Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, stands for “Foolishly Expecting Meaningful Aid.”

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by OldDude49, Jan 24, 2017.


  1. OldDude49

    OldDude49 Just n old guy

    Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich
    Some of the wealthiest people in America—in Silicon Valley, New York, and beyond—are getting ready for the crackup of civilization.



    [​IMG]
    An armed guard stands at the entrance of the Survival Condo Project, a former missile silo north of Wichita, Kansas, that has been converted into luxury apartments for people worried about the crackup of civilization.Photograph by Dan Winters for The New Yorker

    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.”

    Survivalism, the practice of preparing for a crackup of civilization, tends to evoke a certain picture: the woodsman in the tinfoil hat, the hysteric with the hoard of beans, the religious doomsayer. But in recent years survivalism has expanded to more affluent quarters, taking root in Silicon Valley and New York City, among technology executives, hedge-fund managers, and others in their economic cohort.

    Last spring, as the Presidential campaign exposed increasingly toxic divisions in America, Antonio García Martínez, a forty-year-old former Facebook product manager living in San Francisco, bought five wooded acres on an island in the Pacific Northwest and brought in generators, solar panels, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. “When society loses a healthy founding myth, it descends into chaos,” he told me. The author of “Chaos Monkeys,” an acerbic Silicon Valley memoir, García Martínez wanted a refuge that would be far from cities but not entirely isolated. “All these dudes think that one guy alone could somehow withstand the roving mob,” he said. “No, you’re going to need to form a local militia. You just need so many things to actually ride out the apocalypse.” Once he started telling peers in the Bay Area about his “little island project,” they came “out of the woodwork” to describe their own preparations, he said. “I think people who are particularly attuned to the levers by which society actually works understand that we are skating on really thin cultural ice right now.”

    In private Facebook groups, wealthy survivalists swap tips on gas masks, bunkers, and locations safe from the effects of climate change. One member, the head of an investment firm, told me, “I keep a helicopter gassed up all the time, and I have an underground bunker with an air-filtration system.” He said that his preparations probably put him at the “extreme” end among his peers. But he added, “A lot of my friends do the guns and the motorcycles and the gold coins. That’s not too rare anymore.”



    more on the site...

    Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich
     
  2. oil pan 4

    oil pan 4 Monkey+++

    On a good day they might be able to help/save 0.1% of the population.
     
    UncleMorgan and sec_monkey like this.
  3. UncleMorgan

    UncleMorgan I like peeling bananas and (occasionally) people.

    I think the super-prepped will have decided well in advance to save themselves and their chosen few, whoever they may be, and absolutely no one else.

    Having the very best lifeboat means that everyone in the water will want to climb in, so harsh measures may be required.

    All unwelcome knuckles on the gunnels will probably get severely smacked.
     
    Ura-Ki and Sgt Nambu like this.
  4. rjburk

    rjburk Monkey

    IF there would ever be a huge crash that would require those people to bunker up they had better be real close to that bunker when it happens.....they will be fair game like the rest of us.....If it ever happens I have a few who will go down with the boat....
     
    Sgt Nambu likes this.
  5. Sgt Nambu

    Sgt Nambu RIP 4/19/2018

    Wow, brainoid rich folks are finally getting as smart as us!!! :eek:
     
    Ura-Ki likes this.
  6. Oltymer

    Oltymer Monkey++

    You can't buy survival skills or mindset, but you can afford all the accessories that will convince you that you can pull it off.
     
    Sgt Nambu, Altoidfishfins and Ura-Ki like this.
  7. Altoidfishfins

    Altoidfishfins Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    One must wonder just how long they will be able to stand each other in such close quarters.
    Remember, these are people who are used to getting whatever they want, and right now. When that doesn't happen any more, they'll be cutting each other's throats.
     
    Sgt Nambu and Oltymer like this.
  8. Sgt Nambu

    Sgt Nambu RIP 4/19/2018

    That possibility/probability positively makes me drool! Fly on the wall???
     
  9. Sgt Nambu

    Sgt Nambu RIP 4/19/2018

    That is well reasoned, a big Lugi in the kerfuffle cake could be that there are a large number of unwelcome knuckles, they know all about tactics, strategy, fire power and bunker busting! Heck Mr Trump probably has a better survival bunker than the gooberment can build! :D
     
  10. chelloveck

    chelloveck Diabolus Causidicus

    The problem with having mercenaries doing your TEOTAWKI missile silo BOL security, is that they may decide to evict the owner....:eek: And keep the goodies for themselves.
     
  11. DKR

    DKR Raconteur of the first stripe

    What, pray tell, does FEMA have to do with rich guys spending their dough foolishly?

    FEMA will tell anyone that listens - that their primary mission is help restore local government, so that government entity can work local issues.

    FEMA was never designed or tasked (nor will it ever be worth a crap ) to provide direct aid to individuals. That individual level stuff is what local government is for... If the FEds do it, it become rife with fraud and waste. Surprise.
     
    Yard Dart likes this.
  12. oil pan 4

    oil pan 4 Monkey+++

    New stupid fema trick revealed by the Maui fires. Since only a few square miles of the island was devastated most of the island is just fine. If you're from there you have lots of relatives. When relatives go to help their kin say bringing them food and water because that's what people do for their families, stupid fema is seizing and probably destroying these supplies because yes they are that stupid, useless and petty. Their reasoning is "it's not fema approved" literally the stupidest reason anyone couple have possibly come up with.
    So you aren't even allowed to help people.
     
    Zimmy likes this.
  13. Zimmy

    Zimmy Wait, I'm not ready!

    They're probably looking for a riot since most of those people are indigenous Hawaiians. (I've been told by the only Hawaiian I know YMMV) That'll lead to a land grab and PR spin about not being allowed to help because of hostile natives.
     
  14. 3M-TA3

    3M-TA3 Cold Wet Monkey

    My thoughts exactly. Perhaps the easiest way to prep is to sell silo space to the wealthy and let them fund your sanctuary. If something happens that will take years or never to recover, keep a few of the trophy wives and sell the rest to the local warlord.
     
    Yard Dart likes this.
survivalmonkey SSL seal        survivalmonkey.com warrant canary
17282WuJHksJ9798f34razfKbPATqTq9E7