A plot from a zombie movie might just come true! Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff described a surreal experience in a Guardian story this weekend: five of the world’s wealthiest men, he said, flew him out to a secret meeting to get his tips on surviving a potential political disaster or climate disaster.
They were not interested in renewable energy or rebuilding. They wanted to know how they’d keep guards from turning on them — and how they could keep food stores secure from the hands of ordinary masses.
“I tried to reason with them,” Rushkoff wrote. “I made pro-social arguments for partnership and solidarity as the best approaches to our collective, long-term challenges. They rolled their eyes at what must have sounded to them like hippy philosophy.”
Rushkoff said that the economically affluent class is scrambling to acquire swank bunkers and that many companies with post-apocalyptic products to hawk have contacted him to help sell their products.
One startup, called Vivos, sells luxury underground apartments that can be installed in missile silos and other decommissioned military locations. The bunkers include pools, games, movies, and dining.
A giant problem, though, is these bunkers only put off the inevitable, Rushkoff writes. Their underground, vertical garden structures and “shelter-in-place” attitudes will make long-term survival even harder.
It’s quite morbid that the wealthy won’t take Rushkoff’s warnings seriously. But if a forward-looking approach to the future of the planet wins the day, the rich will be prepared to escape!