Its probably a good thing I got this incoming instead of Gail or Kyle - they might not have believed Altairas story was true - I do however - if only because I have heard similar stories (e.g. huge such retreats in Northern Italy). I do think people doing this sort of prep are a tiny minority however - many of my wall st friends are just now starting to wonder if their money in the bank might not eventually be spendable by their children (e.g. they are thinking 30-40 year horizon - fortress in the country is many many steps ahead of their thinking...but I could be wrong.)

Still - I do agree with the author that by and large the most ambitious of our current crop of 7 billion have pursued digital wealth, power and control - I suspect if the rules change back towards real capital, the writing on the wall will be seen by them faster than by most, and they'll translate abstract capital into real as quick as an bankwire.

Problem is, a good % of real capital (at least social and human) can't easily be bought.

Curiously, I wonder how common a strategy it would be among the uber-wealthy to reduce their demands, instead of maintaining . Far easier and healthier.

Altaira - Great post.

Do the highly ambitious and wealthy have a different understanding of “human nature” than the more egalitarian and communitarian minded?

Yes.

The wealthy will try to make a separate peace. But once they do they will lose the source of their power and will become hostage to their own security team. Why should the Blackwater head of security take orders from the former CEO when all he has to do is twist the CEO's arm and take the money?

The wealthy would be irresponsible if they weren't preparing themselves for the coming crash. For most of us a more immediate concern won't be the billionaires who have retreated to their own islands, but the neighbors who haven't made any preparations.

Nice short and 'sweet' post Altaira. Neither the hyper individual, the hoarder nor the highly cooperative have been deselected yet, and both large sections and small pockets of humanity have experienced 'disruptive selection' countless times through the ages. Different conditions just seem to change the mix.

As to equity, that could be difficult to define, making it either impossible to find or, from another point of view, always present.

That's the trouble with unsustainable lifestyles - they can't go on forever. A few 'rich' people burning up the last of their stored wealth is not going to be a problem - the solution to that one is as inevitable (and as obvious) as the end of petroleum.

Greenbacks, we all know, are not 'money', they are currency. Money's real value, as the 'rich' will soon discover, is limited to the supply of things it will buy. Wealth is a much broader and complex phenomemon than either money or currency.

Currently, our society is somewhere on a par with the native people who traded the rights to their lands for a handful of shiny beads.

What we need now is a real understanding of what makes an individual, a society, and a culture truly wealthy. This is a paradigm shift of biblical proportions.

Hello Alteira,

IMO, this is a great topic to explore. I hope all here are familiar with the Rainwater Prophecy:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/12/26/8364646/

I believe Richard Rainwater [RR] understands that immersing himself into his local farm community is the best way for him and his family to survive WTSHTF.

RR using his wealth, plus becoming a wise Philosopher-King, to help his neighbors withstand the coming worst benefits all, and will greatly reduce the chance that his neighbors won't quickly do him in like the olden days. Instead, I believe they will rally to protect him even if it requires a high cost to themselves.

For example: what if RR freely finances strategic reserves of guns & ammo, bicycles & wheelbarrows & I-NPKS, community well-bores, rainwater collection cisterns, gravity-irrigation, the Triple System for garden beds, and a watershed-wide SpiderWebRiding Network for widespread, bi-directional material flows?

What if he generously financed Peak Outreach teachers for his community to constantly memory-refresh the locals on Paradigm Shift for Optimal Overshoot Decline? He could have on his property a well-equipped, solar-powered ER, pharmacy, dental clinic, and library that the locals would rabidly defend, too.

What if he pledged to equally share the coming pain; that his family's caloric intake would be equal to the poorest family in his defined and outlined watershed community? People would gladly sacrifice themselves to protect from attacking outsiders such a Ghandi, MLK, Mother Teresa type Ruler.

This is no different than what already occurs in Nature under instinctive 'Innate Territoriality' whereby the lion pride or wolf-pack cooperates for habitat optimality [Refer to my prior postings]. The somatic disparity, or narrow calorie gap between the alphas & betas, is determined by the dynamic nexus of the pecking order + cooperative hunting.

For the wealthy to inevitably try and go it alone, or in small groups in a secluded "Dictatorship of the Detritovores" sets up a rapid bifurcation, thus leaving them quickly exposed to asymmetric strategies and tactics [see prior postings] that only fosters even more rapidity to the fast-crash scenario. Their 'Praetorian Guard' is not stupid--they will become highly incentived to overthrow their idiot rulers clinging to the old, but collapsing BAU-Paradigm; "Et Tu, Brutus?" plus much more versus shooting for Optimal Overshoot Decline that all can rally around.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

While not wealthy myself, I have long worked in the vicinity of wealthy people.

The "new money" rich don't seem to be very aware of peak oil and other looming catastrophes. Their overheard conversations seem pathetically consumerist.

The "old money" tend to be much more savy. But their numbers are few. And I sense they have long been well protected.

I think a likelier outcome down the road is that elites of developed countries will recognize the obvious reality that the world as we know it cannot go on much longer, and that building enclaves is an unrealistic long-term strategy. And they will secretly engineer a massive die-back of the sort Michael Ruppert speaks of. Say, smallpox pandemic.

First a disclaimer : every human trait sits on a sliding scale, and extremes are relatively rare. But we understand black and white better than gray.

Yes, the wealthy are a different breed. Competition tends to suck psychopaths to the top.
And the psychopaths will try to buy their own private paradise. I have what I have and anyone else can F off, because I have what I have.

