11 ms·

What Would You Do If the Internet Went Away?

31 points by furrowedbrow 6y ago

hilbert42 6y ago
The early part of my life was lived without the internet and I managed fine so I would revert back to that lifestyle once again. Back then, I was more productive than I am now, the chances are that I would be so again.
- mbg721 6y ago
  The pre-widespread-Internet lifestyle relied on institutional support too: phone booths everywhere, banks that had humans willing to talk to you, paper checks. Heck, I rented a car five years ago and asked who to contact if something went wrong, and they said "go to our website; no one answers the phone".
  - hilbert42 6y ago
    You're absolutely right of course! I never said it would be easy and that institutional support would almost certainly have to be reintroduced. (I too am addicted to my computers and the internet. As I mentioned in a post below, it's just that those of us who've experienced both worldviews would likely adapt more easily). "...and they said "go to our website; no one answers the phone"." Right, don't start me on that, but I'll at least add the fact that you're far from being alone. The downgrading (or should that be 'downfall'?) of service and the loss of human interaction is, in my opinion, a truly serious problem. I recall an instance back in 2012 when a colleague and I spent 17 hours on the telephone over a period of five days (over a full working week) of trying to get a telco to solve an internet account problem (we had no internet access). Over days, we were shunted from one person to another in a call center in India, each time with the new contact not knowing what the previous one(s) had said or done. Late on Friday afternoon our problem had been escalated through the system to the point where we were transferred back across the international boundary onto local support for assistance (seems that all this was the necessary perquisite to speak to a local human). After being rerouted back home and pressing the correct button/number in the automatic answering system we were connected with a number that rang out without answering (there was no redirect to an answering service on no-answer). As the Indian operator didn't bother to stay on the line after transferring us, we weren't aware of the local phone number to call on the following Monday (likely that number wouldn't have been available to local customers anyway had we had the chance to ask—and perhaps, knowingly, he didn't stick around to avoid abuse from us when the local operator failed to answer). The matter was eventually resolved by other means but I won't waste your time with the details. We ought to be rioting in the streets over atrocious service like that to force politicians to enact laws that would guarantee users a minimum level of service, especially when there are few alternatives available as in this instance (here, the telco could easily have been considered a monopoly).
jsilence 6y ago
Go back to FidoNet.
- spacemanmatt 6y ago
  OpusBBS FTW
nxpnsv 6y ago
I'd sure visit the library more often.
segfaultbuserr 6y ago
Just the Internet, or all forms of network or digital communication? If the Internet is gone, I'll probably start browsing dial-up BBS sites. Do you know that the SDF Public Access UNIX system still supports dial-up? Dialing into a NetBSD machine from the other side of the world via an international phone call is a cool way of doing retrocomputing in 2020 (just beware of your phone bills, there are no Blue Boxes anymore)... If all forms of network or digital communication are gone, I'll probably keep programming just as before (if not for profit, then for fun), but have to rely on public libraries and local user groups for exchanging information.
L-four 6y ago
Make a new internet.
- closetohome 6y ago
  This seems like the only remotely plausible outcome. Everyone would reinvent the internet on a smaller scale, then eventually reconnect them.
segfaultbuserr 6y ago
This article features a list of songs about lives without the Internet, I'll add another one for the Hacker News audience. The Day The Routers Died, written and performed live at the 55th RIPE Meeting by Gary Feldman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y36fG2Oba0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y36fG2Oba0 > a long long time ago > i can still remember > when my laptop could connect elsewhere > > and i tell you all there was a day > the network card i threw away > had a purpose - and it worked for you and me... > > but 18 years completely wasted > with each address we've aggregated > the tables overflowing > the traffic just stopped flowing... > > and now we're bearing all the scars > and all my traceroutes showing stars... > the packets would travel faster in cars... > the day... the routers died... https://catonmat.net/ftp/gary_feldman-the_day_the_routers_died-lyrics.txt https://catonmat.net/ftp/gary_feldman-the_day_the_routers_di...
- nobody9999 6y ago
  Reminds me of the Talking Propeller Heads (TPH)[0]. Saw them open up for the Beach Boys[1] at Usenix in '94. My sister in-law (she and my brother lived in SF back then) is a huge Beach Boys fan, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. Unsurprisingly, it was easy to get a few extra tickets. She really enjoyed the show and even got to chat with Brian Wilson afterwards. She was thrilled. I have to say that while I'm not a big fan, they did put on a pretty good show. TPH was mildly amusing, doing covers of popular songs with "Open Systems"[2] lyrics. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talking_Propellerheads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talking_Propellerheads [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beach_Boys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beach_Boys [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_system_(computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_system_(computing)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rspoerri 6y ago
