In the Bible, there is a story about men wanting to be like God. They build a tower to reach to heaven, the Tower of Babel. God thwarts the effort in a classy way. At that time, if you remember your Sunday school, everyone in the world spoke the same language. This follows the plot that if we all came from two people, it would take centuries for entirely different and distinctive languages to develop. Anyway, back to the story, no fire and brimstone- that's a different story. He makes everyone speak different languages. Unable to work together, work stops, and the people give up trying to be like God.
Enter my point. Are we as a civilization, trying to be like God, and are we in for a fall? If you think this guy is nuts, we don't try to be like God. Well, think about what we can do with our technology. The COVID situations was an eyeopener for me. I was thinking about vaccinations, which started in 1796 with Ed Jenner infecting his gardener's son with Cowpox as an experiment to prevent getting Smallpox. Working for him didn't come with benefits- "Can I borrow your boy?" Anyway, since then, nature's way of culling the human herd would never be the same.
In our time, we have cloning, DNA editing, and all kind of medical treatments, which is good, right? But are we building a Tower of Babylon with our tech? 100 years ago, if something that you used every day broke, it was mostly "fixable" by someone in the household. From an egg to plug a leak in the radiator to jerry-rigging machines with whatever was around. Could we do that today?
Are we getting to the point that if something did happen, we would be unable to recover? Take the solar flare of 1859, for example. That flare created a geomagnetic storm that knocked out the telegraph across Europe and North America. People using electric equipment got shocked, and sparks flew. Just think of what would happen if a similar incident occurred today. If all electronics were fried at the same time, how long would it take to recover? It might just lead to another Dark Ages or a massive political upset if half of the world was defenseless.
The good news is that scientists estimate that "the Big Kahuna" only hits once every 500 years. But if it did hit, say goodbye to satellites, GPS, telephones (landlines and cellular), transportation systems, banking systems, power grids, the Internet, and Cold wallets (unless they have some mega EM shielding). Would Binance or Coinbase's insurance cover it? If your investments were safe, would they be worth anything by the time we recovered? If your phone was fried and you were in an unfamiliar place, could you find your way home or even remember loved one's phone numbers?
I think you get the idea. The "better" and more "convenient" we make our world, the more we rely on our world staying the same. Over generations, skills of the past and simpler lifestyles get lost.
Personally, I don't dwell on the past or worry about the future. I live in the present. If you have any worries about the future, let me know. What is the longest that you can be off the grid for?
nice article! :D