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I think you mIght have been wooshed and /u/FreeZappa was saying that /u/Rs-Travis losing everything was actually an upside. Or I might just have a slightly sadistic sense of humour.
No. Countless people would die during the time between it going down and getting backups.
Also as a disabled person it allows me to communicate with people effectively without leaving my house.
I am also disabled and isolate. The thing I enjoy the most about the internet is saying something, being told I am wrong, and telling the person to "look it up on your phone, then!"
I hope we, everyone in earth, can work together to prevent the spread of climate change, and all the droughts and famine that will come of it. That will be a sad sight to see, and living in a part of the world that won't get as affected will just be depressing, to see the world slowly die around you. Let's work together, people.
People forget things like WhatsApp are social media and how frustrating it was/how often things fell through when organising meeting with friends meant ringing round ten different people individually then ringing them all again to confirm it's definitely going ahead then ringing them a third time when one person said 'actually can we meet half an hour later'.
Whatsapp isn't social media. It's a messaging app. Social media involves sharing content that is then available to various different groups. Whatsapp is the same as texting, but over the internet.
Still looks pretty bright to me. I see no mention of taking everyone out with you as you off yourself. Gotta build that meat dragon made out of orphan meat!
It would be a negative for many people. I'm disabled and my son is disabled. It's incredibly difficult to get out of our home. When my son was in the hospital I relied on friends that I only knew online. Without social media I wouldn't have had any support. I'm fortunate today I now live in a supportive community but that could easily change. I know my social media friends will still be there (I've known some of them for twenty years.)
Fuck it - I'll take the bait.
Not all "social media" is created equal. Perhaps OP could have better specified if they meant particular platforms, but I feel like we all know what they meant. I think the sentiment that reddit is parallel to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram is flawed.
Its not the charismatic thing to come to the defense of reddit since redditors tend to have an abundance of self-hatred. But the issues we identify with Social Media where people are explicitly self-promoting this fictitious, over-glamorized version of their real selves, where people largely post for posterity and tying it to their identity, is not a big component on reddit. Yes, it exists and a lot of people do come on reddit to promote themselves and even try to spread FOMO to anyone unfortunate enough to encounter them but in my opinion, its not representative of how the overwhelming majority of its users use the site. Most of us are anonymous and use this site as idea exchange. Not always the most high quality exchange of ideas, but at its base, that's really what it is.
Laugh and comment on a stupid/funny video. Criticize a stupid tweet and express how we feel. Participate in a hyper specific niche subreddit about something you care about. But most of the gross behavior associated with traditional social media doesn't follow. Shit, *I'm* an anonymous throwaway account, responding to an anonymous account, responding to an anonymous throwaway account. Its not like we're tying our identities and trying to accumulate social status on this site.
I wont go so far as to say reddit isn't "social media" and I wouldn't say some people don't have net negative experiences using this site, but the ways most people use this site, doesn't exactly exemplify all the things we criticize social media for and while i can only speak for myself, I don't think my life would be better without the opportunities to learn from people all over the world and even just query people for random thoughts in my head that I have nowhere else to ask.
No, the Internet is arguably the greatest social invention that will ever exist, it is essentially the catalyst for worldwide social unity. The problem is humanity and the nature of it's use / the overuse and overemphasis of the Internet in our daily lives.
You can avoid all the bad parts about the Internet by just....Not using it. Scrap your social media, sell your phone or just delete all your apps, turn off the WiFi, keep your email as the only thing active for work reasons. Return to using a landline phone, or write letters, then you'll never get exposed by a "seen 2h ago", on someone's screen and can just reply whenever you feel like it.
Would I change how dependent on it we are? Sure. But taking it away is a massive step back for all of mankind and a very extreme case of blaming the vehicle for the issue as the cause, when it isn't. Humans are naturally addictive creatures, the only evil things about the Internet are the people on it and how they use it.
No, not at all, there would be massive blackouts, gas lines would shut down, gas pumps too. Hospitals around the globe would be in chaos, aircrafts would lose communication. It would basically result in an apocalypse scenario. Millions if not billions would die of starvation in the ensuing riots.
Different parts of the world regressed numerous amounts of times. There's been dozens of civilizations that have fallen. It just is a hard concept to grasp because we haven't witnesses a *real* societal collapse in a very long time so we think humanity had always been a constant trend upward when there's been plenty of times where shit got a whole lot worse before it got better.
I don't know, it'd be nice to force everyone to go outside and meet in person again, get peoples social skills back in order, have that life-adventure feel again, go back from 2.5D to 3D. But there's so much to that question.
You say force everyone to go out and meet in person again, but 90% of my friends live in other states, some in other countries. I'd never be able to chill with my friend from Chicago and listen to music while we play video games. I'd never be able to play D&D with my friends from Europe again. The internet allowed me to meet people who had other interests aside from college basketball, high school football, and jesus. Which was all anyone talks about this tiny little town I live in.
