I don't think we should ignore this topic, but I think the discussion should be fairly brief -- because (a) the chances of its occurrence are hopefully miniscule, and (b) if it occurs, all bets are off.

Any thoughts or opinions in this are

-- Ed Yourdon (HumptyDumptyY2K@yourdon.com), August 05, 1999

Answers

Ed, I disagree that all bets are off.

I for one intend to pursue civilization to the fullest extent possible under whatever circumstances present themselves. Granted, in the worst scenario that may not be much.

However, the worse the future the more we need to think about and plan for rebuilding society. "Society" may be very limited and entirely local.

Far too many in our present society have really never given a thought to the fundamental realtionships between individuals without the oversight of some government entity.

-Greybear

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), August 06, 1999.

If it's a 10, we just have a bit further to rebuild...that's all. Much of the process will be the same as infrastructure rebuilding under a 7-9 scenario...just more of it!

As for probability, a number of things could cause a 7-9 to go to a 10 (some sort of widespread plague or a rogue nation lobbing a few nuclear or biological weapons into major cities, for example).

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), August 06, 1999.

Too many wildcards to ignore the possibility.

Planning for it is as simple as making sure you have the tools to start up again. It's just a little longer climb, and the basics will all still be there, we just may have to hope that the survivors are the ones that can figure out the tools.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), August 06, 1999.

More often than not, its easier to start from scratch rather than try to repair something. Also it gives one a chance to correct previous mistakes.

Taz...who is very thankful to Ed for the effort and gray matter that he has put into all of this for our benefit. Thank you, Ed. I can see little nubbins coming out of your shoulder blades. Wings, perhaps????

-- Taz (Tassie@aol.com), August 06, 1999.

um....just wondering,what do you mean "the chances of its occurrence are hopefully miniscule"?Do you see more of a chance that you hope will not play into factor?Really it's the "10" that I worry about.It's the senario for which there is no preparation.You're the resident expert that's incontrovertably expert,is it just that the "10" senario is so emotionaly hard for us to face or do you really believe that the chances of a "10" are miniscule?If so,happy day!!

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), August 06, 1999.

Ed,

If anything is going to cause a 10 it will most certanly be a nuclear Holocaust. And you said it "all bets are off"!

Hmmm. Wish I lived in Arizona.

Other than that there isn't much more than what I covered in your threads below. I truely hope it is good food for thought. I only raise the questions to better understand the basis of Human society at all. I also think there is a Better chance to come out of it looking good, rather than bad.

It's that Nuke/Terrorist thing that kills me.

Wishing I lived in Arizona, *wink*

Father

-- Thomas G. Hale (hale.tg@att.net), August 06, 1999.

I see these scales (0 to 10) as similar to richter scales. A 10 is an order of magnitude greater in impact at the local level than a 9, et cetera. This is do-able (the rebuild) but will require a step back to organize at the local level before a push to rebuild infrastructure. It may be that a 10 could be predicted to cause a hiatus of some time prior to any effective starts at rebuilding. In other words, a 10 may require a prolonged grieving period before anyone has the ki force (will, ambition, life force) to commit to any form of rebuilding. Anyone who has gone through to acceptance of the loss of an immedite family member will understand. Now imagine a situation where we are grieving for a world we once knew, now depopulated of a large number of the people that made that world supportive and comforting.

Such grieving will take some time. The rebuild will not start without the emotional/ki commitment to do so. That ability to focus outward will not be whole until the grieving is complete.

It is unfortunate that I can see that a 10 is actually an outgrowth of a 6-8 rather than a 9. Disasters are not linerar, they are compounded by the mental state of the survivors. If enough of us suffer personal loss at the 6 to 8 level, then a 10 is a pretty sure bet in that the will to stand and hold will extremely hard to maintain.

To rebuild, we will first need will. Then knowledge, then tools.

-- cliff high (chigh@halcyon.com), August 06, 1999.

Civilization: it's simplest, most literal definition is a city-centered social organization. We've only been practicing it for a mere 7000 years or so and, apparently, still don't quite have the hang of it. (Hi, Greybear. Good to see you again.)

All this talk about rebuilding after a 10 scenario is just building another similar box to think in (Right, Rob?).

Daniel Quinn's new book 'Beyond Civilization' is due out in October. I'll bet he has some interesting new ways of looking at things. He's an old box-buster from way back.

Hallyx

"A time will come when men will sit with history before them or with some old newspaper before them and ask incredulously, 'Was there ever such a world?'" --- H.G. Wells (The Open Conspiracy)

-- (Hallyx@aol.com), August 06, 1999.

