IT’S not only mad dogs and midges that bite the hands that feed them, but spooked academics too. Eminent US professor Douglas Rushkoff, who travels the globe giving well-remunerated talks on the media and technology, was left so disturbed by one recent engagement that he has broken omerta to spill the beans on a disturbing conversation conducted by an elite inner sanctum of billionaires.

Having accepted payment of half his yearly salary to travel to an unnamed luxury resort, Rushkoff was expecting an audience of a few hundred bankers – but was instead greeted by just five extremely well-heeled gentlemen. What then transpired was a soul-chilling insight into how grotesque wealth often has a Uri Geller-like effect upon one’s moral compass.

After casually querying the viability of keeping brains alive in jars, one of the group – a major brokerage firm’s CEO – then proudly informed the professor he’d recently built an extensive “underground bunker system”. So far, so Robbie Williams. However, it was the next question which caused the hairs on the back of Rushkoff’s neck to rise: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the Event?”

This “Event”, of course, refers to the apparently inevitable and imminent downfall of civilised society – envisioned simply as a complete breakdown in the laws governing our lives which maintain the fantasy of societal order. With capitalism’s illusion presently flickering like a cheap lamp in a thunderstorm, Professor Rushkoff’s account of the paranoid psyches of the super-rich is as deeply disturbing as it is enlightening.

With risk assessment a vital tool of success within the entrepreneurial sharkpool, we should perhaps not be surprised that these five individuals didn’t actually need a solution from Rushkoff on how to maintain control of their private armies. The question was purely rhetorical. Such post-Event plans seem to have already been drawn up – with these billionaires suggesting either advanced-AI security robots or special combination locks on the food supply could keep their biological minions subservient. There’ll certainly a risk of mutiny when they realise wages are worthless in a post-apocalyptic world.

Ironically, by expressing such an acute fear of losing control, these ‘one percenters’ show they have feelings just like you or I – albeit ones fuelled by sociopathy and self-preservation. So whether the apocalypse arrives upon the wings of nuclear war, an uncurable virus, environmental catastrophe or self-aware Artificial Intelligence, Rushkoff’s meeting has not only confirmed that humanity’s upper echelons are well aware their privileged social standing will mean nothing once money is meaningless – but also that they actually plan on keeping their hard-won elite status after the ‘Event’.

This coldly tyrannical mindset was certainly responsible for the casual manner by which the next potential method of control was discussed – the possible post-Event application of an electronic collar device that deep south plantation owners would have seen as indistinguishable from magic. These would, presumably, administer a nasty blast of voltage to punish acts of insubordination.

But surely such a heinous instrument of control would never be put into production in a civilized modern society? Well, you can actually buy one off eBay right now for a tenner. Of course, such devices can only be used for disciplining naughty dogs at present, but it looks likely our own societal masters might be liberal enough not to discriminate between species.

HAD YOUR FILL OF BREXIT?

TALKING of apocalyptic scenarios, it seems doomed Tory patsy Dominic Raab has slipped into the role of Brexit Secretary as comfortably as Vegas Elvis’ swollen, gout-ridden feet did into his old blue suede shoes.

By announcing he’ll ensure adequate food supplies in the event of a “no deal” divorce, Raab has inadvertently smashed the emergency alarm glass, alerting us to the Government’s acceptance of such a nightmarish endgame. It’s also likely this “adequate” stockpile describes the countless jars of Nutella and pesto crammed into his own cupboards at home. Perhaps he’ll soon be chastising starving children for not having the “Blitz spirit”.

Speaking selfishly, it would be good to have some clarity from Mr Raab on the legalities of cannibalism in the event of “no deal”. I personally know one fella whom I suspect would be particularly flavoursome, having survived on a diet of ciggies and apple cider for much of his life.

Yet, despite cannibalism likely to be legalised before cannabis in the UK, perhaps we should first consider the facts behind the UK’s food imports before choosing which of our children we love the least.

It’s a fact that around half of all our food actually originates here – so the obvious solution is to simply ban sex and wait a few decades for half the population to die. No-one will have the energy for rumpo anyway on a diet of radioactive oxygen and tree bark.

Yet, it may be vital that we continue to bump uglies – the friction between two malnourished human pelvises may be the only means of sparking a fire once the lights go out.

CASHING IN AT THE END OF THE WORLD

IF you’re too skint or lazy to build your own doomsday bunker, take comfort in the fact that death is certain to be an agonisingly prolonged experience for world leaders and politicians who survive the “Event”.

With nothing but tinned food, water and – one assumes – stockpiles of hairspray and St Tropez to keep them occupied, madness will overcome our newly-impotent rulers long before the bravery to surface does.

Unless, that is, they’ve gone to ground in China, where a recently constructed underground complex is so spacious and accommodating that much of the populace will surely find conditions preferable to the toxic smog hellscape on the surface. Built 2,000 metres below ground in Beijing, the new city-sized complex apparently has space for at least one million people – with supplies that can last years, if necessary.

And unlike Western billionaires, President Xi Jinping won’t have to worry about mutiny over worthless wages within the ranks of his army, being communists and all. Already, the Chinese military proudly refer to the complex as the “brain” of the People’s Liberation Army, which will clearly remain the world’s largest fighting force post-apocalypse. Learn Mandarin now, kids.

It certainly puts the scale of a new commercial bunker complex recently completed in South Dakota into perspective, where Californian firm Vivos has identified a thriving market in end-time paranoia. Their underground tomb will host 10,000 customers who stump up a £18,000 fee. Surely, however, Vivos knows all that cash will be worthless post-Event.

It’s almost as if they don’t expect the apocalypse to happen at all.

RELY ON NATURE WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS

SAM Cooke once ably informed us all that a change is gonna come, but it’s unlikely he meant a post-apocalyptic evolutionary adaption that will allow us to exist without eating. Or maybe he did, influenced perhaps by those Californian cultists that claim to survive on sunlight and good vibes alone.

So fear not if you can’t afford a bunker to sit out Armageddon – Japanese biologists agree with Sam that a change is, well, possible. If we have the patience to wait for a miraculous gene mutation which presently only takes place within the bodies of the sea-snail Gigantopelta chessoia.

Spending much of its life hanging around ocean hydrothermal vents, this wee creature’s digestive tract was found to completely cease functioning upon reaching physical maturity – with a mysterious gland that once acted as its food pipe increasing as dramatically as human teenagers’ hate for their parents.

This new organ then invites nearby bacteria to move in and carry out all the body’s energy conversion – allowing the snail to survive without ever eating food again. This astonishing feat is apparently fuelled by a bacteria-energising compound called hydrogen sulfide, which is abundant in ocean hydrothermal vents.

As the snail no longer needs to feed, the balance of the entire ecosystem changes – which, for humanity, would usher in a new Eden without abattoirs, fast food conglomerates or James Martin roadshows. Finding hydrothermal vents on dry land may prove challenging, but note that hydrogen sulphide is also richly abundant within human faeces – yet another way Brexit could leave us deep in the s***.