Rtfm again
- tryauuum 6y ago
  +1. I think I could became a proficient C developer just by reading all the man pages on my laptop
Blammar 6y ago
Pigeons, dogs, and small robots moving around 1 TB SD cards from place to place.
- neetrain 6y ago
  IP over Avian Carriers for the win!
RGamma 6y ago
Might not be a bad thing for collective mental health. One internet-free week per month might do the trick as well. And then it'd be back to sneaker net :)
nobody9999 6y ago
I'd probably read more books. Then I'd probably re-watch Babylon 5 again. Hmmm, that may be coming this year or next anyway...
bullen 6y ago
I'd build my own P2P internet: http://radiomesh.org http://radiomesh.org
- vageli 6y ago
  There is surprisingly little information about the project that I could find on that site.
uncledave 6y ago
Ham radio. The desire to communicate is always there.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  I don't use the internet to talk to people, I use it so I don't have to talk to people.
  - Rerarom 6y ago
    Superb!
  - uncledave 6y ago
    Don’t have to talk to people via ham radio. We’ve developed protocols now so you don’t have to :)
p2t2p 6y ago
Back to FIDO I guess? Lemme quickly find my point's number and blow dust away from my 56k....
- EarlKing 6y ago
  ...only to discover that there's nobody left in Zone 1 in your LATA and polling a guy across the continent will cost you gobs of cash you'd rather not spend, so you buddy-up with a HAM buddy who's into packet-radio to see if you can find a way to tunnel packets over a long-haul radio link to save money. It would take a year or two for the network to re-establish itself, and we wouldn't have the kind of bandwidth or instantaneous interaction we have now, but we could rebuild.
krychu 6y ago
Would search for local communities and go back to disk swapping.
PikachuEXE 6y ago
Play more single player games and board games NO social media anymore yesss...
KozmoNau7 6y ago
Call my friends, have some beers in the sunshine, go home and put on some music. Relax and ponder.
lolthishuman 6y ago
Build ad-hoc mesh network using existing devices. Replace bgp with something automated. Yggdrasil was a good idea. I think another one similar was Ouraborus.
notaspecialist 6y ago
Everyone would start marrying and having families again.
Daho0n 6y ago
Rejoice the death of social media.
mikewarot 6y ago
If the internet went down for good, I'd expect we were on the way to losing 1/5 or so of humanity due to starvation, the collapse of international trade, etc. We need computers and internet these days.
- hilbert42 6y ago
  Why? And where do your figures/estimate come from? …Here's a small selection of what actually happened in the pre-internet/computer era (it's all pretty remarkable and we could do it again if we had to): • Humanity got through many tens of thousands of years of its existence and into the 1980s without the internet and (mostly without) modern computers and somehow not only managed without them but it thrived and multiplied. • Even before electrification and the international telegraph across the Atlantic, trade was alive and well between nations (for instance, trade in cotton from the Southern US to Manchester UK). • Moreover, in ancient times trade between nations was both effective and remarkably well organized (given that even the telephone was still 2000 years away). One only has to look at the trade routes of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire to realize how sophisticated that arrangement was: https://vividmaps.com/trade-routes-of-roman-empire/ https://vividmaps.com/trade-routes-of-roman-empire/. Furthermore, there were many other trade routes throughout history, The Silk Road for instance. • At the beginning of WWII the US was almost completely unprepared for war. Between 1942 and 1945 the US embarked on an industrial ramp-up in production that has never been equalled. That increase was truly phenomenal: https://prospect.org/health/way-won-america-s-economic-breakthrough-world-war-ii/ https://prospect.org/health/way-won-america-s-economic-break.... All that occurred without either the internet or modern computers. • As US Secretary of War Henry Stimson said in 1940 "If you are going to try to go to war, or to prepare for war, in a capitalist country, you have got to let business make money out of the process or business won't work.". That actually happened and the results were not only remarkable but truly phenomenal. It's not the internet that drives the world but money! • There are a few notable exceptions to that rule (but nevertheless commerce was unknowingly and inextricably implicated), and that was the Government-run Manhattan Project and the development of the Atomic Bomb. War has always driven scientific development but what happened between 1942 and 1945 was truly phenomenal and still has never been equalled in both the speed of scientific development and its practical application. It is all the more remarkable that from its outset the Manhattan Project was planned, organized and brought to fruition in complete secrecy—and, of course, this secrecy also extended to all the scientific and engineering research. Not only was there no internet, but mandatory secrecy meant that discussing the project on the telephone was impossible—even speaking to anyone with the exception of security-cleared colleagues in one's own area of specialty was not only problematic but also a major breach of security. • Another exception was the phenomenal strategic planning and organization behind D-Day—the invasion of Normandy during WWII. This was the biggest and most complex invasion of its kind in all history, nothing like it has ever happened before or since. Again, this remarkable feat was accomplished behind an enormous cloak of secrecy. • It wasn't only the US that had a phenomenal increase in production in WWII, so did every country engaged in the