In a NY Times piece on the grid, how we rely on it & how fragile it is:
"The grid definitely makes life safer and more reliable," but when something does go wrong, "we've seen that the dominoes can start to fall over a wider and wider area. So it's conceivable that the next time this happens that it could extend even farther."That possibility is frightening on its own terms, given the universal reliance on electrical power. From video games to A.T.M.'s to desktop computers -- most of which didn't exist in earlier blackouts -- dead devices brought normal life to a stop across the afflicted region. But the sensitivity of the grid to power failures has much wider implications, since Americans -- and the citizens of the rest of the world -- seem to like technologies that give them an illusion of independence within a giant web.
Cellphones operate on a similar principle of connectivity. So do municipal water systems. So does the Internet. The list is increasingly long. And that is why some experts believe that what is beginning to look like a worldwide push for wildly interconnected technologies will have more and more serious days of reckoning, for which last week's blackout -- like the grid itself -- is an arrow to the future humanity can expect.
How long before we see a movie called "The Grid" somehow or another based on these ideas? What would happen if the whole country went dark?
Posted by Jason at August 16, 2003 11:46 AM