In 2018, Bloomberg reported that seven tech entrepreneurs had purchased bunkers in New Zealand. In his book Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, Douglas Rushkoff delves into what he calls “The Mindset”-the idea among Silicon Valley doomsday preppers that “winning” means earning enough money to escape the damage that befalls everyone else. Many of his clients work in tech: Although the prepper movement in America spans the upper and middle classes, the left and the right, Silicon Valley has in recent years become its epicenter. “When the war broke out in Ukraine, my phone was ringing every 45 seconds for about two weeks,” he said. Lately, interest in his underground bunkers has been booming. His Texas-based company sells bunkers with bulletproof doors and concrete walls to people willing to shell out several thousand-and up to millions-of dollars for peace of mind about potential catastrophic events. “World War III, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Joe Biden-you know, everything that’s messed up in the world,” Ron Hubbard, the CEO of Atlas Survival Shelters, told me. If you’re looking for a reason the world will suddenly end, it’s not hard to find one-especially if your job is to convince people they need to buy things to prepare for the apocalypse.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |