In a world that, according to scientists and pessimists (as of 2026), is regularly on the brink of disaster, the superlative elite has found a solution that is as pragmatic as it is cynical: when the planet burns, you just go to the basement – but please with concierge service.

Our music selection to accompany the downfall

Vera Lynn – "We'll Meet Again"

Tom Lehrer – "We Will All Go Together When We Go" (1959):

Camille Saint-Saëns – ‘Danse Macabre’ (Dance of Death): A classical piece that personifies death, who plays the violin on his grave at midnight and invites the skeletons to dance.

A modern luxury bunker is no longer a damp concrete hole. We're talking about converted missile silos in Kansas or underground villas in the Alps.

The satirical highlight: the so-called ‘simulated windows’. Since real windows are rather counterproductive at a depth of 30 metres, providers install huge 8K screens that show live feeds from the forest or the Caribbean. So you can sip your champagne in comfort while watching the last spruce tree dry up outside on the screen. It's like Netflix, except that the series is called ‘Reality’ and you have the only season that survives.

The greatest horror for a billionaire is not the apocalypse itself, but the idea of having to spend the end of the world with someone who flies economy class.

The selection process: Luxury bunker facilities such as the ‘Survival Condo’ advertise strict selection processes. You not only need money, but also ‘useful skills’. Since ‘holding stock options’ is of little help after the collapse of the financial system, suddenly golf swings are being touted as a survival-critical fine motor exercise.

This is where the satire reaches its most brilliant peak. Silicon Valley preppers are seriously discussing how to keep their private security forces under control after the collapse of civilisation.

The cynical solution: since money will then be worthless, they are considering collars with combination locks for the pantries or exclusive control over the water supply. Nothing says ‘future’ quite like introducing a neo-feudal slave system in your own hobby room, just to keep the gym clean.

While the ‘normal’ prepper stocks up on tinned bread and hard cheese, the luxury bunker focuses on hydroponic Michelin-starred cuisine.

Sarcastic menu: Organic salmon is farmed in the basement in aquaponics systems and served with wine from the owner's own earthquake-proof cellar. This is the ultimate form of decadence: the world is ending because we have consumed too much, and we are celebrating the end with even more exclusive consumption in a sterile concrete bubble.

The luxury bunker is the ultimate monument to the failure of community.

The moral of the story: instead of investing a few billion in saving the planet (which would make bunkers superfluous), people prefer to invest it in a golden coffin underground. It is the hope that you will be the last person on earth who can complain that the Wi-Fi in the bunker is a bit slow.

Luxury bunkers are an attempt to pay for the ‘end of history’ with a gold card. They are the promise that even after the end of civilisation, you will still find someone to clean your shoes – even if it is only the AI of the smart bunker.

YOU have to set yourself apart from others as a premium rating. 1 out of 3,000 billionaires found this post helpful!

In destroy, a simple bank balance will no longer be enough to set you apart from the ‘ordinary’ billionaire class in the bunker silo. You need a classification system that secures your social status even when the earth's surface is nothing but ash.

Equipment: A converted shipping container, buried at least 10 metres deep.

Distinction: You have supplies for 10 years, but you have to open your own tins of beans.

Status symbol: A mechanical tin opener made of titanium.

The snob factor: You look down on people who only have a ‘prepper kit’ from Amazon in their cupboard.

Facilities: Former Swiss military bunker with class B ventilation system.

Distinction: There is already a dedicated area for the art collection (air-conditioned, in case you still need a Picasso after the apocalypse to trade for a goat).

Status symbol: A treadmill that generates electricity, operated by your personal fitness trainer.

The snob factor: You brag that your bunker has ‘biologically certified’ filter systems.

Amenities: Luxury suites with ‘virtual balconies’ (8K screens).

Distinction: There are communal areas such as an underground golf simulator and a bar where the robot bartender mixes ‘survival martinis’.

Status symbol: A supply of real, non-synthetic coffee (the ‘black gold’ standard).

The snob factor: People turn up their noses at 2-star bunkers that still have manually operated airlocks. ‘How... rural.’

