The internet switch has been flipped, now what?

...they would ever shut off the internet. Think of the economic ramifications. No more $600 billion in sales. People cut off from banking etc. Not going to happen--unless the electrical grid goes down!
And if they did cut it off, we'd do what we did back in the printed 'zine (mine was InfoCult) days of late 80s/ early 90s--use the US Postal Service:
"In the 1980s and early 1990s, its comprehensive reviews (literally thousands in each issue) made it the most important publication in its field, heralding the wider spread of what would eventually be called fanzine or zine culture. Before the adoption of the web & e-mail beginning around 1994, publications such as Factsheet Five formed a vital directory for connecting like-minded people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factsheet_Five

so about 15-20 years since we all had internet at home and mobile phones in our use...so kinda think like Johnny we will just get back to the way we used to do things "before"...pretty difficult to imagine though not?...we would have our state tv propaganda (which hopefully many already have or will switch off by then), not knowing what is happening in the world anylonger...i.e. no idea about the war in Afghanistan or the genocide in Darfur and the likes...

we would however start talking to people around us...locally again...and might even find here loads with the same mind set...same idea and even same vision...do we do so now? do we go out and see whether we would already have a "community" of "our-likes" around? ... not really... as a) this would mean we would need to show what we think, how we feel and lay ourselves barren...and b) might through this fear to be cast outside...

funny thing is though...i spent less time on the net over the last few weeks...and more time with people round me locally...and found through this...not only interesting people who shared something unique but also those who are on my own wave-lenght...and this not even with going out searching but just by bumping into them...on the tube, outside a bar having a smoke, walking round the city, via friends...

I actually think that it would not be such a bad idea to cut back on the use and communication via the net...not to get rid of it...but to actually look round your surroundings...not your friends...not those people you already know...but see who else is out there...you may just be surprised...I for sure was/am....

i think im more worried about the amount of control our government is reaching for by even having this power than the actual internet. thats an interesting one to try to focus on a solution for

I think you bring up a good point about gathering Persephone. I've been having this feeling lately that "talk is safe"...most of what everyone has been doing is talking. When's the "action" going to start? When and where are we going to gather and actually start to apply what we know to what we do, in a larger, societal context?

I recently realized that getting "there" means starting "here". Actually starting, actually relating to each other in different ways, refusing to make excuses for old behaviour patterns and challenge our courageous selves to step up to the incredible potential of these times. It's the fertile ground to start something like a new society. But it's important to remember that we're at the beginning, that we're not just going to walk into it all ready made.

This very subject has been a dream of mine for some time now, and I have been feeling the pull of connectivity between many people as this natural next-step begins to take root in consciousness...that we are greater than the sum of parts when we work together, and can accomplish wonders - like we already have - but from this different, more expanded consciousness context. Community not based on any past model or ideology, but the carving of an entirely new path through terrain not explored for a very long time - cooperation, balance, sustainability, creativity, integration, expansion.

I would love to hear more thoughts on gathering.

I'm skeptical that the internet will ever be deliberately shut off. Now, that said I can definitely see an attempt to throttle dissident speech, akin to the Great Firewall of China. Software exists which can edit phrases out of offending posts in such a seamless fashion that on a first pass you'd never notice it. If such measures become prevalent they will be circumvented by eg storing large web caches on USB keys and trading them between informal friend networks.

That said the predictive linguistics boys on the Web Bot project (aka Time Monks) have been saying for a while that from 2013 on there's a massive drop in web traffic. This could be for any of a number of reasons, ranging from the metaphorically apocalyptic (a pole shift or some other natural cull of humanity) to the literally apocalyptic (in the sense of 'unveiling', ie everyone Wakes Up and no longer NEEDS the electronic communications, for most things, with perhaps a skeleton remaining for trading technical information or such).

Personally, I've felt for a while now that the Web is kind of like training wheels for telepathy. It will be around for exactly as long as it needs to be, and like any other technology when it is no longer necessary it will be slowly discarded.

The Revolution is Within