from the non-
existent internet. I am not a prepper, but I get the allure. I just need the
money :)

~~~
roywiggins
I'm thinking more that doomsday preppers who are not vastly wealthy might keep
an eye on which wealthy preppers might have well-stocked bunkers to raid in
the event.

------
Johnny555
Why would a wealthy person trust something like the Survival Condo Project?
Once SHTF and society collapses and rule of law goes away, what's to keep the
armed guards from taking over and eliminating their formerly wealthy clients
(or just locking the place down and refusing to let anyone in)?

Why bother keeping a bunch of old (formerly) rich men around when the guards
can just get rid of them and take their share of the supplies to help ensure
the survival of their own families and friends?

~~~
paganel
> Why bother keeping a bunch of old (formerly) rich men around when the guards
> can just get rid of them and take their share of the supplies to help ensure
> the survival of their own families and friends?

Nothing, really. Back when Western society was in a state of feudal anarchy
(mostly after the dissolution of the Carolingian empire and up to the late
1100s) the monied people (which meant mostly the traders) had no power at all,
in the words of Adalberon, bishop of Laon [1], "the whole edifice of mankind"
was supported by "oratores, bellatores, laboratores", that is by the clergy
("oratores"), by the "warriors", i.e. nobles who could go to war at any one
moment, and by the common people, the peasants, the people doing the actual
work. The monied people were nowhere to be seen and treated quote
contemptuously by the "oratores" and the "bellatores".

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalberon_(bishop_of_Laon)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalberon_\(bishop_of_Laon\))

------
ronilan
A couple of years ago I applied for a job at Hipmunk and ended interviewing
with Steve, then the CTO. I don’t remember everything but at some point he did
ask me to write a program that prints out a spiral.

Reading this article, and remembering that interview, made me realize that no
one can really know what the collapse of civilization will look like, but it
is always good to be prepared with a two dimensional array or a good GUI
library.

~~~
sgustard
Clearly the spiral algorithm is useful when you forgot where you buried your
survival cache.

------
nannotequalnan
anecdotally, it feels like the tech elite are trying to outsmart the system
(such as prepping for doomsday scenarios), rather than trying to improve the
system to prevent, or lower the probability of the doomsday scenario in the
first place

~~~
chillacy
You definitely get more bang for your buck spending on yourself vs trying to
change society.

~~~
praptak
That is true if you play within the tragedy of the commons scenario instead of
trying to break out of it.

~~~
chillacy
Correct, if everyone in society didn't graze the metaphorical commons, then
your happiness would be even higher still.

------
onetimemanytime
First thing I notice in the article...(prob) an ex-military man with automatic
weapons serving as a guard. In a doomsday scenario he will, eventually, kill
or enslave all those nerdy guys that paid a fortune to seeking shelter there.

But then you have everything else and buying these things are a drop in the
bucket. Makes sense even if it has a very small chance of happening. What's an
extra billion going to do to Steve Ballmer life? Nothing. Money after a while
loses value, living is another matter.

~~~
jonathankoren
Douglas Rushkoff had a podcast where he talked about being paid by these guys
to come up with ways to keep their armed guards from turning on them. The
billionaires suggested shocker collars (maybe even with explosives) and
controlling the food supply by a combination lock.

[https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-
richest-9ef...](https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-
richest-9ef6cddd0cc1)

~~~
onetimemanytime
>> _and controlling the food supply by a combination lock._

And who will have the keys? Probably better dying once than dying every day
for a year or two :). These "friends" will turn on each other and plot to
exclude x today and then team with x to exclude z. Back millions of years ago!
All layers of civilization stripped away, killing your ex-co founder so food
lasts a little longer.

You're better off, IMO, buying land somewhere far, far away in USA, and stock
it with weapons and food. Weapons might be an issue (state laws) but with
pocket change they can buy freeze dried food for 30 years. You have plenty of
land and why not stock it with some seeds. Don't tell anyone, have plans to go
there with no one but family. Stay low for a while, then peek out little by
little. Gold, silver, food, weapons, water supplies /plans and live under the
radar. No sign of life.

~~~
jonathankoren
Gold and silver are just shiny metals.

Guns for hunting are fine. Guns for protection from people are not nearly as
useful as gun sellers say. In a crisis, people don’t turn into ravenous
hordes, instead they ban together and help each other. Again, and again this
shows up across times and cultures.