The majority of humans have a relatively strong sense of companionship. Most of us hate to see people hurt, especially people we like.
A very large number of people is about to become poor. (I don't remember how many americans are in the 25th week of unemployment benefits, look it up at The Automatic Earth)

As these people are losing jobs and assets, they are gaining anger, and understanding.
It may take a while, but the kleptocracy will be called to order by a mass of very unhappy people, who usually don't mind working together, especially if they feel collectively burned. They will seek out the culprits (and miss sometimes).

The poor have the numbers, and they have the capability to organize.
The rich have sheer egoism (infighting!) and firepower. Until the firepower takes over.
But then, wether the boss is mr. Money or mr. Gun doesn't make much difference to most of humanity.

Interesting to see how this story turns out.

My guess is that affluence will soon be a thing of the past.

It would be a huge mistake for them to do this. All we'd have to do is get organised enough to toss ONE nuke at them, and their little redoubt is history.

The fact is that when the dust settles we'll get some sort of Chavez type dicator, who will have little time for the selfish and individualistic. Even if there was "chaos", it would still ruin their chances. Remember the Green Zone? Even a few pathetic Somali pirates can make life difficult for shipping.

These vampires and brutes are scared because they know their system is collapsing and their days are numbered.

The tenor of the age is more egalitarian.

Ordinary people aren't conditioned to doff their hats to their betters as they were in the past.

The wealthy will be swept aside as they were in the Russian revolution.

This should make the system more responsive to the crash.

If the rich wish to preserve their advantages they had better positively contribute than to hide out
in their villas or decide to 'Go Galt'.

But too many people choose to live in their own 'reality' these days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cherry_Orchard

Before I attempt to answer any of your questions, may I try to bring in some more insight into those questions. Those with the resources, the royals, the upper-class the elite: an in our time and society, simply the rich, have always had their own world to a certain extent. And if one wants to find current examples one needs only to look at the secure mansions, enclaves, ranches, even whole states within states littered accross the world in third-world countries: from africa to south-american countries. Good example is also exsoviet-union, the new states as well as good old russia: all have long and established traditions of 'gated communities', far more advanced then anything in the USA.

Now that we have established that its not such a big deal, we can look more closely how these things work.

Three things: 1. independence 2. physical control 3. political control: the first one is easy - you have the resources to make yourself as self-reliant as you wish, drill wells, install solar power, build greenhouses, whatever - I'm not going elobarate this point any further (this point I assume is the one the elite are seeking technical advice for).

Secondly you need physical control of the area - for most of the above examples of countries, you can rely on the society around you 'helping' in this: you look for a remote region with minimal infrastructure and no public services and low population density - as well as minimal political and economic interest - having a few natives around in their huts doesn't bother you. After that it is merely up to your imagination and wallet how much physical security you want to have at your disposal. The biggest part of your physical security is the distance, isolation and lack of support infrastructure for the masses in the cities and suburbs to even reach you.

Thirdly and finally you need to deal with the government, you need political control, independence. Again this is merely a formality if you are already in the elite - you already have the connections and can keep those in power away from your area - after all, the people in power are also mostly people who live in similar circumstances. It obviously helps if you can for example buy yourself into the local political office - this being the favourite approach in both by the ex-soviet elite and latin america - you basically have your own little state within a state.

These kinds of rogue/feudal states-within-states whatever you want to call them are already common occurrance. PO and the resulting economic and political turmoil will effect them the least since they naturally tend towards isolation and independence. Obviously the typical US 'gated-communities' are nothing like the above examples: they are too close to the masses, impossible to defend and they havent got the land and natural features to even support any kind of independent food production - they might have a golf course or two to convert into food production - but thats it.

In the US you generally have the problem that you can drive pretty everywhere - the interstate and secondary road network all the way down to logging roads into the deepest wilderness will force you to actively defend your area - something you don't want to do when your having to grow your own food as well. Third-world countries with little infrastructure and much more easier to deal with the problem...

Now to your questions:

Human nature: Those that I know have a very low opinion of the 'masses' - I would definately see them having a problem with 'communitarian' ideas or anything like that - that doesnt mean they are unwilling or incapable of collaborating - they might be very good at that - but the way I see it, the society they create would be strictly feudal and class based in its nature ... with perhaps a place for egalitarianism within their 'own kind' , the other members of the elite.

Yes the 'enclaves' that are successful will be 'massive' - nothing like gated communities - more like little states - see examples in latin american countries and exsoviet states - we are talking thousends of sq miles - whole regions - controlled and isolated for the benefit of their elites... likewise they protect their inhabitants primarily by the nature of the area inself - kind of 'natural defences' as well as having an element of active defence (road blocks, area patrols etc.). But no elite, how ever rich, can defend a small enclave in or ever near urban areas. The masses are too numerous and their support structures and resources for resupply are too close.

Are they moral? What is moral in this world anymore ... sure they can be very moral within their own kind, even perhaps with the local 'natives' who happen inhabit their enclaves ... but as I said that feeling with never extent to a universal-egalitarian-hippie-love-the-world-idea: there people are pragmatists: they see the world and its overpopulation as a 'problem which will solve itself'.

