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The other option is start a location independent business and move from the declining West to Dubai or some other Special Economic Zone. I can't really see anything else that will have a major personal impact, but it's not really feasible for those that have put down roots.
Maybe it's just my personal pet peeve, but Dubai is a two bit dictatorship totally devoid of any human capital and social order. Its special economic zones are "business friendly" like the North Korean ones are, and can be yoinked away if the dictator wakes up on the wrong side of bed.
If you want a place that lacks anything of value for your business, you might as well set up in Antarctica.
As opposed to what? Russia and China are well known for stealing businesses they don't like at gunpoint, and the West's reputation for not doing that is well and truly over now that they're denying any property rights at will to anyone who may or may not be involved with belligerents of the Ukraine war.
Even Switzerland isn't safe anymore.
Where would a Pavel Durov set himself up exactly but in a SEZ where he has some interest in the local government?
Nowhere is safe, so set up somewhere that makes it more likely to succeed. If you're a dissident then you have to find friends in the enemy of your enemy or the fargroup.
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Singapore can be a stand in.
There may be others like Switzerland.
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A location independent business has no local resources that can be nationalised. Dubai is more of a tax friendly base (at least until it isn't). Sure if you own property, that could be confiscated in the worst case scenario.
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If there’s a huge global crisis I think there will be few worse places to be than the Gulf, a place with no loyalty to its foreign residents, no ability to grow any food for itself, utterly reliant on global commerce and trade flows, with no safety net and an extremely heterogenous population.
The best bet is some rural or semi-rural community in a European or North American country where you know everyone and that is far away from major population centers to be irrelevant. Or somewhere similar. There’s a reason Thiel and co built their compounds around Lake Wanaka on New Zealand’s South Island; it’s probably the safest place on earth.
New Zealand is a great place to retreat to in the event of a global economic collapse, but its a terrible place in terms of personal income tax. If you're at the billionaire level and just take loans out against your assets instead of 'earning income' then this probably won't bother you.
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New Zealand does seem pretty safe, but its violent crime rates are significantly above those of places like Japan and even, to some extent, Germany. I suppose that the Maori have a lot to do with that.
On the plus side, New Zealand seems pretty unlikely to get nuked in the case of WW3, because there would be very little benefit in nuking it.
Is there a particularly large Māori population around Wanaka? I just looked it up and apparently that region has the lowest Maori population of anywhere in the country; they’re largely concentrated on the North Island.
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