Imagine no Internet

[MacCruiskeen]

Is it hard to do?

What would happen if it stopped tomorrow, for a month or a year or forever? How much would we lose and (re)gain?

It sounds like I'm setting exam questions, but god knows I don't know the answers myself. A devastating "cyber-attack" is one of the things we're told to be most terrified of, and not for no reason, but I'm old enough to be amazed at how quickly and how fully we have become dependent on The Net. Why is the prospect of losing it so frightening? What is it doing to us?

There are now adults who have never known a world without it. There are millions of tiny children who have been deliberately addicted to it in the last two years. They'll be adults soon.


https://images.saymedia-content.com/.im ... t-risk.jpg

[Harvey]

It's not hard to do.

[MacCruiskeen]

Truth be told, I have always fucking hated computers, even before there was an Internet. I knew they were the enemy.

[stickdog99]

That should be the e-trade baby.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Truth be told, I have always fucking hated computers, even before there was an Internet. I knew they were the enemy.

Same, same.

And yet I went ahead and made all my income streams flow through computer screens. A retard, verily.

I confess I am much more excited for IRL Cyber Polygon than I was for IRL Event 201. Fingers crossed.

[alloneword]

Reading some random Russians yesterday discussing the (oh, noes!) banning of twitbook. One commented that "to 90 - 95% of users, that IS the whole internet".

Can't argue with that.

If I don't post for a while, it's probably because I've beaten my modem into a ploughshare.

[alloneword]

Actually, you can argue with that. It might well be the prevailing perception is that twitbook = the internet, but yep, the reality is a little different.

How much would we lose? Imagine?

So the first thing we'll notice is probably pages taking a while to load, until we're just staring at the little spinney-circle thing indefinitely.

OK, let's nip down the shop to grab a pint of milk, might as well have a cuppa while we wait, eh?

At the shop, the card wavey-thing refuses to 'beep'. Hmmm. Ah, there's a quid in your coat pocket, so we pay with that and head home, stopping at the cash point. Bollocks, 'Service not available'.

We get in. Feels a bit chilly. Radiator's cold. Ah, maybe that 'smart' thermostat needs a new battery? Still no good. OK, kettle on.

Weird, the kettle's taking a while... and the lights keep dimming. Now they've gone out. Maybe it's tripped? Nope, and no little lights on the smart meter. OK, there's the gas hob, so where's that old kettle? Where's a lighter? OK, kettle on again. We're in business!

Uh oh. Flame's getting smaller... and smaller. Fuck it, let's just have a glass of water... pressure seems a little low. Maybe we should fill the sink, just in case? Oh, it's stopped.

We'll just check our email... ah, no, damn it. Modem's off. Where's that phone? Bah, 'no network'. Bored, now... Any charge in the laptop? Watch a movie while we wait for the lights to come back on. Yeah, 'Mad Max'. The second one. Cool... Well, that battery didn't last long.

It's proper dark now. Phone torch! Yay! Right, let's find a book... yeah, a book - remember them? There's one here somewh... aha! What's this? E. M. Forster..?


(Well, you did ask).

[Hugo Farnsworth]

The computers got to most of us with games, like an irresistible seduction. But I, I voluntarily entered the devil's den.

[drstrangelove]

I've developed a healthy practice of buying hardcover books and using notebooks. So most of the stuff I've ever worked on is drafted in handwriting and exists in hard copy. I also print out a lot of online material because the brightness of a screen seems to me, to dull the mind after a few hours. Even playing online chess, i start making moves like an insect would after an hour or two focused on the bright light. Flux software helps a little with that.

Developed hardcopy habits after camping for around Australia for a year with only limited internet access on my phone. Was sleeping better, writing better, reading more attentively and was generally more happy than I am now. If the internet was actually bricked I'd probably become a theoretical multi-millionaire from all the first editions I've been buying up over the last few years. Theoretical because I'd have no way of selling them.

I suppose what we are really talking about though is international connectivity. Domestic intranets would persist. Would be interesting to look into the distribution of data warehousing around the world, and how much each country would be cut off from and what. Further more how the intranet lines would be drawn. It would be like carving out new cultural blocs.

