Soothsaying the next Catastrophe

I almost voted solar flare but Ithink there are more near misses of asteroids.
I would prefer a solar flare though. At least that would just destroy the tech and leave the humans. An asteroid is a pretty awful alternative.
 
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Yeah. We were are long overdue for a major catastrophe. It seems every generation has to endure one or more. A recent guest on C2C had a vision that Apophis was going to strike earth in the near future :-0
 
Yeah. We were are long overdue for a major catastrophe. It seems every generation has to endure one or more. A recent guest on C2C had a vision that Apophis was going to strike earth in the near future :-0
Well so long as it hits an ocean with some warning. At least then we have a chance of evacuating folks. If it hits a city, that would be horrible.
 
You left off one that I see.....An EMP attack... That said I would rule out any asteroids, Solar flares maybe as they depend on just how much activity there is on the Sun's surface....Super volcanoes are possible. Global war? I chose other as I do not think any of those are possible right now...
 
You left off one that I see.....An EMP attack... That said I would rule out any asteroids, Solar flares maybe as they depend on just how much activity there is on the Sun's surface....Super volcanoes are possible. Global war? I chose other as I do not think any of those are possible right now...
A solar flare is an EMP attack perpetrated by the sun :-0
 
Better time than any to get prepared. I will pack as much beer as my arms can carry, and my trolly, and my ute, and my medium rigid truck, and my room, and my house, and my mansion, and my yard, and my....cant think of anything else, and my space ship.
 
A solar flare is an EMP attack perpetrated by the sun :-0

An EMP can be produced many other ways besides the ( Coronal Mass Ejection) known as a CME from the Sun.....You can get them through lightening strikes, nuclear to radio frequency weapons...Hell a nuclear blast 300 miles above the Earth could knock out the US and Canada in one fell swoop...Besides an EMP from the Sun would take days or even weeks to reach us we would know it was coming....

Problem is especially here in the US is that our electronic devices personal and business are not protected from such an attack we would be paralyzed....Electric grids would go down. And the electric companies will not spend the billions it would take to make the grid fell safe from EMPs...The US military as made some advancements in protecting itself but even those are meager simply due to the cost. Of course if you know how to make a Faraday Cage you can protect your electronic devices.

As for asteroids, the next big doomsday hype is Apophis a huge rock supposedly with like a 2% chance to hit Earth in 2029...There's a lot that goes into this one so I will refer you to Wiki for it:


The Cheblinsky meteor that hit in February 2013 was the size of a six story building but it broke up entering our atmosphere..No one saw it coming because it came in from the Sun! Asteroids coming in from the Sun are dangerous in the fact that we cannot see them until it's to late..

Heres a list from NASA on Near Earth Objects and when they make their approach:


A global internet shutdown can be accomplished in so many ways like with an EMP attack.
 
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The shitty bit about it is most likely the only stuff likely to survive any EMP event would be military. At a glance I thought it would be preferrable to the many other appocalyptic events in that we would lose infrastructure but the people would survive. We just have to learn to grow vegies and make soap again. But then I realized the worlds Military has already thought of this and all those missile silos will still have functioning big Red buttons. I imagine one of our crazy leaders would press one anyway. Maybe AI will become self aware like Skynet, but instead of killing us become benevolent and shut down the worlds ability to destroy itself with tech. Looks like there is no good doomsday scenario.
 
And this coronavirus BS is one good example of just how unprepared we are (US) for any kind of pandemic or otherwise.....People get f'ing stupid!
 
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And this coronavirus BS is one good example of just how unprepared we are (US) for any kind of pandemic or otherwise.....People get f'ing stupid!
Have to agree, Australia has been a mixed bag. As people we have had some wonderful examples of compassion with folks helping others. But hell we have had some horrible examples of selfishness to offset the good.
The government here has been overall OK, though NSW had a terrible instance of people being let of a cruise ship by the government and infecting people. That is a story that I think will come back to haunt us/them.

But I think in a lot of ways the pollys are in a no win situation. If they make an early lock down call when it all starts and it is not as bad as first thought then they are doomed to overreacting. But if they don't respond enough to play it safe, it is all their fault.
I guess you have to have a leader willing to fall on his sword from day one to get the retrospective pat on the back.
I am glad I am just a pleb, not in charge of the well being of the country.
 
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I guess the good that may come from this pandemic is that perhaps if/when it happens again we have a precedent to react to.