Are billionaire bunkers a warning to us all?

I recently watched the Netflix hit “Leave the World Behind.” It’s about two families who become stranded in a rural town outside of New York City, while the world apparently ends, for reasons that, you know, in retrospect, they just don’t seem that far out of the realm of possibility.

Like many, the fact that the movie was produced by the Obamas didn’t make me feel great. Like, like, are they trying to tell us something? Is it time to start stockpiling beans and DVDs? Michelle, send me a DM, I won’t tell anybody.

Another fact that doesn’t make me feel especially hopeful about the longevity of humanity is the fact that billionaires tend to have bunkers. You know, just in case.

I more or less knew this, of course, but there have been recent news reports delving into the $270 million compound Mark Zuckerberg is currently constructing on the Hawaiian island of Kawaii. And yes, of course it includes its own energy and food sources, as well as an underground bunker approximately four times the size of the average single-family house, complete with a blast-resistant door.

Wired broke the story, but until then, this project was top secret. Workers weren’t allowed to discuss what they were building, ironclad NDAs abounded, and a six-foot wall was even erected to block the construction from view.

I have to say, I hate it when billionaires try to hide things, it makes me very anxious. And I especially hate it when they try to hide the fact that they, who are the ones who presumably know all the overlord-type secrets, seem to be prepping for doomsday, and won’t even give us mere mortals like, just a heads up would be great.

Oh, and is Zuckerberg’s pet project negatively impacting local residents and their land? Of course it is! In 2016, he filed lawsuits against locals who owned land adjacent to his property via…I’m going to try to pronounce this right… via Kuleana rights, basically Hawaiian laws that permit the transfer of land to one’s descendants without formal deeds. And Zuckerberg essentially pressured these people into selling.

The construction has also resulted in a massive influx of non-local workers who placed pressure on the island’s already limited resources. And there’s just this like general feeling that Zuckerberg is dabbling in colonialism. Mark Zuckerberg, take advantage of people? Stop it!

To be fair, Zuckerberg and his wife are making philanthropic donations to the island, they are creating local jobs, and they are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in property taxes. So not everybody on the island views this development as a net negative.

But even those benefits to the island, they come with a toxic side effect that’s difficult to put your finger on, but undeniably there. As billionaires buy up these pristine locations on Hawaii and elsewhere, they’re not only pricing locals out of their ancestral homelands. They’re creating an economy in which those to whom the land truly belongs must instead spend their lives catering to the whims of, well, of a bunch of tourists.