Hyper individuality won't succeed since you can't run these enclaves alone - you need 'comrades' (minimum of famility, realtives), staff etc. as well as the political connections - its too dangerous to just isolate yourself from the rest of the world - much better to be an active participant - such as maintain a connection to the local political office - that way you can solve a lot of 'problems' without necessarily having to fight every time.

The billionaires and near-billionaires are already, by and large, possessed of multiple geographic options, their own fleets of planes, their own security, etc, and they will increasingly retreat to them.

I know some whose remote places are designed with hidden walls and passageways, and which - while they look like nothing more than opulent monuments to ego - could withstand a major assault, via armored spaces and architectural misdirection. Still others of the uber-wealthy seem to be taking no precautions whatsoever for a failure of BAU.

I've practiced what amounts to a personal vow of poverty during my career, simply by living a simple lifestyle and spending any money which comes my way on international environmental projects and otherwise-unfunded things that seem like a good idea for the world. Surprisingly enough, this caused me to be pulled into the world of billionaires, celebs, and the powerful pretty frequently. I'm not much impressed by that stuff per se, but it is interesting to see the dynamics in play.

What the billionaires do will be an important piece of the overall puzzle, if for no other reason than that they control a disproportionate amount of the unencumbered notional wealth of the planet. It would probably be a good niche for systems thinkers to make symbiotic survival alliances with them in many cases. My wild prognostication is that many core oildrum folks will wind up doing exactly that.

Probably me too, but a symbiosis of a somewhat different sort. The existence of billionaires is not interesting just in terms of how they'll survive; they also represent one of the few current mechanisms for idiosyncratic/innovative initiatives of the sort the world might need to get through the bottleneck in better shape. Many billionaires are good people, just as many aren't.

There will be opportunities to perturb the entire system into better or worse outcomes. The billionaires will play a role, for good or ill. Those who ally with systems thinkers will play the most interesting roles in shaping the future.

Actually, history says no.

Go back to the depression.... this calamity saw the rise of fascism, consolidation of the
bolsheviks, the nazis.... in the territories they controlled, the wealthy were sent to
extermination camps by the masses....

If it gets as bad as that, look for total societal breakdown followed by revolution...

The new power class will exterminate the old one and take by brute force what they
want.

And...

It could get that bad...

INDY

Altaira, your question about enclaves is intriguing. Morality aside, for the resilience of the species it would matter only if some survivors were able to re-establish ways to support stable populations after catastrophic events. It seems rather unlikely that enclaves would be able to isolate their inhabitants for even their own lifetime, let alone that of their children. Worse, such thinking appears to be a cause of decline in its own right. In "Collapse" Jared Diamond identified the abilitiy of the elite to isolate themselves from the problems of the rest of society as an important contributing factor for societal collapses. Barbara Tuchman's "March of Folly" elaborates historical examples where the longing for (temporary) power, status, and prestige accelerated catastrophy. Finally, when one assumes that there still are civilizations on this planet after millions of generations, it is clear that inclusive solutions must have been found. Let's work on those.

With a few brain dead examples, the uber rich know what they don't know. They will, therefore, hire the best expertise money can buy. Whether this is placating the locals or stocking up on "stuff", my guess is that they are good for at least a generation...and, perhaps, more. Given the state of the world, that is probably long enough.

Todd

I hang out with rich people and I will say without reservation that the thoughts of have read on this site are far superior in content and quality.
Having said that, you high IQ types are very street stupid.
The people that make the world go round have a different mindset and it is centered on them not us.
But when all this, that is the current reality, crashes they are not going to have any place to hide.
Their money is only as good as their ability to convince others.

As the sign by the gate says "NO OUTLET", they will be trapped in prisons of their own making and will be the target of the hordes of savage barbarians who will have nothing to lose and everything to gain by laying siege to their supposedly protected enclaves. They will not be immune to poisoned food, water and pathogens. Not to mention all kinds of suicide bombers. Good luck to them!

1800s Financier Jay Gould approx. Quote: "I will simply pay to induce half the working class to start killing the other half and vice versa."

This may have been adequate for the US Civil War, whereby the wealthy viewed the brutal battles going on below.

I think a certain amount of this piss-poor, 'divide, then conquer' strategy is already going on around the planet, and I expect much more elite MSM marketing effort to 'Bernay's style' promulgate even more of this in the future. Obviously, there will also be many un-informed idiots that will eagerly take this upon themselves too by striking out at their neighbors instead of working together.

But I think too many people are already adequately informed by previous history, and more are becoming aware each day from Peak Outreach, for this to generally succeed again whereby the topdogs can generally live in relatively safe isolation. Thus, I would expect a rapid turnover cycling on who is a topdog.

IMO, it is only much postPeak later, after the first series of convulsions of collapse occur such that ignorance and superstition is widespread again among all classes, that it becomes easier for the endgame of warlord kings to setup and control a King's Castle and Game Preserve for any reasonable amount of time. We shall see...

This doesn't surprise me. But I think it's only slightly less loonie than the man who thinks he will stave off roving hoards of hungry zombies with his trust thirty-aught-six.

I doubt the world will come to doomsday in this way, but if it does, Blackwater would not be able (nor willing?) to save Mr. CEO from the machette and/or guillotine.

More excellent fiction from The Complete Zombie Survival Guide...

Great question: My immediate response was to think of Jared Diamond's description of the demise of the European Greenland culture in the middle ages in his book, "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" (highly recommended, by the way, for those who haven't read it -- though I'm guessing a great many here already have). Diamond writes that as farmland degraded, the climate cooled and wood fuel was used up, the wealthy were probably the last to hang on but they couldn't hold out forever. Sooner or later, the starving hordes overcame the last strongholds of the wealthy, and the whole society collapsed.