I do not dread a bricked internet like many do. I'm like a post-2008 luddite. Hopefully the Amish start some new kind of mennonite modernized off-shoot that allows everything up until around 2006-2008.

But realistically the central banking power cannot allow international connectivity to go down. Maybe make it into a tiered system. Brick the sea cables and run everything through satellites that are restricted to commerce and privileged classes. Restrict connectivity of general populations within geographical bounds or inter-continental blocs. Though we pretty much have this with language barriers already.

I've always thought of a scenario where AI is used to simulate international connectivity. Cut all countries where the flow of movement can easily be restricted, so the op couldn't be refuted through word of mouth easily, for instance Australia from the rest of the world, then cut off internet access to the entire world without telling anyone and then use some AI software to simulate the on-going 'real-time flux' of world events. I mean it wouldn't work very well and many would catch on pretty quick, but then you could just call those people conspiracy theorists and move on. Shut down all the HAM radio operators, if that is possible?

I think they will start restricting internet connectivity pretty soon through national security laws to protect vital infrastructure. I wouldn't mind a hard copy of this website as users here have had the foresight to post hard text rather than links. Interesting discussion. Good topic!

[Joe Hillshoist]

I've only had intermittent internet access for the last week.

No great loss.

[Gnomad]

The only thing I really like with internet is instant access to all those how-to's and guides.
How to brew ayahuasca? How to fix, maintain and repair any device, bicycle part and so on. I look up different service manuals weekly. I look up guides for parts that were last made in the 70s and someone has put them on the internet.

The most important of these I do have saved locally and backed up on external drives. Have also downloaded a few technical sites in their entirety for offline copies.

All those are not in paper libraries.

I have never used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any of that type of sites. Most likely never will either.
Still do not own a "smart"phone either, I have a regular old cell phone that cost 40 euros new. That ensures that when I am not at home, I do not get on the net. The computer is only available at home, so if I am on a walk or a ride, there isn't anything to disturb.

I did get looked at weird when I was going someplace, and I dug out a printout of the map for the area. Everyone was like "why don't you follow Google maps?". Well.

[Harvey]

Twitter wasn't bad until it began functioning entirely according to the wishes of Oligarchy, that said, it was shit to the degree that it withheld useful tools, access, censored or reduced the access of contrary voices and wilfully disturbed the natural flow of ideas. It's very unruliness was its best asset. In taming its own platform Twitter killed itself.

Seriously, where else could you address all the TalkingFuckheads who have attempted to form your consciousness throughout your entire lifetime exactly and eloquently, to tell them what you think of them? Twitter was shit to the degree that the internet is shit, that is to say: any closing down of the real conversation.

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Does anyone subscribe to the theory the internet died a long time ago? I think it means everyone is just using the internet as passive users and not actually contributing anything new to it. I don't know.

One thing I noticed years ago while at work: We got this journal for Journalists for the newspaper department and I flipped through it. I found an article I was interested in and read it. What struck me was the quality of writing. It struck me that most of what I was reading was from the internet. I pointed this out to my co-worker, who was the newspaper editor, and he agreed. He said most times things get put on there with little editing. Maybe some cursive look at punctuation or spelling mistakes, other than that what gets released is pretty raw.

We had a major storm this past June and took out our cable and internet. After a while, I didn't really miss it.

[alloneword]

I think maybe what died was a certain set of idealist, utopian notions about what it could have been before it developed into a platform of commerce, panopticon surveillance and control - chiefly achieved through intermediation of most of our communication. That which we dared dream would bring us together turned out to be as much a tool of division.

I'm concerned, too, that we're at risk of making a pretty grave category error if we think of 'the internet' merely as a sort of personal communication infrastructure. It would be like thinking of 'electricity' as just a couple of light bulbs and the odd water heater.

Perhaps true in 1922, not so much now.

Let's also not lose sight of the fact that it was conceived as a weapon, or that it very much remains so, one way and another. The cat memes don't make it any less deadly...

(unlike the dancing banana! )