Personally mitigating existential risk

post by Metus · 2013-07-15T17:56:41.176Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 2 comments

Instrumental rationalilty is important. Existential risk is important. The average person will do most good in this world by helping himself. While only few people or all people at once can avoid a war, everyone can increase his and his loved ones likelihood to survive. In this spirit I would like to create a repository of advice to help people mitigate catastrophic risk, that is any danger with irreversible consequences to personal well-being regardless of the scale of the catastrophe. This can be either a personal accident, a local earthquake, continent-wide war or a global pandemic.

I ask you, the reader, to provide your bit of knowledge and expertise in this matter, be in financial, health, personal or public, insurance, politics, law, building safety ... Here is an example of how I imagine advice:

Mitigate natural desaster (low cost, low time): Natural catastrophes destroy infrastructure and supply lines and in the worst case shelter, too. To mitigate food shortages and allowing helpers to divert ressources from providing food and water to rebuilding infrastructure to return to normal levels again, build a basic disaster supply kit. In general, it is helpful to stay in contact with your government's agency tasked with managing catastrophes. In the case of the USA that is FEMA with their site ready.gov.

I did not post this in the PSA repository as this advice should be more prominent and longer.

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