~~~
onetimemanytime
OK, I understand the angry, hungry hordes. But if you're far away in NM or
Idaho you might not experience that.

Still, better to have the guns than not have them. If you have them, you get
to decide. If they're a 200 people rushing you're toast, but if it's a small
group you have a chance. Plus you decide the hiding place /bunker, if it's
seen from far away or not.

Gold and silver...the idea is that people might start trade eventually and
other than tools /guns gold and silver it is.

~~~
jonathankoren
My point is that that angry hungry hordes don't occur anywhere.

The galaxy brain trading commodity from the prepper forums is "balistic
wampum", which is just a fancy way of saying "bullets", specifically bullets
in common calibers. It's galaxy brain because these same forums are talking
about how you need 5 different guns to protect yourself from the ravenous
cannibal that used to be your neighbor. So who are you going to trade with?
That's right, the ravenous cannibal that used to be your neighbor!

------
gefh
People love to think that they're independent from the huge society they float
on top of, but at the top of the pyramid there's just further to fall.

Mixing metaphors has never been my strong suit though...

------
SlowRobotAhead
Their cover photo is a joke if you have even the slightest idea of what you’re
looking at.

Double stacked D&H mags with no pulls, an Anderson “poverty pony” AR, BUIS
behind a 1.5x ACOG on an 18” with a cheap non-QD Mount (iron sights with a
magnified optic in between doesn’t work)... I’m sure there is more.

But... for the Steve Huffman and similar types, they’ll just see what they
want. The real joke would be Randy and his $999 AR (with optic) will just rob
Steve-types blind the second there is a without rule of law scenario.

~~~
rdtsc
> The real joke would be Randy and his $999 AR (with optic) will just rob
> Steve-types blind the second there is a without rule of law scenario.

I've always wondered how they'd prevent that. How does Randy not shoot Steve
or take him hostage and then bring his own family into the compound.

I am sure there are a few schemes, ranging from benign like promise a huge
payday at the end, lots of land, resources, power whatever to more sinister
ones, like hire another Randy (possible a lot more than one) to watch the
first one if he (she) tries to do something.

~~~
solotronics
what about some kind of heart attack implant that could be triggered remotely?
I would think someone out there might just sign up for that for $5 mil.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
And for a cool $1 mil. that someone can probably find someone to remove it.
Though a foil lining under your Kevlar might work well enough.

------
pndd90
It is amazing and amusing to observe how money trampoline one's feeling of
self importance to unimaginable heights.

------
fipple
When society falls apart the rich won’t have anything that the poor won’t. The
people who built these bunkers for the super rich are going to put a 9mm in
the back of their head and invite their brother Steve to take the owners spot.
“Combination locks on the food supply?” Waterboard the guy till he gives us
the combo, then kill him.

~~~
tudorconstantin
This could be solved with resource access requiring multiparty agreement, like
the Bitcoin multisignature wallets: the location that contains the food and
water for a week requires permission from 2 parties that are located in 2
separate geographical locations

~~~
kosmos1337
Apologies for the snark, but only on HN would anyone seriously suggest
blockchain as a solution to having a gun pointed at your head.

~~~
tudorconstantin
Why would anyone assume the risk to put a gun to your head when they know you
can't give them what they want just by yourself? With blockchain you can prove
them that's the case. They would have to also put a gun to the head of the
cosigner(s) in order to get it.

I am not aware of any other mechanism similar to BTCs multisig that doesn't
require a trusted third party.

------
matte_black
I wish more people understood Doomsday prepping is really more of a hobby than
an actual concern over the total collapse of all civilization.

It’s fun to prepare, and to think of every scenario no matter how outlandish,
and it’s fun to make people think you are super serious about something that
seems ridiculous to them.

