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Oscar Winners, Sports Stars and Bill Gates Are Building Lavish Bunkers (hollywoodreporter.com)
turkeydance quotes a report from Hollywood Reporter: Given the increased frequency of terrorist bombings and mass shootings and an under-lying sense of havoc fed by divisive election politics, it's no surprise that home security is going over the top and hitting luxurious new heights. Or, rather, new lows, as the average depth of a new breed of safe haven that occupies thousands of square feet is 10 feet under or more. Those who can afford to pull out all the stops for so-called self-preservation are doing so -- in a fashion that goes way beyond the submerged corrugated metal units adopted by reality show "preppers" -- to prepare for anything from nuclear bombings to drastic climate-change events. Gary Lynch, GM at Rising S Bunkers, a Texas-based company that specializes in underground bunkers and services scores of Los Angeles residences, says that sales at the most upscale end of the market -- mainly to actors, pro athletes and politicians (who require signed NDAs) -- have increased 700 percent this year compared with 2015, and overall sales have risen 150 percent. Any time there is a turbulent political landscape, we see a spike in our sales. Given this election is as turbulent as it is, "we are gearing up for an even bigger spike," says marketing director Brad Roberson of sales of bunkers that start at $39,000 and can run $8.35 million or more (FYI, a 12-stall horse shelter is $98,500). Adds Mike Peters, owner of Utah-based Ultimate Bunker, which builds high-end versions in California, Texas and Minnesota: "People are going for luxury [to] live underground because they see the future is going to be rough. Everyone I've talked to thinks we are doomed, no matter who is elected." Robert Vicino, founder of Del Mar, Calif.-based Vivos, which constructs upscale community bunkers in Indiana (he believes coastal flooding scenarios preclude bunkers being safely built west of the Rockies), says, "Bill Gates has huge shelters under every one of his homes, in Rancho Santa Fe and Washington. His head of security visited with us a couple years ago, and for these multibillionaires, a few million is nothing. It's really just the newest form of insurance."
Just like gun sales have never been better. A lack of calming from leaders has led to a self survival mentality. If ISIS doesn't get to you, North Korea, Iran, China, Russia, or aliens will. The one thing President Obama has done to feed the hysteria is a lack of ability to be calming in a crisis. He seems to say all the wrong things, and do all the wrong things to instill confidence for people. The next President will at least have to be better at fixing the problem at home if not abroad. You at least have to instill a false sense of confidence if nothing else. Otherwise the fear in people comes out, and it's usually not good.
I bet the bunkers built for the Hollywood anti-gun elite are packed with weapons.
No. It's the blog where you realize that the people you respected all your life aren't as high and mighty as you naively thought, and also suffer from many imperfections and lunacy that all of us suffer from.
But the fact that even those top people admit and recognize that it's a dead race between Trump and Hillary on who is worse as an individual, each being utterly horrible in their own characteristic way, should be a telling tale.
Of course, we will bury this revelation under a few tons of smoke-screen by utilizing people's fascination with bunkers and apocalypse-survival that entertainment has thankfully banked on and deeply spread far and wide.
So essentially a company in Utah that builds basement shelters is claiming it has lots of superstars who buy their bunkers... but it can't tell you who because NDAs. But all the superstars rush to Utah because their sales are up 700% they say.
And Bill Gates may also have a bunker because someone in an Indiana shelter company says that he spoke to an unnamed head of Gate's security team who told him Gates has them.
But hey, its from marketing director Brad Roberson, so in no way is this marketing!
Most rich people's houses aren't in very defensible positions to start with, even if they have tall fences or walls.
Ok, so they get into the bunker while someone is checking where the bunker door is... This is, in case all society goes to hell.
What are the odds of someone finding a way in, if it has enough determination and demolition experience.
I guess if it is a temporary situation, like a riot or terror attack then it does the trick. But a large event which causes societal breakdown??
The rich depend on scores of people that provide for them services and essentials. Some of these are necessary for what they need to project power.
Without institutions, without supply chains that support global economy, being rich after a collapse of society is not exactly a better position.
If people knew more about history, they would knew that in the American continent civilizational collapse was quite common.
In part due to geographic limitations, and not having cattle and horses, civilizations would disappear quite frequently.
This came with the usual abandoning of urban settlements, cannibalism, and loss of knowledge either technical, scientific or historical.
We might know more about the Mayas, but there were others in North America that built large mounds and cities and could work metals that disappeared without leaving a record.
