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Could the internet go offline? Inside the fragile system holding the modern world together
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
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You're acting like the 'internet' (mostly Facebook, Google, Discord, a few apps, insular siloes) isn't utterly dominating people's lives. Or that its original purpose (portals for institutions like universities or militaries) hasn't been smashed to smithereens. Go out on the street, and watch how regular folks access information and spend their time.
It's not fine. It's mostly an attention optimized monster designed to suck and lock people in, and siphon them away from actual portals.
Never has radio or TV or anything intruded in so many people's psyche and taken over other institutions like this. If the US military knew any better, they'd see it for the national security threat it is, though I'm sure some sects already do.
That's all true, but there have been a few things similarly widespread and harmful, which weren't solved until their turn came. Like lead in everything (not that nobody knew lead is poisonous or that things containing lead end up in the air and in the water and so on), or like child labor in factories, or like slavery (slavery was considered barbaric and gradually outlawed in Europe in the Middle Ages, then it made a comeback during the triangle trade, and for all its time of relevance people argued about its social effect, and that of racial segregation, still it lasted long enough).
This is a problem. It will eventually be seen as a threat. But it's not that much different from radio.