The Philosophy of Disaster Preparedness

[damocles]

The market is always in equalibrium in the long term. The world economy can suffer shocks ffrom time to time but it all depends on how much people are willing to pay for a commodity. When fossil fuels become more expensive than alternatives, they will be abandoned. No crisis or War.

 

Time, History, and Biology argue against this.

 

Thomas Malthius;

 

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.0.html

 

Human animals compete for resources violently.

 

How else explain this?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_warfare

[lindagarrette]

Human animals compete for resources violently

In a social context, the competition is for power, not scarce resources. There are many wars going on in the world. I can't think of any that is not primarily idialogical.

[Boerseun]

In a social context, the competition is for power, not scarce resources. There are many wars going on in the world. I can't think of any that is not primarily idialogical.

Control of scarce resources equals power.

 

When the juice runs out and the Powers That Be are slow on the uptake, those controlling the last oil will control what's left of civilization. Until some bright spark comes up with an alternative.

[damocles]

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Quote:

Originally Posted by damocles

Human animals compete for resources violently

 

Premise stated.

 

In a social context, the competition is for power, not scarce resources. There are many wars going on in the world. I can't think of any that is not primarily idialogical.

 

Refutation declared.

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://srdis.ciesin.org/cases/Sudan-Paper.html&e=10342

 

 

Premise defended.

 

The Sudan is one specific example of a resource war masquerading under the guise of religious ideology...

 

 

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[Turtle]

___All that said (& it's a lot to say!), I have more interest in how each of you as individuals has or has not prepared for unknown disaster & why. :rolleyes:

[Mercenaryend]

i dont know why , and its off the current topic of where this thread is going , but in the united states , every one in the region of 2 states by colorado has reason to be ready...prepared... becuase....

yellowstone national park in itself is 1 giant doomsday volcanoe. the last time it erupted was o i donno sum billion years ago , and according to the scientifict pattern.....its do to blow any minute.....mind you this "ready to blow" can be off by.....like a billion years easily...

 

 

 

And now on to that stuff we cant seem to get enough of.. oil...

a goo idea of oil will be back when rome died..... the dark ages...

when the oil goes bye-bye you can think of it as a guy who had cigaretes for 1 year , then they simply disapeared. with no one else around to help him (becuase every one will want the oil for themselves) so the guy will tear himself to peices just becuase a way of life for him is gone. now , the world wont end becuase of oil-b-gone , but it will cuase some form of disruption on a major way.

also , the economey will suffer becuase it will be raised in price to ship things like now... in iowa , i can go get a bannana right now....without oil??? no im not gonna have no more stinkin bananas becuase the cost to ship for a company will be to much , and no profit would be made......

 

 

......woot......

[Mercenaryend]

also on the whole thing with the massive volcanoe , it wount only possibly hurt the area around it , but the volcanic ash may be nice enuff to block out the sun and cuase another ice age.....talk about disasters.......forget the oil , grab your winter coats....and mamoth hunting spears....

[damocles]

also on the whole thing with the massive volcanoe , it wount only possibly hurt the area around it , but the volcanic ash may be nice enuff to block out the sun and cuase another ice age.....talk about disasters.......forget the oil , grab your winter coats....and mamoth hunting spears....

 

1. The Yellowstone Cauldera is not the only evidence of an eruption. See here:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_Caldera

 

The Yellowstone Caldera, also known as the Yellowstone supervolcano, is a volcanically active region in Yellowstone National Park. It measures 55 kilometers by 72 kilometers. The caldera was discovered with difficulty due to its size. It was only spotted using satellite images.

 

<snip>

 

Volcanism

 

Yellowstone sits on top of three overlapping calderas. (USGS)Yellowstone is on top of one of the planet's few dozen hot spots where light, hot, molten, mantle rock rises towards the surface. Hawaii is believed to lie over a similar hot spot, explaining its solitary position in the Pacific. The Yellowstone hot spot has a long history. Over the past 17 million years or so, successive eruptions have flooded lava over wide stretches of Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Idaho, forming a string of comparatively flat calderas linked like beads, as the North American plate moves across the stationary hot spot. The oldest identified caldera remenant is straddling the border near McDermitt, Nevada-Oregon. The calderas' apparent motion to the east-northeast forms the Snake River Plain. However, what is actually happening is the result of the west-southwest motion of the North American plate with respect to the stationary hot spot deep underneath.

 

Now that means, that the future, the motion of the North American plate indicates that the Yellowstone magma hotspot will dive under the Rocky Mountains burying the magma hotspot safely (for a while) under several hundreds of billions of tons of mountains.

 

But then it will pop out into the (probable) new Mississippi Sea and erupt as a new island chain linking the two non-inundated halfs of North America. That is possibly a few millions of years in the future. But that is SMALL stuff.

