The storm on the US East coast seems to be getting even worse. It is going to take months for the people get their lives back to normal. If you have been reading my blogs, you know that I have been predicting that our society has been getting more "brittle" every year. What do I mean by brittle? Haven't you been listening? The whole USA has been getting more brittle for the past 100 years. It has been happening at a slow pace, but it has been happening all the same. We are now more "brittle" than at any time in our history. Oh, you don't know what "brittle" means? Let me bring you up to date.
As we have tried to raise our standard of living and our quality of life, we have given up on a simple thing in the process and that is "redundancy". Here is a simple example. Most people carry a spare tire in their car so when they have a flat, they have the spare tire ready. When I was a kid and our family took a long trip, we took along two or three spare tires. Over the years we cut down to only one. If you get rid of your spare tire, you will get a little better gas mileage and you can carry more gear. The problem is that now you are at risk if you have a flat. What you did was to give up "redundancy" for the advantage of more space in your car. Your system is now more "brittle" and a small thing like a flat can ruin your trip. Getting the message? All systems, when we try to squeeze more out of them, get more brittle. It is true in all systems and big cities are just one example.
I live in a rural area and have my own chain saws and a tractor. I also have a large fuel tank of gas. I also have two generators plus a couple of inverters. I heat my home with wood with an electrical back up. I have lots of canned food and a freezer full. If I got hit like the East coast, I could live in my home for at least 90 days without any help from anyone. That is not the case with people who live in large cities. When the total system works, it seems great, but let a few things fail and the whole place is a mess. That is exactly what happened with this storm.
On a day to day basis, people do not think about the down side of optimization. You can build the fastest race car, but I can tell you that it will not be as reliable as my lawn mower. If you are willing to take the risk, you can have the race car, but when the chips are down, I will be driving my lawn mower. People should not be surprised at how bad the situation is due to the storm. They have chosen to take the risk and now it has happened, pure and simple.
I guess, it all comes down to the fact that "there is no free lunch". You might not recognized it at the time, but nothing is free. Maybe we should think about things like this when we go to vote!!!
