Your thoughts please

[SeaCat]

What would happen if we lost all electricity? I'm talking something akin to a world wide EMP. Something that knocks out all computers and electrical appliances. We're talking everything that is run by electrics for at least six months.

How would society be changed? How would your personal life be changed. Would mankind survive?

Cat

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Sorry buy my suspension of disbelief is unwilling.

 

[Dragonlipz]

This question actually was debated during

one of my engineering classes - about three hundred years ago...My contention was that mankind had survived and thrived without electricity and collectively would relearn the technology in short order to master the secrets of Tesla's pet.
Would we survive a long term loss of that source of power: No.
Can we survive a short term discontinuity? Yes.
An EMP is an event not a condition. It happens once, inflicts it's damage and is no more. Granted, getting things fired up again is a major undertaking, but not a death sentence.....

 

[DeeZire]

What would happen if we lost all electricity? I'm talking something akin to a world wide EMP.

Dude! You have just come up with the premise for the next Hollywood blockbuster disaster movie. I'm sure as we speak, writers in LA (waiters, sales clerks, etc.) are whipping it up on their pirated copies of Scriptwriter.

If I was writing it there would be a clothes-ripping catfight between Britanny Murphy and Jessica Alba in the first act. They would be fighting over water, since, for the most part, there wouldn't be any.

 

[DesertPirate]

What would happen if we lost all electricity? I'm talking something akin to a world wide EMP. Something that knocks out all computers and electrical appliances. We're talking everything that is run by electrics for at least six months.

How would society be changed? How would your personal life be changed. Would mankind survive?

Cat

Get to the sticks and live like our forefathers
Huntin, fishin, farmin

 

[TE999]

We'd be doin' a heap o' walkin', since all ignition systems would be fried...no trucks to make deliveries...food shortages everywhere...no refrigeration...no cooling or heating either...no elevators...water pumping plants...or sewer treatment plants...total chaos.

The strong and resourseful among us would survive...the rest would die.

 

[Stultus]

Severe craziness. Detroit level nastiness would ensue.

I'm working on an EOTW/SHTF story and I think it would make the 1968 race riots look pathetic in comparison. Lord of the Flies on a continental scale.

 

[Liar]

I'd get effin' bored.

 

[alyxen]

There was actually a pretty good movie similar to this premise. I can't recall who was in it yet, so once I do I will post a link. All power was out so there was no communication, no fuel deliveries, etc. The story centers around how different people responded to the event. Pretty sure it came out in the 90's but can't quite come up with a name or anything.

 

[Lee Chambers]

Unless it was clearly obvious what had happened, how extensive it was, and how long it might take to fix the problem (if the problem could even be fixed) a lot of people would spend the first few days waiting, thinking it was a power outage. Since we're talking EMPs, eventually people would realize that their laptops, cellphones and other portable gear had stopped working at the same time as the power loss. Word would spread and people would begin clamoring for answers.

Most people would freak at the complete lack of communication. Even not being able to reach your friends or family a few blocks or miles away would be too much.

The beginning would be pretty horrific. In the major cities especially you would see the violence and the looting. With no food and no way to get resupplied, people would divide up into factions and gangs, banding together in a very "US vs THEM" situation.

There's a lot of equipment in the world designed to withstand EMPs. Most of it is government controlled, so the government would try to establish law and order where it could. But that kind of gear isn't standard issue for a Marine or an FBI agent or a the post man, so all of them would be in the dark. Not all tech would go down. Old vehicles that didn't rely on electronics to run would still function fine as long as they had fuel.

There's a lot of ways I could go on about the short term effects and changes.

Long term, without communication, people would have to adapt or perish. Working together would be absolutely necessary for survival. Knowledge of things we take for granted like math and science would be necessary to move beyond simply hunting and gathering food.

Mankind would definitely survive. There are places in the world right now where people live with little or no technology. But we would spend several years in a new Dark Age, maybe even longer, before we started to see things picking back up.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Every gas station in Florida has an emergency power source, so do most of the essential services. The serious problems would wither away after about 30 days, once most homes and businesses were connected to generators.

Loss of communication satellites would be much worse.

