We of The West (which is to say : "civilisation") live a lifestyle unimagined by even royalty not very long ago. We have music of our choice on demand, food in excess, global instant communication, the ability to have light after sundown and to travel to any point on the globe, usually within a single day. However, this works ( worked? ) because of the foundation of hard work, study and VETTING of those who did the foundational work of materials production, engineering and assembly and testing of almost anything.
I especially think of our infrastructure, which was built in time past, and has been stretched well past it's designed failure, many coming into jobs are not of the caliber of those who came before, and standards are seen as mean spirited, and occasionally claimed to be based on institutional racism. So, do we go the way of Rhodesia and South Africa? Where to appease some social agenda we continue to placate the leftists, we focus on being 'nice' to make them FEEEEEEEL good about themselves, all while knowing that having idiots run our advanced systems only
leads to systems which only an idiot would use?
When I worked in less developed countries, there seemed to be a techno cliff of sorts, where the
imitation of western methods, dropped off precipitously and the resulting crashes, sinking ferry boats (overloaded by 400 %) electric and plumbing failures were evident even in high dollar hotels. Yes, even the pretty "5 Star Hotel" for outsiders looks very shiny with lots of glitter, metallic and all, but the experienced traveler knew that you do NOT put tap water near your mouth.
Japan was wonderful, because of
their sense of responsibility, other Asian nations, not so much, Step away from there into South or central Asia and the westerner is often in for a shock - and bacillary dysentery...
For long term, perhaps we might increasingly see South African style electrical brown outs , "load shedding" sounds better than the reality of a poorly maintained and failing infrastructure. Add to that, civil and agricultural water failures, resulting in the need to IMPORT FOOD previously produced inside of the country also on the Southern African model. These situations can become dangerous, especially in this arid region ( Think Southern California). I think the South Africans who remember the old RELIABLE systems could teach us a LOT about what they've learned to do to mitigate their sadly decayed infrastructure and general mismanagement. Plumbers have saved more lives than doctors, so what happens as our water and sewage begin to become the same thing: water mixed with sewage ?
Food for thought (cook it well and wash your hands before eating...)
Sir John Honeybucket
Food for thought:
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/opinions/the-effects-of-a-failing-power-grid-in-south-africa/South African data centers -vs- power availability.
