SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the does-anyone-have-to-go-outside-to-clean-the-sensors? dept.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/aug/01/3m-price-tag-inside-luxury-doomsday-bunker
Afraid of nuclear war, natural disasters, economic meltdown? The Survival Condo could be the answer
"Mechanical level", "medical level", "store level" the voice announces as the lift descends into the earth. I'd entered at parking lot level, the building's apex. I am travelling through an inverted skyscraper, the floor numbers ascending – third, fourth – as we plumb the building's depths. A hulking man in his late 50s called Larry Hall stands next to me, whistling, black shirt tucked into blue jeans.
When the doors open, I can't suppress a laugh. In front of us, four storeys below central Kansas, is a supermarket complete with shopping baskets, cold cabinets and an espresso machine behind the counter. Hall smiles.
"It's good, isn't it? On the original blueprint for the renovation, it just said 'storerooms' on this level. The psychologist we hired for the project took one look at that and said, 'No, no, no, this needs to feel like a miniature Whole Foods supermarket. We need a tile floor and nicely presented cases, because if people are locked in this silo and they have to come down here and rifle through cardboard boxes to get their food, you'll have depressed people everywhere.'"
I am inside the most lavish and sophisticated private bunker in the world: the Survival Condo. It was once a cold war US government missile silo. Constructed in the early 60s, at a cost of approximately $15m to the US taxpayer, it was one of 72 structures built to protect [against] a nuclear warhead 100 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Many of these silos were blown up and buried after decades of disuse. But not all of them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Subsentient on Monday August 03 2020, @02:10AM (14 children)
That's the thing. These people are so determined to stay alive, even when doing so is only going to bring them nothing but suffering. Who the hell wants to live in a post-apocalyptic radioactive hellscape?
At that point, I'd rather just put a shotgun in my mouth. You gotta have something worth staying alive for. I definitely agree with Azuma's sentiments there.
I think there's two reasons they're so determined:
1. These are selfish, primitive people driven by the animalistic survival instinct. It's what enabled their greed to begin with.
2. I don't personally think there's likely to be an afterlife of any kind, but they might be afraid of "hell", because they know what they did. Seems a lot of rich are "fake christian".
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @02:43AM (1 child)
Life is suffering, check your Buddha.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @06:30AM
Needs +1 informative.
(Score: 2) by Username on Monday August 03 2020, @02:57AM (4 children)
Well, what is the point in living? Why not kill yourself right now?
I believe feeling pain and suffering is preferable to feeling nothing. Especially if it's for someone else. Ensuring your family's survival sure feels great.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Monday August 03 2020, @03:10AM (3 children)
If you really believe that, then you haven't suffered extreme enough pain to know. To a point you're right, but only to a point.
There's a threshold, probably different for everyone, and I think that kind of world would be well over that threshold for me.
Myself, I don't really get much joy out of life as it is, I just stick around for the benefit of those who need and want me here.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Monday August 03 2020, @06:03AM (1 child)
I've seen your browser cache, I believe you get at least brief moments of satisfaction, even if it is to dwarf pr0n.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Subsentient on Monday August 03 2020, @06:50AM
Lies. That's not nearly perverse enough to be my browser history.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @06:49AM
I should have killed myself years ago when it became apparent I'm just a lizard person and can never be human. I stick around just because I want to know if the humans really will blow up this beautiful planet.
Grand finale of the anthropocene still looks good for 2025. I guess if 2030 gets here and the humans still haven't blown it all up, I'll need to find some other excuse for staying alive.
(Score: 1) by Frosty Piss on Monday August 03 2020, @05:05AM (1 child)
This isn’t for preppies hiding from a nuclear apocalypse, it’s for rich right wing nuts hiding from platoons of Antifa lead by “Obama”. BENGAZZI BENGAZZI BENGAZZI!!!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Mykl on Monday August 03 2020, @06:51AM
Or at least, those of them that think that, during an apocalypse, they'll be able to get some worker ant to ferry them all the way to the bunker, drop them off and drive/fly away without asking to come in too. Yeah, that's going to work out well...
(Score: 4, Funny) by driverless on Monday August 03 2020, @06:00AM (1 child)
Exactly. If I'm going to die either way I'd rather die very quickly in an until-then OK world than die slowly over a long period in a post-apocalyptic radioactive hellscape knowing everyone I knew was dead and everything I knew was destroyed. What are the people in the bunker going to be holding on for, rush delivery of a rebuilt world via Amazon Prime?
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Monday August 03 2020, @06:49AM
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Monday August 03 2020, @11:36AM
Playing video games and eating rice-a-roni in the basement
vs.
Playing video games and eating rice-a-roni in basement #3 of your doomsday bunker
I don't see the difference. Who cares what's going on outside anyway?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 03 2020, @12:49PM
Why are you applying your viewpoint instead of theirs? I think it's quite clear that they would disagree.
In other words, they probably already have something else going for them than nothing but suffering. And if your'e a primitive people, then you probably could do better in a primitive world.
Seems a good reason to me.
My take on this is that there's plenty of times throughout history when things sucked badly, be it the Late Bronze Age collapse, the ending of the Western Roman Empire (with corresponding disruption of civilization in India and China), the Black Death, etc. But they got better. We have a pretty good deal today because after each of those horrible events, someone picked up the pieces and tried again.
I think there's a bit of fantasy here. These people may well feel that they'll survive the collapse of civilization handily, and be the ones to lead and shape the next era of humanity. Or that things will be better in said collapse of civilization. Or this might be a coping mechanism for the uncertainties of the future.
But what I can say is that there's not much point to not even trying to understand the viewpoint. I think this whole discussion illustrates one or more fundamental divides in humanity: perhaps optimism versus pessimism, urban versus rural, and perhaps others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @06:15AM
Redundant adjective in there :-)