Hi, Alex here,
This is SpeakEasy, turning small talk into smart talk.
Today:
💰 Billionaire Bunkers: The rich go underground.
🔥 Doomsday Vocab: Talk apocalypse like a pro.
🛟 S.A.F.E. Guide: Navigate verbal meltdowns.
🍺 Oktoberfest: 215 years of beer.
🐢 Teen Turtle Bot: 15-year-old saves the seas?
…and more.
Words, wits & culture! 🧠
Conversations for immediate use.
(First time reading? You can subscribe here for free.)
NEWS YOU CAN USE
Turn headlines into talking points.
💰 Billionaire Bunkers
Ask most people what they think about 'The Event' and you'll get Taylor Swift pregnancy theories, GTA VI release dates, or, if you're my youngest, finally getting that dog (still resisting… 8-year-olds are basically mini hostage negotiators.)
But, for billionaire tech bros? It means civilisation collapse.
War, plague, climate, or the AI you built to save humanity deciding to delete it.
Forget colonies on Mars. The rich are digging down, not up (do they know something we don’t?)
🤑 The Batcave Club
Zuck's $100M+ “basement” in Kauai (complete with blast-resistant doors, food stockpiles, and NDAs for construction workers (if they survived the build.)
Sam Altman (OpenAI) keeps gas masks, antibiotics, gold, and guns (isn’t ChatGPT supposed to save us?)
Peter Thiel (PayPal founder) tried to build his bunker in New Zealand — environmental laws blocked his Mordor makeover.
Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn founder) says half his billionaire friends have “a Kiwi escape plan.”
🇳🇿 Escape to Middle-earth
Why New Zealand? Remote. Stable. More sheep than soldiers (plus, Lord of the Rings street cred.)
🤔 SpeakEasy Take
They’ve got bunkers and ex–Navy SEALs.
We’ve got basements and optimism.
(Okay, I don’t even have a basement.)
But, when the lights go out, maybe the rest of us will rediscover something they lost — community (no choice, our phones won’t work.)
For them? Those SEALs will probably take over anyway.
You can’t code your way out of a coup.
🗳️ POLL: When “The Event” hits, where will you be?
DECODE THIS
The super-rich. The filthy rich. The 1%.
There are plenty of ways to describe people who think “summer” is a verb.
But open the Financial Times or chat with a banker, and you’ll hear the acronym:
UHNWI
What does it mean?
Answer at the end👇
WORD WISE
🔥 Apocalypse Now (Vocab Edition)
When the billionaires head for their luxury bunkers and the rest of us fight over that last can of Spam, here's the vocab to sound like you planned for it.
Prepper — Someone stockpiling food, water, and weapons for the collapse. (Spoiler: you're not invited to their bunker.)
Bug-out bag — A grab-and-go survival kit. Think snacks, torch…and maybe a map (good luck remembering how to read one.)
The Event — Silicon Valley code for “everything goes to hell.” Coined by the people most likely to cause it.
Off-grid — Think cabin in the woods without public utilities. Dream for eco-types, nightmare for ordering Uber Eats.
SHTF — Short for “Sh*t Hits The Fan.” Term for general chaos, downfall of society, and zombies (maybe.)
💡 PRO TIP: Even if you think preppers are paranoid, knowing the vocab helps you navigate their Reddit threads... or your brother-in-law's rant in the pub.
💬 FOLLOW-UP: “If society collapsed tomorrow, what's your survival skill?” (And no, thought leadership doesn’t count.)
⛔ DON'T SAY: “I'd just ask ChatGPT what to do.” (That is The Event.)
FAMOUS WORDS
“Apocalypses are easy. Civilization is hard.”
(Michael Shellenberger, American author, 1971-)
Giphy
🎬 Can you name the film?
🚀 An astronaut. Talking monkeys.
Answer at the end 👇
TALK TOOLBOX
The S.A.F.E. Guide to Difficult Conversations
How to survive your next verbal apocalypse.
When a conversation starts to collapse — arguments or emotional meltdowns — you don't need a bunker. You need a kit.
Try S.A.F.E.
