I agree that the USA has always had a “might makes right” mentality, especially in regards to its international relations, but yes, within our domestic affairs as well.
The boon of technologies, however, is initially a benefit to those who are differently abled, or somehow otherwise incapable of accomplishing physically strenuous tasks (think of the boon the invention of the bicycle had to women, who were demonized for wearing pants shortly after its invention and visiting ”men of ill repute” just the town over. Or more recently the invention of modern contraceptives and safer abortion techniques).
Said technologies are often usually then weaponized for power or profit by militaries, police, and corporations to exploit and disenfranchise, as well as remove access of these technologies to certain classes of people (the public working and public lower classes).
One only has to look at the corporatization of the modern farming industry and its rabid attempts to circumvent right to repair laws to see its nightmarish effects on not only agriculture, but also the modern farmer’s ability to run their own business according to their whims, and not an overlord corporation.
The loss of electricity worldwide would send us back to the late 19th century for the most part. And there are many strong, dominant, men who would love nothing more than to have the reliance of brute strength become the rule of law again.
To me, that is not a time I wish to revisit, that is not a transition I wish to bear witness to, as it would likely involve witnessing the disenfranchisement and disenpowerment of the world’s differently abled people as well as witnessing the rise of violent conflicts over resources and a return of more blatant slavery than we see today. Quite simply, I’d rather die.
I do hope this would play out differently in other countries (likely smaller countries). But the cynic in me doesn’t believe it’s possible.
Same reason you’d want to live in this fucked up world full of injustice and suffering.
Most people have a very powerful inherent drive to survive, and a lot of people who think they’ve got nothing to live for experience a reprioritization and will fight like hell to survive.
Most individuals who try to kill themselves immediately regret their decision. This happens a lot with jumpers, where most survivors report immediately regretting the decision as soon as they are in free fall and their brains reprioritize survival over the petty or even significant reasons we had to jump in the first place.
Just after jumping and while mid-air, Ken said, “I realized, at that moment, this is the stupidest thing I could have done.”
“I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable — except for having just jumped.” Source
Yeah yeah. Heard that story like a billion times. Totally agree. I’d rather die from starvation after having witnessed my loved ones die from similar circumstances. And I’m not being facetious. This is preferable to suicide.
Nah. If Food runs out, food runs out. Evenly distributed rations. It’s simply more likely I’d survive longer as my general health is better than my loved ones right now, and therefore I would likely be the one to bear witness to their tragic demise.
I can see why you’d think that though, based off of the unclear wording of my previous reply.
Yeah, that definitely means that it’s not a “might makes right” case, because it hasn’t happened to you personally, ty for clearing that up it makes me feel better as I have my rights eroded.
I’m not too concerned. Worst case, my brother is a competition shooter and has a number of guns and the components for lots of ammo at home (he makes his own custom tailored ammo), while gun ownership is otherwise quite unusual in my country.
I suppose a major issue would be realizing early enough if things are not going to improve, and that it’s time to bug out to his place and switch to Fallout mode.
The biggest challenge would be to get out of the city and make the trip to my family’s farm safely. It would take about a week on foot/bikes using less known roads with all the supplies/weapons that would be crucial.
If I could get to the farm, rest would be fairly easy. I can farm, fish and and hunt. Heating works with wood. Fresh water is not a problem, nor is refrigeration with an ice cellar. My family has an old mill that we could restore to get flour and I think I could retrofit it to produce hydroelectricity in a year or so.
I’d trade access to electricity to get horses and other farm animals.
Almost every neighbour is related to me, so forming a defensive alliance should be possible.
I have the gear and the knowhow to make things work, it’s the not-getting-killed part at the start that’s hard.
And then there’s me. I either get some of your food, or I die. The hunger is growing in me like crack withdrawal. I also have survival skills and I’ve used every tool you can imagine and I’m really good at sneaking around.
I’ve probably got a gun by now.
I’m just gonna come and take ten pound of your corn. That’s all I need, then I’ll be on my way.
I don’t know how well I would do even if I escaped to my inlaws farm. It is pretty low tech but they are depending on city water which involves pumps and a moped to even get to the farm from their house still requires a battery.
The trouble isn’t that you can’t do all that. It’s how many other people have that same idea. Rural areas will be overrun by people who think getting out of the cities is the best idea – not that they’re wrong – but it will run supplies low outside cities too, and home gardens and the local deer population can only take so much pressure. That’s not even to mention the road traffic. If cities can’t handle rush hour, 2 lanes will certainly be gridlocked as everyone looks for the next road not taken. The locals would not take kindly to such an influx either.
The best strategy in my mind would be to stockpile food and other necessities wherever you are now and prepare for a long wait, hoping power gets restored. It would be horrible and dangerous no matter where.
3 months is when my insulin runs out. I doubt I’d make it that long in the USA.
Like I said, the start would be the hardest part. Cars or any other motor vehicles would be out of the question.
f this scenario would happen during the winter, it would effectively block all the lesser known forest roads for vehicle use. Doing the trip with skis would easily halve my travel time, even with the supply sled and heavy backpacks. 30-50km per day would be easy, when one wouldn’t have to go around all the lakes and rivers. We don’t get much daylight here in the far north so travelling in the cover of darkness would be ideal. I can find my way in dark forests with ease.
In the summer, the trip would be much more problematic. My country has countless number of old, unmarked roads and forest paths that are usually suitable for mountain bikes. This would be my first option. The second would be crossing the forests by foot which would be very safe, but it would take time.
