The Apocalypse is Near!
The dudes are talking about the end times! Spencer thinks solar flares and GPS failure will be our undoing. Ryan thinks it will be runaway nanobots, or maybe ebola. This is part one of our two-part series on the end of the world. Listen to part two here. It covers fun ways to prepare for the imminent apocalypse.
Hot Topics: Driving Into The Ocean, The Spanish Flu’s PR Problem, Dino Wipeout, Super Bacteria, Human Extinction, Deer Mummies, #DONWUWWY, No One Goes To Earth Anymore – It’s Too Crowded, Killer Tofu.
GPS Failure
We rely on GPS more than most people realize. GPS doesn’t just help us find the nearest ATM. Emergency services, public transportation, banking, and utility services all rely on GPS. We’re most familiar with GPS’ location-finding abilities, but global positioning satellites are little more than extremely accurate clocks. These clocks transmit a time stamped radio signal. Receivers on the ground – in your car or smartphone for instance – pick up these time signals from three or more satellites. By comparing the time signal from space with the time in the receiver – the receiver can calculate how far away the satellite is. By comparing the distance between the three signals, the satellites can determine the receivers location.
GPS is also a more tenuous system than most people realize. Just 24 satellites make up the entire system. Consequently, one malfunction can create chaos for the whole system. Something like a solar flare could wipe out most or all of the GPS satellites at once.
Pandemics
The world is more connected than ever before. We can travel across the world in a matter of hours. This also means disease spreads faster than ever before. In 1918, the Spanish flu killed nearly 5% of the world’s population. Today, that would be 367 million people. A pandemic on that level would be even more deadly today than in 1918 due to our ever-increasing connectivity as a species.