Facilities: Complete ecosystems with artificial sunlight, small forests and a pool with artificial waves.

Distinction: The staff consists of former elite soldiers who are bound by smart contracts and their own bunker cryptocurrency.

Status symbol: A working copy of the ‘Svalbard Global Seed Vault’ in your private vault.

The snob factor: ‘We've just had a small peach harvest in the C wing. How are things going with the algae bars?’

5 stars: The ‘Apocalypse Ark’ (god status)

Facilities: A self-sufficient city-state underground, deep enough to sell tectonic shifts as ‘gentle rocking.’

Distinction: You don't just own a bunker, you own the cloud servers where the consciousness of other super-rich people is stored as a backup.

Status symbol: A real, living tree that serves not for oxygen production, but only as decoration.

The snob factor: ‘Bunker? Oh, you mean our underground continental estate? We prefer to call it “The Refuge of the Indispensable”.’

To really stand out, the 5-star prepper uses the ‘inverse ranking’: They claim they don't have a bunker at all, but rather ‘become one with nature’ – while secretly having the code for the £100 billion hole in the ground implanted in their arm.

Because in future, true exclusivity means that no one knows where you are surviving while you watch everyone else die out.

Elon Musk to Mark Zuckerberg at the big luxury bunker at one Off-Market exhibition.

Ultra-high-net-worth individuals, i.e. the super-rich who want to set themselves apart from the 5-star ‘prepper premium’ bunkers.

In this exclusive world, there are no public exhibition stands with signs. Discretion and exclusivity are part of the luxury product.

The ‘exhibition’ for the super-rich takes place in the following ways:

Oppidum and SAFE do not organise trade fairs. Instead, selected wealthy prospects are invited to private dinner parties, cocktail receptions or exclusive weekends at the facilities themselves.

The process: you receive an invitation via a private bank (such as UBS or Credit Suisse) or a family office manager. There, you are discreetly shown the finished show flats (which often cost several million euros).

Example: the presentations for Vivos Europa One took place in a similar form, where the suites were shown to interested parties under the utmost secrecy.

To maintain privacy while still offering the full experience, high-end manufacturers are turning to technology.

The process: a consultant comes to your home or office with high-quality VR glasses and a tablet. You can take a virtual tour of your future bunker, select the marble for the bathroom and configure the security system without ever having to travel.

Luxury bunkers are increasingly being traded as part of a real estate portfolio. You won't find them on ImmobilienScout24.de.

The process: The offers can be found in the internal, unpublished lists (‘off-market deals’) of estate agents who specialise in properties worth over £10 million. The ‘exhibition’ here is a confidential conversation between the estate agent and the client.

Only those who can prove that they are liquid and trustworthy are granted access to the production facilities of companies such as Atlas or BSSD.

The process: After a comprehensive background check and proof of financial means, an individual appointment is arranged to view the production facilities and sample equipment.

In summary, the luxury bunker market for the super-rich completely bypasses the public. The ‘exhibition’ is a private, exclusive experience based on maximum discretion and accessible only through personal contacts or private bank advisors.

Members-only networks:

The Aerie project in Virginia functions like a private members' club. Membership is limited to only 625 people worldwide, who are considered the ‘elite of the elite’. Invitations are issued through exclusive networks and personal recommendations.

If the entire 99% were to bite the dust, the super-rich individuals would hope that none of the 99% had a strange sense of black humour and was in command of a missile silo, somehow entering coordinates for Hawaii or other locations to send the super-rich a bombastic surprise called a bunker buster.

Let's keep our fingers crossed. Oh, I can't, I've got something else to do right now, like dying out, for example.

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Here is a satirical recipe from the culinary section ‘Redistribution à la Carte’.

Please note: This recipe is purely metaphorical and serves solely as a tasteful critique of the system.

Mickey is happy to help with the preparations.

We assume that these are the balls of the high-tech oligarchy that Mickey is currently putting through the meat grinder, right?