Sure, blame us instead of the rich.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The environmental calamity will be your least concern considering that
a) You have a bunker
b) everyone else doesn't
c) but they know what you got in there
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
of course they are packed with weapons, or security guys with weapons so they dont have to carry themselves, they are just gigantic hypocrites, movie stars, tv stars... the vast majority of them are just scum
The article talks about battery power and long-life food but not climate control, water or sewage.
That's because an entire industry has grown up around scamming survivalists. Whether it's Jim Bakker selling $160 buckets of potato soup (and you can poop in the bucket later!), Glenn Beck's hugely overpriced gold or these guys selling luxury underground bunkers, the goal and method are the same as any other con; gain the mark's confidence using lies and half-truths, then take them for every penny they can get.
Building a bunker that could actually be lived in is secondary to increasing the profit margin, so they skimp on the basic construction and spend a little on cheap frills to hide the deficiencies. That's why the kitchen picture Ultimate Bunker website looks like every piece of shit house that's had superficial improvements done by someone trying to flip it for a profit.
Negan will save us with his trusty companion, Lucille!
. . . . is people not KNOWING you have one. Because if people KNOW you have one, then everyone who does know (and everyone THEY have told) will want in.
The old Twilight Zone episode "The Shelter" is instructive, on this point.
And then BOWLING ALLEYS and GARAGES ?? These people want to survive an apocalypse. . . .and they want to garage their Lamborghini ?? Additionally, looking at the floor-plan in the "Hollywood Reporter", and comparing it to offered bunkers by the providers mentioned in the article, there are no shelters that even CLOSELY resemble what the article presents as a design. As noted elsewhere in the comments, there is a lot of speculation and outright rumor-mongering in the article. . .
Slow news day on /. . . .
Thankfully, that is. A lot of people - particular those who seem to think that a certain candidate in this race is some sort of anarchist alternative - don't realize how close we are to electing a fascist leader (or how much they might be helping that person to be elected). We have seen fascism get a lot of positive free press here on slashdot before when being paraded about as something other than what it really is. Thankfully fascist regimes always get toppled in the end, there just is no guarantee who will be around long enough to see that end.
we really want *surviving* a catastrophic event.
They're collectively the "B Ark".
Hairdressers and telephone sanitizers.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
And oxygen/water production in a complete autonomic bunker. Because once it comes down to laying siege to a bunker, the one outside can wait for a looooong time. The one inside may not.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
And then BOWLING ALLEYS and GARAGES ?? These people want to survive an apocalypse. . . .and they want to garage their Lamborghini ??
Not an apocalypse, just torches, pitchforks, and guillotines. History shows us that the real criminals (the men who apply the money to make horrible things happen- for profit) lie low while figureheads are deprived of their heads and then scuttle out when the danger has passed, and also that people have short memories and will let them live when they do.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They're not anti-gun. They're anti-the American people having guns. There's a big difference.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
In a comment about race he used a a comparison that has strong historical ties to racism. The fact you choose to ignore history does not make others wrong. Honestly, when do you ever here ape/monkey/gorilla when talking about any other race?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Even gold depends on the shared belief that there will be somebody else willing to accept it in exchange for goods of actual use within a survivable period of time after whatever crisis you are expecting passes. Certainly more durable than a few electronic IOUs or fiat currency issued by a nation state that is now on fire/crawling with zombies/etc; but the intrinsic utility is pretty limited. If the apocalypse needs corrosion-resistant connectors, gold has you covered; you could substitute it for lead in ballistic applications; but that's pretty much the list.
With the exception of people expecting to deal with explosions(where bunkers are a natural fit; and fairly commonly used in varying degrees of sophistication); a lot of this disaster-prep stuff falls into an unhelpful category of being both overprepared and underprepared: If you are concerned, it's pretty easy to justify enough supplies to weather a breakdown in our efficient-but-tightly-stretched supply chains; but you don't usually need a bunker to do that. If you have a crisis more serious than not being able to buy groceries for a few months in mind, however, the problem stops being "Do I have enough MREs?" and turns into "Am I set for subsistence farming and/or tribal warfare; and do I really want to bother with that shit anyway?" unpleasantly quickly.
It all seems aimed at a (not impossible; but not necessarily plausible) medium-size disaster; which will somehow be big enough that the 'stash of supplies in the basement' crowd is doomed; but small enough that your bunker isn't going to be plundered by local militias and there will be a society worth living in waiting for you when it's time to open the door again.
baseless theory gets +3 for insightful.
-linux... they can't *give* that shit away.
The poor people already have a bunker. They are going to use the one they build for 2000. I am going to wait for 2038.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Speaking of gold... why do survivalists and --whatever the term is for the guys that hate paper currency-- think gold is a good bet if society collapses? I'd think bullets and seeds would be the things to hoard. A collection of antique hand tools would be more useful post-government than gold.
