I gather from the recent census article that most of the readers of this site are significantly younger than I am, so I’ll relay some first-hand experiences you probably didn’t live through.
I was born in 1964. The Cuban Missle Crisis was only a few years in the past, and Kennedy had just been shot, possibly by Russians, or The Mob, or whomever. Continuing through at least the end of the Cold War in 1989, there was significant public opinion that we were all going to die in a nuclear holocaust (or Nuclear Winter), so really, what was the point in making long-term plans?
Spoiler: things worked out better than expected, although not without significant bumps along the way. Spending all your money on hookers and blow because you might as well enjoy yourself now would not have been a solid investment strategy.
Now, much like the AGI/ASI threat, the nuclear threat could have actually played out. There were other close calls where we (or they) thought the attack had started already (Vasily Arkhipov comes to mind), and of course, Death From AI could well happen. However, you should probably hedge your bets to a certain extent just in case you manage to live to retirement age. Remember, we still don’t have flying cars.
The “give us a week” message appears either misleading or overly optimistic. Unless there have been replies from Nonlinear in a separate thread, I don’t think they have explained anything beyond their initial explanation of getting food. Coupled with the fact that it’s hard to imagine a valid context or explanation for some of the things they confirm to have happened (drug smuggling, driving without a license or much experience), I have to conclude that they’re not likely to change my mind at this point. I realize that probably doesn’t matter to them since I’m just a random person on the internet, but it’s disappointing that they haven’t made a better effort to explain or atone.
Thanks, @Ben Pace, for doing the initial work on this. I agree with your other message stating that you’re done with this; you don’t need to get sucked further down this hole than you already are.