EMP: : One Day We Will Wake Up Without Electricity And Society Will Collapse

[Eddie Teach]

If anything, fat people would be eating less due to supply problems.

[dps]

Why would fat people die of heart attacks without electronics?

I think the idea is that they'd have heart attacks because they'd be going without their cholesterol medication.  The fallacy there being the idea that cholesterol meds for a fat person are the same as insulin for an insulin-dependent diabetic.

[Maladict]

So what happens to data stored on servers? Does it get permanently lost?
What about a disconnected external hard drive?

[Berkut]

What I don't get with these scenarios is how permanent the damage is - not only does it destroy electronics, it apparently destroys them forever and ever, and nobody can ever build any replacements for all eternity.

Pretty powerful effect.

[Razgovory]

Protecting electronics from an EMP isn't that difficult.  It's not hard to build a Faraday cage.

[Eddie Teach]

Protecting electronics from an EMP isn't that difficult.  It's not hard to build a Faraday cage.

Do you have a lot of experience building electronic devices?

[Caliga]

We could fall back on steam power and form steampunk societies.

No.  We cannot let nerdy freaks run the world.

[Razgovory]

Protecting electronics from an EMP isn't that difficult.  It's not hard to build a Faraday cage.

Do you have a lot of experience building electronic devices?

It's not an electronic device.  A chicken coop is a Faraday cage.

[lustindarkness]

I don't like this thread , I can't respond in my favorite manner:

Most of the world's problems we discuss here in languish could be solved by nukes from orbit. Lately it looks like we may need more nukes.

Nuking from orbit may not be the only way to be sure in regards of avoiding the effects of EMPs.

[grumbler]

The "threat" i always see used is an enemy detonating several nukes in the atmosphere above the US wiping out everything.

The book One Second After is a pretty interesting fictional novel on what could happen.  In the book everything electronic gets fried so nothing works, cars, public works, etc.  Food doesn't get delivered and people start to starve, 50% of the American people on meds die, all the old people die, all the fat people die from heart attacks/high cholesterol, Roving criminals start taking what they want without law enforcement to stop them, etc. Was interesting.


http://www.amazon.com/One-Second-After-William-Forstchen/dp/0765356864

Okay, but I was referring to real stuff, not novels.  Nukes in the upper atmosphere wouldn't much effect vehicles, for instance, because they are metal and EMP stops when it hits metal (lots of buildings would be safe, too).  Plus, the EMP bursts are too short to rally build up high voltages at anything but short ranges.  An enemy that used all their nukes to get upper-atmosphere bursts to knock out US electronics would be vaporized by the US response (which wouldn't be aiming at getting an EMP effect, but more like the glass effect).  Then, the US imports some trons from China or Europe, and life goes on.

[Razgovory]

Hate to say it, but Grumbler has the right of it.

[mongers]

I bet the 'prepper' crowd I know are going nuts (well maintaining them) this stuff up.

People must have it good, to be able to waste their valuable lifespan worrying about highly unlikely and/or implausible threats.

[Eddie Teach]

People must have it good, to be able to waste their valuable lifespan worrying about highly unlikely and/or implausible threats.

Much more pleasant than constantly looking over one's shoulder for real threats, like most animals do.

[viper37]

No need to be a pessimist, just try to make sure that you're part of the 10% that survives. It might seem hard if you don't have a useful post-apocalypse skill, but all you really need is a rifle and a strong stomach.

[Edit: Would cars work in this scenario?]

they require electricity to start, so no.

[The Minsky Moment]

The "threat" i always see used is an enemy detonating several nukes

Hmm well if the claim is that a strike of multiple nuclear weapons would be a bad thing, then its hard to argue.  Not sure we needed a lot of committee reports to figure that one out.