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Comment by fipple | Hacker News Reader

If it really gets to that point, the rich are going to get all their NZ compounds taken away from them by the people they hired to build and defend them. If you’re a Special Forces veteran hired to protect the Zuckerberg compound why wouldn’t you replace Zuckerberg with your cousin Eddie? What can Zuckerberg offer in a world where money is worthless?

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A vision to connect every remaining human to relevant advertising?

Also forget the personal security team turning on you - if the shit really goes down, it's pretty hard to imagine New Zealand's national sovereignty holding up.

As if elites in Australia, or in the actual pacific mil powers, are just going to happily burn/drown in geohell while New Zealanders, with no real military, sit smugly in a still-comfortable climate / social situation.

Well they are on an island, and it's not exactly a trivial task to plan, organize/recruit, and supply an amphibious invasion of a size necessary to completely subjugate a country the size of NZ (even if they have no standing army).

We have a standing army. Kiwis have fought with distinction in both world wars, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the Malayan crisis etc. etc. We're in Afghanistan, Iraq, we helped restore peace in East Timor...

http://army.mil.nz

So then it's even less trivial to take the island by force.

Which island ;) We have two main ones.

Pick one!

Yeah but is the NZ army gonna fight bravely for the rich of the rest of the world who have fled all the riff raff in their countries?

Around 4500 regular army, and another 2500 reserves; mechanised infantry, light armour, artillery and AT. Also a few small warships and patrol boats and a ~16 combat oriented helicopters. The main weakness would be the lack of any combat aircraft. An invading force with even a small aircraft carrier, or using long range bombers, could be a significant threat.

If we're considering doomsday scenarios here, the answer to your question lies in the traditional tactics of tyrants.

Hypothetically, Zuckerberg is going to have family members of the people guarding him locked away somewhere as hostages with other people set to guard them with the original guards kept out of direct communication with anyone but Zuckerberg or his trusted lieutenants. Cousin Eddie isn't going to take over when it means Cousin Franny gets to live less than or equal to how long Zuck lives.

Horrible? yes. Rational? Also yes.

EDIT: Remember this is a hypothetical. I'm not saying anything about Zuck's character or motivations here.

This is some crazy graph of bodybuards guarding each other's family members. If you kill your client then why on earth would his other employees give a shit and kill some defenceless wife and child to avenge their former master?

You could ask the same sorts of questions about why fiat money works (if this money has no intrinsic value why will the merchant give over his tangible products for it?). Yet people do terrible things for tyrants. I don't understand exactly why it works but then again I'm not a tyrant of any sort.

People do terrible things for tyrants (or their bosses more generally) because if their boss or tyrant is eliminated the resulting power vacuum will likely harm them with high likelihood (new ruler purges old loyalists) and reward them with low likelihood (they become the tyrant)

Fiat money works because when it’s working well, it is a win win for all concerned.

When it isn’t working well, it fails dramatically (Zimbabwe, Argentina, etc).

Fiat money (or any money, for that matter)only works till it works because it’s extremely useful for all concerned, and the alternative is a PITA.

The doomsday scenario is hardly a win/win.

The thing is that being a warlord and a Silicon Valley CEO are completely different. If the shit really hits the fan, my point is that all of these bunkers will be seized by the warlords from the CEOs.

The people setting up doomsday bunkers should probably consider your point. I proposed a strategy they may resort to if they don't (or, as you say, even if they try).

In the absence of civilization tyrants are rare, what you get are feuding family units, tribes, and warlords. Personal strength of arms is tantamount, and frankly Zuckerberg, Gates, Bezos and the like won’t last a day. Who cares about how rich you were when there is nothing stopping someone else from taking your life and everything else you laughably “own” right?

Hypothetical fantasies aside, they can only do those things after civilization collapses, and by then it’s too late. Power in the absence of civilization doesn’t depend on the ability to delegate everything, it depends on the ability to beat someone to death with a jawbone.

An actual tyrant requires a government, and it would be quite some time after a traumatized populace stopped just trying to survive day to day for such high level organization to re-emerge. On all likelihood, generations would need to pass.

Some rich people are genuinely charismatic. If he were alive, I doubt Steve Jobs would have too much trouble finding people to follow him even if money is worthless.

Or just taken away by locals who don't like rich foreigners trying to buy our country. The fact that Peter Thiel got citizenship here is a disgrace.

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