> Honestly, when do you ever here ape/monkey/gorilla when talking about any other race?
How quickly Bush II is forgotten.
But in reality these bunker mentalities don't understand they can't survive for more than a few weeks anyway.
That's where you're wrong. It's a comforting story to tell yourself, but read the articles. I wasn't sure if this one wound up linked somewhere or not. These are facilities with vegetable gardens and extensive water and air recycling systems. Many also have above-ground solar and wind power in addition to large reserves of diesel fuel for the on-site generators. Besides that, they have supplies to last for a lot longer than a few weeks. Try months or up to a year.
That's why we sealed them off with cement after N-day and are just now thinking about opening a few back up 15 years later.
Granted, they're nowhere near as good as Vault 81 from Fallout 4, but that's video games for you. I remember when I was a kid, I used to go over to a friend's place to play that. My parents couldn't afford a system to play that on and wouldn't have bought it for me anyway.
Of course, nobody thought it could actually happen--except the 1%ers.
Yeah, I am pretty sure I will be one of the first wave of people killed in the apocalypse.... It actually doesn't bother me much, though. I will make way for others to survive.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Simple solution: Anti-personnel turrets...
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Or bottlecaps. I mean, come on.
The reason that a lot of these survivalists and preppers think that gold is the thing to have is because they've bought into the hype that gold is the thing to have. "The guy on the TV says I should have this if the world goes to shit. He's got his own TV show, so clearly he's onto something here."
That being said, I've known a few preppers, and it's hardly uniform that they're stockpiling gold. Actually, most of the ones I know focus on having a stockpile of food, water, bullets, etc. like you said. But the ones that make the news are the ones who have stockpiled a shitload of crazy.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Once the calthrate guns fire, Cthulhu ain't gonna be fhtagn no more.
If the seabeds' rockin' don't come a'knocking on my bunker door.
You are thinking am make joke...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Yeah, I've got the obession with gold as a sound post-apocalypse move. It might do well when the financial markets are in turmoil, but that's only because investors tend to flee to the commodities market when that happens, yet the chance of an apocalypse that cripples the financial markets yet leaves the commodities intact is... well, zero. It seems far more likely that post apocalypse the things you are going to need to survive and eventually (not to mention hopefully) trade with are going to be far more fundamental; food, water, fuel, livestock, manual and basic mechanical tools (in all their forms) and other basic supplies. The slightly longer term view might be things like seed stocks, construction materials and other other things necessary for some form of civilization to try and get back on its feet, but gold... not for quite some time, I'd imagine.
Another way to look at it; when Europeans were heading west across and establishing settlements across what would later become the US and Canada, how long did it take before currency (or company scrip) really took over from bartering as the defacto means of trade? And that's in an environment where there was (mostly) a lot of co-operation going into pushing on towards the Pacific and building a viable colony in the wake of the wagon trains that would be needed to help support them once they settled. Assuming that is the kind of environment that you are going to find when you crawling out of your bunker dragging your pile of gold seems like it's ruling out a lot of more likely, more violent, and far more long-term scenarios than all the survivors giving each other a pat on the back and getting straight on with rebuilding civilization.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
A few weeks may be all it takes. Not in a zombie apocalypse, sure, but suppose there's a large natural disaster, power and supplies are interrupted, roads inaccessible, government has their hands full and chaos ensues. In this scenario, order will be restored at some point, but until then it'll be nice to have a well stocked hideout. With some gun, in case looters are to be expected (and the longer before order is restored, the more likely they will be to appear)
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I live right by a freight hub station and a wal-mart warehouse in BFE. While everyone else lives like a rat in a hole, I'm going to build my own flourishing metropolis and rule with an iron but fair fist. Hehe...
They better have terminator guards then, too. If you have to have armed people to defend you, then you've got to feed them, so now you need an even bigger bunker to hold more guards and more supplies.
It's almost like you'd be better off just having neighbors that don't want to kill you.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Who says they don't hoard ammo and seed/rations?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Many people are building "panic rooms" into their homes. They are multi-purpose, and the guys who know how to build the good ones hide them in plain sight.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
I live at 5000 feet ASL. If my house floods because of sea level rise, I think we're all pretty much doomed. Indiana will be under water long before Colorado.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Some of us never respected them to begin with. Bill Gates etc. have always been self-serving scum, he started out a slimey crook. If this isn't Elysium level shit, I don't know what is.