‘The fillet of the upper ten thousand’

(A dish for 99% of the population)

1 tie wearer (mentally mature): From the archives of management consulting or the virtual tea party. Make sure you have a good mix of rigid views and flexibility when it comes to tax tricks – this makes the satire particularly sharp.

First, the rich must be freed from their carefully constructed PR facades. This requires a sharp tool called ‘investigative journalism’. Carefully remove the glossy brochures and melodious statements, as these can leave a stale aftertaste when satirically sautéed.

Place the object in a marinade of ‘public criticism’ and ‘social media’ for at least 24 hours. This breaks down the polished surface and reveals the mechanisms behind it (or at least makes them caricaturable).

Heat a large platform with the fire of debate.

Place the rich person inside. As soon as they start to ‘react’ (which they usually do when confronted with uncomfortable truths), reduce the heat of direct confrontation. We don't want personal attacks, but rather an astute examination of the system.

Classification:

Pour the analysis sauce of unpaid overtime over it. Let the whole thing ‘simmer’ in the light of public opinion – preferably at a temperature that corresponds to the urgency of social inequality, which he has often overlooked. This gives the satire the necessary depth.

Serve the whole thing on a bed of ‘tax haven reports’ that have been previously processed into a fine purée of transparent excuses. As a garnish, we recommend a few broken promises – they are often worthless, but the viewer should notice that something is being revealed here.

The dish is traditionally served with a glass of ‘vintage outrage’. Serve with the cutlery of critical reflection.

Caution when enjoying: Be careful not to ‘choke’ on the convoluted corporate constructs that are often still deeply embedded in the material.

Bon appétit – and don't forget: It is essential to look closely, otherwise next time there will only be unfiltered press releases again!

Below are some satirical arguments as to why it does not count as classic cannibalism:

Satire often reflects the cold logic of capitalism.

The argument is that if everything is for sale — time, health and organs — then the bodies of the rich are simply the last untapped market segment. To call it 'cannibalism' would be to moralise; a resourceful investor would rather call it 'horizontal integration of the value chain'.

Since the system (metaphorically) 'eats' the poor every day through exploitation, rising rents, and a lack of social security, eating the rich in satire is merely biological recycling.

The argument is that you are merely returning to the cycle what was previously taken from you. It is not cannibalism; it is a debit returned in the form of steak.

Some cynical 2026 cultural critics argue that we are already living in a state of 'social cannibalism'.

The argument is that, when we watch people die for our cheap consumption, we are already 'eating' them indirectly. Therefore, literally eating the rich would be an offensive but honest act, turning the metaphorical act into a physical one to end the hypocrisy.

Yes, it is cannibalism, but compared to the invisible cruelty of the global market, literal cannibalism in satire often seems 'honest' and 'down-to-earth'. It is the ultimate response to a world that has long since been 'gutted' morally anyway.

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Effective altruism?

Supporters of effective altruism (which Musk partly supports) would say: it doesn't matter why he donates, as long as the result is good.

The term effective altruism (EA) is extremely popular in Silicon Valley, where it has been considered the dominant moral worldview for tech billionaires for years..

The movement fits perfectly with the tech industry's mindset because it treats philanthropy like an optimisation problem:

Data-driven logic: Instead of donating based on ‘gut feeling,’ EA calculates where a dollar will save the most years of life (e.g., malaria nets vs. arts funding).

No, from this point of view, ‘data-based logic’ is no longer neutral. If the person who owns the data and sets the criteria for its evaluation is also the donor, a closed logic loop is created.

In science and in the context of philanthropy in 2026, this problem is called ‘data bias’ or ‘philanthropic technocracy’. Here are the reasons why neutrality is lost in this process:

Data-based logic favours things that are easily measurable.

Example: It is easy to count how many laptops Musk donates to a school. However, it is impossible to immediately capture in data how this donation affects social justice or the mental health of the children.

The result: complex social problems are ignored because they don't fit into an Excel spreadsheet. Musk therefore promotes what his data can identify as ‘successful,’ but this is not necessarily what society needs most urgently.

Those who process the logic define what is ‘efficient.’