Ed, I would think that you would want to establish survival shelter, water, and then agriculture for a community. Some people are going to have to support others with food production, so that labor may be diverted to re-establishing other areas. This would of course lead to community ownership of fields, food, and energy sources in the beginning, so that all are rewarded for their efforts. Those who don't contribute would not benefit. Energy would be needed to achieve any level of revival, starting with some electricity to stabilize a local area, then trying to move to a distribution mechanism. I would also think that some HF radio communications via ham radio would allow people to share knowledge over distance if normal telecom is down.

-- mike carson (mike_carson@mentorg.com), August 06, 1999.

For things to have reached this level, every fragment of life (and our knowledge about it) will have been altered. Each new level of breakdown will have brought its own stages of denial,and then grief, even as we are trying to adapt and survive.

Those who are quickest to identify the new paradigm AND the quickest to act in concert with others will have the best chances of survival, AND of defining the new rules of cooperation. To prevent the ascendence of the most brutal and predatory among us, we who would choose peaceful, respectful cooperation with our neighbors, will also have to provide for our own security. History seems to show us that brutality is a powerful tool of dominance; it may even have its place in history because it is an evolutionary principle. However humans organize themselves, it seems that self-defense/protection must be in place before the higher levels of adaptation can take hold.

My reading of history suggests to me that the rules of nature seem to be more "pragmatic" than "moralistic". As humans have attained higher levels of organization and comfort, we've altered nature's paradigm. That paradigm would reassert itself more forcefully and quickly whenever a worse level of institutional breakdown became apparent. We would relearn very quickly what those rules are, or we would not survive. This is hard to think about, Ed! I can't imagine where you find the psychological and intellectual courage to try to write a book like this, but I thank you for being willing to jump out there and try. This is an important "discussion" this shrinking world (and growing population) must begin, and the sooner the better for all of us.

-- Kristi (KsaintA@aol.com), August 07, 1999.

Re: My reading of history suggests to me that the rules of nature seem to be more "pragmatic" than "moralistic".

Kristi, I believe I would also insert the word "human" in "rules of nature". If we go "10", then I very much expect despots will arise in various areas, answering to the central government or not, and ruling their little fiefdoms with an iron fist. There would be no civil rights inquiries, and few complaints after the first attempts, as long as the central government got its operating funds.

I am a sometimes-student of history and this thread reminds me of another blot on human history: the Wasting of the North, when William the Conqueror took the English throne 900 years ago. The native survivors of that terrorism were in 2 main categories: those who had managed to hide or remove assets from the soldiers' reach, and those who had not. The unlucky survivors sold themselves to the invaders for bread or became outlaws. The lucky survivors used assets and negotiation to regain some (not all) of their former rights and live uneasily next to the new overlords. However, it took generations for some of their descendants to reach an "understanding".

-- Margaret (janssm@aol.com), August 08, 1999.

As I understand it, Mr. Yourdon's goal in writing this book is to stimulate discussion about improved or alternative social and economic institutions. In my opinion, a major ingredient of such a discussion has to be speculation regarding the point in his scale of 1 to 10 at which the negative momentum of the problems which are created by y2k begin to be self-perpetuating over the long term. As Mr. Yourdon states, the social impulse for fundamental change is as much a function of the longevity of a problem as it is of severity in particular problem areas. Can level 7 technical problems compound and extend themselves long enough to precipitate an all-bets-are-off level 10 social response? I think this is a legitimate question for anyone, like me, who thinks it highly unlikely that the severity of the technical problems will approach levels 9 or 10.

I believe that it takes a level 10 social response to precipitate fundamental change. Societies, like individuals, are just too naturally resistant to honest self-criticism.

-- Lorraine Jarvi (ljarvi@primenet.com), August 09, 1999.

One question that's sort of bothered me lately, and I think it applies to any scenario level 7 - 10, is "what are we going to do with all the bodies?" Let me elaborate.

A major disaster in an urban area will cause a lot of death - famine, disease, violence, etc. Even the possibility of terrorists unleashing some sort of WMD (weapon of mass destruction) could mean that a lot of people will die. Other than fleeing the cites, is there any way to deal with widespread death? I read a book on Leningrad some time ago, and one of the main problems for the survivors was burying the dead from the winter before the weather warmed up and caused disease to truly spread and kill off everyone.

If people flee the epidemics, who's going to inter the dead? Will the survivors have the manpower and the energy to do so? A large urban area with thousands of bodies could present as serious a heath hazard as bio, chem, or nuke strike, at least for a little while.

Sorry for the graphic morbidity of this post, but maybe it's another good reason to get the heck out of the cities.

-- rob minor (rbminor@hotmail.com), August 09, 1999.

In North Korea, now, the famine has become so widespread that bodies are seen everywhere rotting. It really does not take much ... a level 5 will do that. Mass cremation is the best bet, OR burying in deep pit and putting earth saturated with red winter earthworms on top.