war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_Wor.... For example, in 1939 the world produced ≈38,000 aircraft per year, by 1945 that figure was not only phenomenal but had reached a staggering number in excess of 0.8 million aircraft per year! That's an increase of ≈2105%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_aircraft_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_aircraft_producti.... • After WWII the US post-war economy growth was also phenomenal: http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-1994/postwar-america/the-postwar-economy-1945-1960.php http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-1994/postwar-amer.... Other countries also had phenomenal economic growth after the War. • It wasn't only economic growth throughout most of history that managed without the internet or modern computers, science and mathematics did too. Essentially, all mainstream mathematics and mathematical theories up until the 1980s were done without the help of even electronic communications let alone the internet. Moreover, mainstream science from ancient times to Dalton's scientific method; to Enlightenment science, Lavoisier et all; to 19th Century science—thermodynamics: Clausius, JW Gibbs, Boltzmann; electrical theory: Faraday, Maxwell—Maxwell's equations; through to 20th Century science: Quantum Mechanics: Planck, Bohr, Einstein, Dirac, et al right through to QFT, QED and even the Standard Model of Particle Physics —still our most current model—all happened without the internet—that's right, every damn iota of it! • And lastly, culture: essentially all the great cultural canons, music, art and literature, were produced without the need of the internet or computers, or for that matter, even without other forms of modern electronic communications. No doubt, if the internet ceased tomorrow there would be widespread disruption and it would force everyone to adapt quickly (especially after it was realized those technologies weren't going to return—keep in mind that this would very likely be the scenario after a nuclear conflagration/war). In my opinion, the single biggest problem for post-internet, post-computers times would be re-educating the generation that has grown up with them ever present and has never known or experienced a world without them. (Moreover, the disappearance of computers and internet would likely be a very serious social problem (at least in the short term), the reason being that with their introduction it was the first time in history that humans have experienced truly addictive work tools and withdrawal would be difficult. It would be especially problematic for those who've grown up with them from birth.) Please note, I'm not suggesting for an instant that this scenario is desirable or that a pre-internet, pre-modern computers world would be sustainable into the distant future, so please don't accuse me of being a Luddite. After all, my bread and butter has always depended on technology—and I've always been a born technophile. My views here are based on the fact that I grew up before the internet so I've experienced both worldviews.
thefz 6y ago
I daydream quite often about what would change with a solar storm powerful enough to erase any magnetic memory on earth forcing us to go dark. How long will it take for humanity to bootstrap everything back up again, considering that the power grid is basically useless without computers? What about other services like water and sewage? How many lives lost?
- bhhaskin 6y ago
  A lot less time than you would think. There are a ton of devices that don't use magnetic memory like SSD and SD cards. So although a lot of data would be gone, the tools to build everything back up would still be intact. Devices like CNC machins usually use SD cards and other forms of non-magnetic storage. Biggest issue would be controlling public unrest until you can restore infinistructure. After that it would be business as usual after not too long. But if the storm is powerful enough to destroy actual chips and systems it would be very very difficult to recover.
  - thefz 6y ago
    Yes and let's not forget those memories stored in data vaults underground or somewhat magnetically shielded. Mine is just an exercise for the imagination rather than a technically correct scenario. But to get all these memories working again you need a power grid, to operate which you need all those memories unless isolating sections of the grid and powering them with renewables somewhat. In a no-more-computers-unless-we-rebuild-them scenario we would have to rush to both get to save all our knowledge somewhere and to preserve the "cold" storage we already have such as written word.
  - dublin 6y ago
    A bigger problem is that there are fewer and fewer living engineers that actually understand things well enough from first principles to be able to reconstruct a technological society. And the social disintegration (think Minneapolois and Portland on steroids) that would follow could make it quite difficult to even get the surviving systems up and running again. Also, note that very little of the past 20 years has been well documented on paper...
smitty1e 6y ago
Read scripture. Read and write manually. Try to rehabilitate my kids, who doubtless view the pre-Internet era as some sort of Dim Ages that followed the Dark Ages.
sprkwd 6y ago
Books, CB radio, libraries. Gigs without everybody filming them.
mbalyuzi 6y ago
Get the Ham radio out, see who's around. Get a better antenna and more powerful radio and see who's around further away. Though these days 5 watts as a bit of wire will get you a long way with some of the low bandwidth data modes. But is that cheating for the purposes of this discussion?
spacemanmatt 6y ago
Probably a lot of things that are way healthier than anything online
scruffyherder 6y ago
Be thankful of my archives
mrkramer 6y ago
"What Would You Do If the Internet Went Away?" Probably be healthier a lot of healthier.
m-p-3 6y ago
