Comment by catigula
6 days ago
Ridiculous post. Power outages would kill a lot of people if sustained. A Carrington event would devastate modern society.
6 days ago
Ridiculous post. Power outages would kill a lot of people if sustained. A Carrington event would devastate modern society.
You mean in hospital contexts?
I'm having trouble thinking how power outages can be deadly.
If it's hot/cold, elderly/vulnerable people tend to die pretty quick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_European_heatwaves
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis
You'll get some food poisoning deaths from food that got too warm in fridges. People who rely on home medical equipment like oxygen concentrators. Car crashes in busy intersections that no longer have traffic lights. Fires from candles. etc. etc. etc.
Even critical infrastructure eventually craps out.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/science/atomic-clock-late...
It feels like a stretch.
It reminds me of when people claimed the whatsapp numbers leak put lives at risk because people might use it in countries where it is banned.
In another sense, it is similar to arguments against tasers, where they are being evaluated in a vacuum instead of being evaluated against their alternatives. If you compare tasers to guns, or power outages to bombs, then they are safe rather than dangerous.
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