The Oil Drum

This may be something TPTB are working on much harder than we realized.

Case in point: A few years ago in a large apartment building I'm living in, the power goes out. It's dark, it's still early evening, nuthin' much to do, no TV to watch, so.... people get their flashlights and glowsticks and a few have candles, and start getting together and talking. Little groups form, and start getting to know each other. Oh, I live here, Wow, you're right around the corner from me, Hey, I've seen you in the parking garage, you have that so and such car right? Remember that time in the library... etc.

If it stays out, for a few days, sure you get some pissed off people, but the main thing is you end up with these social networks that have formed. You may have people realizing how much time they waste watching TV and sitting around, you may end up with, after time, if these social networks are not snuffed out, POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS.

However, in the case I saw, after a few hours the lights came back on and we went back to our TVs and not knowing each other and never saying Hi or making eye contact. We went back to being good Americans.

It may however be harder to keep people good Americans, not knowing and not trusting their neighbors, if those darned TVs keep fritzing out everytime the power goes out - which will only happing more often in our decaying Empire.

Hence, the low-power TV. We may see TVs that can run off of the UPS you may already have for your computer, TVs that can run off of a car batt, TVs that can run day/night off of a $100 solar cell array like they sell at Fry's, charging during the day.

We may see much more effort and exotic materials put into this than there would be otherwise, because TVs give TPTB that valuable social control.