I'd be glad I datahoard a lot of stuff, like an up-to-date ZIM archive of Wikipedia (en all maxi), my Google Takeout data, some porn, my GOG (DRM-free games), etc. The ZIM archive is also on my modded Kobo Glo HD (128GB instead of 4GB) and it can natively read ZIM files. I therefore have a low-powered paper-like display to read Wikipedia that can be easily charged over a solar panel.
rcarmo 6y ago
Enjoy life, I guess. Also, likely try to reinvent it :)
loudtieblahblah 6y ago
I bought 500 records over the last decade. I have 300 dvds/blurays. Plus about 12TB of video on my plex server. 1tb of music on the same server About 450 books, 300 of which I havent read Unfortunately there isn't really any mags or papers I like/trust to subscribe to, for more current stuff. But regardless... I'd be OK. I plan to retire to a cabin in the moutains and have minimal connectivity to the outside world anyways. Been saving for it for 10 years now.
scyzoryk_xyz 6y ago
I would start a BBS
slovette 6y ago
I’d build stuff. Just as I do now, only hard goods. I just built a few custom cabinets for our Coach that better facilitates our young kids. Running saws, designing hidden joints using dado design and pocket holes was very enjoyable and almost stress free. I made these big, present, things I can touch and use, that for an armature are really good, exercised by mind and hands; it was amazing. It was simple, stress free and rewarding. I did a lot of that kind of stuff as a kid 10-15 years ago. I’d just exercise that and other ‘building’ talents and enjoy my life probably more than I do now.
vlod 6y ago
Maybe build a way to connect computers together in some sort on network with some tech minded individuals (you're all invited!) and try to fix some of the problems of v1 (encryption, spam, malware). Let's call it "Internet-2: Attack of the Clones".
- 8bitsrule 6y ago
  LibreNet will strictly enforce non-commercial membership only. Special high-voltage zapping hardware for non-compliance. Lifetime bans. Minimum sentences for advertisers.
taylodl 6y ago
Buy more books and magazines. I'm a Gen X'er who grew up without the internet, didn't have the internet in any form until my mid-20's and didn't have the internet like we know it today until my 30's. I'd miss YouTube. I do enjoy watching instructional videos. So I guess the internet to me is news + YouTube?
mgarfias 6y ago
Me: start lookin for work as a mechanic or something. Kinda hard to be an SRE with out the internet.
- Buttons840 6y ago
  Certainly you couldn't replicate what we have now without the internet. But you could read some books and automate all kinds of things for a company still.
  - mgarfias 6y ago
    But I’d have to go into an office. Definitely no work from home.
DC1350 6y ago
I have no idea. I’ve never lived without the internet and my entire lifestyle depends on it. How did people move to new cities and find jobs and a place to live without it? Cold calling once I find out how to get a foreign phone book? Sounds awful. If it wasn’t for the internet I would be trapped in my dead end home city.
- jonjacky 6y ago
  Not at all. Before the Internet -- up through the 1970s and 80s, this isn't ancient history -- people moved around all the time, stayed in touch with people near and far, went out for all kinds of entertainment and events. Nobody said, "I can't do anything because I don't have the Internet." People used the information sources that the Internet replaced. Cities had daily papers - often more than one - with huge thick classified ads sections -- filled with little ads placed by individuals for a few dollars -- that were updated every day. Then there were neighborhood and special interest weeklies, with their own classified ads. The income from all those ads supported more papers, each with more writing on local events. There were magazines and newsletters on all kinds of esoteric topics. And bulletin boards at cafes and shops. Libraries had the newspapers and phone books of other cities, and some of the magazines and newsletters. Radio stations, too, had announcements of local events. And you would have a network of friends and relatives and acquaintances, and visitors to all of them passing through. You would call them on the telephone and write letters. Many would respond promptly because they, too, wanted to stay in touch.
woleium 6y ago
build a gnu one.
icod 6y ago
Live a normal life again. It would be a blessing for humanity. I fondly remember the times before the internet was a thing. People would have to learn to deal with people again, face to face. It would be a better world.
egberts 6y ago
Enjoy life?
marssaxman 6y ago
Same thing I did last time, most likely: start a BBS, or join some BBSes; start sharing files, get FidoNet going again; bootstrap the whole thing back up. Only maybe this time we could skip the WWW part and focus on store-and-forward mesh networks, for better resilience and corporate profit-seeking resistance.
- vb6sp6 6y ago
  > Only maybe this time we could skip the WWW part and focus on store-and-forward mesh networks, for better resilience and corporate profit-seeking resistance. The dreaded "rewrite but make it better this time" :)
musicale 6y ago
Interesting to collect these answers in audio form. Personally I'd probably try to bring back bulletin boards. And LAN gaming. ;-) Maybe read a few more books, but probably watch more television, take more naps, and play more single-player computer and video games.
- vb6sp6 6y ago
  > Maybe read a few more books, but probably watch more television, take more naps, and play more single-player computer and video games. You are just describing the 70's, 80's, and 90's. Take away "video games" and you could go back several more decades.
rufus_foreman 6y ago
Listen to music on vinyl, play video games at the arcade, read books from the library, write code. Same stuff I did in 1979. Same stuff I do now, but I guess more of it if I wasn't spending time on the internet.

