Two hectares of land in the Pacific North and an always fueled helicopter: in Silicon Valley, according to The New Yorker, more and more rich people are taking the necessary measures in case of the end of the world.
If the world order falls apart, it will be damn hard to get contact lenses or even new glasses. Steve Huffman knows this well. That is why in November of last year, he specially underwent eye surgery to get rid of myopia. "Without glasses," Huffman admitted to a reporter for the American magazine The New Yorker, "I'm in the ass."
Steve Huffman is the 33-year-old co-founder and CEO of the American online community Reddit. He is one of those apparently increasingly wealthy entrepreneurs and top managers in the financial and information services industries who are purposefully and sparingly preparing for a kind of apocalypse.
In an article, The New Yorker details this life-filled movement of the richest "survivalist". If you believe the article, the uneven distribution of finances on a global scale, which every now and then becomes the object of indignation, has long ceased to be complained about by those who have less material wealth. Rather, it is billionaires and millionaires around the world that are increasingly worried that tensions between them and the poorer, but quantitatively much larger part of the world's population will someday escalate to the limit.
The result can be a popular uprising, a revolution, like once in Russia, or whatever. But what is absolutely clear to many rich people: whoever at the moment of this powerful blow is unprepared will be left with nothing.
Recently, Oxfam, a nonprofit organization, provided information for a conversation on this topic. According to a study published by Oxfam just in time for the World Economic Forum in Davos, only the world's eight richest people own more assets than the poorest half of the world's population. In Germany, according to the above study, there is the same impressive imbalance in the distribution of property.
Whether these statements are the result of careful and accurate calculation of the data is unknown. That they point to a significant imbalance in the world is beyond doubt. It is also quite clear that the description of the world imbalance in such studies causes strong envy and resentment.
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About archery lessons and packed suitcases
In general, the super-rich have every reason to worry about how long the state of affairs will remain unchanged under the current social order. As Ishan Wong, a former Facebook employee and ex-president of Reddit, told The New Yorker, in Silicon Valley, first of all, the founders of IT companies are used to thinking through the development of events up to any possible outcome.
According to Wong, an unpleasant outcome - for example, the collapse of the existing social system - is probably not so possible. However, there are large-scale risks of loss behind it - and those who have the opportunity take certain precautions. Wong, by the way, did laser vision correction, and for the same reason as Huffman.
Here are some more examples of what emergency preparations are like: Reddit CEO Christoph Huffman, in his own words, owns several motorcycles (after all, as you know, in the event of an apocalypse, huge traffic jams are primarily formed on the roads), a whole range of weapons, ammunition and food. “It will help me to survive in my own home for a while,” says Huffman.
Antonio Garcia Martinez, a 40-year-old ex-Facebook employee, has acquired two hectares of land on an island in the North Pacific Ocean, The New Yorker writes. According to Martinez, anyone who thinks that in conditions of real danger they will be able to withstand a raging crowd is deeply mistaken. "In this case, you need to form a local militia."
Here are the other people mentioned in the article: the investment pro who always expects a fully fueled helicopter; a venture capital company manager who bought several real estate objects abroad at once as rescue shelters (and at home there are always packed suitcases ready for the whole family, including a four-year-old daughter); ex-chairman of the board of Yahoo, who took archery lessons specifically in order to be able to protect their water and food supplies.
Rescue in New Zealand
According to an article by The New Yorker, all of these people are discussing in closed Facebook communities all sorts of aspects of the struggle for survival: gas masks, bunkers and even places on the planet that will not definitely affect the consequences of climate change. For the more fearful in Wichita, Kansas, a former nuclear shelter has already been converted into luxurious and spacious residential apartments. Apparently, New Zealand is a favorite place for salvation among like-minded people, where an American who is building a country house there was already offered anti-nuclear equipment for the building during construction, although he did not ask.
The New Yorker cites Reed Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, a network of professional contacts, as saying that more than half of the IT billionaires in Silicon Valley are dedicated to preparing for life after the apocalypse.
At the same time, the struggle between the poor and the rich for survival specialists, apparently, is only one of the possible scenarios for the end of the world: natural disasters, war, collapse of food supplies caused, for example, by hacker attacks - the alleged causes of the apocalypse can be enumerated for a long time. In the field of technology, for example, someone already seems to be concerned about the development of artificial intelligence. Thousands of people who, as a result of these developments, what good, will lose their jobs, in the future may come to the barricades against the same technology industry.
Christoph Rottwilm