I don't know if this is the right forum, but I'll try. One of my friends brought up an interesting question: How would the world be changed if the Internet were available to Alexander, Genghis Kahn, Attila, the Crusaders, or??? Enjoy!
Then are we assuming the technology to use the internet, and nothing else or are we including modern day tools as well? Having a computer is going to be different then if they have a computer and a tank.
There'd be whole forums dedicated to people saying the things those people did never actually happened ("10 Obvious Reasons No Elephants Crossed The Alps!").
I suppose for entertainment sake you could add other factors. I guess part of his question was how would modern tech have assisted each individual's strategy, etc. at the time, presuming everything was equal. Enjoy!
Well then if they just had computers then it wouldn't have changed too much. Logistics and communications would probably be easier asssuming the internet exists. I'm not too sure if anything else would have changed.
Being able to communicate with others over vast distances would make the one who had it godlike. They would probably become powerful wizards
The internet was created by DARPA for the U.S. Air Force so they could communicate with their C&CC and missile silos during a nuclear exchange. Late last year I watched an interview of two old geasers who were responsible for developing the internet for the military when they worked for DARPA. They were asked what they thought about the effect that the internet has had on the world. Both gave it some thought and in hindsight they said they wished the U.S. military would have kept the internet classified. http://www.darpa.mil/default.aspx Today you have the most uninformed and or misinformed society in history. "If it's on the internet, it must be true." Today you have a society walking around believing they are smart and are well informed when the opposite it closer to the truth.You have young college grads who can't even do basic math without a calculator and can't even write a resume but have to use the internet not to mention most can't even properly fill out a job application using a pen. In America the internet has created a society of a bunch of out of shape "Pillsbury Doughboys" where over 50% of young adults couldn't even qualify to serve in the military because instead of being outside playing and being involved in sports they sat in front of a computer screen while growing up playing video games and watching porno.
Not only that, but the explosion of faulty logic has also become a problem. I remember that 20 years ago, conspiracy theorists were the random individuals who subscribed to each other's newsletters and were largely ignored by mainstream society. Their message was generally sophomoric, and nobody took them seriously. Today, the ease of the Internet has allowed them to explode. 9-11 is a perfect example. If that had happened even a decade prior, nobody would have taken most of the insane and contradictory CTs seriously. But now the ease in which they can spread the new gospel of NWO has made it easier for them to gain credibility, at least with each other. And yes, I even remember these groups first banding together with digital information even before the Internet went public. One of the biggest "Alternative" BBS in the LA area was the Green Dragon Tavern. Like most Sysops in the area, we all knew each other. But Pete was always a strange character. His board was full of "State Citizen", "New World Order", "Federal Reserve Corporation", and other such fringe Libertarian claptrap. Black helicopters, secret UN invasion plans, and all the rest of the nonsense we associate with the CT believers. In fact, interestingly enough, old Pete is now a Ron Paul supporter. And I found the following post that he had made: Interestingly enough, I do not remember the GDT ever being "24 Lines", I think the max I ever remember was around 12 (if that). It certainly was nowhere near as big as the "Super BBS systems" of the era, like Stepping Stone Hotel (24 lines, almost always busy). And we Sysops were a pretty close group, and the GDT did not die because of any kind of police raid by a disgruntled IRS employee (in fact, I tried to look it up and found absolutely nothing about this ever happening, nor does my brother-in-law remember it ever happening). The truth is, by 1995 most of the BBS systems were gone, killed by a combination of 2 things. One was Pacific Bell killing off the ability to "hop forward" phone calls for no charge. This was the inexpensive way most BBS' extended their calling range. In an area like LA, the Antelope Valley (where I lived) was a local call to Acton, but going father South was a long distance call. But if you can get somebody in Acton to set up an automatic call forward on a phone line, then people in Acton can be routed to a BBS in say Lancaster or Lake Los Angeles. Set up another such relay in say Santa Clarita, and now the San Fernando Valley can call the BBS as a local call. This was becoming widespread, and the way PacBell cracked down was to start to charge usage fees on these links, to limit "personal use" phone number limits at 5 lines, and finally that any phone lines beyond 1 used for a BBS made it a "business", therefore requiring a business phone plan (which is much more expensive then a home plan). This happening at the same time the Internet exploded, and the small local BBS was doomed. And people who were on the fringe and primarily talked to other kooks are now given a false legitimacy they never had before. Crawling out of the basements to spread their new gospel to everybody that can tap "the net". I myself ran a BBS until 1994, and like most others it pretty much dies when the first ISPs came on the scene (in fact, my first Internet access from home came from a BBS that had a pass-through to the Internet). Even the big "Super BBS" like SSH and R&E were done by 1997.
Assuming no other tech existed, probably not a lot would have changed, other than in the maneuvering of troops and positioning. If the rest of the culture and social structure these people built on was still in place, logistics and the like would have remained basically the same; mules oxen, ships, and troops only march so fast; having an innnernutz wouldn't have made them any faster, their food crops would still grow and be harvested at the same rates, smiths would still make weapons and armor at the same production rates, etc., etc. Other eras had their 'Pony Expresses' too, you know, for communicating over long distances. the Romans built some very nice roads, some of which can still be seen today, and fast horses were raised then.
just having the ability to make modern guns and ammo, and silencers, would have changed everything for those guys. In fact, being able to make cap and ball revolvers would have changed a lot, for most of them
These kind of AH scenarios are really very challenging. Not least it's because the Internet is not just one device but several, and all are very modern. You need a network of fiber optic cables all over the world , and another network of extremely high bandwidth radios, and then the towers and satellites and that's all before you have even one computer. As a plausible scenario its just too much, especially when purists will give you only ONE departure from history. To put it another way, let's assume the old standby, time travelers. They might bring back computers but what use would they be alone?. GPS requires 12 satellites, how're you gonna get them back to the 12th century, etc, etc. and after you've done all these 3 times impossible things how are you going to look up anything, a thousand years before most of our Internet knowledge even exists. Now one scenario I can think of is having a sort of subspace radio that can communicate over time as well as distance. Then you just need the computers and the Internet would simply see them as a few more terminals, though I think it might play hob with GPS, if it would work at all.