31 points by furrowedbrow 6y ago

The early part of my life was lived without the internet and I managed fine so I would revert back to that lifestyle once again. Back then, I was more productive than I am now, the chances are that I would be so again.

mbg721 6y ago
The pre-widespread-Internet lifestyle relied on institutional support too: phone booths everywhere, banks that had humans willing to talk to you, paper checks. Heck, I rented a car five years ago and asked who to contact if something went wrong, and they said "go to our website; no one answers the phone".
- hilbert42 6y ago
  You're absolutely right of course! I never said it would be easy and that institutional support would almost certainly have to be reintroduced. (I too am addicted to my computers and the internet. As I mentioned in a post below, it's just that those of us who've experienced both worldviews would likely adapt more easily). "...and they said "go to our website; no one answers the phone"." Right, don't start me on that, but I'll at least add the fact that you're far from being alone. The downgrading (or should that be 'downfall'?) of service and the loss of human interaction is, in my opinion, a truly serious problem. I recall an instance back in 2012 when a colleague and I spent 17 hours on the telephone over a period of five days (over a full working week) of trying to get a telco to solve an internet account problem (we had no internet access). Over days, we were shunted from one person to another in a call center in India, each time with the new contact not knowing what the previous one(s) had said or done. Late on Friday afternoon our problem had been escalated through the system to the point where we were transferred back across the international boundary onto local support for assistance (seems that all this was the necessary perquisite to speak to a local human). After being rerouted back home and pressing the correct button/number in the automatic answering system we were connected with a number that rang out without answering (there was no redirect to an answering service on no-answer). As the Indian operator didn't bother to stay on the line after transferring us, we weren't aware of the local phone number to call on the following Monday (likely that number wouldn't have been available to local customers anyway had we had the chance to ask—and perhaps, knowingly, he didn't stick around to avoid abuse from us when the local operator failed to answer). The matter was eventually resolved by other means but I won't waste your time with the details. We ought to be rioting in the streets over atrocious service like that to force politicians to enact laws that would guarantee users a minimum level of service, especially when there are few alternatives available as in this instance (here, the telco could easily have been considered a monopoly).

jsilence 6y ago

Go back to FidoNet.

spacemanmatt 6y ago
OpusBBS FTW

nxpnsv 6y ago

I'd sure visit the library more often.

segfaultbuserr 6y ago

Just the Internet, or all forms of network or digital communication? If the Internet is gone, I'll probably start browsing dial-up BBS sites. Do you know that the SDF Public Access UNIX system still supports dial-up? Dialing into a NetBSD machine from the other side of the world via an international phone call is a cool way of doing retrocomputing in 2020 (just beware of your phone bills, there are no Blue Boxes anymore)... If all forms of network or digital communication are gone, I'll probably keep programming just as before (if not for profit, then for fun), but have to rely on public libraries and local user groups for exchanging information.

L-four 6y ago

Make a new internet.

closetohome 6y ago
This seems like the only remotely plausible outcome. Everyone would reinvent the internet on a smaller scale, then eventually reconnect them.

segfaultbuserr 6y ago

This article features a list of songs about lives without the Internet, I'll add another one for the Hacker News audience. The Day The Routers Died, written and performed live at the 55th RIPE Meeting by Gary Feldman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y36fG2Oba0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y36fG2Oba0 > a long long time ago > i can still remember > when my laptop could connect elsewhere > > and i tell you all there was a day > the network card i threw away > had a purpose - and it worked for you and me... > > but 18 years completely wasted > with each address we've aggregated > the tables overflowing > the traffic just stopped flowing... > > and now we're bearing all the scars > and all my traceroutes showing stars... > the packets would travel faster in cars... > the day... the routers died... https://catonmat.net/ftp/gary_feldman-the_day_the_routers_died-lyrics.txt https://catonmat.net/ftp/gary_feldman-the_day_the_routers_di...

nobody9999 6y ago
Reminds me of the Talking Propeller Heads (TPH)[0]. Saw them open up for the Beach Boys[1] at Usenix in '94. My sister in-law (she and my brother lived in SF back then) is a huge Beach Boys fan, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. Unsurprisingly, it was easy to get a few extra tickets. She really enjoyed the show and even got to chat with Brian Wilson afterwards. She was thrilled. I have to say that while I'm not a big fan, they did put on a pretty good show. TPH was mildly amusing, doing covers of popular songs with "Open Systems"[2] lyrics. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talking_Propellerheads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talking_Propellerheads [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beach_Boys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beach_Boys [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_system_(computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_system_(computing)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rspoerri 6y ago

Rtfm again

tryauuum 6y ago
+1. I think I could became a proficient C developer just by reading all the man pages on my laptop

Blammar 6y ago

Pigeons, dogs, and small robots moving around 1 TB SD cards from place to place.

neetrain 6y ago
IP over Avian Carriers for the win!

