No power - no web?

There is a difference between establishing comunictions and the internet.

Mass and long distance communication is now as vital to the functioning of human society as water and food largely because we are now so dependent on it

Long distance communication is not vital to the functioning of society, it merely increases its' efficiency and comfort. We 'need' these communication mediums today because we have forgotten how to live without them. Remember, 25 years ago the majority of people had not even considered the possibility of the internet, yet now so many of us depend on it. Makes you wonder how we made it 2 million years without it.

You bring up New Orleans. Yes, mass communication saved lots of lives before the tragedy, but how many homes in the city had the internet post storm? How did peoples priorities change when the power went down?

Abraham Maslow was a major player in psychosocial behavioral sciences, and even now his works are seen as the basis of the majority of social interactions. His most famous work is the hierarchy of needs, which is still used. According to Maslows Hierarchy of Needs, the human must have fulfilled the most basic of requirements (physiological, including food, water, breathing, excretion etc.) before being able to progress onto more advanced requirements (security; stability; dependency; protection; freedom from fear, anxiety, and chaos; need for structure, order, law, and limits; strength in the protector; and so on).

Until the basics are catered for appropriately, there will be no advancement in socal infrastructure, including mass communication. Indeed mass communication is even further along the hierarchy, as it forms part of the need to feel belongingness.

While mass communication may be re-built, immediately post disaster (and for a considerable time after the event) it will not happen. If and when it does re-appear it will be under the strictest of governmental controls.

[edit on 17-6-2007 by PaddyInf]