9 ms·

I think you gotta admit the focus on risks, especially along the rural/urban divide are considerably unhinged from reality. And it's largely to do with the meme

I think you gotta admit the focus on risks, especially along the rural/urban divide are considerably unhinged from reality. And it's largely to do with the memes. As I make my drive from a 30k population county to 5m population county, and I have to adjust from telling people, no the cities aren't full of shootings, 5G microwaves aren't harmful, to no climate change isn't going to kill you, no covid isn't still overflowing morgues. Cars man. Never can convince people of the dangers of car accidents.

itsanaccount 3y ago
now i got thinking about it, covid and climate change have the same issues for people to understand. individually, on a personal level, neither are particularly deadly. like sure you could have been unhealthy and had complications, and sure if you live in the south and work outside and are regularly dehydrated, you could be the unlucky ones. your probability is still low. but the actual problem with both of these was/is systematic risk. that covid put enough people in the hospital to see something close to a collapse of the medical system. that the eastern seaboard flooding and droughts could be bad enough to see a cascade in failures to find housing and food. that both are ok right up until the tipping point where they very much aren't. and the media doesn't do well at all explaining personal vs systematic risk.
- SkyMarshal 3y ago
  > that both are ok right up until the tipping point where they very much aren't. I think this part is right, and that Nassim Taleb has correct take on it - you can never predict ahead of time when that tipping point will occur, you can only fortify yourself against the possibility (become less fragile to it). But people tend to make the mistake of looking back at past tipping points that caused systemic harm and arguing they were foreseeable based on what we know now after it occurred, not what we knew and perceived then before it occurred. Any analysis or consideration of pending systemic risk must take steps to avoid this mistake.
  - itsanaccount 3y ago
    and thats why i span the rural/urban divide. because about 10 years ago I heard the chatter of scientists explaining that the IPCC was wrong, that the chance for rapid acceleration of things we can reverse was real high, and I made a plan. bout 3 years ago i moved to the middle of nowhere, to a storm resistent building, geothermal, adding solar, in a swamp where ground temps are mediated, in a state least likely to be touched. originally i did it because i thought it was prudent because it was going to happen to me. nowadays I'm so sick of people i long for my dirt nap, so with the agroforest, with the nut trees and the garden, the shop and the spare parts, maybe i can at least live (and leave good bones) for the people who come after me to do better than we did.

itsanaccount 3y ago

now i got thinking about it, covid and climate change have the same issues for people to understand. individually, on a personal level, neither are particularly deadly. like sure you could have been unhealthy and had complications, and sure if you live in the south and work outside and are regularly dehydrated, you could be the unlucky ones. your probability is still low. but the actual problem with both of these was/is systematic risk. that covid put enough people in the hospital to see something close to a collapse of the medical system. that the eastern seaboard flooding and droughts could be bad enough to see a cascade in failures to find housing and food. that both are ok right up until the tipping point where they very much aren't. and the media doesn't do well at all explaining personal vs systematic risk.

SkyMarshal 3y ago
> that both are ok right up until the tipping point where they very much aren't. I think this part is right, and that Nassim Taleb has correct take on it - you can never predict ahead of time when that tipping point will occur, you can only fortify yourself against the possibility (become less fragile to it). But people tend to make the mistake of looking back at past tipping points that caused systemic harm and arguing they were foreseeable based on what we know now after it occurred, not what we knew and perceived then before it occurred. Any analysis or consideration of pending systemic risk must take steps to avoid this mistake.
- itsanaccount 3y ago
  and thats why i span the rural/urban divide. because about 10 years ago I heard the chatter of scientists explaining that the IPCC was wrong, that the chance for rapid acceleration of things we can reverse was real high, and I made a plan. bout 3 years ago i moved to the middle of nowhere, to a storm resistent building, geothermal, adding solar, in a swamp where ground temps are mediated, in a state least likely to be touched. originally i did it because i thought it was prudent because it was going to happen to me. nowadays I'm so sick of people i long for my dirt nap, so with the agroforest, with the nut trees and the garden, the shop and the spare parts, maybe i can at least live (and leave good bones) for the people who come after me to do better than we did.