They might not self-identify as an audiophile, but they’re definitely on the gradient. At high (and even medium) levels of the game, musicians, producers, and mix/mastering engineers are often using >$5K headphones and >$30K speaker setups, and that’s not to mention the cost of building & treating the studio.

These are people with deep love for music, and many of these same people have high-end listening systems at home as well. I’ve had the joy of listening to some really nice setups, and it’s definitely hard going back to my home stereo afterwards.

Where I think it veers off into pseudoscience is once you get into the stratosphere of >$100K setups. At that point it’s marginal (often indiscernible) gains that are exclusively marketed to people with money to burn. People who just want to know they’re getting the absolute best of the best, regardless of whether they can tell the difference. There’s a lot more marketing than reality at that level.

Some thoughts in response:

They are correct that it is highly unlikely

Even if it’s unlikely, wouldn’t we still want to try? (Especially for the sake of our families and loved ones?) I believe adaption and mitigation are both part of the solution at this point.

that you can dodge the horrific consequences of human-impacted environment

In the post, I make the point that some risks are possible to project, while others are more opaque. I think it makes sense to avoid what you can, prepare for what you can’t, and not worry much about what’s entirely outside your control.

just by changing your ZIP code.

I always reiterate in these posts that location isn’t a magic bullet, and that it’s just one tool in our kit for building overall resilience. “Climate havens” tend to generate the most conversation, but the real work is in building personal resilience and strong, local communities.

In New England we say if you don’t like the weather, wait 15 minutes, it’ll change.

Which New England are you in? When it’s rainy/snowy, that weather sticks around for days. Generally speaking, most places with high humidity generally have more consistent weather. It’s areas with low humidity (and high elevation) where you get really big weather and temperature swings.

Agreed entirely, and this is a very reasonable take. Alex Steffen addressed this in Why do some people want you to ignore climate threats?

In this episode of When We Are, I talk about those insisting that you can’t possibly choose a safer place to weather the climate crisis, because every place is endangered.

I discuss why this claim is obviously wrong (some places are, in fact, relatively safe), and also who benefits from making it.

Like every part of the climate crisis, our understanding of risk and ruggedization are undermined by predatory delay and denialism. Paradoxically, the repeated message that nowhere is safe makes it easier to convince us to ignore the dangers around us. Why pay attention to risk if there’s nothing we can do about it, right?

Here are some links/resource for homebuying in regards to climate risk:

• American Resiliency | YouTube channel covering climate migration and adaptation.
• The Reliance School | Hey that’s me! Collection of climate risk maps, plus articles on finding a home.
• Climate Change and Your Home | Substack on climate-resilient real estate.
• First Street | Address lookup tool with risk ratings for floods, fires, heat, hurricanes, and air pollution.
• ClimateCheck | Address lookup tool, similar to First Street, also includes storm & drought ratings.
• How to Shop for a Home That Won’t Be Upended by Climate Change | NYT article with a good checklist.
• America’s Most Sustainable Cities and Regions | Book projecting climate and economic trends.
• ND-Gain Urban Adaptation Assessment | List of cities ranked by climate resilience.
• What will climate feel like in 60 years? | Map of climate analogs for major cities.

It’s been a fun time for shiny metals.

If “Find my phone” still works when it’s turned off, then yes, phones are definitely traceable when powered down.

I lived without a cell phone for about 3 years (2022-2025), and once in a while there was a small hurdle but overall it was surprisingly easy. 2FA can be done via text/email, I never ran into an instance where I needed an app. Every ticket I bought could be printed at home, so it takes a little more forethought but not a deal breaker. Never ran into any parking stations that couldn’t be paid via a kiosk/card, but YMMV.

These days I own a phone per request of one of my business clients, but it stays turned off at home unless I’m on a job. Once in a while I’ll break it out to use the GPS but most places I drive to I can find by memory. There are many “middle” ground solutions out there too (like Graphene OS), but as a general rule, I would make a habit of leaving your phone at home when you can, and definitely when engaging in anything spicy.

And not to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole - I think this is more of a blind “race to the bottom” scenario - but it makes a lot more money for the rent-seeking class when we’re socially isolated. A couple shares a house/apartment, shares chores, may even be able to share a car. When they break up, that’s now 2 apartments, 2 cars, individual trips for everything, etc.

It’s not quite that clean of course, and plenty of folks live with roommates. But there’s definitely a perverse economic incentive to keep us detached from community and partnership, and everything from AI/social media/online dating to the gender/culture wars seems to be pushing us farther in that direction.

