The social reality of how hard you can reasonably be expected to try/the “standard amount” of trying is actually really important, because it gates the tremendous value of social diversification.
After Hurricane Sandy, when lower Manhattan was without power but I still had power in upper Manhattan, I let a couple of friends sleep in my double bed while I slept on my own couch. In principle they could have applied more dakka to ensure their apartment would be livable in natural disasters, but this would be very expensive and the ability to fall back on mutual aid creates a lot of value by decreasing the need for such extraordinary precautions, mitigating unknown unknowns, and lowering everybody’s P(totally fucked). (Especially when this scales up from a temporary local power outage to something like being an international refugee.)
On the other hand, if a couple I knew similarly well had shown up in NYC with no notice asking if they could sleep in my bed while I slept on my couch, I would say no. If they had booked a confirmed Airbnb but the host had flaked out at the last minute, I’d probably say yes. If they had gone to Aqueduct Racetrack expecting to win enough for a hotel room but their horse had lost, I’d say no. It seems to me this mostly comes down to whether they had a prima facie reasonable plan, or whether they were predictably likely to take unfair advantage of mutual aid all along in a way that needs to be timelessly disincentivised. But this means a lot depends on what your particular subculture considers “prima facie reasonable” and what unknowns it considers known.
(Which of the following are prima facie reasonable to rely on in retirement planning such that you can fairly expect aid from more fortunate friends if they fail? 1. bitcoin investments, 2. stock index investments, 3. gold, 4. a home you own in the US, 5. USD in savings accounts, 6. a defined-benefit employer pension, 7. US Social Security, 8. US Medicare, 9. absence of punitive wealth taxes in the US, 10. your ability to get a new job after years out of the workforce, 11. your children’s unconditional support, 12. the singularity arriving before you get too old to work. The answer will vary a lot with your social circle’s politics and memes with only a very indirect dependence on wider objective reality.)
The social reality of how hard you can reasonably be expected to try/the “standard amount” of trying is actually really important, because it gates the tremendous value of social diversification.
After Hurricane Sandy, when lower Manhattan was without power but I still had power in upper Manhattan, I let a couple of friends sleep in my double bed while I slept on my own couch. In principle they could have applied more dakka to ensure their apartment would be livable in natural disasters, but this would be very expensive and the ability to fall back on mutual aid creates a lot of value by decreasing the need for such extraordinary precautions, mitigating unknown unknowns, and lowering everybody’s P(totally fucked). (Especially when this scales up from a temporary local power outage to something like being an international refugee.)
On the other hand, if a couple I knew similarly well had shown up in NYC with no notice asking if they could sleep in my bed while I slept on my couch, I would say no. If they had booked a confirmed Airbnb but the host had flaked out at the last minute, I’d probably say yes. If they had gone to Aqueduct Racetrack expecting to win enough for a hotel room but their horse had lost, I’d say no. It seems to me this mostly comes down to whether they had a prima facie reasonable plan, or whether they were predictably likely to take unfair advantage of mutual aid all along in a way that needs to be timelessly disincentivised. But this means a lot depends on what your particular subculture considers “prima facie reasonable” and what unknowns it considers known.
(Which of the following are prima facie reasonable to rely on in retirement planning such that you can fairly expect aid from more fortunate friends if they fail? 1. bitcoin investments, 2. stock index investments, 3. gold, 4. a home you own in the US, 5. USD in savings accounts, 6. a defined-benefit employer pension, 7. US Social Security, 8. US Medicare, 9. absence of punitive wealth taxes in the US, 10. your ability to get a new job after years out of the workforce, 11. your children’s unconditional support, 12. the singularity arriving before you get too old to work. The answer will vary a lot with your social circle’s politics and memes with only a very indirect dependence on wider objective reality.)