But surely, being a rich and powerful billionaire in a functioning civilization is more desirable than having the nicest bunker in the wasteland. Even if we assume their motives are 100% selfish destroying the world is not the best outcome for them.
Now imagine the rich talking about climate change, arguing to bring policies to tax the poor, and then flying off to vacations in private planes[2]. Same energy.
1 - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-...
2 - https://www.skynews.com.au/insights-and-analysis/prince-will...
The rest of us just can't afford most of the insurance that we probably should have.
Insurance is for scenarios that are very unlikely to happen. Means nothing. If I was worth 300 mil I'd have insurance in case I accidently let an extra heavy toilet seat smash the boys downstairs.
Throw the money at radical weener rejuvination startups. Never know... Not like you have much to lose after that unlikely event.
I'd get insurance for all kinds of things.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prep...
More like "Republic of Weimar" kind of apocalypse, this time with the rich opportunists flying to New Zealand instead of Casablanca or the Austrian Alps.
Maybe it's risk mitigation without cost sharing to achieve the same economies of scale that insurance creates.
Its a rich man's way of removing risks that we are all exposed to via spending money on things that most couldn't seriously consider due to the likelihood of said risks.
I don't think it's duplicitous. I do resent that I can't afford it. I can't hate on them though. I hate the game, not the players. Some of these guy would prob let folks stay in their bunker. They just can't build a big enough bunker. Also most folks are gross to live with. I'd insist on some basic rules.
I think we innately are suspicious when advantaged folks are planing how they would handle the deaths of the majority of the rest of us. Sorta just... Makes one feel... Less.
When the shit hits the fan the guy in charge of the bunker is going to be the one who knows how to clean off the fan and get the air filtration system running again.
Finger placed on duplicity.
Arguably only some of his time is spent on that kind of instability promoting activity. Most law enforcement agencies agree... Palantir good.
Most reasonable people agree... Funding your own senators and donating tons to Trump and friends... Bad.
Bad Thiel! Stick to wierd seasteading in your spare time if you want to get wierd. No 0 regulation AI floating compute unit seasteading. Only stable seasteading.
All kidding aside, you make a good point. Some of these guys should be a bit more responsible. They don't care what we think though. We're wierd non ceo hamsters who failed to make enough for the New Zealand bunker.
If we hit the iceberg they will lose everything. Even if they're able to fly to their NZ hideout, it will already be robbed and occupied. The people that built and stocked their bunker will have formed a gang and confiscated all of his supplies. This is what happens in anarchy.
the problem with eugenics isn't that we can't control population land genetic expression, it's that genetic expression is a fractal landscape that's not predictable from human stated goals.
the ethics of doing things "because you meant well" is well established as, not enough.
the people wholl be in power then will still resemble the basics: violence, means of production and more violence.
which they know and are basically planning dystopian police states.
unfortunately, people are flawed.
see, what exactly is insurance at the billionaires level.
people like Steve jobs are the best example of flawed logic. in the face of a completely different set of heuristic and logical information, he assumed he was just as capable, and chose fruit smoothies over more efficacious and proven medication.
they absolutely, like jobs, are playing a game they think they fully understand and absolutely are likely to chose medicine akin to jobs
just watch Elon and everything he's choosing to do.
these people are all normal but society has given the a deadly amount of leverage without any specific training.
Probably a few CEOs great grand-childs will probably have to write how they're very very sad that their long forgotten relatives have destroyed most of the planet, and how they're just so lucky to be among the few that are still living a luxurious life somewhere in the Solomon Islands.
it's gambling, pure and simple.
Buddhists die in the Armageddon same as others.
The bunkers are in new Zealand which is an island and less likely to fall into chaos with the rest of the world in event of ww3 and/or moderate nuclear events.
I'm sure the bunkers are nice. Material notions got little to do with it. The bunker isn't filled with Ferraris. They are filled with food, a few copies of the internet and probably wierd sperms banks or who knows what for repopulating the earth with Altman's and Theils.
the point is, you cant rely on a scenario where society breaks down, that survivors will act more rational then than they do now.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.