Could you handle a world where you no longer have the internet?

[Timewalker]

I would not be happy about it, but I presume I would live.

I often catch myself wondering, "how did we get by before the internet?". I have no desire to actually find out.

Able-bodied people with transportation wouldn't have as much trouble as people who are disabled and/or have trouble accessing transportation. With the internet it takes me about 10 minutes to do month-end bills. Without the internet it would take a hell of a lot longer - cheques, phone payments, monthly trips to the bank.

I wonder if something that I hear is big in LA with rich people is that you can call a groccery store and give them a list of things you want and they bring it to you I actually looked into this myself a little because I don't have a car and only recently am I really being able to get out and shop. Apparently Wal Mart is actually trying something like this in some locations.

I order some things from Walmart, but for the most part I just pick up the phone and place an order with my usual grocery store and one of the managers deliver it. I've done that for a long time - haven't physically set foot in that store in nearly 4 years.

Easily. I moved through the world when it had public telephones on every corner.

It's hard to find payphones nowadays.

 

[John Clark]

The real problem with the question is can you handle having to go outside and have actual social interaction with physical humans beings?

Aw, do I have to?
(Seriously, sure I could manage).

As for other things, Without online shopping though, it's back to paperbacks (unless book stores allowed you to purchase digital files at the store and copy it to your ebook reader at the till)

Gaming would take a hit for me as I'm primarily a PC gamer and I think there's only two or three shops anywhere near me that stock pc games anymore (One is always overpriced, one is second hand only and the last sells mostly hidden object games only)

 

[1001001]

The real problem with the question is can you handle having to go outside and have actual social interaction with physical humans beings?

 

[Gov Kodos]

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[Amaris]

As technology improves, society speeds up, and people try to follow. Human beings can only go so fast before the stress begins to damage them. No internet would also force companies to slow down, which would let their employees slow down, and people would be able to breathe. Without internet, we'd have to actually start talking to people in person, asking them questions, rather than just reading their profile page on Facebook. Certainly some things would suffer in the shuffle: bill paying would become a bit more cumbersome, for a while. Ordering through the mail would switch back over to catalogs, but that wouldn't be too much of a change. I think the benefits would outweigh the deficits.

 

[DimesDan]

As technology improves, society speeds up, and people try to follow. Human beings can only go so fast before the stress begins to damage them. No internet would also force companies to slow down, which would let their employees slow down, and people would be able to breathe. Without internet, we'd have to actually start talking to people in person, asking them questions, rather than just reading their profile page on Facebook. Certainly some things would suffer in the shuffle: bill paying would become a bit more cumbersome, for a while. Ordering through the mail would switch back over to catalogs, but that wouldn't be too much of a change. I think the benefits would outweigh the deficits.

What utter bollocks.

 

[tharpdevenport]

I'd hate it, but I'd live. I grew up without the internet and life was pretty okay then.

Might have to do a little jig of joy that online social media sewer holes have died.

 

[Amaris]

I'd hate it, but I'd live. I grew up without the internet and life was pretty okay then.

Might have to do a little jig of joy that online social media sewer holes have died.

That might be the best aspect of it, that the more squalid areas of the internet would face extinction.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I don't know why people focus on the negatives such as shitholes full of assholes on the internet. The internet has been an incredible boon for grassroots organizing and a literal lifesaver for an entire generation of lgbt young people. No time in history before this have we been able to connect to folk who affirm and network to those in isolation that they are FINE and they are not alone and they don't have to wait to grow up, make money, move away to some far off place to be understood.

I was your usual super introverted unhappy teenager living in my room reading books and waiting for star trek to come on tv, living in bad family circumstances. I've often thought that if I'd grown up with the internet my life would have been 1000% improved. I'm pretty sure there would have been some major differences all very positive for my future as well.

Romanticizing a society with no internet is very blinkered. Just take control of what you don't like about it and, you know, don't go there.

 

[1001001]

I don't know why people focus on the negatives such as shitholes full of assholes on the internet. The internet has been an incredible boon for grassroots organizing and a literal lifesaver for an entire generation of lgbt young people. No time in history before this have we been able to connect to folk who affirm and network to those in isolation that they are FINE and they are not alone and they don't have to wait to grow up, make money, move away to some far off place to be understood.

I was your usual super introverted unhappy teenager living in my room reading books and waiting for star trek to come on tv, living in bad family circumstances. I've often thought that if I'd grown up with the internet my life would have been 1000% improved. I'm pretty sure there would have been some major differences all very positive for my future as well.

Romanticizing a society with no internet is very blinkered. Just take control of what you don't like about it and, you know, don't go there.

Well said.

 

[DimesDan]

Well said.

Yes, very and a lot more elegant than my short and sweet comment.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I don't know why people focus on the negatives such as shitholes full of assholes on the internet. The internet has been an incredible boon for grassroots organizing and a literal lifesaver for an entire generation of lgbt young people. No time in history before this have we been able to connect to folk who affirm and network to those in isolation that they are FINE and they are not alone and they don't have to wait to grow up, make money, move away to some far off place to be understood.