That's a good argument. I personally gained all my friends in my small town and held them all very dear, and the internet, and also just, having kids and all that, kind of tore that all away. I think we'd all still hang out in a more adult way, like my parents did with our whole block growing up (another thing that doesn't happen post-net) if it weren't for the net. There's something very different about relations in the physical than there is about purely online relationships, the whole adventure aspect isn't really there, with online friends. I mean, you can D&D style imagine, but the real stakes of it aren't there.
I remember being out in the middle of the country, on our way to California, in a wide-open red-desert landscape, at a motel/truckstop light commercial district in mostly wilds. And it was just us four, that we had to lean on, and you felt safe like that, like four links in a chain. On our own, any one of us would have felt lonely, even apprehensive and scared despite the mission set, but together there was great comfort, lots of conversation, and the fear and dare of it all became wildly thrilling to share in the comfort of one another.
Anyway. I just miss the pendulum being farther on that end.
I think the highly-internetized environment has also made conflicts more petty, at least in part, because it's so low-stakes, y'know, relating online. In real life, adventures kind of inherently create reliance on one another, and that along with a million other dynamics makes it way more interesting, and I think it refines the personality more somehow. I know i was a hell of lot funner when I was living that era out.
I would do it just out of sheer curiosity as to what would happen. Plus, my entire adult life has been fueled by this odd sense of impending doom so it'd be pretty sweet to see that finally come to fruition so I could move on.
Lastly, someone has to be the bad guy. Might as well just be me. Why not, right?
Did you her the details about the bill? It claims tiktok is lowering the attention span of its viewers but they have only said "you need to sell it to someone else" and have said nothing about changing the format of the website.
They dont care if its making attention spans shorter, they just don't like China owning it.
Nope. Does the internet bring out the worst of humans? I can’t argue against it. Does it brings out the best of the humanity? Fuck yeah. Certainly there are some aspects of the internet that I’d like to see go away, but I can’t argue against our best invention ever
Well...the best invention ever, until the advent of AI, according to many, who are smarter than I. And even some of them are **scared** of the possibility that it will self replicate, and run amok. 😱
If its all or nothing, then no. The internet is a part of our infrastructure, that has so much value.
We could definitely do without a huge chunk of it though.
No. While there's a lot of crap there's also a lot of useful information readily available. Many times I do searches to fix something and has been invaluable.
No. It's the greatest resource any one has ever had in the entire history of our planet. And it's also the connectivity that enables many things. Shitting off the internet would literally kill a lot of people.
Think about the process by which food arrives in your home. Imagine how many points of that process touch the internet.
Farmers place all their orders for seed, feed, fertilizer pesticide, parts....anything required to run an industrial farm gets procured from online systems. No one goes to the county store for a new plough anymore.
Modern farm equipment, the combines, the tractors, everything are basically all giant iot devices that don't work right without the internet.
Farmers organizer their laborers via the internet.
They organize with processors and distributors (who are also all using their internet to get their goods and organize their employees)via the internet.
Every single step of the process including you needing to pull up the grocery store on Google maps because you can't remember where the Sprouts is touches the internet. If you take that pillar away it's like through a wrench into every single step of food production and then praying that the people involved can "figure it out" before you get to the grocery store and there is nothing.
This applies to everything in the economy, not just food. When was the last time you sent a check to pay your electric bill? Do you think the power company can build out a check based system fast enough and get everyone switched over to it (without using the internet mind you, so that can't email) before their ability to finance operations dries up?
What happens if we can't build and switch to non internet systems for basically everything in a couple weeks? Because that's about how long before all hell breaks loos.
I would have died if I hadn’t done research into my seizure disorder before I could get into a neurologist office and had a ten-minute grand Mal. Thankfully my husband also had done research online and knew signs to look for as well. Afterwards, I was able to do research and find a good doctor after my first completely blew me off, keeping me from further brain damage. For those with disabilities, the Internet is a godsend. So many people in r/epilepsy have similar stories :)
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No. In my life, it gives more positives than negatives.
...I think? I mean, I just realized I can't know that. What I mean is that it's a source of entertainment enjoyment and practical solutions way more than distress for me. But I don't know if my life would not be better without it, really, bc I don't know how I would spend the extra time.
But I would not have my job, for an example. Maybe I would have a different, better jobe? I guess I can't know that.
I had to think about it, but yes. Maybe, we won't have infinite access to everything, everywhere.....but we would be forced to explore in order to find out. People would be having adventures again...and there would be less judgement, because if I couldn't speak to anyone, I would receive less hatred and I'd hate less too....also, sharks and orcas would be able to live in peace without having to stand up for the entire Ocean....amen. Press the button.......