Oh ok, so my perception of those guys has been distorted some from the news. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Thanks for the perspective.
right? Aside from a few folks who personally lost relatives to gun violence nobody favors gun control more stringent then "No Bazookas". Seriously, nobody's coming for your AR-15. It's been 8 years and 'Bama doesn't have your guns yet. Gun control is an issue kept alive by the right and the NRA to a) sell guns (Obama was great for their bottom line) and b) get you to ignore economic issues and let them go on draining you for all it's worth.
The left started to drop the issue in the 90's when Mr Clinton pointed out nobody wanted it. The issue had gained some traction in the 70s and 80s mostly because the anti-violence advocates formed an alliance with the racists (who were none to pleased that cheap manufacturing made guns affordable to the Black Panthers). The those racists got over their fears of Black guys with Guns, the alliance collapsed and the issue was lost.
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Let me restate that for you, guns, water, food, medicine, energy of some form(for heat/light) and then gold and alcohol. Water would be the biggest issue, food heck, costco sells one year food bucket thingies for cheap. If Musk can make it to mars, how hard could it be to bunker down for a year?
In Bowling for Columbine there's an animated video describing how scared Americans are (of just about anything). The number of bunkers screams fear to me - I'm sure there are a handful of such bunkers in the UK (or Europe, generally), they're mostly for politicians who must survive nuclear war, because only cockroaches will survive (apparently). I seriously doubt there's more than a couple for private citizens (and most of those are just swimming pools in the basement).
What's the point? I mean, if there's a nuclear war, you're better off just letting the galactic dice decide your fate. For low-level issues, such as no food for a few months, you're going to need to live in a tiny bunker for the entire duration. The rest of us will all just be mucking-in together to work out ways to collectively survive it. Sure, someone will come and steal the potatoes I'm growing in my back garden, but they can't steal all the potatoes in the neighbourhood. Besides, why steal them when you can just ask and we'll give you some?
Given the increased frequency of terrorist bombings and mass shootings
Is that a given, though?
Just checking you've done your homework...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
He had flown off carriers during the Vietnam war and had gone through nuclear training. His training had basically taught him that in at least a limited nuclear exchange, most of the stuff simply wouldn't go off. Nucs, at least then, were delicate things that were expected to often be shaken enough in the boost phase that many simply wouldn't work. It was a really fun exercise, to be honest. Studying how much concrete boils off from a particular size explosion, etc. This thing had decontamination showers, weapon lockers, a buried well head, steel shuttered loop holes for firing at mutants, a secret passage leading to a door hidden behind a bookcase, the works. Since he could pay for it from petty cash, it was no problem financially, just like the elite today.
Admit it, everyone here would do the same if they could. If for no other reason than the systems design exercise. Better keep it secret!
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
If there ever is a disaster or break-down of the type that requires people to resort to bunker living you can bet mobs of people will be quick to take their frustrations out on the nearest wealthy estate. These bunkers might stand for a long time without a concerted effort to destroy them, but they will be useless to protect their occupants for any length of time if they are attacked. That is unless those occupants also have a made the bunkers defensible and are harboring a force that can man those defenses. That, or they have hidden these bunkers so well as to ensure they would not be discovered.
When it comes to bunkers withstanding attack - they are designed to withstand an initial strike and hold off invaders until help can arrive or the occupants can escape. They don't hold out indefinitely. In situations like those described in the summary, there is no help on the way.
All that said, it seems that "how would I survive the apocalypse" is a fun mental exercise with which people with too much time and/or too much money (and maybe too much guilt) easily go overboard.
Ouch....that's kinda pessimistic, isn't it?
I don't have a ton of supplies, or bunker, but I am stocking up on arms and ammo. And I have friends that will all try to hook up if shit does bad. I don't expect it, but you never know.
And if nothing else, if hillary gets in....guns and ammo prices will skyrocket and stock will plummet.
I figure just in case tho...I'm trying to learn some survival skills. I have been teaching myself to garden naturally, how to preserve food, etc....to make myself valuable to others if things go tits up.
Again, I don't expect it, but its never a bad thing to at least have some sort of game plan.
I saw what happened in a mini version of it with Katrina, and you don't wanna be stuck in the middle of shit like that when the lights go out. So, it helps to at least have some rudimentary thoughts on what you'd do IF.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I have had this discussion with many people and most of the dangers we face are not the kinds of things you can "wait out in a bunker" like in some bad hollywood film. Almost all the disasters we face are going to have long term consequences which may last into geologic time tables. You will not have enough supplies to live for hundreds or thousands of years so you are slowly going to run out of resources and eventually die anyway. Although the idea of a rich guy eating those horses is kind of funny in a black humor sorta way.
