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As a society we'll probably all be better off if and or when this happens.Until China or Russia detonates the EMP bomb over US. Then the Amish will be the only ones who survive in this electronics dependent society.
Meanwhile, over at Jalopnik....
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I'm going on day 4 of working from home so I can keep my woodstove stoked until the part comes in to fix my gas furnace. The repairman was quite happy to see that for similar reasons.Until China or Russia detonates the EMP bomb over US. Then the Amish will be the only ones who survive in this electronics dependent society.
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If you can speak Yoda, you can understand PA Dutch.
Connected to the grid?
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This would explain the Yoda speak.I don't know about that.
Yeah but if there's an attack on that grid I really won't care one iota about my internet connection. Nor the job I do for $.
Other than watching Netflix, I don't use an internet connection when I'm not at work. The abilities to heat my house (in Montana), cook, boil water, and have a bit of light in part of my house can all be met by the woodstove.
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And, he posts again! https://jalopnik.com/a-stupid-plan-to-de-anodize-a-bike-derailleur-silver-1848542022
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The chaos and deaths in the major cities might not qualify as "better off". We are always about a week or so away from a complete disintegration of our society, which is how long it will take for the cities to run out of food and other supplies if the system fails. No electricity means no power, no power means no fuel gets pumped, no fuel means no trucks or trains to deliver food. No food, no civilization.
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Yep, things will be difficult, but civilization existed, and prospered, for quite some time before becoming so dependent on electricity.
Deaths not only from hunger and sickness but by each other as well. The Road (2009) - IMDb
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I actually like Jalopnik and I am hesitant to throw too much shade here. No, this isn't what I would do with an XT derailleur, and the ethics of "liberating" an obviously-abandoned Litespeed mountain frame is debatable, but for me the bigger picture here is that I am glad to see someone who isn't of retirement age (such as myself) actually getting their hands dirty and enthusiastically playing with mechanical stuff. The ethos over at Jalopnik appears to be younger individuals (translation: "younger" when compared to my own superannuated @ss) doing things that my friends and I used to do or would have done back when we were teens and twenty-somethings: bolt together ill-advised combinations of stuff on a budget and then go hit the street or trail. There is a Jalopnik columnist who has a fascination with Jeeps and they have cobbled together some epically ill-advised vehicles (I'm specifically referring to an ex-Postal Service Jeep that was more rust than actual steel). At the end of the day, a Jeep held together by bailing wire and tape may not have been everyone's cup of tea but at the same time it didn't hurt anyone and the effort put some smiles on a few faces.
Sometimes the highest and best use of an old-but-unlikely-ever-to-be-certifiably-classic bike frame or component is to foster creativity and train a new generation of budding bike mechanics about what they can and cannot get away with. How else are you going to learn that soaking a rear derailleur in lye to strip the anodizing off is pretty dumb? But if bike parts get ruined or broken in the process of gaining that bit of wisdom, so be it. (Oven cleaner works better, and a bench grinder with a wire brush best of all, but I digress.).
Whether it is cars or bikes, I think it is great that there are still people coming along who are willing to risk a little skin to build something cool on a budget. The fact that my definition of "cool" might be different from theirs isn't the point. I'm just happy that the "shade tree mechanic" isn't extinct just yet.
(Don't mean to sound preachy here...)
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The problem will be in getting back to the number of people before electrical energy became available. Picture the population in the US going from 326 million (2018 population) down to 38 million (1870 population). That's a lot of people who won't make it. Pour on the violence and chaos and we could be down to the 1870 numbers or lower in less than a year.
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If you're really worried about people not making it look to Ukraine and don't worry about some movie version of the zombie apocalypse.
I can picture a lot more bicycles being used. I can also picture a lot of horse and cow manures on the road because those will be used a lot more.
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