[lproven]

> why are very smart people buying islands

It is a very common error of thinking, especially in people obsessed with what Douglas Adams called "the movements of small green pieces of paper", to think that people with lots of money are very smart.

This is mediaeval superstitious thinking: "he is better off than me, therefore he is more fortunate. He has been given good fortune by god. He must be holier than me, and if I become more holy, I will receive god's favour too."

It's nonsense.

Smart people are not doing this. Rich idiots are.

[lamontcg]

A lot of rich people are of above average intelligence though and they're definitely "smart", particularly if they didn't just get their money entirely from their parents.

Stockton Rush was a rich CEO and clearly smart enough to found a company that could build submersibles.

He decided he knew better than everyone else in the world and built a submersible out of composites.

Turned him into a physics jelly sandwich over the wreck of the Titanic.

Being smart and rich doesn't mean that every idea you have is always right.

More or less the same thing applies to the chemists who thought they discovered a room temperature superconductor or Musk buying Twitter. They're all definitely smart, but they make mistakes just like everyone else. When all is at stake is money they often have enough money that they can make a lot of mistakes and lose a lot of money and people only remember the ones that succeeded.

And A lot of what separates smart rich people from smart not-rich people is that rich people can try 20 different stupid ideas before finding a good one, without going completely bankrupt.

[HissingMachine]

There are thousands of genuinely genius level people buying beach front properties, and climate change isn't that hard of a concept to grasp, even school children get it. And that is exactly the reason why I'm asking what I'm asking, are we all just living in a delusion, waiting and hoping for something to fix stuff and we avoid catastrophe? Nobody is asking how are we going to evacuate the entire population of Bangladesh because that might become a reality in a lifetime, nor are they asking what will happen to my ten million beach front property if the sea level and weather patterns actually get so bad that it's either washed away or just basically worthless because nobody will buy a property in a disaster zone.

But looks like everybody hates this question.

[lproven]

> There are thousands of genuinely genius level people buying beach front properties

1. [[citation needed]]

2. There are billions of christians and muslims. Both are foolish superstitions with no evidential support whatsoever. Lots of people believe foolish lies; number of believers is not even loosely correlated with truth.

> Nobody is asking how are we going to evacuate the entire population of Bangladesh

Yes they are, and the real answer is "you don't, and they die."

> what will happen to my ten million beach front property

Yes they are, and the answer is it will be destroyed. But millions play the lottery, although only the companies running lottery always make a profit. Millions commit petty crimes, because everyone tends to think the bad stuff (getting caught) won't happen to them, but the good stuff (winning the lottery) will. Millions smoke, although once addicted it's not very pleasurable any more but it is expensive.

People like and choose to believe comforting lies, but they hate facing uncomfortable truths.

This is not a big revelation. It is not a profound insight and it doesn't prove anything much.

> But looks like everybody hates this question.

A lot of people hate foolish, pointless questions. Perhaps that is what you're missing here.