Granted, today's super-wealthy can pay for a lot more firepower compared to the "rabble" than the elites of Greenland could centuries ago. But there are a lot more "regular folks" out there and -- as I know first-hand living in the Deep South -- many of them are also armed.

There is nothing new in this, it is just the feudal system all over again. Ages old.

We even had our own variation here in the United States. We called 'em 'Plantations'....

I don't know about billionaires but suppose you are someone with a few million in liquid assets. You have known about peak oil, etc. for some time and feel the increasing pressure of a failing society/economy. What do you do? All your "money" is in the form of electronic flashes of one sort or another and all of it represents a debt to you from some all of sudden vulnerable entity; the government, a big corporation, the bank. It could vanish overnight. Aside from those very ephemeral electrons you are in the same shape as any old hippy homesteader trying to get the solar panels up or an extra quarter acre of garden going.

Do I sound confused, conflicted? Well I am. It seems useless to throw a bunch of those electrons into some charity, feed the hungry, heal the sick. It would just be droplet swept into a rushing waterfall, useless, unproductive. Building some kind of fortress is just as useless. No walls are thick enough, no moat deep enough, no location isolated enough. One must bump along a sort of middle way. Spend as much as possible as quickly as possible on objects and people close by. One must protect oneself by investing in others and avoid sending money down the drain while it is still worth something.

Just in case things get really bad, as in can not live outside. 200 million takes care of you and 8 friends. That is assuming that you allow enough time for the concrete to cure.

Took a tour of the place several years ago, well worth it if you are out that way.

http://www.b2science.org/ present use of the facility

http://www.biospherics.org/experimentchrono1.html some basic history

search for biosphere 2 for lots of links

It makes for a potentially great drama movie, about a protected valley for the super wealthy during a worldwide depression resulting from post peak oil. Blackwater type security would patrol the perimeter with dogs, guns and helicopters. In the valley of the super wealthy would be warehouses of food, huge tanks with fuel and water, generators, etc. The super wealthy would watch massive outdoor TV screens tuned into the news showing all kinds of chaos and disaster on the streets, while they talk, sip champagne and nibble on caviar while laughing it up.

Meanwhile, on the outside are a patchwork band of rebels intent on breaking into "Billionaire Valley", where surviving is about luxuriating with the finest of everything. Thousands of rebels attack and outduel the power of money weilded by the few.

But once the valley has been taken by the rebels, word gets out and millions of people swarm the valley and rip it apart for every scrap of food, clothing and whatever else they can take in a scene spliced to mimic the carnage similar to when mice over-populated Australia. Only then would people get the magnitude of what it might be like in a post peak oil world.

If civilization is going to totally fall apart (and I am not convinced) then wealthy people are smart to build themselves refuges.

Certainly the technology exists to build refuges. Also, really wealthy people can afford to build such places. They might as well.

Suppose some wealthy people build remote places with solar power, wind power, perhaps near old slow pumping oil wells, and with lots of supplies and with skilled people to accompany them. They create nuclei of people and capabilities from which new order can emerge.

It seems that some wealthy people who are aware of Peak Oil,
have invested money in the railroad business.
[according to the book: Profit from the Peak]

Why resent wealthy people for building refuges against collapse? If the collapse is going to happen anyhow why shouldn't at least some people survive?

I expect well constructed refuges will:

• Increase the total number of people who survive a collapse.
• Benefit non-wealthy people who get recruited to supply needed skills in refuges (doctors anyone? dentists? security specialists?).
• Benefit people around each refuge since refuges will have resources to trade with and will sometimes project force to protect surrounding areas as buffer zones.
• Serve as cores around which new order can expand outward.

Mind you, I'm not saying that collapse will happen. But if it does then refuges created by wealthy people will not make things worse for the rest of us.

When thinking about this, I was struck by the perspective that "wealth" disparity actually exists in all natural populations. The superiority of genome expression in a given context is the "wealth" that drives evolution. If you take any population of about anything, say redwood trees, some have "positional" wealth in a natural landscape, as in soil configuration, protection from fire, and microclimate, while some eke existence on the razor edge of survival due to "positional poverty".

Moreover, the fact that human wealth tends to follow a Pareto distribution across many orders of magnitude implies that the existing pattern of wealth across a broad swath of human cultures is the result of similar local interactions among the basic elements of the system, and not a "differently acting" subset of humans carrying on a special agenda.

In nature, this sort of distribution is a healthy thing. Yet as social primates, it offends our egalitarian insistence even if it doesn't contradict our personal acts.

Good conversation.

To sum up: The rich will have to pay their army, not so easy if the money system breaks down. Then they have to feed their army and themselves. Some one will have to do the work.

Meanwhile rebels are lobbing mortar rounds over the walls.

