The bunker may not pay out like call options but still a reasonable investment, especially if it has a bowling alley. Yes they’re probably trying to sell you gold bars for a 20% cut. But they’re no less guilty than the realtor trying to sell you a high rise condo with a cold bath.
I accept financial collapse, nuclear war and other practical doomerism hypotheses to be concerned about, but I’m putting “sustainability” arguments in with supervolcano. Alien invasion is up right now.
And yeah I can attest that there is a certain appeal. Psychologically it’s that post apocalypse survival brings purpose to an otherwise easy, almost pointless existence, I think this is widely understood no?
I will also say that post apocalypse survival is a simple game to play, dig a hole and live in it, I could buy an entire lifetime of gaseous oxygen and bury it in the ground with me at current prices. The level up is to ensure the survival of one’s local community. Master level is Elon Musk style interplanetary insurance.
Seems to me waste heat won’t be as big of a problem as waste cooling. The sun is almost pure heat for us right now. By capturing more of that energy with photovoltaics and converting it to, say, plastic, we are cooling the planet.
Neither one is a problem IMO because the earth isn’t a fragile place, it operates at temperature swings of over a hundred degrees F, at least 30 degrees in a nice temperature zone where various plant species thrive.
I want to quibble about the idea that “the world isn’t a fragile place,” in the sense that I’m very open to the idea that the conditions for humans to thrive happily might be pretty fragile and we need to keep protect them. It’s just—the bar of “civilization is doomed” is incredibly high.
I mean medieval Europe had civilization, it wasn’t a very pleasant one for lots of the people in it, but it was a civilization. There are lots of outcomes we’d like to prevent before we get to “civilization is doomed.”
The sun is a virtually infinite supply of energy. Solar power is self sustaining at this point, very much so at $0.25/watt.
Those panels should be cheaper to manufacture in zero-G (or lunar-G) and capable of providing 24 hours of output at a much higher level.
Nitrogen fertilizer can be obtained from the air, using this cheap electricity. We have an ancient method of fixating it called the Berkeland Eyde process, but there is room for this to be greatly improved, there just isn’t any incentive to do it. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see it make a comeback in the near future. (In fact, this is a big opportunity.)
Plastics… ah yes. Plastics. I don’t know what the solution to that looks like. They’re useful, no doubt, but I don’t think we need to use so much of them. It’s a useful byproduct of oil that is cheap and plentiful, and perhaps equilibrium is wildly offset by that at the moment. Those cheap synthetic fabrics may be expensive as silk someday.
In summary, I see the path forward and it doesn’t look all that bad to me.