Thank you for this thoughtful and nuanced take on the subject. It’s sad that constructive discussion around population is often shut down due to the link between eugenics and population control. It’s often assumed that anyone advocating for lowered population is in support of similarly dystopian/authoritarian policies, when increasing access to birth control and education has the same effect while increasing personal agency.

I would also note that the theory of evolution has been used to justify all kinds of absurd ideologies, yet we don’t have a problem accepting its basic tenets.

If we accept the fact that humanity is in a state of ecological overshoot, and that overshoot is a function of population x consumption, then it’s entirely reasonable to want to address both sides of the equation.

According to this study, an income of $38,000/year puts you in the top 10% of carbon emitters. This study puts it at €42,980, or about $50K USD. That’s a little higher than the median income in N. America, Europe, and Australia.

That said, carbon emissions are just one way humans impact the environment; other facets are far less variable (we all produce about the same amount of human waste per day, for example).

Not sure why you got a downvote, this is absolutely true. If you have a low SSC you may be subject to travel bans, reduced employment prospects, being barred from attending certain schools, increased surveillance and police monitoring, and public shaming. Other individuals can also have their scores lowered by interacting with you.

I’m generally on board with that, and several states (including mine) are creating last-resort plans for homeowners who are unable to get private coverage. That said, this has to be accompanied with some kind of carrot-and-stick initiatives to move people out of high-risk areas. I don’t want my taxpayer dollars to subsidize insurance for beachfront properties or vacation homes in the mountains.

Yeah, I’m not a big fan of the “don’t build data centers here, build them there” conclusion of the report. I see no reason why we should be allowing these monstrosities to be built in the first place, they’re a total waste of essential resources.

I don’t see the AI bubble burst affecting people to the same degree; I think it’ll wipe out a lot of investment portfolios, but non tech-sector jobs should be safe. I think it’s useful to have some essentials on hand, but I wouldn’t go on a buying spree if that means draining my savings; I’d rather have the flexibility of money. If it comes down to survival and you don’t have savings, you could preemptively apply for lines of credit, use those to cover living expenses, and declare bankruptcy once they’re wrung out. Not financial advice, but it’s an effective stopgap.

You’re catching downvotes, but according to Google Trends, searches for “gold price” and “ai bubble” are positively correlated, and there’s plenty of historic precedent for people flocking to “safe haven” assets when the markets nosedive. Gold went up by 30% from Jan-Sep 2020 (COVID), and nearly doubled in value between 2007 and 2009 (housing crisis), although it did take a dip before rebounding during the dotcom bubble (2000-2003).

That said, I would recommend keeping a significant portion of your money in an HYSA as precious metals are subject to large fluctuations in price and markets don’t always behave rationally.

This is all great stuff to have on hand, but not relevant for OP’s question. They’re wondering how to prepare for the equivalent of the dotcom burst or the 2008 recession, not a grid-down scenario.

If you’d bought silver (or silver ETFs) a few months ago you would have made a whole bunch of money, and society hasn’t ended yet.

Poorer nation’s peak population estimates are declining every year, as life gets better and child mortality falls population growth lowers everywhere

Yes, that’s a good thing.

(another racist shit that’s spreading that poor nations are reproducing too much, btw).

Race doesn’t enter into it. If we accept that we crossed into overshoot over 50 years ago, then any birth rate above replacement is ultimately unsustainable.

Energy consumption is more or less useless measure with the rapid rise of renewables, although there are also efforts there to lower that everywhere.

Energy consumption is the measure. It’s a direct reflection of the degree to which our lifestyles impact our environment. People seem to have this idea that the only real issue with industrial civilization is that it runs primarily on a fuel that destabilizes our atmosphere, and that if we could simply transition away from this fuel (to solar/wind/nuclear/fusion) we’d be on our way to utopia.

But let’s consider what we direct all that energy towards: first, we use it to harvest massive amounts of natural resources, degrading and destroying the environment in the process. (Mining, logging, farming, fishing, etc.) We then transform those natural resources into towns and cities, which pave over and fragment the natural environment in which they’re built. We transform them into consumer goods (cars, electronics, plastics, clothing, etc.), the vast majority of which end up as waste in less than a decade. We transform them into all manner of industrial chemicals, many of which end up becoming individual ecological disasters of their own.

Transitioning to a “clean” form of energy does nothing to address what we do with it. Living sustainably requires drastically downscaling our total ecological footprint.

But the famous director gets hundreds of thousands every year to make shitty movies nobody sees, because that one time 20 years ago he did something good.

To be fair, this is also how it works in Hollywood.