An even more rational approach is think about it in terms of classes of scenarios to prepare for – many threats can be averted and/or mitigated through common preparations. Seed stores, distributed infrastructure, general survival training, and so on. But given how remote many scenarios seem to most people making decisions, the extra effort for long term benefits over short term gains tends to favor the latter over the former.
We can. Now is good times. Apart from the pandemic – but that's only one type of bad time; we're mostly okay as regards climate change, we don't currently have much crop blight, nuclear armageddon seems far away… and we're mostly in a position to prepare and mitigate those issues, even if we missed the boat on this particular pandemic.