In an earlier post I wrote about building a bunker for a rich guy in the '80s. He couldn't build it in complete secrecy so tried to disguise it to the permit department as just a really big garage with a cool basement. I really liked the design process, scenarios, etc. I did have to draw the line when he told me that he expected me to break into city hall after final sign off and steal the blue prints that had been submitted.
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
Scenario: You discover to your surprise that you can have your fill of every pleasure money can buy, and then you notice you've still got a mountain of that stuff lying around.
What to do?
(1) Pursue power. This never gets old, because there's other guys with mountains of money doing the same thing. No amount of power.is ever enough, because it's relative power that brings satisfaction.
(2) Serve humanity. The ability to amass money on this scale is a function of the scale of society, and that means that society's problems scale proportionately. The material resources you command could have solved all humanity's problems -- five thousand years ago. Today they're just a drop in a bucket, and that's a challenge.
(3) Build yourself a lavish Armageddon bunker.
(4) Any combination of the above.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
And if supplies get scarce, give me one good reason why I, your guard, should not simply eliminate a, from my point of view, useless eater.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
to construct private bunkers as a precaution against events they are elected to prevent. This is only fair, similar to placing the children of elected officials who vote for war on the front lines of those very wars.
Yes, I've noticed how anti-gun Hollywood is; you can see it in the movies that come out of there.
I think the problem is that real guns are so disappointing. If you could make one that sprays endless bullets with no recoil, well that'd be a hoot.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Let's posit, for a moment, that you had millions of dollars, and notice that a major, but not world-ending apocalypse was coming.
Me ? I'd buy a farm in a remote area, with decent climate and a good water supply. Hunting and fishing areas would be a bonus, but if we actually had some sort of apocalypse, the woods would be hunted bare, and the lakes and rivers drained of catchable fish.
A sufficient variety of breeding stock for food animals (various poultry, cows, perhaps sheep, goats, and rabbits) and work animals (donkeys, horses, dogs, cats)
I'd have a few extra large-pre-fabricated buildings, one as a warehouse, another set up as a comprehensive workshop (with several generations of powered and unpowered tools for wood, metals, and perhaps stone), with sufficient power to run them. Perhaps even a smithy, if a local ore source was available, or a supply of scrap metal nearby.
And a large dead-tree library of useful books. . .
And I'd have a GROUP of people, not just a one-family survival plan. Ideally, a number of small family-scale farms, centered around the warehouses and workshops.
This should be obvious, but isn't, I suspect. . .
The Americas Are Now Officially 'Measles-Free'
In other news, the pox just adopted mark-to-market accounting practices.
I figure this is how it works with The Donald, too. He wakes up in the morning with a novel idea for how to litigate one of his business partners—also known as contractual co-signatories—and mentally adds $300 million tax free to his personal net worth as he flosses his astonishingly sharp teeth.
Pity this won't show up on his tax returns for years and years. This, however, is also good—it will probably take five to ten years to amass the necessary 200 pages of tax offsets against correspondingly novel loopholes in the federal tax code.
Trump: "Good morning, Bernie, looks like we have a new long-term project."
Senior minion [whose name isn't actually 'Bernie']: Excellent! Whose blood are we drinking, this time?
Trump: Ah, that building in, ah, the Trump crap whatsitsname, you know, the building from that deal, summer of 2013, where we saw the chick with the really great rack as we walked through the lobby on the way to get the Mexican food that was okay, but not-at-all what we expected, so we left no tip.
Senior minion: Yes, of course, the really great rack—who could forget—before the awesomely authentic burritos which were not-at-all satisfactory. I'll get right on it.
Phone call ends.
Senior minion [addressing staff]: About face! Leaches, march!
Back at the Mar-a-Lago Faraday cage, Trump does a little mental arithmetic. "Let's see, ten point one plus zero point three equals ten point four. Nice." Here he pauses for a moment to let his newfound wealth fully sink in.
"What's next? Let's see, here. Focus group con-call at 11:00 with three adoring, educated black women, located—with some difficulty, to hear my staff bitch about it—in Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee. That Kellyanne, mostly I just want to strangle her, but my word I've never known a woman who can turn rocks the way she does.
Hmm, not until 11:00, there's the silver lining—still two hours away. Not much else on the schedule, looks like it's Twitter time—best part of my day, not counting lawsuits and loopholes. Ten-point-four. What will ten-point-four say today? Something pithy, or something punchy? Decisions, decisions."
Ouch....that's kinda pessimistic, isn't it?
That's my MO. I am pretty pessimistic.
