I'd rather be stupid as all hell than be a genius who is granted his every wish at the click of a button. Think that scene in Westworld where that man in the Roman world is being fed graqes.

Aside from that, gathering knowledge from actual experience rather than through a book or internet page is incredibly satisfying.

I value information as one of the highest things to be sought after in a human's life. (Personal happiness and a few others being higher) To willingly remain ignorant and have complacency in where one is in lifedoes not sit well with me as a concept. People should strive to always improve themselves, to become as advanced a being as they can. Transhumanism is not my ideal outcome, as I'd like the human form and emotions preserved, but I am all for modifications that would allow us to become more intelligent and overall a "better" person. Smarter, faster, stronger, etc.

On the subject of learning, I completely agree as I'm a tactile learner myself, but some things don't make a whole lot of sense to learn by experience, especially if that knowledge was the sum of centuries of collective work in that subject. It wouldn't be feasible for someone to learn chemistry completely by experience with little to no information being presented to them. There is a countless amount of data collected by scientists all over the globe in the last century that makes it feasible for someone to learn and advance human knowledge without having to rediscover electrons and bonds and the like by themselves.

You mean I would have to find something productive to do?

Well, I'm a primitivist. I'd prefer we advance to a certain point (in my opinion we are beyond that point), then explode ourselves and start over. Knowledge is great, but I am just not comfortable with the idea of constant progress. I don't want to be all knowing or even close to that, I just want to learn.

I'm 77 this year. In my time I've seen things come and go. Most of the things that went were obsessions that seemed never ending. They all did end however and the so will all the fads that are popular today. I recall our neighbour got a TV. The whole town came out to watch it. Every kid in the country seemed to be waiting outside the chaps home on Saturday mornings (which was the only time TV catered to kids, all one channel of it, for only an hour). Then it was another thing, then another. I don't see The Internet going away anytime soon, nor would I want it, but there was a time were it was Fidonet and BBS's, then came usenet, then this surfing thing, then we had IRC, then it was... Well you get the picture I'm sure.

How many of you wake up in the morning all excited about your electricity supplies and indoor plumbing (especialy your toilet)? I know there are people on these forums to whom this is still a novelty, but to the rest of you, your grandkids will think nomore of the net than you do electricity and toilets.

I wake up eager to use it.

It's a pretty sweet toilet, though. Only sometimes the chain attached to the handle and pump comes undone and you can't flush it until you fix it.

There would be upsides. For example, people might eventually get over the 'u' and 'r' in place of 'you' and 'are'. I've heard of people using those outside of the internet, sometimes on important papers (resumes). People might act a little less stupid. I know that I will probably be better at people and not so awkward in discussions. People might not thrive on others' anger as much anymore.

There will also be some downsides. Some information and hints will not be as widely available and people will be unemployed. You could spend money on a crappy movie/book/game because you couldn't have read the reviews of the unbiased, not paid people.

In all, I think it would be more benificial to remove people off of the internet rather than the internet. Imagine it - no chan*4, no youtube comments, no idiots on facebook/myspace, no spam ads.

Without the internet, our recovering economy would most likely fall into a depression. At the very least, on a personal scale, my mother's job would become impossible, severely screwing things up for me. Sure, there are bad things about the internet (e.g. information theft) and distasteful things (i.e. posts about bowel movements), but they're hugely outweighed by the positive.

Those people keep things interesting and help prevent the internet from stagnating into boredom. Besides, you don't want those people to lose their outlet to vent into. I don't think you'd want otherwise normal people in the real world to start picking up habits and values from their virtual selves.

Let's just say that anyone foolish enough to gets between me and mah mornin' headcall with my paper, my coffee and the good grace to make whatever noises I damn well please is tauntin' death on a multitude of levels and with a depth and richness of severity not often bestowed upon mere mortals.

Ah [censored] you not.

I lived without the internet until I was nearly 19 (because very few people outside of research labs and universities had access to it at the time). Even after that it was years before it resembled anything close to what it is today. I survived.

I'm guessing it would be harder for some of the younger folks that don't have a lot of internet-less memories. I'm actually glad that all this social media madness didn't exist when I was a teenager, to be honest. People were ridiculous enough at that age without awesome digital tools to help them spread their ridiculousness.

