So you want to get rid of technology and go back to nature? (Part 2)

Continuing on from Part 1 - lets take a look at the effect the removal of technology would have on the planet and its occupants on a global scale.

THE INTERNET

At the flick of a switch (metaphorically), aproximately 1 Billion people globally would be disconnected from each other, global communication is now dead. In 2009 a survey was done on social networking sites and the number of users.

MySpace - 345,130,806
Facebook - 722,434,829
Hi5 - 8,491,287
Friendster - 6,896,127
Orkut - 9,396,000
Bebo - 14,368,423

The consequences of this are far reaching and include such phenomon as the complete disconnection from the global awareness that has happened over recent years thanks to this technology, a return to local news and local events with little to no information being available about events in other countries or even states/regions within your own country. Coupled with the loss of email, information from the worldwide web, aid to countries suffering from Earthquakes, Tsunami's, Volcanic Eruptions, Famine, Poverty, Disease etc would now be something only historians would write about.

With the death of electricity as previously noted, society globally would be in a state of panic. The economy would collapse almost instantly as there would be no way of transfering funds (as almost all of the money in circulation nowadays is not only fiat but electronic), global stock trading would cease and the international markets would crash. The implications of this alone on such things as future resource wars would be immense.

Events such as the BP oil spill in the gulf of mexico would go largely unnoticed by the worlds population and would become more widespread as accountability for corporate actions would be back to pre-industrial revolution levels thanks to the disconnection of the global news networks and agencies.

With global communications now a thing of the past, no land-lines, no cell phones, no IT Networks, the only awareness of events would be local. The long term effects of this alone are outstanding as education levels would drop dramatically all over the globe from the loss of access to the masses of information available on the internet today.

Most people would no longer have jobs to go to as the majority of jobs especially in the western world are in the service industry, and without communications would be instantly crippled. Local economies would be in a state of panic, banks would be forced to put a restriction on withdrawals to avoid bank runs as seen in the 1930's.

(To be continued... off to see Jacque & Roxanne from "The Venus Project" and Charlie Veitch from "The Love Police" for a nice social afternoon by the river)

Next we will tackle...

COMPUTERS

With no computers to manage and control the geneation of electricity in the grid, or pump the oil & gas to homes and hospitals we would essentially be driven to conidtions pre-19th century within days (See http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=398899613258&id=651079227&ref=mf)

No phones, computers, cars, no electronic banking not only means credit cards and such become obsolete but even cash, no exchange rates and modern countries don’t use the gold standard any more. So unless you have something of value that isn’t electronic you have nothing. One good thing would be that all debt is cleared as all records of debt would be lost, so you’d t least own your house (Until someone raids it and kills you for your goods).

Transportation would be limited to walking except for skateboarding and cycling, horse riders will be proclaiming I told you so. That means you won’t be going that far for your holidays and if you’re in the suburbs or somewhere not accustomed to a lack of travel you’ll be going a long ways to get your food, which will soon run out without supplies from trucks or fridges to keep it fresh. The plague, TB, Diahrea would become major factors in the coming days/months.

Resource wars and local disputes over basic resources such as food and water would be commonplace and groups/gangs would form to protect the resources from other groups, for the first time in centuries there would be blood on the streets in many of the previously developed world.

Businesses would be crippled and almost all companies would be shut forever because of their reliance on technology for their day to day running. The Internet would be finished as would global communications, news, distribution of national and international goods and services would no longer exist and millions possibly billions would die from either exposure, famine or disease within weeks/months.

Paper (Now automated by machines and computer systems) would no longer be available en-masse and would have to be produced locally (assuming people know how to make paper from tree pulp - do you?) otherwise communication would return to verbal only - the death of the written word in most of the world. Most people in western civilization would not know how to make fire without matches, to cook without gas, to keep warm without electricity, or many of the typical survival techniques that would be necessary as the death of technology makes its impact.

Almost all of the information carried through the generations of our species would be lost instantly as the internet contains more information than all the books in the history of mankind along with distribution of ideas which is now gone forever.