From the notoriously flat structure of Valve to the support of free software to the extremely laissez faire way of running steam to the main Dota tournament being named “The International”… Is Gabe Newell a card carrying Anarchist?

  •  comicallycluttered   ( @comicallycluttered@beehaw.org ) English
    20•1 year ago

    You may enjoy these two reads:

    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich

    Always enjoyed this gem:

    Huffman has calculated that, in the event of a disaster, he would seek out some form of community: “Being around other people is a good thing. I also have this somewhat egotistical view that I’m a pretty good leader. I will probably be in charge, or at least not a slave, when push comes to shove.”

    This one is also interesting:

    https://onezero.medium.com/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1

    Relevant to the thread:

    Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”

    […]

    This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.

    They live in a different reality. These questions are normal for them. Not all of them, obviously, but the doomsday prep shit is aaaallll over Silicon Valley and the rich in general.

    •  PenguinTD   ( @PenguinTD@lemmy.ca ) English
      8•1 year ago

      And they are also dumb in that situation where people with guns would wear such collar and instead torture you until you spit out the combination. There are no unbreakable lock where the weakest link is human. Human can be fucking nasty in situation like that.

      Also, the guards could simply cut off power supply(to the storage/locks) and brute force it to be traditional bunker. Before the overlord wannabe comes to their new hideout.

      •  Piers   ( @Piers@beehaw.org ) English
        4•1 year ago

        Also the tiny tiny percentage of cases where this doesn’t happen will just mean that the combined forces of the former guards from the other bunkers come kill everyone and take their stuff by force.

        Astonishing level of self-delusion by people to think they can use their position of wealth and power in one society to protect themselves and maintain that wealth and power if they cause that society to entirely fail.

        Ultimately, most of these people have that wealth and power because they are so frightened and insecure that they cannot let a moment pass without fighting and clawing to have more power as a false sense of security.

    •  Piers   ( @Piers@beehaw.org ) English
      5•1 year ago

      It’s so ridiculous that the wealth class, having realised that they are risking the future stability for society and fearing they may have to live in a Mad Maxian world of their own creation, try to mitigate the harm to them of that possibility by creating loot dungeons for the raiders they fear, and arming and organising the raiders to “protect” them.

      Staggeringly stupid.

      The only way for someone with tremendous wealth to insulate themselves from a scenario like that is to build and (already by the time the society they draw their power from collapses) be an equal member of a strong healthy sustainable community.

      The pursuit of which would also massively reduce the chances of their fears ever becoming reality in the first place and lead to a happier and more fulfilling life for them in the now. Presumably the reason they don’t do this is because they are either too narrow in their thinking to be able to see it, or just too self-hating and self-defeating to want good things to happen in their life if they can possibly avoid it.

    •  argv_minus_one   ( @argv_minus_one@beehaw.org ) English
      4•1 year ago

      These questions are reasonable, but their answers are not. The true answer is that it’s impossible. Without civilization as we know it, billionaires’ old-world wealth and status will be meaningless. They will be killed by either angry mobs or their own guards, and there’s nothing they can do to prevent that.

      If they want to remain rich and powerful, there is only one way: prevent the apocalypse.