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Would you vote to switch off the WWW?

129 replies

HenaLorne · 07/09/2024 11:39

Just a lighthearted thread based on a dream I had..

..but if there was a worldwide referendum where everyone was polled if they wanted the internet and all IP technology/WiFi permanently switched off/destroyed forever which way would you vote?

Perhaps in my naivety I have this idea that it would drive people back to interacting more and lead to less social isolation. Nothing would have to be pre-booked online. Libraries would be more important. No more young children watching endless YouTube.

Of course it would slow down useful collaboration in many areas and limit communication in other ways.

It's a mad though but ..
would you vote ON or OFF?

OP posts:
CurlyhairedAssassin · 07/09/2024 17:34

MiaFeysImprobableBosom · 07/09/2024 17:28

CurlyHairedAssassin I remember telling schoolfriends they should switch to a search engine I'd started using that was so much better and faster, and spelling the name for them — G O O G L E 🤣

Yes!! Same! But at work. My manager came back from a training session was told me about it, and I thought the name was silly and childish. Then I had a go and poor Jeeves was given the heave ho pronto. 😂

HenaLorne · 07/09/2024 18:11

CurlyhairedAssassin · 07/09/2024 17:01

OP, out of interest, you weren't thinking about overpriced Oasis tickets around the time you had your dream, were you? 😆Because I was lamenting dynamic pricing while all that hooha was going on and saying to DH "I wish we could go back to the days when the price you paid for an event was simply the advertised price at ticket release. Remember sitting in a telephone queue to a venue box office to get tickets to something? Some people physically queued to buy at the the box office too. All you'd pay extra over the phone was postage to send the ticket out, and the only price differences were to do with how good a seat you had at the venue. NOT according to demand. When the tickets were sold out they were sold out. None of this reselling crap at inflated prices. Sure, if you wanted to flog an unused ticket to some ticket tout scally at the venue on the night for cash then they were around. But generally, events were affordable for most people. You could afford to go to more than just one or two a year because of that."

Holidays and travel were the same actually. Holiday brochures were printed and the price was the price that was on the page. They didn't fluctuate by the day. It enabled last minute bargains of unsold holidays too. I believe flights were the same too. You paid the same as the person sitting next to you for the same seat.

I HATE dynamic pricing. It has just put up the cost of all the fun things in life.

Ha you are right , dynamic pricing is evil.

I remember the days of paper airline tickets, usually with some sort of carbon paper thing in a little booklet

OP posts:
Anonym00se · 07/09/2024 18:57

CurlyhairedAssassin · 07/09/2024 16:32

No there wasn't. Porn was really a lot harder to get hold of. When I think back to top shelf dirty magazines or dodgy videos behind the counter, it seems like fairyland compared to what is easily accessible at the touch of a button now. You don't even have to leave the house to get hold of something. Impressionable young minds may once have accidentally come across their dad's dirty magazine hidden in a drawer, but an accidental watch of a porn video would have been really unlikely. The normalisation of some sexual practices is astounding, like night and day, or the difference between the Victorians getting hot and bothered about a show of ankle, compared to dirty mags of the late 20th century.

You're naiive if you think having a digital footprint is better because it means you can catch the offenders. Have you got any idea how much work goes into investigating a single offender, so that you are sure of getting a conviction? There is no country on earth which would have the resources necessary to catch all offenders amongst the tsunami of twisted and sick minds out there. It's not doable. The (twisted and perverted) genie is out of the bottle and can never go back in.

Absolutely this. In the old days, perverts would go to a park and flash at kids, now they’ve got huge networks of fellow sickos swapping children and vile media, all at their fingertips.

Drug dealers would have to get on a plane and go to Columbia or somewhere to negotiate their deals. Now it’s all done over encrochat channels without leaving the sofa. They buy drugs and guns like we’d do a Tesco order. Local dealers then sell it on by advertising on Snapchat with a phone number to order. Our kids see this stuff. It’s terrifying.

I agree about the porn. It was once mucky mags, or fairly soft core videos. Definitely not the hardcore stuff that’s prevalent today and has become normalised. The knock on effects on women are widespread. Even online dating has turned people into a commodity. It may be more efficient, but the whole ‘shopping’ approach is impersonal and devaluing.

SM puts so much pressure on us, and especially on our young people. Girls are expected to look like supermodels and ‘advertise’ themselves to potential friends or partners. They constantly compare themselves to others, and have terrible self-esteem, anxiety and FOMO.

We can’t relax. We’re bombarded with bad news 24/7. We’re always reachable. We feel guilt if we let a phone call ring out or don’t answer a message quickly. We feel pressure to spend money on stuff we can’t afford. We’re being spied on, and advertised to round the clock. We see others having these things and think that we should have them too.

We don’t have patience any more. We don’t know how to wait for anything. Everything is instant and many of us are burned out. Life is just too fast now. It’s no wonder we’re overwhelmed. But society makes out that we’re somehow neurologically or mentally deficient if we feel that way.

I really dislike modern life. Wars are being fought online, yet we’ve been brainwashed into turning a blind eye because it’s easier for us to do our shopping and banking.

Abouttimeforanamechange · 08/09/2024 00:24

Keep it and make people pay per byte.

Been there. Not per byte, but per minute. It was called dial-up.

We can’t relax. We’re bombarded with bad news 24/7. We’re always reachable. We feel guilt if we let a phone call ring out or don’t answer a message quickly. We feel pressure to spend money on stuff we can’t afford.

Some of us might be. Some of us still remember that our devices have an OFF switch, and that it's not compulsory to have all the latest forms of social media.

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