Altaira, where did you get the 'transition rodney' pic. from - is my local(ish) area - i would like to know more :-)

ALL HAIL ZARDOZ!!! THE GUN IS GOOD!!!
zardoz was a manufactured god to control the outlands. the elite lived forever in the "vortex". invisible force fields, genetic manipulation, collapse of civilization, population control by mutant exterminators. a must rent, starring sean connery (james bond 007). deep with satirical irony. apparently there is rich and then there is rich. that is to say, folks whom i think are rich are actually poor compared to the real rich. and most of the rich i know are embedded in the current paradigm. that is BAU. may i add, the man enslaved to wealth can never be honest.
i know lots of people who are past 52 weeks of unemployment benefits. and the jobs available are becoming serf slave jobs. work till you drop under extremely unsafe and unhealthy and under paid conditions. the new meme for continued employment is, "YOU WANT TO EAT! DONT YOU?"
time to start channeling tom joad from grapes of wrath.remember the okies who were bull dozed off share cropper land? look forward to a new class of the disenfranchised. what have we here? why,it's the oil conundrum!

I never realized how vulnerable people are to social chaos, especially the elite, until I read Roman history. During the various civil wars the loosing faction /party was typically killed or exiled, including wives and children. And those lucky enough to survive usually had all their wealth seized.

Julius Caesar as a teenager was forced to flee Rome because he was on Sulla’s proscription list, Caesar being the nephew of Marius and son-in-law of Cinna, both of whom were enemies of Sulla.

One of the purges claimed so many prominent citizens that there were not enough left to fill vacancies in the Senate.

The statesman philosopher Cicero was ordered put to death by Marc Antony, against his young ally Octavian's (Augustus) initial objections as they drew up the proscription list. Cicero was found at his country villa. He once said that it was impossible for one to hide hide out in the Romann Empire.

There were also times when Senators were intimidated, beaten and murdered and Rome was more or less ruled by gangs and warlords.

Never think it can’t happen here. Pay careful attention to politics and social mood. Failure to compromise it the cause of war.

Some times the Oil Drum makes me laugh until my sides hurt. This is one of those times, not because of Altaira's story, but the conceit of the cowardly 'superrich'.

That there is someplace for them to hide! Think of all those rich white farmers in Rhodesia.

Think of all the wealthy colonists, everywhere. Better for all to pitch in and try to add something positive rather than those who can to run away ...

"ambitious, bold, and often ruthless, traits that served them well," don't seem to attach to people who are fearful. Ambition and boldness are also going to be useful when the going gets tough.

Don't forget the courage.

Making a business that helps people escape reality is simply more of what's happening now and has happened over the past fifty years; adding canned fantasy and drama, the idea that everyone is watching. Perhaps the clients of such a business would have nothing to offer, and it is best to leave them be. It would be more lucrative in the longer term for all to pitch in together.

In general, no. The currently wealthy can not have a separate peace post "collapse".

Most wealth is built on deep, long supply chains. In order to be wealthy, one has to control large parts of some of these. Every "collapse" scenario I have seen referred, dramatically shortens and shallows supply lines. If everyone is a subsistence farmer, he does not produce enough surplus to feed into supply chains eventually ending up in some wealthy person's hands. So, post collapse, if it ever comes to that, even the currently wealthy will be poor.

During the period when the world is destitutifying due to Peak Oil, those who still have access to the limiting ingredient, oil, will be enormously wealthy, but as absolutely everything around them becomes worthless, there will be no conduit through which they can carry this wealth forward, past the time when they themselves run out of oil.

A big difference between the olden days of kings and queens emperors, and now, is that back then populations were a lot smaller. So, natural resources per person were actually rather large, just inefficiently harvested. In an environment like that, wealth can be attained, as it is largely a matter of a warrior caste specializing in controlling physical resources and "renting" them out to serfs for the better part of what the serfs can, through their labor, extract from them.

Can't do that now or past peak oil, with huge populations and almost no resources left. Efficiency of resource extraction will be the key to the compound "wealth" of a region. And people work umpteen times more efficiently when they get to keep the spoils of their own labor, than when they don't. So, given feudal region A, and homesteaded region B, B will out produce A by a wide margin, leaving no surplus for the lords of A to protect themselves from the progeny of B roaming for new homesteads. In biological terms, once the environment gets harsh enough, genuine parasites die out, as only the parasite free survive, and take over the resources the parasite infested previously used.

I understand that William Catton has a new book out: "Bottleneck: Humanity's Impending Impasse."

I've not read it yet, but hope to soon. I think that Catton tries to address the central issue which is, it seems to me, humanity can alter our behaviour patterns radically enough for anyone to survive the bottleneck.

The wealthy and their offspring are as vulnerable as anyone else on the planet, and perhaps many are even more vulnerable in some ways.

The planet will change enough to make it difficult for any of us to survive. Those who are used to power and pleasure will face situations where they are essentially powerless and scrabbling to survive.

Caches of food and water, weapons and power sources will not be invulnerable to the nearly infinite number of twists and turns wrought by climate and chthonic forces, let alone the changes in chmeistry of air, soil, and water. Dead oceans will mean a dead planet, no matter how much champagne is stashed in a bunker in Oregon or Equador.

Over the next few decades, I guess that billions of people will die -- more than WW II each day. The psychological effect of this will not be lost on anyone.

No one will be insulated from ecological catastrophe and increased human violence.

We are all absolutely vulnerable. It seems to me that efforts to make oneself invulnerable will only backfire on those who try to do so. It may be that those who sense the changes in the environment and adapt from day-to-day will be as capable of survival -- maybe more so -- than those who tie themselves to plans requiring complex escape plans and complex survival compounds.

Simplicity may trump complexity in some ways.

Even so, the focus on "my" survival or the survival of "my" people, tribe, nation, or religion will be the most destructive aspect of human behaviour in years to come.

