When the Electricity Dies (opinion piece by Jeffrey Tucker)

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I wasn't sure where to put this. Moderators, move if you wish!

https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/when-the-electricity-dies-5737477

When the Electricity Dies
By Jeffrey A. Tucker
10/8/2024

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Once a huge champion of all things digital, I’ve come to develop serious doubts about the pace at which humanity made the switch from analogue to the cloud. The hackings, outages, data breaches, and extended breakages all make the point. Then it dawned on me that the danger is even greater.

Most of the things we use today have not been stress tested. They are centralized and have a single point of failure. And they are very vulnerable. It could all stop in an instant with no sure guarantee of when it will come back.

A turning point came for me visiting a small basement laundry in Manhattan. The proprietor was still using a sewing machine from 1948. She would have nothing to do with newer models. After that, I took greater notice of the machinery of other merchants in my area. Many sewing machines were 75 years old and still working well. My cobbler uses equipment more than a century old. This is not uncommon.

They can all still do business with a generator and a good supply of fuel. They are prepared. This is also why people are holding on to their older gas-powered cars without all the snazzy stuff. They are more trustworthy and you can fix what breaks. It’s better to maintain the old thing in good repair than move to the new thing that is not going to last long.

These days, few things are built for the long term. We buy smartphones and computers with full anticipation that we will buy new ones in a few years. Repairing things is ever less possible. Home appliances are the same: kaput in 5 to 10 years. And so many are dependent on digital applications to work. The operations of locks on homes, cars, ignitions, lights, and so much more are wholly dependent on a web of hooks that require that everything is in perfect working order.

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