Survival in the 21st Century
Technology and having information at your fingertips is a wonderful thing. You can find your way along city streets and country highways using your smart phone, iPad or any number of personal gadgets. Food can be ordered and delivered from practically anywhere to essentially anywhere else. Survival has never been easier. Today’s power equipment and tools can take what used to be backbreaking work and turn it into a quick chore.
Planes, trains and automobiles whisk you from one point to another without making your feet ache or blister. Technology is there for everyone making life easier. Easier that is until it is not there, gone because of a power grid collapse.
Frozen foods can be transported 5,000 miles from a manufactures’ freezer to yours before the product thaws out. You are never without, and anything can be accomplished, no whim or desire is ever long out of reach.
People do not seem to be worried about disasters or being prepared for one in many cases. Natural disasters always seem to take citizens and municipalities alike by surprise. Hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires seem to exact a greater toll each time one occurs. More people and businesses are building and living in disaster prone areas, trusting too much in technology and early warning systems only to once again find themselves shocked and surprised when something happens.
Some believe in the fact that governments and local authorities are the ones that are paid to make sure the citizens are safe and so virtually put their survival into the hands of others. Some may also naturally assume that because they have information readily available that survival is guaranteed, and surviving is no more effort than simply pushing a button.
Families and individuals today simply rely too much on others for their survival. They need the corner grocery store and service station, they need the cell towers and service providers to make sure their gadgets never fail them.
During a crisis is when people realize that survival is at the individual level, no one will come to save you because everyone else is busy trying to save him or herself. People have relied on gadgets and other people for far too long to have the knowledge and skill sets to survive on their own when a calamity strikes.
Destruction to the nation’s power grid can be caused by a natural disaster, hackers in the employ of rogue nations or any number of manmade disasters. It is not a matter of if it ever happens at this point in today’s world it is only a matter of when it happens.
You Only Think You Are Prepared
Having machines, gadgets and other forms of technology to do the work for everyone may mean that people cannot perform those tasks once all the modern conveniences are rendered useless. Some may be under the illusion that technology and gadgets can never fail them and will always be there.
Some of the seemingly simplest of tasks will be monumental hurdles without technology because not many know how to accomplish these simple tasks without machinery. Tasks as simple as doing a load of clothes in the washing machine, from the washer to the dryer, how easy can it be, unless you do not have electricity or running water? You turn the faucet on and water comes out, coffee is made, juices stirred and showers accomplished, until there is not any running water, then what?
Food has to be produced, fuels delivered, medicines prescribed and children fed. The tasks that you perform during the normal course of the day will still have to be performed whether you have electricity or not. Who can survive once the lights go out for good?