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What would you do if there was no electricity?
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Posted by: Canis Lupus
Some random thoughts I had after we had an hour-long blackout here at our city block...
Say, for instance, that you encounter a blackout that lasted for a week, or a month... or let's exaggerate a bit and say that electricity has been outlawed in your state (hehe), or maybe electricity became so expensive that you would go broke if you used more than an hour of it.
What do you do (or what would you do) in a world without electricity? What normal habits would you stop doing (i.e. surfing the Internet), and what possible things would you replace it with?
Just something to talk about  And to some people, please try to stay on topic 
Posted by: 9:35
I would probably take Unreal Tournament to the streets
Posted by: SKYHN
This topic, minus the alien part 
http://www.opentechsupport.net/foru...&threadid=25708
Posted by: 9:35
OH WAIT, I ALREADY DID
http://www.sojplz.com/images/party.jpg
Posted by: AOTY2KB
Time to break out the candles and put those hours wilderness survival to work. No more microwave, computer, TV or newspaper in its current state. Think of the mass paranoia, everything would come to a standstill, we'd have to plant crops by hand. I think I'd have to go outside for once and smack somebody.
Without electricity, I'd replace day to day life by just trying to remain alive and not get dieased as antibiotics would become difficult to come by.
Posted by: Bunmiadefisayo
Used to happen back home a lot, that was WAY before i came to this country; basically we'd just take mats and sit outside for hours on end, reading, talking, eating, whatever...it was great for the family though. Luckily we lived in a cool area so it wasnt bad at all.
in any case, after living in a plae where electricity supply is sporadic at best, the idea of no electricity for days or even weeks doesnt bother me
Posted by: AK47
I'd buy stock in Energizer 
Posted by: uh...ok
Yea but you'd have to go to New York to do that. 
On horseback!
Sometime towards the end of this term, the power went out around the Cambridge area and basically our whole campus went without electricity for a good several hours (and at the time we didn't know that the power would return so quickly).
Aside from wondering where a certain someone was (after walking back and forth between my dorm and hers for a half hour before finally knocking on her door to find no one there), those were probably my most enjoyable and stressless moments of the week. I mean, I was basically at an Institvte of Technology, without the technology! I ended up just standing at the front of my dorm for an hour or so talking to the desk worker and a couple stragglers - finding out some funny things like how, since our telephones got switched to digital lines not so long ago, the power knockout took out our last means of wired communication with the rest of the world. Most classes got cancelled except for some professors who insisted on teaching in the dark - or if the classroom had windows.
Too bad it was raining outside at the time - or I would have brought a book out, or gone to play frisbee, or just simply sit outside and enjoy being in the sun rather than meeting with my 6.170 TA (which was what I was supposed to be doing - we ended up meeting anyway, regardless of the lack of power, and using our laptops >.< ). I was tempted to take a nap, or call up friends to play chess, or any boardgame, or Mafia!
Then the power came back on and life returned to its sucky normality. 
(On the bright side I did ended up finding my friend - she happened to be standing outside our Student Center talking with the TA I was going to meet. )
/end anecdote
Posted by: laborat
Interesting topic. I am old enough to remember several aged aunts and uncles who had farms without electricity.
They used wood stoves for heat and cooking. They had Outhouses. (a covered trench in actuality)
They used coal oil lamps for lighting. They went to bed with the cows and woke up with the chickens.
Most of the stuff we take for granted today they would find frivilous. Not a chubby person among them. They were active from morning till night and sometimes (calving comes to mind) all night.
They farmed all of what they ate. They canned fruits and vegetables. They fished. They hunted quail, duck, rabbit and squirrel. They foraged for nuts and mushrooms.
They smoked meats from hogs and cows they butchered themselves. They had a cow for milk and chickens and ducks for eggs.Not one of them ever complained that life owed them a thing, and they all thanked god for the blessings of family and farm.
I actually long for the simplicity of those times more often than not in todays world. I certainly wouldn't be able to do what they did back then today. I have become to used to depending upon others for basic needs like electricity, water, sewage, gas, law enforcement. We call this progress in civilization. I am still not sure the trade off is a good one. I know that is what my kinfolk would have said.
Of course they are gone forever, not to be reclaimed except in memory and sadly a lot of their skills at carpentry, engineering, butchering, canning, farming, etc. are gone as well. There was something about being close to the land that made one respect the land -- much more so than today.
Electricity? Lightning running along a wire? Hogwash. My kin would have said, "I don't buy into anything I can't do for myself. Show me how to do it and I will make some of this electricity for myself and show it to my neighbors to see if they want some. People need to depend on themselves first and then they don't have to depend on others.
Posted by: Bunmiadefisayo
So we all agree, to an extent, that electricity going off is good...in small doses
Posted by: redwench
either lots of sex, or a sniper rifle to the nearest church.
Posted by: RAcastClarke
No electricity= no refrigerator= no cheese.
BAD.
Posted by: SpecOpsHoov
Last summer, when the power went out for much of the Northeast, it was almost a sort of bliss for our town. People actually came outside and behaved like civilized people. Yeah it was uncomfortable with some of the heat, but most people seemed to ignore the fact, and actually seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Much of the looting that was expected never even occured. It was surprising...then after a few days the power came back on, and well, it was back to normal, unfortunately. =/
Posted by: Chaotic
Curl up and die.
And there would still be cheese... It's a very old commodity.