RGamma 6y ago

Might not be a bad thing for collective mental health. One internet-free week per month might do the trick as well. And then it'd be back to sneaker net :)

nobody9999 6y ago

I'd probably read more books. Then I'd probably re-watch Babylon 5 again. Hmmm, that may be coming this year or next anyway...

bullen 6y ago

I'd build my own P2P internet: http://radiomesh.org http://radiomesh.org

vageli 6y ago
There is surprisingly little information about the project that I could find on that site.

uncledave 6y ago

Ham radio. The desire to communicate is always there.

Chris2048 6y ago
I don't use the internet to talk to people, I use it so I don't have to talk to people.
- Rerarom 6y ago
  Superb!
- uncledave 6y ago
  Don’t have to talk to people via ham radio. We’ve developed protocols now so you don’t have to :)

p2t2p 6y ago

Back to FIDO I guess? Lemme quickly find my point's number and blow dust away from my 56k....

EarlKing 6y ago
...only to discover that there's nobody left in Zone 1 in your LATA and polling a guy across the continent will cost you gobs of cash you'd rather not spend, so you buddy-up with a HAM buddy who's into packet-radio to see if you can find a way to tunnel packets over a long-haul radio link to save money. It would take a year or two for the network to re-establish itself, and we wouldn't have the kind of bandwidth or instantaneous interaction we have now, but we could rebuild.

krychu 6y ago

Would search for local communities and go back to disk swapping.

PikachuEXE 6y ago

Play more single player games and board games NO social media anymore yesss...

KozmoNau7 6y ago

Call my friends, have some beers in the sunshine, go home and put on some music. Relax and ponder.

lolthishuman 6y ago

Build ad-hoc mesh network using existing devices. Replace bgp with something automated. Yggdrasil was a good idea. I think another one similar was Ouraborus.

notaspecialist 6y ago

Everyone would start marrying and having families again.

Daho0n 6y ago

Rejoice the death of social media.

mikewarot 6y ago

If the internet went down for good, I'd expect we were on the way to losing 1/5 or so of humanity due to starvation, the collapse of international trade, etc. We need computers and internet these days.

hilbert42 6y ago
Why? And where do your figures/estimate come from? …Here's a small selection of what actually happened in the pre-internet/computer era (it's all pretty remarkable and we could do it again if we had to): • Humanity got through many tens of thousands of years of its existence and into the 1980s without the internet and (mostly without) modern computers and somehow not only managed without them but it thrived and multiplied. • Even before electrification and the international telegraph across the Atlantic, trade was alive and well between nations (for instance, trade in cotton from the Southern US to Manchester UK). • Moreover, in ancient times trade between nations was both effective and remarkably well organized (given that even the telephone was still 2000 years away). One only has to look at the trade routes of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire to realize how sophisticated that arrangement was: https://vividmaps.com/trade-routes-of-roman-empire/ https://vividmaps.com/trade-routes-of-roman-empire/. Furthermore, there were many other trade routes throughout history, The Silk Road for instance. • At the beginning of WWII the US was almost completely unprepared for war. Between 1942 and 1945 the US embarked on an industrial ramp-up in production that has never been equalled. That increase was truly phenomenal: https://prospect.org/health/way-won-america-s-economic-breakthrough-world-war-ii/ https://prospect.org/health/way-won-america-s-economic-break.... All that occurred without either the internet or modern computers. • As US Secretary of War Henry Stimson said in 1940 "If you are going to try to go to war, or to prepare for war, in a capitalist country, you have got to let business make money out of the process or business won't work.". That actually happened and the results were not only remarkable but truly phenomenal. It's not the internet that drives the world but money! • There are a few notable exceptions to that rule (but nevertheless commerce was unknowingly and inextricably implicated), and that was the Government-run Manhattan Project and the development of the Atomic Bomb. War has always driven scientific development but what happened between 1942 and 1945 was truly phenomenal and still has never been equalled in both the speed of scientific development and its practical application. It is all the more remarkable that from its outset the Manhattan Project was planned, organized and brought to fruition in complete secrecy—and, of course, this secrecy also extended to all the scientific and engineering research. Not only was there no internet, but mandatory secrecy meant that discussing the project on the telephone was impossible—even speaking to anyone with the exception of security-cleared colleagues in one's own area of specialty was not only problematic but also a major breach of security. • Another exception was the phenomenal strategic planning and organization behind D-Day—the invasion of Normandy during WWII. This was the biggest and most complex invasion of its kind in all history, nothing like it has ever happened before or since. Again, this remarkable feat was accomplished behind an enormous cloak of secrecy. • It wasn't only the US that had a phenomenal increase in production in WWII, so did every country engaged in the war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_Wor.... For example, in 1939 the world produced ≈38,000 aircraft per year, by 1945 that figure was not only phenomenal but had reached a staggering number in excess of 0.8 million aircraft per year! That's an increase of ≈2105%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_aircraft_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_aircraft_producti.... • After WWII the US post-war economy growth was also phenomenal: http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-1994/postwar-america/the-postwar-economy-1945-1960.php http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-1994/postwar-amer.... Other countries also had phenomenal economic growth after the War. • It wasn't only economic growth throughout most of history that managed without the internet or modern computers, science and mathematics did too. Essentially, all mainstream mathematics and mathematical theories up until the 1980s were done without the help of even electronic communications let alone the internet. Moreover, mainstream science from ancient times to Dalton's scientific method; to Enlightenment science, Lavoisier et all; to 19th Century science—thermodynamics: Clausius, JW Gibbs, Boltzmann; electrical theory: Faraday, Maxwell—Maxwell's equations; through to 20th Century science: Quantum Mechanics: Planck, Bohr, Einstein, Dirac, et al right through to QFT, QED and even the Standard Model of Particle Physics —still our most current model—all happened without the internet—that's right, every damn iota of it! • And lastly, culture: essentially all the great cultural canons, music, art and literature, were produced without the need of the internet or computers, or for that matter, even without other forms of modern electronic communications. No doubt, if the internet ceased tomorrow there would be widespread disruption and it would force everyone to adapt quickly (especially after it was realized those technologies weren't going to return—keep in mind that this would very likely be the scenario after a nuclear conflagration/war). In my opinion, the single biggest problem for post-internet, post-computers times would be re-educating the generation that has grown up with them ever present and has never known or experienced a world without them. (Moreover, the disappearance of computers and internet would likely be a very serious social problem (at least in the short term), the reason being that with their introduction it was the first time in history that humans have experienced truly addictive work tools and withdrawal would be difficult. It would be especially problematic for those who've grown up with them from birth.) Please note, I'm not suggesting for an instant that this scenario is desirable or that a pre-internet, pre-modern computers world would be sustainable into the distant future, so please don't accuse me of being a Luddite. After all, my bread and butter has always depended on technology—and I've always been a born technophile. My views here are based on the fact that I grew up before the internet so I've experienced both worldviews.

