If I shut off the internet how many days do you think it would take before people lose their minds?
Also tell me how bad on a societial level it would effect the country you're in. This is a hypothetical as I clearly am not able to shut down all of the internet again
How bad would affect society, it would be pretty much catastrophic. I live in the United States pretty much. Everything is computerized at this point. No Internet access good luck in getting your medical files, good luck on buying something at a store. Stores would not be able to order anything so the shelves would be empty. Traffic lights are all computerized so there would be traffic jams from hell. Now the traffic lights might continue running for a while in certain areas as long as they are not networked, But I have heard rumor that some of them might be networked And if they are, I have no idea if they could run independently.
There’s so many things in this country that require an Internet connection to actually even operate. It’s quite scary.
Most people would lose their minds because society would really cease to function within about a day.
For example, grocery stores would shut down for the day, maybe two Possibly three, until the grocery store owners realized this wasn’t going to be a short term item. At which point they would have the managers of the store escort people in figure out what items they need and then have to hand. Write up receipts to get things sold. They would have to calculate the tax by hand. Many grocery store managers would have a hard time on even figure out how to do this. Within a couple of days, the grocery store shelves would be up empty. Because there would be no real way to re-order food., Grocery store owners would be forced to close the stores. At which point food riots would begin. Because people would be convinced there was food in the grocery store yet the stores are closed and the Kids at home would be crying for food, people would lose their minds.
I’m thinking a week maybe two tops before society completely breaks down
Important point: it's not so much about people going crazy (presumably because they have nothing to do?) but about infrastructure and services collapsing pretty much immediately.
It would be (almost) like switching off electricity itself.
Fully agree
From a business/productivity side it would be cataclysmic.
For the private life of people quite the opposite, things would get a lot more sane.
Yeah I agree with this. But you can't separate the internet like this. OP didn't think their Q through.
With out the internet all of my irl friends who I have had for 20 years would become unreachable as we have spread out across the globe and would likely drive me to suicide rather quickly.
There have been several high-profile systemic failures in the past few years that give us a glimpse into the hypothetical you're describing. Most interruptions have lasted mere hours, if not minutes, before causing mass panic and devastating economic catastrophes. Planes are grounded, banks stop operations, global trade shuts down, and hospitals can't access patient records.
The question isn't how long before it would be a huge problem. That starts immediately. The better question is, how long before people adapt to a world without the internet? How long would it take to build an alternative?
How long would it take to build an alternative? They wont. If they would that would have not after I hit the switch but before it ever goes down
At this point the “Internet’ is the same as any other utility. So society would collapse in about three days.
Not sure if this is close enough to on-topic for you but during the London blitz people who were previously depressed got a little less depressed.
When things are going crazy you don’t have as much time to mope about. You have to survive.
So depending on what you mean by “go crazy”. A lot of us might band together in the aftermath more than before.
I think the world would become more sane if the internet stopped working.
Yes but only after the insanity
Give or take a few hundred years.
3 minutes
The sarcism will hit harder after 3 days and you realize it's not coming back on anytime soon
Not even sarcasm my dept loses their mind when the internet goes down for 5 minutes due to network issues. Minor downturn of 5 minutes means 10 minutes of productivity to catch up. 3 days would means a full week to catch up. The cogs cannot stop.
I'll just leave this here.
There is great sci-fi book about shutting down all electronic and how society collapses from perspective of the prepper guy.
Not sure if there is English translation because it's Swedish author.
Stjärnklart
Author: Lars Wilderäng
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22937310-stj-rnklart
We should shut down every social media web site as a test. For 10 years.
You all have 5 years to try and survive 10 is overkill. Any other suggestions
2... maybe 3 hours.
I wonder how many people would die before pharmacists and doctors adjust.
I think South Park nailed it
We'll just have to go out Californey-way to find some internet
I don't really care that much about Lemmy or any communications, I just want entertainment. I'm just too reliant on the internet for entertainment. I have zero cd/dvds, not even sure if the DVD player works anymore. TV is 15 years old, those old TVs hurts your eyes (Its an LED tv but still...) when you look at it for too long, remote is already broken, the buttons on the tv itself are unresponsive half the time.
I mean, tbf, I don't think anyone even has those anymore, everything is just online subscriptions and you don't own anything.
People would bored so quick, DVD sales and DVD players (and I guess BluRays players and Bluray disks?) sales would boom. Like skyrocket and stores get emptied. That's assuming we even survive past the initial hours.
Powergrids would go down, military communications will have issues. Potentially China could invade Taiwan amist the confusion.
Economic crash. Protests and riots.
Humanity could end with M.A.D. within a week.
I'm fascinated by this
It would be bad.
Man, probably not good when someone that's been advocating for complete systemic segregation of the mentally ill and who thinks people dont "deserve" a chance at happiness starts fantasizing about having the power to shut down the internet.
What the fuck?
I've seen a few of OP's posts and they're really strange but what you linked is just eugenics. Get fucked, op.
Yeah they're a real piece of work.
It's not eugenics, but it's definitely eugenics adjacent.
Conveniently removed
What was?
Big difference; the internet would be shut down for them too.
Wait, whats being compared that's different?
Leader of my hater fan club. You're so devoted go find a hobby
Seems like as good a hobby as any. We should have more un-fan clubs.
What the actual fuck is wrong with you, how are you that mentally fucked up and deranged. You can't just advocate for that shit and still even think your human?
The fuck
Oh that's it, that's the good stuff I crave.
I think you should be