Total worldwide media/comms blackout in a time of Corona-chan - A speculative thread

Meat Poultry Veg

Meat Poultry Veg

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Aug 12, 2018
Hey Kiwis,

Let's play a game of "How Can a Shit Situation Get Even Shittier?" The coronavirus/COVID-19/Wuhanic Plauge/Chinese virus/Kung flu has virtually made illegal having an uncovered face, standing close to another person and many arbitrarily designated "nonessential" goods and services. The practical effects of this is more people staying at home and gluing their faces to their phones, tablets and computers in a desperate attempt to eke out an ersatz human existence. The number one enabler of this proto-Matrix pod encased existence is the Internet. It allows us to communicate, entertain ourselves and work, for those of us who are able to do so.

What if that optical thread of hope to a virtual human existence were to snap?

For argument's sake let's say that the only technological means of communications left are telephone land lines and HAM radio (before you ask, I have recourse to neither of these, and have never even touched the latter). And also, just to be "nice," let's say that this black out only lasts five days. How do you think people will react?
 
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If you want to see the supply chain collapsing then cut out the internet.
I doubt they have a backup system where they can just roll with making orders on the phone/fax machine.
The fact that you won't have cashless payments ie transactions or credit cards without the Internet either are not helping much.
Most people decided not to keep cash with them, and some place don't even accept cash anymore.

So yeah. It would be ugly, but hey bullying is what breaks the hubris of society in this case putting all the eggs in a few baskets.
 
If it's just five days?

I'd just read books, play some video games, watch the movies I got on DVD and Blu-Ray, and also go outside more often. I've got a landline phone at home, so I can keep in touch with my parents and grandparents too and I generally use cash for smaller or mundane purchases, so I'm good to go in case I need to buy some necessities during those five days.

And of course, I'd go outside some more too if it's not raining.

I'd miss the Farms, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.
 
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DeagleNationRefugee said:
The world would become like Mad Max movies. Droves of murder gangs would ride around the landscape in junk vehicles pillaging internet from the desperate. Hope you're ready to kill a man to protect your hard earned memes.
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This reminds me of the South Park episode where the internet went out and everything became like the Great Depression with work camps and all that.

The saddest part about all this is that the episode came out in 2008 and it's more relevant now than it was back then.
 
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Five days would just be a temporary disruption, most people would be fine. Now, five weeks or months? Or, even worse, five years? That would be a problem.
 
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FunPosting101 said:
Five days would just be a temporary disruption, most people would be fine. Now, five weeks or months? Or, even worse, five years? That would be a problem.
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I think we'd might survive five or six weeks without internet as a nation, but it would be a major disruption. I'm more concerned about the economic consequences of a world without internet than entertainment or social media. The economy existed before the internet, obviously, but online business was a massive game changer.

Anything over a month would be a problem for this country since everything's done online these days and the post-2008 retail apocalypse has crippled brick and mortar stores and the cash economy.

Thanks Obama, Amazon!
 
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Get a shortwave radio. You can get shitty ones for as low as $30.

Get your ham radio license NOW. Get a ham radio; you can get a shitty handheld Baofent for as low as $120.

If you can, get a terminal node controller, a good antenna. That'll get you up to 2400 baud over high frequency links.

Better yet, hack an old router to have the ability to broadcast WiFi using amateur radio power.
 
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5 days without internet? Been there done that. Work would become harder since I won't have certain tools which help a lot (Teamviewer anyone?) I up the ante: 5 days without electricity. Now that's a kicker. Take away this base of our civilisation and see how the earth turns upside down
 
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I think people could get more sane - at least in worldview - in the absence of mass media and telecommunications. Think about it:

- no social media with identity politics and fearmongering

- no news media with identity politics and fearmongering

- no exceptional "hot take" articles trying to convince you of BS

People would likely still panic though.
 
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