Iran Lashing Out Randomly At World - A Dark Scenario

[jordan179]

Has anyone noticed yet that Iran recently seems to have launched a series of terrorist attacks against a widely disparate group of countries? Iran has attacked (Asian) Georgia, India

Comments

[whitetail]

Post-EMP, under ideal circumstances, the farmers in the heartland might be able to adapt short-term, but anyone, anywhere, who depends upon supermarkets for food will be doomed. After all the trucks have their electronics fried by the EMP and the markets stop being restocked and everything edible has been looted, the only significant source of food left will be that walking around on two legs. And the farmers had better have machine gun batteries at the ready to prepare for the hungry hordes who will pour out of the cities by the millions in search of any food they can find. And even if the hordes don't come, the farmers won't survive for very long themselves, because their farm equipment won't work anymore. How many farmers do you know who still use oxen to plow their fields and harvest their crops with scythes?

And just what are YOU going to do when you find out that your car will never start again, nor will any of your neighbors' or the shopkeepers' vehicles? And even if you owned a pre-1980s car that didn't depend on electronics to run, you'd never be able to refuel your car without electricity. And you won't be able to call for help, because your communications devices won't function anymore, and anyway, there won't be anywhere for help to come FROM, because everybody will be in the same boat you are. So what are you going to do when everything you depend on for your survival stops functioning because all the electronics are fried? I'll tell you what you're going to do. You are going to die. We all will. We'll turn on each other until there's no one left to turn on. Because there's really only one thing that all humans can do and do with genuine efficiency and skill, even without electricity, and that's commit MURDER. And post-EMP, that's ALL that will be left for us to do.

[gothelittle]

I encourage you to look up the term "Faraday Cage".

Then consider how many electronic devices in the average household are partly or fully surrounded by any sort of metal, including aluminum.

There are a lot of websites out there suggesting that every single piece of powered equipment will die a horrible death in the case of an EMP. Back in 1999, there were also a lot of websites out there suggesting that every single piece of electronics was going to fail at Y2K, even microwaves and washing machines.

If a device isn't shielded (like pretty much all cars are), then you may have to change out some fuses.

But if you're really, really, *really* worried about something in particular, cover it in aluminum foil. Problem solved.

[whitetail]

Oh, I've heard of Faraday cages, alright. And I'll grant you, not all electronic devices would be taken out by an EMP attack. All that really needs to happen, however, is for enough of them to be fried such that it breaks the nation's supply chain and takes down its means of mass communication. If the supply chain can be crippled nationwide for even as little as a week, we are fucked. Chances are, though, that it would take much longer than that to restore civil and economic order, and for a nation then in a state of total, all-out war, that almost certainly spells defeat.

I should perhaps remind you that "It can't happen here" are some of the most famous and relevant last words in the long, tragic history of mankind. Your tinfoil solution may indeed shield electronics, but brains... not so much.

[gothelittle]

I certainly agree that we want to keep such a scenario from happening, and I definitely approve any show of force necessary to keep Iran or anyone else from doing it to us.

But the very assertion that it would result in our total destruction can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and one that doesn't need to be self-fulfilling. :) What will hold us together is the continued belief (of enough of us) that Americans *are* more resilient, more innovative, and more united than to dissolve into Lord of the Flies whenever we get hit hard enough.

I saw this in New England when Hurricane Irene knocked out power to much of my state for over a week. Total strangers were giving each other hints on where to buy gas and find water. People with damaged houses were bunking up with neighbors. One neighbor of ours had a brother who was running himself ragged... going straight from work to several people's houses to give each of them about 3 hours with his generator so that they could maintain refrigeration of their food. There were some complaints, but nothing in the way of increased violence, anarchy, etc.

There is nothing as powerful as a group of human beings free to innovate and build for their own benefit, and nothing so frightening as a group of human beings who have been taught all their lives to beg, borrow, or steal anything they don't have.

[cutelildrow]

I saw this in New England when Hurricane Irene knocked out power to much of my state for over a week. Total strangers were giving each other hints on where to buy gas and find water. People with damaged houses were bunking up with neighbors. One neighbor of ours had a brother who was running himself ragged... going straight from work to several people's houses to give each of them about 3 hours with his generator so that they could maintain refrigeration of their food. There were some complaints, but nothing in the way of increased violence, anarchy, etc.

Wow. That's a good man there. Strong Christian values. /salute

[gothelittle]

Aye aye, him and his brother. Awesome people. It's people like them who will save humanity in the case of disaster. :)

I actually found a txt document on my Notebook that I used to write some journal stuff in during Hurricane Irene. I wrote that we had gotten the old portable radio up and operating, and were listening to a local station giving the news. They were calling up and talking to mayor after mayor, getting an idea of the situation. They asked each mayor the same question: Any increased violence in your area? Any problems with looting?

For each one the answer was the same: the mayor would have a slightly puzzled tone in his voice as he answered, "No..? No, everyone's pretty much just taking care of stuff..."

I wrote in my journal that, as I was listening, I could hear chainsaws in the distance and knew (because my mother told me, she'd seen them) that there were guys out there with pickup trucks, ordinary people, chopping up the trees lying across the roads and carrying off the wood for their stoves.