 

[jomar]

Dude! You have just come up with the premise for the next Hollywood blockbuster disaster movie. I'm sure as we speak, writers in LA (waiters, sales clerks, etc.) are whipping it up on their pirated copies of Scriptwriter.

If I was writing it there would be a clothes-ripping catfight between Britanny Murphy and Jessica Alba in the first act. They would be fighting over water, since, for the most part, there wouldn't be any.

The hallmark of any truly great movie is that something must be destroyed, someone must die and breasts must be bared within the first five minutes.

 

[SweetWitch]

Families would be closer. People would be reading books. The gardens would be full of veggies and everyone would have a calf or a pig in their back yards again.

Animal rights activists would have to learn to deal with the deaths of chickens in the neighborhoods. The barter system would be reborn.

Small towns would build fences and gates to keep out trespassers and keep the food and well water safe. People would band together, become real neighbors again and be seen outside in the sunshine.

The vegitative state of children in front of video games and TV would be lifted and their sweet giggles would fill the air once more. They would become healthy (provided food was plentiful) and obesity would be cured.

Anyone with a horse would be considered rich. The ownership of a gun would assure a family's safety and that there would be meat on the table more than once a week.

 

[Liar]

I live two weeks to a month every year without electricity, except for a cell phone and a solar powered charger.

Without power, I'd have to live without the security of being able to call 911, and the convenience of the mainland ferry twice a week. I'd have to man up and sail or row. No big deal.

I eat of the garden and the sea when I'm there anyway. Even make my own salt now and then when I run out of it and forget to order out.

Eventually, if infrastructure broke down, I'd have to cut back on luxuries like spices, beer and bacon from the mainland grocery store, and oil for the lamps.

 

[Stultus]

Every gas station in Florida has an emergency power source, so do most of the essential services. The serious problems would wither away after about 30 days, once most homes and businesses were connected to generators.

Not that simple. EMP's pretty much fry all electronics, whether they were in use at the time or not. Military grade stuff is shielded, 99%+ of consumer stuff is not. Simple electrical generators might work. Stuff built in the 1980's and older before they started putting electronics into everything 'should' work. Everything else is iffy.

The best wild-ass guess I heard in my military days was 95% of everything built after 1985 or so would be fried. Pretty much for good.

Still, there are ways to mitigate this problem and 'survivalist' technology to adapt to a world suddenly reverting back to 1880's era technology. There will be survivors... and there will be vast hordes of victims.

 

[DesertPirate]

Cat, is this what made you ask?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914805204099085.html

 

[SeaCat]

Cat, is this what made you ask?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914805204099085.html

Actually no, I didn't see that until this morning.

It was just something rattling around in my mind.

Cat

 

[Stella_Omega]

There was a publishing house that reprinted old technical books, including a series about creating an entire shop from scratch.The first book showed how to build a forge using cinderblock, and how to fire it. You melted down scavenged aluminum to create the block that would become the basis for your milling machine, and used the completed machine to build the rest of your equipment..

They were online in the early days of the internet, but s far I haven't recovered the site-- probably gone now. I can't think of the name of the press, does anyone remember?

 

[alyxen]

Found the movie I was thinking about. Plot description from IMDB:

The Trigger Effect - How tenuous is man's hold on civilization when survival becomes an issue? When the lights go out and stay out for several days, suburbanites Matthew and Annie learn the hard way that man is "by nature" a predatory creature. Matthew's long-time friend, Joe, happens by on the second day and a rivalry between the two friends simmers as Annie cares for her sick baby. When rumors of looting spread through the neighborhood, the two men buy a rifle for protection but Annie throws it in the pool. Later, that same night, Joe hears a prowler downstairs and awakens Matthew. They chase the stranger from the house and out into the street where a neighbor shoots him to death. No longer safe in their own home, they decide to drive to Annie's parents some 500 miles away. Before they reach their destination, more trouble comes their way when they stop to siphon gas from an abandoned car and discover the driver in the back seat... Is this what is meant by "man's inhumanity to man?"

