What would YOU do if the Internet Shut Down?

I wouldn't complain much. This stuff did not exist when I was born, so what guarantee is it that it will exist when I'm gone? None. Oh I might have some withdrawal symptoms, and my computer's worth will have dropped about 90%, but then I'd get my information supply from other more antique sources, like... books. Magazines. Lecture halls, meetings, news...well no, I would dump the newspapers. Those are rigged. Conferences, forums, and good old fashioned postage mail and homing pigeons.

No, that is the long term idea. Short term I would probably get interested in ham radio or radio communications. That is the next best thing. And then I'd go back to work on my time machine, with the semiconductors and circuitry. No joke.

reply to post by zorgon


I'd lose my business. If that happened, I would happily join any rebellion that springs from that decision.

reply to post by zorgon


Well, there was life before the Internet. I think more people would enjoy life because they'd have to go outside to find actual adventure. Me? I just might go down into the basement and make more things in my wonderful metalworking shop. It took me almost a lifetime to accumulate it, but here I sit in front of the computer.

Life actually might be better without the Internet. I liked it just fine before it came along; and, the greatest adventures of mankind ALL occured before the Internet. ALL of them.

Think about it.

reply to post by zorgon


My life would be so much easier without it, and the postal service wouldn't be in debt.

reply to post by zorgon

The old tech still works

Actually, in many cases the "old tech" was better. Not only that, people had to go out into the world and find actual adventure.

Remember when electronics included tubes? Ah, that was really cool. I've been reading about the construction of vacuum tubes lately; and, I just might make some of those down in my man cave. Those old boys really knew some stuff in order to make tubes work. I was surprised how in-depth the knowledge base is for making tubes.

Yeah, life would probably be better without the Internet. It would take some time for these people who were born with a cell phone in their hand to get used to a three ring binder; however, I think they could adjust.

I would finally finish campaign mode on call of duty. Lol
FOR real through prolly get my compass and bug out bag ready start finding out what the word on the street. Is
You know the usual

I think it would take less than a month before an underground www (could call it New World Wide Web) was up, and maybe less than 6 months before most people could access it... So I guess I would stay in touch with the people I know to might be the few first to be online again.

reply to post by zorgon


I will "Keep Calm and Carry On" not to be confused with submitting to the current power structure. All this means to me is I will continue not playing into their fears.

If the internet shutdown I would try working on telepathy and esp,they cant shut that down. and iwould save money not paying the cable company.

For most of the world would probably be devastating

Me, i'd shrug, oh well
maybe i'd be a little disappointed that i couldn't access certain sites, i would be less informed of current events in the world, and less in touch with far away friends
but i think it would be positive for me- i could use all the time i spend distracting myself on the internet to practice my drums or read a book or somehting
A simpler life wouldn't be so bad

Go to the library.
Use paper maps.
Mail my bills.
Go to the bank more often.
Use the newspaper to look at movie listings.
Watch the local news on the tv.
Buy a cookbook.
Recieve paper notices at work.
Play more board games.
Get out of the house to go shopping.
and the list goes on and on.......

Are you kidding the internet shutdown would be the opportunity of a lifetime!!!
Id gather up a all the scrap phonebooks I could find and start selling them on the corner for $1.50 or maybe just a dollar. But I would also take the time to hit up parks and book stores and malls as all the llovely ladies who only socialize online now have no choice but to hit the public spaces en masse.

OMG I grew up during the nineties before they evolved the internet and it would be like living in the nineties all over again. Best decade I know of IMO. Was the last decade People actually interacted personally face to face for fun on a regular basis if you ask me. Its all about screens now. I would feel like the population would just be so liberated. Its funny cuz many people would be sketchy at first, but then would all realize how much fun they are having spending all their time away from a visual display unit to interact. Good ol days. I already fell old and im only 26.

reply to post by zorgon


It would be hard not to sit down and check ATS for a week or longer, or to check email, or news sources or whatever, but I would take the time for meditation or other productive activities.

There really are a lot of things the Internet is good for though, like filling out applications, finding the nearest Best Buy, searching for movie show times, Booking airlines and hotels, emailing important documents, stuff like that.

I would buy as much Vivid Video stock as I could afford, because all the perverts wouldn't be able to watch their free porn anymore.

I'd go curb shopping to see if anyone is dumping their computer (and related equipment) because they can't get internet anymore and gave up. This might be useful for the next thing I'd plan on doing...

Which is...

Dialing my own LAN up a notch and running a wireless dead-drop server made open to the public. It would work and be accessible through web browsers for the most part, so it wouldn't be anything too difficult to figure out. Then I'd wait and see what shows up from people in the neighborhood.

I'd probably also go war-driving for similar servers (if they can be found) on occasion to do mirroring of the better and more interesting files that manage to show up.

Might allow some BBS stuff via modem too, but that would be limited. (Phones still cost too much considering what bandwidth is available.)

Admin work might be a pain though, depends on what kind of stuff shows up. Hopefully things are kept reasonable without trolls or other troublemakers trying to spoil the content or poison the data. (Don't want viruses/malware or other stuff that would attract unwanted attention.) If too troublesome, some upload services to the file server may not be as public anymore.

If I ever find any good ad-hoc mesh software during that situation, I might attempt to use it as well. At least if there are any other nearby wireless nodes that would allow it to work. (I don't really see the neighbor's wifi much as it is.)

Not quite an internet, but probably some modest attempt at the next best thing.

Hoo, this is quite a difficult question to consider myself. I get so much resources and assets from the internet; I rely on it so much that just about every aspect of my life would be inconvenienced in one way or another.

I think, if the internet were to black out, I would do what I always do in the event of a normal blackout (I've had quite a few in the past years). I would read the Bible and do things that I would be doing were it not for the procrastination fuel I call the internet.

go for a run to try and work off 10 years of sitting at the computer

I would be very bored at work....

Well perhaps we all should not wait for it to happen, we could pick up on bbs networks again, or, start out own "internet" so to speak, we all have modems, wifi capable networks card and open source software we can modify to work on a slightly different protocol, those of us who are engineers can manage this, so that we can implement our own incompatible global network, which won't be administered by those freaks, then we would be able to work around any limitations imposed on the "real" internet".

For most of all that have modern hardware, a hot spot wifi network is already within reach, we only need the proper software and hardware to handle it, but we already have it, most of us, so having that capability, i can see the following happen:

- "They" will come up with a law that prevents anyone from having a wifi or otherwise a "radio signal" coming out from their homes, without a proper license, which won't be granted to anyone unless you comply with the "program" (kind of like they do for ham and professional radio, like they do these days, so it won't be easy to get around that, and if we do, it will be "illegal")
- "They" will monitor all land lines, with software on the providers, so if anyone is running a bbs or whatever, they will know and check it out, and if they find out it is "illegal", be prepared to be picked up any day, and sacrificed in the name of "safety", as it should be, because that's "the law" and all is done in the name of "justice" and "safety".

But that won't be as easy to control on "third world" countries, where it will be still going on despite the efforts to limit it on "first world" countries.

Linux is open source, dns, http, firewall and whatever software is needed to create your own networks is already out there.

I can see a network that goes home to home, which later goes out by means of a land line connection to another city, eventually getting out to other country, and eventually going around the world, it already happened years ago with BBS software, so why not try that again?

And that's that.

Originally posted by PaxVeritas
I'd lose my business. If that happened, I would happily join any rebellion that springs from that decision.

Yeah I hear that... I am just getting one set up myself... need to give up the regular work. This would be a bad time for the met to go down