There is nothing after death and nothing we do matters beyond a few miles above our heads or a few millimeters outside our own skulls.
If we were to all disappear in a flash of green light, the galactic community would not even know we were gone. As a matter of fact, our own world would be better off.
I do enjoy breathing and feeling the wonder of existence, but I don't really fear death (as long as it isn't super painful).
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
The secret to survival in a disaster is having friends, or being prepared. Being the survival expert ensures those with supplies will find you in a disaster.
Clearly you have not heard of two new laws passed in California redefining AR and AK weapons platforms back into "Assault Weapon" class. They will no longer be able to be sold or transferred after 2017, and must be registered as Registered Assault Weapons by 2018. They must be destroyed after a person's death and cannot be passed on.
Additionally, starting 2018 all ammo sales must be performed by a state liscensed ammo dealer, and in 2019 will require a background check and essentially will put all owners of pre-registration firearms on the books as owning various caliber weapons. This basically blocks all Internet sales of ammo, and it includes all potentially lethal projectiles, so don't think bullets for reloading will be available without this background check and database of caliber owners.
There were 7 new gun control laws passed this summer and signed by Governor Brown (2 for RAWs, 1 ammo, 1 requiring background checks for firearms to be loaned, 1 requiring all firearms have serial numbers including old and new homebuilt, 1 banning any possession of >10 magazines, and one more making it a crime if you have a firearm stolen and don't report it within 5 days or make any false statements about the issue and earning a 10-year ban on owning a firearm).
Yes, they very much are still coming for guns, one law at a time, tightening that noose.
We fought it, but the majority of gun owners in California are so lazy and apathetic that at best we could only get half the signatures required to put the issues on the ballot and have Californians vote on it.
https://www.vetogunmageddon.org/bill-opposition/
https://www.vetogunmageddon.org/signature-counter/
As someone who works daily on luxury residential construction in Los Angeles I can 100% confirm these bunkers are purely a way to get around lot size zoning restrictions here in LA City. When you're restricted from adding another wing onto your house the only way to expand is down. They are stuffing these basements with Spas, Gyms, nightclubs, pools and private movie theaters. These people would never live in a hole in the ground if things went crazy here. They would rather bug out to their Jackson Hole ranch off of their private airport if it ever got so bad.
I hate crappy scaremongering reporting doubly so when it was so easy to get the story straight.
some of my friends know me as "the chemist" :)
Those friends have guns (and are good with them).
There is a group of about 20 of us that, while we may not be best mates we recognize each other's value in certain situations. Guns with requisite skill, gardening, wood carving, food preservation, etc. Everyone would have value to the whole.
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There may be more to this article but if true I thought Mr. Gates had a better bead on things.
If you build an inter-connected world you can't find safety by removing yourself from it. We are beyond the point of no return. It's peace prosperity or bust.
He could make it himself much safer by giving his money away... which in a way he has I suppose.
Still bums me out. I have faith in humanity, I wouldn't be here without them... ;-)
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
No, you just *tell* them there has been a great catastrophe, and then you have a reality TV show with them down in their bunker. Then wait and see how long it takes before they figure out that they got punked.
Hopefully the blast buries the entrance/exit to these "bunkers"
Hopefully plugs up the toilet too.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I note that all of the groups mentioned:
- Oscar Winners
- Sports stars
- Bill Gates
... are more likely than not to be liberals/democrats.
They aren't afraid of terrists. They are afraid that Trump might win.
And Bill Gates is of an age (same as me) to have acquired a life-long fear of the realistic possibility of global thermonuclear war. (BEFORE "War Games", during the Cuban Missile Crisis.)
If Trump wins, now you have TWO international leaders of nuclear-armed countries who are off-the-rails. Let the fun begin!
Bunkers are for sissies, real men move to Mars.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I'd say the main reason to go with precious metals--specifically gold--is its durability (in the 'does not noticeably suffer from oxidation' sense) and the fact that it's been used by many cultures for many years...because of that and its rarity. It's likely coins sometimes were considered for exchange purposes as worth what we'd call their scrap value, simply because the issuer was too far away for the locals to know who these Roman jokers are which would make fiat currency a bit hard to trade. (If the country isn't known to the locals, your money is essentially play money.)
You also don't necessarily want to have to rely on trade goods, because see any story involving a barter chain. Money lets you circumvent it when you can't or don't want to resort to it--and, before modern transportation, it was risky to bet that your trade goods were a surefire hit. That's pretty much entirely why money got so popular.