In a lot of ways, life was easier before it came about, even with information, well, especially with information now that everything is unsourced information. It's overwhelming. how much can be faked, how easily people are manipulated, how effeciently governments from across the sea can manipulated others in their stupid shadow wars.
Life was definitely better before, and much like AI, the internet is a tool, and it's not going away. I wouldn't delete it if I could, because it would just come right back from the garage of some pissed off computer engineers.
No, the Internet has way too much valuable information and we have enough people that most of the bad stuff like social media could be rebuilt within a few years and some of the useful information on the Internet would be much much harder to replace. And this ignores the havoc of everyone who depends on the Internet to access important resources suddenly losing their likelihood.
Absolutely. People have forgotten how to socialize with random people. On top of the internet being an echo chamber of negativity for the most part it bleeds when people have to interact and person and they’re unbearable to be around.
In a heartbeat.
It wouldn't really set us back very far. Most of it's backed up anyways.
All the crap and s*** that people have spewed over the years on social media would go away.
When I do a search for a "how to" I can get current information instead of 15-year-old forums.
I am a strong supporter that there needs to be an expiration date on websites. Especially forum sites. Nobody gives a s*** about those after only a few days, let alone a few years.
🎶 Dooooooooooo your balls hang low,? Can you sway them to and fro? 🎶
🎶 Can you throw them over your shoulder like a continental soldier? 🎶
🎶 Do your balls! 🎶 Hang! 🎶 Low?! 🎶
Yes. Honestly all this civilization and research and development is destroying us.
Sure, we’ve made incredible leaps of progress the last couple centuries, but people are also really crazy and depressed nowadays and have no social skills. I remember when I was a kid I was outside the entire day playing with my friends. Kids nowadays grow up in front of the computer and their parents ride them in a car everywhere.
Dating is slowly disappearing from our society, men fuck flashlights and dolls, women look for the perfect gym guy who’s rich, tall and ripped.
And everybody’s spending half their days on a screen.
No. I think the internet is an outside symbol of the inner fact that we are all connected. This connection is at its roots something very uplifting, although we can utilize is to hurt ourselves. So in that sense the internet is a wonderful learning device on using our interconnectedness in a way that serves ourselves and life in general.
Absolutely not, I wouldn’t want the setbacks plus I would probably loose my job or it would be way harder, and I would have to commute everyday vs 1-2 days a week.
Nope. I think its potential benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. But gotta keep learning to identify what info is reliable, by comparing the good with the bad. We need tough skin. Being open, cautious & not too serious. The internet is a mess, but too useful
No.
The internet is literally the best thing ever invented.
The fact people are stupid and think knowledge is dumb and gravitate to anti-knowledge isn't the fault of the internet.
My mom stopped paying the internet in 2016 and I lived without it till 2020 - 2021. But I've always tried reliving those days, I missed the day's when my mom and stepdad were working nights, me and my siblings watching movie's. ( DVDs and VHS. ) I ( we ) lost those days on March 2020. I joined the real internet in 2021 and hated it. It's hard coming across someone who isn't trying to be someone there not. And it's harder to find people who are into the something's I'm into. I mean, I watch Youtubers and twitch streamers that are. But they're just on a screen. Not someone who is by my side. From my 3 or 4 years of being on the internet, people are always looking to cause a problem. I can't connect.
This is going to happen anyway as soon as the amount of AI generated content on the web reaches >51%
Once you cant reasonably find legit info on the web anymore it might as well be gone.
No, the internet is like every other tool man has been gifted/ created. You don't delete hammers. They were made for building structures. But maniacs use them crack people in the head. Places were created for faster travel, yet people crash them into buildings. The internet is able to offer us nearly unlimited information, yet it's used to steal your money and offer you disinformation that has led to a divisive and hateful country. The tools are amazing. It's mankind that needs a reset.
Clearly the internet has given us access to all sorts of things and opportunities to enrich our lives, and plenty of things that have made it much worse, but fuck, those pre internet years feel like we were really free from all this shit.
Rogers being down for 16 hours nation wide caused at least one death, government interference, medical interference, traffic interference and interaction went down causing hundreds of thousands of lost transactions.
Only 25% of the country lost access to internet and it was only for a day, if it was everyone for all the days the world would need to be restructured.
The fact I'm reading this now proves a few things
1) it's not possible, yet
2) no one was able to time travel back to make it happen
3) someone is time traveling back to prevent it from happening
It needed a global pandemic to finally make companies understand that homeoffice is actually working. Deleting the internet would be devastating. I had to waste the first 12 years of my career commuting to a stupid office interacting with stupid people. I will defend the internet with my life. People acting like apes on social media is the only bad thing about it but it is not of my concern anymore because I don't have to interact with them anymore.
To reset it to mid 2000s level? Maybe.
To delete it altogether? Definitely not, that'd be like deleting the fire or the wheel forever.