Basta Covek put it very well in his earlier post. While I agree that technology can certainly bring out a bad side in people, I don't see how this is different from anything else. Children will always beg their parents for things. Whether it's a toy, candy, or to play Angry Birds on mom's iPhone. As for Wikipedia, Facebook and whatnot, some people would call it laziness and an over-reliance on technology and the Internet for things that should be harder to do.

This is my problem with this argument. Why shouldn't we make things easier on ourselves? If we can use a calculator, what's the point of learning advanced algebra to do equations we may or may not even need to use in our lives? Why should we spend hours pouring over tomes when a quick search would give us quicker (and arguably better, due to constant updates), answer? We're better connected now through social networks and forums then we've ever been in history. Some people would call these "fake" relationships, but I disagree. Being able to talk to someone across the world with the click of a button is incredible. I see no reason to go back on this, no matter how many kids become "spoiled" because of it. Maybe I'm taking this a bit far, but I'm a strong believer in making ourselves better through technology - even to the point of transhumanism. This is what people have been trying to achieve since the beginning, and now that we're finally getting there people are becoming nostalgic. But to what end?

We're moving forward, as always, and as life becomes easier and more streamlined new problems arise. They always will. But in my opinion, the strides we're making and the positive changes to all of our lives vastly outweigh the negatives.

EDIT: I apologize for the choppy paragraph. I'm just trying to convey what I'm trying to say without writing an essay.

No internet?
It would be a horrible world.
Imagine having to talk to people face to face?
Imagine the horrors of real relationships instead of online ones?
Or pay full price for music and movies?
Or have telephones where you could only talk?

Oh I shudder to think of it!

And yet evey advlt, on evey continent that I've ever spoken to, from bush rebels in west Africa, Indian swamis, Afghan tribals.. it's all the same.

It *feels* -probably through such television as 'The Hills' and 'Jersey Shore', as if we're raising the dumbest generation in the history of, well, history.


...and I say that raising a son by myself, as well as enjoying the virtual company of -most- of you lot.


Some of you are just dikes though.

Thankyou for letting me know that life experience is satisfying. When was the last time you were on Jupiter, by the way? Never been, myself. Oh, and how was Napolean? It's a shame I never had a chance to meet him.
Yeah, I clicked a button the other day and it literally shot out a billion dollars from my floppy drive.

In case my sarcasm isn't getting through, both of your points seem pretty ridiculous. On the one hand, you're (apparently) assuming us users of the internet do not know of this 'life experience' you talk about. True for few, maybe you'd rather address them personally than give us all that impression? On the other hand, I'm not sure if you are a genius who is granted his every wish at the click of a button, or you are saying we in general are, but in the case of the former, please click the button where you don't make idiotic blanket statements.

It appears to me far too many people think that because we don't really talk about life here, other than negative things, that we are in our basemants, surfing the web for porm, and asking our moms' to make us sanwiches. I'd just like to let you all know: I don't have a freaking basemant.

And your parents said that about your generation, and their parents about their generation...


EDIT: Capital, you don't have a basemant? Where do you keep all of your useless childhood toys? Your old furniture! Illegal materials!?

I'd be out of a job, or at least seriously hampered at being able to do it. I wouldn't be able to telecommute and fix stuff during night-hours when the office is closed. FOSS would be hard-pressed to survive without the Internet making sharing and collaboration simple. Information becomes silos (which just ask and DBA and they'll tell you how bad silos of information is) and information will become very expensive. My career path would be at jeopordized (To get rid of the Internet you'd have to destroy the networking stack, destroy the networking stack and computers go back to square one and become overglorified type writers and number crunchers)

Thankfully the Internet can't die, or at least stay dead. As mentioned, it's just a scaled up version of an Intranet, all the networking protocols are well documented, and everything needed to become an ISP is readily available to all (just the costs are high and regional/national ISPs keep them high to keep local ISPs from becoming a threat).


If anything, I'd say the Internet allows for decreasing identity theft. Due to the Internet you can get your annual credit report in mere minutes, which has a detailed log of your credit history through which you can find out if your identity was stolen. Online banking allows you to be notified of fraudulent charges nearly instantly.