Basically? Yes, you want things like basic tools and seed stocks--but you also want some sort of money, and for a while it's probably going to be precious metals of known & verifiable purity in units of known weight simply because nobody wants that much to try making change for, say, a cow.
Not a single one I've ever met. The most anti-gun people I've considered are either cops or people who fear and despise your stereotypical gun-toting, bible-thumping, uneducated conservatives.
So you will be in charge of cooking the crack cocaine and cutting the heroin with baby laxatives when shit hits the fan. Can I join the group? I am known as the funny but shy guy who dies first usually.
As a fan of apocalyptic fiction this makes me very happy! The Purge films are looking more like reality every day :)
well all those "liberal" elitist "Oscar Winners, Sports Stars and Bill Gates " etc, who are building bunkers seems to believe what alex jones says and follow his advice in doing that, while denouncing his influence on hoi polloi.
oh the irony!
Septic systems are very effective. I think I read once that 25% of the US and europe still use them. Everyone I know in Mexico had them.
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=2354
Dropped the issue. Right. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
Have gnu, will travel.
Which is the easiest way to take out the bunker's inhabitants. Bonus points for finding the air intakes and building a nice smoky fire in front, or a pumping in pure C02 or nitrogen.
Extra bonus points for taking out the water supply.
Castles failed in the middle ages. Bunkers will fail now, and for the same reasons.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
wait days to pick up their purchase, and in some cases they had to go to the sheriffs office to get permission to buy a car.
Welcome to Seattle, citizen.
And remember, its 20 MPH so you don't run over the hobos camping in the streets.
Have gnu, will travel.
It gives me shivers to think that movie and sports stars are going to be the only ones left.
The term originally used is 'ape,' with a link to the page on Wikipedia giving the formal definition of the group of ape.
I'm not sure how to break it to you all, but by sheer definition all humans are apes. In point of fact, humans are the type species for the superfamily of apes, meaning that even if all the other species in that superfamily turn out to not be related to humans--humans will still be apes, because that's how type species roll.
But hey, I guess the same type of stupidity involved in thinking these bunkers are likely to work out well makes it okay to say it's racist to call a group of humans something that, if they're not, they cannot be human.
Seriously, if people know where to find your bunker you got a Problem, especially if you're expecting to power it with wind or solar which means there's going to be essential tech just out there and vulnerable. I don't think anybody has to be particularly intelligent to do a good job of locating and wrecking either once they know the general area to look in after a disaster. Maybe these people can't imagine the serfs being smart enough to use the ancient technology known as 'maps' after a disaster bad enough to go into bunkers...?
I wouldn't want to survive a global whatever. Just think...by yourself, locked away, once you run out of supplies, then what? One big flash, it's all over and you don't worry about it.
A Trump win would greatly reduce the odds of World War III kicking off in the next couple of years. GREATLY reduce them.
That would be poetic justice.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Ah, yes. And observe how much good did any "safe"-room or bunker in some other place do to Regan when he was shot.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If you need to panic, you have already lost because you messed up spectacularly earlier. And even if you survive the first instance, the next one will get you. Personality-defects cannot be corrected by features of your home.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Self sufficiency is unattainable today. It is a fantasy of fuckups that kid themselves on how much they are dependent on the world staying reasonably intact.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It all seems aimed at a (not impossible; but not necessarily plausible) medium-size disaster; which will somehow be big enough that the 'stash of supplies in the basement' crowd is doomed; but small enough that your bunker isn't going to be plundered by local militias and there will be a society worth living in waiting for you when it's time to open the door again.
I think this pretty well summarizes the issue that most preppers seem to not understand: If you want to ride out a freak temporary crisis, you can do that pretty cheaply and without turning it into an overriding paranoia/lifestyle. But, in the case of a fundamental collapse of society, what's the point? Your choices are A) Die like the majority of people. B) Live in complete isolation and hope that you don't literally lose your mind before you run out of food/water. C) Be at perpetual war with the remaining humans in a resource scarce environment. Preppers seem to focus on B and C without understanding that such an existence would be so miserable that A is almost certainly preferable.
Realize that if it is the last pain you ever feel you won't have to remember it later, so infinite amounts of pain are irrelevant at the time of death.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Gold is undeniably a compelling leader in the "Hey, do you need an handy abstract representation of value?" market.
It is effectively impossible to counterfeit(all the metals that look kind of golden aren't nearly dense enough; Tungsten and DU have the density about right but are wrong in basically all other respects, nuclear synthesis isn't really counterfeiting but is uneconomic, it's tricky to alloy with something cheaper without being caught by even fairly primitive measurement of volume and weight; etc.), it's pretty scarce, it can be divided/combined/melted down/reshaped easily(unlike precious stones, say, where the value of two halves of a diamond is markedly lower than the value of the larger stone), people find it appealing, and so on.