Hurricane Irene did a lot to strengthen my faith in the people of my state (and large parts of my country, if it comes to that) in the case of catastrophe. We don't wait for the government to fix it, and we don't (with the exception of certain urban areas) take it as a license to go grab everything we want from everyone else.

[jordan179]

I do think that the Iranians could hit us with ICBM's (they already have orbital launch capability, which is the harder thing to achieve). What I'm saying is that you are overestimating the effective radius of an EMP and underestimating the existing hardening against such sorts of attacks. For one thing, you seem to believe that a couple of high-altitude detonations could knock out our SAC and ICBM forces: but those forces are most hardened against EMP because we weren't stupid in the 1970's and 1980's.

The problem with overestimating the threat is that it can paralyze us with fear, increasing the danger. Note the policy of the US Democratic Party in the 1970's and 1980's, which consisted essentially of shrieking in terror before Soviet military might and being afraid to do anything -- even build up our own forces -- in fear that it would "provoke" World War III.

[the_mcp]

If a device isn't shielded (like pretty much all cars are), then you may have to change out some fuses.

The effect of an EMP on semiconductor electronics will be much like a direct lightning strike, in that it will damage or destroy the silicon junctions inside the chips themselves by inducing voltages far in excess of their breakdown voltage.

I work in this industry, and I've seen microscope photos of what a CMOS chip (the most commonly-used semiconductor technology nowadays) looks like after it's been hit just from a simple static-electricity discharge from someone handling it while they weren't grounded. I assure you, it will not merely be a matter of "replacing a few fuses."

[gothelittle]

However, nuclear tests have thus far failed to produce an EMP with the strength of a lightning bolt. At any rate, if one *did* hit us with both the strength of a lightning bolt and sufficient spread to affect the entire country, then our electronics is seriously not the only thing we'll be worrying about.

Don't forget that our hearts run on electrical impulses.

[marycatelli]

I remember an online discussion once about whether a microwave oven would stop a cell phone. So a wise soul put hers in one and got someone to call it. Couldn't get through.

[banner]

Just as nuclear winter was mostly a made up political hoax, EMP is about on the same level. Most things are harden from EMP, and most things that are affected would only reset, not be burned out. Otherwise you'd have people using it all the time on others.

[jordan179]

I wouldn't discount the possibility of nuclear winter, though I do agree that TTAPS exaggerated the danger by assuming that a mere 100 detonations would be enough to induce the effect. Certainly, putting enough dust into the Earth's atmosphere can create a harsh winter -- we know this from repeated historical experience, with regard to volcanoes.

EMP is also very real, but it's not as powerful as some are implying, and it's a lot easier to shield against. We know it's not as powerful as some are implying, because if it were, our electronics would be annihilated every time there was a major solar flare. (No, the Earth's magnetic field does not always completely protect us!)

[kitten_goddess]

Wouldn't massive radiation poisoning be a bigger problem than nuclear winter or EMPs? In the event of a nuclear attack, everyone in Washington, DC* would die within a week of radiation poisoning, not to mention the long-term consequences of radiation contaminating the food and water supply, increased cancer rates, birth defects, mutation, etc. Most people on the East Coast would die of radiation poisoning, in fact.

*This assumes that a nuclear attack would be aimed at Washington, DC, our nation's capital

[gothelittle]

Would have to take one heck of a bomb to wipe out the entire seaboard. Remember that two nukes were detonated in Japan, which is a far tinier area, and yet the population survived and thrived just fine. And yes, I know, the U.S. has bigger and better bombs now, but Iran does not.

When I was working full-time, I spent some time working for the Dosimetry department and learned a lot about nuclear radiation. It's horrible to be sure, but not as doomsday-ish as a nuclear strike on Washington causing radiation poisoning in Florida... or even in Delaware.

Here, take a look at this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1615299.stm

Five million exposed to health dangers due to Chernobyl.

Fifteen years later, 2,000 cases of thyroid cancer.

Tragic? Undoubtedly. But not in the 'total devastation' realm.

Here's another thing to look at and consider. :)
http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/

[kalance]

Bare in mind that this country spent several decades preparing for a devastating nuclear attack. Hundreds of billions of dollars was invested, up until about the late 80's, into those preparations. Not just in the form of bunkers, but in infrastructure as well. To say nothing of emergency stores. Jokes about warehouses full of "government cheese" aside, it isn't a joke that massive surpluses of thinks like food and fuel are stored around the nation for use during periods of great national emergency.

While I certainly lack access to specific numbers, prudence would suggest that the federal government would have stockpiled at least enough food and living necessities to get this country through one growing season, or however long it deemed it would take to recover from a disaster to get back on its feet again. I mean, our nation has stockpiled enough petroleum to last 6 months under emergency conditions. They must have at least that much in stored wheat and meats.

[cutelildrow]

The situation you describe is what the zombie apocalypse meme and survival meme is aiming to illustrate and teach to avoid. The idea isn't 'it can't happen here' - it's it can.

(Incidentally, gothelittle is not one of the people would would immediately flounder, choke and die - as I recall correctly, her household pushes hard in augmenting their food supply with home-grown stuff, and other such measures, to make ends meet now. My family is more likely to flounder as all our attempts in at least growing food to supplement our own vegetable intake against rising costs have failed, thanks to the soil poisoning that the 2009 floods brought, never mind the millipedes. gothelittle's got more of a head start on preparation than I do.)