if you had to swear off the internet for good what would you take with?

Already mentioned in OP, but a copy of Wikipedia would be first priority.

To say something else, I’d also grab the archive of GameFAQs guides.

Well, porn, of course.

Recipes! I gotta do something with the long winded conversations!

As much music as I can

Annas archive…..

Archive.org has archived an awful lot of websites and other data, including Wikipedia. If I had to take just one website, I’d take that one.

Homestar Runner

all stable versions of Dwarf Fortress and all the NES, SNES, and GBA ROMs and manuals I can find

uh, and a backup of my personal blog, I guess

maybe just avoid the social media sites.

Maps and navigation. Human-to-human communication could still happen via phone call. But navigation is absolutely required now. I remember having to drive places with a simple map and it sucked.

Well, I would absolutely make a list of every single song I would ever want to download, every show/movie, every video from my favorite creators, and install my whole entire Steam/itch.io library, get the installers for every GOG game I have, get every single favorited art on FurAffinity/Weasyl downloaded, and then probably download an offline version of wikipedia to ensure I have plenty of things to do.

Would need tens of terabytes, if not a hundred plus terabytes, of storage to do all this, but I’d be gutted without the internet because of how much I use it.

Shrek

I’ve got a collection already downloaded using Kiwix on an old Android tablet’s storage card.

Wikipedia, a metric ton of books from Project Gutenberg, Medwiki and other medical books, stuff on homesteading, the last edition if the CIA factbook.

I can edit after I get home from work with a more complete list. Basically, I scrolled through Kiwix and grabbed what looked useful if I didn’t have internet.

Edit: As promised here is my complete list of downloads via Kiwix

Unsorted * 3d printing Q&A * Alpine Linux Wiki * Amateur radio Q&A * android Enthusiasts Q&A * Archwiki * Bitcoin Q&A * CIA World Factbook 2020 * Drones and Model Aircraft Q&A * Earth Science Q&A * Lifehacks Q&A * Linux man pages Docs * Monero Q&A * Open Source Q&A * Photography Q&A * Raspberry Pi Q&A * The Guide to Online Anonymity * Tor Q&A * Wikipedia

Food * Based Cooking Luke Smith * Food for Preppers * Gardening and Landscaping Q&A * GrimGrains Recipes * Prepper * Water Treatment Library

Medical * Military Medicine * NHS Medicines A to Z * WikEM

Prepper * A library of knots * Appropedia - Offgrid * CD3WD Project * Energypedia * Knots by Wikipedia * Motor Vehicle Mechanics * Physical Fitness Q&A * Post Disaster Resource Library * Ready.gov * S2 Underground - prepper stuff * WikiCiv

Repair * Bicycles Q&A * Electronics Q&A * iFitit * Home Improvement Q&A * Restarters - DIY repairs * Woodworking Q&A

Music and games. I’d be looking at GoG game installs.

The internet is not bad. The internet is not 5 websites. The old internet never went away. IRC never went away. Tildeverse is a thing. Gemini is a thing.

Offline wipideia, maps, dictionaries and study material in at least japanese and Norwegian, and every how-to video on farming, bikes, cars, tractos, home repair, and carpentry I could get my hands on. I actually prefer books for some things, but reading japanese is such a slog for me, having them in English would save a lot of time.

I honestly don’t think I could. It is way too integrated to how I travel/vacation. I’ve used paper maps in the past, but there is a lot more information there in online guides.

probably my steam library (well the singleplayer ones that is), and every single ROM known to man

I have gone long stretches without internet access(by choice) the longest being from 2015 - early 2019.

The biggest adjustment is lack of music and porn personally but you get over it pretty quick.

NGL I am on-site rn so I’ve only had phone data to connect me to the interner for two weeks now. It’s pretty limiting but liveable.

Probably find a giant comic and manga archive since I won’t be able to visit aggregators anymore.

Information about any skills I might want to improve or learn someday. Tutorials, professional reference sites, an archive of subreddits & other discussion communities dedicated to the topic. There’s so much depth of experience and know-how for any given skill on the internet; this would be one of the hardest things to give up access to current information on.

Similarly, inspiration reference for a lot of creative skills I pursue or may pursue in the future. A huge pile of blog posts, Pinterest tag archives, and YouTube downloads. It’ll be disappointing after a few years to not have easy access to current trends and styles, but hopefully enough of the reference is timeless.

I’d try to find some way to capture the vast amount of human life experience shared on the internet. Ask Metafilter archives, all the essays and blog posts I can find on different life stages and milestones and potential challenges that I can think of. It wouldn’t be the same as being able to actually connect with other people going through the same thing, which the internet makes so much easier, but at least it’d still be comforting to know they existed and hopefully learn from what they wrote about their experience.

Overall I’d rather not swear off the internet. Everyone loves to complain about the bad parts, but I think it’s a lot more dependent on how we choose to spend our time online than anything else.

maybe some old usenet/reddit archives..

What, like, I’m permanently air-gapped with no wireless? NNCP

I already have 30 G of music, lots of TV series and movies, and all my own pictures plus a bunch of interesting ones from the internet. I also have a bunch of ebooks covering various topics including software development tech, wilderness survival, and bushcraft/homestead tutorials. I’d say I already have everything I’d take from the internet.

I’ve never been one to rely on the internet being available. If something is important to me, I save it just in case. Periodically I review what I have and purge what no longer matters.

All the dots. . com would become com. 192.168.1.1 would become 19216811. All mentions of dippin dots would be affected across many different areas, though no one would be able to see it. Take all the tops off lower case I’s. It’d be fun.

Deleted by author

Old meme compilation videos

Wikipedia.

Regarding other stuff, I hoard myself thank you very much. 😂

Diy stuff

I mean if I had the disk space which I would prioritize redundancy and backup over more space if I never had access again and presumably could not get it from others. I would want wikipedia sure but honestly everything I could. Every game and media I could get my hands on. As much of the internet I could download like all of the internet archive or such.

Books and manga, and music, honestly. Without video it would take some adjustment because honestly I use or more like background noise for my eyes and ears lol but I can manage.

Books can be fictional and non fictional stories, manuals, guides and recipes.

Don’t see myself lasting long without Invideous or Soulseek.

Are we talking like I get to bring with me everything that currently exists on a platform or everything that will exist?

I’d be glad I chose the PS5 with an optical drive, though I’ll have little reason to play as I only really play online with friends

I’d be disappointed as I’d have to work from the office

If it was a general thing my employer would be unhappy as they only have office space for about half of us

I’d download Wikipedia, and a lot of stuff from archive.org, all my photos and online stored stuff, the rust book

Thinking about it, I think it would be impossible if it was just me - so much of my work is online and must be as my team is distributed around the country

My offline TV / movie collection plus this collection of random internet images. I’d just miss interacting about them

I have most of what I need/want outside of the Internet (books, newspapers, people to discuss with, places to go,… even my music and movies are physical media/offline). I would get back a tad more free time, I guess which would probably be great ;)

All the porn

I don’t have a good answer for this, but you may be interested in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9v8Rm_eQ5M&t=7