Life after the internet

[Minimo]

Life before the internet has some fascinating posts, but just supposing some great catastrophe killed it, cyber terrorism perhaps.

 

Could we live without it now? Libraries for instance don't have anything like the range and number of books they once had.

 

How hard would it be for people to find out what is happening in the world, or even their own small corner. Would the necessary skills be available in, for example, real proper journalism.

 

Could you live without it, having known it?

[Chelle-82]

Quite simply, Yes!

 

You won't physically die if you can't no longer access the internet. It might do your head in for a bit but it's not going to cause some fatal illness.

 

And as for library's, I've always preferred the touch and smell of a real book to reading from a kindle or the likes.

[JFKvsNixon]

Life before the internet has some fascinating posts, but just supposing some great catastrophe killed it, cyber terrorism perhaps.

 

Could we live without it now? Libraries for instance don't have anything like the range and number of books they once had.

 

How hard would it be for people to find out what is happening in the world, or even their own small corner. Would the necessary skills be available in, for example, real proper journalism.

 

Could you live without it, having known it?

 

You also have to think how society would exist without the internet. For example how many business rely upon the internet for how they operate.

[Cyclone]

Quite simply, Yes!

 

You won't physically die if you can't no longer access the internet. It might do your head in for a bit but it's not going to cause some fatal illness.

 

And as for library's, I've always preferred the touch and smell of a real book to reading from a kindle or the likes.

 

Unless of course your Dr can't access your records, or the hospital was expecting you to have remote surgery. Or your in a remote region and were relying on google to diagnose your condition.

It's a means off communication and a source of knowledge. The communication can often (but not always) be easily replaced, but the source of knowledge is very hard to replicate.

[charmer]

Quite simply, Yes!

 

You won't physically die if you can't no longer access the internet. It might do your head in for a bit but it's not going to cause some fatal illness.

 

And as for library's, I've always preferred the touch and smell of a real book to reading from a kindle or the likes.

 

You have spectacularly underestimated how integral the internet is to modern society. If the internet was to disappear many, many many millions would die.

 

Food wouldn't be available as shops use the Internet to manage their supply chain, as do all the businesses up the line. Economies would collapse, which would bring war on a world wide scale.

[medusa]

Quite simply, Yes!

 

You won't physically die if you can't no longer access the internet. It might do your head in for a bit but it's not going to cause some fatal illness.

 

And as for library's, I've always preferred the touch and smell of a real book to reading from a kindle or the likes.

 

As others have said, doctors would have no access to your records without computers these days.

 

Ditto libraries would find organising their books and actually knowing where they were so you could read or borrow them really hard without technology, and ordering any book that they didn't happen to have from another library would have to go back to posting a slip to the British Library.

 

Communication would go back to snail mail speed for the most part, and in these days of electronic newspapers being far more prevalent than hard copy and therefore printing presses having been mothballed, there would be a huge vacuum of available information on pretty much any news-worthy subject in the following months as the thousands of type-setting machines needed were manufactured.

 

Almost every manufacturing process either uses computers which are linked into control networks to run the process or they are ordered, invoiced and financed using the internet, so they would also grind to a halt while retro-fitting of mechanical controllers and/or human controllers were trained.

 

Everybody who is used to doing their banking online would suddenly find that there were insufficient bank branches to return to doing all of their banking by visiting a branch, and the banks would find that they simply didn't have enough staff to do all of the processing that is currently done by a vast network of machines.

 

Basically, if the internet was to fall over and not return there would be a fundamental change to every aspect of our lives and much of it would be a very great challenge, even if we were lucky enough to not need a doctor who knows our medical history and medication.

[Minimo]

Scary prospect isn't it?

 

Just about every aspect of our lives now depends to some extent on the internet.

 

Was it right to embrace it so thoroughly that we can't now exist without it?

[JFKvsNixon]

Scary prospect isn't it?

 

Just about every aspect of our lives now depends to some extent on the internet.

 

Was it right to embrace it so thoroughly that we can't now exist without it?

 

You could say the same thing about electricity, or any of the other utilities.

[Ghozer]

I saw something once that likened the Internet to god - in the way that it's so integrated and as a race now cannot live without it in some fashion - and the way its guided and changed us etc.

[pacman123]

Never had it when I was a nipper,now I think it's part of life that's informative,quite amusing at times,do I wish I had access when I was young yes, can I live without it now yes....just my halfpenny worth....