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: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 02 2020, @11:58PM (30 children)
What then? All they've done is delay the inevitable. Personally I'd rather die than spend half a decade below ground and emerge into a blasted Hellscape.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday August 03 2020, @12:07AM (1 child)
The Jews who pay rent on those bunkers are counting on goading you and angry Blacks to fight against each other so they don't have to emerge to see either of you NPC's or niggers chimping out and making annoying noises.
Of course, that's what Jews do anyway, destroy functioning societies. They hate to see people being prosperous and enjoying themselves without riots and explosions.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @02:09AM
Oh hey APK logged in!
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday August 03 2020, @12:32AM (8 children)
Anyone in there is going to run into problems long before then. The bunker is a giant sign saying "we have all the stuff you're dying to get your hands on" to the survivors stuck outside. Zombie jokes aside, you're going to need some serious defence-in-depth obstacles to keep the survivors who want to get in away from you. A bunker designed to survive an airburst several miles away won't stand up long to targeted drilling, strategically-placed explosives, and bulldozers operated by the survivors.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday August 03 2020, @12:44AM (6 children)
The people on the inside will be the useless class anyway.
If they don't bring their servants with them they'll starve.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @12:47AM (1 child)
Duh, they'll order from Uber Eats.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday August 03 2020, @02:40AM
In Post-Apocalyptic America, the Uber eats you!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 03 2020, @01:10AM (3 children)
I have this feeling the survivors outside won't have "what class these guys belong to" in their mind when using those bulldozers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday August 03 2020, @02:00AM (2 children)
Probably not, but how satisfying will it be for them when they break in to find the idiots didn't even bring anybody who knows how to do anything, and starved to death trying to open a can of beans?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 03 2020, @02:16AM
Very. Not for the schadenfreude feeling, but... moar bean cans for them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Monday August 03 2020, @05:54AM
Probably a good thing too, if they're recirculating the air inside there you don't want to be feeding anyone beans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @05:47AM
uhm... no. all the stuff that people need will be outside, as well, much easier to get to.
the only advantage of the bunker is the shielding from explosion and subsequent radiation. both of these advantages go away if you destroy the bunker in order to get to the inside.
again. all the stuff that survivors need is already available on the outside, conveniently stocked by department in stores and store warehouses. since most people would die within the first few days/weeks (bombardment, panic, fighting over resources, etc), there would really be no reason to put in the effort of breaking into a bunker.
there would be a point to breaking into a military bunker once your group is organized enough: you may get control over remaining communication channels. but not personal bunkers.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday August 03 2020, @12:52AM (3 children)
The same argument can be said about life in general. Why bother delaying the inevitable death?
If life is worth living at all, then it's worth living longer. If I could choose between dying at some point in time and dying at some further point in time, I'd pick the further point in time. It's death all the way down anyway; that just means more time to read books and listen to music, maybe try my hand at painting.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @01:00AM (2 children)
I think that's Azuma's point. She doesn't consider life worth living if it involves oodles of time underground and then on a nuclear-blasted surface.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @01:08AM (1 child)
Who's talking about nukes? The worry is Muslim zombies looking for halal brains.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @02:25AM
You have nothing to worry about.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @01:09AM
Whacya talking 'bout? Supplies don't run out when you live underground, I know because I live in a basement. [redstate.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @01:48AM
But you wouldnt rather die than live in idiocracy/demolition man world?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 03 2020, @01:56AM (6 children)
The duration of nuclear winter to the extent that no kinds of crops grow at all is maybe no more than 2-3 years(though possibly as much as 10-20, we've never experimented). The worst of the fallout goes in that time too, though your overall radiation dose is likely to be way higher than what is considered "safe", it's also likely to get below instantly lethal too. It's gonna be a miserable, hardscrabble subsistence farming life if you survive a nuclear war, but it's quite possible that it is a life.
The mythos of a nuclear war being an extinction event comes from the very reasonable understanding that incredibly few people could plausibly survive one, even if large quantities of resources were allocated to doing so.
Most other apocalypse scenarios don't seem like they'd benefit much from a bunker.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @05:41AM
a whole bunch of meteor hits would also be survivable in a bunker.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 03 2020, @01:45PM (4 children)
Well, incredibly few people are trying to survive one. I think if large quantities of resources were allocated to such a thing, and you had the land area to play with (like the US, not like Luxembourg) a large number of people could survive.
I think rather that these myths are a coping mechanism for urbanites. Urban areas would be among the worst places (living near a big military target would be the only thing worse) to be in during a nuclear war and its aftermath, so it's natural to assume that everyone else has a similarly precarious situation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @04:44PM (3 children)
That's more a myth of ruralites--that by virtue of being in the sticks, they are somehow disconnected from all the dependencies of urbanites. The reality is most people who consider themselves "rural" are every bit as doomed. They're nearly all living suburban consumer lifestyles, the only real difference being they have septic systems instead of proper sewers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 03 2020, @10:21PM (2 children)
Which is more a fact than a myth. The isolation forces a substantial degree of independence.
