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A hypothetical sci-fi (or fantasy) scenario question: If a civilization couldn't set up its own internet, or if a curse was placed on it, what would be the best replacement for what it does? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 day ago by ShiverMeTimbers@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I was reading a book, The Victorian Internet, which talked about how connected the Victorian era was, with wires stretching everywhere above the roads. It's probably exaggerated, but it got me thinking. There are many ways to engage in en masse interconnectivity. Computers, of course, are one of them, but we also have had, for example, messenger pigeons, drones we can send to different places, search dogs with an interconnected sniff system (I forgot what that was called), etc.

Suppose you had a civilization. Maybe it's on a planet whose environment interferes with the capabilities of a classic internet, or maybe it's a normal fantasy setting where the classic internet is cursed. However, the civilization still needs some kind of apparatus of interconnectivity. What's the best/closest thing you can think of as a replacement for the internet without it being the internet as we know it?

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[–] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago

You know I think just the freedom of people is enough. People will naturally share and talk about what is important and interesting if they can go where they want and say what they want. They move the information as well as filter it for relevance.

The internet as we know it today is coercive; most of it is designed and run with opaque, narrow and self-interested goals. It has penetrated our thoughts, feelings, behaviour and culture, with very limited accountability or critical evaluation. And even just the sheer bandwidth of it on a user level is paralysing.

The internet interacts with the human appetite for information in the same way as processed foods do with our impulse to eat. We've freed ourselves from the limitation of supply but do not moderate our demand.

My own imagining of a better and different internet would be based on people and places rather than screens or other abstractions. We would have plenty of comfortable and non-exclusive public places to meet, excellent train services to get between those places and each others homes (trains are pro-social and have unbeatable efficency) and a system and philosophy of education that is based on critical thinking rather than arbitrary tasks.

Information technology would be peripheral to our relationships and experience and would be used as a tool to serve our own free interests rather than being an end in itself.