Welcome to a World Without Internet đ¨
(Read/Listen on and then complete the first input survey to shape our journey)
Hello and welcome to Week 1 âŚ
(this will be the longest one, I promise!)
The year is 2042.
Perhaps your day is now starting, or itâs coming into full swing, but something has felt off since you opened your eyes this morning.
You reached for your phone, as you usually do, to play games, or check social media, but the feed wouldnât load.
âArgh, [Instagram/Twitter/YouTube] is down again,â you grumbled to yourself as you got your morning [coffee/tea] sorted.
But youâve been up for a couple of hours now, and it still hasnât been resolved. Your emails arenât refreshing in your mobile inbox either (*except this one. Ironic, we know*).
In fact, you canât find any information about whatâs going on as even Google itself seems to be down.
Quickly you pace to your computer to pull up a local news site, but instead of relief you just get one âErrorâ message after another.
You text your best friendâ<Hello?! Can you read this??>
Instant response: <Yes, but text directly, Signal will probably crash too.>
<What the hell is going on?!>
âŚ.
This isnât the kind of blackout you expected.
Your lights are on, your refrigerator is humming its usual droll. You have power. Electricity.
You can reheat your now cold coffee in the microwave, no problem.
But no internet?! A complete internet shutdown.
How?
It wasnât just one event.
In early spring, a series of massive solar flares erupted â stronger than any previously recorded or forecasted.
Earth's magnetic shields buckled.
Global satellites glitched, fried, and fell silent.
Fiber optic cables, power stations, server farms â all left vulnerable to surges and cascading failures.
Within hours, the internet â the spine of modern life â collapsed.
Some urban centers are managing partial local networks for now â closed-loop intranets in hospitals, military bases, certain governments.
But it wonât hold.
The damage is too deep, too global, too fast.
What led to the crisis
The internet, from its early development in the 60âs to the establishment of the World Wide Web in 1991 was nonprofit, decentralized and open source (shoutout: Tim Berners-Lee).
Commercialization in the 90s to the early 2000s saw the US privatize the backbone of the internet, followed by the dotcom boom where businesses flooded the web and web portals and search engines (Yahoo!, AOL) began shaping how users accessed the internet.
The rise of Web 2.0 starting in 2004 heralded the age of user-generated content, social media, and mobile apps.
Platforms like Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple became gatekeepers. Business models shifted from products to surveillance capitalism: offering free services in exchange for data, then monetizing attention and behavior.
Content algorithms, cloud computing, and mobile ecosystems further centralized control into a handful of tech giants.
Now, since the 2010s, a small number of internet service providers (ISPs), cloud providers and data centers host most of the web.
And since the mid-2020s weâve seen them tighten their grip while cowing down to growing fascist and authoritarian movements.
This over-centralization of the web, exacerbated by climate impacts, resource crises and geopolitical conflicts, has led to a house of cards that became too vulnerable to withstand the strong proverbial breeze of catastrophic solar flares.
Who is most affected?
Highly Connected Economies & Urban Centers: Toronto, New York, London, Hong Kong â where infrastructure depends most on digital systems â will suffer immediate logistical nightmares from economic paralysis, halted supply chains, disrupted services.
Rural Areas in Connected Nations: Cut off from essential supply chains, many lack the means to coordinate aid. Farmers and small-scale producers using smart agriculture tech; students dependent on online schooling; rural health providers using telemedicineâŚthe impacts range from isolation and loss of access to services to delays in information flow (weather alerts, market prices, health resources) at the outset.
Small Island Nations: Once reliant on instant weather alerts, disaster planning, and trade â are now left exposed to the elements.
Global South Economies Dependent on Digital Access: (e.g. India, Brazil, Nigeria, Philippines, Kenya, Indonesia, etc.). There will be loss of income for millions of informal workers; collapse of fintech solutions used in unbanked communities; major setbacks in development and digital equity progress.
Young Generations Globally: Gen Z and younger Millennials who have never lived offline and students relying on digital learning and social media will face impacts like: identity crisis, psychological distress; education collapse in places with no analog backup; loss of connection to community and purpose.
The dangers
Communication breakdowns: Without instant messaging or mass alerts, misinformation may spread faster than any truth could catch it.
Economic collapse: Digital banking will essentially evaporate, freezing entire currencies.
Medical crises: Hospitals risk losing patient records, supply chain ordering systems, specialized equipment relying on cloud software.
Food and water scarcity: With no online coordination, distribution will become a brutal, hyper-local scramble.
Civil unrest: Some communities may fracture into distrust and violence. Others will rally around mutual aid.
Far more powerful than any popular âdigital detoxâ program, we are realizing that we are way too locked in to the web as a society to just âgo analog.â
Sacrifices and difficult decisions abound
đ§ââď¸ Personal Choices: Individuals face the choice of whether they will lean into community or self-isolate.
What sources of information will you trust? How will you share or hoard or grow your food supplies? What might work and labour in a world without internet look like for you?
đ¨âđŠâđ§âđŚ Family Decisions: Families must decide whether stay put or to leave in search of greener pastures, risking falling into a worse situation.
With widespread school disruptions and no digital alternatives, will you homeschool your children or collaborate with others to rebuild a newly analog hyperlocal education system?
đ§âđ¤âđ§ Community Adjustments: Local leaders must choose between deepened (and more chaotic) collaborative governance models, or sharpened lines of command to maintain order.
What new offline methods of communication can be reasonably managed and vetted? Will mutual aid networks grow in size and strength or close ranks to protect dwindling resources?
đď¸ Government Dilemmas: Policymakers wrestle with the practicalities of more decentralized governance structures while still needing to exercise oversight in the allocation of scarce resources to meet the needs of vulnerable populations.
Do governments crack down to maintain order â or support grassroots organizing and decentralized resilience? In efforts to maintain safety, do authorities push for analog ID checks, block travel, or allow more local autonomy? How would they rebuild an economy with no internet?
đ Societal Shifts: Society as a whole must decide whether to embrace a new paradigm of localized, decentralized webs in the effort to rebuild the digital sphere. Activist groups push for a new digital compact that centers connection over commercialization, but corporate groups push to rebuild infrastructure with tighter security protocols for protection, promising better economic advantages for everyone.
Will major internet-reliant corporations die out â or evolve into new public utility models? Do countries collaborate to create new communication pathways â or turn inward and tighten borders?
You now stand at the crossroads of these choices.
Each week for the next 5 weeks, youâll face a new Dilemma drawn from these fractures and tensions.
Your instincts, decisions, and reflections will shape the story we create together.
The first step?
Complete the Dilemma Input Form
By filling it out, youâll:
Unpack and share your emotional reactions to this unfolding crisis.
Reflect on your personal skills and strategies.
Help us surface the big questions and tensions shaping the weeks ahead.
Subscribing brought you into the story.
This survey shapes the roads youâll walk next.
Weâll meet you here again next week â if the radios stay on.
Signed,
Dispatch Control
âď¸Weekly Artifact Prompt
Write a journal entry reflecting on your first day with no internet.
(If you feel called to share, tag us on Instagram @theclimateverse with the hashtag #WorldWithoutInternet.)
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