Two Weeks Ago - The United States And Possibly The World Narrowly Escaped Solar Flare That Would Of - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Paramud;41671706]I've got to ask, what's stopping us from merely making new electronic equipment from scratch after an EMP?[/QUOTE] Nothing. The problem isn't in the long run. It's the decade right after. If most of our tech gets wiped out, many many people are going to die. Larger cities might become deaththreads, cities that require electronics to work (many cities in dry areas, new york, others) would collapse very quickly as well. Not to even mention the first winter or two.

Imagine how terrible large cities would smell after even just 2 months of such an event. New York already smells pretty bad; now add in all the death and decay

[QUOTE=smurfy;41668081]Oh god no not the iPhones[/QUOTE] The entire thing was a plot by Goog........ I have said too much...

it's nice to be reminded that the universe can totally fuck us all over at any given time

[QUOTE=Paramud;41671723]How did we make electronic equipment before we had electronic equipment, then?[/QUOTE] Technowizards

I wouldn't really bother hoarding survival equipment. If the civilization were to be destroyed by EMP, chances are that someone is going to murder you, raid your place and take all of your supplies. Or King Crumb of Cleveland's forces captures your town and enslaves every single person. Or then you just spend the rest of your life farming all these goddamn potatoes in a post-apocalyptic world.

Anyone who fantasizes about a "collapse" of any sort might as well fantasize about suicide, because a post apocalyptic scenario will be pretty grim for 99.9% of the population.

The only thing effected by this would have been hospitals. Everything else can survive without power let's be honest here. Life would suck for a while because stupid people would likely have rioted and looted but that's human nature I guess. Shit the bed and fuck everyone else over because working together through an event such as that would be dumb, right? When I was a kid there was a huge black out that caused everything in my town and neighboring towns to go dark for a few hours. The media estimated that it wouldn't come back for a couple of days so my dad and I went to get ice for the freezer. That's it. We didn't panic and we didn't loot anyones shit. Hell, no one did. Everyone was pretty chill about it. But now a days, if something like that were to happen people are so crazy and paranoid their first thought would be to horde as much as possible. People would have been the end of us all, not a solar flare.

[QUOTE=EndOfTheWorld;41672640]Anyone who fantasizes about a "collapse" of any sort might as well fantasize about suicide, because a post apocalyptic scenario will be pretty grim for 99.9% of the population.[/QUOTE] That's pretty much the fantasy of moronic Fallout 3 fanatics. The chance of becoming an one-man post-apocalyptic army is like rolling 1 on a d2000000. I'd just probably commit suicide and chill out in the void.

[QUOTE=No Party Hats;41672128]Technowizards[/QUOTE] Praise the Omnissiah.

So... Would it be worth it to have your outer walls and attic built with a layer of chicken wire as a faraday cage system? (A lot of older homes have chickenwire in the walls, as a method to hold back primitive insulation. It's very difficult to get a cell signal in them, and wifi only works in the room its in. Would such a system block the EMP effects of a solar flare?)

Amateur Radio -- another use for it

it'd be boring as fuck without electric. I'd probably top myself.

SUCK IT COSMOS

[QUOTE=IceWarrior98;41672913]The only thing effected by this would have been hospitals. Everything else can survive without power let's be honest here. Life would suck for a while because stupid people would likely have rioted and looted but that's human nature I guess. Shit the bed and fuck everyone else over because working together through an event such as that would be dumb, right? When I was a kid there was a huge black out that caused everything in my town and neighboring towns to go dark for a few hours. The media estimated that it wouldn't come back for a couple of days so my dad and I went to get ice for the freezer. That's it. We didn't panic and we didn't loot anyones shit. Hell, no one did. Everyone was pretty chill about it. But now a days, if something like that were to happen people are so crazy and paranoid their first thought would be to horde as much as possible. People would have been the end of us all, not a solar flare.[/QUOTE] I want to see how long you make it without fresh water, plumbling, lots of transportation and hundreds of other things which have become massively entrenched in our lives and we need them to work for to maintain our population centers.

Well now I'm super paranoid and you have forced me to go clean my guns and want to gather supplies

Any other sources? Perhaps more scientific.

And they didnt warn us?

[QUOTE=IceWarrior98;41672913] When I was a kid there was a huge black out that caused everything in my town and neighboring towns to go dark for a few hours. The media estimated that it wouldn't come back for a couple of days so my dad and I went to get ice for the freezer. That's it. We didn't panic and we didn't loot anyones shit. Hell, no one did. Everyone was pretty chill about it. But now a days, if something like that were to happen people are so crazy and paranoid their first thought would be to horde as much as possible. People would have been the end of us all, not a solar flare.[/QUOTE] There is a very big difference between a power outage like that and a situation where every electronic device is useless and there is no hope for it coming back in the forseable future.

