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  • The modern world built by humans faces numerous problems.

  • Our cities are often threatened by storms, natural disasters, rising sea levels,

  • or in some cases, even by other people.

  • However, one of the biggest threats to our modern way of life, and well-being, in cities faces

  • is maybe the most ancient threat that humans have had to deal with since forever.

  • Animals. and specifically, the incredibly clever and dangerous squirrel.

  • While looking cute and fuzzy on the outside, squirrels are in fact extremely destructive little beasts

  • when put together in large numbers.

  • Over the summer of 2013 alone,

  • squirrels managed to inflict 20 power outages across 24 different U.S. states.

  • It's almost like squirrels evolved to be specifically good at wrecking power lines

  • and causing chaos in human-built cities.

  • Because they do this a lot,

  • they can damage electrical distribution centers

  • by tunneling underneath with their little hands and big teeth,

  • and preventing them from causing any damage once they're inside is difficult, because

  • a) I don't know if you've seen one, but squirrels are pretty small and flexible, and can squeeze themselves

  • through small openings to force their way into their target,

  • and b) squirrels are clever and can easily bypass plastic animal guards.

  • They'll then get through the electrical wires and insulation,

  • chew through them, and blow out the power to whatever those wires are sending the electricity to.

  • When a squirrel shuts down the power in this way,

  • the act is fatal to the squirrel itself,

  • whose body becomes a conduit through which high voltage passes

  • to complete the curcuit to the ground.

  • The American Public Power Association (APPA) has actually developed a data tracker

  • they call the "Squirrel Index", which they use to monitor

  • squirrel-caused grid disruption across the U.S.

  • The data shows that squirrels reach their most intense disruption activities in the summer and the fall,

  • and some of the individual stories are pretty hilarious.

  • In 1987, a squirrel took out power to the NASDAQ's automated trading computer

  • and the stock exchange went without power for 90 minutes.

  • Twenty million trades were affected as a result.

  • And it's not even the only time this has happened here.

  • Another squirrel took out the NASDAQ's power again in 2014, and shut it down

  • for 30 minutes.

  • But their attacks can happen all over the place,

  • and they're some times fatal.

  • A report from 2017 claimed that 6 people in the U.S.

  • have been killed by squirrel-related attacks

  • on electrical infrastructure.

  • Mostly by falling power lines hitting their unfortunate victims.

  • And while storms do tend to cause the longest and most widespread power outages,

  • squirrels remain the most frequent cause of them.

  • In the Washington D.C. metro area alone in 2013,

  • squirrels were the reason for 21% of all unplanned power outages.

  • The state of Montana reported spending $11 million in 2015 to repair damages caused by squirrels.

  • And in the summer of 2015

  • a lone squirrel managed to take out an entire substation in San Francisco

  • that left 45,000 homes without power.

  • But squirrels aren't just a problem to American infrastructure,

  • they're a problem anywhere squirrels can be found,

  • which is basically everywhere that is not Antarctica.

  • In 2005, the German press reported on a "cyber-squirrel" that crippled the entire electrical grid

  • south of the River Elster for an hour.

  • Because of squirrel attacks like these that happen every day around the world,

  • many have begun to hypothesize that the threat to the Internet, infrastructure, and services

  • posed by squirrels is greater than that posed by terrorists,

  • or maybe even by any other force.

  • John C. Inglis, this guy, who's the former Deputy Director of the NSA, once said,

  • Squirrels!

  • Squirrels are just one of the many rodent builds in the game,

  • and all of them possess unique abilities that have

  • allowed them to survive several balance patches,

  • and become some of the most dominant builds in the current meta.

  • But rodents don't all have the same stats.

  • For example, squirrels have high mobility, but are severely lacking in power and intelligence;

  • stats some other rodents excel at.

  • Head on over to my channel after this video to get a complete breakdown on the rodent build,

  • and see where each species falls on my tier list.

  • So even as utilities spend millions on wildlife protection measures,

  • squirrels so far have always remained capable of outsmarting them.

  • While squirrels remain one of the greatest threats to restriciting your useage of the Internet,

  • one of the greatest tools you can use to expand your experience on the Internet is Squarespace.

  • They help small businesses and individuals like you

  • or me make what was previously only available for

  • huge companies:

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  • Regardless if you have a physical store or not, and whatever it is you do,

  • whether it be podcasting, photography, art, or YouTube-ing,

  • anything that you're hoping to make money from is a business, and that means you need a way for people

  • to find you.

  • If you're like me, the first place you go to find anything

  • is the Internet.

  • So assuming a squirrel hasn't knocked out anybody's power yet,

  • it's extremely important to have a good-looking website,

  • since that's anybody's first impression.

  • With their customizable website-builder,

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  • and reasonable prices, Squarespace is the best place

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  • Subtitles by: Ethan L.

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