The fact that people don't use these services to protect themselves is their own fault. Just like the fact that they fall for phishing scams (guess what: phishing scams are nothing new. Those stupid enough to fall for them online are stupid enough to fall for them in-person. In-person phishing scams are much more dangerous due to how much information can be obtained through face-to-face social engineering)

dikes? dikes? My good sir, there is a large difference between a dike and an ass; and I believe that it needs to be pointed out right here and right now.

Now, a dike is a person that slings hate around indiscriminately, they care not who their victims are, or indeed the long-term effects of what they do, they only care that they have upset someone.

The 'ass' on the other hand, is more concerned with the professional, able to dish out stinging comments and baffling replies that will leave their victims reeling on the floor in both pain and agony for days on end. Their skill is much compared to that of a surgeon, hitting right where they need too and then getting out quickly.

Ive actually lived without the internet, i skipped the 56k years, never owned a computer, only used the internet basically from the real end of the 1990's, ive had internet at home since 2004, i only have it now because i can commmunicate through e-mail to freinds at long distances without, outrageous long distance phone bills,and you cant play most games now without the internet.

But some of what you said at the start isnt the internet itself, those are web pages, yes they make up what is part of the internet, but there is trash everywhere, there was before the internet, magazines, newspapers, television shows, movies, fashion, if its a trend, its fashionable its been made popular then the moronic mindless sheep will follow, no matter whether the internet exists or not, i use facebook and only have 4 freinds on it even though i can still PM other freinds because i dont need to display that 5 million people who i dont even know or met are my facebook freinds.

If i want to use youtube then its for something specific not for dancing cats, or people that just because you have a camera on your mobile doesnt mean you need to record every tedious thing that happen that you think thats funny and post it on youtube and if i want to see morons doing stupid things i can wake up in the morning and see the neighbours, thats in 3d.

As for losing your credit card number, one i wouldnt do internet banking, i used to teach internet security, it was one of the first things i said, the day something goes wrong the only one you have to blame is yourself, if your going to buy off the internet have a card with a limit that you only use for the internet that you think is an acceptable loss, so you dont get a message from your bank saying all your cash has gone or you owe them money you dont.

Identity theft well for starters dont have your facebook page under your name, limit anything you do on the internet that would leave records, ive done internet searches for myself on many search engines and i have no footprint, only what i write in forums or send as e-mails, my e-mail accounts arent under my name.

Alot of bad press about the internet is because stupid people do stupid things, and thats not unusual outside the internet, its also done amazing things, the other day a person was saved while having a heart attack online because there was nobody else present at the persons house and the person on the other end called emergency services, and thats not an isolated story, a person in Queensland saved a person in the US called 911 in the US and got them an ambulance, i have personally stopped 2 people from commiting suicide, traced there ip addresses, found their internet provider, and got them to contact 911 which they did.

The only one that will always be in my memory, was an IRC channel i was a channel admin on many years ago, what i didnt know was one of the people who visited the channel was chatting to a guy, needless to say, she disappeared, they found her body months later in a drain, i spent months going through records and doing traces, nothing helped in the end, they never caught the guy, could have though if the server admins had cooperated, but that wasnt unusual.

But scams, fraud, piracy, identity theft, whatever crime were there before the internet, and whatevers next it'll be the same.

Does hearing 24/7 about the rubbish on youtube, facebook, and myspace before that, google over yahoo, yes in the scheme of thing its so unimportant.

I don't think it'd be such a terrible thing. Yes it'd be difficult adjusting but I once went without the Internet and I could live without it. If there was one thing I'd really, really miss, it would be the easy access to video game help and cheat codes.

DVD porm would become a gargantuan industry.

This. I'd fund it myself.

In your basemant.

When I first got online in 98 I was excited and amazed by what you could do on the interent. Thing is my life was just fine before I got on the web. The only thing this really does to me (going without) is getting my fantasy baseball information/stats a day or two late.

The first positive thing I can think of going without would be going back to LAN parties. I have missed hanging out with friends and geeking together.

Oh dear God.

I can't count how many times those hammy lines from Age of Kings got spammed at LAN parties.