Bunkers revisited
How the Cold War policies and narratives are informing our decisions in the climate crisis era and more.
I have always been obsessed with bunkers, and in the past few years, this obsession has only grown. The language of pandemic regulations felt deeply connected to the Cold War / bunker terminology, with phrases like "sheltering in place." Climate crisis awareness also made more people think about prepping for large-scale events or natural disasters.
At the beginning of 2022, I published a zine on bunkers in collaboration with my dear friend Ksenya Samarskaya. I focused on understanding how bunkers got from an invention used during the Cold War era to a one-size-fits all solution against our fears; be they COVID, climate change, or resource wars.
As the pandemic was wearing off, I thought that there would be less interest in prepping and exit strategies. But in the last few months, I realized that there is still so much more to explore on this topic. The Cold War idea of achieving immortality through exiting society and isolating yourself from its problems lives on and takes new forms like utopian cities, housing on the Moon, or new wellness fads.
Today, I want to share recent initiatives and stories centered around various exit strategies that I find interesting (and disturbing):
Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled by Dani Anguiano
In September, a group of Silicon Valley elites, backed by billionaires like Marc Andreessen and Laurene Powell Jobs, has unveiled its plans to build a utopian city on 55,000 acres of farmland in Solano County, California. The group launched a website called "California Forever" and released idyllic renderings of their vision. Predictably, the organization got criticized by local farmers and government officials who call these secretive land acquisitions a “land grab.”
What does it have to do with bunkers? California Forever — similarly to the billionaire Marc Lore's utopian project called Telosa or Akon's futuristic city in Senegal before it — feels like a classic "permission structure." As long as we have an exit strategy (in this case, a utopian city), we can avoid thinking about a better society or the changes that might be necessary to achieve it.
A Peter Thiel-Linked Startup Is Courting New York Scenesters and Plotting a Libertarian Paradise by Ali Breland
Another autonomous city that recently received a lot of media coverage is run by a startup called the Praxis Society. It is backed by Pronomos Capital, a fund that was established with substantial investments from Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale (cofounder of Palantir), and Bedrock Capital (a fund launched by investors associated with Thiel's Founders Fund). Similar to California Forever, Praxis was created as a means to separate from society and begin anew. Ali Breland writes:
By bankrolling Praxis, Pronomos and the other Thiel-allied investors are taking a fresh step toward that Randian reverie of “exit”—the idea that citizens should be free to leave and enter countries or even form new ones, generating a free-market-like competition that would produce better forms of government. As Bedrock co-founder Geoff Lewis has explained his investment, “Hopefully we can fix these wonderful, extraordinary Western societies that are quite broken right now. If we can’t, some folks would like some options to go exit to.”
Maybe in Your Lifetime, People Will Live on the Moon and Then Mars by Debra Kamin
In early October, NASA announced its plans to construct houses on the Moon using a 3D printer. This innovative technology will utilize materials such as rock chips and mineral fragments to build houses for astronauts and civilians. The agency aims to achieve this goal by 2040 and is currently running equipment tests as part of its Artemis program. Additionally, NASA started a partnership with ICON, a construction technology company. The purpose of this collaboration is very clear — the agency and its partners are interested in resource mining on the Moon and creating a real estate market away from Earth:
“People talk about humans living on the moon. […] “But there’s another likely scenario, too. At some point on earth we are going to run out of resources. So establishing mines and fully automated factories on the moon is a possibility too.” Scientists at NASA say that it is too early to consider the market value of homes on the moon, or even how an ownership structure for lunar habitats could look. But they acknowledge that the moon presents a potentially significant cache of untapped resources, and that other nations will undoubtedly be interested in a stake.
The Man Who Thinks He Can Live Forever by Leslie Dickstein
A recent TIME magazine profile featured tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, who has invested $4 million in a life-extension system called Blueprint. Johnson follows a psychotic routine that includes taking 111 pills daily, wearing a red light-emitting cap, collecting stool samples, and monitoring nighttime erections. While Blueprint is not a doomsday prepper's tactic per se, I wanted to include this story because, in a way, Johnson is the ultimate survivalist. He is not interested in prolonging life through some exit strategy but instead is pursuing something much bigger — denying death and becoming immortal.
another banger 🧡
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