# What if the internet died?



## alternicity (Jan 28, 2008)

Very hypothetical, I know but..

What if the internet died? Or became unusable?

Would that be good for sf book writers?

cheers


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## Overread (Jan 28, 2008)

hmm - is the right section for this kind of talk??
probably
anyway things might go something like this:

1) at the fist signs of instability there is the mass chrons address and phone number exchange - no internet means no talking!!

2) mass chutnering party in the sal - for one last try

3) internet dies

4) writers go about thier ways and (probably) write that little bit faster 

5) writers send longer - more complete - works to reviewers who they have remained in contact with from the chrons - longer because now it has to be posted back and forth = and that takes time

6) getting info for research now requires access to a library - which will have slowed down in service as it will no longer have access to the national databases - ordering in books becomes more common and authors end up buying more refrence books when they can

7) publishing does not change too much - though correspondence takes longer

8) self advertising is now harder -as is getting basic info to people -- no amazon booklists - no online reviewers

9) the corner bookshop takes hold again - no amazon to compete with

10) things return to a similar state to what they were before the internet existed 0 though with the after effects of people haveing increased contacts from the internet days


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## j d worthington (Jan 28, 2008)

This is going to sound strange coming from someone who is a reforming technophobe, but... no, it wouldn't be better. It would be disastrous. It wouldn't stop them from writing, but a lot of research tools would no longer be available, or would take much, much longer to track down; there wouldn't be the support networking that can keep ideas in ferment (critiques, suggestions for story ideas or ways to take an already developing tale, just good, old-fashioned moral support for those times when energy flags, etc.); and it would take much longer for manuscripts to reach their destination, be proofed, get their corrections made, etc., etc., etc.... all the steps toward going from a first draft to finished product would take much longer and be much more frustrating. (There might be some rise in quality here and there, true. But overall, I'd say that the majority would simply go on writing as they always have, without using that extra time for more thought in their writing.)

And as for sf book writers -- it would be especially detrimental, as keeping up with the latest scientific information is often what inspires or helps direct them in their writing....


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## Pyan (Jan 29, 2008)

j. d. worthington said:


> It would be disastrous.


Agreed.
One small example - just how long would it have taken, and how much would it have cost, to duplicate by post just one average thread in this forum?


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## Erin99 (Jan 29, 2008)

> Would that be good for sf book writers?



Why specifically sf writers? I think it would be bad for _all_ writers. As said, though, there are obvious benefits (yes, this place stops me writing as much as I used to - but look at all the friends I've made!). Plus, the harder it is to research and write your book, the less competition you will have when trying to get published.


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## alternicity (Jan 29, 2008)

It would certainly do my head in. 

pyan - I couldn't do the math, but I suppose communication would rest on magazines, newsletters, post, and lists. Slow!

I read somewhere, I think the guardian, some writer opining that recession is good for novelists, but I've no way of knowing if they were being serious.

Leisha - and no World of Warcraft, or p2p.


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## Culhwch (Jan 29, 2008)

When I read the first post, I figured he meant from a story standpoint. As in, would the internet dying be a good jumping off point for an SF story? Though I've been mistaken before...


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## alternicity (Jan 29, 2008)

Thats just as valid though. I have a section in my WIP where a local network goes down for a while.


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## Erin99 (Jan 29, 2008)

> Leisha - and no World of Warcraft, or p2p.



Some would definitely say that's a good thing. 


A local network going down wouldn't be as destructive, at least. Networks can be repaired and hubs can be mended. 


Good luck with the WIP.


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## alternicity (Jan 29, 2008)

hubs can be mended. 
Leisha

Wish I had the knack of that. (OR Netgear Sx major ass)

Good luck with the WIP.

Thanks


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## j d worthington (Jan 29, 2008)

Culhwch said:


> When I read the first post, I figured he meant from a story standpoint. As in, would the internet dying be a good jumping off point for an SF story? Though I've been mistaken before...


 
Wasn't sure about this one, so thought I'd reply as in a real-world scenario. Either way, it may lead to some ideas....


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## Imitar (Jan 30, 2008)

I suppose it would be terrible if the internet died, not just for writers, but for everyone. All the contacts would be lost, we have learned much as people through experiencing what the other side of the world goes through, nowadays, with the simple click of a mouse, one can talk to someone accross the globe, and now with the advent of webcams, we can talk face to face! Alot of writers most definetly get some inspiration from the daily strife of others, and without the net, will have to rely on the tv. In a little way, I can bet some writers would be able to produce more work, but with slower production output, and it would almost certainly hamper sales as some just purchase books online.


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## Interference (Apr 17, 2008)

But spelling might improve as more people will have to start looking at proper books again.


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## The Ace (Apr 17, 2008)

Thank you Interference, I'm glad somebody made that point.  I'm sick to death of websites where spelling is an optional extra.

