Higher Risk of Nuclear War

The Doomsday Clock, in practice, has a strong ratchet component. They are much more interested in recognizing bad news than good, and "time passed with nothing going wrong" isn't an 'event' that they update the clock on.

It also includes non-nuclear impacts, such as growing recognition of climate change.

but it's still the case that I don't expect to survive a full-scale nuclear exchange.

There's no reason whatsoever to expect you can't easily survive a full exchange with a few simple preparations [LW(p) · GW(p)] as long as you were outside the immediate urban blast radii. Nuclear winter is effectively a myth [EA(p) · GW(p)]. I'm both astounded and dismayed by the amount of misinformation and misconceptions surrounding nuclear issues within the "rationalist" community.

Nukes aren't remotely inescapable Armageddon in the same way unaligned AGI is, and people really need to stop the silly resignation to death when talking about them. People in this community can easily all survive a nuclear war if they simply understand that they can and do what needs to be done.

I don't expect to survive a full-scale nuclear exchange

Looking at Russia's performance in the war so far, I could see a Russian attack that is much smaller than historical plans because it's all they can manage. This would be large enough to be massively destructive, but still small enough that lots of people survive.

I am particularly concerned about Putin's (old and well-known) phrase "... we as martyrs will go to heaven, and they will just die", given that he goes to church, and will most likely consider himself a rightist/martyr in any case.

It seems like you're comparing one person's estimate, which is selected for being high, with historical consensus estimates?

I also probably didn't phrase this very well: while I said "nuclear war", the post is really about what sort of preparation is it makes sense for individuals well away from Ukraine to make, and what I'm trying to get at is that I think it is still very unlikely that people like that (ex: me) will be impacted by nuclear weapons.

It also makes sense to think through preparations that are less nuclear specific: water, food, medicine, etc. I put together some supplies about 5 years ago, and this is reminding me to go through and see how well that matches what we still need and also check if anything is expiring.

I'm confused what I said that you're responding to?

Newcomblike problem: it feels like there are two decisions to be made, but there is only one, in advance. If the Enemy knows you will never fire your missiles, They can pick off your cities one-by-one with impunity. But if you precommit to Mutual Assured Destruction if They ever cross the line, then it would be suicidal for Them to do so, so They won't (if They are rational). If losing one city to a nuclear attack is unacceptable, then that is your line in the sand. You must precommit to full retaliation in that event, and make it known to the Enemy.

In a game of Chicken with your loved ones' lives on the line, your best move is to defiantly rip off the steering wheel before the Enemy can do the same.

I'm oversimplifying a little, but nuclear deterrence is all about game theory like this.