I was your usual super introverted unhappy teenager living in my room reading books and waiting for star trek to come on tv, living in bad family circumstances. I've often thought that if I'd grown up with the internet my life would have been 1000% improved. I'm pretty sure there would have been some major differences all very positive for my future as well.

Romanticizing a society with no internet is very blinkered. Just take control of what you don't like about it and, you know, don't go there.

I would give you a thousand 'likes' for this if I could.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Of course I could handle it; I can handle just about anything.
But I’d rather not have to.

Like a lot of us, I have a love-hate relationship with social media, but it’s really an incredibly effective and efficient way to communicate with people around the world. Real life events, like protest demonstrations, can be organized almost instantly. The international support group on Facebook for the rare cancer that I had (so rare that most of us would never meet another patient/survivor in real life) has literally saved lives. And I’ve connected with relatives on other continents whom I otherwise would never have known even existed.

And, yeah, I’d really, really hate to have to go back to paying bills manually and balancing a checkbook.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And, yeah, I’d really, really hate to have to go back to paying bills manually and balancing a checkbook.

I hate to say this (especially since I majored in accounting while in college), but...at this point, I've become so dependent on my bank's website that I couldn't balance a checkbook even if I put it on the bathroom scale.

And I freely admit I would be rather lonely without access to this board, because I have met some very dear friends here and I wouldn't want to be without them. They know who they are.

 

[Amaris]

I hate to say this (especially since I majored in accounting while in college), but...at this point, I've become so dependent on my bank's website that I couldn't balance a checkbook even if I put it on the bathroom scale.

And I freely admit I would be rather lonely without access to this board, because I have met some very dear friends here and I wouldn't want to be without them. They know who they are.

You'd have more time to pay your bills.

"Where's your payment, sir?"
"I mailed the check last week. Didn't you get it?"

 

[Jayson1]

I don't know why people focus on the negatives such as shitholes full of assholes on the internet. The internet has been an incredible boon for grassroots organizing and a literal lifesaver for an entire generation of lgbt young people. No time in history before this have we been able to connect to folk who affirm and network to those in isolation that they are FINE and they are not alone and they don't have to wait to grow up, make money, move away to some far off place to be understood.

I was your usual super introverted unhappy teenager living in my room reading books and waiting for star trek to come on tv, living in bad family circumstances. I've often thought that if I'd grown up with the internet my life would have been 1000% improved. I'm pretty sure there would have been some major differences all very positive for my future as well.

Romanticizing a society with no internet is very blinkered. Just take control of what you don't like about it and, you know, don't go there.

Part of it comes down to nostalgia. People on some level enjoy the hardships of youth once it becomes part of their history. Kind of like the ole "In my day I had to walk 2 miles in snow to get to school." type of thing. Heck people sometimes get all happy about thinking about vcr tapes. I think part of that is because the past as bad as it might be is where everyone's youth is located not to mention dead loved ones that might have passed.

Plus people don't always like the changes that happen to the world. A bigot might not like that we have had a black president for example where a liberal might not like how even more powerful the rich have gotten. Then there is the simple "what if" interest. A kind of curious look at how society could have been or might be. I think this one though is more for sci-fi fans who are always curious about those questions.

Jason

 

[Refuge]

You can't put that genie back in the bottle. I would cope without the Internet but it would limit my communications and even tasks such as banking and paying bills. I would miss the Internet. That being said I haven't sold my soul to the Internet. I wouldn't give a rat's arse if I never looked at Facebook. I would miss a game I play and have played for five years, I'm at a crazy level. I'd miss Kindle, but yeah, have to buy books again. I really try not to use my phone for the Internet - no judgement but if I can't be in the moment when I go out then more fool me. It is good having it there though.

What I love about the Internet is how much of a leveller it is. Eight to eighty use it like oxygen.

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

I survived life without it before it became more widespread. I remember using during the mid to late 90s, when it was very different (and much slower) than today. Social media has changed the world, and for me, I feel I'm more careful with what I say. It would make me read more, but it would be harder for communicate with others. But without the internet, there would be most likely some sort of society breakdown - and internet would be the least of my problems, if that situation did occur.

 

[Timewalker]

at this point, I've become so dependent on my bank's website that I couldn't balance a checkbook even if I put it on the bathroom scale.

I kept my accounting textbook just in case I ever do need to brush up on the pen-and-paper method.

It's useful to know. I'd barely finished my accounting course before I got drafted to take over the Exchequer (treasurer) position in the local branch of the Society for Creative Anachronism.

Kind of like the ole "In my day I had to walk 2 miles in snow to get to school." type of thing. Heck people sometimes get all happy about thinking about vcr tapes.

Scoff if you want, but at least I've got the original, purest version of the original Star Wars trilogy before Lucas started "improving" it. And I've got tapes of TV series that I've never seen offered on DVD or even posted anywhere online.

And some people actually did walk 2 miles in snow to get to school. I didn't have to do that, but I did it once in a cross-town hike home from college one day.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

The only videos I still have are TOS unmastered, the original Star Wars trilogy and several stages of Lucas-ized trilogies.

I no longer have a working vcr though.