•February 15, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

I was at a desktop computer in a public library recently when the internet went down. The distraught looks of my fellow library patrons stimulated me to wonder how they (and I) would react if a real digital disaster struck.

That same afternoon my New Yorker arrived, carrying a disturbing article about how so many Silicon Valley centi-millionaires and above are making plans for the apocalypse (“Survival of the Richest,” Evan Osnos, Jan. 30).

Osnos reports that as many as half of these entrepreneurs are preparing, for example, by having laser eye surgery (to anticipate loss of access to glasses and contacts). They are also buying luxury condos in underground bunkers in Kansas (I kid you not) as well as whole islands offshore and retreats in New Zealand.

What do these mostly young, very smart, tech-savvy, to say the least, people know that I don’t?

According to Osnos, some worry that their advances in artificial intelligence will result in even fewer jobs for those further down the economic food chain. This might in turn cause the hoi-polloi to bring out their pitchforks and someday storm the redoubts of the one-percenters.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.