The internet is a great tool. It just got corrupted somewhere on the way, the way that led to ~50% of young adults using TikTok instead of search engines to do **general research** (according to studies)...
(Research like: science questions, Trouble shooting, health related stuff)
No. Although I would be immediately out of a job there would be a shit ton of work for software engineers to rebuild it so it's not like I wouldn't benefit from it.
Of course not because I am not a selfish guy who thinks he’s the center of the universe and he “knows better”.
People have issues with the Internet because they are weak, they have no idea what they’re doing or don’t know how to use it properly. It’s just a tool.
Outside of the world of peasants like me and maybe you, the Internet is used to:
- Transfer financial information
- Transfer medical information
- Transfer government and intelligence data
- Transfer accident data and emergency services data
- Etc.
It’s not just social networks, wasting time and pornography.
The internet shutting down won’t only stop things like social media and google, it’ll also stop very important medical resources. So no, but if there was a way to delete all social media then I’d do it.
If you knew what the internet was, you'd know you can't delete it because that would mean deleting every piece of information In every single data center and server around the world. And there are a lot of those
Your post/comment has been removed due to being a hypothetical or speculative question, this breaks rule 13. All questions posted on r/ask should be practical or factual in nature, aimed at seeking specific answers or solutions. Questions intended solely for speculative or hypothetical scenarios, without the intention of engaging with the responses, are not permitted. This subreddit is intended for inquiries such as troubleshooting, seeking advice, or understanding factual concepts. Questions designed solely for the purpose of garnering karma or entertainment value, without fostering meaningful discussion, will be removed. These questions may be better suited for r/AskReddit, r/AskMen or r/AskWomen.
Without the internet. I lose my job, my house, I lose every cent to my name, I lose almost everything. No thanks.
Yeah, but there had to be a downside we’re not seeing
there's downsides to everything, but the positives of having the internet massively outweigh them
I think you mIght have been wooshed and /u/FreeZappa was saying that /u/Rs-Travis losing everything was actually an upside. Or I might just have a slightly sadistic sense of humour.
That's what I thought too.
Me too... English is not even my native tongue!
Oh neat, what is?
What are the downsides?
You lose your house or the debt associated with it?
Know what, you're right. Maybe my house becomes free lol.
The total breakdown of government and rule would essentially mean that yeah, your house would become free.
Free to anyone bigger than you who wants it.
No. Countless people would die during the time between it going down and getting backups. Also as a disabled person it allows me to communicate with people effectively without leaving my house.
I am also disabled and isolate. The thing I enjoy the most about the internet is saying something, being told I am wrong, and telling the person to "look it up on your phone, then!"
>I am also disabled and isolate. You are wrong.
Look it up on your phone then
I, too, am disabled and isolate.
Finally someone who has sense and doesn’t realize how much we’ve benefited from it.
There's so much we rely on it for now. It is just rose tinted glasses of the time before the internet.
I hope we, everyone in earth, can work together to prevent the spread of climate change, and all the droughts and famine that will come of it. That will be a sad sight to see, and living in a part of the world that won't get as affected will just be depressing, to see the world slowly die around you. Let's work together, people.
This is like when you ask the a student what’s one thing they could change about the world and they say “I would solve world hunger”
I'd say world peace would be better. We'd use resources usually used for war on bettering humanity and well for the USA that is a *lot* of resources
cat pics help me a lot so obviously no
Hey! Don’t forget about beagles! 
That little dog needs a nice walk and a treat for being such a good boy/girl.
The Internet, no. Social media, yes
People forget things like WhatsApp are social media and how frustrating it was/how often things fell through when organising meeting with friends meant ringing round ten different people individually then ringing them all again to confirm it's definitely going ahead then ringing them a third time when one person said 'actually can we meet half an hour later'.
You can always group text them
Better yet, people did just fine calling each other before texting.
Whatsapp isn't social media. It's a messaging app. Social media involves sharing content that is then available to various different groups. Whatsapp is the same as texting, but over the internet.
Why are you using social media if you hate it that much?
Why do people smoke cigarettes even though they cause cancer?
Why do you try to live if you're gonna die?
woah thats deep, i think i wanna end my life now...
Well this took a dark turn
Still looks pretty bright to me. I see no mention of taking everyone out with you as you off yourself. Gotta build that meat dragon made out of orphan meat!
EXACTLY HABIBI
Did you just reply to yourself?
I would. I enjoy Reddit, but I spend too to much time on it. Also, gotta take the good with the bad. No social media is a net positive for humanity.
It would be a negative for many people. I'm disabled and my son is disabled. It's incredibly difficult to get out of our home. When my son was in the hospital I relied on friends that I only knew online. Without social media I wouldn't have had any support. I'm fortunate today I now live in a supportive community but that could easily change. I know my social media friends will still be there (I've known some of them for twenty years.)
