11–20 of 158 posts
It sounds like a more immediate problem would be that all aircraft and spacecraft electronic systems would fail permanently? They wouldn't need to worry about the radiation doses.
I've wondered for a while. Lots of people seem to think a Carrington Event will simply fry all small electronics and make everything stop working, but from my understanding all it'll actually do is cause power surges in long transmission lines and disrupt wireless signals. Apparently telegraph lines sparked and shocked people. So what effect will that actually have now? Will a massive power surge go through my house…
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I believe you are very aware that humanity is able to worry about many different existential threats at the same time, right? CO2 levels, nuclear proliferation, Solar storm EMPs, asteroid impacts, each one has a different risk profile.
But sure...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3165629_Characteris... I'm reading this critical analysis of it (2013): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292848789_Geometry_... > The interpretation of individual rock art images and related art forms as local perspectives on a single celestial phenomenon requires a determination of scale, perspective, and temporal evolution. Peratt interpreted dotted circles and conce…
I love this sentence. I am pretty inarticulate in person, sometimes I fantasise myself delivering lines like this in a hastily erected mobile command centre.
"In English, please, professor?" growls a FBI agent. My acolyte pushes their glasses up "uh... uh... if you consider these petroglyphs as a correlate of an instability in the solid inner core of the lower segment of the auroral-" the FBI agent pinches his temples and rounds on the eager young researcher, "You better start making sense, pencil-neck!"
I step gently in between them "In simple terms, we're talking about... a Miyake Event."
I've wondered for a while. Lots of people seem to think a Carrington Event will simply fry all small electronics and make everything stop working, but from my understanding all it'll actually do is cause power surges in long transmission lines and disrupt wireless signals. Apparently telegraph lines sparked and shocked people. So what effect will that actually have now? Will a massive power surge go through my house…
The big risk is a bunch of transformers blow up, essentially taking the grid down. Since we would have to bootstrap the grid again without the advantage of the grid... this would likely set civilization back pretty far, a new dark age is far from impossible.
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Yes, very sensible attitude. Similarly, when I'm crossing the road, I don't bother to look to see whether there's oncoming traffic, on the basis that I could be hit by a meteorite at any time...
Seriously, presumably you are aware that more than one thing can be a concern at the same time? CO2 levels are probably more of an immediate and addressable concern, in this particular case, but both should be a worry.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In some respects it would have an opposite effect: no more Zoom calls; if you want contact with someone, go out and find them. Seems like it could require additional police presence, and they'll find it difficult to be effective without radios. We will need to look at centuries-old playbooks for virtually all aspects of life, temporarily. Hoaxes will spread without rapid fact checking.
It would also lead to the collapse of vital systems: transport, utilities, payments.... > Hoaxes will spread without rapid fact checking. They already do. I think you have found the silver lining: hoaxes will spread a lot slower.
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Proceeds to walk directly into oncoming traffic.