4 ms·
This sort of thing has been weighing on my mind of late. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that this is why the stars aren’t full of spaceships.
by jen729w 3y ago
This sort of thing has been weighing on my mind of late. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that this is why the stars aren’t full of spaceships.
And I’m an optimist. But bear with me.
We are at the point where we, as a society/species, are utterly dependent on technology. I live in the centre of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and if the power went out tomorrow, I’m not sure how long the food supplies would last.
Because when I say power, I mean all the power, everywhere, forever. This is what happens if a ginormous solar storm hits us for more than a few minutes.
Everything is gone forever. All transformers are blown. All electronics are fried. All satellites are gone. All terrestrial communications is gone. People can’t start engines. We can’t pump petrol. We can’t pump water.
And crucially, we can’t fix anything. Because without transformers, nobody knows how to build new transformers.
So we’ve built this society that can’t function without these things. I mean we got a bad flu and people lost their shit looting toilet paper. Imagine what happens when there’s no power.
If your family is more than 200 miles away you never, ever see them again.
This only has to happen at some point in the next 200 years and humanity is back in the Victorian era. Except we all kill each other and we’ve lost all the basic skills, so it’s worse than that.
And we’re not special. We’re just a bunch of genes on an ordinary planet. I don’t see why this wouldn’t happen to every species everywhere.
Anyway. Speculation of course. But if I was a cosmic gambler, I’d go all-in on this sort of thing. It just seems obvious.
- vardump 3y ago"... All transformers are blown. ..." Sure, that's possible. Long powerlines are affected. "... All electronics are fried." What? All? How could that happen due to solar activity? My guess is that even the worst event would leave a ton of working electronics. I don't think mostly anything happens to our cars or laptops, for example.
- claytongulick 3y agoIt depends on the severity of the event and how the electronics are designed. Any time you have a magnetic field cross a conductor you induce a voltage. The concern is that small electronics have very sensitive components that operate at low voltages. If there's a voltage spike generated on an internal bus, it could damage components.
- LargoLasskhyfv 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyake_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyake_event
- vardump 3y ago”A Miyake event occurring in modern conditions might have significant impacts on global technological infrastructure such as satellites, telecommunications, and power grids.” No word about small disconnected devices. I’m guessing they’re going to be fine.
- LargoLasskhyfv 3y agoIt doesn't matter if you can't use them for a year. Which is the possible duration of these events, in addition to being several orders of magnitude stronger than the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
- 0x_rs 3y agoIt's hard being truly prepared to events that happen so rarely people may live their life without ever witnessing one, and it's true most modern survival is entirely dependent on those things, but that's a seriously excessive dramatization. Grids and infrastructure in general is being hardened to reduce risks in cases of geomagnetic disturbances, it's just a slow process, the risks are very well known to operators (but still not as dramatic) and so are the solutions for it.
- thriftwy 3y agoThat anxiety is because you're living in a country which did not see bad stuff happening in it for a long time. Other places (from Europe downhill to places such as Syria and Iraq) had really bad stuff happening, and it is known that people are quite resilient. Not only the humanity does not "kill each other", the cities mostly stay intact.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yowzadave 3y agoYeah, I think people have this assumption because it’s been portrayed that way in fictional media so many times. In actual real-world disaster situations, people don’t instantly revert to murderous zombies—they tend to band together and act altruistically.
- lubujackson 3y agoIf you told me 5 years ago a virus would ravage Earth to the point all restaurants and normal businesses close their doors for months, all non-essential flights are cancelled and hospitals get overwhelmed everywhere I would assume the world would completely fall apart. Yet here we are, with mostly "that sucked for a year" stories.
- d-z-m 3y agoI don't think you're an optimist.
- leobg 3y agoBook recommendation (a novel that plays out your thought experiment): One Second After is a 2009 novel by American writer William R. Forstchen. The novel deals with an unexpected electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States as it affects the people living in and around the small American town of Black Mountain, North Carolina.
- crooked-v 3y ago> without transformers, nobody knows how to build new transformers I feel like you've forgotten that books exist. Literally anywhere with a university is going to have a heap of books documenting how to rebuild modern technological society from scratch.
- ChatGTP 3y agoDo you know how long it would take to do this? You'd also have to be doing it while educating people "the old way". Schools don't even teach handwriting now.
- jen729w 3y agoSorry, I should have been clearer: Without transformers, we can’t build new transformers. Think of the supply chain involved. It all runs on electricity. We’ve built ourselves in to a corner where basically nothing is possible without power. So yeah, go get that book from the library. Good luck smelting steel.
- SquibblesRedux 3y ago"Complete Metal Working Shop From Scrap Series Set (7 INDIVIDUAL BOOKS)" Here is the description of the series: ISBN 1-878087-00-2 The Charcoal Foundry ISBN 1-878087-01-0 The Metal Lathe ISBN 1-878087-02-9 The Metal Shaper ISBN 1-878087-03-7 The Milling Machine ISBN 1-878087-04-5 The Drill Press ISBN 1-878087-05-3 The Dividing Head & Deluxe Accessories ISBN 1-878087-06-1 The Sheet Metal Brake Quote from the site: Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From Scrap is a progressive series of seven projects including, The Charcoal Foundry, The Metal Lathe, The Metal Shaper, The Milling Machine, The Drill Press, The Dividing Head and The Sheet Metal Brake. Beginning with a simple charcoal fired foundry, you produce the castings for building the machine tools to equip your shop. Initially the castings are finished by simple hand methods, but it isn’t long before the developing machines are doing much of the work to produce their own parts. It does not take long to learn the simple craft of pattern-making and sand molding. Each phase of the projects increase your knowledge and skill. There is no need to look for outside help. You can do it all in your own shop. No complicated math----No exotic equipment required----No large cash outlay. Lots of work to be sure, and some of it can be downright tedious, but the reward will be a practical small scale machine shop that you might never give yourself permission to buy, assuming you could afford it. https://gingerybookstore.com/MetalWorkingShopFromScrapSeries.html https://gingerybookstore.com/MetalWorkingShopFromScrapSeries...
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- Ekaros 3y agoIt is scary to think what is the actual lead time on grid scale components... When you are in multiple megawatt range. It is pretty long and pretty specialised. It is not just transformers, but switches, relays and even fuses. Much of that will have surviving spares, but still building up the capacity to build those components is not entirely trivial.
- gamblor956 3y agoGiven that a lot of modern electronics are shielded as a matter of regulation and operational necessity, a solar event strong enough to fry all of our electronics would also kill a lot of people directly. It would be an Armageddon-level event. People can’t start engines. An event strong enough to disable an ICE vehicle's ignition system will likely have killed anyone who could have used the vehicle. We can’t pump water. Most water pumps generally operate on gasoline or other fuel. Electric-powered water pumps is a very recent development. I mean we got a bad flu and people lost their shit looting toilet paper. Imagine what happens when there’s no power. Parts of California and most of Texas experience that every year... Most people in India experience multiple power outages each day. No mass looting yet...
- ianburrell 3y agoSolar flares don't destroy electronics. They induce current in long conductors like power lines. I think the confusion comes from nearby nuclear EMP, which destroys electronics, and high-altitude EMP, which induces currents. Solar flares are basically larger-scale high-altitude EMP. It is relatively easy to protect the electrical grid, grounding everything and putting surge protectors in front of transformers. The problem is that we aren't doing those protections. Also, the grid is not vulnerable when disconnected; it is possible to turn off the grid for predicted flare and then restart it. Being lazy about protection is not a universal. Any aliens with more active star would have done the protection from the beginning. Aliens from more quiet stars don't need it.