> The last time this story made rounds on HN, quite a few readers were ripping into the people described in the article, and it sure feels good to do so, but... I don't know about you, but if I had more money than I conceivably ever needed, I sure would contemplate having a helicopter on standby and a luxury compound in some scenic part of the world. You know, just for fun, just in case.
Yes, but then I'd do what I already do, spend most of my energy and passion on thinking about and working on fixing problems I didn't cause and that hardly affect me. Which I'm sure plenty of wealthy -- the best of them -- already do. I agree it's not mutually exclusive, for what it's worth. That is completely true, and there are empathic, responsible super rich people just like sociopathic, reckless poor people exist. But let's not use people we can imagine to exist to excuse the detached clowns we see with our own eyes and who make sure we get to hear about their every brain fart, too.
> We should also remember that unlike many many of the stars of "Doomsday Preppers" who seemed inexplicably frightened by the prospect of social unrest in the US, the ultra-rich may actually have something to worry about.
I know what you mean, but really, think about you just wrote. For every person, for every living being, their life is an ocean in which you, your wealth and all your ancestors and offspring are not even a tiny speck, and when they die, "their whole universe" dies with them. So, does having a lot of material, or things to worry about, really increase the intensity of that attachment? Is that not also at the very least orthogonal? When it comes to intensity of live, of being at ease with who one is, of not being on the run from oneself, then little kids and dogs and a million "types" of people come to mind before the super rich do. But of course, that's all very subjective. I just know who makes me think "good for them" and who makes me feel sad for them.
> When angry masses take it to the streets, it's not the cookie-cutter, mixed income, urban sprawl neighborhoods that are going to be set ablaze.
Whenever catastrophy strikes, or war or other things are done by people, it's the elderly, the children, the poor, the sick and so on who suffer first, last, and the hardest throughout, make no mistake. Besides, so far various elites have been doing great at polarizing angry masses and having them at each other's throats. They might also be the ones who have the drones and whatnot, so angry crowds taking to the streets would be the perfect excuse to fast track totalitarianism even harder, but I'm sure there will be ways to goad them into it anyway. To me, that's the greasy old man showing his junk in front of the curtain, I can't even imagine what is behind it.