Overall I disagree with the general thrust of this post on the grounds that the risk of death from nuclear war (conditional on nuclear use in Ukraine) seems so much higher than from covid for the typical EA demographic, but I would like to +1 the point that people may be able to eliminate most of their risk without moving to completely the middle of nowhere.
Russia has enough active nuclear weapons to completely destroy something like 1-500,000 km^2*. The UK alone has a land area of 250,000 km^2, the US is around 10 million km^2 and NATO as a whole is 25 million. So even in a total nuclear war scenario it’s likely that just going to a relatively small town will eliminate most of the risk, and there are many places like this where you can have a good work from home setup and commute to the big city occasionally.
*rough estimate, where “completely destroy” means kill most people in the area: - Russia has 1588 active warheads, with a total yield of ~800MT, so ~500 kilotons each —This tool says that a 500kt warhead can destroy around 100-250 km^2 **another way of arriving at the same conclusion is that the US has 20,000 towns, which is far higher than 1588
Overall I disagree with the general thrust of this post on the grounds that the risk of death from nuclear war (conditional on nuclear use in Ukraine) seems so much higher than from covid for the typical EA demographic, but I would like to +1 the point that people may be able to eliminate most of their risk without moving to completely the middle of nowhere.
Russia has enough active nuclear weapons to completely destroy something like 1-500,000 km^2*. The UK alone has a land area of 250,000 km^2, the US is around 10 million km^2 and NATO as a whole is 25 million. So even in a total nuclear war scenario it’s likely that just going to a relatively small town will eliminate most of the risk, and there are many places like this where you can have a good work from home setup and commute to the big city occasionally.
*rough estimate, where “completely destroy” means kill most people in the area:
- Russia has 1588 active warheads, with a total yield of ~800MT, so ~500 kilotons each
—This tool says that a 500kt warhead can destroy around 100-250 km^2
**another way of arriving at the same conclusion is that the US has 20,000 towns, which is far higher than 1588