It’s not the expected loss from fire that’s relevant- it’s the expected gain from insurance. If you think that e.g. $100,000 is more valuable immediately after a fire which has a tiny chance of happening, then buying insurance with that payout in the event of a fire is worth more to you than buying a lottery ticket which has independent odds and the same expected $payoff.
But the fallout shelter has more value after a limited apocalypse as well. The nonlinearity of utility in available shelter is even more pronounced than that of money; it drops off very sharply at ‘enough’.
We can disagree with the survivalists on the odds of a limited apocalypse as compared to other hazards, but you can’t honestly put a lower value on ‘shelter(given an apocalyptic event)’ than you would give to shelter once an apocalyptic event occurred. (I tried to develop an example, but so many things change in value during such an event; of course you’d give all your money for shelter after the event, because the expected instrumental value of money in the absence of civilization is nil)
If you think that e.g. $100,000 is more valuable immediately after a fire which has a tiny chance of happening, then buying insurance with that payout in the event of a fire is worth more to you than buying a lottery ticket which has independent odds and the same expected $payoff.
Provided that the “valuable” in that sentence is denominated in utility rather than dollars, that seems obviously true to me. Since the utility curve over money is more or less logarithmic, a payment of $100,000 tied to a black swan that wipes out most or all of your net worth (as might be expected in the event of e.g. a fire totaling a house you haven’t finished paying off) carries much more utility than an equal-odds lottery payout of $100,000 to someone with an ordinary middle-class income and savings. We can scale those windfalls down to arbitrarily low odds of happening without breaking the logic. There are various other factors that could make buying insurance a bad idea in some particular case, of course, but none of them seem especially relevant.
The nonlinearity of utility in available shelter is even more pronounced than that of money; it drops of very sharply at ‘enough’.
I haven’t been thinking of the utility of a fallout shelter primarily in terms of shelter, but in terms of improved survival rates during the initial apocalypse. Having shelter thereafter is nice and should probably be factored into your utility calculations if you’re considering becoming a survivalist, but I’m pretty sure the project’s overall utility would still be dominated by your chances of being flash-incinerated/poisoned by fallout/crushed by falling debris/et cetera. And as the OP says, there are almost certainly more cost-effective ways of improving your expected lifespan given all factors, unless you are already quite rich and very conscientious.
The cost-effectiveness of preparing for an apocalyptic event (versus preparing for a mundane event like a car crash) varies with the perceived likelihood of the apocalyptic event.
I think the most cost-effective thing to do is research the likelihood of apocalyptic events more seriously. How much would you pay right now for a magic charm which protected you and your immediate peers from all unfriendly AIs (and nothing else) permanently?
It’s not the expected loss from fire that’s relevant- it’s the expected gain from insurance. If you think that e.g. $100,000 is more valuable immediately after a fire which has a tiny chance of happening, then buying insurance with that payout in the event of a fire is worth more to you than buying a lottery ticket which has independent odds and the same expected $payoff.
But the fallout shelter has more value after a limited apocalypse as well. The nonlinearity of utility in available shelter is even more pronounced than that of money; it drops off very sharply at ‘enough’.
We can disagree with the survivalists on the odds of a limited apocalypse as compared to other hazards, but you can’t honestly put a lower value on ‘shelter(given an apocalyptic event)’ than you would give to shelter once an apocalyptic event occurred. (I tried to develop an example, but so many things change in value during such an event; of course you’d give all your money for shelter after the event, because the expected instrumental value of money in the absence of civilization is nil)
Provided that the “valuable” in that sentence is denominated in utility rather than dollars, that seems obviously true to me. Since the utility curve over money is more or less logarithmic, a payment of $100,000 tied to a black swan that wipes out most or all of your net worth (as might be expected in the event of e.g. a fire totaling a house you haven’t finished paying off) carries much more utility than an equal-odds lottery payout of $100,000 to someone with an ordinary middle-class income and savings. We can scale those windfalls down to arbitrarily low odds of happening without breaking the logic. There are various other factors that could make buying insurance a bad idea in some particular case, of course, but none of them seem especially relevant.
I haven’t been thinking of the utility of a fallout shelter primarily in terms of shelter, but in terms of improved survival rates during the initial apocalypse. Having shelter thereafter is nice and should probably be factored into your utility calculations if you’re considering becoming a survivalist, but I’m pretty sure the project’s overall utility would still be dominated by your chances of being flash-incinerated/poisoned by fallout/crushed by falling debris/et cetera. And as the OP says, there are almost certainly more cost-effective ways of improving your expected lifespan given all factors, unless you are already quite rich and very conscientious.
The cost-effectiveness of preparing for an apocalyptic event (versus preparing for a mundane event like a car crash) varies with the perceived likelihood of the apocalyptic event.
I think the most cost-effective thing to do is research the likelihood of apocalyptic events more seriously. How much would you pay right now for a magic charm which protected you and your immediate peers from all unfriendly AIs (and nothing else) permanently?