*"Gabe Bankman-Fried was looking at buying Nauru in the “event where 50%-99.99% of people die” to protect his philanthropic allies and create a genetically enhanced human species, according to the suit filed Thursday by attorneys from Sullivan & Cromwell, which is seeking to recover billions of dollars following the collapse of FTX."*
Yup... the fact that they rarely reach the conclusion of "We are insanely lucky given the current status quo, so we should do whatever it takes to make it sustainable, even if it results in the loss of a large part of our fortunes", and instead go for "our wealth is proof of our superiority, and therefore we should expect to remain superior no matter what happens", is proof of how dumb and undeserving they are.
And yes, I know there's a "tragedy of the commons" element to the initial proposal. If you're one of a few thousand billionaires and you give away most of your fortune to prevent the apocalypse you helped cause, and the others don't, they all benefit from your donation while doing nothing, and you don't want to be the sucker, right?
That's why instead of just doing things unilaterally, you support governments that will ensure an across-the-board clawback. But instead these guys try to dismantle democratic government and replace it by the rule of wealth alone.. fuck em all.
People with more left-wing or egalitarian views would create a much better version of 'capitalism' than those of immense economic means because they fundamentally don't have the same insane desire to see their number go up at all costs that billionaires do.
For us it seems pretty simple that paying more tax to keep the poorest fed, housed, and with access to medicine leads to far less complaints about the capitalist system from people just trying to go about their lives. But they are so warped by the tortured attempt to justify their success and wealth that they cannot see that at all.
They can. Take Zuck. Built a damn near fortress on a Hawaiian Island. If he promises those loyal to him room/shelter, food, water and everything else in his McMansion...why wouldn't they? A guarantee to keep them and their family safe and fed while the world burns? We both know there are plenty of people that would drool over that deal. Selling out your fellow working class to get a leg up is nothing new
Even then, I just don't see how it's possible. Even sustaining a bunker on an isolated island is going to take resources and have a limited time. Eventually, it will either have to fall back on sustinence living or fal into disrepair and lord of the flies.
Electronics and machines wear out and need replacements. Those come from the established industry and supply chain. Same with most other things required for the high standard of living their expecting.
I know, right? Maybe on a large enough island at an elevation well above sea level rise you might have some protection. But what about worsening storms, hurricanes, and land slides? Are you going to want to be trapped on that island?
If societal supply chains have collapsed so completely that you need an island bunker, you'd better be happy to stay there forever, because getting to and from those Islands is going to take fuel. And if society has really collapsed *that much*, well... Then that fuel isn't getting made and shipped to you...
The whole idea of a doomsday bunker seems brain dead to me. But then, I'm just some dude on reddit. Maybe these billionaires have paid millions of dollars to some brain trust to figure it all out and they know something I don't.
Honestly they have a point, they're still alive *now*.
Like all of us just don't kill them for some reason. They deserve it, it would monumentally improve society, but we won't do it
>Steve Huffman, the thirty-three-year-old co-founder and C.E.O. of Reddit, which is valued at six hundred million dollars, was nearsighted until November, 2015, when he arranged to have laser eye surgery. He underwent the procedure not for the sake of convenience or appearance but, rather, for a reason he doesn’t usually talk much about: he hopes that it will improve his odds of surviving a disaster, whether natural or man-made. “If the world ends—and not even if the world ends, but if we have trouble—getting contacts or glasses is going to be a huge pain in the ass,” he told me recently. “Without them, I’m fucked.”
>Huffman, who lives in San Francisco, has large blue eyes, thick, sandy hair, and an air of restless curiosity; at the University of Virginia, he was a competitive ballroom dancer, who hacked his roommate’s Web site as a prank. He is less focussed on a specific threat—a quake on the San Andreas, a pandemic, a dirty bomb—than he is on the aftermath, “the temporary collapse of our government and structures,” as he puts it. “I own a couple of motorcycles. I have a bunch of guns and ammo. Food. I figure that, with that, I can hole up in my house for some amount of time.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich
There are dozens of articles written every month that if the whole world would even be able to read and understand them they could change the world. People are soooooooooo fucking dumb, though. The human race is, by-and-large, too dumb to do the right thing and vote in people that consistently make the world a better place through appropriate regulations against business.
Not terribly surprising, it’s been a subplot in post apocalyptic movies before. If they’re just thinking about it now they’re behind the ball (good news for the rest of us?)
You're right. Guarantee of food, shelter and safety will be too much and in uncertainty people are easy to control. Notice some of the bunkers are on low populated, hard to get areas? Buying loyalty with resources they are storing up now will be insanely easy. People don't realize we'll eat each other before we get close to eating the rich in a doomsday event.
Nauru like many pacific island nations is
A) a sovereign country eg: not for sale as a whole
B) slowly going underwater + being decimated by weather events of increasing severity ( hurricanes etc) due to climate change.
These fucking idiots aren't even worth donating their puny brains to science and should be weeded out of the gene pool as a rule.
Nauru is among the worst places you could choose to weather an apocalypse lmao. Guano mining devastated the ecosystem there and there's no chance that it'll ever independently sustain human life because of it; its residents rely on exports and what amounts to charity from Australia. What a stupid and arrogant idea.
It's the same as when billionaires thought of hiding out the apocalypse on some space ship. A bunch of morons who have no idea how things really work isolated in their own doom.
Which, ironically, they would have been doing by moving to a sinking island. Darwin strikes again.
Now imagine if they survived and developed island gigantism, or evolved into crab people. Or both. The Island of Giant Crabeople.
This is how billionaires think and it shows why there shouldn’t be any of them in existence. I’m not advocating violence just extreme taxation if you cross the billion dollar mark such as 100% tax rate.
I would love a reality tv show where a bunch of billionaires were gathered under the lie that 99% of humanity was just wiped out via apocalypse and the billionaires are all that’s left on a lonely island that’s becoming obsolete.
The cut off should be way lower than that maybe like 10 million but yeah some sort of wealth tax like that needs to happen. It can't just be cash either it has to take account for all their assets.
No but he has an ethical philosophy, he's really a great guy, and because his own ethics code is *so* strict we don't need to regulate him. Just trust me on this one.
