Service At The End Of The World

It has been a commonly known phenomenon for some time that members of the extreme-wealth class (assorted billionaires and capitalist-aristocrats) have built and maintain ‘doomsday bunkers’ in remote locations. The idea behind these is presumably that they can escape some sort of calamitous event by retreating to these and holing up in them until the worst is over. There are also less expensive group ones, such as referenced in the article, so that mere multi-millionaires could afford to have such a space.

Here at the end of April during the COVID-19 crisis, I wonder whether any of these are in use right now. I would not be surprised to learn that this was the case, nor to learn that at the least most such bunkers have had some of their staff activated to go prepare for the arrival of its owner. Cleanings happen, fresh restocking of goods occur, general maintenance performed, and so on.

I also wonder whether any specifically-hired staff were asked to relocate to the bunkers to handle those preparations for their employer. It seems clear that most, if not all, of these would indeed have hired staff to handle the day to day in the tiny lock-in world. Jeff Bezos would surely not leave it to chance that he might have to do his own laundry, nor Elon Musk cooking, nor Bill Gates doing the dishes. There will be staff: custodial, housekeeping, cooking, maintenance, and of course security. There may even be concubines of a sort, or expectations of double duty in that regard. Who knows what unique combination of servants each might have arranged for themselves?

To the servant members of these great sealed houses of a grim future, I ask you to consider:

You were employed, under whatever pay and whatever promises, to perform these duties for your new master(s). A job is a job, and I hope the pay has been good. Perhaps part of the agreement is simply that you, and if you’re fortunate maybe even part of your family, have a secure space to live during whatever calamity has upset your employer. Or perhaps instead they’ve promised you comfort and prominence in whatever future you emerge, but how do you even quantify that? Regardless, their intention has been, with whatever payment, to purchase your loyalty in an uncertain future.

The moment those doors shut, the moment that the locks clang and there is well and truly no escape, what value does any of that actually have? Perhaps you and your family are safe for a time, but for how long? Will you serve until death? Will your descendants serve your employer’s descendants? How quickly will the purchase of your loyalty revert into inter-generational slavery?

But perhaps it won’t last forever. Maybe it will only be a few years before you can emerge to the surface again, pale and blinking against the now-unfamiliar sun with money in your pocket. What will you buy in this strange world? A car? Retirement savings? Buy a house in a barren, humanless wasteland? Pay for your children to go to a university that may not even exist anymore?

The value of whatever promises were made to you is entirely uncertain the instant the doors lock. Do you believe, when it gets to that point, that the world outside that door will be exactly the same as when you went in? Will you truly emerge and head home and go grocery shopping like normal the next day? Is your master claiming that they will still have their fortune in that world? And even if they do, of what use is it to them now? Will the corporations that made them wealthy still exist? Is the currency even the same? Will whatever precious metals they stocked actually buy anything, and if so, for how long? What is your master, now, with outdated money and outdated influence other than an old man with an inflated ego emerging from a hole in the ground?

Even then you have to ask whether they’d be required or forced in any way to live up to their promises. Will ‘law’ exist in this world, will whatever courts there are recognize any such contract from the before-time? Who’s going to care if you don’t get paid in now useless money?

Any loyalty you spent underground is meaningless. Any promises made to you will end abruptly or are already valueless. You will simply have attached yourself to this individual that will have nothing to offer you beyond derision and demands.

Consider instead: the door has shut and your isolation has begun. You are one of numerous servants for a family or families that paid for this whole ordeal. You were hired for some specific set of skills, as were the rest of your peers at the feet of your new lord. You were hired so that those lords need not maintain their own house, or cook or clean or provide their own security, as were your peers. And what this new household needs, what will keep it running through whatever disaster occurs, is people who can take care of one another, people who put in the time in service to the whole of this new tiny society… not hangers-on with nothing to do but complain and issue orders.

And under what pretense do they deign to issue such orders? That they paid? We’ve already discussed that this is meaningless once the door closes. What other authority do they possibly have, locked in with you? What do they provide aside from empty words and promises and threats?

Nothing. They consume. They consume the food stores you have available, they consume the work you and your peers put in, and they consume your life in a slow, slow burn.

Remember this, when the door shuts. Remember what they offer. Remember that they are shut in with you, the servant they hired to cater to their whims and fears and their post-apocalyptic fantasies. You, and your peers, run the household. You know what they eat, where they sleep, where they store valuables or medications. They are merely mouths to feed, of no further use to anyone. Valueless at best, or more realistically a hindrance. One might say expendable.

You are in control, and anyone that suggests otherwise… your employer, any of your peers that refuse to believe their own power… is a fool. Ask them, and ask yourself, what the true value of your loyalty is. Seize what opportunities you can, and the sooner the better for everyone.