This is an English translation of an article I wrote for a German magazine. The article looks into the post apocalyptic strategies the wealthy and ultrarich are focusing on. Main point: The rich are as afraid of the collapse of society as anyone else, but their means to face the calamity are on another level.

  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    7 months ago

    Rich people want a legacy. I believe it’s why, for example, Bill Gates started being super charitable and started doing AMAs, becoming the internet’s poster boy, regularly chatting about inequality while offering zero actual solutions (the ex world’s richest man talking about inequality, ha!).

    When our current crop of billionaires get old, they’ll likely start doing the same. It really wouldn’t surprise me if in a few decades people are gushing online over how great a guy Bezos or Zuckerberg is.

    If the first trip can be a return trip, I absolutely wouldn’t be surprised if a billionaire wanted to do it.

    Actually staying there and building something, though? Fuck no.

    • avater@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      from all the rich idiots out there you really had to pick Bill Gates?

      • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        He’s the clearest example of a wanker billionaire who then started publicly pandering to create a legacy of him being a lovely wholesome guy.

        He isn’t a wholesome lovely guy, he never was. He’s trying to save face.

        The charity money still does good things, and that’s great, but donating money to charity and telling the world about it doesn’t make you a great person.

        The likes of Bezos and Zuckerberg will 100% do the same thing when they’re old. It worked wonders for Bill’s image. He and his team have successfully turned him from the devil incarnate to bubbly grandpa of internet teenagers.