For Musk, it is efficient to build a school right next to his factory in Texas, as this reduces employee turnover and trains future engineers.

From a neutral, societal perspective, it might be more efficient to renovate 50 state schools in poor neighbourhoods.

In a neutral world, there would be a separation:

Data collection: Independent researchers.

Logical processing: Neutral experts.

Action: The donor.

In the case of Elon Musk (and many tech billionaires in Silicon Valley), all three roles will be combined in one person or organisation by 2026. He finances the research that provides the data, which his foundation then uses to legitimise his own projects as ‘logically sound’.

Effective altruism in particular often uses the distant future as an argument. Musk logically claims that the survival of humanity on Mars (SpaceX) is more important than anything else because trillions of unborn humans could potentially live there.

This ‘logic’ is mathematically unassailable if one accepts the assumptions.

However, it is highly subjective, as it weighs the suffering of people today (hunger, poverty) against a hypothetical future.

Data is never neutral; it is always the answer to a specific question. When Elon Musk asks the questions, collects the data and determines the logic of the evaluation, the result is not "objective" philanthropy, but a mathematically disguised implementation of his personal will.

True data-based logic would require independent control (peer review) and access to data by third parties, which is not the case with Musk's private foundations and companies such as xAI or SpaceX.

On the subject of philanthropy among tech giants and the tech oligarchy: a purely self-fulfilling and tax-saving system.

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Extreme social inequality is increasingly threatening democracy worldwide

from Oxfam Germany

Super-rich multimillionaires and billionaires are getting richer and richer.

With their unprecedented resources, they shape public opinion and politics in their favour and in the interests of their corporations.

In this way, they have a decisive say in the future of us all. This concentration of power

undermines the fundamental democratic principle of political equality, according to which every person eligible to vote should have an equally strong voice and opportunity to participate directly or indirectly in political decisions. In addition, some super-rich individuals deliberately use their political power to restrict the civil, social and political rights of the majority.Policies that are detrimental to the majority, who are faced with increasing insecurity and often poverty, are leading to more and more people losing trust in democratic institutions. Governments often respond to protests by their populations with repression and policies that do not attempt to restore trust, but instead exacerbate poverty and inequality. This vicious circle plays into the hands of anti-democratic far-right parties in particular, which are gaining support and power in many places and driving the destruction of democracy. Governments around the world are at a crossroads. In order to protect and strengthen democracy, they must urgently correct their course and make a consistent change of direction: away from poverty and increasing inequality, towards greater social justice, solidarity and social cohesion – both internationally and at the national level.

In particular, they must ensure that the super-rich make an appropriate financial contribution to the common good and that the power and influence of corporations is limited. At the same time, governments must make targeted investments in universally accessible education, healthcare and social services.

They must also ensure that the super-rich make an appropriate financial contribution to the common good and that the power and influence of corporations is limited. At the same time, governments must make targeted investments in universally accessible education, healthcare and social services.

In particular, they must ensure that the super-rich make an appropriate financial contribution to the common good and that the power and influence of corporations is limited.

In particular, they must ensure that the super-rich make an appropriate financial contribution to the common good and that their power and the influence of corporations are limited. At the same time, governments must invest specifically in universally accessible, gender-equitable and inclusive education, health and social security systems, as well as socially just climate protection.

Golden times for the wealthy minority

In 2025, there were more than 3,000 billionaires worldwide for the first time. Their total wealth reached a record high of 18.3 trillion US dollars at the end of November 2025 – 2.5 trillion more than a year earlier. This increase is almost equal to the total wealth of the poorer half of the world's population, i.e. more than four billion people.

The growth rate was 16.2 per cent, three times higher than the average growth rate of billionaire wealth since 2020.

Since March 2020, the total wealth of billionaires has risen by 81 per cent, or £8.2 trillion, after adjusting for inflation

The twelve richest billionaires in the world alone have more wealth than the poorer half of humanity. Women hold just 13 per cent of the world's billionairefortunes.

