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Comment by NiceWayToDoIT | Hacker News Reader

Spot on. In the entire scenario it seems we forget recent pandemic, and what happen few days in.

In the case of nuclear war exchange there won't be any toilet paper, period. :)

Joking aside, we forget how hooked we are to industrial society. Any such event would mean world without shops, internet, new version of anything... no progress... for at least one human lifetime. Back to stone age. Everything we are used to and enjoy (technology wise), would simply seas to exist, and it is questionable how long would it take to build knowledge and start a new, especially when simple necessities as food and water are only priority.

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You don't need a nuclear war for all that to happen.

As I once read in one defence publication, USA is only 4 biggest fertiliser complexes away from the famine, assuming the assailing party can blockade the country to prevent food importation.

The same is for the biggest oil, and fuel manufacturing complexes.

USA is also "just" 50 power stations away from the grid becoming useless. USA is though much, much better off than most countries on this, as its power generation is much more decentralised, thanks to largely private operation.

USA has domestic capacity to manufacture small, and medium sized turbines, but largest ones used in the superplants mentioned above are made by GE Energy in France, and some even in Japan, and China.

The same for big, top tier transformers for the grid.

Adding to this, I recommend Lewis Dartnell's The Knowledge: How to rebuild our world after an apocalypse to anyone who hasn't read it yet. It's well-researched and, among other things, shows how much modern civilization relies on artificial fertilizers, crude oil shipments, and chemicals. A breakdown of world-wide shipping would have devastating consequences for most countries.

IIRC the EU is just a few cut powerlines on a windy day away from completely overloading and destroying most of the power grid.

Overloading, sure, destroying, no.

I would bet millions of Euros there have been islanding plans in place for years in the event of wide scale disconnects or voltage/frequency collapse. The aftermath wouldn't be fun but most of western Europe at least would only be enduring planned rotating blackouts at worst.

If we've gotten to the point that an adversary can and would effectively blockade the US, destroy its infrastructure, and effectively prevent it from being rebuilt for an extended period of time, then odds are we have bigger issues than famine to worry about.

> Joking aside, we forget how hooked we are to industrial society

Us city-people, yes. But there's enough people out there who are mostly self-sufficient, and there's even a bunch of urban preppers who would more than likely have a relatively easy time surviving complete industrial collapse of a nation.

(I say relatively easy because it would obviously be hard and unpleasant times for everyone, but for some that would be doable)

I agree partially, even those people in rural areas depend on fuel, machine parts, technology, books, cleaning provision and most importantly medicine and medical attention. Just imagine, dying because of simple cuts as you do not have antibiotics, or after few years, having issue with tooth decay, food poisoning... communication wise probably those that would remain would go back to good old radio wave, and what when all parts burn out... there wouldn't be anymore China or Amazon to order spear part, how many people know how to make diode, transistor or resistor DIY?

I am not saying it is not doable, but thinking about people who got crazy during pandemic just because they were in quarantine for few weeks, and then multiplying that on a bunker environment for few years until long term fallout from nuclear power plants settles down simply does not seems as a feasible for 99.999% of people. Probably only pockets of people would survive at the end Also question is in what form and how badly would be long term DNA damage for human offspring.

Nature would find a way, as it always does, not sure about humans. Literally, it could be as a ancient story of flood but this time with fire...

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