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Comment by rightbyte | Hacker News Reader

At least that edge of it.

Imagine owning the house over the road where the lava is heading right now, watching the disaster in slow motion. I guess the lava flow could stop right in front of it?

Edit: Nevermind ...

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Iceland has socialised National Catastrophe Insurance. The premiums are very low but if your house is lava'd or avalanched you get a reasonable payout.

Of course it's better if that doesn't happen, but if it does there's solid support for the victims.

This would never happen in the USA. Pure communism

The American equivalent is probably the national flood insurance program.

The annoying thing about that is that it lets people repeatedly keep building in exactly the same spot.

Not without an inconvenience, but it's almost like "every time it floods enough you get a home upgrade".

People can afford beachfront houses often have friends in high places.

That insurance not cheap.

But it is subsidized by one’s fellow taxpayers.

Only sort of. People who live in flood zones are subsidizing all the other people in the flood zones much more than say a homeowner in Colorado.

I don't live in a flood zone. How do I opt out of subsidizing any of these people's flood insurance at all?

You pay taxes, the people in flood zone pay taxes. The same.

Then on top of that, flood zone residents have to pay extra for the flood insurance.

You don't understand what "subsidized" means, do you?

Their flood insurance costs less than it otherwise would because those of us without flood insurance are helping to pay for their flood insurance.

It's fine if you think that's the way things should work, but there's no value in pretending it's not happening.

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