What's Your Time Frame for Recovery from a "10"?

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If Y2K is a "10", TEOTWAWKI as defined by most people here, what scenarios do you foresee for the recovery phase? I'm curious mostly from a technology standpoint. Assume everyone working cooperatively to accomplish the task. Exclude things like terrorism, rioting, etc. If there is a worldwide failure of power, oil production, transportation, water, how long would it take to "rebuild", get things going again?

BTW, I don't BELIEVE it will be a 10, simply because I don't know what to believe anymore. Envisioning something so devastating is a difficult task. I'm trying to get an idea of what the consequences would be. As for preparing, I'm doing everything I can within my financial ablity, which is all I can do, I guess.

-- dakota (none@thistime.com), August 20, 1999

Answers

You don't recover from a "10".

Something new, unforetold evolves.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), August 20, 1999.


Dakota,

Take how hard it is to accurately predict the effect of the Y2K bug, and then multiply that level of difficulty by a thousand, and then you might get somewhere close to how difficult it would be to accurately answer your question.

Every man, woman and child counts as a variable, every structure counts as a varaible, every machine counts as a variable, prabably every boulder and every tree counts as a variable.

How many people will rise above the occasion and exhibit what is best in humans and how many people will just be scum, trying to exploit the misery? How many structures will still be standing and useable and how many will be destroyed because of Y2K related explosions and fires or by rioting? Will Luddite passions break out and all the computers be smashed as betrayers and enemies of the people, or will people simply get busy and try to get them working again?

Everyone will have their guesses about how people will respond, but those are just based upon how they see their fellow humans. My own view is that people are generally well intentioned, but nine out of ten times, they're misguided in their attempts to "help" the situation.

For what it's worth, my opinion is that after about a year, we will have stuck together something (mostly with spit-wads and chewing gum) that lumbers, chugs and squeaks along, that we will call "a return to normalcy" (Or at least those in power will try to call it that), but it will be a long, loooong, loooooooong time, before we have anything like the level of convenience and comfort we have now.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), August 20, 1999.


Dakota, if you don't believe it will be a 10, then you really having nothing to worry about. Prepare as you can and don't worry about something that may or may not happen. It's out of our control, do what you can for yourself.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), August 20, 1999.

If you mean io in the sense of an American break-down of critical infrastructure, most electric, most water in, most water out (sewer), major gas/oil disruption, transportation rail,boat, truck, and last but not least food distribution, in the dead of winter with all of the obvious chaos that our military in this country and others would have to deal with and considering that a very large portion of the militarys former high tech gismoes arent working anymore. I think its relatively simple to figure out. Know considering you down grade our military capablity by adleast 1/2, and think about the possibility that the US Gov. would not have the balls to use Nukes to protect it self. Then the only problem Red China would have in taking over our country would be figuring out how to get a 100 million of there troops from there to here. They will have the biggest, badest Navy on the high seas, world war two vintage, but adleast you can crank the guns into position, not load in some command to a screwed up computer. So I guess the answer to your question would be, try to freshin-up on your Chinese...You know , better Red then dead. Or will finally the American public be glad that most of the real guys in this country have guns... I hope this helped you out ...---...

-- Les (yoyo@tolate.com), August 20, 1999.

Wow Bokonon: As a fellow doomer, I feel your pain. As a non-programmer I also feel your pain. I think a cup of tequilia is a bit too much for a pitcher of margurita, oh well water over the bridge, therefore, no pain. TGIF, WTF, it's Fried-day and y2k on the loom. This grey area and/or non-knowing outcome scenario s..t is much morte bearable with the TGIF tonic! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I agree, a 10 is like hiding in the woods; running and killin food, then running, then killin food, then running, etc....etc....etc....water filtration...etc...etc...then tag on a 1000 times that. Then hope you find another willing to help you cut that number in half....an so on...

-- Feller (feller@wanna.help), August 20, 1999.


Not in your lifetime...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), August 20, 1999.

The recovery time for a 10 scenario is about 100 years, after which we will all be living happily in small tribes, similar to the situation that we found the Native Americans in when the first settlers hit these shores.

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), August 20, 1999.

Check out the movie ' Postman ' from a year or so back. If we're lucky that will be the survivors in 30 years.

-- I'm (convinced@this.time), August 20, 1999.

dakota:

I am preparing for a great depression.

I truly wish it would not happen, but it will.

Take appropriate measures to safeguard yourself and your family.

Be frugal and be satisfied with what God has given you.

Remember that common sense is Y2K compliant.

Exercise and eat healthy foods. This is very important.

You will need all available energy to confront the future troubles.

These will be extremely taxing upon your soul, and you will want to be at full alert status when the really bad things occur.

No one I know truly wants to experience hardship.

But we must prepare for the worst.

Let us hope for the best.

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), August 20, 1999.


Longer than you'll be alive. A "10" means all infrastructure collapses.

Consider that the present system has been built/bootstrapped from prior to the industrial revolution, essentially uninterrupted (even including the wars). It was built on things like oil discovered seeping from the SURFACE in Pennsylvania. It was built on metallic ores easily mined. It was built on largely self-sufficient farms and simple (compared to modern) smelting, forging, and machining techniques). There was a widely dispersed body of practical knowledge. Not a whole lot of PR flaks, computer programmers, HTML programmers, massueuses, accountants, day traders, IRS agents, school "administrators", meter maids, insurance salesmen, welfare department clerks, "human resourece" departments, vice presidents in charge of ride-sharing and parking lot striping, executive search firms ...

Consider it like the child's games where you carefully and laboriously build some sort of tower with blocks or interlocking pieces. One wrong move, and the whole thing tumbles down in an instant. And it takes just as long to rebuild the second time as it did the first. Only this time it could take longer, because all the EASILY obtained resouces have already been exploited.

-- A (A@AisA.com), August 21, 1999.



0. 3 day storm. 1. A Greater Depression. 2. Anarchy; looting, rioting. 3. Chaos; everybody shooting at everybody else. 4. Pandemic; massive outbreak of disease(s). 5. Civil War; infrastructure willfully and completely destroyed. 6. Limited nuclear war (10,000 or less megatons). 7. Return to savagery; head-hunting, cannibalism, etc. 8. Return to the Stone Age; total loss of collective knowledge. 9. All out nuclear war (at least 20,000 megatons)--survivors? 10. Release of 100% lethal bio-weapon--survivors?

-- CS man (csm@mothership.com), August 21, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California

If there are any survivors, it could take 1,000 years to come back to something like what we have today, assuming people would want to go that direction.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage.neener.autospammers--regrets.greenspun), August 21, 1999.


Well, there isn't any real recovery. But you can look forward to another trip through the Iron Age, and then the Second Bronze Age before we reach the Final Stone Age. Civilization only gets one trip around.

-- dave (wootendave@hotmail.com), August 21, 1999.

Yeah Gordon real "happy". A life expectancy of about 30 years. Most men will be married many times because they would bury their wives after death in childbirth. You also get to bury most of your children because they died in infancy. A diet of monotonous sameness, no fresh fruit or vegetables in winter, basic subsistance. Filth disease pain illness. THATS North America 500 years ago. No thanks. Don't ever forget how good life is NOW, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If you don't believe go live in the woods for a month. Naked. without so much as a knife.

-- kozak (kozak@formerusaf.guv), August 22, 1999.

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