In other words, they are "urban" but with more real estate and a sewer system that won't go down when the collapse/war/whatever happens.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @11:53PM (1 child)
In other words, they're still highly dependent on the supply chain for very nearly absolutely everything.
There are of course exceptions and we are all so very impressed with those odd rugged individualists, but the vast, vast majority of people wouldn't survive very long after the stores have been raided and their gas tank runs dry.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 04 2020, @01:36AM
Where "everything" is much smaller than it is for a urban population. The elephant in the room is food. Anything else can be worked around or just suffered through. No matter how you work it, urban populations are too dense to feed themselves, even if somehow the entire urban region was converted to food growing. And that's ignoring that urban areas make tempting targets for nuclear warfare.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 03 2020, @04:51AM (2 children)
Are you buying a bunker and planning for the collapse of civilization? Funny how so many people are judging the decisions of others by their own irrelevant standards. Your reasoning above isn't why people do such things. Perhaps, it's time to learn about other peoples' viewpoints?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @05:24PM (1 child)
By all means, do enlighten the class.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 03 2020, @10:23PM
(Score: 3, Informative) by pdfernhout on Monday August 03 2020, @03:56PM (1 child)
(my site, circa 1999) https://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/goals.htm [kurtz-fernhout.com]
"The OSCOMAK [Open-Source Community on Manufacturing Knowledge] project is an attempt to create a core of communities more in control of their technological destiny and its social implications. No single design for a community or technology will please everyone, or even many people. Nor would a single design be likely to survive. So this project endeavors to gather information and to develop tools and processes that all fit together conceptually like Tinkertoys or Legos. The result will be a library of possibilities that individuals in a community can use to achieve any degree of self-sufficiency and self-replication within any size community, from one person to a billion people. Within every community people will interact with these possibilities by using them and extending them to design a community economy and physical layout that suits their needs and ideas.
As the internet has grown, it has enabled collaborative work which has created many success stories, including Linux, Python, GCC, Squeak and other projects. We want to harness that power and apply it to organizing technological knowledge in concert with many interested individuals.
The main project goal is to develop an on-line library of technology ideas, techniques, and tools, including a range from high-tech processes like plastics to medium-tech like ceramic houses to low-tech like spinning wheels. Also included will be biotechnology processes, like perennial agriculture, companion planting, sheep farming, and eventually cloning and DNA synthesis."
If nothing bad happens like global war or economic collapse, then at least with such a project we have the knowledge to make self-replicating habitats in the ocean or in space -- plus it could be a lot of fun for some to make their own stuff. If TSHTF, then we have the knowledge we need to survive, rebuild, and hopefully do better next time.
But realistically I have not made much progress on that over the last two decades. So much to do (on top of a full-time job), so little time and (remaining) emotional energy... Was disappointed when the Buckminster Fuller Institute' contest picked some specific tech advance over something like OSCOMAK that celebrates Bucky Fuller's Design Science idea. Anyway, I am glad a lot of other people are working on related things in various ways.
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @08:50PM
Thanks for working on that.
(Score: 2) by Kitsune008 on Monday August 03 2020, @04:30PM
What, and waste all of that training and education from playing Fallout all those years?
The two things to remember:
1) when in doubt...kill it
2) always loot the corpse
;-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @01:17AM
So Russia could see it via satellite, As part of an nuclear reduction agreement
https://aeon.co/videos/prairies-bison-and-nuclear-warheads-a-2002-postcard-from-north-dakota [aeon.co]
(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 :-)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @07:19AM
It seems that the owners of these "condos" will mostly be the wealthy, and probably not the wealthy at the bottom of the upper class either. Those people don't tend to do a lot of applied knowledge one would need to survive and rebuild after a nuclear apocalypse -- farmer, engineer, scientist, mechanic, plumber, carpenter, electrician, general repair person, etc. They tend to do finance and executive administration. What good is expert financial advice when their money isn't worth the paper its printed on? (That's assuming they have any physical cash.)
The people that really might benefit, if the SHTF, are the security and maintenance people that run and maintain these facilities. They're already there, they know them inside and out, they have the access, and they have the guns. What do they need that CEO / stockbroker for again?
Perhaps they'll just let in their own loved ones, and shoo away (or shoot) the "owners" when they show up. And ... That's IF the owners can get anyone to transport them do a bunker. Can any of them really fly and navigate their helicopter?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @01:36PM
To a billionaire, who will ride out doomsday in a doomsday yacht
https://sofrep.com/news/forget-bunkers-this-mansion-yacht-is-a-preppers-dream/ [sofrep.com]