> I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech ... to deliver some insight on the subject of “the future of technology” ... my audience ... five super-wealthy guys ... from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world. ... They had no interest in the information I had prepared about the future of technology. They had come with questions of their own.
> [After a few innocent questions], the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”
> The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.
> This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers - if that technology could be developed in time.
And they will still escape in all kinds of exotic locations, expensive resorts outside of climate change's harm way, bunkers, and so on while the world burns - basically how many escaped covid lockdown - , which is not that different to escaping to space.
My understanding is that several of them (including Peter Thiel) have bought property in New Zealand as a hedge against climate change, wildfires, and societal collapse in other countries.
We have a small holiday place in Lake Wanaka right down the road from Peter Thiel’s block of bare land and his substantial but not ludicrous holiday home.
I suspect a fair few who planned on NZ as their international bolt hole are now a bit confused.
They likely planned on a terrible catastrophe with enough warning to get here.
Instead they received a minor catastrophe with air travel lock downs where even a private G650 is not permitted entry.
I’m of the opinion that all this doomsday prepping by the wealthy is simply an unconventional insurance policy for extreme/unlikely events.
Basic and moderate preparations for reasonable likelihood events makes great sense.
Extreme preparations don’t make financial sense, but I suspect are done for the same reasons some people of lesser means seem to dangerously over invest in disaster preparation, it’s the perception of control and order amidst a macro environment they feel they cannot influence, control, or predict.
>The atmosphere has varied for billions of years between an average temperature of 10C and 25C.
Which we could not care less about. Humanity didn't exist for "billions of years" and for most of the time it did exist it existed in an animal like state and died by the droves with bad weather conditions.
It also didn't have to sustain a fragile modern infrastructure, megacities, argiculture to feed 8 billion, and so on.
So whether 1 billion years ago it was also "50 degrees C" or "5 degrees C" is irrelevant as to our predicament now.
And that's without considering other aspects of environmental issues, like microplastics, overfishing, polluted water systems, and so on, that are 100% man-made.
>Look at history to place current events in proper context.
Your "billions" of years ago, or even 10.000 years ago, is not history, it's pre-history.
La-la-la hands in the ears denial is conforting, but scientific consensus says otherwise: that the temperature rise we're facing is man caused.
For starters it should be obvious, that just because something happens ocassionally through cause X, doesn't mean all of its instances happen by cause X.
That is, the fact that the Earth has had (and will have) cycles of higher/lower temperatures doesn't mean that this particular stage is one of them, and not a man-made one.
You know, same way thousands of people day every day from natural causes, but a body found with two bullets on their head is not just a regular natural death.
Second, even if the climate heating was part of some "natural" cycle, it would still be a huge problem for humanity.
It would only be "business as usual" for Earth, which doesn't care if we live or die, have food or not, sustain our cities, etc. For us, it would be a huge disaster (and in many areas it already is). So it would still need us to think some way out of it -- whether man made or natural.
So, I'm not sure where your nonchalant vibe comes from, even if (against consensus, but having cherry picked some opposing voices, which are a dime a dozen in every field) you think there's no human-made climate change.
Earth was also mostly molten lava billions of years ago, but that doesn't mean we would be OK with it getting like that again.
Again, sure denial is comforting. One can go on dreaming. Heck, they can even eventually suffer the consequences themselves, without still acknowledging that there's an issue.
"Survival of the Richest"
> I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech ... to deliver some insight on the subject of “the future of technology” ... my audience ... five super-wealthy guys ... from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world. ... They had no interest in the information I had prepared about the future of technology. They had come with questions of their own.
> [After a few innocent questions], the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”
> The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.
> This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers - if that technology could be developed in time.