Turning 49 today. I've got a funk I can't shake.

[Hekate]

36. I know they think that. I read a recent article by a guy who was asked to talk to a group of billionaire ...

… survivalists. All male. It was an exceedingly weird experience for him. And really, I had to laugh.

(Found it — sorry, no link when I saved it to PDF.
The Observer
The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse
Tech billionaires are buying up luxurious bunkers and hiring military security to survive a societal collapse they helped create, but like everything they do, it has unintended consequences
Time to bunker down... if you’ve got the cash.
Douglas Rushkoff
Sun 4 Sep 2022 05.00 EDT
As a humanist who writes about the impact of digital technology on our lives, I am often mistaken for a futurist. The people most interested in hiring me for my opinions about technology are usually less concerned with building tools that help people live
better lives in the present than they are in identifying the Next Big Thing through which to dominate them in the future. I don’t usually respond to their inquiries. Why help these guys ruin what’s left of the internet, much less civilisation?
Much more)

For me — I really had to laugh at how blind they were to human nature and society, because that is where their plans are going to fall to pieces. They had plans for locked storage vaults for their food in their nifty gigantic concrete bunkers, and were worried about how to control the guards they were going to bring along. Meanwhile, I wondered if they had a nursery anywhere. ‘Cause, you know, the future.

Aside from that, for many years I have had the feeling that the super wealthy are a bunch of fools who really do believe that they and their children will be just fine when the air becomes unbreathable.

Also, as to building new scientific equipment, before the pandemic shutdown there were spirited fights at DU over the desire of scientists to build an even more gigantic telescope in Hawai’i on top their most sacred mountain. Some DUers thought the protests by native Hawai’ians were stupid. I asked if that was what they said about Native Americans who objected to the misuse of their land. Lively. But anyway, it shows that planning to build scientific equipment continues apace.