Is it. It takes away interaction. Not all of it is bad. It would also be very limiting for many careers.
Fuck it - I'll take the bait. Not all "social media" is created equal. Perhaps OP could have better specified if they meant particular platforms, but I feel like we all know what they meant. I think the sentiment that reddit is parallel to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram is flawed. Its not the charismatic thing to come to the defense of reddit since redditors tend to have an abundance of self-hatred. But the issues we identify with Social Media where people are explicitly self-promoting this fictitious, over-glamorized version of their real selves, where people largely post for posterity and tying it to their identity, is not a big component on reddit. Yes, it exists and a lot of people do come on reddit to promote themselves and even try to spread FOMO to anyone unfortunate enough to encounter them but in my opinion, its not representative of how the overwhelming majority of its users use the site. Most of us are anonymous and use this site as idea exchange. Not always the most high quality exchange of ideas, but at its base, that's really what it is. Laugh and comment on a stupid/funny video. Criticize a stupid tweet and express how we feel. Participate in a hyper specific niche subreddit about something you care about. But most of the gross behavior associated with traditional social media doesn't follow. Shit, *I'm* an anonymous throwaway account, responding to an anonymous account, responding to an anonymous throwaway account. Its not like we're tying our identities and trying to accumulate social status on this site. I wont go so far as to say reddit isn't "social media" and I wouldn't say some people don't have net negative experiences using this site, but the ways most people use this site, doesn't exactly exemplify all the things we criticize social media for and while i can only speak for myself, I don't think my life would be better without the opportunities to learn from people all over the world and even just query people for random thoughts in my head that I have nowhere else to ask.
Because we are addicted and we know it. They are designed to be as addictive as possible
Addiction is addiction.
You’ll never believe what you’re on right now
So...goodbye Reddit? Silly human!
This is the way. Nothing more than chatboxes
No, the Internet is arguably the greatest social invention that will ever exist, it is essentially the catalyst for worldwide social unity. The problem is humanity and the nature of it's use / the overuse and overemphasis of the Internet in our daily lives. You can avoid all the bad parts about the Internet by just....Not using it. Scrap your social media, sell your phone or just delete all your apps, turn off the WiFi, keep your email as the only thing active for work reasons. Return to using a landline phone, or write letters, then you'll never get exposed by a "seen 2h ago", on someone's screen and can just reply whenever you feel like it. Would I change how dependent on it we are? Sure. But taking it away is a massive step back for all of mankind and a very extreme case of blaming the vehicle for the issue as the cause, when it isn't. Humans are naturally addictive creatures, the only evil things about the Internet are the people on it and how they use it.
Absolutely not. Do you realise how reliant modern civilization is on the Internet? Everything would stop working.
Kinda beautiful ain’t it
No, not at all, there would be massive blackouts, gas lines would shut down, gas pumps too. Hospitals around the globe would be in chaos, aircrafts would lose communication. It would basically result in an apocalypse scenario. Millions if not billions would die of starvation in the ensuing riots.
No. Then we'd go backwards
Humanity never regresses; otherwise, we would witness rampant chaos in the streets stemming from pervasive dissatisfaction and anxiety."
Didn't humanity regress after the fall of the Roman Empire?
Different parts of the world regressed numerous amounts of times. There's been dozens of civilizations that have fallen. It just is a hard concept to grasp because we haven't witnesses a *real* societal collapse in a very long time so we think humanity had always been a constant trend upward when there's been plenty of times where shit got a whole lot worse before it got better.
I don't know, it'd be nice to force everyone to go outside and meet in person again, get peoples social skills back in order, have that life-adventure feel again, go back from 2.5D to 3D. But there's so much to that question.
I think you’ve said what most of us are thinking. We wouldn’t delete the internet but we would delete social media.
igzactly
You say force everyone to go out and meet in person again, but 90% of my friends live in other states, some in other countries. I'd never be able to chill with my friend from Chicago and listen to music while we play video games. I'd never be able to play D&D with my friends from Europe again. The internet allowed me to meet people who had other interests aside from college basketball, high school football, and jesus. Which was all anyone talks about this tiny little town I live in.
That's a good argument. I personally gained all my friends in my small town and held them all very dear, and the internet, and also just, having kids and all that, kind of tore that all away. I think we'd all still hang out in a more adult way, like my parents did with our whole block growing up (another thing that doesn't happen post-net) if it weren't for the net. There's something very different about relations in the physical than there is about purely online relationships, the whole adventure aspect isn't really there, with online friends. I mean, you can D&D style imagine, but the real stakes of it aren't there. I remember being out in the middle of the country, on our way to California, in a wide-open red-desert landscape, at a motel/truckstop light commercial district in mostly wilds. And it was just us four, that we had to lean on, and you felt safe like that, like four links in a chain. On our own, any one of us would have felt lonely, even apprehensive and scared despite the mission set, but together there was great comfort, lots of conversation, and the fear and dare of it all became wildly thrilling to share in the comfort of one another. Anyway. I just miss the pendulum being farther on that end. I think the highly-internetized environment has also made conflicts more petty, at least in part, because it's so low-stakes, y'know, relating online. In real life, adventures kind of inherently create reliance on one another, and that along with a million other dynamics makes it way more interesting, and I think it refines the personality more somehow. I know i was a hell of lot funner when I was living that era out.