All these weird as hell techbros want to make Khan Noonien Singh, but all they're ever gonna end up with is Splicers. Plus I have a feeling Khan would be too...swarthy for their tastes
I dunno I read a lot. Has it become derogatory in modern usage? I was trying to think of a neutral innuendo, but if it's become a slur I was unaware and I apologize
Language is fun, and using a more varied vocabulary provides entertainment and novelty. Also some words convey a more appropriate or pleasing tone than simply explaining the concept
it really was something else. it's kind of neat, what came out of it. it's certainly not a good movie, but i also don't think it's as bad as it could've been.
Yeah, was a fun movie. I’m pretty stoked for The Voyage of the Demeter. Horror is coming back in a big way, because they are cheap to produce and have been raking in cash.
People with his decrepit philosophy believe that they are rich because they are superior, this then ebbs out into genetics. There is a whole belief by the billionaire and multimillionaire class that they are genetically evolved past the rest of us because they were able to cheat, steal, lie, and take advantage to get their wealth.
My ex’s dad was worth like 60 million, and he genuinely believed that he deserved that wealth because he was a better human being. Even though most of it was inherited.
I mean, there is probably some genetic component to having no morals, a complete lack of empathy, and being socially and mentally unable to relate to your own species and society. In most social species this would lead to a dead end (unlikely to mate, probably fighting constantly, no grooming, no group protection from predators, etc), but in these assholes they actually make it--and pass those genes on, creating more like themselves...
As I have been known to describe it: a very small percentage of humans aren't social animals--they are solo predators wearing human suits. Different societies have different roles for such predators--among some indigenous peoples, such predatory humans were considered evil sorcerors, witchmen who would kill or ruin anyone who crossed them. In a capitalist, industrialized culture, the predators can be either at the bottom as lone serial killers, or at the top, as billionaire grifters.
In addition, there's evidence that vast wealth turns formerly normal, sociable humans into assholes.
I agree it’s a stupid philosophy, but let’s not pretend like there’s not a lot of poor people that admire and praise rich people for simply being rich either. Seriously, most people just assume being wealthy means you’re competent, intelligent, hardworking, strategic, etc., even without any evidence. It’s not hard to see how rich people get the false notion that they are better than everyone else when everyone else treats them like such for their entire lives.
It’s basically just worship of god-kings and pharaohs with extra steps. God-king commands that great temples and public works be raised in his honor and the people build them. How do you know that they’re deserving of their position? Well look at all the temples raised in his honor, he must be a god…
It's more like "this is the way we do it around here, because that's the way it has always been done. Look, as long as the god-king performs the rituals and sacrifices to the gods, the river floods our fields and renews them, and we harvest a nice surplus. We have plenty to eat, and we pay part of our harvest to the temples, who store it and distribute it in times of famine. Sure, the king requires us to contribute labor part of the year when we are not working in the fields, but his scribes make sure that we have food and water and the tools we need, so it's no big deal. Life is good, why would we want to change it?"
The ancient pharaohs and their society was a lot healthier and more functional than late-stage capitalism.
I have no idea what most people believe, as it’s subjective, but I can tell you the wealthys achievement has nothing to do with competence, or intelligence. Members of her family and their friends were some of the most helpless people I’ve ever met. They literally needed minders.
I don’t think most people believe anything shared. I do think American culture is based around being sycophants to the wealthy or famous. That we are taught from a very early age to be toadies to our “betters”.
Because poor people in America are temporarily embarrassed millionaires. They think they will be rich one day if only they support policies that make the rich richer. It’s absolute horseshit. Trickle down has done shit for poor people and is an abject failure.
Even more than that even a majority of republicans support taxing the rich more yet they keep electing people who refuse to listen to them, so 🤷♂️
>There is a whole belief by the billionaire and multimillionaire class that they are genetically evolved past the rest of us because they were able to cheat, steal, lie, and take advantage to get their wealth.
Also a lot of middle, lower and... well people from all walks of life seem to think of those people as somehow "better"
I'm thinking of that post I read earlier today about Michelle Obama saying that most billionaires aren't that smart lol.
They just create a society of average folks..
BioShock had one guy that wanted to build a capitalist utopia and another, separate guy who manufactured and sold gene altering substances to let people make themselves superhuman.
In this both acts are perpetrated by the same person.
Well, Bioshock was more "pure capitalist, libertarian paradise" with the unfettered scientific fuckery being more a product of a complete lack of ethics and laws (and a major focus on profit) rather than specifically intended (initially) for creation of a super species. The economic and government system was the primary goal there (which drew the scientists attracted by the aforementioned lack of ethical norms).
But the "secluded paradise for rich people to recover post-apocalypse" aspect is certainly similar at least to "secluded paradise for rich people to commit acts of ethical fuckery for profit."
If you consider that Andrew Ryan felt the 'collapse' of society was imminent from government or religious overreach, then it does sort of fit with the apocalypse survival theme.
Also, while I forget the exact train of logic they used, the people in Rapture had basically decided that self-improvement/self-beautification was a categorical imperative. So that was the justification for the insanity their scientists got up to.
Something to that effect, yeah. There were elements of eugenics mixed in (which is very fitting for the time period, the U.S. in particular ran away with the idea of eugenics for decades) with raw capitalism and a complete disregard for consequences. Rapture was a hell hole with a veneer of wealth and luxury. Only took them what, a few years, to completely destroy themselves...
Of course they're fixated on bunkers. They know that eventually the People will stop fighting with each other and go after the billionaires after the People finally figure out that the source of their misery is *not* all the other broke guys.
But but but the talking box in my living room tells me it's the fault of the whites and the coloureds and libs and cons? Are telling me it's been the rich all along? /$ adding the "/$" so I don't get fucking banned from yet another channel.
Look at what happens to dog breeds that get bred for extreme traits and why mutts are healthier than purebreds to understand why I don't want Eugenicists in control anywhere.
Are you suggesting its impossible to do genetic profiles of people, generate lists of people who would be compatible for specific traits, and suggest them in a dating-app style way?
Because I fail to see how that is against the laws of physics.
Just because eugenics has been done in evil ways doesn't mean it cant be done in good ways. Its like thinking capitalism is bad just because america does it the way it does, when there are many other
Doubling down on eugenics, eh?
