LIVIN’ LA VIDA LOCA IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

A couple of weeks ago, the Internet was brimming with news of luxury condos for the Doomsday chic who want to survive the End of the World (Not!) in an old missile silo under the Kansas prairie. Sort of like living la vida loca – the “crazy life” – in a big rabbit hole.

At the time of the report, four wealthy survivalist-wanttabes had plunked down an astounding $7 million dollars to purchase retro-fitted condos in a Cold War-era missile silo. That works out to about $1,750,000 each.

"They worry about events ranging from solar flares, to economic collapse, to pandemics to terrorism to food shortages," the developer said, explaining that he also bought one of the condos because he worries a solar flare will destroy the power grid and chaos will ensue.

“Built to withstand an atomic blast, even the most paranoid can find comfort inside concrete walls that are nine feet thick and stretch 174 feet (53 meters) underground,” one reporter wrote.

And what do you get for your money? “Instead of simply setting up shop in the old living quarters provided for missile operators, (the developer) is building condos right up the missile shaft. Seven of the 14 underground floors will be condo space selling for $2 million a floor or $1 million a half floor.

“For now, metal stairs stretch down to connect each floor but an elevator will later replace them. The units are within a steel and concrete core inside the original thick concrete, which makes them better able to withstand earthquakes.”

And that ain’t all, folks! The silos will feature “an indoor farm to grow enough fish and vegetables to feed 70 people for as long as they need to stay inside and also stockpiling enough dry goods to feed them for five years.”

At the top on the lone prairie, will be extensive security. While other floors will sport a swimming pool – or human steam pot when the hot lava from the super-volcano flows in – a move theater, library, medical center and school.

The “marauding hordes” will be kept at bay by an “elaborate security system and staff.” Now that bothers me. The filthy rich get to swim and party while their lowly servants get to fight marauding hordes. What’s to keep the security staff from casting out all of the rich and taking over the luxury condos for themselves? That’s one of the mistakes the filthy rich always make: they trust that their security people are so devoted to them that they will die to protect them.

In addition to conventional power sources inside the silo, there will be windmill power and generators to provide power. The elevator – which I think is another bad idea, a sort of moveable tomb – will operate by matching fingerprints to those on file. If intruders try to climb the barbed wire fence surround the silo, the security can zap them with jolt of electricity or, I assume, a bullet to the noggin.

Another mistake the filthy rich make is relying on too much technology in the face of Armageddon.

“Fear sells even better than sex,” explained John Hoopes, a professor in the anthropology department at the University of Kansas who has studied the spread of doomsday culture. “Now the entire planet is involved and that's the result of the Internet. I think it's mostly a strategy for feeling less alone and helpless. People don't like to feel they're the only ones fearing the inevitable, which is each individual's personal death.”