Reddit reviews Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath

That's not the only one. Though not a supervolcano, I've been talking about Mt. Vesuvius for months now. There's been increased earthquake activity in the region and several years ago experts gave that one an 85% chance of a major eruption within this century. It last erupted (minor) in 1944 during WWII. Yet, people keep building there. Not good building either. They toss up cheap structures in "the red zone" (of roughly 800k people) as if they are taunting the damn thing. Not good. That eruption would kill or displace millions.

Yellowstone is quite another beast. That right there is a global event. Everyone, and everything on Earth would be affected in some way, however measurable.

We're not prepared for anything like that. Our short-sighted society isn't adequately tracking meteors, we're not prepared for supervolcanos, we're not prepared for a 2" rise in sea level. Nothing. Anything like this happens, we're screwed. Time is ticking towards the inevitable.

There's three main power grids in the US, all with old infrastructure and overwhelming demands placed upon them. Just knocking one of those out for a month would be catastrophic. No fuel pumps, no sewage pumps, no clean water, no heat, no trucks moving freight into stores. Things would go south quickly. We're far too comfy. No one can really survive without modernity anymore. The rich knows what's up. "Spez", the head of this very website, is building bunkers--along with thousands of other people doing the same. He's smart for doing it too.

I'd go so far as to say if Yellowstone erupted, societal collapse would be almost a certainty for the survivors. You know what, though? However morbid it sounds, I think society almost needs an event like this. The video OP didn't have much of anything notable to say, but one thing did stand out. In that they want to be sure people keep going to Walmart. Sounds about right to me..

Anyways, here's two great books I read last year with similar themes. Disregard the causation, and pay attention to the aftermath:

Ted Koppels "Lights Out" (cyberattack on the grid)

One Second After by John Matherson(EMP attack)

This one?

Gee, sounds scary. Someone should have written a book about it two years ago.

Think of losing electricity for a few weeks, perhaps a few months. It would be absolute pandemonium. Your food will go bad. No running water. Gas pumps wouldn't work anymore. Things would fall apart fairly quickly. America, for instance, has 3 main power grids. It wouldn't require much to take them out. It is always smart to be prepared, fuck what people say. Those will be the ones trying to rob/kill you for your stuff when they realize just how complacent they were all their lives.

Ted Koppel has an interesting book on this: "Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath'

https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-Cyberattack-Unprepared-Surviving/dp/055341996X

My source, sorry I'm not going to reread the entire book right now to pull his sources. Feel free to order and read it's a worthwhile endeavor. Throughout the book some speak on the basis of anonymity, and of those cited included are several heads and members of preparedness and defense agencies.

From my understanding we have three grids (eastern, western, and Texas) making up our national grid. What I did not know before the book as Koppel explains the system has to keep a certain level to operate. If power drops during peak times due to usage more power has to be loaded onto the grid from somewhere to compensate so they buy from other companies. In this case for example (I'm not sure of exact boundaries or the states he uses in his example) but Indiana can buy power from Florida. While they are not using exact power from Florida they are taking from the shared grid which Florida is then adding to.


I'm really not trying to become a cheerleader for this book but it was an interesting read which opened my eyes to some things regarding our grid. It's written by a well respected American journalist with over 25 years experience who used his connections and reputation to gain access to these federal officials to interview on the subject. It came out I believe in 2015 so the information should be mostly up-to-date unless there have been radical changes to how energy companies, the federal government, and the industry standards operate.

I agree right now it is the stuff of fantasy as it hasn't occurred and we would like to think we're protected and insulated against it well enough so that it's one less concern to have. In my lifetime I've seen many things come to pass which previously would have only been the stuff of movies. I would have thought my personal information was protected by my government and that the Chinese would never have been able to access it, however, as we learned OPM was breached and they stole it along with the data of many others. It's an age of cyberwarfare now.

Ted Koppel wrote a book about this.