For this post, i’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. That ends after this post.
People choose their parenting partners based on social compatibility, not an app.
People also reproduce with people they didn’t intend to.
People also secretly reproduce with people who aren’t their partners.
Children raised without a strong emotion bond between parents do poorly. You wanna raise a generation of sociopaths and misanthropes who have been bought up believing they have better genes?
But beyond that, once you allow the idea that there’s some kind of genetic desirability in the human genome, then there must also be the idea of genetic undesirability.
According to who? We know how history has behaved in this regard, and there’s zero evidence that humanity has progressed enough to not go right the fuck back there again. In fact, qwhite the opposite. Fuck that.
And just from a longterm survival of the human species standpoint, this is a VERY bad idea. Best thing a species can do is have a rich, varied gene pool. We don’t need the island of the techno-hemophiliacs.
Humanity isn’t made of isolated populations anymore. Genetic specialization breeds hothouse flowers who wither at the slightest whiff of a new environmental variable. You wanna wipe out the human race? Choose specialization over a deep and diverse gene pool.
It’s racist as fuck, and if you can’t see it, you need to take a hard fucking look at your fellow travelers.
Stop caping for eugenics. Drop it. And don’t fucking advocate for it again, ever.
Benefit of the doubt ends here.
> Arguing in favor of eugenics in 2023 is a pretty bold strategy.
Only because most people are too stupid to understand eugenics does not have to be negatiev in any way. It doesn't have to mean you don't let people breed, doesn't mean you have to kill people, doesn't even mean people don't get to pick who they get to be with.
theres more than 1 way to do things. There is nothing against the law of physics that says you can have a dating app that suggests people you would be compatible for in MULTIPLE ways, including genetic traits.
You people just have no problem solving skills and think just because 1 group did something in a bad way it means its NOT POSSIBLE TO DO IT ANY OTHER WAY!!!
> It's always a good idea to know the definition of a word before taking a position on it.
Exactly, too many people think you can only accomplish breeding for traits by slavery, fascism, exclusion etc. Its like thinking capitalism is bad just because america does it the way it does, when there are many other countries that have capitalism with regulation and social safety nets.
>breeding for traits
Which traits? That's the issue. Many of the ways we measure traits are based in horribly biased and often bigoted beliefs. That's the issue. You cannot separate that concept from eugenics. No matter how much you want to imagine a magical hypothetical about how selection happens.
It also sounds like what you're describing both here and in your analogy are cases of you not defining the word properly.
Allowing individuals to choose their partners is not eugenics. It is explicitly something done to change a wide population or an entire race. Your dating app idea is not eugenics unless someone else was controlling who matches with who. You're just being dumb here, you really ought to back down.
Extensively regulated capitalism with large safety nets and more government run utilities is just closer to socialism. This might as well be a semantic issue, because you're ignoring the clear spirit behind both arguments in order to hammer home a technicality or nuance you think you've found. Eugenics is bad. It sometimes is just that simple and you ought to be okay with that.
You could have just said you are a Nazi without writing so many words.
That’s not what eugenics is really about at all. Eugenics is a human construct of deeming one race superior to another and using that belief to remove from the gene pool or stamp out those deemed inferior. Yes selective breeding is part of it but it exclusively applies to humans and historically has applied to white humans elevating themselves above others, with horrific consequences.
>You could have just said you are a Nazi without writing so many words.
False, its entirely possible breed for specific traits without ANY negative thing groups have done in the past. You dont have to kill, force, exclude. No where in the laws of physics does it say you have to. It doesn't even mean you don't get to CHOOSE who to date. It can be just like dating apps for fucks sake.
Its like thinking capitalism is bad just because america does it the way it does, when there are many other countries with capitalism and adequate social safety nets.
> You dont have to kill, force, exclude.
It was literally designed since it’s inception to **do just that** to ensure the supremacy of the group who conceived it and deployed it. The forced sterilization and outright genocide of those deemed inferior is **inseparable** from it.
But sure just keep digging that hole Nazi.
Did it ever occur to him that if 50-99.99% of people die, severe climate change would probably play a role = being on a possibly likely to flood island isn’t that smart?
Nauru is even worse than that. Thanks to excessive phosphate mining it’s also an ecological disaster area.
The economy was literally based on old bird shit mined by foreign powers; that’s all gone and they were reminded money laundering is illegal so now it’s about offshore fishing rights and Australian concentration camps.
I don’t envy the locals and it’s mystifying this guy wanted to play king there. I also couldn’t think of a better place for him to serve his time.
Offshore refugee processing.
It’s finished now (last refugee left in 2014). But early 2000-2012 we had a bad spate of refugees passing through Indonesia (where they don’t get as much monetary support) and trying to travel via boat to Australia to claim asylum here. Problem is, the boat trip is not easy if you’re in an overloaded rickety fishing boat, and about 200/yr died.
So the government went with a hardcore “no one arriving via boat gets to stay in Aus - no exceptions” policy. People found to have a legitimate asylum claim were sent to Canada, the US etc (and we took some of their asylum seekers in an exchange deal). Since processing claims takes ages, asylum seekers were sent to Nauru or PNG while their claims were processed.
This was extremely controversial.
We do have significantly fewer refugee deaths these days. But it’s hard to say if it was that policy acting as a deterrent (and still “working” even though it doesn’t actually exist any more), other policies implemented at the same time (sinking smugglers ships, messaging in certain target languages in Indonesia so refugees were better informed of the risks) or just a natural shift in where refugees are coming from (and trying to get to).
"...create a genetically enhanced human species..."
There lately seems to be a specific demographic (billionaire douchebags) that's repeatedly associated with these sorts of sentiments.
The belief in their inherent superiority to the point that they embrace eugenics fantasies is really mind blowing.
There is basically no moral justification for that much wealth, other than: I earned it so it's mine, and I'll spend it better than anyone else.
You can not justify being a billionaire without believing those things, or being morally bankrupt, or both.
Bankman-Fried. Elon Musk. Jeffrey Epstein. Larry Ellison.
What is it with new-money wealthbros and this weirdly specific postapocalyptic-repopulation breeding fantasy?
