Our society is becoming increasingly reliant upon technology and
globalization, and urbanization is becoming ever more entrenched.
Perhaps we should give some consideration to the possibility of a
hiatus in technology and its potential implications to our highly
urbanized society.
For example: suppose an international terrorist group was to get hold
of ten nuclear weapons from a corrupt official highly placed in the
Russian military (or from North Korea).
Also suppose that they then exploded three of the
weapons to demonstrate their capabilities and then demanded some
colossal fee to not explode the remaining weapons in seven of the
Western world's (unspecified) major cities.
The result would quite probably be a panic evacuation of Western cities
with resultant interruption to fuel production (among many other
things). If our society's fuel production were disrupted then
international commerce would be one of the more immediate casualties.
If the interruption to the fuel supply continued for a sufficient
time our farmers would not be able to plant or harvest their crops,
and catastrophic famine would follow. (Unlike the third world, our
agriculture is almost entirely dependent on diesel fuel.)
The above is only one of a number of possibilities; a war between
several of the major oil producing states could have the same end
result. Any major world war would result in interruption to the
global economy and possibly make it impossible for us to maintain
our industries; which have become, I suspect, totally dependent upon
a free flow of replacement parts from overseas. Another possible
trigger for a cascading collapse in our technology-dependent
civilization is an influenza pandemic with the severity of that of
1918.
The Western world is becoming increasingly dependent on computers.
In addition we use microprocessors in many of our machines. What would
hapen if replacement parts became unavailable due to terrorist attack,
world war, or pandemic?
A prudent society, I suggest, should have contingency plans for such
a situation. Does ours have? Or do we just hope that it doesn't
happen - or can't happen?
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