EOTWAWKI goes prime time

[GunnyGene]

Looks like "Doomsday Preppers" has some high powered competition. :roll: Kinda figured there would be some followup when the Mayan thing didn't work out.

Some of Britain’s finest minds are drawing up a “doomsday list” of catastrophic events that could devastate the world, pose a threat to civilisation and might even lead to the extinction of the human species.

Leading scholars have established a centre for the study of “existential risk” which aims to present politicians and the public with a list of disasters that could threaten the future of the world as we know it.

Lord Rees of Ludlow, the astronomer royal and past president of the Royal Society, is leading the initiative, which includes Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge cosmologist, and Lord May of Oxford, a former government chief scientist.

The group also includes the Cambridge philosopher Huw Price, the economist Partha ................

The end? Scenarios

Cyber attacks

One of the biggest threats is some kind of attack on the computers controlling the electricity grids around the world. Loss of electrical power would have immediate and possibly severe consequences if it could not be restored quickly.

Bioterrorism

Large infrastructure is required to build and deliver nuclear weapons, but genetically engineered harmful microbes or viruses could be developed in a relatively simple laboratory.

Food shortages

The modern food industry is based on “just in time” delivery with little or no stockpiling. Failure of the information networks controlling this could quickly lead to shortages and food riots.

Pandemics

The increasing mobility of the human species makes it more likely that a new, emerging infection could quickly spread around the world via air travel before a vaccine is developed to combat it.

Malign computers

Some experts fear that increasingly intelligent computers may one day turn “hostile” and not perform as they were designed.

Runaway climate catastrophe

Climatologists fear that, as the climate is polluted with increasing quantities of carbon dioxide, it may pass a tipping point after which feedback effects cause it to get warmer and warmer.


More: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 12919.html

Ever notice that these kinds of things always focus on the "modern world"? So the first thing is to define who "we" are. I doubt very much that the primitive tribes in various far corners of the planet would even notice if any of the above took place. :roll:

 

[John A.]

Leading scholars have established a centre for the study of “existential risk” which aims to present politicians and the public with a list of disasters that could threaten the future of the world as we know it.

Politicians already have bunkers filled with everything they'll need with the caveat that Gov't must survive and carry on.

Which means, they get to save their own asses on our dime while we have to cover our own and make do the best we can because somehow they are more important because they were elected to something.

But no matter what and even if the sun stops burning, don't let the internet blink.

God help us all if facebook comes up with a 404 error message.

 

[aksavanaman]

God help us all if facebook comes up with a 404 error message.

Yeah I know! Where would the media get their news from anymore

 

[GunnyGene]

God help us all if facebook comes up with a 404 error message.

Yeah I know! Where would the media get their news from anymore

Way back when, before print or even internet, town criers were the only means of conveying the news to the town. Their importance was such that harming or killing a crier was tantamount to treason. If you “killed the messenger” you could face execution in the most gruesome of forms.

 

[MikeD]

Kids today would be most greatly impacted. I'm old enough to have lived without remote controls, cell phones, computers, internet, digital watches, 24 hour television, name brand clothes, etc. A friend and I have joked that a great number of kids/young adults will die in the first month because they will starve to death staring at their phone unable to Google food or unable to post about how hungry they are. Another 25% will kick in the second month from depression because no one "Likes" them.

I know how to build a shelter, make a fire, hunt, fish, cook, sew, make tools, grow food etc. I didn't learn these things to be a prepper, I learned all of these things as a kid because that's how we played and as a young adult that couldn't afford to pay someone else to do things for me.

While technology does makes some things a lot easier, none of it is required for people to survive. Our ancestors somehow managed to live a few years without these amenities.

 

[John A.]

Where is the rep points when you need them?

Great post MikeD.

Although I suspect that you're preaching to the choir here.

 

[ripjack13]

I bet they'd get lost in their own backyard too. How many know how to read a map? And I'm not talking google maps either....


Great post MikeD!!! +1 for you!

 

[GunnyGene]

Mike, I think you and I are about the same age, since I also did the same things. We called it fun then, most of the time. I still remember the oak White Clad icebox we had. Primarily because I got my butt whupped for snitching a small sliver of ice off the back of the iceman's truck on a hot day in Annapolis.

As for today's kids, I tend to think that most would adapt pretty fast. Kids are like that for the most part, if they have some adult leadership.

 

[MikeD]

I was born in '68, my soul is older than my body LOL.

While all my friends were going to Disney and traveling the county for their vacations, my parents took us to a remote cabin in the woods where we hunted, fished, built forts, etc. to out hearts content. We took 3 trips a year there for a total of 4 weeks every year til I was in college.

I'm not sure I fully appreciated it at the time but the respect for nature and knowledge I gained in those years is invaluable. I never for a heartbeat remember missing TV, computers, or anything while spending time in the woods, in fact I felt better without it.

That said, I'm a living contradiction. I'm an IT guy, an avid gamer. I make my living and survive by the very technology that I feel is becoming much to integrated in to our daily functions. Go figure.

 

[GunnyGene]

^^^ I guess I am a couple years older. I'll be 69 this Nov.

 

[zagmp03]

Have some hope for the future...I turn 33 next week, and I think it depends on where kids were raised (and how). I grew up in the country and learned the skills that now are rusting from being forced into a city dweller lifestyle. I still teach my kids how to shoot, grow food, care for animals - just no horse stalls for them to clean before school. My goal is for my kids to be ok in either environment, which is hard to do, but you have to integrate them. I get them to use the net for the research and learning, but then make them go apply it in real life. So hopefully they can learn and then apply.

Canned some pickles and tomato sauce the other day - makes me really wish that I could have a garden! Doubt the landlord would like that though...

MikeD, you have the post that wins the thread. +100 for you!