How to Kill the Internet?

Leo

Well-known member
One thing I was turning over in my mind, as part of the imagine a world post capitalism question, was what would or could towns be without retail? How would we use the space and what would we do with our time?

to a small degree in some parts of the states, that's started to happen. lots of the former retail space (as with abandoned manufacturing/industrial space before it) get repurposed for things that can't be purchased online: services like gyms and yoga studios, hair and nail salons, medical clinics, WeWork-type cooperative work spaces and coffee shops. For a number of years, every empty retail space seemed to turn into a bank branch, but that's slowed down.

in short, people are tending to only leave their house for some sort of personal care, to buy services not products.
 

luka

Well-known member
to a small degree in some parts of the states, that's started to happen. lots of the former retail space (as with abandoned manufacturing/industrial space before it) get repurposed for things that can't be purchased online: services like gyms and yoga studios, hair and nail salons, medical clinics, WeWork-type cooperative work spaces and coffee shops. For a number of years, every empty retail space seemed to turn into a bank branch, but that's slowed down.

in short, people are tending to only leave their house for some sort of personal care, to buy services not products.

Yes, it's interesting isn't it. Perhaps there's an opportunity in there somewhere or perhaps its just a greater degree of atomisation, a further shift away from public social life
 

Leo

Well-known member
it should be a contradiction, but your future "social" life will happen online while at home, alone.

then you have those listening clubs with high-end audiophile systems, where technically you're in a room with others but might as well be in isolation, everyone's sitting in silence, concentrating on the sound design details. social not social.
 
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Maybe urban farming will take over town centres - everything from veg, chicken, weed plantations to fruit that won't grow in newly-arid areas. The logical endpoint for food localism. Plenty of space in somewhere like Selfridges to grow cauliflowers and yams.

I think social media will burn out, become taboo and then die. Too much like telepathy - either it goes or civilisation does.

If a big war breaks out it'll be outright banned, otherwise you'd check your timeline and find drone footage of your home, with a message like "Nice little house you have there, hmgovt. Here are some people like you that we bombed last week. Insist that your government submits."
 

craner

Beast of Burden
If you watch Friends on TV now, it's quite obvious that the Internet and mobile phones did not really exist then. It has an impact on the humour and situations that is sort of startling once you notice it. All this stuff does actually. I recall meeting Mark KP outside Foyles for dinner when he got his first i-Pod, not only was I surprised he could afford it, he seemed amazed he had one and was giddy about its potential. It was a new universe. Not that long ago, really.
 

luka

Well-known member
If you watch Friends on TV now, it's quite obvious that the Internet and mobile phones did not really exist then. It has an impact on the humour and situations that is sort of startling once you notice it. All this stuff does actually. I recall meeting Mark KP outside Foyles for dinner when he got his first i-Pod, not only was I surprised he could afford it, he seemed amazed he had one and was giddy about its potential. It was a new universe. Not that long ago, really.

Explain what you mean please. What impact. What specifically did you pick up on?
 

firefinga

Well-known member
I think social media will burn out, become taboo and then die.

As much as I'd want this poison to go away, no signs of it. Quite on the contrary. Kids grow up with this, they are conditioned to it. They can't imagine a world without it.
 

Leo

Well-known member
I like old cop shows when the detectives would wait impatiently behind someone on a payphone before throwing them off and calling into the precinct to talk to the police chief.

also, shit-talking someone in pre-viral days also took more balls, you had to do it in person. tweeting from the safe comforts of your living room is a big contributor to nonsense like what we're discussing on the Josef k thread. would like to see those eggheads do it face-to-face!
 

luka

Well-known member
The in person thing I'm ambivalent about as of course no one will talk shit to a much larger and violence prone man but I don't think that the large and the violence prone should be free from criticism.
 

Leo

Well-known member
I inadvertently typed the wrong password for my bank account log in, then when it asked me to try again, I must have had a typo on the correct password and got locked out of my account. called the bank, maneuvered the automated system until I managed to get a live person. explained my situation, got transferred to a tech support person, who said I should change my password. every time I got through that procedure of entering about a half-dozen account numbers and PINs and dates of birth and credit card numbers, I end up at a screen that says the account info I entered doesn't match what they have on file and my account is locked. tried it all again a few times, with a different browser, no deal.

when I call the bank again, they instruct me to...change my password. fucking hell. I appreciate the security to prevent someone hacking in but Jesus Christ, I'm stuck in bank limbo (more like hell). All I want to do is check the balance on an account I've had at this bank for more than 30 fucking years, but suddenly at the total mercy of technology.

if I don't post anymore on dissensus, it's because I'm unable to get cash out of my account and have starved to death. fuck the internet.
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
"subscribe to pewdiepie!"

kill
the
internet

please as soon as possible

we opened the gates of hell
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
from the multiculturalism thread in music

Hopefully not to derail this fascinating thread.. just to counter this Gibson quote, which there is definitely truth to but doesn't hold out completely. There are plenty of weird subcultures fostered by the interconnectivity of the internet, take Incels for example. Unfortunately it's the dark underbelly stuff that's being fostered in silos and bubbling up. It's the stuff that's forced to stay hidden, but is still finding numbers and forming communities, movements. Everything else is so keen on getting attention, likes, plays, follows etc it falls headlong into Gibson's trap. I can't think of a situation that would force a musical genre (of any worth) to incubate in private along similar lines to other internet subcultures.

For a long time I've thought that surely the next big revolutions in music will have to start coming from nations where serious repression actually still exists. Where the spirit of rebellion would actually mean something. Maybe some Chinese kids will come out with some weird politically motivated rebel music, but it seems more likely it'll just be some awkward cultural appropriation involving bad trap music.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I inadvertently typed the wrong password for my bank account log in, then when it asked me to try again, I must have had a typo on the correct password and got locked out of my account. called the bank, maneuvered the automated system until I managed to get a live person. explained my situation, got transferred to a tech support person, who said I should change my password. every time I got through that procedure of entering about a half-dozen account numbers and PINs and dates of birth and credit card numbers, I end up at a screen that says the account info I entered doesn't match what they have on file and my account is locked. tried it all again a few times, with a different browser, no deal.

when I call the bank again, they instruct me to...change my password. fucking hell. I appreciate the security to prevent someone hacking in but Jesus Christ, I'm stuck in bank limbo (more like hell). All I want to do is check the balance on an account I've had at this bank for more than 30 fucking years, but suddenly at the total mercy of technology.

if I don't post anymore on dissensus, it's because I'm unable to get cash out of my account and have starved to death. fuck the internet.

There's one obvious solution here: the final scene in Fight Club.
 
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