[zby]

I think an important way to understand the optionality/convexity is to imagine science without it. Here is a paper about that: https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf - the idea is: what if there are inventions that could destroy our civilisation? One example of such invention would be a bomb as powerful as an atomic bomb - but from materials and technologies readily available to anyone. Surely there would be terrorist/mafias/suicidal individuals who would build and use them.