[socialismisok]

Indefinitely. Unless you have a very narrow definition of society.

People forget that things like industrialization and capitalism are very recent inventions, and throughout our species history we've had many many different ways of organizing ourselves.

Heck, the society of the 1970s is pretty radically different than today.

But I'm surprised to see fertilizer production not listed. Ammonia fertilizer is whole integer percent of electricity usage, and it's what enabled us to add 7 billion additional people on the planet. Without ammonia fertilizer, there will be mass starvation on a scale we've never seen.

[alkonaut]

The useful definition of society is “society” here is “society as we know it”.

So, how long until there is widespread civil unrest and loss of life.

I’d say about a week, maybe less, depending on the location and scope of the outage. Clean water will quickly be a problem.

[socialismisok]

People should be keeping a week off water handy if they live somewhere this is possible. It's not hard to, it's relatively inexpensive, and it's pretty much fire and forget.

If you live in somewhere threatened by climate or earthquakes or volcanos, store some food, water, and basic medical supplies!