 

[TE999]

Found the movie I was thinking about. Plot description from IMDB:

The Trigger Effect - How tenuous is man's hold on civilization when survival becomes an issue? When the lights go out and stay out for several days, suburbanites Matthew and Annie learn the hard way that man is "by nature" a predatory creature. Matthew's long-time friend, Joe, happens by on the second day and a rivalry between the two friends simmers as Annie cares for her sick baby. When rumors of looting spread through the neighborhood, the two men buy a rifle for protection but Annie throws it in the pool. Later, that same night, Joe hears a prowler downstairs and awakens Matthew. They chase the stranger from the house and out into the street where a neighbor shoots him to death. No longer safe in their own home, they decide to drive to Annie's parents some 500 miles away. Before they reach their destination, more trouble comes their way when they stop to siphon gas from an abandoned car and discover the driver in the back seat... Is this what is meant by "man's inhumanity to man?"

That one must have gone directly to DVD...I don't remember it.

A very good apocalyptic novel is 'Alas Babylon' by Pat Frank. It was in paperback when I bought it in 1975...I still have it. It's how a small town in Florida survives a post-nuclear war. It's a good survival manual.

 

[Stultus]

There was a publishing house that reprinted old technical books, including a series about creating an entire shop from scratch.The first book showed how to build a forge using cinderblock, and how to fire it. You melted down scavenged aluminum to create the block that would become the basis for your milling machine, and used the completed machine to build the rest of your equipment..

They were online in the early days of the internet, but s far I haven't recovered the site-- probably gone now. I can't think of the name of the press, does anyone remember?

Sounds like one of the Paladin Press books. They certainly have several 'survivalist' how-to books that cover that sort of thing. I also think one of the old Foxfire books covered how to start to set up an old fashioned 19th century forge from the start.

In some of the dodgier corners of the Internet, such as the bigger torrent sites, you can find collections of all of the old Paladin Press (and all sort of other oddball survivalist stuff) compiled together. Google is your friend.

 

[Stultus]

A very good apocalyptic novel is 'Alas Babylon' by Pat Frank. It was in paperback when I bought it in 1975...I still have it. It's how a small town in Florida survives a post-nuclear war. It's a good survival manual.

Quite good. Probably the very best one is 'Earth Abides' by George R. Stewart. Published in 1949 and still in print as far as I know. Superbly done... and very haunting.

 

[Weird Harold]

What would happen if we lost all electricity? I'm talking something akin to a world wide EMP. Something that knocks out all computers and electrical appliances. We're talking everything that is run by electrics for at least six months.

S. M. Stirling took thepremise to extremes in Dies The Fire by changing the laws of Physics so that electricity, gunpowder, explosives and internal combustion engines all quit working at the same time. I think he got the effect on civilization pretty close to what would actually happen.

The premise works differently though if it's just a local phenomenon -- one city, one state, or even several contiguous states -- because there is a place to escape to or for help to come in from. Then you get a Katrina or Ice Storm scenario.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Not that simple. EMP's pretty much fry all electronics, whether they were in use at the time or not. Military grade stuff is shielded, 99%+ of consumer stuff is not. Simple electrical generators might work. Stuff built in the 1980's and older before they started putting electronics into everything 'should' work. Everything else is iffy.

The best wild-ass guess I heard in my military days was 95% of everything built after 1985 or so would be fried. Pretty much for good.

Still, there are ways to mitigate this problem and 'survivalist' technology to adapt to a world suddenly reverting back to 1880's era technology. There will be survivors... and there will be vast hordes of victims.

Yes, I know. But most of the electronics is on boards and easily replacable. A generator isnt a Collins radio or computer. Back in the 60s I repaired all kinds of generators while in the Air Force. We used a lot of diesel generators mounted on caissons, especially in remote locations. They didnt use transistors or circuit-boards. Many a time in Vietnam I repaired generators out in the middle of no fucking where with a screwdriver, adjustable wrench, and a flashlight in my mouth.

 

[Weird Harold]

Yes, I know. But most of the electronics is on boards and easily replacable.

That presumes you have spare circuit boards and that they were protected from the EMP that trashed the originals.

Vietnam era diesel generators would probably still work because there weren't any electronic components controlling the fuel injection, but a modern (post-1985) diesel is going to be just as dead as your laptop and the spares needed to repair either are likely to be deader yet because they won't have even the modest EMP protection provided by the metal case or car body surrounding their installed electronic components.