There is at least one conspiracy theory that I feel has a grain of truth at its core, and that is that the super wealthy are preparing for a blow-up. Credible stories about their compounds, retreats, and bunkers have been published. When the shit hits the fan, those folks do not expect to be camping. The livestock, that’s us, might have a tough time, but they’ll be living in style. Just another pleasurable escapade for the rich!
In my opinion, there is a major flaw, not in the conspiracy theory itself, but in the expectations of the super rich to live on pie in the sky. No idle rich idiot wants to prepare their own coffee, wash and dry the laundry, and do the carpentry. So the bunker needs to be equipped with a staff capable of doing all this. That’s fine as long as there is a functioning society outside where you can spend, save, and display the swag earned. But what happens when things really go fizzle outside?
“Hey boss, the check bounced, the bank is closed, and I got no streaming service!”
Staff like to be paid; they like to go home to their family after a day of waiting on the extravagant desires of a spoiled rich idiot. In short, they want to take the kiddo to the doctor, estimate how much is in their retirement account, and go to the cookout with the family. All of which they may have trouble doing in the Mega Mansion inside Treble Cove Mountain. You may be a likable boss, but after checks bounce and the banks no longer exist, don’t expect personal loyalty to be endless.
If all bets are off outside the mountain retreat, and nothing like an ordinary civil society exists, then the now-imaginary money is no longer being deposited, nor is it spendable. What would stop your staff from simply evicting you and living off the supplies themselves?
Perhaps you have electronic locks on all the supplies. You conjure yourself a nice little feudal society based not on money, but on service and payment by goods and other services. The former Tech Bros and Sisses are now lords and ladies of the manor. This may work for a while. But have you heard about palace revolutions?
If the elites are really smart, and I’m not sure they are, the smart thing would be to try to stabilize a wider community around yourself – a large township, county, or part of a state. In this area, attempt to keep an operative civil society going. Your valuable inputs would be central to society, but many of the extended needs of the people would be met. The locals would be dependent on you, but the threads of control would be so loosely and invisibly woven into the fabric of the community as to be invisible.
This system emulates the captive community model of the 19th and early 20th century mill towns in the US. The Richy family owned the mill in which everyone worked and earned their living. They controlled the political strings of government, but the people had their homes, schools, and some individual autonomy. Oh, yeah! They got paid.
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I think you have the outline of a dystopian novel, with evicted, clueless rich out in the mess. That’s independent of whether the theory is true or not. 🙂
True or not, I think they are clueless about the effects of what they create, and think that they’ll forever skate free of repercussions.
Funny, I keep thinking about the French Revolution, wondering how close we are.
I do too.
Interesting speculations, Lou. Our society is so interdependent. Lines bring in our power from generating stations. Solar panels only work when it’s warm and sunny. What if these folks get sick and/or need an operation? Medicine now available at the pharmacy would come from where if you were in survival mode? Fabric for clothing? Or will they all have sheep?
A friend living in a highrise in a big Ontario city told me, “We could live without power if we had to. We could go back to the land, live like the ancestors.” Dream on!
I don’t think a high-rise would be a great start for a farming community. Yep. Dream on!
Her thinking was that residents of Toronto, K-W, etc, would move into the bush, eat berries and grow their own food. But how could they survive without their morning coffee? 😉
No Morning coffee! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Wasn’t something like this involved with dunking boxes of tea into the Atlantic? Something like that?
Yup! But this would be our computers and phones; I bet it would be a lot less popular.
The shipwright I hung out with back in 2013 was having “Man Nights”. He was teaching survival techniques for the coming collapse of civilization. He would tell me the topic (starting fires, etc) and I would describe how to do whatever it was, which he found annoying. “How did you learn that?” he would ask. “Little house books,” I’d say. Eventually I suggested his group read them. “We do not read children’s books,” he says. I laughed. Might not need the classes then. Being a female, I was only invited once: to the crossbow shooting. I performed too well and was not invited again.
I have read that the super rich are buying the empty towers that certain missiles were stored in. I keep dreaming that when civilization collapses, we all pile logs and trashed furniture and gasoline around the occupied towers and set them on fire. And as far as buying an island, no worries there, either. The rising sea will settle that.
Traditional marine trades have had a tendency to attract that sort. And I knew one or two on the boat show circuit on the east coast. They were “Retreads” from other conventional careers, let’s just say they had attitude issues.
About the silos, I think your point about sea level rise is great. But also they will soon find out what quality construction you get when the contractor is on a standard government low bidder deal.