We will make up all kinds of stories to scapegoat others -- and everyone will be someone else's scapegoat. This way we will burn more enrgy, do more harm to our habitat, and engender ever more cycles of insane violence.

Plans to survive in bunkers seem like a good way to be done in by the butler, the maid, and the Blackwater-esque security dudes before they drink the last of the whisky and bourbon and set off to look for more at the bunker down the road before the radiation sickness turns them to glowing green mush.

Sustain absolute vulnerability. That's my motto, for what it is worth. I really do not give a damn if people think they can outsmart death or the horsemen of the apocalypse. We are all much more vulnerable than we have been led to believe in our complex, collapsing civilization. So why not embrace that? What a great ride, an d who knows how it will end, when it does end.

I've considered this idea (planned private or cooperative safe havens in case of societal breakdown) for sometime but had the thought of forming an association(s) appealing to those without incredible financial means, primarily educated and aware middle class people of our impending resource/lifestyle problems. There are groups already doing something like this, one that I thought of reading this is - Chrisitan Exodus - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Exodus. Now they are doing this for very different reasons than what we unfortunately suspect is quite possible but the idea is intriguing...like thinking families/individuals buying a large track of land or an established farm(s) linked or close to each other with the means to sustainably and cooperatively exist effectively outside of society...

I don't think the wealthy enclaves would last long... if the private military or security services see the world falling apart around them, they will assume control of the retreat they are in protection of... could you really take orders from Paris Hilton?

"Almost" contempt? More like blatant, pathological, raving, mega-contempt.

The problem with stratified social systems is not just that power corrupts, but that great power is a magnet for psychopaths.

Your questions are disturbing, in the sense that you seem tempted to do anything other than fight against this pure evil. Get a grip on yourself, Altaira.

P.S. How many Blackwater Joes will keep their M-16s turned the right way, when their own kin are on the outside? Those folks aren't coming out of Harvard.

FWIW, the picture of the gated property is on Maui. That is Haleakala in the background. Gated properties and neighborhoods are common on Maui. It is the second home location for the rich and famous from around the world. Insofar as survival fortresses, they are quite likely being built on Maui and other human friendly sites and environments. However, such sites have an Achilles heel. If the world does go to hell in a handbasket, gates, fences and walls will be of minimal value in keeping out the hungry and desperate. The only viable long-term solution, even for the super rich, is to be part of a cooperative and supportive community of people who look out for each other. It really does take a village to effectively respond to the challenges fast approaching.

Most of the comments that directly relate to the article make the assumption that the world will be in a uniform condition. That has not been the case in the past, and it is hard to imagine why it would happen in the future. The refuges and escapes that wealthy people would prefer would be simply homes in multiple countries, with all associated necessities there for transfer - such as bank accounts in the local currency, contacts with the right people needed to maintain a wealthy lifestyle, transportation options, and so on. No need for 'Blackwater guards' or anything else. Hyper-isolation doesn't make sense. Going to the country least affected by whatever social turmoil occurs does. This has been the escape mode for wealthy people for centuries, as far as I can tell.

I am very surprised at the silliness of the comments here. Wealthy people have plenty of advisors already who can figure out how to take care of their employers. Choosing options with obvious failure modes would be only done by those few without competent advice.

mos6507 said

See how well that does for them when they can no longer afford or access the external inputs that drive their farming on top of that depleted topsoil of theirs.

I got a hint of this on the farm here in Poland. The price for fruits have dropped so much (selling to wholesaler) that the farmers can not afford to hire help to pick fruit in the orchards or fields. This has been the trend over the last few years. If they do not have family doing it it is not worth even gathering ( cost to gather > sale revenue ).

So just thinking that you are a farmer and your OK needs to be qualified. IF your input costs are greater than revenue generated than you are sunk. So far here there do not seem to be any relief in this direction. Input cost are not dropping much (fuel, fertilizer, pesticides, labor somewhat, ...).

For example the production. The official EU statistic shows that 50% of cherry production in EU comes from Poland. Yet the farmer here was getting a price that below half that required to break even (if not worst). Many are saying that they will abandon their orchards. Interestingly, the prices of cherry products have not dropped. If anything they have risen.

I'm not so sure it's silly.
The wealth, as somebody said back a ways, is largely numbers on paper. When you look at wealth per se, the ability to pay back your 'bailouts' while continuing with BAU (operations and maintenance) is probably not there. If anyone does a recorded history of it, the numbers left on the bits of paper in the Fed offices, will near as dammit represent the extraction, consumption and pollution of natural capital.
That will be of academic interest (no pun) only, though. The numbers won't be worth anything in a world reduced to barter. Look to Cuba for an example of what happens when you go backwards under good governance, and to Zimbabwe for what happens under bad.
For my money (ha) there will be a global scrap - oldfarmermac is historically correct. Whether it's 'livingspace for herrenvolk' or oil in the Middle East, scarcity of resources always ends in war. It's Age of Empires, lesson one.
From outside the 'States, I see the USA (frustrated rows of SUV's at the gas-pumps) versus China (envious, thwarted, politically more able to focus and move). The only way to avoid that may be a pandemic - a not unlikely scenario in a crowded world when systems start failing.
The currently-wealthy are probably at a physical disadvantage in a dog-eat-dog world, and won't be in quite such good psychological shape either, one suspects. If your ego depends on a weasel that just went pop, you might be a bit rattled. The irony is that, to 2/3 of the planet's population, those of us with keyboards are probably seen as 'super wealthy'.....