  Maybe internet access should be limited to those who can pass basic spelling tests.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Apr 17, 2008)

j. d. worthington said:


> There wouldn't be the support networking that can keep ideas in ferment (critiques, suggestions for story ideas or ways to take an already developing tale, just good, old-fashioned moral support for those times when energy flags, etc.)



This is why we joined writers groups, and it worked very well.  Better than online critiques by passing strangers, if the group was sufficiently committed and had a good mix of writers at different levels of experience.  (Also, you could submit a whole story or a substantial portion of your novel to the group, and a few weeks later get thoughtful and thorough critiques, rather than stringing it out in tiny bits to be judged out of context.) 




> And it would take much longer for manuscripts to reach their destination, be proofed, get their corrections made, etc., etc., etc.... all the steps toward going from a first draft to finished product would take much longer and be much more frustrating.



Actually, it was only a very few years ago that many large publishers stopped doing it that way.  I don't see books being produced that much quicker now -- the biggest delay is how many different hands something has to pass through, and of course some of those different hands are already involved in something else.  As for the frustration level, anyone who means to work in publishing had better learn to live with frustration.

I agree that the demise of the internet would be a very bad thing in other ways, but not signficantly so for writers.

(And we might spend more of our time on actually writing instead of these chats at gawd-awful hours of the night and early morning.)


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## Interference (Apr 17, 2008)

The Ace said:


> .... where spelling is an optional extra.



rotfl

I have nothing to add to that!


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## Teresa Edgerton (Apr 17, 2008)

I've thought of two reasons why the death of the internet would be good for writers:  

1) Aspiring writers wouldn't have such easy access to so much misleading and discouraging misinformation about the writing and publishing process.

2) A thousand internet publishing scams would die.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Apr 18, 2008)

I can't help thinking that its due for a massive seizure probably not too long away. I have certainy suffered the dreaded slow response time during popular events. Sometimes it's like the good old days when the US woke up and every 9K6 modem in the UK froze.

Perhaps the question should be -

When the internet dies what will happen - I have a fine collection of basildon bond writing sets stowed away in the attic, just next to my newly aquired pigeon loft. 

Think, in a couple of years a Billion chinese will have 'discovered' the true potential of the www and then you can kiss goodbye to instant messaging.

So, I ask you, in the short time we all have left, will it be us or the internet that expires first.

My advice enjoy it while you can.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Apr 18, 2008)

I like being able to email people ... and of course it's very important to me to be able to spend time on forums like this one.  That would be a terrible loss, if I couldn't do that.  Otherwise, I could live without the internet.  There is little else I use it for on a regular basis.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Apr 18, 2008)

Thread moved to SFF Lounge.


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## Who's Wee Dug (Apr 18, 2008)

We would in effect be screwed.


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## Neal Asher (Apr 19, 2008)

Damn but I'd be able to get some work done. Only problem, I'd have to find addresses rather than emails and post the stuff ... would it arrive?  Maybe.


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## alternicity (Apr 25, 2010)

I animate stuff with my kids, and when we are between ISPs, or are having our bandwidth throttled we get more modelling and animation done by a long way.


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## Rodders (Apr 25, 2010)

Mobile phones would probably be used as phones only. No bad thing IMO. Digital cameras probably wouldn't be such a big hit either.


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## The_African (Jun 25, 2010)

I always wonder what life would/possibly will be like if we ran out of fossil fuels and had to return to a pre-indiustrial way of life.


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## Esioul (Jul 26, 2010)

If the internet died I would get more work done. But I might also go mad.


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## Interference (Jul 26, 2010)

I'd go back to having a friend called Horace that no one else can see (as opposed to dozens of friends with even crazier names that no one else can see ).


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## Esioul (Jul 26, 2010)

I'd probably make friends with Horace too. Right now at this very moment the itnernet is the only thing keepign my sanity going. I'm goign cross-eyed from some very difficult compuetr work, it helps to break away and play with the internet every once in a while.


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## Interference (Jul 26, 2010)

Get yer own Horace


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## Esioul (Jul 26, 2010)

I'm sure Horace can fit us both into his social calender.


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## Interference (Jul 26, 2010)

Nah, he spends all his time on the Internet


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## Vertigo (Jul 26, 2010)

Interference said:


> I'd go back to having a friend called Horace that no one else can see (as opposed to dozens of friends with even crazier names that no one else can see ).


 
Definitely Horace not Harvey (the giant rabbit)?

I would be totally stuffed if the internet died. I run a digital printing lab with another fellow director. I do all the software, web design and finance. The lab and essentially all the business is based in Redhill, I live in the Highlands of Scotland (650 miles away for those not familiar with the UK's geography). Not a problem with broadband, I can even take over control of computers in the lab to test new software. As I say I would be stuffed without it.


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## Esioul (Jul 26, 2010)

I suppose it would make my career difficult to. And my sanity, always my sanity.

The highlands of Scotland are nice, Vertigo- much more exciting than this lab. Everyone is too quiet in here.


