[Zardoz]

Well, perhaps I've overstated the seriousness of the situation a bit, but this incident is an illuminating example of just how fragile our modern tech-crazed global society really is:

Internet failure hits two continents

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')igh-technology services across large tracts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa were crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.

Industry experts are blaming damage to two undersea cables but it is not known what caused the damage.

Reports say that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain Pakistan and India, are all experiencing severe problems.

Nations that have been spared the chaos include Israel -- whose traffic uses a different route -- and Lebanon and Iraq. Many Middle East governments have backup satellite systems in case of cable failure.

Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said the damaged cables collectively account for the majority of international communications between Europe and the Middle East.

Du, a state-owned Dubai telecom provider, attributed the outage to an undersea cable cut between Alexandria, Egypt and Palermo, Italy, according to an internal memo obtained by CNN.

In India, Spectranet and Telecomasia.net, two large Internet service providers were experiencing problems. Reliance, a third major Indian Internet provider, said it was not affected.

An official at Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, speaking on condition of anonymity told AP it was believed that a boat's anchor may have caused the problems, although this was unconfirmed. Beckert agreed that was a likely cause.

The head of an Egyptian Internet service provider called the situation a "wake-up call" for the region, which he said is too dependent on underground lines and does not have a strong enough back-up system. Mohammed Amir, head of Quantum, an ISP in Cairo, described the situation as "a major problem," but expressed hope that the worst of it is over.

The two cables damaged are FLAG Telecom's FLAG Europe-Asia cable and SeaMeWe-4, a cable owned by a consortium of more than a dozen telecommunications companies, Beckert said.

[I_Like_Plants]

Your title says it all.

Also we've seen: Tree Branch Falls Across Power Lines, Civ. Collapses (I think it took weeks to get power back to some places)

Heavy Rain, Civilization Collapses.

Hurricane Brushes By, Civilization Collapses.

Got Olduvai? The Update forecasts 2008 being the year stuff *really* starts to happen that can't be chalked up to "business as usual".

[AlCzervik]

Yeah, ILP, I think about this shit all of the time now. After a bad ice storm, Detroit Edison (Electric and some nat. gas.) will bring in a bunch of cherry picker trucks from out of state to get everyone power when trees are on the ground over the entire metropolitan area. That is electricity completely dependent on dozens, if not hundreds, of oil/gasoline powered trucks. So, even if you have nat. gas./coal/nukes to power the plants, you need refined petroleum to run the freaking trucks that keep it the electrical system up to snuff.

I freak out personally because my basement floods once every five years or so. What the heck am I going to do when I can't get Roto Rooter guy to fix it within a day or two? Mi casa is going to be like New Orleans after Katrina.

[ColossalContrarian]

We have no clue of the beast we’ve created. It sure has helped us but boy we have no idea how much we depend on it until the lights go out.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ColossalContrarian', 'W')e have no clue of the beast we’ve created. It sure has helped us but boy we have no idea how much we depend on it until the lights go out.

[I_Like_Plants]

I remember as a kid, the electricity being out and we'd not notice. If it was in the daytime, there were no lights on, no AC since the house was built before AC was a given, and we were playing outside or doing something like reading books, etc. in daylight.

We're talking 1970s so no internet, TV sucked so we didn't watch it that much, and the only thing running was maybe the fridge and an electric clock on the wall which I think came with the place.

Later, when we were on Welfare, the places we lived were darker so lights had to be on in the day, and the TV was on more. Also, often the radio playing, not the "forbidden fruit" of NPR, but the latest rock music. We noticed when the power went out - not that it was that much of a bother though, you just found something to do outside.

Stores had mechanical registers, and if the moon was out we could see OK at night anyway.

Often the power was out because we could not pay the bill. Phone was one house, NOT ours, for 5 houses, if someone needed to make a call or supply a "contact number". We were used to not having this stuff.

Anyone under 30 is going to shit a major brick come Olduvai.

[Tyler_JC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'Y')our title says it all.

Also we've seen: Tree Branch Falls Across Power Lines, Civ. Collapses (I think it took weeks to get power back to some places)

Heavy Rain, Civilization Collapses.

Hurricane Brushes By, Civilization Collapses.

Got Olduvai? The Update forecasts 2008 being the year stuff *really* starts to happen that can't be chalked up to "business as usual".

[I_Like_Plants]

Tyler - I don't know. I guess he maintains a web page, or emits occasional updates once in a while. The last one actually moved things up, to 2008 being the year some "real stuff" happens as opposed to 2010 I think.

So far it's following the curves he's come up with awfully well.

I'd be nice if it were put off more, frankly. Because if he's correct, we've been in a plateau since 2000 or so and now we start seeing the beginning of the downslope.

[jboogy]

There was a show on the history channel the other night called "crude", didn't cover anything new as far as what Peakers already know , but it was interesting in that they really went into how everything is dependant on oil to one degree or another, the whole; produce from Cali. in reefers, to the pesticides and herbicides, plastics, etc. I bet it opened up alot of eyes. It's all going to crash hard and it looks like '08 is going to be the year.

[I_Like_Plants]

Yeah that's the biggie, boogie.

Most people have no real idea how interconnected things are. And it takes a lot of hearing about it and thinking about it, for it to sink in.

CRUDE wasn't that surprising a show, but I watched it and it was pretty decent.

[bodigami]

more complex civilizations has more points of failure; partly because everything is so big and interconected that when something (ie: oil supply) fails everything fails.

[evilgenius]

Yeah, it will all fail big in 2008,- in the third world! The US is fast making the order that will suck the money out of the suckers all points not China, and to an extent India, and keep down by dent of calamity those that otherwise might have caught on.

You have to ask yourself why, when the situation is as dire as it is, which it is BTW, are the companies that have control not moving off-shore more emphatically in West Africa? Why are they going on as if they can treat what is there as reserves rather than desperately exploiting it?

Why did the US abandon the dollar support that was so much in its interest, reinforcing the high relative position of the euro and the pound? What will happen to oil prices in fringe places, places that won't be lifted along with a strong dollar, if the dollar suddenly gains strength?

What are they covering up in Suadi Arabia?

Why hasn't the Bush administration been able to get a handle on Iraq? Shouldn't they really have been able to? Every time they could have inexplicably there was a new restriction placed upon the endeavor that prevented success for some reason, no more than so many troops, we want democracy this way and not any of the other ways, why rebuild when you can say you have and give the money to graft and corruption.

What is it that this stuff suggests in terms of timing? Is it just a superstorm of imcompetence or is it about ramping down the coverage that oil dependency has across the world? About making sure that there will be enough for the hunkered down developed world that will be left after the big take?