He then named about a dozen families on the Forbes list of billionaires who have already prepared for doomsday on a spectacular scale, including multiple geographic options.

Anyone know the locations? Let us see where they are?

There is a social theory that severe economic downturns serve a useful purpose by equalizing the distribution of wealth. A hyperinflation would destroy all money and debt. Hard assets, especially everyday necessities, would be the main stores of value.

Shortages of oil are the perfect set up for a hyperinflation. Oil import bills are creating massive trade deficits, which will eventually cause currency collapses. One day oil will be $200, then $500, then $1000 a few months later.

As irrational as hyperbolic price surges are (NASDAQ stocks in 2000, California real estate in 2006) they happen repeatedly.

All the land sold around here goes to Wall Street financiers who pay unlimited $$ for it.

"War Wealth and Wisdom" is a book written by Barton Biggs, a hotshot on Wall Street. A TON OF SUPER RICH ARE READING IT!! They are following his advice to buy a remote farm! He discusses wealth destruction in great detail during periods of war, when the Four Horsemen ride.

He never says a WORD about oil, he just believes that as an insurance policy every wealthy family must put 10% of their wealth into a working farm in a remote location. Another 5% into gold.

The rich who follow his advice will be glad they did.

My Survival Strategy, if I had taken that path

One, find the place that is most likely to continue with an organized, civil society, with medical care, more than adequate food, democratic government, public health and social welfare, even as most of the rest of the world was lacking these.

Two, move in before TSHTF and become part of the community, and a well thought of member.

One will remain my secret.

Two was to get a job as a high school science/math teacher and teach in such a way as to be well thought of. Outside of work, rebuild a couple of defunct small hydroelectric plants, and get involved with civic betterment.

By the time TSHTF, some of my former students will be in their mid to late 20s, perhaps 30s. I would, hopefully, be thought of as "Nice, old Mr. Drake". I could have some plans (and perhaps a small stockpile of supplies) to help the society deal with the changes in the rest of the world.

Such a place must also be one where one could grow old gracefully and enjoy life if my estimate for when TSHTF was off.

But I decided to take a low probability chance of "making a difference" instead and enjoy, and live life today in New Orleans.

The road not taken.

Best Hopes,

Alan

Dear Drummers

It is not the wealthy that are back a step on peak oil, it is in fact you who are playing catch up.

The CIA knew of peak oil when Hubbert's prediction proved to be accurate. They started operating on a peak oil scenario in the mid-70s.
When Bush Sr was VP under Regan, he and Louis Geocatta or some spelling to that effect revamped FEMA which by the way was initially the Federal Emergency Militarization Agency. The name was changed to protect the public.
FEMA spends very little of its budget on natural disasters. It does spend a lot of money on underground bunkers and other safe haven type stuff. Louis 'what ever his name' was a specialist in population/mob control. There are detention facilities spread around the country that can hold millions of people. For the first time--last year or this year a check this battalion of military was established for populaton control of U.S. citizens. This violates the Posse Comitatus Act. It is said that one detention facility in Alaska has a capacity of 2 million people. The population of Alaska is only 670,000.
The argument for these things has always been nuclear war. Now I ask you, why would you possibly build something like that in Alaska. After a war, you couldn't even get people there, and if you did, you would have to bring in food and keep them warm through long winters.
Of course that would only be if you wanted to keep them alive.
Now, wind back your memory. Oil was expected to peak in 2000. Do you remember the bogus election, the Florida debacle, the illegal Supreme Court decision? And who got to be President? Well, oilman son of oilman who revamped FEMA with VP Haliburton CEO Cheney, Condelessa Rice of Exxon.

The really rich pay people to think ahead for them.
Us average blokes (which we think we are not) have to do it on our own when we can.
We also tend to be democratic and hence disorganized.
The psychopaths make it because they never let concern for their fellow man get in the way.
As far as Blackwater--do you not think that there are inner circles within inner circles to protect them from their protectors?

Good luck to the rest of us. We'll need it

As an architect, this line of speculation is very immediate to me.

I've generated a new business entity to test the waters for these services, and intend to market past professional clients, initially primarily physicians.

However, I intend to wait until perhaps spring 2010, while conditions mature.
I also plan congregate living design prototypes for non-affluent populations.

This is my site - http://interregnumdesign.com
I would appreciate any feedback.

Best regards.

Who has built the Encyclopedia Foundation?

Where is Terminus?

Antarctica, Central Australia, Himalayas, Southern Andes, etc. are remote but do not seem to be farming-friendly places.

Where would the Second Foundation be?

The problems with Asimov's tale were that all the people spoke a common language (not relevant to the current World)and technology (physical, mentalics) saved the day all the time.

A knowledge redoubt would likely be found and pillaged relatively quickly or forgotten and found a thousand years from now and no one would be able to make use of it.

If it came, the peak oil disaster would probably play out in several emergencies and recoveries before things really went black. I believe that this would give wealthy people the time to better position themselves by buying small farms, rural retreats or emigrating to better functioning societies. We should also remember that every empire the world has ever seen has had a political/religious elite that exploited their subsistence farmers. What makes you think that a peak oil world would be any different?

Many of you may recall that several years ago there were rumors that the Bush family had purchased something like 100,000 acres in a remote region of northern Paraguay. Some claim that it has been confirmed, while others call it just another conspiracy theory.

