Tree rings have shown Carrington scale events are relatively common, and storms 10x more powerful occur on the order of once every 1,000 years. The last really big one was the Charlemagne event, 1250 years ago. If we got a direct hit from that level, all global power grids would collapse and it’d take probably 5-10 years to restore half the transformers as production capacity is limited. It’s interesting to see how the constellations of satellites have made things less stable.
Superb breakdown of how tightly coupled systems create brittleness masquerading as efficiency. That CRASH Clock metric going from 121 days to 2.8 is just wild, basically we traded redundancy for constellation density without thinking about what happens when the whole choreography stops at once. I remember working ona backup comm system a few years ago and we'd always assume at least a week to fail over gracefully, but now that buffer is gon. One thing I'm curious about is whether hardening individual satellites against CME-induced voltage spikes would even matter if the ground control infrastructure fries first.
I think a limited nuclear war **could** be much less threatening to the global food supply than the next Carrington event.
Every time I consider what it would take to remain housed & fed in the mountains somewhere far from urban areas, somewhere with plenty of deer or wild hogs, and surviving the perpetual risk of banditry, I always end up thinking that I’d rather just die on my own terms, not even try to live through it.
When the coffee runs out, it’ll be time to go see Jesus 😂 And I’m only half joking.
Other times, I think that urban survival (here in Japan) would be easier than remote countryside survival in the US. Lots of BBQ sauce plus a solar cooker would be key (for eating dead people). We got lots of sun here. You wouldn’t have to murder anyone, just wait for people to die of natural causes.
Well, we do already have a fine solar cooker, so maybe we should stock up on vinegar 🤔
Maybe we've reached a limit in our ability to use technology to do everything for us. It's reducing our skills and resilience in exchange for ease and convenience. The way it's going seems to be a set up for a nasty fall and decline as people and systems become more dependent and fragile.
The ultra wealthy are unbalancing the natural order of things as they profit from the situation. They won't be saving us, they're riding a giant wave of money and power with them on the top and humanity down below.
Maybe the crash will be huge and heartbreaking for the most fragile, but I still think it's probably necessary to correct our course back to Nature.
Yes, for sure. Systems optimized for convenience don’t fail gracefully — they shatter. People notice when the apps stop working, not when the know-how disappears. By the time it matters, the skills are already gone. The worry is, the crash won’t feel like a return — it’ll feel like loss, confusion, and grief, especially for those who didn’t design the system but depended on it.
What’s interesting is that you don’t actually need Ra, a solar flare, or collapse to re-expose yourself to the Earth. Skills, community, attention, restraint — those are available now, quietly, without apocalypse. We know you're already on that road.
I give daily thanks to Ra on my bike ride, on the westbound leg where I am looking into the lowering sun. (I'm being a little facetious but I am with you.)
Tree rings have shown Carrington scale events are relatively common, and storms 10x more powerful occur on the order of once every 1,000 years. The last really big one was the Charlemagne event, 1250 years ago. If we got a direct hit from that level, all global power grids would collapse and it’d take probably 5-10 years to restore half the transformers as production capacity is limited. It’s interesting to see how the constellations of satellites have made things less stable.
Linking to the NOAA Space weather scales https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation.
Also to note that multiple factors affect the strength on arrival at Earth, and NOAA often revises its predictions with 30 minutes to spare.
Sounds like Tightly coupled systems , see Normal Accidents by Charles Perrow.
Superb breakdown of how tightly coupled systems create brittleness masquerading as efficiency. That CRASH Clock metric going from 121 days to 2.8 is just wild, basically we traded redundancy for constellation density without thinking about what happens when the whole choreography stops at once. I remember working ona backup comm system a few years ago and we'd always assume at least a week to fail over gracefully, but now that buffer is gon. One thing I'm curious about is whether hardening individual satellites against CME-induced voltage spikes would even matter if the ground control infrastructure fries first.
You're so right. You can harden components all day and still lose the system because the recovery window has collapsed.
I think a limited nuclear war **could** be much less threatening to the global food supply than the next Carrington event.
Every time I consider what it would take to remain housed & fed in the mountains somewhere far from urban areas, somewhere with plenty of deer or wild hogs, and surviving the perpetual risk of banditry, I always end up thinking that I’d rather just die on my own terms, not even try to live through it.
When the coffee runs out, it’ll be time to go see Jesus 😂 And I’m only half joking.
Other times, I think that urban survival (here in Japan) would be easier than remote countryside survival in the US. Lots of BBQ sauce plus a solar cooker would be key (for eating dead people). We got lots of sun here. You wouldn’t have to murder anyone, just wait for people to die of natural causes.
Well, we do already have a fine solar cooker, so maybe we should stock up on vinegar 🤔
Gallows humor aside, that’s basically the whole question: do you want to bet on community decay or infrastructure decay first?
And yes — when the coffee runs out, a lot of people will suddenly discover God.
🤣
Maybe we've reached a limit in our ability to use technology to do everything for us. It's reducing our skills and resilience in exchange for ease and convenience. The way it's going seems to be a set up for a nasty fall and decline as people and systems become more dependent and fragile.
The ultra wealthy are unbalancing the natural order of things as they profit from the situation. They won't be saving us, they're riding a giant wave of money and power with them on the top and humanity down below.
Maybe the crash will be huge and heartbreaking for the most fragile, but I still think it's probably necessary to correct our course back to Nature.
Yes, for sure. Systems optimized for convenience don’t fail gracefully — they shatter. People notice when the apps stop working, not when the know-how disappears. By the time it matters, the skills are already gone. The worry is, the crash won’t feel like a return — it’ll feel like loss, confusion, and grief, especially for those who didn’t design the system but depended on it.
Some days I almost want to pray to the Sun God RA to wipe this technoparasitic spiritually dead society from existence…
A forced re-exposure to Nature and Dependency on the Earth and Skills and Community.
What’s interesting is that you don’t actually need Ra, a solar flare, or collapse to re-expose yourself to the Earth. Skills, community, attention, restraint — those are available now, quietly, without apocalypse. We know you're already on that road.
I give daily thanks to Ra on my bike ride, on the westbound leg where I am looking into the lowering sun. (I'm being a little facetious but I am with you.)