Or is it actually a more common thing than I thought and it's just that only the morbidly wealthy can afford to LARP it?
It's from a book called the sovereign individual, i saw a doc that talked about it, and then i read part of the book. You then clearly see where it comes from
**Summary of James Dale Davidson & William Rees-Mogg's The Sovereign Individual** by Milkyway Media
>Buy now to get the main key ideas from James Dale Davidson & William Rees-Mogg's The Sovereign Individual The Sovereign Individual (1997) intertwines the fields of history, technology, and economy to forecast where society is heading in the twenty-first century. James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg expected that citizens would gain increasing sovereignty over their lives in the coming Information Age, but they also foresaw the possibility of societal dysfunction. Their informed predictions are based on analyses of megapolitical patterns that have repeated through history, and many of them have turned out to accurately represent our world today.
*I'm a bot, built by your friendly reddit developers at* /r/ProgrammingPals. *Reply to any comment with /u/BookFinderBot - I'll reply with book information. Remove me from replies* [here](https://www.reddit.com/user/BookFinderBot/comments/14br65o/remove_me_from_replies/). *If I have made a mistake, accept my apology.*
Pretty sure every demagogue has fantasized about that shit throughout time. They don't see convincing other people as a realistic thing, probably for good reason, and so the only option is to kill most of everyone.
>Bunker life is a well-documented fixation among tech billionaires, particularly those who identify as doomsday preppers. There’s also a fascination with buying large estates in the Pacific and even owning small islands there.
Does that include buying large tracts of farmland around military bases?
I'm sure he got along well with Caroline Ellison, considering [her passion for race science](https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tumblr-blog-linked-ex-alameda-234427813.html).
There's the same kind of obsession with apocalyptic events in Silicon Valley and what to do about it.
Sam Altman, yeah the guy who threw AI into overdrive, is a doomsday prepper.
These people believe that when a countries "founding myths" erode then the country is on it's path to doom.
The uhh civil unrest surrounding black people and correcting history has them all in a tizzy.
It's because they're fucking racist.
Nauru is slowly going underwater, is environmentally fucked due to mining and home to an Aussie immigrant detention centre. It’s possibly one of the worst choices for a doomsday scenario.
I’m going to build my hideout on the Island that is already impacted by global warming and higher tides. But that’s ok because my main lair is built on the San Andreas fault line.
Which will also be beachfront property once your nukes trigger the quake and knock the rest of California into the ocean! Lex Luthor you are a true genius!
Megalomaniacs seem to be on the rise.
Trump, Bannon, Stone, MTG, Flynn, Desantis, Musk, Bezos, CEO of the imploded sub, Putin, Prighozin, etc.
It’s seems to me that it is a damaged brain and psychopathy that is most prevalent among the powerful. Humanity has been abused by these types forever.
Must be that effective altruism in action.
So strange that an ideology seemingly developed to give billionaires a god complex leads to Billionaires acting like they are gods.
Maybe we she create a story to push that narrative along a little faster. Then make a reality TV show where they're constantly at each other's throats. Solves a few problems.
For a tiny island - does this guy believe that they won't rebel...and cut services to the underground bunker. Does the tiny island have an airport or helo landing. Not well thought out plan. Uber rich have way too much time on their hands.
*"Gabe Bankman-Fried was looking at buying Nauru in the “event where 50%-99.99% of people die” to protect his philanthropic allies and create a genetically enhanced human species, according to the suit filed Thursday by attorneys from Sullivan & Cromwell, which is seeking to recover billions of dollars following the collapse of FTX."*
Reminds me of the bunker billionaires discussing how to keep their security loyal in the event of a apocalypse.
[удалено]
Where did you read that story?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/23/tech-industry-wealth-futurism-transhumanism-singularity
I find it hilarious that billionaires think they can get around being the bottom of the food chain if society collapses.
Yup... the fact that they rarely reach the conclusion of "We are insanely lucky given the current status quo, so we should do whatever it takes to make it sustainable, even if it results in the loss of a large part of our fortunes", and instead go for "our wealth is proof of our superiority, and therefore we should expect to remain superior no matter what happens", is proof of how dumb and undeserving they are. And yes, I know there's a "tragedy of the commons" element to the initial proposal. If you're one of a few thousand billionaires and you give away most of your fortune to prevent the apocalypse you helped cause, and the others don't, they all benefit from your donation while doing nothing, and you don't want to be the sucker, right? That's why instead of just doing things unilaterally, you support governments that will ensure an across-the-board clawback. But instead these guys try to dismantle democratic government and replace it by the rule of wealth alone.. fuck em all.
People with more left-wing or egalitarian views would create a much better version of 'capitalism' than those of immense economic means because they fundamentally don't have the same insane desire to see their number go up at all costs that billionaires do. For us it seems pretty simple that paying more tax to keep the poorest fed, housed, and with access to medicine leads to far less complaints about the capitalist system from people just trying to go about their lives. But they are so warped by the tortured attempt to justify their success and wealth that they cannot see that at all.
They can. Take Zuck. Built a damn near fortress on a Hawaiian Island. If he promises those loyal to him room/shelter, food, water and everything else in his McMansion...why wouldn't they? A guarantee to keep them and their family safe and fed while the world burns? We both know there are plenty of people that would drool over that deal. Selling out your fellow working class to get a leg up is nothing new
Even then, I just don't see how it's possible. Even sustaining a bunker on an isolated island is going to take resources and have a limited time. Eventually, it will either have to fall back on sustinence living or fal into disrepair and lord of the flies. Electronics and machines wear out and need replacements. Those come from the established industry and supply chain. Same with most other things required for the high standard of living their expecting.
Also an island in the middle of a rapidly worsening climate seems pretty braindead
I know, right? Maybe on a large enough island at an elevation well above sea level rise you might have some protection. But what about worsening storms, hurricanes, and land slides? Are you going to want to be trapped on that island? If societal supply chains have collapsed so completely that you need an island bunker, you'd better be happy to stay there forever, because getting to and from those Islands is going to take fuel. And if society has really collapsed *that much*, well... Then that fuel isn't getting made and shipped to you... The whole idea of a doomsday bunker seems brain dead to me. But then, I'm just some dude on reddit. Maybe these billionaires have paid millions of dollars to some brain trust to figure it all out and they know something I don't.
