At least once a day, I experience life without use of an internet. Right now, I’m posting an article for Helium. But later on, I will continue working on my follow-up novel using a Dell laptop with no internet capability. While emailing manuscripts is less expensive than mailing manuscripts, I’m a writing purist. I prefer word processing over searching for obscure sites featuring European porn.
Life with no internet would cripple governments overly dependent on their military. They would have primitive, missile-guidance systems that lack targeting mechanisms, fail-safe codes and overrides. We would be limited to be as civilians in World War II London. You can’t defend effectively by using air-raid sirens and relying on underground tunnels for shelter. You can’t launch WMDs using gigantic slingshots or Medieval catapults.
Life with no internet would be social death for lonely singles. For internet daters, uploading pictures and inputing data is much easier than meeting someone in a dimly-lit bar and sipping $5.00 henessey and cokes. Internet dating is for the widowers, the two-time divorcees, the mother with three kids or the baby daddy with three baby mommas. Internet dating is for everyone with character flaws such as being overbearing, controlling, self-absorbed or just plain weird. When you type about yourself, you can create a believeable lie. But, telling that lie in someone’s face is more difficult than people imagine.
If there was no internet, banking protection would be a fantasy. Wire transfers would be simple to hack into for computer beginners. There would be no “firewalls” to stop security breaches. On the flipside, there would be less identity theft crimes because hackers couldn’t pick through social security numbers, addresses and consumers’ bills online. People have made the internet their personal information “dumping ground”. Of course, there would be no way to do online, background checks for job applicants and people wanting to apply for bank loans. But, criminal background checks are public information at any courthouse in the United States.
If there was no internet, the term Homeland Security would be a running joke. The F.B.I couldn’t “hear chatter” from suspected, sleeper cells inside our borders. They couldn’t track the financial transactions from Muslim organizations to alleged terrorists. Our nation’s safety would be in severe jeopardy.
If there was no internet, forget about having a GPS system in your vehicle or in your phone. No one could “triangulate” your location using cell phone towers. Cars, trucks and SUVs (sports utility vehicles) would have no OnStar service. If you get into an accident, those broken appendages better get to walking along that desolate highway. You would have to wave down a passing vehicle because no internet means no cell phones to call 911 from wherever you are.
The internet allows for simple tasks to be simplier and difficult tasks to be easy. The internet is continuing to advance our present society through its technological age. Unfortunately, we have come so dependent on “logging on” we are forgetting about what brought us to this point of advancing our civilization.