My relatives would take care of the farm until I would arrive, of that I am certain - and they are very capable of doing so. My family has stuck around those parts for hundreds of years and we aim to keep it that way in any scenario ;)
I guess I might be a bit late, but I’ll write a few lines anyway.
I’m in Sweden. There is a lot of shootings, bombings and arsons in Stockholm and the areas around it. We’ve honestly never seen anything like it, at this point I’m just surprised it hasn’t really been happening in the other major cities.
The city where I live has a fucked budget, the municipality is cutting the budget of schools, health care and in other sectors.
For me personally it’s okay. I live in a calm area, I can work from home when I want to. Economically I’m not super solid, but I can put away a little bit of cash every month.
Not late at all. I find everyone’s response very interesting. I am curious, the nordic counties seems to be often held up and the proof of socialists democracy. Do you feel the fundamental system is still working? Is this just a moment of difficulty or is it larger?
Thanks for a great question, really made me think.
So, I am a firm believer in social democracy. The problem as I see it is that there’s been a mix of social democracy and libertarianism. We have in many cases sold public companies and spaces to private actors, but we still maintain our high tax rates. We have used the “new public management” for quite a while now, maybe since the 90s, which seems to limit our ability to plan ahead and only look to the next quarter.
I also believe we have dropped the ball on integration. We have received many refugees and migrants, but without a plan. This has led to increased segregation and less trust towards government and agencies.
I do think it’s fixable, in most ways Sweden is great and I’m proud to be a part of it. But we have a lot of challenges both national and international. The EU for example looks weaker when we need to be stronger and working together. We also obviously need to get a handle on this recent wave of shootings and murder. After that integration really needs to be the focus.
And thanks for your great reply. I really find this fascinating. I am glad you think it is fixable, hopefully it will turn around here soon without too much pain. If you will permit me one more question. What does integration mean to you? Like do they need to become more Swedish, do the Swedes need to just their culture to accommodate the immigrants. Or more of a live and let live thing where you can be neighbors but not really integrate. As far as I know immigration is always a net positive for a society, but that doesn’t make it easy.
I think the major failings have been that we have allowed a large part of the immigrants to move into neighborhoods with exclusively other immigrants, thus not being exposed to Swedish culture or values. This ties in with learning Swedish, which obviously is central to integration. This has become a vicious circle where entire suburbs can consist of immigrants. An example is where teachers in kindergarten speak poor Swedish and the kids also have poor Swedish. In many cases they don’t share a mother tounge and the result isn’t great. I get that you want to live with other people who speak your language, but the divide is too big in my opinion.
Then there’s the discussion about cultural values which I don’t think I know enough about to speak much about. But we can see that there are several groups that don’t want to be a real part of society, and that’s clearly a problem.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful replies. I could ask your questions about this till you run away, but I will leave it for now.
Let me just leave you with this though. Looking at other counties that have a longer history of large immigration. It seems to take 2 to 3 generations for immigrants to feel native. Maybe a little unconditional acceptance and patience will help this along.
For work i have to compress files together for submissions and on Mac the compress option is right above the duplicate option, not all the time but enough times to piss me off I end up duplicating the files instead of compressing them.
I find it amusing how no one points out how ridiculous it is for ops first reaction to 3 spots of brown in his brand new kettle is for him to throw it away and get a new one
There is a book that describes exactly that: Ashes, Ashes by Barjavel.
It’s a classic of French science-fiction literature and I recommended everyone to read.
It was written in 1943, it describes a parisian dystopian society in 2050 where all the electricity suddenly stop overnight. Even thought the book is 80 years old it is surprisingly accurate in some aspect.
There’s a fantastic book series based on exactly this: The Change Series. This is a double storyline with the Emberverse series in which the present time beginning in March 1998 loses electricity and “most forms of high-energy-density technology” due to “The Change”, which occurs at 6:15 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, March 17, 1998.
The companion series, which was written first, is the Nantucket Series, in which the island of Nantucket is transported back in time to 1250 BC due to something called “The Event”, the same Event that caused The Change. But— they got to keep all their physics intact.
I feel like this is the kind of thing everyone overlooks in these kinds of scenarios. Thousands of people are going to be working on the problem. Okay, all our current electronics are fried, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make new ones. All our power plants and water treatment facilities suddenly don’t work… Well, people still have jobs at those places so someone is going to try to fix it. And I think most people sort of know and understand that, at least over the short term. Society doesn’t fall apart after every disaster.
And if it did, you’re probably wrong about how you’d respond or you’re not being creative and therefore are doing what everyone else will do and the resources will dry up and you won’t be one of the lucky few that makes it.
Well these questions are mostly for people to LARP about how tough and self-sufficient they are. No, society wouldn’t collapse because we didn’t have electricity for 99% of our time on Earth. Electricity was a luxury as recently as 100 years ago.
Number one issue is, can electronics be fixed? If yes, temporary issue. If not, and we are literally without power (for some magical reason) we just need a million more horses to cart food around. There wouldn’t be much looting. The new iPhone won’t work and how are you going to get away with anything bigger? Guns and locks still work without electricity.
I personally would start buying up property from people ignorantly fleeing cities. Most major cities are built on great harbors or waterways for sail and steam ships. People will try to farm, fail at it, and just buy from farmers like before. Food will move by boat first to major ports. Every prepper in the middle of nowhere will sit in a bunker eating canned vegetables while the rest of the world goes on with their lives.
You don’t actually need Facebook and Tik Tok. You won’t die without it. You’ll just read the same gossip in a magazine.
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