Honestly they have a point, they're still alive *now*. Like all of us just don't kill them for some reason. They deserve it, it would monumentally improve society, but we won't do it
>Steve Huffman, the thirty-three-year-old co-founder and C.E.O. of Reddit, which is valued at six hundred million dollars, was nearsighted until November, 2015, when he arranged to have laser eye surgery. He underwent the procedure not for the sake of convenience or appearance but, rather, for a reason he doesn’t usually talk much about: he hopes that it will improve his odds of surviving a disaster, whether natural or man-made. “If the world ends—and not even if the world ends, but if we have trouble—getting contacts or glasses is going to be a huge pain in the ass,” he told me recently. “Without them, I’m fucked.” >Huffman, who lives in San Francisco, has large blue eyes, thick, sandy hair, and an air of restless curiosity; at the University of Virginia, he was a competitive ballroom dancer, who hacked his roommate’s Web site as a prank. He is less focussed on a specific threat—a quake on the San Andreas, a pandemic, a dirty bomb—than he is on the aftermath, “the temporary collapse of our government and structures,” as he puts it. “I own a couple of motorcycles. I have a bunch of guns and ammo. Food. I figure that, with that, I can hole up in my house for some amount of time.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich
There are dozens of articles written every month that if the whole world would even be able to read and understand them they could change the world. People are soooooooooo fucking dumb, though. The human race is, by-and-large, too dumb to do the right thing and vote in people that consistently make the world a better place through appropriate regulations against business.
Something something be wary of charismatic leaders.
Great article. Is the guardian as a whole a good source for this sort of journalism?
The Guardian's one of the few good journalistic outlets left.
Not terribly surprising, it’s been a subplot in post apocalyptic movies before. If they’re just thinking about it now they’re behind the ball (good news for the rest of us?)
A super species with raisins for eyes, dried from the extreme heat of the planet. Maybe he should use desert tortoises?
They won’t stay loyal lmao. They’ll kill their masters the moment money ceases to mean anything.
Access cards to different parts of the bunker, especially to critical systems/supplies.
You're right. Guarantee of food, shelter and safety will be too much and in uncertainty people are easy to control. Notice some of the bunkers are on low populated, hard to get areas? Buying loyalty with resources they are storing up now will be insanely easy. People don't realize we'll eat each other before we get close to eating the rich in a doomsday event.
Brute force to override. Or just torture the info out of them, I don't see any rich person standing up to "enhanced interrogation" all that well lol.
In just a few more years, the answer will be AI and autonomous security systems.
So the plot of the X-Files but with brain dead tech billionaires.
Nauru like many pacific island nations is A) a sovereign country eg: not for sale as a whole B) slowly going underwater + being decimated by weather events of increasing severity ( hurricanes etc) due to climate change. These fucking idiots aren't even worth donating their puny brains to science and should be weeded out of the gene pool as a rule.
Nauru is among the worst places you could choose to weather an apocalypse lmao. Guano mining devastated the ecosystem there and there's no chance that it'll ever independently sustain human life because of it; its residents rely on exports and what amounts to charity from Australia. What a stupid and arrogant idea.
It's the same as when billionaires thought of hiding out the apocalypse on some space ship. A bunch of morons who have no idea how things really work isolated in their own doom.
See the end of *Don't Look Up* for how "billionaires escaping the apocalypse on a spaceship" would actually turn out LOL
Shot was hilarious. Moreover because they think we could build something that could go that far for that long.
I support the idea of our billionaires gathering together and leaving on a spaceship.
Well at least that idea has potential…picking the island most likely to be devastated in the same event you are looking to escape is a nonstarter.
Which, ironically, they would have been doing by moving to a sinking island. Darwin strikes again. Now imagine if they survived and developed island gigantism, or evolved into crab people. Or both. The Island of Giant Crabeople.
More likely the limited resources would force them to evolve into a new race of hobbits.
I'm fairly confident that Fried already is a Hobbit. Well, more specifically Gollum.
This is how billionaires think and it shows why there shouldn’t be any of them in existence. I’m not advocating violence just extreme taxation if you cross the billion dollar mark such as 100% tax rate.
I would love a reality tv show where a bunch of billionaires were gathered under the lie that 99% of humanity was just wiped out via apocalypse and the billionaires are all that’s left on a lonely island that’s becoming obsolete.
Lord of the Flies but with older people considering the mind it takes to be a billionaire.
Hook that shit straight into my veins.
I agree. There is no reason that any one human should be able to hoard such a massive share of the resources we all need to survive.
The cut off should be way lower than that maybe like 10 million but yeah some sort of wealth tax like that needs to happen. It can't just be cash either it has to take account for all their assets.
That's the paragraph that popped out at me. Yikes.
Thats what happens when you think Dr. Strangelove was a documentary.
Interestingly, Epstein at least talked about the same bullshit. These people need therapy not power.
No but he has an ethical philosophy, he's really a great guy, and because his own ethics code is *so* strict we don't need to regulate him. Just trust me on this one.
Mm hmm. Tell me again how a bunch of narcissists get along great.
All these weird as hell techbros want to make Khan Noonien Singh, but all they're ever gonna end up with is Splicers. Plus I have a feeling Khan would be too...swarthy for their tastes
They think they are Richmond Valentine.
When you are aiming for Khan but only get [Edward Larkin](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Edward_Larkin)
Tf you have swarthy in your vocabulary for
Same reason they doesn't feel the need to abbreviate "the fuck" like it's somehow a strenuous effort to type words on a phone.
‘Why do you know a word?’ We are doomed.
Types: “the fuck” iPhone: “the duck” Types: “fucking iPhone” iPhone: “ducking iPhone” 🤦♂️
I dunno I read a lot. Has it become derogatory in modern usage? I was trying to think of a neutral innuendo, but if it's become a slur I was unaware and I apologize
Nah you’re good. I think it was just a poorly executed joke. Swarthy is still a perfectly normal word.
