From: Jim Choate <ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com>
Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 13:10:30 +0800
To: cypherpunks@EINSTEIN.ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: Re: y2k/gary north delusions (fwd)
Message-ID: <199812050458.WAA27935@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Forwarded message:

> Subject: Re: y2k/gary north delusions (fwd)
> Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 19:21:36 -0600 (CST)
> From: ichudov@Algebra.Com (Igor Chudov @ home)

> > True enough, but that sort of stuff takes more than a week or two. The
> > various cities could go around setting up port-a-potties and latrines in
> > parks with plastic liners for easy removal, etc.
> > 
> > It isn't nearly the civilization shaking event some would make of it.
> 
> Well, at least shitting is not going to be the hardest part of it.

True enough. Power, water, police, fire, etc. will come back pretty quickly
if anyone notices it was ever down. The really poor won't notice anything.
The most effected would be the wealthy. There will be outbreaks in Compton
and similar ilk but by no stretch of the imagination will it become a
conflagration. That's the beauty of an armed populace. Even if the police
don't respond it'll burn out as the front of rioters thin with increasing
radius and the odds go down.

I'd bet the delivery of foodstuffs to the store wouldn't slow down one bit.
It's possible to run a combine without the GPS. The trucks are driven by
people, they're loaded by fork-lifts. And you'll need to hunt long and hard
for a commercial freezer with a clock in it.

I've never seen a damn that didn't have manual gate controls so flood
control and hydro-electric will come back pretty quickly. The actual switch
control panel in power plants have manual over-rides everywhere. Ditto for
electric power grids.

Mass transportation like trains and aircraft will be effected. Individual
transportation like cars won't stop.

Inconvenient and expensive, you betcha. The decline of western civilization,
not hardly.


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