When (not if) a CME like this hits Earth, that will end civilization as we know it. Our total reliance on microelectronics in everything we require to sustain our existence nowadays is our fatal Achilles heel. If it's severe enough, there will be no recovery. (It takes microelectronics to MAKE microelectronics.) Only those who know how to satisfy all their life requirements without electricity and gadgetry will survive. The other 99% of us will perish. I know I will...
The US government has been slowly hardening their electronics to protect against just such an event and EMP. I think some cities are starting to do that, too. And there's always Cheyenne Mountain. Th question is, how would the man in the street benefit from that? At the very least, most of us would be forced to depend on 19th century technology, including everything used for farming. A nation of 300+ million people can't be supported on such technology, especially considering that most cars, trucks, and other vehicles would be out of commission (their elecrronics would be fried), and our food distribution network would be shot to shit. Local farmers could sell their products in local markets, that in most cases, that would be it. And fish, which have to be kept cold most of the time, could only be sold near the coasts, because of the lack of transport to inland markets and the lack of refrigeration. Those dependent on insulin would die -- insuling has to be kept refrigerated. And so on and on. Electrcity could be restored
( ... )
I think it was you who once mentioned something like 'the theory of 9 days', which basically posited the notion that civilization would start devolving into barbarism only 9 days after food, water, and the other amenities of life were cut off with no hope of re-supply. I wonder if it would even take that long...
It's our folly that we take the comforts of modern living completely for granted, apparently totally confident that all of this will just automatically keep going on forever. The intricate supply system that supports us is really quite fragile, and most of us can't see, or even allow ourselves to consider, that it could all end at any time. When the food trucks stop coming, and our faucets run dry, what then will we do? When the only plentiful source of fresh meat is that which is walking around on two legs, what then will we do...?
A lot of people have theorized that. Only many mention three days -- in three days, the food supply available in stores will be gone, and then there will be riots and looting as people panic and start going after any source of food they can find. First they'd go after other people's food, whether stored in cans/boxes or grown in gardens. If there were farms nearby, they'd overrun and loot those. With all other food sources exhausted, then they'd begin to practice cannibalism. There'd be another crisis, too: finding sources of fresh, safe water. Electrical pumps are responsible for moving water through our water systems. When the electricity goes off, the water stops coming. Those with wells would in many cases have fresh water, but looters would come to get that. Most people would not realize they could make any source of water safe using several cloth filters and sunlight -- filter the water into a container through several cloth filters, then let it sit in the Sun for 8 hours, and you have safe, fresh water. (Sunlight
( ... )
Yet another close call. I keep feeling that we, as a global civilisation, are living on borrowed time. Interestingly enough, an event of ths kind would be somewhat of a "1%" bomb, in that the greater the development of the nation, the more damage will be done. I.E. New york will collapse in days, with widespread damage to the infrastructure which has to import all forms of energy (power, food, water), whereas various indigenous tribes of the Amazon would be nearly unaffected. I think Los Angeles will be the first to fail, not through rioting or starvation, but through the mass suicide of people afflicted with profound narcissism. Whom, upon finding they can't tweet or instagram their latest shallow and self-serving endeavor to the adulation of their equally vapid followers, will be faced with the harsh reality of their meaningless existence and will simply slit their wrists. Or at least, one hopes so.
We certainly did dodge a bullet in 2012. We've dodged quite a few bullets since the end of WW 2 and the beginning of the Cold War, many of them having to do with the outbreak of WW 3 that didn't happen, thanks to the sanity and intelligence of a few human beings on both sides who realized that WW 3 would mean the end of everything and did not push the button even though required to
( ... )
Comments 6
Reply
Reply
It's our folly that we take the comforts of modern living completely for granted, apparently totally confident that all of this will just automatically keep going on forever. The intricate supply system that supports us is really quite fragile, and most of us can't see, or even allow ourselves to consider, that it could all end at any time. When the food trucks stop coming, and our faucets run dry, what then will we do? When the only plentiful source of fresh meat is that which is walking around on two legs, what then will we do...?
Reply
Reply
Interestingly enough, an event of ths kind would be somewhat of a "1%" bomb, in that the greater the development of the nation, the more damage will be done. I.E. New york will collapse in days, with widespread damage to the infrastructure which has to import all forms of energy (power, food, water), whereas various indigenous tribes of the Amazon would be nearly unaffected.
I think Los Angeles will be the first to fail, not through rioting or starvation, but through the mass suicide of people afflicted with profound narcissism. Whom, upon finding they can't tweet or instagram their latest shallow and self-serving endeavor to the adulation of their equally vapid followers, will be faced with the harsh reality of their meaningless existence and will simply slit their wrists.
Or at least, one hopes so.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment