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by guerrilla 1285 days ago
> It suggests exceptionally poor planning -- even for an island nation in the Pacific.

Or the inverse... it suggests a much higher tolerance for inconvenience. We're just spoiled in Europe and America (including at our most popular vacation spots.) People lived for millions of years without this shit, ten thousand years of agricultural civilization alone...
2 comments
jlund-molfese 1285 days ago
Inconvenience is understating it, electricity isn't a luxury in the modern world anymore.

What if you can't afford a generator and fuel, and you're medically reliant on a CPAP machine or a chair lift? You may be physically unable to leave your 2nd floor apartment, and unable to call for help because your cordless landline phone no longer has power? Not to mention the financial cost of all the food in your refrigerator spoiling.

All of those things can be accounted for with money. But a government should plan to ensure a certain minimum standard of living for its citizens.

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guerrilla 1284 days ago
Inconvenience is understating a little bit, yes, but not that much.

> What if you can't afford a generator and fuel, and you're medically reliant on a CPAP machine or a chair lift

Virtually everyone on the planet with such a malady is in a similar situation every single day except for some of you Americans and most Europeans.

I'm not saying it should be that way so you don't need to take it that far, I'm just saying some people are seriously spoiled and can't deal with any hardship (let alone the slightest inconvenience) at all anymore. Most people on the planet can, because they have no choice.

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neffy 1285 days ago
Latency and logistics in my experience will always get you. On the similarly populated, but much closer to major landmasses than Vanuatu island I live on, we have had local outages from multiple failures close together. One transformer blows, and there is a replacement in stock for that. But if another one goes, then the new one has to be shipped from abroad, and that will take a few days even when emergency listed. Keeping replacement stock gets expensive as well, has to be checked, maintained, etc. It all adds up.
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