It would be interesting to model the way different societies would deal with such an event. Some presumably would have a run on toilet paper and other essentials. Other societies might ration resources on a need basis.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be disruptive, but people seem to have a fetish for disaster. Society is resilient, and life would return to near-normal within weeks, if not days, I predict.
However, that's where I wonder about the "shouldn't" part. Wouldn't a large CME like this cause excessive power surges, which modern electronics don't respond well to? i.e. nearby lightning strikes can kill a computer or microwave even if you've got a circuit breaker, so wouldn't the grid suddenly having a massive surge go through it still be a cause for concern? Or are we talking voltage/amp levels below that of a lightning strike?
It would take years in normal times. In a crisis like this, you'd see resources allocated to transformers on the scale of (perhaps greater than) that allocated to COVID-19 vaccines and PPE, and that time scale would almost certainly be dramatically reduced.
What are you referring to?
Distribution is also easier in the cities due to population density.
In general there's a fiction pushed by people who live in lower density areas that somehow they're tougher or more caring or something - that for some reason everyone in cities is just waiting for a moment to suddenly slaughter each other. It doesn't happen.
Lots of the local trucks run on vegetable oil so they don't even need a working supply chain for diesel. It'll be an inconvenience but it's no death.
On top of that, a huge amount hunt and fish like you said and have hundreds of pounds of meat for a year or two with only 2-4 deer which breed like locusts.
Short term, depending on the season, it could be over a year before sustainable crops can be grown to eat. Best case, it happens in early spring, and everyone can go immediately till and plant as many acres as possible, presuming they have the seeds. And the stored fuel and sufficient labor to prepare the extra ground, fell trees and turn them to fields, etc. Even then, what is the fastest-maturing crop, 10 weeks? A long few months to live on the scraps in your no-longer-working refrigerator. And if it happens too late in the growing season? yikes, but less bad for those in more temperate climates.
Hunting? If everyone even in small towns started hunting for food, including out of season, most food species would be hunted to local extinction in short order.
Longer term, is there really enough to sustain more than a small population? I recall one rule of thumb of 20+ acres/household just to have wood to heat with (an acre/year, 20 years to regrow). With little tech, we'd pretty quickly be back to 98% of the population doing primarily farming activities.
Cities? Sure, everyone would help each other, but what other things stop working when there is no electricity? Water, refrigeration, fuel pumps, heating systems. The populations of cities are so dependent on just-in-time or constant supplies, I have a hard time seeing how they survive in any numbers unless massive aid can be immediately mobilized and sustained, which would be very tough if all the cities are out of power at once...
Where is this? I thought only a small amount of DIY types were running their cars on used veggie oil.
A large majority of people, including all but the youngest children in the developed world are healthy enough to survive just fine on zero calories for a week as long as they have clean water. You wouldn’t have zero calories and that’s probably enough time to start milling animal feed corn and processing other animal feed into something edible by humans. The developed world is well capable of feeding itself even in very bad situations. This is a coordination problem and in catastrophes people do not turn into locusts. They pull together. See WW2 in all combatant nations. I’d expect high mortality among the very young, very old and very sick and well over 90% survival rates four most of the developed world besides those groups.
1st world countries are well stocked, have know-how, have a lot of people (and a lot of educated people).
I'm inclined to believe they'd recover faster and with better results (i.e. no anarchy, no descent into dictatorship, good QoL) than third world countries. Worst case, they'll be invading poorer countries, sadly.
There’d be advantages for the one with the most remaining capability.
Some people will be able to trade for essentials at arbitrarily large amounts.
a) an immediate steep drop in difficult will allow the network to resolve transactions without loads of power, and the few nodes online will still comprise the network. some networks have much longer difficulty adjustment periods and they will be debilitated for months as blocks will not come, other networks have much shorter adjustment periods and will generate new blocks in minutes
b) that transactions can be signed offline and broadcast eventually, far far in the future.
c) alternatively, in a temporarily trusted environment, physical notes with private keys can be handed to someone else in exchange for goods and services. anybody can check the current balance with their own copy of the chain state without the internet, the date/block height of the physical notes balance should be stated alongside the note and anybody with a chain after that block height can verify it. if a provider really wants the latest copy of the chain to accept these notes, order it on a physical disk shipped to you and verify the checksum with multiple sources.
d) this means the user can exchange for goods and services without the internet, and the people that are still connected to other nodes such as a radio tower or internet cafe can act as tellers at banks and broadcast transactions periodically for people.
better than trading bottlecaps.
You can sign things offline, sure, but you can't really verify them. I could spend the same coins a thousand times if the people accepting them can't reliably check for verifications using the same consistent chain.
I don't even understand how the scheme in "c" would work to be honest, and I have a decent background in crypto and cryptocoins. How many people are going to be able to make that work?
I just can't see any of that happening. I'd expect a combination of a barter economy, some precious metals and whatever physical currency is around.
No power, societal fabric is breaking down, credit cards don't work.
Assumption: people will accept crypto at any value.
Reality: people will barter for tangible items and use force to maintain their desired order. If I'm auctioning a spare 10kw generator the guy offering a 5.56 rifle and 100 rounds has infinitely more value than 100k bitcoins (~$5,000,000,000.00)
Maybe this fantasy can play out if the person you're bartering with knows a lot about bitcoin, knows that the disaster is localized, and knows that they can escape and survive the disaster zone without the tangible alternatives. That's a lot of assumptions. You're better off hoarding 9mm bullets, water purification tabs, generators, trucks without electronics and their repair parts, solar panels, deep cycle batteries, gasoline/diesel, bullet proof vests, and MREs. But at that point any substantial tradeable stock pile is going to cost as much or more than a well designed bunker stocked to run and survive independently for >10yrs. You won't make any money during the disaster, and you must survive it to have the opportunity to be robbed before you can start to realize gains during the aftermath/rebuild period.
I will support the cause to build the infrastructure for better price discovery. Transactions can be broadcast to the chain which is supported by an asset with many assurances and confidence about its supply.
I don't actually care about the cryptocurrency being a reserve currency or any ideology fantasizing that, I care about its network being an option to support better price discovery in barter.
Society collapses, and you believe people will use cryptocurrency for barter instead of tangibles like water, food, ammunition and/or weapons because people will want to optimize the prices? What are you saying?
if its easier for you, just imagine that its for the monocle wearing investment bankers that still want to offer intangible services and settlement over a network
Radio can be recreated easily, and so can the concept of two computers talking to each other
Cryptocurrency does not need ubiquitous internet