The problem is just knowing what situations do, or don't, reward possessing a handy abstract representation of value. Too little civilization and you either can't find anyone willing to sell you stuff; or run into somebody who knows that the exchange rate between gold and iron is actually pretty favorable when the iron is of the right shape to stab the guy with the gold. Too much civilization and the fact that it's an inert, unproductive, comparatively cumbersome to transport/store/transact with lump of deadweight makes it a pain compared to whatever currency is being reasonably well managed at the time.
It's only in the intermediate situations, where you are developing a real market; but don't have anyone competent enough to produce worthwhile currency; or have a real market but a previously stable currency is on the rocks; where it really shines. Outside of that, it's just jewelry, anticorrosion coating, or a specific commodities position that might be useful under certain specific conditions as part of a larger portfolio.
Well, insightful means, according to Merrian Webster, "to show a very clear understanding of something". Therefore, an opinion may be qualified as insightful, without having to be a theory and, of course, no proof required.
That the rich can't hide was powerfully illustrated in "The Masque of the Red Death", a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. In it the wealthy and connected gathered at the abbey of Prince Prospero to get away from the common people succumbing to a plague outside the walls. But it is not so easy to cheat Death!
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hy...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
...omphaloskepsis often...
Tell me about it, and I signed.
After reading and watching The Road, I liked that the father considered the bunker a crypt and that it would be their doom if they stayed there (although differing reasons from the book), also this seemed to be a reoccurring theme in the Fallout series as well.
How much ammunition do you have, and in relation to the number of stray cats, chickens, poor fuckers who I've taken as slaves or even just thrown rocks which I can get hold of.
The slaves will work. Avoiding shooting at all that other stuff is easy with existing image processing algorithms.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm not American but as I understand it your laws that let you have guns were drafted when there were indians, wild animals and other dangers that made then necessary. After some sort of incident that requires the use of bunkers, our civilization may go back to a state where guns are needed. What doesn't make sense is why you have all those guns NOW.
Liberals are funny. I read where a bunch like before GW Bush was elected are saying they'll leave the country. Problem is, they don't.
Mass shootings are at a lower level than they were in the 1970s (particularly school shootings) and so are terrorist events.
What's changed is that they're being reported more and reported more emotionally.
Despite impressions, society is becoming less and less violent - that makes violent incidents more reportable as they're unusual, vs commonplace.
Most 'survivalists' aren't actually thinking about the survival aspect. They expect to buy with gold, or take with weapons, anything they need/want after a breakdown of the social order. They're not interested in the petty details of village economics and rebooting local agriculture.
Yeah, because this bunker sales dude knows their innermost thoughts on political matters.
Only boring people are ever bored.
The wealthy have learnt a lot since the French revolution.
If there was an uprising of the poor in today's society then they won't even know who the wealthy they hope to lynch even are. Ownership is very well hidden in today's world, from both ends: finger a wealthy individual and try to determine what they own, as well as finger a prosperous company and try to determine who owns it.
Actually, gold is still pretty useful as an abstract representation of value now--for one, it certainly is vastly easier to conceal US$100 of gold on your person than the same value in cash. In fact, a quick lookup of its by-gram value right now indicates so little gold that the real trick would be doing it in a way you won't accidentally lose such a tiny piece of gold: 1 cubic centimeter of gold weighs 19.28 grams (or thereabouts)...and at current prices, that is about $800 worth of gold. This is actually a major reason why jewelry is traditionally popular in some groups: you'll have to sell it to get the local currency, but it's pretty portable, even when leaving countries that frown on removing more than pocket change amounts of their currency from their borders.
Also, I'm a bit amused that you describe it an abstract representation of value, given that paper money actually started as an abstract representation of precious metal coins--which were the original and wildly popular form of money for thousands of years. At this point? I suspect that if a major modern currency collapses...well, most if not all of them are fiat money, with value basically because we agree to act like they have value. There's nothing backing them and the barriers to their issuers devaluing their currency are pretty low--we're basically relying on there being somebody capable, willing, and smart enough to tell the politicians that they really can't print (too much) more to finance their latest schemes.
If money grew on trees as per the traditional statement by those lamenting its scarcity, we'd be one overzealous harvester away from economic collapse. (Give it a week.)
These comments are silly. History shows that in times of extreme peril humans pull together and cooperate. There is no utility in being armed in a catastrophe unless you think there will be a need to hunt.
Regards, Chris