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Stuart_Armstrong comments on Risk-Free Bonds Aren't - Less Wrong
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Asking whether you've hedged against a US government default is a bit like asking "where's your end of the world insurance?" If the US government does default, chances are that it'll be because of a major disaster, meaning that most other investments will be worthless - along with a good chunk of the current rules of finance.
The only hedge I could think of would be a cache a guns, tined food, and petrol in a hidden (but nearby) location. Even if the US government default isn't due to the collapse of civilization, these are some things that would be guaranteed to maintain their value through a default.
Such caches and bunkers already exist (I suspect the whole 'zombie survival plan' fad helped popularize the concept) and some of them accept new applicants. It's a legitimate avenue of investment for anyone who's concerned about scenarios where modern infrastructure fails but the planet as a whole remains habitable.
If you buy a share of such a cache, what makes you think you would actually receive what you've purchased when the time comes, given that there will probably not be a functioning government to enforce property rights?
Schelling points. Only so many can fit in a given bunker, so some people must be excluded; excluding all those who did not sign up in advance, and only those, is a very straightforward place to draw the line.
Also, the group already inside the bunker is depending on commitments to each other. If the decision to exclude people is less than unanimous, there could be an internal breakdown of trust at the worst possible time.
That said, being able to reach the bunker entrance under your own power, bringing some extra supplies and/or blackmail materials along as bargaining chips, having a slot reserved at more than one independent fortification, etc. would be sensible hedging strategies.
Another obvious Schelling point is to exclude all but those with the most political, social or physical power (whichever of those seems to be the dominant factor at the time). I don't particularly like that Schelling point but it is the one humans follow by default.
That's why I mentioned hedging strategies.
Even if having signed up in advance is not actually a sufficient condition for entry when the time comes, it can still be useful. Whatever coercion you manage to apply, the guard can rationalize by thinking of it as a matter of simply honoring your original reservation.
The Cold War seems like a far better cause for Doomsday preparedness. I wonder if, when the risk of nuclear war lowered, all the built up worry transferred over to "zombie survival," as that's something that I haven't quite figured out the psychological motive behind.
According to The Last Psychiatrist:
Yes, it's psycho-speak, but if you read the article he breaks it down a bit better, and even explains what the transition point between Cold War zombies and modern day zombies was (in his opinion).
I'm a fan of TLP, but I think my question is somewhat different. Zombie media and daydreaming about zombie survival strike me as very different things. If someone buys a gun or an axe because they think it'll be useful when zombies strike- what's going on there? It doesn't seem like disguised preparation for a race war, say, because there doesn't seem to be an actual element of fear, just a mimicking of fictional people who have their acts together. Maybe humor is relevant- if it's "fun" to plan what'll happen when the world ends, that seems different from sober-faced worriers building bunkers.
Hm.