Re: y2k/gary north delusions

[Michal Hohensee <mah248@nyu.edu>]

Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
> 
> Michal Hohensee wrote:
> >
> >
> > Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
> > >
> > > Petro wrote:
> > > >       Ok, so let's cut that back to what we _need_. First off, we don't
> > > > dump our dish water down the drain, it gets "recycled" to flush the
> > > > toilets.
> > >
> > > get them to shit outside.
> > >
> >
> > Bad bad bad bad bad bad *bad* idea.  This might be ok in the Russian
> > countryside, or any other countryside, but it an *excessively* bad thing
> > in just about any modern city.  If running water fails to run in the
> > cities, and people do as you suggest, and take their business outside,
> > it will not be long before tremendous numbers of people get sick and
> > die.  What with the high concentrations that people live in in most
> > cities, I expect that this'd make the Black Death look like a mild case
> > of the flu.
> 
> Like I said, someone would need to build a latrine. That's all that's
> needed.
> 

Latrines aren't sufficient to the task.  In a city like NYC, latrines
might solve the problem for perhaps a week (assuming that we tear up all
the roads and sidewalks --something which we cannot do in time, even if
we wanted to), but then they'll be full, and there won't be any more
places the latrines can be rotated to.

Then we're back to doing it in the open.  Less concentrated cities might
last a while longer, but not much longer.  There's no getting around it,
we *need* working sewer systems to have modern cities.  Otherwise, the
cities die.

Michael Hohensee