Unsung heroes. Our civilization seems to have an addiction to dancing on the edge of a cliff. Thanks to heroes like these, we can dance a little longer. At least until the hot coals get us.
Dancing on the edge is the economically sensible thing to do. Same reason you only spend so much on earth quake resistance if they only happen once every 50 years. Let the whole city fall down and rebuild is cheaper than an earthquake tax on everything every year.
A better idea is to have 2 cities - one built with earth quake resistance, and the other not - and give people the choice about which one to live in.
Then it shouldn't take more than a couple of earthquake iterations to sort out the gene pool.
The mistake you're making is to assume it's cheaper to build non-earthquake resistant structures. It's actually just another iteration of the cheap boot problem.[1]
