This reminds me of a time when I lived in an extremely remote and isolated location. Our populations of roughly 1,500 people had 3 Mbps internet access thanks to the modern miracle of fiber optics...
This reminds me of a time when I lived in an extremely remote and isolated location. Our populations of roughly 1,500 people had 3 Mbps internet access thanks to the modern miracle of fiber optics but were otherwise cut off from ready access to the outside world (outside of satellite voice phone lines). We were told one day that because of damage to the fiber cable we would be losing internet access for an entire month, no one panicked but people did begin to seriously question what life would be like with no streaming, no social media, and none of our ubiquitous wifi. Within a week kids were playing on the streets, people were out and about having impromptu get togethers or out doing recreational activities, movie nights were in swing as people found out who had a hard drive full of movies or that one film on DVD that you really had an itch to watch. I fondly remember sitting outside on the curb because the weather was nice and a friend cruising by saw me and stopped to sit with me, we talked for over two hours because what else were we going to do? Life was a lot less urgent and community was suddenly much more important than before. My god, that month was one of the most glorious of my adult life and a time that I will always particularly long for.
It's sad to see the devastation required for us to make these realizations in the modern day but I can say from first hand experience that in the absence of technology, society can and will rapidly reorganize and adjust. A lot of us still have memories about word-of-mouth, community participation, and general civility that dominated in the pre-smartphone era but I think from my own experience and from what the author here illustrates there is something innate within us that we can readily default to when we need to. We're social creatures after all and I don't think we really ever forget how to build a functioning society in a pinch.
This reminds me of a time when I lived in an extremely remote and isolated location. Our populations of roughly 1,500 people had 3 Mbps internet access thanks to the modern miracle of fiber optics but were otherwise cut off from ready access to the outside world (outside of satellite voice phone lines). We were told one day that because of damage to the fiber cable we would be losing internet access for an entire month, no one panicked but people did begin to seriously question what life would be like with no streaming, no social media, and none of our ubiquitous wifi. Within a week kids were playing on the streets, people were out and about having impromptu get togethers or out doing recreational activities, movie nights were in swing as people found out who had a hard drive full of movies or that one film on DVD that you really had an itch to watch. I fondly remember sitting outside on the curb because the weather was nice and a friend cruising by saw me and stopped to sit with me, we talked for over two hours because what else were we going to do? Life was a lot less urgent and community was suddenly much more important than before. My god, that month was one of the most glorious of my adult life and a time that I will always particularly long for.
It's sad to see the devastation required for us to make these realizations in the modern day but I can say from first hand experience that in the absence of technology, society can and will rapidly reorganize and adjust. A lot of us still have memories about word-of-mouth, community participation, and general civility that dominated in the pre-smartphone era but I think from my own experience and from what the author here illustrates there is something innate within us that we can readily default to when we need to. We're social creatures after all and I don't think we really ever forget how to build a functioning society in a pinch.