A few years in the past, Douglas Rushkoff, a professor of media and digital economics in New York, was requested to provide a speech at a swanky resort in a distant American desert. Rushkoff presumed he could be speaking to funding bankers a few e-book he had written concerning the web. When he arrived on the venue, nonetheless, he was shocked to seek out himself in entrance of half a dozen ultra-rich tech and hedge fund luminaries, as an alternative of a conferenc.
The boys — sure, they had been all males — had been collectively torn, they stated, over a specific alternative: New Zealand or Alaska? They feared the world was heading for what they termed “The Occasion” — some form of “environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, photo voltaic storm, unstoppable virus or malicious pc hack that takes every thing down”, Rushkoff says. They usually wished to know which area could be most secure to retreat to.
Different questions that preoccupied them included: was local weather change scarier than organic warfare? How lengthy would they doubtless want to stay in a bunker for anyway? And, crucially, how may they cease their very own safety forces from murdering them? They sought these solutions from Rushkoff as a result of he had beforehand written Current Shock, a well-regarded e-book about the way forward for tech.
Rushkoff admits he didn’t have many solutions to supply, apart from noting that if the billionaires wished to keep away from being murdered by the assistance, they need to begin being extraordinarily good to them now.
His story is intriguing for 2 causes. First, it exhibits the diploma to which severe cash is fretting a few looming catastrophe. This has lengthy been a characteristic of the trendy world. Because the writer Garrett Graff described in chilling element in his 2018 e-book Raven Rock, the US authorities created an enormous community of bunkers within the late Nineteen Forties for its key officers in case of nuclear warfare.
What has modified in current a long time is that growing numbers of personal people have began prepping for catastrophe too. A sequence of occasions, from 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina to rising tensions between North Korea and the west, and the unfold of conspiracy theories on-line, have fuelled fears of societal collapse.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has introduced the specter of nuclear warfare again into public consciousness. This week the French insurance coverage group Axa launched a survey exhibiting that four-fifths of individuals in western international locations really feel considerably extra susceptible than they did 5 years in the past. Local weather change, for the primary time, is deemed the highest menace in Asia and the US in addition to in Europe (the place it has been seen as such for some time), adopted by geopolitical instability (ie warfare).
The survey additionally revealed a pointy decline within the variety of folks expressing religion within the skill of policymakers or scientists to sort out such threats. “There’s a feeling of powerlessness,” says Thomas Buberl, Axa’s CEO. As Ian Bremmer, head of Eurasia Group, places it, “There is no such thing as a [effective] institutional framework for addressing these points… and even slowing the proliferation of harmful weapons.” This case has sparked not solely the expansion in survivalist — or “prepper” — exercise among the many inhabitants at giant, but additionally prompted the ultra-wealthy to hunt refuge, whether or not in luxurious bunkers, superyachts or each.
The second motive why Rushkoff’s story is intriguing is that this scramble to organise the logistics of bunker life could make the underlying issues worse. The extra that the ultra-rich assume that they’ll escape Armageddon, the much less they might have to really feel the required desperation to forestall it. That is significantly miserable, Rushkoff argues in his new e-book, Survival of the Richest, since these are the identical individuals who have exacerbated issues akin to local weather change, social battle and inequality. “They’ve this mindset that you simply turn into this sovereign particular person, above everyone else,” he argues. Bunkers allow them to take a look at.
In fact, a number of the super-rich who’re in search of out bunkers would say that this criticism is unfair. As one identified to me just lately, the impulse to guard your self and your family members from menace is a common human intuition.
Most of the world’s wealthiest folks consider they’re attempting to counter such threats. Invoice Gates, as an example, is pouring billions into healthcare and local weather change causes. Elon Musk claims that he needs to forestall nuclear warfare in Ukraine (although his ways depart many Ukrainians horrified).
However the grim reality is that no billionaire on their very own can repair the catastrophic dangers of local weather change, pandemic or warfare. We’d like collaborative motion between the private and non-private sectors.
So allow us to hope that at the moment’s swelling temper of concern will shock us all into in search of options. If not, the longer term appears to be like scary — even from a bunker.
Observe Gillian on Twitter @gilliantett and e-mail her at gillian.tett@ft.com
Observe @FTMag on Twitter to seek out out about our newest tales first
