A modern but fragile society, the problem of blackouts and the fear of being offline

We have hardly realized it, but in the last two decades we have experienced an important transition that has made us a very modern society, so much so that, in many aspects, we have advanced even more than we could have imagined just a few years ago. . Yes, it is true that there are still goals that we have not been able to achieve, but the fact that anyone can be connected to the Internet, and to the worldfrom anywhere using a device that fits in your pocket It seems to me such an important achievement that in the end I dare to forgive the rest of the pending things.

It is understandable, that progress has been one of the key pillars of the society in which we live. Thanks to this we can see and talk to our loved ones no matter where they are, we can also go to a doctor’s office, buy those things we need for our home, train ourselves professionally and intellectually, socialize, work, enjoy leisure time and look for new ways to earn money.

Impressive, no doubt, but behind this modernity there is a great fragility, and to display a button. Just a few days ago, the Japanese telephone operator KDDI Corporation suffered a massive blackout that left 40 million people totally disconnected. Imagine the situation, you wake up in the morning, you reach for your smartphone to see if you have messages and to check your email, but you are offline and you can’t do one thing or the other. You can’t browse the Internet either, and obviously both your social networks and your favorite multimedia content are inaccessible.

That was the experience of 40 million Japanese, and the one that could live more than 7,000 million people if there were a global blackout. Can you imagine the situation? If this were to happen, that very modern society that we have created could suffer significant damage, and depending on the duration of the blackout, certain sectors, companies and markets could collapse.

I do not want to be a catastrophist, the chances of that happening are quite small, but what has happened to the KDDI Corporation telephone operator, and the misadventures suffered by its 40 million customers, is one more reminder of how fragile our society really isdespite all that pompous modernity that wastes day by day.

As an anecdote, I want to end by remembering that KDDI recommended its customers to return to the analog and wired era, since he told them verbatim to use landlines or public booths. It is curious, since the former have been eliminated for years in many homes, and even in some companies, and the latter have been in danger of extinction for years.