What If The Internet Went Down?

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I like the way this guy says "nobody would die" without the internet. He obviously doesn't know any [H] readers. There would be millions of us dropping like flies after a day or two with no intarwebs. :D

No email, Twitter or Facebook. No buying online. No stock trades. No just-in-time industrial shipping. No real-time tracking of diseases. It's gotten so that not just the entire Internet but individual websites such as Google are considered critical infrastructure, experts said. "Nobody would die, but there would be a major hassle," said computer security expert Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure in Helsinki, Finland.
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The same that happens when the power goes out once in a while. Read a book. Go outside. Do something else. People need to sit down once in a while and think about whats really important.
 
I'd be busier than fuck because my company is a project management firm with employees scattered over about 20 sites nationwide. If I had to fly everywhere to fix their equipment instead of doing it remotely in LogMeIn, I'll never see home again.
 
If the internet was destroyed forever I'd kill myself. Not kidding.
 
Monkey God said:
The same that happens when the power goes out once in a while. Read a book. Go outside. Do something else. People need to sit down once in a while and think about whats really important.
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Mission critical communications all have backup generators to keep their communications active.
 
i would be extremely bored.

I think i would be OK for a bit but then boredom would get to me. Heck, i won't be able to play steam games either because their offline mode sucks too lol.
 
Thats' when single player games start becoming much more desirable. And people start inviting friends over to play xbox/ps like I did back in my NES days. I know I would stop playing BF3 and start on Arkham City and stuff like that.

I go through this every couple of months or so when I forget to pay my Comcast bill.
 
My first answer for this would be the typical do something creative: go outside, read a book, etc. I would be ok without e-mail and facebook for a little bit.

But honestly, take a look at how business operate now a day with the internet: Customer service, market research, sales... communication with customers, suppliers,... (I'm probably missing some major items here, but this list can go on forever.) The utilization of the internet has become a HUGE competitive advantage for many business.

It would be a drastic chaotic transition, that many would not survive.

Now, just a day or so? sure go fly a kite. clean your desk. There is always something else to do.
 
Monkey God said:
The same that happens when the power goes out once in a while. Read a book. Go outside. Do something else. People need to sit down once in a while and think about whats really important.
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Hundreds (if not thousands) of people die each year due to power outages....
 
No internet would mostly shut down my company. We do alot of remote support and even installs of the software product we sell, all over the internet. Plus we have a number of people who work remotely and are not even based in the office.
Yesterday, almost the entire staff in our Washington State office worked from home due to the snowstorm. Much safer than having them try to drive in.
 
Negative Decibel said:
Oh yes, increased demand for LAN parties would be awesome too.
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Yeah firing up 10 year old games would be awesome, since new ones don't support LAN or require an internet connection anyway.

Maybe with today's hardware we could enjoy an 8-player game of Age of Empires 2 without the host machine bogging down.
 
Most medical records, diagnoses, and x-rays are now sent over the internet. If the internet went down there is a very real possibility someone would die.
 
Then the 3,000,000 Princes who ruled their country last year, until they were betrayed, wouldn't be able to contact the naive people in the word to aid them with the transfers of their millions !
 
nutzo said:
No internet would mostly shut down my company. We do alot of remote support and even installs of the software product we sell, all over the internet. Plus we have a number of people who work remotely and are not even based in the office.
Yesterday, almost the entire staff in our Washington State office worked from home due to the snowstorm. Much safer than having them try to drive in.
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haha yeah the way they drive. i think seattle got like 3-4 inches. theyre absolutely terrible cold-weather drivers.
 
No email, Twitter or Facebook. No buying online. No stock trades. No just-in-time industrial shipping. No real-time tracking of diseases. It's gotten so that not just the entire Internet but individual websites such as Google are considered critical infrastructure, experts said. "Nobody would die, but there would be a major hassle," said computer security expert Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure in Helsinki, Finland.
Click to expand...

No email: would drastically inhibit productivity on a large scale... on the other hand... hmm
Twitter or Facebook: Ok... who really needs these?
No buying online: Won't kill ya, but all those extra taxes may.
No stock trades: yeah... lots of economies do well without a functioning stock market
No just-in-time industrial shipping: won't kill the average Joe
No real-time tracking of diseases: Could kill the average Joe
 
If the internet blackout is permanent nobody would die in the short-term, but the world will be poorer and eventually population levels will drop. Before you say that is a good thing, remember that you will be poorer. So what is a use of clear empty highways when you can't afford that STI to hoon around in?
 
jeverson said:
No email: would drastically inhibit productivity on a large scale... on the other hand... hmm
Twitter or Facebook: Ok... who really needs these?
No buying online: Won't kill ya, but all those extra taxes may.
No stock trades: yeah... lots of economies do well without a functioning stock market
No just-in-time industrial shipping: won't kill the average Joe
No real-time tracking of diseases: Could kill the average Joe
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Which economies?