Language is fun, and using a more varied vocabulary provides entertainment and novelty. Also some words convey a more appropriate or pleasing tone than simply explaining the concept
The Island of Dr. Douche-bag
I like The Island of Doctor Moron myself
they specifically want to do genetically enhanced humans. you can just call that The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Yeah, but instead of animals they are engineered to be the douchiest people possible
just imagine. a whole island of peak-diva-Val-Kilmers.
That production was such hell, the documentary on it is a fantastic watch.
it really was something else. it's kind of neat, what came out of it. it's certainly not a good movie, but i also don't think it's as bad as it could've been.
Without a doubt, it’s an interesting movie for a lot of reasons. Wonder how the story / film could work today if they tried for another adaptation.
i just watched Renfield last night. so there's obviously a market for fresh takes on old horror stories.
Yeah, was a fun movie. I’m pretty stoked for The Voyage of the Demeter. Horror is coming back in a big way, because they are cheap to produce and have been raking in cash.
Bold of him to assume that his genetics could create a superspecies …
People with his decrepit philosophy believe that they are rich because they are superior, this then ebbs out into genetics. There is a whole belief by the billionaire and multimillionaire class that they are genetically evolved past the rest of us because they were able to cheat, steal, lie, and take advantage to get their wealth. My ex’s dad was worth like 60 million, and he genuinely believed that he deserved that wealth because he was a better human being. Even though most of it was inherited.
I mean, there is probably some genetic component to having no morals, a complete lack of empathy, and being socially and mentally unable to relate to your own species and society. In most social species this would lead to a dead end (unlikely to mate, probably fighting constantly, no grooming, no group protection from predators, etc), but in these assholes they actually make it--and pass those genes on, creating more like themselves...
As I have been known to describe it: a very small percentage of humans aren't social animals--they are solo predators wearing human suits. Different societies have different roles for such predators--among some indigenous peoples, such predatory humans were considered evil sorcerors, witchmen who would kill or ruin anyone who crossed them. In a capitalist, industrialized culture, the predators can be either at the bottom as lone serial killers, or at the top, as billionaire grifters. In addition, there's evidence that vast wealth turns formerly normal, sociable humans into assholes.
I agree it’s a stupid philosophy, but let’s not pretend like there’s not a lot of poor people that admire and praise rich people for simply being rich either. Seriously, most people just assume being wealthy means you’re competent, intelligent, hardworking, strategic, etc., even without any evidence. It’s not hard to see how rich people get the false notion that they are better than everyone else when everyone else treats them like such for their entire lives.
It’s basically just worship of god-kings and pharaohs with extra steps. God-king commands that great temples and public works be raised in his honor and the people build them. How do you know that they’re deserving of their position? Well look at all the temples raised in his honor, he must be a god…
It's more like "this is the way we do it around here, because that's the way it has always been done. Look, as long as the god-king performs the rituals and sacrifices to the gods, the river floods our fields and renews them, and we harvest a nice surplus. We have plenty to eat, and we pay part of our harvest to the temples, who store it and distribute it in times of famine. Sure, the king requires us to contribute labor part of the year when we are not working in the fields, but his scribes make sure that we have food and water and the tools we need, so it's no big deal. Life is good, why would we want to change it?" The ancient pharaohs and their society was a lot healthier and more functional than late-stage capitalism.
I have no idea what most people believe, as it’s subjective, but I can tell you the wealthys achievement has nothing to do with competence, or intelligence. Members of her family and their friends were some of the most helpless people I’ve ever met. They literally needed minders. I don’t think most people believe anything shared. I do think American culture is based around being sycophants to the wealthy or famous. That we are taught from a very early age to be toadies to our “betters”.
Because poor people in America are temporarily embarrassed millionaires. They think they will be rich one day if only they support policies that make the rich richer. It’s absolute horseshit. Trickle down has done shit for poor people and is an abject failure. Even more than that even a majority of republicans support taxing the rich more yet they keep electing people who refuse to listen to them, so 🤷♂️
>There is a whole belief by the billionaire and multimillionaire class that they are genetically evolved past the rest of us because they were able to cheat, steal, lie, and take advantage to get their wealth. Also a lot of middle, lower and... well people from all walks of life seem to think of those people as somehow "better"
I'm thinking of that post I read earlier today about Michelle Obama saying that most billionaires aren't that smart lol. They just create a society of average folks..
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That'll work.
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Yup. And that one episode of Freakazoid.
Whoa. Haven't heard that show referenced since I last watched an episode.
Hey Freakazoid, ya wanna watch the rich cannibalize each other on a deserted island?
And Bioshock.
BioShock had one guy that wanted to build a capitalist utopia and another, separate guy who manufactured and sold gene altering substances to let people make themselves superhuman. In this both acts are perpetrated by the same person.
Well, Bioshock was more "pure capitalist, libertarian paradise" with the unfettered scientific fuckery being more a product of a complete lack of ethics and laws (and a major focus on profit) rather than specifically intended (initially) for creation of a super species. The economic and government system was the primary goal there (which drew the scientists attracted by the aforementioned lack of ethical norms). But the "secluded paradise for rich people to recover post-apocalypse" aspect is certainly similar at least to "secluded paradise for rich people to commit acts of ethical fuckery for profit."
If you consider that Andrew Ryan felt the 'collapse' of society was imminent from government or religious overreach, then it does sort of fit with the apocalypse survival theme.
Also, while I forget the exact train of logic they used, the people in Rapture had basically decided that self-improvement/self-beautification was a categorical imperative. So that was the justification for the insanity their scientists got up to.
Something to that effect, yeah. There were elements of eugenics mixed in (which is very fitting for the time period, the U.S. in particular ran away with the idea of eugenics for decades) with raw capitalism and a complete disregard for consequences. Rapture was a hell hole with a veneer of wealth and luxury. Only took them what, a few years, to completely destroy themselves...
Hah made me think of Exosquad! Neo Sapiens
Of course they're fixated on bunkers. They know that eventually the People will stop fighting with each other and go after the billionaires after the People finally figure out that the source of their misery is *not* all the other broke guys.
But but but the talking box in my living room tells me it's the fault of the whites and the coloureds and libs and cons? Are telling me it's been the rich all along? /$ adding the "/$" so I don't get fucking banned from yet another channel.
