A “What If…” Question about Whirled Peas and Inter Not

by Chris McGinty of AccordingToWhim.com

What if…

There was peace on earth.

But…

Internet disappeared.

Yes or No?

Oh my god. Do you realize how much the lack of details is going to cause me problems answering this? I know this app… Did I mention that a while back I did a review of an app called “What If…” by A Creative Endeavor AB (Google Play Link) and I’m using some of the questions from the app as writing prompts? I know this app isn’t designed to get into a lot of detail, but this question could have been fixed with a couple of small changes, namely adding the word “forever” to the end of each part of the question.

I want to know how long the world peace lasts.

I want to know if we can create the internet again in our new peaceful world.

I want my MTV.

I wondered about what happens when we go to Mars. Does the peace go with us, or do we just start fighting over the red planet? Then I realized that we really don’t go to Mars unless we have the internet.

Imagine there’s no internet, it’s easy if you were alive before 1995.

The biggest issue with this question is that while we use the internet largely for entertainment, there are so many other things that the internet does to protect us. Let’s presume for a moment that we have complete peace on earth. There is no violence, no hate, and we only die from accidents and natural causes. How much do deaths from accidents and natural causes increase when we’re only connected to the rest of the world with non-internet technology?

Damn it, Chris. The questioner just wants to know if you’ll miss Candy Crush and Twitter.

The other thing is that I believe that to an extent we do have world peace compared to any other time in our history and that where we’re lacking in world peace that the interconnected nature of the world is helping to change things faster than ever before. Most of the civility issues that I see are actually on the internet, but that’s people being rude. It’s not direct violence. I also don’t live in a war torn country, so I may not know how bad it is in places like Turkey and Syria.

Here’s my final answer. I would miss the internet, but I would also be fine without it. If the world could significantly change for the better for millions or even billions of people, I would go without the internet in an instant. And I would rely on that world peace lasting for my entire lifetime, because otherwise I’m reasonably sure that sooner or later they would crucify me… sorry, John. Too soon.

Chris McGinty is a blogger who wonders how, without the internet, he’d get his writing prompts for his blo… nevermind.