It is also possible that people who subscribe to survivalist views derive less utility (both perceived and actual) from modern amenities, and would therefore have their utility reduced less in a post-apocalyptic setting than your average middle-class city-dweller.
There’s also the happiness caused by imagining oneself being well-off compared to the rest of society, whether that means someone buying a lottery ticket to live like a king among commoners, or someone building a fallout shelter to live like a commoner among wretches; it’s essentially the same wish, but the disaster scenario is actually statistically much more likely. So wouldn’t building a fallout shelter be more rational than buying a lottery ticket?
Would the best way be, then, to scale the effort as resources allow? Learning to make your own fire is much cheaper than building a fallout shelter—next in line might be a survival kit (including matches, lighter, and flint, in case you find that you are incompetent at producing fire—like me). I’ve grown the opinion that all people should have a basic survival skill-set; it would be pitiful to have to rediscover animal trapping and such.
It is also possible that people who subscribe to survivalist views derive less utility (both perceived and actual) from modern amenities, and would therefore have their utility reduced less in a post-apocalyptic setting than your average middle-class city-dweller.
There’s also the happiness caused by imagining oneself being well-off compared to the rest of society, whether that means someone buying a lottery ticket to live like a king among commoners, or someone building a fallout shelter to live like a commoner among wretches; it’s essentially the same wish, but the disaster scenario is actually statistically much more likely. So wouldn’t building a fallout shelter be more rational than buying a lottery ticket?
It would be if it weren’t so much more expensive.
Would the best way be, then, to scale the effort as resources allow? Learning to make your own fire is much cheaper than building a fallout shelter—next in line might be a survival kit (including matches, lighter, and flint, in case you find that you are incompetent at producing fire—like me). I’ve grown the opinion that all people should have a basic survival skill-set; it would be pitiful to have to rediscover animal trapping and such.