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Weekend Open Forum: What if the Internet didn't exist?
Have you ever wondered what would life be like if the Internet didn't exist? The Internet as we know it had its early development in the 1960s as a point-to-point communication between mainframe computers. Then the TCP/IP protocol was standarized in the 80s, and by 1995 it was revolutionizing communication worldwide.
This tidbit of information from Wikipedia really caught my attention: "It is estimated that in 1993 the Internet carried only 1% of the information flowing through two-way telecommunication, by 2000 this figure had grown to 51%, and by 2007 more than 97% of all telecommunicated information was carried over the Internet."
Sure, people had already lived long and well without the Internet, just watch an episode of Mad Men and you'll get the drill, but for us, tech and computer enthusiasts that almost feels like going back to the stone age.
I remember with particular fondness the early days of connecting to the net using a dial-up modem and waiting an hour or two for the latest version of Netscape to finally download. Waking up in the early morning (4-5am) to download the latest game demos before my ISP's lines got too congested. Add to that your fair share of positive experiences using Amazon, Google, your instant messenger of choice, and most recently social networking sites and the on-the-go capabilities of today's smartphones.
But aside from all that, remove the Internet and I'd be left without TechSpot, my true and only full-time job in the past decade. Heck, without the Internet I may have become an architect or a doctor instead.
What would you do if the Internet never existed, or why not, if the Internet somehow ceased to exist? Discuss.
User Comments: 79
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Perhaps it would be a similar dynamic to that which occurs in human interaction. You can't actually miss somebody you've never met.
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Without the Internet I would have never wrote this, neither would anyone have read it.
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Instead of point and click......We would open and flip
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I would have passed grade 8 math because I wouldn't have blown off homework to play Diablo.
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0192837465 said:
what if electricity didn't exist?
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what if electricity didn't exist?Since we're well into hypothetical absurdity, what if we never figured out fire?
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BMfan said:
Since we're well into hypothetical absurdity, what if we never figured out fire?What if we couldn't figure out what to do with that thing on men?
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Tekkaraiden said:
I'd still be downloading my porn from a BBS at 56kbps (well 52k in Canada).
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What if we couldn't figure out what to do with that thing on men?Then arguably, the species that arose after we died out, will have had to have had their forensic anthropologists laughing their heads off at every archeological dig site on the planet. The scary part is, that many women know what it's for, but opt for alternatives.
Speaking of which, I just lost an erection trying to figure out the mood and tense of that verb sequence. Ow, my head hurts. I think it's correct for the species that comes after the next species.....
I'd still be downloading my porn from a BBS at 56kbps (well 52k in Canada).God, can you imagine? 1000 pixel images would seem huge and take forever. -
matrix86 said:
BMfan said:Without internet game developers would have to finish the game properly before selling it to people.
OH NOES!!! THE HORROR!!!
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Without the internet.... I'd be
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I'd have to stand on a street corner holding a sign that said, "YOU'RE WRONG!"
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gooderguy said:
We'd probably have thousands of CDs and DVDs of stuff, like I used to have years ago. And I'd be spending less time sitting on my ass.
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I'd still have a library card.
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I'd have to stand on a street corner holding a sign that said, "YOU'RE WRONG!"Either that or, "piracy will bring on the end of the world"...!
(Sorry Tom, I just couldn't resist that).
Disclaimer, "The opinions expressed in this post are not necessarily those of its author".
(I just wrote down the first thing that popped into my head).
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Without the internet, I'd still be racking up huge phone bills keeping in touch with my brother and sister who live and work in other countries since Skype wouldn't exist. Without Google, I'd still be doing my research in the library. Most of all, without the internet, I wouldn't have been able to meet all the interesting members of the Techspot family
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captaincranky said:
(I just wrote down the first thing that popped into my head).
Wait, I must have never gotten the memo; I thought this was always the case, cap'n...?
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T77 said:
you wouldn't be asking this question and I would not be answering! :p
perhaps life would have been much better............you know all the addiction stuff...
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Wait, I must have never gotten the memo; I thought this was always the case, cap'n...?There is quite a bit of truth to that. However, sometimes the first thing that comes to my my can take the form of an blunt, unsharpened pencil. Accordingly, and with some mood dependence attached, I may sharpen that pencil to a very sharp point, before I publish it.
Sometimes, and I admit that this a perhaps a character flaw, I follow the species wide human trait of attempting to "weaponize" everything we can get our hands on..... All that aside, blunt actually works pretty well in its own right also....
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Well for the internet addict withdrawal symptoms would ensue. Ha ha anyone remember the south park episode where there was no internet lol....... For me i have only been using it for maybe 5 yrs max no loss to me if it all ended. it would give libraries a needed boost lol.
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WWW and the Internet are truly great technologies, no doubt about it.
But let's not forget good old ADSL which although often overlooked has also been a powerful driver in making the net what it is today.
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IvanAwfulitch said:
Guest said:We would survive.
This. We would be a lot more intelligent actually because we would be out experiencing the world instead of being shut ins whose sole entertainment comes from watching videos and trolling cyberspace. We would be reading books, hanging out with people for real, playing games with friends together, and just generally being better people. That said, some of the joys I experience with the web would be shot. Like chatting online in TeamSpeak with friends who were since out of touch, or playing games with people online, or doing research for a complex subject for a college paper, or getting breaking news. It would be a good entertainment and information source gone.
The internet has done a lot to help the world, but it has done equal amounts of foul things that degraded the human race as a whole. So it's a real toss-up what the world would be like with or without it and whether it's a good thing it exists.
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Archean said:
Internet never really influenced my career so I would still be doing exactly the same things in exactly the same sequence.
Now that out of the way, I think without internet
a) world's population growth rate would have been umm far greater
b) we would still be playing games like Prince of Persia / Pac Man (and the likes)
c) securing computers would not have been an issue like it is today
d) we wouldn't have any open source stuff
e) we wouldn't have facecook
f) we (probably) wouldn't have any malware + spyware
g) and importantly Obama would never have been able to become president
A) You're probably right.
B) No internet = no useful comments on timely manner, and relies on the snail mails.
C) The only security we have to worry about is some B&E and stealing the hard drives.
D) Right.
E) uhhh... same as B)
F) Look out there, there's much more serious than just computer things.
G) Perhaps, whadda have against him anyway?
I have lived my life for few months without technologies, and I could tell that it's little tough to keep in contact via mail writing without finding out that there is a reader stalker out there, reading my love mails to my wife.
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I have lived my life for few months without technologies, and I could tell that it's little tough to keep in contact via mail writing without finding out that there is a reader stalker out there, reading my love mails to my wife.
Ouch .... I know what you mean, sadly I haven't bothered to write any letter (let alone a love letter
) to anyone in about 24-25 years now.Look out there, there's much more serious than just computer things.Indeed that is why I fought few elections (but not for any public office lol).
Perhaps, whadda have against him anyway? Firstly he has the most hideously evil smile I've ever seen.
Secondly, he over hyped the 'change', then did totally opposite of what 'change really means'.
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