The energy being released in these many tiny earthquakes was always going to exist in this location. Much better to release it slowly via thousands of tiny earthquakes than all at once. Better to have 10k magnitude 3 quakes than one magnitude 7.
If you have an anvil hanging over your head, the potential energy that would kill you already exists. Slowly lowering the anvil makes sense. Damaging the rope holding the anvil doesn't.
It makes sense to me, if you consider that a "damaged rope" is a bit more elastic, so it stretches more, and allows the anvil to come to rest at a marginally lower position above your head. But only marginally.
In other words, it'd probably a terrible tradeoff to reduce the impact of some disaster by 0.0001% at the expense of making it 0.1% more likely/frequent to occur.
margalabargala · · focus · HN ↗
The energy being released in these many tiny earthquakes was always going to exist in this location. Much better to release it slowly via thousands of tiny earthquakes than all at once. Better to have 10k magnitude 3 quakes than one magnitude 7.
jjk166 · · focus · HN ↗
ryanisnan · · focus · HN ↗
Terr_ · · focus · HN ↗
In other words, it'd probably a terrible tradeoff to reduce the impact of some disaster by 0.0001% at the expense of making it 0.1% more likely/frequent to occur.