All good points.

As I age, I try to be less cynical, more positive, etc., but your observations are beyond debate. So the question is, why is that? Why is there not more of an effort to predict earthquakes?

Is it fear of losing reputation or money? The insurance industry, for real estate anyway, has no stake at all in short-window predictions of a week or two, so they're not going to buy into it.

So it comes down to who stands to profit and who stands to lose from short-term (a few days) predictions of earthquakes GIVEN the reliability of those predictions. If the reliability is low, far more stakeholders (aka big money) stand to lose from low-reliability, short-term predictions of imminent earthquakes. In fact, those same businesses, if they're involved in both commercial real estate and construction, stand to gain from NOT releasing those predictions because not only will they get paid to rebuild, the won't get sued for not evacuating their properties.

And that's the thing. Once the authorities announce a warning, people become liable if they don't take action.

Many stakeholders lose money if the government says, hey, there's a 60% chance of a major quake in the next week here.

So the big money does not want that. The only people it benefits are those living in buildings or structures that may collapse or those planning travel. And the powers that be certainly don't want to interrupt travel, particularly that of tourists.

To play the Devil's advocate, I can see the logic for not announcing warnings that have low reliability, and I think that the low reliability really is the reason behind the radio silence. But, that does not mean there should not be more of a public debate and discussion and sharing of information. There absolutely should be.