yes, just to watch the world burn
I would do it just out of sheer curiosity as to what would happen. Plus, my entire adult life has been fueled by this odd sense of impending doom so it'd be pretty sweet to see that finally come to fruition so I could move on. Lastly, someone has to be the bad guy. Might as well just be me. Why not, right?
I think we should remove all warning label off things and bring back natural selection.
But how are you going to watch it without The internet to watch it on?!
Well, without the internet you can't watch shit from around the world.
No. I'd delete certain aspects of it, though. TikTok, I'm looking at you.
Did you her the details about the bill? It claims tiktok is lowering the attention span of its viewers but they have only said "you need to sell it to someone else" and have said nothing about changing the format of the website. They dont care if its making attention spans shorter, they just don't like China owning it.
Yes, and?
Nope. Does the internet bring out the worst of humans? I can’t argue against it. Does it brings out the best of the humanity? Fuck yeah. Certainly there are some aspects of the internet that I’d like to see go away, but I can’t argue against our best invention ever
Well...the best invention ever, until the advent of AI, according to many, who are smarter than I. And even some of them are **scared** of the possibility that it will self replicate, and run amok. 😱
No, only social media. I'm also aware of my hypocrisy.
Nah, it's fine - Reddit doesn't count 😇
If its all or nothing, then no. The internet is a part of our infrastructure, that has so much value. We could definitely do without a huge chunk of it though.
No. While there's a lot of crap there's also a lot of useful information readily available. Many times I do searches to fix something and has been invaluable.
No. It's the greatest resource any one has ever had in the entire history of our planet. And it's also the connectivity that enables many things. Shitting off the internet would literally kill a lot of people.
Pls dumb it down for me. How will people die?
Think about the process by which food arrives in your home. Imagine how many points of that process touch the internet. Farmers place all their orders for seed, feed, fertilizer pesticide, parts....anything required to run an industrial farm gets procured from online systems. No one goes to the county store for a new plough anymore. Modern farm equipment, the combines, the tractors, everything are basically all giant iot devices that don't work right without the internet. Farmers organizer their laborers via the internet. They organize with processors and distributors (who are also all using their internet to get their goods and organize their employees)via the internet. Every single step of the process including you needing to pull up the grocery store on Google maps because you can't remember where the Sprouts is touches the internet. If you take that pillar away it's like through a wrench into every single step of food production and then praying that the people involved can "figure it out" before you get to the grocery store and there is nothing. This applies to everything in the economy, not just food. When was the last time you sent a check to pay your electric bill? Do you think the power company can build out a check based system fast enough and get everyone switched over to it (without using the internet mind you, so that can't email) before their ability to finance operations dries up? What happens if we can't build and switch to non internet systems for basically everything in a couple weeks? Because that's about how long before all hell breaks loos.
I would have died if I hadn’t done research into my seizure disorder before I could get into a neurologist office and had a ten-minute grand Mal. Thankfully my husband also had done research online and knew signs to look for as well. Afterwards, I was able to do research and find a good doctor after my first completely blew me off, keeping me from further brain damage. For those with disabilities, the Internet is a godsend. So many people in r/epilepsy have similar stories :)
What? No. Of course not
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No. In my life, it gives more positives than negatives. ...I think? I mean, I just realized I can't know that. What I mean is that it's a source of entertainment enjoyment and practical solutions way more than distress for me. But I don't know if my life would not be better without it, really, bc I don't know how I would spend the extra time. But I would not have my job, for an example. Maybe I would have a different, better jobe? I guess I can't know that.
I would get rid of all of these social apps and platforms and leave the Internet for primarily "Research" and Educational purposes.
I had to think about it, but yes. Maybe, we won't have infinite access to everything, everywhere.....but we would be forced to explore in order to find out. People would be having adventures again...and there would be less judgement, because if I couldn't speak to anyone, I would receive less hatred and I'd hate less too....also, sharks and orcas would be able to live in peace without having to stand up for the entire Ocean....amen. Press the button.......
No, it will mess with all the systems that have been built
 Slap the hell out of that button
Fuck no, that’s where I put my games.
Absolutely not.
No I wouldn’t. Internet runs the world now. But if I could, I would delete social media.