Any updates on this confirming it one way or another?

Conceptually, it at least seems plausible, as Paraguay has historically been a destination of choice for war criminals trying to lay low. If Dubya does settle down there, I guess he can always go next door to borrow a cup of sugar from the Mengele family.

Enclaves of extreme Wealth are allready being built. I am especially Qualied to build and maintain them. I will do this for my very rich brothers. And when money is no longer uesfull I will execute them. And there rodent like childern.

I am hoping that manny entreprenurial people will find it attractive to move to Sweden to NOT live in a gated community. The migration is wide open for everybody that can find a job and if you have a little wealth you can create one job or more. The infrastructure is exellent for establishing almost any kind of manufacturing and there is hardy any corruption. But you will of course have to pay high taxes. You will ge one of my very best wishes if you apply for citizenship as fast as possible and also join the municipiality politics, home guard, red cross, a church, whatever.

Every person except a few in the first world is wealthy. Given that 1 billion live on $1 a day and another billion live on $2 a day, the idea that the wealthy is the upper class and the rest of us are common folk is delusion. Go live in the slums of Haiti for a few days and you will discover how wealthy you are. I know this article addresses the super wealthy vs us the relatively wealthy, but while our circumstances differ our mindset is little different from the super wealthy. I know the super wealthy don't care if we become truly poor, but neither do we want the truly poor to share in our wealth, thus the worries about the southern border of the US.

As we scarf up the minerals of the world for our alternative green technologies, do we spend any time considering the health issues of the copper miners of South America etc etc etc?

"It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion of them. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day on top of another creature and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever." Douglas Adams

How many first worlders recognize that the poverty of the third world is what keeps them in luxury. WE are little different in attitude to the third world than the super rich are to the middle class.

The very wealthy are corporeal and must be physically somewhere, so having secure places to live is of course a perfectly sensible thing to do for them. Gated communities, hidden estates, hideaways on islands or in the countryside somewhere all make sense. But that's just half the survival strategy, the other half seems to be mainly missing from this post and its comments.

The other half of their strategy will be to own and hold the means of production for anything of importance. The secure estate provides physical safety, but it is their grip on the means of production that provide them with all else they need. Collapse doesn't change the fundamental rules, it just alters the means to the end.

A SciFi exploration of many of these questions can be found in Lucifer's Hammer. Highly recommended.

This gets me to thinking about Wells's The Time Machine. He envisions a future humanity having divided into two species. The Eloi live above ground in an agrarian, communitarian (if not outright communist) paradise - an uncanny resemblance to what some of us here envision as our desired-for sustainable future. The Morlocks live underground, are the ones who actually organize and build and run things both under and above ground, and actually FEED upon the Eloi, who are actually their "livestock". It does not take much imagination to see these sociopathic "alphas" retreating to their underground bunkers and evolving into something like the Morlocks; nor does it take much imagination to see those non-sociopathic, communitarians who survive outside the compounds evolving into something like the Eloi.

I would not be the first person to suspect that Wells's story is less a tale about a fictional technology and an imagined future than it is a rather biting and critical commentary on his contemporary society. The truth of the matter is that those at the top who actually control things ARE predators upon the rest of humanity. They always have been, and always will be. Of course, there is always the flip side, a very uncomfortable question: Could the Eloi have existed without the Morlocks? Can we ordinary people exist without the sociopathic upper crust to take charge and herd us around?

Of course, there is one final observation: Without the Eloi, the Morlocks starve.

When I was a kid in the gas lines during the 70's the teachers tought us a couple of things which really stuck in my mind: 1) The world was going to start running out of oil around the year 2000, and 2) that biological organisms are programmed to spread their genes and protect their gene line.

In the 80's in College I wondered at why the Economic Elite had become so much more greedy than the traditional level of greed. What came to my mind was that they were hoarding resources to protect themselves and their offspring because they were privy to information that the masses didn't have access to and were immune to the conventional media propaganda the average American buys into every day.

So, its no surprise with Peak Oil and Global Warming looming that they are preparing their "exit strategies" for the end game - every CEO has an exit strategy and a golden parachute waiting.

These super rich people setting up retreats are so few and far between. Wether they make it or not will be irrelevant to most of us. The chance of them having a direct effect on any of our futures assuming a general colapse of the economic system and society is slim.

If on the otherhand we have a slow decent scenario then they will still be pulling whatever strings need to be tugged on wether they are in a Manhatten appartment or fortress in Patagonia.

Obviously a forgotten island is a choice for the time of mayhem... Venice was inhabited in such a way, with Goths rampaging the mainland.
I would be happy to live on a really small island, somehere in the Aeagean with my library, playing with my imagination like Wells, among local people around (not too many of them, probably you can care only about 150 people, see http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html) ... However, unfortunately I need specialist medical care and a synthetic substitution medicine... Therefore, rather not being rich, I feel somehow doomed in the world of PO. I cannot take chemical plant with myself;(

Just a thought -- could this scheme be a scam to rip off the wealthy clients? I'd be very cautious about joining such a scheme.

Escaping from the failure of your own life support system is probably more of a challenge than people planning private shelters to hide from it appreciate. Your share is worth less if the whole becomes worthless.

It would be FAR better, and preserve much more of their capital in fact (i.e. their share of the whole) for them to figure out how they could play a key role in making Economies That Become Part of Nature. It would start from understanding why we have to.