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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 3556723, member: 27832&quot;]That&#039;s the whole problem. <i>We need advanced electronics to run the factories making advanced electronics</i>.</p><p><br /></p><p>Disconnected spare parts wouldn&#039;t be affected by EMP, but the tendency is to move toward just-in-time manufacturing and service, where you don&#039;t keep a lot of spares on hand. After all, carrying inventory costs money, and if you know you can order what you need and get it in a day or two, you&#039;ll build your business processes on that assumption.</p><p><br /></p><p>Modern chip manufacture is <i>unimaginably</i> complex and delicate. Building a new plant can cost tens of <i>billions</i> of dollars. Repairing a plant that&#039;s been blown out by EMP wouldn&#039;t be a simple matter of poking around with a multitester and replacing blown fuses. It might well be cheaper to bulldoze it and start over -- except that, in the wake of a global catastrophe, nobody would have the resources to make that happen, either.</p><p><br /></p><p>We&#039;ve bootstrapped ourselves to a point where we have devices that might as well be magic. Even the SF of my childhood couldn&#039;t imagine a supercomputer that <i>slips into your pocket</i>. Building these enchanted devices doesn&#039;t take a wizard, though; it takes an intact global economy. Destroy that, and the magic fails.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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