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Probabilities are very hard to think about so I personally relate back to driving. We do it every day but admit it is dangerous and take precautions like requir

Probabilities are very hard to think about so I personally relate back to driving. We do it every day but admit it is dangerous and take precautions like requiring testing and licensing, regulate the manufacture of vehicles and inspections and set standards for roads and provide emergency support. Anything more dangerous than driving is of high concern to me and probably requires many additional precautions. Anything less and I try to not get that worked up about it. With the above in mind, my comment basically can be summed up as 'It is easier to see the issues in the PNW and the PNW isn't doing what is needed to avoid them so how can we expect better preparation elsewhere?'. Pointing out issues in the PNW is like shooting fish in a barrel. Everyone in Ocean Shores is going to die and that is the tip of the iceberg. Estimates vary but a 1 in 4 chance in the next 50 years of a cascadia event is not a ridiculous estimate. With the preparation in place it is not unlikely that tens of thousands will die in the first few hours, if not even worse than that. The emergency response won't be able to help because the region impacted is massive and the first responders will be part of that region so even they will need to be rescued. The scale of this dwarfs any natural disaster the US has ever faced and reaches a point that it could hurt the country for years after. Bottom line, Cascadia alone deserves a bit more respect than we give it so I doubt I was 'slandering their ability to be rational' when I said we don't take these things seriously.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
> Estimates vary but a 1 in 4 chance in the next 50 years of a cascadia event is not a ridiculous estimate. I won't ridicule it. It's a good example. But I'd follow up immediately with a non-rhetorical question of whether or not this is a risk too low to act on, or one too expensive to act on. If things are as bad as you say, then the only action that might truly be reasonable to mitigate it would be to just move far away. But that's also one of the most expensive actions to take... not to mention the crazy sunk cost fallacy holding over the tops of everyone's heads that will only ever get worse. Certainly spending an extra $200,000 building a new house (on top of whatever the general cost of building new), so that if you happen to be home and not at the strip mall or work or anywhere else, you only have a slightly better chance of surviving uninjured seems a little absurd. Probably better off to just take the hit to your career and the kids' school performance and move to the midwest at that point. The threshold for many of these people is just set to a different point than yours. They have some understanding of the risk, but think that they merely have to endure that risk and hope to remain lucky.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

> Estimates vary but a 1 in 4 chance in the next 50 years of a cascadia event is not a ridiculous estimate. I won't ridicule it. It's a good example. But I'd follow up immediately with a non-rhetorical question of whether or not this is a risk too low to act on, or one too expensive to act on. If things are as bad as you say, then the only action that might truly be reasonable to mitigate it would be to just move far away. But that's also one of the most expensive actions to take... not to mention the crazy sunk cost fallacy holding over the tops of everyone's heads that will only ever get worse. Certainly spending an extra $200,000 building a new house (on top of whatever the general cost of building new), so that if you happen to be home and not at the strip mall or work or anywhere else, you only have a slightly better chance of surviving uninjured seems a little absurd. Probably better off to just take the hit to your career and the kids' school performance and move to the midwest at that point. The threshold for many of these people is just set to a different point than yours. They have some understanding of the risk, but think that they merely have to endure that risk and hope to remain lucky.