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## Interference (Jul 26, 2010)

Harvey got into movies -- I never saw him again


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## Vertigo (Jul 26, 2010)

I know about the sanity bit and actually that's also quite important for me - remote working like this kind of reduces your interaction with others - so I figure this place is good for me (I think ). And yes, the Higlands are nice which is the only reason I chose to live here (I don't actually do any "local" work here), and to be honest they probably do more for my sanity than the internet .


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## Vertigo (Jul 26, 2010)

Interference said:


> Harvey got into movies -- I never saw him again


 
And what a great movie he made too .


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## Interference (Jul 26, 2010)

Which we could still see, even without an internet (just to tentatively nudge against the topic )


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## Vertigo (Jul 26, 2010)

Interference said:


> Which we could still see, even without an internet (just to tentatively nudge against the topic )


 
I have it on video  which wouldn't work at all on the internet (nudging right back )


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## Esioul (Jul 26, 2010)

Yeah bit isolated as a postgrad too, especially at this time of year, so the internet helps.


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## Natasha Bennett (Aug 4, 2010)

Eh, I think _South Park_ covered what would happen effectively enough


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## Rodders (Aug 4, 2010)

The IT Crowd covered it quite well too.


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## Interference (Aug 4, 2010)

What, when she dropped it?
*
ROTFLMAO*


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## GrantG (Aug 5, 2010)

My Internet was disconnected last night. Getting it turned back on today felt as good as winning the lottery, even though I had to pay all my overdue bills to get it turned back on. If less than a day can do that to me, I would have to say losing the Internet permanently would be very bad for _this _SF writer. 

Alternicity, your topic is as terrifying as nuclear war.


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## SC1F1 (Aug 27, 2010)

The_African said:


> I always wonder what life would/possibly will be like if we ran out of fossil fuels and had to return to a pre-indiustrial way of life.



Fossil fuel is not irreplaceable for industrial production, neither was it the driving force to initialize the Industrial Revolution.


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## J-WO (Aug 28, 2010)

I would replace my Laptop screen with an _Etch-a-Sketch_ and pretend I was still on the internet.


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## Allegra (Aug 28, 2010)

I'd join Amish. What the hell.


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## John Thiel (Sep 9, 2010)

It'd be a technological quiet time.


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## huiru (Sep 28, 2010)

现在越来越需要研究信息库访问-这将减缓下来，因为它的服务将不再有进入国家数据库-图书订购中变得越来越普遍和作家最终购买更多refrence 书籍时，他们可以“这种想法是非常合理的。我也想知道这个问题。是否细致呢？


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## huiru (Sep 28, 2010)

haha...


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## huiru (Sep 28, 2010)

It'd be a technological quiet time.


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## huiru (Sep 28, 2010)

What the hell.


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## huiru (Sep 28, 2010)

ok???It'd be a technological quiet time.


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## J-WO (Sep 28, 2010)

huiru said:


> 现在越来越需要研究信息库访问-这将减缓下来，因为它的服务将不再有进入国家数据库-图书订购中变得越来越普遍和作家最终购买更多refrence 书籍时，他们可以“这种想法是非常合理的。我也想知道这个问题。是否细致呢？



When you put it like that, I really can't argue with you.


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## dustinzgirl (Sep 28, 2010)

When the Internet dies, it will already have been replaced by biochemical electric exchanges through organic computers.

What do you think the mitochondria are?

And, my kids might actually talk to me face to face instead of on facebook.

PS:*

Most of the BEST SCI FI came about well before there was the Internet to clog up everyone's thinking and make a standardized template for ALL novel fiction.*


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## Who? (Nov 23, 2010)

NEVER joke about this! I feel quite unwell at the thought...


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## clovis-man (Nov 23, 2010)

huiru said:


> 现在越来越需要研究信息库访问-这将减缓下来，因为它的服务将不再有进入国家数据库-图书订购中变得越来越普遍和作家最终购买更多refrence 书籍时，他们可以“这种想法是非常合理的。我也想知道这个问题。是否细致呢？


 
You make a good point. I *WOULD* be lost without my Google translator.


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## J-WO (Nov 24, 2010)

Without the Internet we'd have to go back to the good old days, sitting together around an old oak fire and creating our own anime-themed pornography.


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## John Thiel (Dec 2, 2010)

That'd be real action-painting prose, a story based on such an occurrance as that. A world without the net existed right up until maybe 1985 or even 1990; I don't think its collapse would be that much of an out.  The world at large hasn't become as accustomed to it as people did to electricity, which people can now no longer live without.

In doing such a story, it might be helpful to view the net as representing progress or the spirit of progress, having taken on the spirit of progress since its origin, and then view the effects of that progress being removed from the world in which it was established. The progressive tendency they had could be said to have been vampirized by the net, so things wouldn't just revert to pre-net conditions; there'd be the absense of the progressive tendency that the net had absorbed, and the sociology after the collapse would be different than before the net.


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## John Thiel (Dec 2, 2010)

Forgot to click my email notification option.


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## Deathpool (Dec 8, 2010)

If the internet died I'd die.


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