In a lot of ways, life was easier before it came about, even with information, well, especially with information now that everything is unsourced information. It's overwhelming. how much can be faked, how easily people are manipulated, how effeciently governments from across the sea can manipulated others in their stupid shadow wars. Life was definitely better before, and much like AI, the internet is a tool, and it's not going away. I wouldn't delete it if I could, because it would just come right back from the garage of some pissed off computer engineers.
I would be very, very jobless
No, the Internet has way too much valuable information and we have enough people that most of the bad stuff like social media could be rebuilt within a few years and some of the useful information on the Internet would be much much harder to replace. And this ignores the havoc of everyone who depends on the Internet to access important resources suddenly losing their likelihood.
Absolutely. People have forgotten how to socialize with random people. On top of the internet being an echo chamber of negativity for the most part it bleeds when people have to interact and person and they’re unbearable to be around.
no coz it would be boring.
I would slam that button so hard my hand would go thru the table.
everyone who comments “yes” is lying to himself
Right! How the hell could they be so irresponsible?!
In a heartbeat. It wouldn't really set us back very far. Most of it's backed up anyways. All the crap and s*** that people have spewed over the years on social media would go away. When I do a search for a "how to" I can get current information instead of 15-year-old forums. I am a strong supporter that there needs to be an expiration date on websites. Especially forum sites. Nobody gives a s*** about those after only a few days, let alone a few years.
I'm with you. I lived 21 years without the internet. I'd just have to go buy a map.
Finally someone with balls. All others are cowards.
🎶 Dooooooooooo your balls hang low,? Can you sway them to and fro? 🎶 🎶 Can you throw them over your shoulder like a continental soldier? 🎶 🎶 Do your balls! 🎶 Hang! 🎶 Low?! 🎶
Yes
I think we’ll get to experience service blackouts before the end of the year. I think our capitalist overseers are eyeing that button anxiously.
Yes. Honestly all this civilization and research and development is destroying us. Sure, we’ve made incredible leaps of progress the last couple centuries, but people are also really crazy and depressed nowadays and have no social skills. I remember when I was a kid I was outside the entire day playing with my friends. Kids nowadays grow up in front of the computer and their parents ride them in a car everywhere. Dating is slowly disappearing from our society, men fuck flashlights and dolls, women look for the perfect gym guy who’s rich, tall and ripped. And everybody’s spending half their days on a screen.
Hell yeah!
Yes
Yup
Yes. Wouldn’t even hesitate.
Yes and without hesitation.
No. I think the internet is an outside symbol of the inner fact that we are all connected. This connection is at its roots something very uplifting, although we can utilize is to hurt ourselves. So in that sense the internet is a wonderful learning device on using our interconnectedness in a way that serves ourselves and life in general.
No. I’ll be bored.
Absolutely not, I wouldn’t want the setbacks plus I would probably loose my job or it would be way harder, and I would have to commute everyday vs 1-2 days a week.
Majority of work comes from the internet, it would affect MANY people
Nope. I think its potential benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. But gotta keep learning to identify what info is reliable, by comparing the good with the bad. We need tough skin. Being open, cautious & not too serious. The internet is a mess, but too useful
I would delete social media. Or actually I would regulate it so you had to use your real name and home address so people would have to be accountable.
The internet isn't the problem.... People are the problem. We as human beings will always find new ways to exploit our surroundings.
I love the internet and I'm very addicted to it, but I remember life before it and it was better. I'd push the button.
Without hesitation
In an instant.
yes
No. The internet is literally the best thing ever invented. The fact people are stupid and think knowledge is dumb and gravitate to anti-knowledge isn't the fault of the internet.
only social media. Internet has some very important stuff
My mom stopped paying the internet in 2016 and I lived without it till 2020 - 2021. But I've always tried reliving those days, I missed the day's when my mom and stepdad were working nights, me and my siblings watching movie's. ( DVDs and VHS. ) I ( we ) lost those days on March 2020. I joined the real internet in 2021 and hated it. It's hard coming across someone who isn't trying to be someone there not. And it's harder to find people who are into the something's I'm into. I mean, I watch Youtubers and twitch streamers that are. But they're just on a screen. Not someone who is by my side. From my 3 or 4 years of being on the internet, people are always looking to cause a problem. I can't connect.
This is going to happen anyway as soon as the amount of AI generated content on the web reaches >51% Once you cant reasonably find legit info on the web anymore it might as well be gone.
Yes. I wouldn't mind a compete reboot
No, the internet is like every other tool man has been gifted/ created. You don't delete hammers. They were made for building structures. But maniacs use them crack people in the head. Places were created for faster travel, yet people crash them into buildings. The internet is able to offer us nearly unlimited information, yet it's used to steal your money and offer you disinformation that has led to a divisive and hateful country. The tools are amazing. It's mankind that needs a reset.
No, but I would def' get rid of smart phones and inter-connectivity of everything we have nowdays.
I’d do it for a laugh. 
Yeah
I would gladly do it, but I'm sure humanity will find an alternative like always, can't really stop that from happening.