It is like a game where you collect as many resources and skills to increase
your survival score as much as possible.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
I'm literally a national champion at a ridiculous hobby, so I feel pretty
confident that many of these people are actually super serious. People get way
invested in stupid shit all the time.

~~~
duncanawoods
Please share the ridiculous hobby!

------
jcoffland
> But in recent years survivalism has expanded to more affluent quarters,
> taking root in Silicon Valley and New York City, among technology
> executives, hedge-fund managers, and others in their economic cohort.

Rich people being paranoid and preparing for disasters is not exactly a new
thing. I guess we are supposed to believe that the affluent are somehow more
sane than the rest of us.

------
jonathankoren
Perhaps YC’s Sam can chime in with his reasoning of prepping a loaded gun, and
private jet to New Zealand.[0]

Also, if he could chime in with any advice he has to make sure that the hired
armed guards don’t turn on him. Perhaps disciplinary collars or controlling
the food supply?[1]

[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-
val...](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-
billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand)

[1] [https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-
richest-9ef...](https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-
richest-9ef6cddd0cc1)

------
kderbe
And then there's "doomsday prepping for less crazy folk":
[http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/prep/](http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/prep/)

It's a guide written by the author of american fuzzy lop (afl), and while it
touches on end-of-civilization, guns-n-ammo prep, much of it is about
practical preparedness for more likely disasters, such as a prolonged and
widespread power outage; and how to reduce the risk of financial ruin or
serious injury.

------
NotANaN
You can't prepare for the complete collapse of civilization.

Even the Survivalists who go out with "nothing" and build their shelters,
start their own fires, hunt their food, they still need backpacks to carry
their gear. They still need gear to carry, like saws, axes, fishing poles,
knives. They still need clothes to wear. They still depend on the
infrastructure of society in myriad ways.

------
jondubois
It tells you about how super rich people think.

The fact that they share these doomsday beliefs implies that they understand
that something is wrong with the system and maybe that they are responsible
for it to begin with.

I don't understand the motivation for them to leak these stories to the news
though. Do they expect regular people to feel sorry for them and that this
will prevent or delay the doomsday?

------
malandrew
Related: The Surprisingly Solid Mathematical Case of the Tin Foil Hat Gun
Prepper

[https://medium.com/s/story/the-surprisingly-solid-
mathematic...](https://medium.com/s/story/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematical-
case-of-the-tin-foil-hat-gun-prepper-15fce7d10437)

------
dang
Discussed at the time:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13482107](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13482107)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13462865](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13462865)

------
DoreenMichele
I cannot fathom the logic here. Movers and shakers who shape the world pissing
away resources on some kind of personal "insurance" if everything goes to hell
instead of investing in making sure things don't go to hell.

If they put half as much time, money, thought and effort into fixing some of
the glaring boils on the butt of the world, they could stop metaphorically
sucking their billion dollar thumbs this way.

There is plenty of evidence that a lot of the financial distress in the US of
the masses is rooted in a lack of genuinely affordable housing -- and, no, I
don't mean poverty housing. In 2010, an architect coined the term "missing
middle housing" to describe middle class housing historically widely available
in walkable urban neighborhoods that we have largely zoned out of existence.
In the last roughly fifty years, we've torn down a million SRO's in this
country.

Health care. We need a single payer system. The ACA is not a great solution.
It was just the most politically viable. Frankly, that sucks.

This country already has a system where you flash an ID and get care and there
is minimal paperwork and almost no billing. It's well-established and well-
developed, but it only serves military members, retirees and their dependents.
We don't need to look to other countries and wonder how they do "free" medical
care. We have a system on US soil doing that.

Research shows that proper medical coverage helps reduce homelessness. If you
provide proper medical coverage and make appropriate housing available to the
masses at a reasonable cost, then we can stop living in dread of the collapse
of civilization.

I blog, but I have no audience and can get no traction. If rich guys in SV
propose ridiculous solutions, like UBI, they get interviews and yadda and
everyone takes it seriously, though they aren't actually particularly
qualified to propose some solution and it looks to me like BS preening. I feel
like if I say too much on such subjects, I risk being banned from HN because
I'm just a woman, I'm quite poor and I was homeless for years and yadda. If
rich people who haven't actually studied it say something, it's charity or
kindness of some nonsense like that. I've actually studied this stuff, but if
I say something, it's "political" because I'm not the right kind of people and
Hacker News eschews politics.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy)

[https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-
missing...](https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-missing-
middle.html)

I've redacted multiple paragraphs of "Doreen is finally snapping after 9.5
years of being essentially shunned and yadda."

Could someone kindly tell me where and how I can successfully get an audience
and some kind of engagement, in spite of being the wrong gender and the wrong
socioeconomic class? I would be happy to just go the fuck away and leave you
folks alone who clearly want nothing to do with me if I could find some means
to get engagement elsewhere.

Thanks.