thefz 6y ago

I daydream quite often about what would change with a solar storm powerful enough to erase any magnetic memory on earth forcing us to go dark. How long will it take for humanity to bootstrap everything back up again, considering that the power grid is basically useless without computers? What about other services like water and sewage? How many lives lost?

bhhaskin 6y ago
A lot less time than you would think. There are a ton of devices that don't use magnetic memory like SSD and SD cards. So although a lot of data would be gone, the tools to build everything back up would still be intact. Devices like CNC machins usually use SD cards and other forms of non-magnetic storage. Biggest issue would be controlling public unrest until you can restore infinistructure. After that it would be business as usual after not too long. But if the storm is powerful enough to destroy actual chips and systems it would be very very difficult to recover.
- thefz 6y ago
  Yes and let's not forget those memories stored in data vaults underground or somewhat magnetically shielded. Mine is just an exercise for the imagination rather than a technically correct scenario. But to get all these memories working again you need a power grid, to operate which you need all those memories unless isolating sections of the grid and powering them with renewables somewhat. In a no-more-computers-unless-we-rebuild-them scenario we would have to rush to both get to save all our knowledge somewhere and to preserve the "cold" storage we already have such as written word.
- dublin 6y ago
  A bigger problem is that there are fewer and fewer living engineers that actually understand things well enough from first principles to be able to reconstruct a technological society. And the social disintegration (think Minneapolois and Portland on steroids) that would follow could make it quite difficult to even get the surviving systems up and running again. Also, note that very little of the past 20 years has been well documented on paper...

smitty1e 6y ago

Read scripture. Read and write manually. Try to rehabilitate my kids, who doubtless view the pre-Internet era as some sort of Dim Ages that followed the Dark Ages.

sprkwd 6y ago

Books, CB radio, libraries. Gigs without everybody filming them.

mbalyuzi 6y ago

Get the Ham radio out, see who's around. Get a better antenna and more powerful radio and see who's around further away. Though these days 5 watts as a bit of wire will get you a long way with some of the low bandwidth data modes. But is that cheating for the purposes of this discussion?

spacemanmatt 6y ago

Probably a lot of things that are way healthier than anything online

scruffyherder 6y ago

Be thankful of my archives

mrkramer 6y ago

"What Would You Do If the Internet Went Away?" Probably be healthier a lot of healthier.

m-p-3 6y ago

I'd be glad I datahoard a lot of stuff, like an up-to-date ZIM archive of Wikipedia (en all maxi), my Google Takeout data, some porn, my GOG (DRM-free games), etc. The ZIM archive is also on my modded Kobo Glo HD (128GB instead of 4GB) and it can natively read ZIM files. I therefore have a low-powered paper-like display to read Wikipedia that can be easily charged over a solar panel.