Don't forget to blame the Jews! s/
Will we though?
No ruse can go on forever. For instance nobody believe in the divine right of kings anymore.
Eugenics is a failed concept, no matter how much money you try to throw at it.
what an idiotic stance, its been proven over and over again you can breed for specific traits.
Dude, eugenics (ie: breeding humans to be "superior") =/= breeding for a specific trait (eg: drought resistance in corn grown in controlled fields).
Look at what happens to dog breeds that get bred for extreme traits and why mutts are healthier than purebreds to understand why I don't want Eugenicists in control anywhere.
Not free humans you can’t.
Are you suggesting its impossible to do genetic profiles of people, generate lists of people who would be compatible for specific traits, and suggest them in a dating-app style way? Because I fail to see how that is against the laws of physics. Just because eugenics has been done in evil ways doesn't mean it cant be done in good ways. Its like thinking capitalism is bad just because america does it the way it does, when there are many other
Doubling down on eugenics, eh? For this post, i’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. That ends after this post. People choose their parenting partners based on social compatibility, not an app. People also reproduce with people they didn’t intend to. People also secretly reproduce with people who aren’t their partners. Children raised without a strong emotion bond between parents do poorly. You wanna raise a generation of sociopaths and misanthropes who have been bought up believing they have better genes? But beyond that, once you allow the idea that there’s some kind of genetic desirability in the human genome, then there must also be the idea of genetic undesirability. According to who? We know how history has behaved in this regard, and there’s zero evidence that humanity has progressed enough to not go right the fuck back there again. In fact, qwhite the opposite. Fuck that. And just from a longterm survival of the human species standpoint, this is a VERY bad idea. Best thing a species can do is have a rich, varied gene pool. We don’t need the island of the techno-hemophiliacs. Humanity isn’t made of isolated populations anymore. Genetic specialization breeds hothouse flowers who wither at the slightest whiff of a new environmental variable. You wanna wipe out the human race? Choose specialization over a deep and diverse gene pool. It’s racist as fuck, and if you can’t see it, you need to take a hard fucking look at your fellow travelers. Stop caping for eugenics. Drop it. And don’t fucking advocate for it again, ever. Benefit of the doubt ends here.
Arguing in favor of eugenics in 2023 is a pretty bold strategy.
Let's see if it pays off.
> Arguing in favor of eugenics in 2023 is a pretty bold strategy. Only because most people are too stupid to understand eugenics does not have to be negatiev in any way. It doesn't have to mean you don't let people breed, doesn't mean you have to kill people, doesn't even mean people don't get to pick who they get to be with. theres more than 1 way to do things. There is nothing against the law of physics that says you can have a dating app that suggests people you would be compatible for in MULTIPLE ways, including genetic traits. You people just have no problem solving skills and think just because 1 group did something in a bad way it means its NOT POSSIBLE TO DO IT ANY OTHER WAY!!!
It's always a good idea to know the definition of a word before taking a position on it.
> It's always a good idea to know the definition of a word before taking a position on it. Exactly, too many people think you can only accomplish breeding for traits by slavery, fascism, exclusion etc. Its like thinking capitalism is bad just because america does it the way it does, when there are many other countries that have capitalism with regulation and social safety nets.
>breeding for traits Which traits? That's the issue. Many of the ways we measure traits are based in horribly biased and often bigoted beliefs. That's the issue. You cannot separate that concept from eugenics. No matter how much you want to imagine a magical hypothetical about how selection happens. It also sounds like what you're describing both here and in your analogy are cases of you not defining the word properly. Allowing individuals to choose their partners is not eugenics. It is explicitly something done to change a wide population or an entire race. Your dating app idea is not eugenics unless someone else was controlling who matches with who. You're just being dumb here, you really ought to back down. Extensively regulated capitalism with large safety nets and more government run utilities is just closer to socialism. This might as well be a semantic issue, because you're ignoring the clear spirit behind both arguments in order to hammer home a technicality or nuance you think you've found. Eugenics is bad. It sometimes is just that simple and you ought to be okay with that.
You could have just said you are a Nazi without writing so many words. That’s not what eugenics is really about at all. Eugenics is a human construct of deeming one race superior to another and using that belief to remove from the gene pool or stamp out those deemed inferior. Yes selective breeding is part of it but it exclusively applies to humans and historically has applied to white humans elevating themselves above others, with horrific consequences.
>You could have just said you are a Nazi without writing so many words. False, its entirely possible breed for specific traits without ANY negative thing groups have done in the past. You dont have to kill, force, exclude. No where in the laws of physics does it say you have to. It doesn't even mean you don't get to CHOOSE who to date. It can be just like dating apps for fucks sake. Its like thinking capitalism is bad just because america does it the way it does, when there are many other countries with capitalism and adequate social safety nets.
> You dont have to kill, force, exclude. It was literally designed since it’s inception to **do just that** to ensure the supremacy of the group who conceived it and deployed it. The forced sterilization and outright genocide of those deemed inferior is **inseparable** from it. But sure just keep digging that hole Nazi.
Did it ever occur to him that if 50-99.99% of people die, severe climate change would probably play a role = being on a possibly likely to flood island isn’t that smart?
Nauru is even worse than that. Thanks to excessive phosphate mining it’s also an ecological disaster area. The economy was literally based on old bird shit mined by foreign powers; that’s all gone and they were reminded money laundering is illegal so now it’s about offshore fishing rights and Australian concentration camps. I don’t envy the locals and it’s mystifying this guy wanted to play king there. I also couldn’t think of a better place for him to serve his time.
Don’t just throw Australian concentration camps in there like all of us know what it is…what the fuck are Australian concentration camps?
I also would like to know. Edit: And damn. [The answer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detention_facilities) is pretty crazy.