No just-in-time industrial shipping: would inhibit productivity more than no email IMO
 
if inetrnet went down... hmm harakiri or back to sneakernet... tough choice...
 
I think if the Internet went down we'd live in an Orwellian society as in the movie Brazil.

Without the Internet to keep citizens informed and government in check, the ever-growing government will move in to "take care of us" for the "betterment of society".
 
Deaths could occur, they'd just be the exception rather than the rule (at least immediately). The reality isn't mass deaths but massive destruction of the economy. The new communication reality would cause many companies to go bankrupt. I'd say it would spur a full on worldwide economic depression. Unemployment rates would jump 20-30% easily if not more. People wouldn't have to worry about travelling to meetings or trouble-shoot because the companies probably wouldn't exist to travel to meet. Business would slow to a crawl and prices of goods would jump to double their current levels. Everything would be affected ... everything, period. Even if a person's business didn't rely on the internet directly, many of their suppliers or customers no doubt did. House construction, for instance, is not a big internet based operation ... but the people buying aren't all working in similar fields.
 
Actually people would die. Companies like UPS and FedEx depend on the web to support their delivery software. If UPS and FedEx were interupted the flow of life sustaining medications would end.
 
First, I'd apply for a job at the post office since my current position would be obsolete...

After that, it would depend on why the internet went down.
Technical issues? Volunteer to help fix it, or help set up a community intranet. Maybe read a book. And by book, I mean I'd finally crack open this 2TB literature rar archive I have sitting around for just such a debacle.

Government shut it down? Start a constitutional amendment petition guaranteeing the freedom to access the internet, and restricting government oversight of the internet to enforcing network neutrality by telecom providers. While this would have no chance of passing currently, after a week without facebook, it would be a slam dunk.

RIAA/MPAA/Other trade group issues take down notices for every site on the internet? Laugh, because it wouldn't last more than a day or two, and then the RIAA/MPAA and their members would be sued out of existence. I probably wouldn't apply for a job at the post office in this case.
 
Stinky said:
Most medical records, diagnoses, and x-rays are now sent over the internet. If the internet went down there is a very real possibility someone would die.
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I work for a company that does precisely this. We provide real-time information to doctor's offices, hospitals, and pharmacies using the Internet. The possibility is real. Small, but it does exist.
 
From those who say read a book... I read books on my kindle. Without the internet I can't get new books on it :mad:
 
Steve said:
I like the way this guy says "nobody would die" without the internet. He obviously doesn't know any [H] readers. There would be millions of us dropping like flies after a day or two with no intarwebs. :D
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I back it up nightly so I'd still have access to all teh pr0n.
 
Not sure about other manufacturors.

GM Dealers would have no access to repair information or labor times prior to 99. Even the newest GM scan tool would be useless because the software to use it needs to check in and verify with GM to even use it.
 
hmmmm

remove 99.9% of idiots that don't know a thing about proper internet use and security
inconvience .1%

I think that's a fair trade.
 
1. Tivo users would have to get Analog Lines again.
2. The post office would be saved. Instantly.
3. I can't quite figure out whether IT costs would go up or go down.
4. The DVD industry would be saved.
5. Cable companies would hold million dollar celebration parties.
6. No more secrets for China spy hackers.
7. Amazon.com would become Amazon.Phone.
8. The Sears Catalog would return. WooHoo !
9. Banks would actually have to start working again. Payments would make it to creditors faster because people would have to start mailing them again, which takes about 3 days instead of 6 days for electronic transfer payments (no, I don't get it either).
10. Malware pushers would probably start selling quack medical devices on street corners. Russia would have to ban loitering.
 
I'd host my own infrastructure in my neighborhood and start stretching 1000ft ethernet cables. I'd start up my own movie and music streaming services.
 
I'm sure some people would die due to reduced ability for hospitals to transfer medical records, doctors to look up information for diagnosing illnesses etc. Also reduced ability for people to read weather reports, respond to natural disasters, look up quick routes to the emergency room...There are plenty of ways that no internet could cause some people to die.
 
If the actual infrastructure went down, we would all have to go back to cash only.
 
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