Is the world becoming uninsurable?

Every era has it's Malthusian alarmists and without fail, each has been proven wrong by exactly the same thing the author decries and says won't work this time: technological change and adaption. There's no reason to think this time will be any different. Will some places become uninsurable? Sure, plenty of places over time have become uninsurable. Will the whole world became uninsurable? Absolutely not, because we are quite good at adaptation in the face of adversity.

The issue in California is not the price of insurance, it's availability because of extremely myopic ballot initiatives that are entirely political in nature. Should insurance be fairly priced, then the market can force people out of uninsurable areas and into areas with far less chance to burn.

Thinking technology will always save us is no different from divine or magical thinking.

Lots of societies and civilizations have collapsed. Some were straight up wiped off the earth and we don't even know what happened to them. Western civilization has had a good 500 years, and America has had a good 250 years, but that doesn't mean things can never go bad in the future.

Plenty of places have had catastrophic droughts, famines, and plagues. Nearly half of Europe died a few times from plagues. Most natives in America were absolutely wiped out from disease and other issues. Tens of millions died of famine in China last century. Tsunamis washed away and killed hundreds of thousands in Indonesia and Japan this current century.

In the past, the Krakatoa eruption messed with the climate around the world and made the sky dark. The Bronze Age Collapse is something we still don't understand but nearly wiped out everything in the western world. With population density higher than ever, disasters that match major historical ones would be far more destructive. It's really just been an unusually peaceful few decades in first world countries and people have gotten too comfortable.

>Plenty of places have had catastrophic droughts, famines, and plagues. Nearly half of Europe died a few times from plagues. Most natives in America were absolutely wiped out from disease and other issues. Tens of millions died of famine in China last century. Tsunamis washed away and killed hundreds of thousands in Indonesia and Japan this current century.

Conveniently you selected pre-technology examples. How curious.

Meanwhile the impending global famine(s) - (plural) of the 20th century never came to be because captitalism kept pumping out agriscience improvements to improve crop yields to 10 times what they were in 1900.

???

Technology has been around for hundreds of thousands of years. What are you defining as "technology"? Software as a service chatbots? Because those aren't saving anyone.

And 227000 people died 20 years ago in a tsunami in Indonesia. They had cell phones and the internet. Is that pre-technology? 50 million died in famines in China in the 1950s. They had TV, radio, and computers. Is that pre-technology?

Technology is just tools that humans make to solve a problem.[1] It's not magic. And in the case of the Japanese tsunami, the most basic technology that humans have had for tens of thousands of years saved countless lives: just building a wall, and making it tall enough to block rising water. [2] But wrapping an entire country in walls is kind of unfeasible. And you can't protect the entire world. We never know what kind of disaster will strike next, and technology to protect us only develops after we suffer the consequences at least once.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology#Prehistoric

[2] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/photo-essay-the-seawalls-of-toh...