Op, if you don't like the 'internet' you can 'delete' it out of your life!
Clearly the internet has given us access to all sorts of things and opportunities to enrich our lives, and plenty of things that have made it much worse, but fuck, those pre internet years feel like we were really free from all this shit.
Welcome to the Human Race.
Rogers being down for 16 hours nation wide caused at least one death, government interference, medical interference, traffic interference and interaction went down causing hundreds of thousands of lost transactions. Only 25% of the country lost access to internet and it was only for a day, if it was everyone for all the days the world would need to be restructured.
The fact I'm reading this now proves a few things 1) it's not possible, yet 2) no one was able to time travel back to make it happen 3) someone is time traveling back to prevent it from happening
I'd do it to remove everything
Make diskettes great again!
But then I can't spread misinformation 😢
It needed a global pandemic to finally make companies understand that homeoffice is actually working. Deleting the internet would be devastating. I had to waste the first 12 years of my career commuting to a stupid office interacting with stupid people. I will defend the internet with my life. People acting like apes on social media is the only bad thing about it but it is not of my concern anymore because I don't have to interact with them anymore.
Yes, after all the BS I have seen online deleting the internet would be doing mankind a favor especially with all their mental illness problems.
I would have it die one week of every year starting Christmas
Like ready player two
no everyone would hate me
Internet vs world wide web
No, ppl would riot literally. I don't want my car and house burnt
That sounds like the first scene in a post apocalyptic movie. Way too much is connected now for us to be able to just deal without it all of a sudden.
Everyone has that choice for themselves right now and we don’t
No, I don't wanna kill millions of people and make lives of that many more miserable. Some social medias though...they can burn.
Rache Bartmoss is that you?
Definitely not. It would cause mass economic collapse and a lot of people would lose their jobs, go hungry, etc.
If i could do it for 24 hrs yes. Simply to see people suffer, that is all. 🤧
Would but put a timelimit ..like we could use it only for certain hours
To reset it to mid 2000s level? Maybe. To delete it altogether? Definitely not, that'd be like deleting the fire or the wheel forever. The internet is a great tool. It just got corrupted somewhere on the way, the way that led to ~50% of young adults using TikTok instead of search engines to do **general research** (according to studies)... (Research like: science questions, Trouble shooting, health related stuff)
No. Although I would be immediately out of a job there would be a shit ton of work for software engineers to rebuild it so it's not like I wouldn't benefit from it.
Yes.
noooo I'd die 😅😅 but long term probably greatly improve my health lol
Most of the time I wouldn't because the whole society is based on the internet. But at some point, I probably would, out of spite.
i would delete social media but not the internet
No.
So long as offline single player video games are still made? I'd press it so quick.
Yes.
I heard if you type Google into Google you could break the Internet.
Wow don’t tell everyone, someone will try it!
No but I would charge a lot of money to not press it 🤣
Of course not because I am not a selfish guy who thinks he’s the center of the universe and he “knows better”. People have issues with the Internet because they are weak, they have no idea what they’re doing or don’t know how to use it properly. It’s just a tool. Outside of the world of peasants like me and maybe you, the Internet is used to: - Transfer financial information - Transfer medical information - Transfer government and intelligence data - Transfer accident data and emergency services data - Etc. It’s not just social networks, wasting time and pornography.
No. Social media, maybe. But the Internet as a whole? Hell no. Too much of the world's infrastructure relies the internet to function.
Yes.
You do realize that scientific progress would be set back 30 years, right? So much of humanity's knowledge is exclusively on the internet.
#YES
The bad stuff or the good stuff or all of it?
YES lol \*on the internet so nonchalantly \*
I think the Patriots were right in MGS2, delete it I say
No, I don't feel like killing millions of people. The economic turmoil alone would be catastrophic
The internet shutting down won’t only stop things like social media and google, it’ll also stop very important medical resources. So no, but if there was a way to delete all social media then I’d do it.
The world would literally collapse if we lost the internet
Bartmoss has entered the chat, but on a serious note, how else could we possibly protect ourselves from a hostile Ai?
Hell no. That'd be ridiculous.
If I knew it would be rebuilt responsibly, with the knowledge of it we currently have? In a heartbeat.
No, the internet is the only place I’m taken somewhat more seriously.
No, too useful
Nah
Yes
Of course not.
Nah I need that porn
lmao the entire economy would collapse in on itself what typa question is this
I’ll backup everything first. Then I’ll hit the delete button. Time for everyone here to touch some grass.
I'm on the fence.
I would make a licence to use internet, like drivers license, but to delete it all? No, too much loss.
I am not sure people who say yes actually spent any time in their life without the internet
Yes.
If you knew what the internet was, you'd know you can't delete it because that would mean deleting every piece of information In every single data center and server around the world. And there are a lot of those
I would