What would become of the United States as a nation should we experience a catastrophic failure of any one of our technology systems?
Many of us have experienced the temporary loss of electrical power, which serves notice of our utter dependence on it, from making coffee in the morning to setting the alarm clock at night.
How helpless are you when your computer network is shut down for some reason? Or you are unable to access the net?
How much of our daily lives revolve around satellite technology?
Television, telephones, war machines?
Solar flares have been known to take out major power lines and transformers as well as satellites. Apparently we now have access to radiation bombs and presumably radiation rays designed to take out public infrastructure. How long can it be before terrorists have the same capability?
How quickly could we recover from a major, multi-regional meltdown of our electrical system or loss of the majority of our satellite capabilities?
Could we recover, or would we quickly revert to the Stone Age?
I’m pretty dependent on the Internet, but mostly for school. I’d imagine that if there were a nuclear holocaust, my teacher would understand if I turned in an essay or two late.
Pretty dependant I would say. I think there was a movie about that and it turns into every man for himself kinda thing. I think it would be chaos for awhile but eventually we would recover. It wouldnt throw us back as far as the stone age, maybe just a century or so… IMHO.
I heard once (could be complete BS) that if all the power stations / generators in the world turned off for one day, there would be no concievable way to start them all up again.
They (are said) to rely on power from so many external sources to run and thus generate their power that without it they could not begin to run again. But it sound plain wrong to me.
I don’t think a complete power blackout it would set us back so far, it would only be a minor hiccup. Global economic meltdown would probably be the greatest threat to modern life in such a scenerio.
Yes. That would be bullshit. Like any engineering problem, I’m sure a way could be found to restart a power station. (Of sourse it probably wouldn’t be as easy as in the movies where the ignorant townsfolk flip a giant switch and the generators shudder to life again)
We can survive without the Internet, TV or our alarm clocks. What we can’t survive without is the massive infrastructure we need to support 450 million people in this country with food, housing, and heat.
Correct. And that way would involve looking at the power company’s operating procedure for a “black start”, and following the instructions contained therein.
It’s not as if no one has ever considered this happening. It has been considered and planned for. And not just because of a nuclear holocaust, but because of more mundane faults that can cause a part of the network to become isolated from the rest.
I can’t operate properly without a good internet connection. I can barely operate with only a dial-up instead of DSL.
Seriously, my entire life is in my computer. I had a hard drive die recently and I spent months tracking down such things as my bank accounts, my friends, contacts, even relatives. I had several bills that I couldn’t pay because I lost my account info. I’m very reliant on the Internet too. Almost anything I need to do, banking, paying bills, looking up phone numbers, etc I do through the Internet.
I’d have to say that we’re too dependent on modern technology. If power, heat, electriciy, and water were to be interrupted, I’d have no idea what to do. It probably wouldn’t affect people like the Amish who don’t take advantage of modern technology. They’d no doubt get along fine, but I’m very dependent on running water, power, etc. Our homes aren’t set up to revert to the non power day such as the Amish have. No fireplace for heat, no well for water, no outhouse, etc.