I created a Weighted Factor Model of the best countries to live in in case of nuclear war.
I considered the following factors:
- Cost of Living (20%)
- Global Peace Index (20%)
- Energy Independence (15%)
- Latitude (all nuclear countries are in the North) (10%)
- Average rainfall (10%)
- Average temperature (nuclear winter reduces global temperature) (10%)
- Human Development Index (10%)
- Food Security (5%)
My plan is: if the situation worsens (measured with this and this Metaculus questions), go to the Canary Islands first (I'm European). Then, if it gets even worse, go to one of:
- Argentina
- Peru
- Uruguay
- Malaysia
- Australia
- New Zealand
I would love any feedback you might have :)
In my view, the best country is the country you will actually go to in higher risk situations. Finding the geographically ideal country doesn't help much if it will take you a month to apply for a visa, or you can only stay as a visitor for a short time, or if travelling and staying there will effectively bankrupt you (so glad to see cost of living on there!).
Of course, after a nuclear attack happened, most of those concerns would no longer matter, but before a nuclear attack happened when you're travelling they'd be very important! And it's important for your plan to work both in the cases of nuclear war happening and nuclear war not happening.
Agree. I did my own geographic assessment on the weekend and some of the countries mentioned above either require a proper visa (not a visa on arrival or e-visa) or don't accept tourists at all (New Zealand). So if you have to leave within a day or two these wouldn't be possible. I would recommend everyone to create their own shortlist of 3+/- countries and keep it somewhat flexible where they would go -also depending on which flights are actually available last minute.
Keeping in mind the best (accessible on short notice) location may be within your own country!
Hi, I have quite a lot to say about this, but I'm actually currently writing a research paper on exactly this issue, and will write a full forum post/link-post once it's completed (ETA June-ish). However, a couple of key observations:
There is a lot more that could be said but you're right that the large South American food producers (Argentina etc) look relatively more promising, as well as the usual suspects NZ & Australia. Though each will have severe problems in an actual nuclear winter and organisation such as food/fuel rationing and distribution from rural to urban areas will be immensely problematic. Not to mention the need for public communication processes to ensure people know there is a plan and survival is possible, again to avoid societal mayhem. Social cohesion, and stability indicators are probably very important.
One problem with composite indices is that very low scores on one dimension can be masked by reasonable scores on others. Countries should be ruled out if they fail on a critical dimension.
Finally, the act of 'escaping to' the 'most promising' location is not generalisable, and so the ethics of it are questionable. As Kant notes, the test is 'what if everyone did the same as me, would that undermine the institution in question?' and in this case it seems like the answer is yes. 8 billion people fleeing to Argentina would defeat the purpose of acting ahead of war to maximise the chances of each particular country. Carrying capacity calculations are important here too. I haven't even considered HEMP yet, which could very much complicate matters.
The following case study is particularly illuminating of the problems even 'good' locations like NZ might suffer: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4313623?refreqid=excelsior%3A166e17f569637767a9caded49a1ced42 contact me if you want the full text.
Come to Brazil. We can make room for +1bi individuals, easy. With nuclear winter, we may even manage to get some ski resorts ;)
(Ofc if we don't start a war w Argentina. That's the problem w South America)
Thank you so much for the amazing reply! I increased the weight of energy security.
I don't like the Global Food Security Index, because it's about the quality of food, not whether the country is producing/exporting food. Which other indicator would you use, and where do I get the data?
In a previous project we used the UN FAO food Pocketbook, although I think the way they compile data changed after 2012. We used the 'kcal production per capita' metric, from here: https://www.fao.org/publications/card/en/c/a9f447e8-6798-5e82-82b0-a78724bfff03/
You can see what we did in the following two papers:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33886124/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/risa.13398
There are FAO CSVs for more recent years available to download here: https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS
That's one suggestion.
Food and Energy Security should be rated much higher, along with self-sufficiency in general, since GPI and HDI could go to hell in a handbasket depending on what other countries get wiped out or rendered inaccessible to trade during a world war in general or nuclear war specifically. A lot of countries' food output is dependent on fertiliser imports from places like Morocco and China.
Maybe I can give a few thoughts on Chile to help your search.
Not specific to Chile
After looking into how average temperatures are calculated, I get "Average yearly temperature is calculated by averaging the minimum and maximum daily temperatures in the country, averaged for the years 1961–1990, based on gridded climatologies from the Climatic Research Unit elaborated in 2011."
This means a country like France, that is mostly quite warm, but also has Mont Blanc, where it will be cold at the top, would look significantly cooler than it is.
I think using the average temperature of the capital city is more useful, as this gives you the temperature in the place that the people are (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_average_temperature)
For situations where it may happen but unclear and you want to temporarily go somewhere in a reversible way, places in your timezone if you want to continue working (and you can work remotely) might be worth considering.
A small contribution to your list: it seems like Indonesia has a lot of natural disaster risks, like earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcano eruptions.
Note that covid travel restrictions may be a consideration. For example, New Zealand's borders are currently closed to essentially all non-New Zealanders and are scheduled to remain closed to much of the world until July:
@luisa_rodriguez on the 80,000 Hours Podcast mentioned Chile because of long shorelines which are good for fishing.
Rob also mentions something about nuclear fallout not spreading easily towards the southern hemisphere.
In nuclear war cost of living is irrelevant. Everyone will resort to basic survival lifestyle. I say everyone because those who are unable to detatch from a modern lifestyle will die. Rapidly.
Global peace index of today is irrelevant because in a nuclear war everyone's psychological state will change as everyone strives to survive.
Energy independence is irrelevant because there will be none. Where would you get the energy? Nuclear power plant? Who would run the plant? Everyone is starving and trying to survive. No one is looking for a job.
Latitude is important.
Rainfall will completely change so current data is irrelevant.
Temperature is important.
Human development index is irrelevant. Everything will be destroyed and nothing will be developed. An age ove development is an age when basic needs are easily met.
Any current data on food security is irrelevant. Almost all food will be gone and everyone will resort to their instincts violently trying to survive as they starve to death. Humans will be an option for hunting and eating. People don't just sit in their house and starve to death like in movies. They panic and become violent until they find food no matter the cost.