Even below the billionaire threshold, fortunes are risingrapidly. The major Swiss bank UBS states that there were more than 680,000 new US dollar millionaires worldwide in 2024 and predicts that another 5.34 million will be added by 2029.

In many countries, the gap between the richest and the rest of the population is solidifying or deepening. Around four-fifths of the world's population (77.8 per cent) live in countries where the wealth gap between the richest one per cent and the poorest 50 per cent has widened or remained unchanged from 2022 to 2023.

On average, a person in the richest one per cent owns 8,252 times more wealth than a person in the poorer half of the world's population.

Overall, the poorer half of humanity owns only 0.52 per cent of global wealth, while the richest one per cent accounts for 43.8 per cent.

Half of the world's population lives in poverty While inequality is growing in many regions and a privileged minority is becoming ever richer, billions of people are confronted with poverty and hunger. Almost half of the world's population (46.28 per cent) or 3.77 billion people live in poverty, i.e. on less than 8.30 US dollars per day.

Women are disproportionately affected by poverty because they often work in insecure, poorly paid jobs, perform a large part of the unpaid care work and therefore have less social security. In addition, they have poorer access to economic resources such as land, property or credit worldwide. Around 2.3 billion people are affected by moderate or severe Around 2.3 billion people are affected by moderate or severe food insecurity – that is almost one in four people. This figure rose by 42.6 per cent between 2015 and 2024

FIGURE 1:

1987 – NOVEMBER 2025 IN TRILLIONS OF US DOLLARS (REAL)

This includes 92 million people in Europe and North America.

Worldwide, a total of 2.6 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet.

The cost of a healthy meal rose by almost a third between 2020 and 2024.

AND NUMBER OF PEOPLE AFFECTED BY FOOD INSECURITY 2014–2025

This situation calls for decisive government support measures. However, many economically disadvantaged countries are struggling with a deep debt crisis that prevents them from investing in reducing inequality, poverty and hunger.

For example, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) notes that 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on interest payments than on education or health.

The austerity measures still imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are also eroding public budgets and causing countries to cut spending on basic public services.

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that progress towards universal health care is stagnating and that around two billion people have to spend more than ten per cent of their household budget on health.

This financial burden affects women and children in particular, as they are the ones who are most likely to fall ill. Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that progress towards universal health coverage is stagnating and that around two billion people have to spend more than ten per cent of their household budget on health.

This financial burden particularly affects low-income families and has a particular impact on women. For example, more than half of the world's poorest 20 per cent of the population are in financial difficulty due to health-related expenditure, compared with only 8.7 per cent of the richest 20 per cent.

In many countries, the learning outcomes of children and young people are deteriorating. Most countries are currently not on track to achieve the education goals agreed in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In low-income countries, around one third of children and young people of school age do not attend school.

In low- and middle-income countries, children from the poorest 20 per cent of the population are four to five times more likely not to attend school than children from the richest 20 per cent. In countries with low and middle incomes, children from the poorest 20 per cent of the population are four to five times more likely not to attend school than children from the richest 20 per cent.

In low- and middle-income countries, children from the poorest 20 per cent of the population are four to five times more likely not to attend school than children from the richest 20 per cent.

This disadvantage particularly affects women and girls: Despite improved literacy rates, in 2024 there were still 754 million adults worldwide who could not read or write, 63 per cent of whom were women.

In addition, economically privileged countries are increasingly failing to fulfil their responsibilities towards economically disadvantaged countries.vAccording to preliminary estimates, global funding for development cooperation declined by up to 17 per cent in 2025, and by nine per cent in 2024.

The current drastic cuts in funding, including the destruction of the US development agency USAID, could lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030. This corresponds to an average of over 2.4 million deaths per year, including an estimated more than 700,000 children under the age of five.

Oxfam Germany

OXFAM IS COMMITTED TO SOCIAL JUSTICE. Are you too? Or are you just an irresponsible millionaire who is inhumane and only thinks about his freedom, the freedom that money gives him to do whatever he wants, which allows him to belong to the club of the super-rich without restrictions or moral boundaries?

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25 years of Wikipedia

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