rcarmo 6y ago

Enjoy life, I guess. Also, likely try to reinvent it :)

loudtieblahblah 6y ago

I bought 500 records over the last decade. I have 300 dvds/blurays. Plus about 12TB of video on my plex server. 1tb of music on the same server About 450 books, 300 of which I havent read Unfortunately there isn't really any mags or papers I like/trust to subscribe to, for more current stuff. But regardless... I'd be OK. I plan to retire to a cabin in the moutains and have minimal connectivity to the outside world anyways. Been saving for it for 10 years now.

scyzoryk_xyz 6y ago

I would start a BBS

slovette 6y ago

I’d build stuff. Just as I do now, only hard goods. I just built a few custom cabinets for our Coach that better facilitates our young kids. Running saws, designing hidden joints using dado design and pocket holes was very enjoyable and almost stress free. I made these big, present, things I can touch and use, that for an armature are really good, exercised by mind and hands; it was amazing. It was simple, stress free and rewarding. I did a lot of that kind of stuff as a kid 10-15 years ago. I’d just exercise that and other ‘building’ talents and enjoy my life probably more than I do now.

vlod 6y ago

Maybe build a way to connect computers together in some sort on network with some tech minded individuals (you're all invited!) and try to fix some of the problems of v1 (encryption, spam, malware). Let's call it "Internet-2: Attack of the Clones".

8bitsrule 6y ago
LibreNet will strictly enforce non-commercial membership only. Special high-voltage zapping hardware for non-compliance. Lifetime bans. Minimum sentences for advertisers.

taylodl 6y ago

Buy more books and magazines. I'm a Gen X'er who grew up without the internet, didn't have the internet in any form until my mid-20's and didn't have the internet like we know it today until my 30's. I'd miss YouTube. I do enjoy watching instructional videos. So I guess the internet to me is news + YouTube?

mgarfias 6y ago

Me: start lookin for work as a mechanic or something. Kinda hard to be an SRE with out the internet.

Buttons840 6y ago
Certainly you couldn't replicate what we have now without the internet. But you could read some books and automate all kinds of things for a company still.
- mgarfias 6y ago
  But I’d have to go into an office. Definitely no work from home.

DC1350 6y ago

I have no idea. I’ve never lived without the internet and my entire lifestyle depends on it. How did people move to new cities and find jobs and a place to live without it? Cold calling once I find out how to get a foreign phone book? Sounds awful. If it wasn’t for the internet I would be trapped in my dead end home city.

jonjacky 6y ago
Not at all. Before the Internet -- up through the 1970s and 80s, this isn't ancient history -- people moved around all the time, stayed in touch with people near and far, went out for all kinds of entertainment and events. Nobody said, "I can't do anything because I don't have the Internet." People used the information sources that the Internet replaced. Cities had daily papers - often more than one - with huge thick classified ads sections -- filled with little ads placed by individuals for a few dollars -- that were updated every day. Then there were neighborhood and special interest weeklies, with their own classified ads. The income from all those ads supported more papers, each with more writing on local events. There were magazines and newsletters on all kinds of esoteric topics. And bulletin boards at cafes and shops. Libraries had the newspapers and phone books of other cities, and some of the magazines and newsletters. Radio stations, too, had announcements of local events. And you would have a network of friends and relatives and acquaintances, and visitors to all of them passing through. You would call them on the telephone and write letters. Many would respond promptly because they, too, wanted to stay in touch.

woleium 6y ago

build a gnu one.

icod 6y ago

Live a normal life again. It would be a blessing for humanity. I fondly remember the times before the internet was a thing. People would have to learn to deal with people again, face to face. It would be a better world.

egberts 6y ago

Enjoy life?

marssaxman 6y ago

Same thing I did last time, most likely: start a BBS, or join some BBSes; start sharing files, get FidoNet going again; bootstrap the whole thing back up. Only maybe this time we could skip the WWW part and focus on store-and-forward mesh networks, for better resilience and corporate profit-seeking resistance.

vb6sp6 6y ago
> Only maybe this time we could skip the WWW part and focus on store-and-forward mesh networks, for better resilience and corporate profit-seeking resistance. The dreaded "rewrite but make it better this time" :)

musicale 6y ago

Interesting to collect these answers in audio form. Personally I'd probably try to bring back bulletin boards. And LAN gaming. ;-) Maybe read a few more books, but probably watch more television, take more naps, and play more single-player computer and video games.

vb6sp6 6y ago
> Maybe read a few more books, but probably watch more television, take more naps, and play more single-player computer and video games. You are just describing the 70's, 80's, and 90's. Take away "video games" and you could go back several more decades.

rufus_foreman 6y ago

Listen to music on vinyl, play video games at the arcade, read books from the library, write code. Same stuff I did in 1979. Same stuff I do now, but I guess more of it if I wasn't spending time on the internet.