Was putting our faith in technology a good idea?

[Andrew]

One solar flare from the Sun would completely demolish our lively hood as we are totally dependent on internet communication.
If the plagues in Revelation are true they would definitely disrupt the global village we are currently inside due to our technological advantage, but lets just assume a solar flare wiped away all electrical equipment along with telecommunication which we are dependent on, would that cause scrambling throughout the planet and fling us into chaos and outer darkness?
Just a thought lol discuss

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

Wouldn't a solar flare powerful enough to destroy underground metal wires also kill most of the life on Earth?

 

[Andrew]

Wouldn't a solar flare powerful enough to destroy underground metal wires also kill most of the life on Earth?

Dunno, but a sudden flare of radiation could knock out all of the satellite signals

 

[tango]

Wouldn't a solar flare powerful enough to destroy underground metal wires also kill most of the life on Earth?

It doesn't necessarily need to destroy underground wires. If it trashes enough electronic doodads above ground society as we know it would really struggle. Just imagine what happens if you can't use your credit or debit card for a few days and the ATMs stop working. How many people have enough cash (as in physical cash, not money in the bank) on hand to last them until the end of the month?

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

How many people have enough cash (as in physical cash, not money in the bank) on hand to last them until the end of the month?

Except for rich businesspeople and celebrities, pretty much everyone uses regular cash here. Also, I'm sure that it would be possible to implement an IOU type of system with pencils and paper until they get back electronic things going again (which should take humans a few years at most). We wouldn't let each other starve just cause we don't have physical money. We didn't do that back in ancient times, so what are the chances we would do that now?

 

[tango]

Except for rich businesspeople and celebrities, pretty much everyone uses regular cash here. Also, I'm sure that it would be possible to implement an IOU type of system with pencils and paper until they get back electronic things going again (which should take humans a few years at most). We wouldn't let each other starve just cause we don't have physical money. We didn't do that back in ancient times, so what are the chances we would do that now?

In a local community people might resort to bartering in ways that might work. Where I've lived I see less and less use of cash and more and more use of cards, to the point many people carry little to no cash. If your card doesn't work you're stuck. The local grocer might take an IOU but the big chain stores aren't going to let stuff go to complete strangers based on nothing more than a promise to pay, eventually.

ETA: Your profile says you live in Romania. Do you live in a city or a village? From your post I'm thinking life there must be quite different to anything I'm familiar with. Do you live in the sort of place where everybody knows everybody else?

 

[psalms 91]

Only thing I can say is that people better learn to be self sufficent and keep a stockpile opf essentials around someplace safe, I think we will all need this at some point in the not to distant future

 

[MoreCoffee]

One solar flare from the Sun would completely demolish our lively hood as we are totally dependent on internet communication.

Build yourself a nice large Faraday cage and put your home inside it. Then the solar flare's electromagnetic radiations will not short out your internet equipment and you will have the internet all to yourself!

:smirk:

If the plagues in Revelation are true they would definitely disrupt the global village we are currently inside due to our technological advantage, but lets just assume a solar flare wiped away all electrical equipment along with telecommunication which we are dependent on, would that cause scrambling throughout the planet and fling us into chaos and outer darkness?
Just a thought lol discuss

 

[tango]

THe thing that concerns me most isn't the growing number of things that technology can do for us, it's the growing number of things people appear unable or unwilling to do for themselves. More and more the push is "let someone else do that" or "let the machine do that". And there's certainly a place for that, but when skills get lost it leaves everybody more vulnerable. We don't repair things any more because it's cheaper and easier to just take them off to landfill and get another one. Of course manufacturers like that because you have to buy another product, so they have no incentive to make things easy to service and repair.

I wonder how long it will be before the local repair guy will be the one making all the money, if he's the only person who can repair the stuff that isn't economically viable to just throw in the trash and replace. The whole concept of "make do and mend" certainly has a lot going for it, particularly for people who can't afford to replace. Sadly what often seems to be the case is that the people who can least afford it are the ones who get sucked into the cycle of endlessly replacing things, where the wealthier are perhaps less likely to care if someone knows they have an older appliance, or that there's some quirk that they haven't got around to dealing with yet.

A simple example of a skill that seems to be dying is the ability to navigate with maps. Not Google Maps, the old fashioned paper version. I wonder how many young people today would be able to do much with a paper map and a compass, if their phone died while out on a hike somewhere.