"in exchange for surviving a low-probability disaster in the future, where even surviving would be a pretty miserable existence."
You're assuming the very worst case there; there's a wide range of outcomes between "everything's great!" and "there's a supermutant banging on my door". Consider France, mentioned as place where many violent events have occurred, but which most people would still consider a nice place to live.
Prepping for 2-4 weeks of independent survival can also assist in the event of a power outage, major snow event, or any number of other mundane events.
It also has social benefits. It's nice if a small burp in food shipments doesn't produce rioting in the streets because there was no slack in the system. Prepping is putting slack in the system. Even if done for what may seem like a dumb reason, it really should still be encouraged to some degree.
Or consider a much more common catastrophe such as weather. Clearly there are more places prone to these types of disasters (like hurricane prone areas), but it is not hard to cut off a supply chain for a few days. Even when there are forecasts of heavy snow or something the grocery stores empty real fast. Prepping is for events like this.
You're assuming the very worst case there; there's a wide range of outcomes between "everything's great!" and "there's a supermutant banging on my door". Consider France, mentioned as place where many violent events have occurred, but which most people would still consider a nice place to live.
Prepping for 2-4 weeks of independent survival can also assist in the event of a power outage, major snow event, or any number of other mundane events.
It also has social benefits. It's nice if a small burp in food shipments doesn't produce rioting in the streets because there was no slack in the system. Prepping is putting slack in the system. Even if done for what may seem like a dumb reason, it really should still be encouraged to some degree.