this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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That's a problem with every non-physical storage of data/knowledge - it's ephemeral and can disappear anytime
From time to time I do think about the Carrington Event and wonder what would happen if something like that happened in today's time. Because of exactly the reason of how reliant we are on electronical data.
How resilient is our infrastructure really? Especially satellites used for communication. I assume that most critical cold-storage is mostly fine. But all the small personal electronic devices will probably be toast.
Well, not only did this very nearly happen (a comparable size emission missed us by something like 12 hours), we have a pretty good idea what would happen.
Fires. Fires everywhere. Very little of our infrastructure is shielded, so basically everything would go offline... But that almost pales in comparison to the sheer number of fires started simultaneously
We do have hardened installations and a system to give a short warning to places in a position to unplug and protect certain equipment, but that doesn't matter much in the short term because everything is on fire, and the air is filled with the toxic petrochemical gases we've been convinced to build everything out of.
Whoever survives the early days would theoretically be in a position to rebuild thanks to organizations like the US military - the knowledge of how is protected and there are plans to restore order. Most basic military hardware would be usable with maintenance (unlike most vehicles which rely on a bunch of microchips that don't appreciate EMPs, and also fire)
Physical media can suffer the same fate, but not usually at the hands of a single entity.