A local worm farmer with a large stock ready will do well in Winter 2000.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 09, 1999.

Rob, can you say funeral pyre?? A really, REALLY, big one???

scratchin'...

The Dog

-- Dog (Desert Dog@-sand.com), August 09, 1999.

Waste of kerosene, but probably not of tires.

C

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), August 10, 1999.

Ed, others ..... I think too many have missed a fundamental point pertaining to the level 10. Food must be raised, therefore seeds that are NOT hybrid ( 98% now ARE !) must magically appear for planting acres of corn, wheat, ect. for bread; farmland needs to be found, and TRACTORS WITH PLOWS that work , is a necessity. People who still have farming knowledge will have to suddenly appear, as well as the TOOLS and barns to store the harvest. While it grows, who protects it from two and four legged preditors ? I have been working on these problems for eighteen years, as I have premonitions of future events and haven't been wrong for 50 years. Didn't know what would cause it when I got it in '81, and even with this head start I'm still working on last minute essentials. What I could not do is convince family or neighbors. That leaves one final solution . You have to prepare and wait for them to come to you. IF you have the seeds, tools, knowledge (including knowing where the tractors are, a plan of action and a defense system worked out) and the signs for incoming hungry that read, " Everybody works ! Work comes first - then you eat !" . The divison of labor , as Gary North refers to it ( i.e. I think ; I have the money; therefore you slave, I watch ! ) will be a memory in one year, TOPS ! If you have read " Blood in the Streets " , you will understand that civilization will revert to the ' warrior ' class; and , as Mao once said , "Government will come from the barrel of a gun ." THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE ARE UNPREPARED FOR . Civilization is ' skin deep ' ; SURVIVAL GOES TO THE BONE !!! Eagle

-- Harold Walker (e999eagle@freewwweb.com), August 11, 1999.

Unfortunately, chaos has more often begotten tyranny than justice. In fact, it has, as far as I know, never begotten justice. Our own war of independence depended on a highly-educated, united, and morally strong leadership who had already organized themselves. It was an unprecedented, once-in-history event. To understand the possible outcomes, beginning from virtually nothing, one can look to some of our early colonies. On the one hand, we have the Pilgrims. They suffered starvation, disease, and hardship for approx. two years, but then pulled out of it together (with the Providential help of a man named Squanto). On the other hand, there is Jamestown, a colony in which the gentlemen refused to work, the leaders casted about for quick schemes to get rich, and disease and death stalked for over a decade before the colony finally took root. The outcome depends totally on a rock-solid moral commitment, a powerful sense of community, the basic skills to survive, a period of relative peace, and a large helping of God's grace. Chaos should be avoided at all costs. It is by far the most dangerous route to a revival of freedom, if indeed it is a route at all. On the other hand, a good slap across our culture's arrogant face might be highly beneficial.

-- Larry Davis (ldavis@psi-controls.com), August 12, 1999.

Most that are preparing are doing so for survival. They do not think it is going to be a one,two,or three. If it is a four there will be deaths. In preparation, fear and survival is the motivator. In cases of four and the possibility of a ten there will be calamity, and in these cases desparate people will do desparate things. In my preparation it is with visions of a possible ten. I do not relish these thoughts and noone in my husbands or my family has even begun to prepare. They do not want to confront the emotions it brings up. We are spoiled compared to our ancestors and it is the hardest thing to admit to yourself you will probably lose it soon. Rebuilding? It will take a long time and alot of hard work. Most of us are soft. Will people be able to do it? That remains to be seen. Sorry this was long. Maryann

-- Maryann (petmom1@hotmail.com), August 12, 1999.

What is so magical about ARIZONA???

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), September 25, 1999.

Level 10, hmmmm? If that means that we've had a "meltdown" of society then there is no way you can prepare short of moving to a cave and stocking up (read Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold) or creating a self-sustaining city/community (read Pournelle and Niven's Lucifer's Hammer). You can hope and pray you are not in the way of the fallour or pillaging masses as they hunt you down for your food. You can hope they weren't listening when you advised your neighbors to stockup, 'cuz sure as shootin' they'll believe you did and come gunning for you and yours. You'd better pray that they rebuild civilization within 20 years, 'cuz that's what the experts say must be done or the knowledge base has "died". You'd better hope that the folks that CAN put civilization back in place have survived somewhere with their memories intact and their will to rebuild still viable and not suffering from extreme "survivor's guilt". In short, if a level 10 has occurred, you'd better pray to God that HE has the answers, 'cuz you won't find them here.

-- Ynott (Ynott@incorruptible.com), September 26, 1999.