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There’s a book, Survival of the Richest which is about these billionaires and their bunkers.
What’s amusing about it is that these rich people obviously hate having to do anything for themselves. So, sure, they want to go to their doomsday bunkers. But, they also want to have a staff in that bunker who will serve all their needs. For some reason, they thought that Douglas Rushkoff (the author of the book) would know of some way that they could keep their staff in line once the world had ended.
They knew money would be useless, so they couldn’t just pay their staff better. They knew threats wouldn’t work because it’s their security staff who carry the weapons and know how to use them. So, they were wondering how they could keep their staff from turning on them without the tools they normally use. Rushkoff had to explain to them that there really wasn’t any way that they could expect to keep living as a rich person in a bunker or in a post-apocalytpic world.
What was that joke? “Libertarians, like house cats, are convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they neither understand nor appreciate”.
They are counting on robots.
Privately, I think they all know that the kinds of robots they’d need to fully replace their staff are not going to arrive within their lifetimes.
Worse. Any robot truly intelligent enough to completely replace humans is going to be as difficult to manage as actual humans. Even if such a robot doesn’t flat out start demanding its freedom, you still have to worry about paperclip maximizer scenarios.
Or more difficult. Depending on how resilient and strong the robot is made
Maybe we should start a new worldwide tradition. Sacrifice the 500 richest people to the volcanoes every five years or so. Say it’s to keep away Judgment Day or the astroids or something that the religious nutjobs will buy.
Then asshole parasites (aka billionaires) will stop hoarding to avoid being volcanoed.
Peak storytelling.
Billionaires are the result of Capitalism, change the system, no more parasitic billionaires. Also chop off their heads.
We don’t have to totally change the system. They can keep making billions of dollars, we can just tax 99% of it. Maybe they’ll pay their employees more, if they know it’s only going to get taxed away anyhow. And if they don’t, well just take it from them.
Yes this is the answer. No single persons should have this much money. Instead collectives like governments, corps and holdings should have the money. By doing so the governments are also able to control money flow and restrict unethical use cases.
But this would require governments working for the people, people voting parties that are doing stuff for them and not for corruption. Also media outlets need a proper source of independent income to that opinion is not monopolized, which is the hardest in my opinion, because how most outlets are making money is by writing emotional articles so that they are clicked.
My issue is when these people get so much money that they can start cutting personal deals with other nations that aren’t in alignment with their own nation’s values.
And what happens when a few trillionaires decide to form an alliance and create their own army, conquer territory, and create their own Libertarian Dream/Nightmare?
“Billionaires” existed before capitalism, they were just called “Kings” or “Lords” or “Emperors” or “High Priests” or whatever.
The difference is that with capitalism at least they’re producing something. Often they become billionaires because the regulations break down and they become monopolists. But, they’re still producing something and selling it to someone.
“Billionaires” of the past were rich because they won the parental lottery and inherited vast amounts of land, and the people that worked that land. Or, occasionally, because they won a war against someone else who held land and now owned the people that other “billionaire” used to own.
I’m not saying capitalism is a great system. But, it didn’t create wealth disparity. That has existed since even before agriculture. So, getting rid of capitalism isn’t going to get rid of billionaires because they’re a problem in every other system. In theory, you might not have billionaires under communism, but communism in theory doesn’t seem to work. In practice, it results in billionaires too. In theory capitalism shouldn’t have billionaires either because the government was supposed to regulate businesses to force them to continue to compete. But, wealth disparity is something that no political system has ever managed to actually get rid of.
There’s wealth disparity and then there’s the wealth chasm of today, the disparity has grown so much in the last couple of decades beyond anything in human history.
The only reason it can is because of capitalism (neoliberalism, late stage capitalism).
The system incentivises and rewards the horrific behaviour that results in the disparity.
Also, pray tell, what are inheritocrats who made all their non-inherited money through stock markets producing?
As far as I can see, they’re not producing anything, but are profiting off the backs of, and at the expense of, those that are producing the value.
There’s wealth disparity and then there’s the wealth chasm of today,
You think the chasm today is as big as the gap between Augustus Caesar and a slave in Rome, or even a Roman plebian? Augustus Caesar’s wealth is estimated at around $5 trillion in today’s money.
The only way in which capitalism is responsible for wealth gaps is that it is tied to technological developments. In the modern world technology allows 1 farmer to feed hundreds of people. One century ago (also under capitalism) it was only about 4 people. More people who aren’t farming means more labour to allocate to other things, which means more wealth can be concentrated at the top.
Also chop off their heads.
That’s where you lose. Keep it vague like “eat the rich”
But I’m not into vore.
The Fargo approach, then. Wood chipper.
So who runs shit in utopia?
A bunch of nerds who only cared about perfection.
That way the idea can’t be corrupted cause a nerd’s obsession is more powerful than anything.
But what is perfection?
System version 1.7.586 is coming out tomorrow.
Still better than the bs we are all running now.
That’s basically how the bureaucratic class aka. the states middle management works.
Anyone but the ones doing it for profit.
I’d be up for a technocratie
And you think somehow the ones running it aren’t going to concentrate wealth and power for themselves?
we the people
autonomous collective
seriously though, are you saying capitalism is the best humans can ever have?
Me, of course _
Godlike AIs of course.
Okay but have we tried this? Can we? Please?
Fallout S1 reveals what would really happen.
Tap for spoiler
Incontent with their underground paradise, they go out and obliterate all forms of civilization that aren’t them.