~~~
manmal
I find your argument compelling, and IMO you should not be scared to get
banned from HN for that kind of comment. It‘s actually in line with many other
comments here.

I too feel that there are not enough women commenting here. The discussions
would be more complete and interesting if that wasn’t the case. We obviously
only get a half of the picture without female participation.

It’s offtopic, but since you asked for it. Being highly
controversial/polarizing does often help growing an audience, I‘ve seen this
time and again. I don’t know how long you have been doing what you are doing
now, but I heard growing an audience for a YT channel/blog/etc takes a couple
of years of continuous effort, posting as much as possible. I mean, pewdiepie
(whatever one thinks about him) uploads every single day.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_Being highly controversial /polarizing does often help growing an audience,_

Yeah, I keep hearing that. That hasn't worked for me. I get three things out
of it:

1\. Banned from multiple forums.

2\. All the utter and complete loonies who think I can fix them or will be
their one true love cyberstalk me but won't fucking admit it, so it doesn't
even get my stuff promoted.

3\. I've spent years living in fear of being literally locked up in an insane
asylum and thereby killed, like Semmelweis, because the most controversial
detail about me is that I have atypical cystic fibrosis and I'm drug free.
It's managed with diet and lifestyle, so _obviously_ , I'm insane and making
shit up. A former homemaker can't possibly have solved a problem that all the
fucking elite MALE doctors and scientist of the planet can't solve, no.
Clearly.

Among other things, I've spent a lot of years trying to figure out how to stop
being a train wreck waiting to happen.

I'm really not interested in growing an audience of people getting out the
popcorn to watch the lunatic entertain them with her nutty tirades. We can
listen to billionaires do that. I'd like a fucking middle class life and to be
taken seriously, which is obviously just asking way the fuck too much of the
goddamn world.

Anyway, I know that doesn't sound like gratitude. I do actually appreciate you
replying. But, unfortunately, no, _being controversial_ is not some means for
me, personally, to grow an audience and make money. It's just not.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis)

~~~
manmal
Well, as Audioslave said, be yourself is all that you can do. Everybody has
talents that bring value to society. Have you considered that the type of job
you are trying to create for yourself is not the right one for you?

~~~
DoreenMichele
The world is going to hell in a hand basket. Millionaires and billionaires are
taking up the thumb sucking hobby of prepping for the apocalypse.

No one else seems to have answers. I'm supposed to say _not my problem_ and go
wait tables or look for a rich husband to support me because the world doesn't
want to hear solutions from a woman or something?

~~~
manmal
Sounds a bit grandiose, don’t you think?

~~~
DoreenMichele
So what are you trying to say here? Only men are allowed to dream big? Women
should just plan to remain barefoot and pregnant and not get all uppity and
imagine they can do anything of real value in the world?

Or are you going to say only currently rich people can dream big. Currently
poor people should just stay "humble" and accept their lot in life and not
complain too loudly?

Or some other dismissive justification as to why I should just accept that no
one should listen to me, never mind that I have six years of college and have
spent a lot of time studying such issues?

------
camillomiller
For the non U.S. readers: worry not, my friends. Doomsday apparently only
means “heavy social unrest or natural disaster in the coastal United States of
America”.

------
bassman9000
_Huffman, who lives in San Francisco_

 _I have a bunch of guns and ammo_

Rules for thee, not for me.

------
steviecleveland
January 2017 article.

That said, Ted Nugent called and he _still_ wants his shirt back.

------
rfw
If you can spend enough money to say "well, that's not my problem", then you
yourself are the problem.

------
gnat
This article is from 2017.

------
viburnum
Only socialism can save the rich from themselves.

------
ziont
I find it laughable that the rich think they can hide away forever in some
bunker.

If they are in that position it means the rule of law has eroded and anarchy
is in place.

The first thing pissed off people do is hang their leaders and the children of
the rich.

Rightfully so, nothing more than parasites on our human race, take their
wealth and redistribute it to those in need.

~~~
Johnny555
If society really does collapse, if they can survive for the first 6 months,
there will be a lot fewer people to deal with, and they may be able to gain
some power through trade, assuming they have enough manpower to protect their
supplies.

It wouldn't be hard for a wealthy person to stockpile years worth of food so
as long as they can stay out of site, they could stay holed up for years until
the big die-off is over and some semblance of order is restored. Of course,
finding a place in the new order is not guaranteed.