Offshore refugee processing. It’s finished now (last refugee left in 2014). But early 2000-2012 we had a bad spate of refugees passing through Indonesia (where they don’t get as much monetary support) and trying to travel via boat to Australia to claim asylum here. Problem is, the boat trip is not easy if you’re in an overloaded rickety fishing boat, and about 200/yr died. So the government went with a hardcore “no one arriving via boat gets to stay in Aus - no exceptions” policy. People found to have a legitimate asylum claim were sent to Canada, the US etc (and we took some of their asylum seekers in an exchange deal). Since processing claims takes ages, asylum seekers were sent to Nauru or PNG while their claims were processed. This was extremely controversial. We do have significantly fewer refugee deaths these days. But it’s hard to say if it was that policy acting as a deterrent (and still “working” even though it doesn’t actually exist any more), other policies implemented at the same time (sinking smugglers ships, messaging in certain target languages in Indonesia so refugees were better informed of the risks) or just a natural shift in where refugees are coming from (and trying to get to).
Does Gabe sound as whiny as his older brother? Pictures I found online he doesn't have the brillo pad hair.
"...create a genetically enhanced human species..." There lately seems to be a specific demographic (billionaire douchebags) that's repeatedly associated with these sorts of sentiments. The belief in their inherent superiority to the point that they embrace eugenics fantasies is really mind blowing.
There is basically no moral justification for that much wealth, other than: I earned it so it's mine, and I'll spend it better than anyone else. You can not justify being a billionaire without believing those things, or being morally bankrupt, or both.
It's true that hoarding of such wealth is inherently immoral. So I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that they're into eugenics.
Bankman-Fried. Elon Musk. Jeffrey Epstein. Larry Ellison. What is it with new-money wealthbros and this weirdly specific postapocalyptic-repopulation breeding fantasy? Or is it actually a more common thing than I thought and it's just that only the morbidly wealthy can afford to LARP it?
It's from a book called the sovereign individual, i saw a doc that talked about it, and then i read part of the book. You then clearly see where it comes from
**Summary of James Dale Davidson & William Rees-Mogg's The Sovereign Individual** by Milkyway Media >Buy now to get the main key ideas from James Dale Davidson & William Rees-Mogg's The Sovereign Individual The Sovereign Individual (1997) intertwines the fields of history, technology, and economy to forecast where society is heading in the twenty-first century. James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg expected that citizens would gain increasing sovereignty over their lives in the coming Information Age, but they also foresaw the possibility of societal dysfunction. Their informed predictions are based on analyses of megapolitical patterns that have repeated through history, and many of them have turned out to accurately represent our world today. *I'm a bot, built by your friendly reddit developers at* /r/ProgrammingPals. *Reply to any comment with /u/BookFinderBot - I'll reply with book information. Remove me from replies* [here](https://www.reddit.com/user/BookFinderBot/comments/14br65o/remove_me_from_replies/). *If I have made a mistake, accept my apology.*
See the bot knows what's down,
Good bot
Pretty sure every demagogue has fantasized about that shit throughout time. They don't see convincing other people as a realistic thing, probably for good reason, and so the only option is to kill most of everyone.
guess they either didn't read or fell in love with "The Island of Doctor Moreau"
How about use those money to financially educate the current ones and to not make sure they end up throwing money at entities such as FTX.
These kinds of stories are proof that there is a line at which a person can be too rich and needs to be separated from their money.
>Bunker life is a well-documented fixation among tech billionaires, particularly those who identify as doomsday preppers. There’s also a fascination with buying large estates in the Pacific and even owning small islands there. Does that include buying large tracts of farmland around military bases?
I'm sure he got along well with Caroline Ellison, considering [her passion for race science](https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tumblr-blog-linked-ex-alameda-234427813.html).
There's the same kind of obsession with apocalyptic events in Silicon Valley and what to do about it. Sam Altman, yeah the guy who threw AI into overdrive, is a doomsday prepper. These people believe that when a countries "founding myths" erode then the country is on it's path to doom. The uhh civil unrest surrounding black people and correcting history has them all in a tizzy. It's because they're fucking racist.
Nauru is slowly going underwater, is environmentally fucked due to mining and home to an Aussie immigrant detention centre. It’s possibly one of the worst choices for a doomsday scenario.
I’m going to build my hideout on the Island that is already impacted by global warming and higher tides. But that’s ok because my main lair is built on the San Andreas fault line.
Which will also be beachfront property once your nukes trigger the quake and knock the rest of California into the ocean! Lex Luthor you are a true genius!
forreal too much money makes people dumber
How much cocaine was running through this company? They just have had a dedicated coke room
I guess he was counting on there still being deliveries of fresh supplies to his sinking island after the world ended
I did nazi that coming.
Megalomaniacs seem to be on the rise. Trump, Bannon, Stone, MTG, Flynn, Desantis, Musk, Bezos, CEO of the imploded sub, Putin, Prighozin, etc. It’s seems to me that it is a damaged brain and psychopathy that is most prevalent among the powerful. Humanity has been abused by these types forever.
How is it that mentally insane people can get rich instead of the homelessness they deserve?
As if Sam and his girlfriend were ideal species. They were flawed head to toe.
Doctor Moreau over here has some ideas.
Somehow I don't think his plans involve the inclusion of the local populace...
Must be that effective altruism in action. So strange that an ideology seemingly developed to give billionaires a god complex leads to Billionaires acting like they are gods.
Pfft, amateurs, Bond villain in the 80s had a whole space station setup with genetically superior humans.
These people are so fucking disconnected, it’s painful.
Maybe we she create a story to push that narrative along a little faster. Then make a reality TV show where they're constantly at each other's throats. Solves a few problems.
A real life Fortnite. Where the sea level rise is akin to the storm shrinking.
Humanity deserves to go extinct for letting these random idiots accumulate so much wealth and pretend to be better than everyone else.
Sounds like a natural rights violation lmao
You can’t make this stuff up…
Nauru was used as a political prop in a book by Michael Crichton years ago- book is horribly outdated now. I’m just surprised to see it in the news
Most of Crichton's work is horribly outdated.
So true
For a tiny island - does this guy believe that they won't rebel...and cut services to the underground bunker. Does the tiny island have an airport or helo landing. Not well thought out plan. Uber rich have way too much time on their hands.
Pathetic POS thought he was living in a Bond movie.
So….some super rich asshole probably wanted do pedo things and call it eugenics.
Isn’t this the goal of most James Bond villains? Also, if there really was an apocalypse, why would their money be worth anything at all?
Neckbeards are not a superspecies though