[QUOTE=TorrentR;41673150]I'd just probably commit suicide and chill out in the void.[/QUOTE] I don't think I'd be that grim. I think I'll just go get a few thousand canned goods and bottled water this weekend, then lock myself in the basement with my books and a note on the door, "Do not disturb until the grid is back on".

[QUOTE=TorrentR;41673150]That's pretty much the fantasy of moronic Fallout 3 fanatics. The chance of becoming an one-man post-apocalyptic army is like rolling 1 on a d2000000. I'd just probably commit suicide and chill out in the void.[/QUOTE] As someone on RPG.net put it*: "In the apocalypse, You aren't Mad Max. You're part of the pyramid of skulls in the background." *Paraphrased.

[QUOTE=Dlaor;41671219]Seriously though, imagine people with pacemakers. They probably wouldn't survive an EMP.[/QUOTE]My dad just recently got a pacemaker put in like 3 weeks ago, this news scares me :(

[QUOTE=Sprockethead;41675525]And they didnt warn us?[/QUOTE] Not like anything could be done, and it would probably just cause panic and looting

[QUOTE=Paramud;41671723]How did we make electronic equipment before we had electronic equipment, then?[/QUOTE] Tedious labor that resulted in high priced, over sized, inefficient electronics.

[QUOTE=KorJax;41668445]The article makes it sound like all that's needed is that they just have to make the transformers EMP-proof to protect it. I thought EMP's pretty much fried any and all electrical circuts? Saving a transformer from getting fried would do little in the end then. Having powerlines protected against EMP isn't going to be very helpful when your cars, devices, simple circuts (such as elevator operation), airplanes, boats, lighting, hospitals, radios, refrigeration, AC, heating, etc are all completely toast too. So the power lines still work but everything that uses that power is dead, and the things that dont use that power are also dead (cars). Having the grid "safe" would do nothing in this case. The world would be in chaos and financially destroyed well before your new un-fried TV arrives to your home thanks to the neighborhood new and un-fried delivery truck (not to mention manufacturing, etc etc etc). In other words, there's absolutely nothing you can do society wise if an EMP hits. It literally going to be the end of the world as you know it, even if the "grid" still works. Most people won't survive. The only thing I can think of that would ever prevent an EMP from wiping out modern society would be to somehow invent circuts that can't be fried, make it cheaper/as cheap as using normal circuts, and have it be out on the market long enough for it to simply be used in everything. Something like this though would have to be invented pretty much now, and would have to slowly start being adopted as a standard for everything in a span of 50 or so years so even the tiny little wires going through a random abandoned building are protected. And you better hope an EMP doesn't strike before then![/QUOTE] transformers are the grid's aorta. they take litterally 2 years to make from scratch. if we lose them we are litteraly stone age. nothing is close to as important. [editline]1st August 2013[/editline] restarting a grid with toasted transformers is like giving cpr to a guy who's heart was ripped out. its dead.

[QUOTE=Whiterfire;41676958]transformers are the grid's aorta. they take litterally 2 years to make from scratch. if we lose them we are litteraly stone age. nothing is close to as important. [editline]1st August 2013[/editline] restarting a grid with toasted transformers is like giving cpr to a guy who's heart was ripped out. its dead.[/QUOTE] I guess thats true. What would make this not so bad is if the transformers were protected, and each local government had some kind of EMP action plan to keep the peace and keep things working. Everything would need to be rationed and the only people able to communicate with the higher ups would be the people using the radios in the "action kit" (which would be protected), but at least we'd have some kind of stability. It would take some years for things to be back to normal but at least it would end up more like the great depression X2 and likely under some kind of light martial law instead of a doomsday scenario. [editline]2nd August 2013[/editline] Also an EMP that hits one side of the earth, stands to reason the other side of the earth would still be fine. So there's comfort in that. You can bet whichever side of the earth has power though would have a huge bargaining chip and a huge amount of political power, to the point where they could end up being a new super-power of sorts.

I guess the length of the solar flare would be too much for it to just impact one side of the earth, right?

I remember the solar event we had in 2003. The area had some incredible wildfires that year. We did have some satellite disruption but otherwise everything remained online. If you want to see someone really discuss the idea of how to survive after a major apocalypse the first episode of Connections got into it for a chunk of the episode before moving on to something else.

The way some people are acting it's as if the EMP would "remove" all forms of power entirely, break all the plumbing and spoil all forms of food. It might surprise you to know that the power grid can be repaired fairly easily, water doesn't rely on electricity, and neither does food. Edit: And if the CME was so strong that it was somehow a world wide event, you have bigger problems than no electricity.

[QUOTE=wraithcat;41673587]I want to see how long you make it without fresh water, plumbling, lots of transportation and hundreds of other things which have become massively entrenched in our lives and we need them to work for to maintain our population centers.[/QUOTE] We did it before. You forget, we didn't always have electricity.