 

If things go further the way I suspect, the land dwelling descendants of what ever replaces us from the oceans will dig us up and use us as fossil fuel about the same time that the sun bloats into the red giant phase. Of course the self organizing machines we built in space before we blundered into extinction; will be laughing their fool logics off as they move beyond the thermal danger limit to watch the local star boil the inner planets off. Ever see fried ants on a hot plate?

 

Best wishes;

[Turtle]

Regardless of the disaster scenario, I want to get at what people actually do or have done to prepare for disaster. If nothing why? If something, what? A stitch in time saves nine. We keep having disaster after disaster in the same places & every time it's the same thing; nobody prepares. I don't get it. It's up to us as individuals in my view to really prepare; set aside water, food, fuel, etc. so that when - not if - trouble comes our way we minimize the detriment. Are you prepared I ask again? :QuestionM

[CraigD]

Regardless of the disaster scenario, I want to get at what people actually do or have done to prepare for disaster. If nothing why? If something, what?

Here’s what I’ve done. In 1999, riding on the Y2K bandwagon, I convinced my organization to purchase, test, and be ready to deploy 50 short wave radio packet relay units sufficient to operate our medical information systems at 21 medical facilities and 1 data center across over a million km^2 of city, suburb, and rural population areas. Bandwidth in this configuration is very low – no PC LAN capability, telnet as low as 2400 bits/sec, but sufficient to provide realtime access to several million existing or new medical records and provide medical care for 10-50,000 people a day for as long as generator power lasts – 5-14 days, depending on the facility, longer if our emergency diesel fuel suppliers come through.

 

Since Y2K, I’ve been a general pain in the *** seeing that this system remains viable, which, along with the need to actually deploy the SWPRs, includes the need for a massive redeployment of minimal client software currently centralized on a Windows Terminal Services server “farm” far too bandwidth hungry, and on the wrong side of the Rockys, to work without public fiber and wire.

 

In the event of a disaster, I’d do the same thing I do most days – make sure all this elaborate stuff works. Though much of the actual stuff – the hardware - would be different, the process of making it work – trouble shooting, “fire fighting”, hand-holding, etc. – would, I expect, be business as usual.

 

I don’t have much of a “plan B” for the survival of myself and my local family. My wife is an insulin-dependent diabetic, so if our pharmacies can’t reconnect to their suppliers within about 150 days, she’ll sicken and die. Though I usually enjoy contingency planning, I’ve not been able to find a way to be self sufficient in this need, and don’t much enjoy pondering the possibilities. We’re dependent on civilization, and civilization is dependent on us.

[Turtle]

Global warming,:zip: nuclear bombardment,:eek: hurricane, :) volcano,:) earthquake, :rant: train wreck, :D tornado, :D flood, :girl: ice age,:lol: disaster,:doh: disaster, ;) disaster :) ...

 

The question is not "what will you do" :) , the question is "what have you already done to prepare for disaster?" :wink: .

 

 

 

 

 

:)

[Racoon]

What do you do!??? :D :)

 

Build a Survival Wagon of course...

And head away from the Radiation....:) :) :girl:

 

See Port Security thread!

[Racoon]

I got a security blanket of Canned goods, Fishin' equipment with nets, and a Hi-Tail it to the River Property plan..

 

Cuz think about it..

Roads will be CLOGGED!

 

Ain't gonna' get stuck on the Freeway...

Bikes are nice this way.. :) :)

[InfiniteNow]

The question is not "what will you do" :) , the question is "what have you already done to prepare for disaster?" :) .

I've been working pretty hard to let go of my fear, anxiety, and the negative stuff and just find internal peace. Then, I'm good no matter what happens.

 

I'm now done for the day guys and gals.

 

 

I began today posting about peace and I'm going to end today posting about peace.

 

 

May peace and well-being accompany you and all those with whom you share love, friendship, and aquaintance with each passing and experienced moment.

[Turtle]

The Department of Homeland Security has a new website up with information on preparing for disaster(s). My philosophy on the issue is that of Ben Franklin; an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

http://www.ready.gov/

[Turtle]

I see I'm not the only one asking the question:

Floods, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Wildfires, Earthquakes ... Why We Don't Prepare

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1229102,00.html

[Turtle]

A new ad campaign has launched in the US promoting disaster preparedness and using children as spokespersons. The new web site they promote is here:

http://www.govlink.org/3days3ways/

 

On an interesting side-note, the coal industry has also launched a new sereies of ads using children and I have to wonder which orfice the ad agencies pulled this idea from!? :hihi: Since people don't listen to reason, they're bound to listen to kids. ;)