Super-Rich and Bunkers

[writerkit]

I was reading this article about the super-rich building bunkers. And even when you start from the premise that the world is not going to fall apart overnight--there will probably be time to see this coming and *get* to your luxury bunker--I'm lost in one question: what happens next? The world ending due to climate disaster is not going to be a fast process and it's not going to end quickly. Even assuming you can store or grow several years' worth of supplies in your luxury bunker, what happens next? You've spent several years there... and then what? You're out of supplies, you have no skills for the world outside, you have no place in whatever society forms out of the wreckage. If it was bad enough for you to end up in the bunker whatever's outside probably isn't even using the same currency!

Or say you do manage to get it self-sustaining enough to stay there indefinitely. Then what? Your children are eventually going to want to see other humans besides you, have relationships, get married, have children of their own, none of which they can do in a bunker. The ultra-rich can also avoid a lot of the worst consequences of climate change for themselves simply by throwing money around, which lets them stay in enough of a society that they can still see their friends and socialize and interact with the world, which means they're not going to be going into the bunkers except in the face of true failed-state societal breakdown.

So what exactly is the point of it? If society ever gets bad enough that it's necessary to go into it, then long-term it's not going to save you.

Comments

[squirrelitude]

I suppose it would be a place to periodically retreat to under temporarily worse conditions after a societal breakdown. A place to sleep safely, at least.