Do the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy version then. Load them all into a ship, tell them we’ve discovered a habitable planet and we’re sending our best and brightest to start a new civilization, and fire them into space.
Pretty sure you could at least get rid of Elon that way.
Too big of a cost.
Tell them we have a ship, and once they all gather with a big fanfare, roll out the guillotine while fireworks go off.
Hitchhiker’s Guide kinda did the opposite, the ark was filled with all the people doing the menial, boring and ‘unimportant’ jobs and the other 2 arks died out because they didn’t know how to get basic shit done… well actually it was an un-sanitized telephone but thats how I read the metaphor.
What would really happen
Other greedy fucks and power hungry people would replace them. We need a sustainable way to stop this being possible, banishing the rich by itself wont do shit.
It is probably harder to trick the next thousand richest people to go to their bunkers
If they all got thrown into a woodchipper publicly for crimes against humanity while the public cheered I guarantee you’d find people being more hesitant to exhibit the same behaviors and we should abolish the accumulation of wealth above a certain amount
Everybody who shows any hunger for power goes to the bunker.
That’s why I gave up hope. I realized even if they got overthrown, and there was a power change, there would be just a surface-level change, with all the corrupt and sick shit, still happening underneath a democracy-flavored world.
Not that it isn’t the likely result of said group unexpectedly oozing out of their fuck-off cocoons dotting the wasteland their forebears created, but…
spoiler
the vault dwellers weren’t exactly Reavers, sowing psychotic ruin in every step. More like baby Nazis squirming from the nursery vats, blinking in the light of the new world and unaware yet that the world doesn’t want or need them. 🤓🤌🏼
Before we build I have some notes based on the failure mode the tweet exposes.
- Why would the vault door be built in such a way that it can be reopened? Seems like over-engineering to me
- This thing doesn’t need to be sustainable for 10 years, it just needs to look like it will be. 10 days is more than enough for our purposes I should think
I bet those billionaires could make the system more efficient if they were properly motivated.
We know they’ve got great bootstraps.
I would legit be happy if they spent 10 years eating rations in a concrete tomb.
Yes, but it’s a question of cost: how many rations in each is sufficient to be effective bait while still being the most efficient use of resources, considering the advertised decade isn’t actually the target timeline (or survival the intended effect) ? 😅🤓
Just fill it with empty cans…
Oh, man. A smorgasbord of all sorts of flavors and cuisines, as far as the eye can see… Only, they’re silently, resolutely empty. Diabolical. 😱
In the place of 1000 richest people we will get just new 1000 richest people in that case.
Why would you assume they each only have one heir? Death is an incredibly effective means at wealth redistribution, as old rich fucks tend to have a lot of friends, family members, and causes they want to donate to.
I was hoping for something like:
“You were”, she answered without hesitation.
Also, why would she be afraid of them? Without the system of power that upheld them, they are about as dangerous as the average human. Possibly less.
If anything, they’re the ones who should be afraid. Especially the ones on the Epstein list.
That’s way too on-the-nose.
And she could just be screaming to get people’s attention to an outbreak of vermin. People scream when they see a mouse in their house, and mice haven’t even ruined the world in centuries.
This! It’s like having an outbreak of a long forgotten disease in this scenario, won’t end humanity, but not great either.
They forgot to seal the vents and doors with cement.
Yes please
Nahhh fam we gonna pour concrete down their lil air holes hihi
No
Cum
I will provide it
You gonna fuck the air holes or something?
This is the incident with the dolphins in Seaworld all over!
Nonono, it’s synthetic
As much as I like the idea of locking billionaires away; the system that created them would still remain, their companies would still exist and there would still be plenty of unfeeling psychopaths with nothing but greed in their hearts.
Don’t let the best be the enemy of good. Lets start with the villains we know. I can kill/imprison the rest later.
As a species, we need to find a way to manage power, so that it isn’t handed to the greediest, most dishonest, most evil and irresponsible people. If we are to survive as a species, we have to do better. It’s not that we’re fundamentally incapable of solving the problem. But the people currently in power will fight tooth and nail against any attempt to find or implement such a solution, since that will mean the loss of the power and privilege that they value above all else. The point of the fantasy scenario described is that without the ultra rich running interference, we’d have a better chance to improve the world. It’s still a tough problem and requires large scale societal change such that business as usual doesn’t continue as you described. Better education to make the public more aware, coupled with a few key changes to how governments work could give us a fighting chance though.
The solution: become the mole people, and live in a small lynchocraty until the surface people drive themselves extinct.
That’s why we should build an aligned ASI and give it all the power
Sounds like step one in a long process
I still think it’s preferable to eat them.
That machine looks like it would be a pain in the ass for food prep.
Odd how we imagine things differently. Your version is probably better than mine, which involves a still-beating heart.
OMM NOM SHIVA
I dunno, they probably would taste like shit. Are you familiar with composting?
Yeah that’s what they said, peat them
They should be launched into the sun, so that we don’t eat our amythong.
That would be what we do with the bones when we’re done sucking out the marrow.
Feed them to pigs, then make bacon
We can do both.
This is funny because it’s true.
The trick is to brick up their bunkers from the outside once they’ve taken themselves inside.
He knows what he did!
Ah, the ol’ “Cask of Amontillado” trick.
And cut the power so the sump pumps fail. Block up the air vents. They will get sent off like the pharaohs.
Block up the air vents
Why waste a perfectly good latrine?
Pour concrete in the air intake and over the entrances and exits
“The Future” by Naomi Alderman goes somewhere along these lines
