Ray9
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2016
- 2,707
- 4,485
- 1,970
- Banned
- #1
My power went out for about two minutes during a storm the other day. Though the processing speed of my brain has slowed (I’m 72) on occasion I can still think.
It occurs to me that virtually the entire human race would collapse if suddenly and without warning the magic of electric power were to be seriously disrupted or disappear altogether. Electric power is not our slave it’s the other way around. Within about a month of no electricity the poor and working class populations of large cities would resort to cannibalism. The rich would last longer but they too would fall eventually.
I looked out my window and observed that power is delivered by stringing wires on poles the same way it was when the telegraph replaced the Pony express. In much of Europe and affluent sections of America’s great cities wires are buried underground protected from the elements. Ever notice that you don’t see wires on poles in Manhattan?
I know I’m a slave. I have an air conditioner in my bedroom big enough to cool a gymnasium and sometimes in the heat of the summer I get frost on the walls. So I crawl into my bed under an electric blanket and watch the Red Sox on an 80-inch flat screen TV. I have a portable refrigerator that I bought at Walmart full of beer next to the bed and I am go to go. When nature calls I throw on a coat and trudge to the bathroom with an IPad. I know it’s 97 degrees outside and it’s 45 degrees inside but the magic of electricity allows me to maintain my own personal environment. I’m a happy slave and I want to stay that way.
I keep looking out my window and seeing the rickety way our electricity is delivered-wires on big sticks out there in the wind and the rain. Why has this issue been ignored for so long? I can hear them now: “Oh, the expense!” I’m an old man. I am not as thoroughly addicted to the magic as younger folks with all their gizmos and gadgets occupying their attention and changing their brains.
Our electric grid is absolutely vulnerable to just about anything that can knock a wire off a stick or a magnetic pulse that might be shielded by dirt. Why is no one concerned that we could be living in caves if we lose that magic juice that flows in those wires?
It occurs to me that virtually the entire human race would collapse if suddenly and without warning the magic of electric power were to be seriously disrupted or disappear altogether. Electric power is not our slave it’s the other way around. Within about a month of no electricity the poor and working class populations of large cities would resort to cannibalism. The rich would last longer but they too would fall eventually.
I looked out my window and observed that power is delivered by stringing wires on poles the same way it was when the telegraph replaced the Pony express. In much of Europe and affluent sections of America’s great cities wires are buried underground protected from the elements. Ever notice that you don’t see wires on poles in Manhattan?
I know I’m a slave. I have an air conditioner in my bedroom big enough to cool a gymnasium and sometimes in the heat of the summer I get frost on the walls. So I crawl into my bed under an electric blanket and watch the Red Sox on an 80-inch flat screen TV. I have a portable refrigerator that I bought at Walmart full of beer next to the bed and I am go to go. When nature calls I throw on a coat and trudge to the bathroom with an IPad. I know it’s 97 degrees outside and it’s 45 degrees inside but the magic of electricity allows me to maintain my own personal environment. I’m a happy slave and I want to stay that way.
I keep looking out my window and seeing the rickety way our electricity is delivered-wires on big sticks out there in the wind and the rain. Why has this issue been ignored for so long? I can hear them now: “Oh, the expense!” I’m an old man. I am not as thoroughly addicted to the magic as younger folks with all their gizmos and gadgets occupying their attention and changing their brains.
Our electric grid is absolutely vulnerable to just about anything that can knock a wire off a stick or a magnetic pulse that might be shielded by dirt. Why is no one concerned that we could be living in caves if we lose that magic juice that flows in those wires?