S — Slow down. If your heart is racing, your mouth will follow. Pause. Breath. One deep breath beats ten clever comebacks.
A — Assess. Is it venting or fighting? Listen. You can’t defuse what you don’t diagnose.
F — Frame it.
Ask questions that create space. Try:
“Can you tell me more about that?”
“What would help right now?”
“How can we fix this?”
Shift from blame to solutions.
E — Exit gracefully. Sometimes survival means retreat. If it's going nowhere, name it: “I don't think we're making progress right now.” Then offer the out: “Let's take a break and come back to this later.”
Protects the relationship (and maybe saves your weekend.)
THE CULTURE CODE
🍺 From “Prost” to Memory Lost
My mum was German, so I grew up with talk of the magical-sounding Oktoberfest — like Christmas, but louder and with more sausages. Our first dog was even called Ludwig (see below.)
It all started in 1810, when Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig (🐶) married Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen (try saying that after a few pilsners.)
Munich threw a five-day drinking party so good they decided to do it every year.
215 years later, it’s the world’s biggest beer festival — six million visitors, seven million litres of beer, and zero memories.
Why it matters: Oktoberfest exported Bavarian culture globally — from Tokyo to Texas, China to Chile, everyone's wearing lederhosen and pretending they understand German drinking songs. It's soft power in an overpriced beer stein.
Weird facts
Oktoberfest actually happens in September, for warmer weather (or maybe Germans are efficient enough to finish early.)
Only beer conforming to the German Beer Purity Law (Germans and their purity…) brewed within the Munich city limits can be served.
💡 PRO TIP: Not a beer fan? Pivot to local festivals — culture without the hangover.
💬 FOLLOW-UP: “What’s the best local festival you’ve been to?” (Japan has loads of them.)
⛔ DON’T SAY: “Isn’t it just an excuse to get drunk?” (Yes. But it’s culture.)
BECAUSE THE ROBOTS ARE COMING
🐢 Flippers, Not Bunkers
When I was 15, my biggest innovation was surviving puberty.
Meanwhile, Canada’s Evan Budz, 15, built a bionic sea turtle that uses AI to detect coral bleaching with 96% accuracy.
He 3D-printed flippers, tested them in his grandparents' pool, and won first place at the EU Contest for Young Scientists.
Billionaires build bunkers. Teenagers build solutions.
Maybe there’s hope after all.
See it swimming here (Youtube).
💬 FOLLOW-UP: "What were you doing at 15?" (Time for awkward confessions!)
ANSWER
UHNWI: Ultra High Net Worth Individual
🎬 Movie: Planet of the Apes (1968)
Charlton Heston crash-lands on a strange planet ruled by intelligent apes — until he realises it’s future Earth. Oops.
🌎 Cultural Impact: Redefined sci-fi with its twist ending and social commentary on war, race, and power, plus “Get your stinkin’ paws off me, you damn, dirty ape!”
🧠 Deep Dive: The prosthetics were so complex, over 80 makeup artists were trained to do it.
💬 FOLLOW-UP: “What’s your favourite movie twist?”
LAST WEEK
🗳️ POLL: Sora 2 can turn words into movies. Exciting or terrifying?
A) 🎥 Exciting — the future of creativity — 0%
B) 😱 Terrifying — another step to deep-fake chaos — 44%
C) 😅 Both — can’t look away, can’t trust it — 56%
D) 🙄 Neither — I’ll believe it when Spielberg uses it — 0%
💬 Your Two Cents
S.U: “I hope OpenAI releases Sora 2 for Android soon! (*^▽^*)”
A.C: “I linked a Sora video on my Facebook yesterday! I'm a bit saddened to realise that it wasn't even real!”
THIS IS THE END
That's it for #40.
What did you think of today's issue?
Your feedback improves SpeakEasy with every issue.
Hit ‘reply’ – I read every email!
Know someone who loves a good conversation?
Forward this and spark one.
Until next time, keep it smart.
P.S. Missed an issue? Check out The Library 😃
P.P.S. Not feeling it? You can unsubscribe below.👇 But remember:
