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The Black Sky Event

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>Solar EMP’s typically reach earth every 100 years and Earth is 61 years overdue.

Comments like this seem like a red flag on the scientific accuracy and neutrality of this documentary.

In 2003 there was a major blackout that started in Ohio and took out the power grid for most of Ohio east to New York and up into Ontario. Around 55 million people lost power. This is the same as a hypothetical EMP (blackouts without structural damage) because there is no real EMP, just a full on nuclear bomb. Within 2 days the entire grid was back up like nothing happened. No civilization collapsed. This is fear mongering nonsense.

> No civilization collapsed

The fear mongers would have you believe that we're just one glitch away from the destruction of civilization, widespread violence and cannibalism in your cul-de-sac.

But we have major catastrophes fairly often, and time after time we see people helping people, not purging them.

I think while ressources are available, localized event (even major) and its not world-ending, this is true and a beacon of hope in humanity.

However when ressources are no longer produced, people get hungry and desperate with no lights at the end of the tunnel, i.e. real game-changing global catastrophe, I hope I am wrong (and hope even more to never test that theory), but I doubt this would bring the best of humanity overall.

Fear mongers have one good thing: if you can reply with facts and destroy their theories, nutcase aliens mind controlling aside, it means that it has been studied or acknowledged. Simple dismissal might not be the best way to fix holes or anxious bodies.

> This is the same as a hypothetical EMP (blackouts without structural damage)

This is NOT the same as a hypothetical EMP.

An EMP could potentially fry everything from small electronic devices (like those which control the flows in oil and gas pipelines and in chemical plants, and the circuit breakers meant to protect the grid from power surges) to the about 2500 large power transformers at the core of the US grid, which would take years to replace even under ideal conditions.

https://worldif.economist.com/article/13526/electromagnetic-...

If I recall correctly the reason for that blackout was faulty desing of appliances. In particular, old home appliances like dish washers were spitting out out-of-phase electricity back into the network which if done in sufficient numbers collapses the grid. As a result of that event regulation was introduced to prevent this but I don't remember how

Civilization didn't collapse because we got the grid back on relatively quickly. If 55 million people didn't have power for weeks on end, civilization just might collapse.

Well, the idea is that most people will run out of basic supplies 2 weeks into the blackout, which will force everyone to turn to violence to survive. I agree that 2 days is not a big deal.

In a dying society like that however, it will be almost impossible to allocate labor to fix issues that caused the blackout, because as time goes on, violence on the streets increases. Weeks on end without food, water, heat, sanitation, order on the streets, weeks without ability to call or text anyone, people's trust into the government disappears, as does the trust into the currency of the country.

In a scenario like that, society eventually hits the point of no return.

My point is that a blackout won't last 2 weeks unless you've got major structural damage to the electrical system. We had a dang near worst case scenario (of no damage) and it was only 2 days

Also, I present Hurricane Maria hitting Puerto Rico as hard evidence that when the power is out for 2 weeks the society doesn't descend into violence

Well, when you are able to pull in labor, food and other supplies from the unaffected areas, it's a much different scenario.

In the event where the entire US goes into the blackout for 2 weeks, things will be different. Sure, maybe not an apocalyptic anarchy on the streets, but there will be unrest. Because most people don't have extensive food and water reserves at the place of their residence.

The larger point I was trying to make is that things will be getting exponentially worse as time goes on, and the point of no return will be hit eventually, if we are not able to address the issue quickly.

The entire US physically cannot have one big blackout. There are 3 separate interconnects: East, West, and Texas. There are DC ties which connect them, but even if the tie was left open it's not enough to cascade the blackout.

To your larger point: sure if power was out over large swaths of the US for weeks on end, things would be difficult. But the power outage wouldn't be the problem, the problem would be whoever is causing the power to keep going back out (or the radioactive fallout from a nuclear war in the EMP scenario)

It would take months to replace some of the larger transformers, if they were destroyed by EMP or coordinated sabotage. And, there aren’t many spares available - lead time is very long.

people were without power for over two weeks after hurricane Sandy - no unrest

Watched half of the trailer and turned it off. 90% of it was stock footage and mediocre editing. If it's representative of the work done on the documentary I have no interest in seeing it.

This "documentary" looks like a factually incorrect fear mongering that twists facts to fit the author's narrative. After watching the trailer I don't believe this film is shot in good faith. Also have a feeling that interviews were cut unfairly.

Finally, this film looks like it's made from stock videos (of course China, Iran, Russia would be red on that map, tovarisch!). Come on, you got to do better than this.

Why is every one of these events "long overdue"? We are long overdue for huge earthquake in California, big volcano, huge asteroid, etc. Where is this notebook that lists these catastrophic events that are supposed to occur on some sort of regular timetable?

Asteroids, and super volcanoes are on too big a timescale to really predict w/ a lot of accuracy when it's "due" imho....

Carrington-level events though are roughly every 100-150 years, of that we're pretty certain and it's been like 160 years since the last one.

A Cascadia Tsunami apparently hits every 240 years (on average according to VERY good records from Japan), the last one would've decimated basically half the state of Washington.... probably most of Seattle, etc.. not sure about if it goes up to Vancouver, etc...

As far as things that are due to hit us, besides global warming related catastrophes, I think Carrington and Cascadia Tsunami's probably have the most possibility of occurring soonest. Carrington is the scariest though... as it basically affects everyone globally and sets us back to the 1800s..

Gamblers fallacy. A 1:150 chance of a Carrington class event happening in any given year does not mean that one will happen every 150 years.

Earthquakes (e.g. cascadia) are different. Tectonic strain is quantifiable.

There is going to be a geomagnetic flip of the poles within the next 15 years.

I wonder if the waning geomagnetic poles... change how well the magnetosphere protects us from solar flares, and maybe it opens the way for stronger storms to get through...

That is exactly what happens. In fact, it happens in cycles. There is the sunspot activity cycle which is like every 12 years. Then there is a cycle at around 100 years that has been identified. But then ere are also cycles at even larger time scales around 1500, 6000, and 12000 years. With the 12000 year cycles being the most intense. And we know this because the polar direction and intensity of the magnetic field are recorded at the time a lava deposit solidifies. Which as we know is an ongoing never ending process; there is ALWAYS lava flowing somewhere on earth.

Maybe there is a solar flare incident that causes it, but as it relates to a cyber or EMP attack destabilizing a country into cannibalistic chaos - it isn't really in anyones interest, as most strategic policymakers understand that you get something much worse than the devil you know when you do. Even destabilizing so-called "minor" powers like Iraq, Libya, and Syria created international terror cells and radicalized sympathetic groups on every continent. It's a recipe for hell.

If an attack took out the whole US grid in an irrepairable way, the power vacuum would cause huge wars around the globe, and it would cost the aggressor at least a couple of major cities from a nuclear strike response. It would also cause mass casulties from refugee inflows taking advantage of the chaos. There would be so much death it's just statistics at that point - it's just not a rational decision for an aggressor country to cause an EMP or to leverage it. Imagine trying to occupy a country that had been EMP'd? It would be like 100 Afghanistans and a thousand Vietnams, just in America. In that total failure situation, everyone is going to die of starvation or infection and disease, so responding with violence at that stage to mitigate it is a relative mercy.

Understanding those consequences of destroying civiliztion, if I were a national leader, I wouldn't hesitate to order that counter strike, and I am sure the actual leaders apprehend that logic as well. If there were a question of attribution, the first one to move against our allies would have to lose their capitol. Aggressors only understand costs, and failure to impose them is an invitation . This Mutually Assured Destruction is the worst, but only guarantee against an EMP attack.

If it were a solar event, nations would still have to protect allies militarily, and I don't see anyone benefiting from the chaos enough to let it sustain, especially when the rational actors will escalate apocalyptic violence until some order is restored. Grim thoughts, but oddly hopeful because I think if people understand the inevitable horrific alternatives to keeping it together, we will have ample incentive to do so.

I always wondered if a foreign country could create near microscopic, or at least bug size drones ...land them around the country slowly on top of transformers until there's one on every transformer and power station/sub-station in strategic locations...then poof .. send a tiny zap, or just ignite via .01 ounces of napalm, or something... something that small would be hard to notice, as a bonus they could also do the same at every fueling station.

Cut not only electricity but the ability for people to run, or flee or w/e.

Well, if you're talking about releasing something that wrecks economies and destroys societies and cultures, yet leaving them intact for occupation, value extraction, and management as vassals, I'm not sure you'd need something that large and energy intensive. But that's technology we or our adversaries just don't have, so it probably isn't a threat.

[...]

no, but you'd want it to be something that doesn't bring 'nukes' to the table, because that's total destruction of everything. Plus the people will love you if you just feed them..those who don't starve first.... It'd be an easy way to lay waste to an entire country's gdp, and I don't think it'd even be costly. Tiny drones (once developed) could be deployed fairly cheaply, I'd imagine. They'd land like a little butterfly, wings would be a solar panel awaiting command to do w/e they're planned to do, or just create a wire-mesh network of listening devices to spy near/far...

I've wanted to write a sci-fi novels along these lines...except America is in civil war, and hacktivist freedom fighters use drones to essentially fight back against the rogue fascist govt that's taken over.

Lloyd’s has an (older; from 2013) analysis that is an interesting read:

https://assets.lloyds.com/assets/pdf-solar-storm-risk-to-the...

I think the linked page has changesd since the link was submitted. This is what I see:

>> 【販売売り出し】幅29cm 男の子用耐久性お片付け棚 BOX 子供用おかたづけしたくなるチお片付け棚 BOX 防汚性通販日本製 2杯タンス/衣類収納【通販専門店】

So the page now appears to be an advertisement for... childrens' furniture?

The novel "Black Out" by Marc Elsberg covers this topic as well.

Writing solid, characters slightly on the meh side, scientific research pretty ok (from an amateurs perspective, that is).

what they are describing is not possible. too much redundancy an decentralization. at worst it would be a few cities temporarily

A carrington event could do it...lots of estimates at 2 years to recover from one....

2 years without a supply chain, grocery stores, etc... of course that would equally affect our enemies abroad.

If any enemy abroad did it...we'd probably be ready to surrender in a month if they just provide food and supplies for the 3rd world country that used to be America.

This looks like it's frankly bullshit, but it does raise some interesting questions; not about EMPs, but people.

There's a question I occasionally ask people: what would you do if you woke up and the power was off and it wasn't coming back on any time soon? That's not an unreasonable scenario - it can happen in the US, as we've seen. I'm not talking permanently, but say it's indefinite: you don't know when the power will come back on, but not today or tomorrow or this week. No cell service, and - depending on where you live - maybe no water or heating either.

So what do you do? I mean specifically: what would you, not a theoretical person but you, do if that happened?

Most people don't have any idea, and a shocking number of them reply the same way: "I guess I'd probably just die." I've heard that from people of every race, age and gender. And they're not really kidding.

I have a lot of issues with the culture of "preppers", because there seems to be a lot of really nasty and unpleasant politics always lurking around there - like, I'll go find some sort of teehnical discussion of how to keep dry goods for long periods and halfway through the writer will start muttering about race wars or some awful fucking thing - but I do think there's value in at least having some skills and knowledge in that direction. I mean, I'm not Grizzly Adams, but in my thirties I realized that most of my skills involved computers, and that I'd be functionally useless in such a scenario.

So I started teaching myself basic carpentry and handyman stuff, learning how to make things with my hands and how to repair stuff, and how to build a basic shelter, do basic triage - Army survival manual stuff - and then how to wire up solar panels and charge controllers and all that good stuff. I figured out how to keep food - funnily enough, the Mormon church has some of the best community info about that for religious reasons - and safely store water, etc.

Nowadays, I'm the guy people say they'd go find if disaster struck, not because I have some compound with years of canned food and water tanks, but because I've actually thought about that question - what would I do if the power went out? - and tried to come up with good practices and strategies.

I'm working on a book about it, in fact - not a prepper manual but more a guide on how to think and act rationally in such situations, and the sort of information and tools you'd probably need. How to think about things we don't usually think about and come up with concrete plans, not just vague "Oh, I'd get out of town and find a place in the woods to hole up".

(How would you get out of town? If you don't have a car of your own with a full tank of gas, you're probably not going anywhere in a crisis, as public and mass transport will be instantly full. What "woods" would you go to? Some campground you vaguely remember seeing on the side of the highway once? You and a million other people. Planning on buying some energy bars and Dasani water bottles on the drive? Good luck, homie.) :-D

Laughed at the last paragraph, it's so true. Nobody will be able to even get on the roads, because without traffic lights and towing services they'll get clogged up very quickly (in just a few days), people will be abandoning their cars right on the road.

Can you post a link to your book (or book drafts), if you have it yet? I'd be interested to check it out.

Maybe the Chinese will reciprocate and let us in advance of an EMP attack.[0]

[0] https://nationalfile.com/bombshell-milley-admits-to-secretly...

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