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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   7713 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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If we have a worst-case scenario, or just any of the really bad ones, we're fucked. A hidden bunker will just mean you die last.

If things go swimmingly, then the worrying would have been pointless - in hindsight.

That means I think it still makes sense to follow general, option-preserving strategies. That covers the increasingly unlikely "business as usual" worldlines, and shelters against socio-economic/political upheaval as the changes (good, bad or meh) promulgate.

In my context, that means I just continue being a doctor, progressing through training so I keep making more money. Money is the most general of strategies. It can be exchanged for goods and services, including more durable barter goods if shit really hits the fan.

If none of it matters, maybe you decide to do that masters in philosophy or take the job in some remote and low paid location anyway, just for fun.

I like money, you know. And want a family, which is expensive. I can't stress enough how the "correct" course of action depends on someone's priorities, which I am really not in a position to dictate. If you want to go be a hobo on a tropical beach, be my guest. My approach minimizes my hindsight regret.

I continue deriving some amount of satisfaction from my career, and regardless of how this ends, I'll say that I did something important while that meant something.

A hidden bunker will just mean you die last.

Surely that's the very best one can do, if "everyone dies" is what's happening?

(even leaving aside the possibility that it's actually almost everyone dies, ofc)

It may be a mercy to die sooner than live your final years going insane from boredom and hopelessness. Congratulations being the last holdout, there’s no one else to admire or seethe in your victory.

"Dies last" means "a few days later", tops. Not worth it. Might as well spend the money and time you would have used for the bunker having fun with friends and family before the end.

If.

It remains an open question, and I'm not as pessimistic as some.

I wasn’t arguing against the ‘business as usual’ strategy at all, for what that’s worth - after all, that’s what I’m doing.

But I was curious about the additional or different preparations you’ve made / steps you’ve taken that you referenced. The changes to plans.

I would have signed up for cryonics, before I was middle aged. Not much point in that now. I will reconsider only if things seem to peter out.

I have accelerated my long-standing goal of marrying and having kids. In a slower world, I'd have been okay with waiting a few extra years.

I should be putting all or most of my savings in an index fund. I've been procrastinating on that.

I am more open to risky medical treatments, to a degree, because the longterm damage is more likely to be fixable.

At a recent nadir of my depression, I reminded myself that I want to see how things end, or begin, really. That we'll find a cure for treatment resistant depression, if existing interventions fail. That I just needed to live long enough to see that through.

Well, I got better anyway. Mostly because of my own actions rather than anything any other shrink did for me. If that doesn't last, I can look forward to a technological fix in a very reasonable amount of time.

None of this is really life-changing. Which is something I've always noted when people argue that believing in an imminent techno-singularity requires drastic changes in behavior or outlook, therefore this discredits the belief in the first place. Beyond retarded as an argument, but also false when you consider I've been expecting this for a while, it's priced in, and I've had a pretty normal life anyway.

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