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Comment by josephlord | Hacker News Reader

Nowhere is completely safe but I think that Northern Europe is pretty much safe from all those things. There is occasionally some localised flooding if you are in the wrong place and we can get occasional strong winds (less than proper hurricanes). Of course past performance is no guarantee of future results...black swans... etc. but there are places in the world at very low risk of serious natural disasters.

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Northern Europe has harsher winters than I care for. You can freeze to death in the snow...etc. And the odds are long against me moving there any time soon. I can readily go anywhere in the continental U.S.

I have actually seriously considered such things. I have previously lived in Europe. I have been willing to consider living potentially anywhere in the world. There are substantial obstacles for the average person for up and moving wherever the fuck place name you pulled out of a hat.

For the climate issue try the UK then or somewhere in France. Moderate winters and summers in the UK. Within the US I'm sure there is somewhere with modest risks although perhaps many of those places are too cold for you in the winter.

I'm not saying that you should move and it may be that the earthquakes of SF [replace hazard and location as appropriate] are a reasonable risk for other advantages and can be managed sufficiently with construction techniques. However, not every place on the planet is at equal risk of natural disasters.

I think you and I are framing this issue differently and I hate conversations focused on who "wins" by making the other person "lose." There are trade-offs involved no matter where you live as an individual. I have thought long and hard about those trade-offs and I am reasonably confident I have found my least worst answer for the foreseeable future for me personally. That is a separate issue from the question of what kind of power is a realistic, viable option to serve the interests of a specific country and what trade-offs a country needs to consider when trying to provide for all the needs of its people and its own needs as an entity. Context matters and these are always complicated issues. It generally does not work to let a single consideration take too much priority in a complex situation, though there are exceptions.

Thank you for engaging me in good faith.

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