Posted by: IceBreaker
 Quote:
Originally posted by Canis Lupus
And to some people, please try to stay on topic
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I second that - yes people, stay on topic! http://www.mega-content.de/smilies/...ure/engel/4.gif
Anyways, a long-lasting electricity shortage would be catastrophic...simply because humans get used to comfort - this ties up with what Laborat said - modern society has too low a tolerance for failure. If Epicure could see what has become of the world today, he'd be turning over in his grave Without electricity, first & foremost long-distance communications would come to a standstill - whether this would have such an impact on our lives as to cause widespread chaos remains to be seen. Second, no more lighting - back to using candlelight, and life would be considerably "darker" (though personally I wouldn't mind); Third, we'd have to rethink our eating habits - and resort to good ole fire for cooking. We'd probably witness a massive flux of the urban populations towards rural areas..
And last but not least - no more video games...come to think of it, yes this would be the Apocalypse http://forum.presence-pc.com/images/perso/azathoth.gif
Posted by: Wacheif
Quote:
Originally posted by 9:35
I would probably take Unreal Tournament to the streets
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I Second that
Posted by: RAcastClarke
Pfft Ice, like you are ever on topic that often...
Anyway, I'd probably lead a large uprising of cave-dwelling hicks to take over the world. We'd walk around with our varmit rifles and shoot down all them city boys, and mebbe gram some possum fer supper.
Who needs electricity when you have bullets?
No mozzerella cheese though...that stuff is the bomb...
YEE HAW!!
Posted by: Chaotic
http://www.franceway.com/cheese/history.htm
Posted by: AOTY2KB
ANARCHY!!!!!!!!!!!  
Posted by: Bix VT
I know what I did when hurricane Isabel came through...I was bored. I couldn't drive because all of the gas pumps didn't work, I couldn't game because my UPS only lasts for about 30 minutes, and I couldn't have sex because I don't have a gf. So I ended up spending a whole crapload of time just sitting around talking to my friends. That was a blast. But then I had to come home to sleep and I was bored.
So yeah.
Edit: you're welcome Canis for posting about electrical failure and not cheese, although I was quite tempted.
Posted by: IceBreaker
Quote:
Originally posted by RAcastClarke
Pfft Ice, like you are ever on topic that often...
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But that was humour...never mind http://www.mega-content.de/smilies/...chlafende/6.gif
Posted by: Ack1027
Quote:
Originally posted by redwench
either lots of sex, or a sniper rifle to the nearest church.
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Rofl, I don't know why but I laughed at this for a while.
Posted by: Superfly3176
I'd prolly scream and cuss if it was outlawed than go into my basement and create my own electricity.
Or maybe I'd fufill my lifelong goal of being amish.
Posted by: IceBreaker
Quote:
Originally posted by redwench
either lots of sex, or a sniper rifle to the nearest church.
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I see...
..."make love, or war" http://www.fintoys.net/yabb/yabbima...ilies/cool4.gif
Posted by: Bunmiadefisayo
Quote:
Originally posted by Ack1027
Rofl, I don't know why but I laughed at this for a while.
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 i did too, for about 10mins i was hysterical. But then again i thought that it couldnt be possible, for one thing you only get about 3mins of "doing it" (5 if you are lucky). So i just suggest that one does the other option...
Posted by: redwench
3 min? 
someone's not doing something right........
Posted by: Canis Lupus
*polite cough*
Posted by: Cheese
I'd play golf at least twice a day. That and try to find a good supply of ice to keep the beer cold.
Posted by: uh...ok
Quote:
Originally posted by laborat
I actually long for the simplicity of those times more often than not in todays world. I certainly wouldn't be able to do what they did back then today. I have become to used to depending upon others for basic needs like electricity, water, sewage, gas, law enforcement. We call this progress in civilization. I am still not sure the trade off is a good one. I know that is what my kinfolk would have said.
Of course they are gone forever, not to be reclaimed except in memory and sadly a lot of their skills at carpentry, engineering, butchering, canning, farming, etc. are gone as well. There was something about being close to the land that made one respect the land -- much more so than today.
Electricity? Lightning running along a wire? Hogwash. My kin would have said, "I don't buy into anything I can't do for myself. Show me how to do it and I will make some of this electricity for myself and show it to my neighbors to see if they want some. People need to depend on themselves first and then they don't have to depend on others.
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Have you ever read The Axemaker's Gift or seen the corresponding series, The Day the Universe Changed? This probably isn't my first time mentioning them, but they talk extensively about how the "axemakers" of our world has, since the beginning of time, slowly taken more and more power away from the rest of the people - thus making them dependent on things they never would have been before. This tradeoff is made with every single technological advance in history, be it the first axe that was made to go hunt, to the first time a printing press was developed... and the examples run on and on. It's not something that one notices easily until a contrast as stark as that which you've given above is shown in front of our faces.
Posted by: redwench
that is the nature of specialization, aptly demonstrated by "jack of all trades, master of none". advances come almost exclusively from specialists, because the non-specialist doesnt have the time, inclination, or knowledge, generally speaking.
i rather doubt most of us want to be hunting and/or gathering for food and living in caves, despite being non-dependent on others......
Posted by: uh...ok
But that's mostly due to our conditioning into depending on these things we now take for granted every day, isn't it?
I'm not saying we were better off back then - it's just that the tradeoff for what we have today isn't immediately apparent to most of us.
Posted by: Ack1027
Quote:
Originally posted by redwench
3 min?
someone's not doing something right........
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StfuPlzGgNoReKthxd By Redwench yet again!
Posted by: Gerbilo
I'd move out to Iowa
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