I just read an excerpt in the Guardian from Douglas Rushkoff’s new book, in which he describes how five hyper-wealthy tech bros asked him how to survive the apocalypse. I mostly like Rushkoff’s take: he points out that these guys are trying to avoid the consequences of the very calamity they are helping to create. He likens the group to gamers who seek an escape hatch that will let them “win,” leaving everyone else behind:
Taking their cue from Tesla founder Elon Musk colonising Mars, Palantir’s Peter Thiel reversing the ageing process, or artificial intelligence developers Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether. Their extreme wealth and privilege served only to make them obsessed with insulating themselves from the very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is about only one thing: escape from the rest of us.
I see prepper culture as the flip side of this hyper-wealthy and hyper-privileged perspective. With its roots in an off-the-grid, remote homesteading ethos, it may feel about as far from tech-bro as it comes. Yet both groups plan to lock down, isolate, and separate from other humans come the worst. Whether enforcement involves a security team of Navy SEALS or a cache of shotguns buried under the cabin floor, the perspective is the same.
I am no Pollyanna. I realize that climate change is bringing with it a radical, calamitous shift in our global environment, and that this shift will transform and/or eliminate our familiar food and supply chains. The timing is unclear, but I think many of us see that writing on the wall. Believe it or not, this has happened to humanity before! You only have to listen to a few episodes of Paul Cooper’s fascinating Fall of Civilization podcast to realize that Mother Nature has generally had the last word on most of humanity’s cultural iterations.
Maybe we should try a different response?
Rushkoff suggests that a solid alternative to the “escape hatch” solution (Mars colonization, billionaire bunker, etc.) would be to establish chains of sustainable, local food supplies—and then layer security and secrecy over these. And I mean, it’s hard to argue with investing in local food sources. I think we would do well, actually, to invest in local networks for everything, as much as we can.
But the model Rushkoff describes falters for me when it leans into hostile, isolationist instincts. The one great new tool in our workbox now is instant global communication, and it seems like maybe we could leverage it toward a solution. Instead of running drills in our backyards, militarizing our pastures, and trying to maintain the loyalty of our personal security force, could we not invest that energy in designing and scaling up a new survival model? Could we spend a little time having direct conversations about how to efficiently support changing population densities, and train our neighbors (old and imminent) to share, replicate, and adjust these support models across communities?
I know, I know—I’ve read all the same dystopian handbooks that predict we will all quickly zombify and grab the bread out of each others’ hands. Most of them advise caching guns so we can scare off our neighbors, not so we can hunt for dinner. But I wonder if the “escape hatch” we haven’t yet discovered in this game is, you know, collaboration. I think I’d rather fail via that strategy than succeed via a war game, where I might find myself walking in circles behind razor wire for the rest of my life.
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Just a note that Doug Rushkoff is reporting on these strategies, not endorsing them. If you want to learn more, check out his book Survival of the Richest and follow him on Twitter. I will be.
Preppers & Billionaires
commune - a group of people living together and sharing possessions and responsibilities - that's my hole for mankind.
Thanks for getting into this subject matter. Not easy. If collaboration was easy we would not be in this state.