Oct 6, 2011 / Topic Ideas

What’s more important: electricity or the internet?

Topic #270:

With the passing of Steve Jobs yesterday, the web is filled with remembrances of a pioneer and industry legend. It’s a sad day indeed. But it’s also a good day to look back and consider the history of innovation. And how all the inventions and creations of the last 100 years have impacted us.

As a specific topic to write about: How would you compare the importance of electricity with the invention of the internet? or the cell phone? Can this kind of comparison be made? If you had to lose one of these inventions, which would you keep? And why?

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  3. I firmly believe that electricity is magic. It flows, conducts and illuminates in ways that we never see. If I had to choose between the innovations of the past, I suppose electricity would be at the top of the list. If for no other reason than I love magic and pretty sure none of the other innovations would have even made it to the list without it.

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  4. I think electricity, compared to the Internet, is more important. Electricity, or the idea of it, was invented in 1829. Obviously, the Internet came much later. I think we can survive without the Internet; we would just have to read a gamut of books and start being more social again. Living without electricity, especially in today’s Western culture, would be severely problematic.
    Personally, if there was no connection whatsoever between electricity and its ability to keep the Internet alive, I would prefer to live in an area without electricity (the desert or an island) and still have the benefit of writing blogs and publishing them. 😛
    Thanks for posting! Cheers.

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  5. This seems like a no-brainer. We can lose the Internet, because someone, somewhere, will come up with something else, but without electricity to power it, the Net would be useless. Electricity is an integral and irreplaceable part of our lives now. People don’t remember and cannot fathom how to function without it. But we could easily function without the Net.

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  6. What is more important, electricity or the Internet? That is almost like asking the question, which is more important, the chicken or the egg. Any intelligent person would have to say “Electricity” is the more important of the two because without electricity, the Internet would not, could not, exist. Electricity, on the other hand, can exist and function without the Internet.

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  7. This makes me wonder ….. without the electricity to power it give life to the circuits and chips, what would be the big thing of today instead of the internet? Perhaps we’d all be sitting in parks together, talking and sharing ideas and meeting new friends or maybe enthusiastically writing and pinning our words up on giant boards for others to copy and pass on.

    Thankfully, there’s electricity. And WordPress.

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  8. funny question, with todays fast facing life both are important. even though not everybody has a computer or has an account and can access to the net, you are both attach to it. without electricity you cannot use your computer or anything that needs energy of electricity.

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  9. It must have been a young person who wrote that question. A rather naive young person. Look down behind your computer. Is there a cord down there? Is it plugged into the wall? Into an electrical outlet? Without electricity there is no internet. Period. Without the internet the world goes happily on, just as it has for thousands of years.

    It is NOT possible to make a comparison. But, let’s suppose there was some magical way we could lose electricity and still have access to the internet. I would choose electricity without regret. Electricity not only powers the internet, it powers the pumps that bring us clean drinking water and a thousand other things we don’t even have to think about anymore.

    I’m old enough to remember a rural home with limited electrical devices. There was a drippy, messy block of ice to keep our food from spoiling (for a little while). We walked out the back door and down a path several times during the day and night and there was nothing automatic to wash away what we left in that little house behind the garden. To wash up we primed the pump with a little pail of water left on the well top, turned the cistern handle til the big bucket was full, refilled the priming pail, carried the big bucket into the house, dipped out a tea kettle full, heated it on the wood stove, then poured it out in a wash basin.

    No doubt the internet has changed the world in many ways. But it does not compare to the life changing power of electricity.

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  10. No electricity, no internet. Electricity is much more… it’s energy for our daily activities to move on… Internet is only part of our activities whereas electricity is the main power source of everything! Except imagination and creavitity of course which comes from our major power source: our mind…

    Oops I think I’m going out of subject… anyway…

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  11. Everyone seems to be picking electricity, so I’ll pick Internet.

    And how will I power the Internet, you ask? Simple, the same way it’s powered now. Magic.

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  12. In this world of inventions, you have to break new ground.
    Edison did that when he tinkered, experimented with notions or concepts that he held about light movement. The internet is a greater invention, because of all of the good features that you can use it for. No other invention has these multi media features. Having said that, you have to be ever vigilant of the time that you spend on the net. 1:1 relationships are better. Develop them more. Read a book, talk on the phone to a friend or email them to start.

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    1. i was too quick with my answer. The electicity and the internet are different entities. The internet could not run if it were not for the very early inventions in this country regarding electricity. Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison come to mind.

      If I had a choice of which to choose, I would pick elecricty any day. I can live without the internet, It is just that it has taken over a lot of typing functions. If we had to, we could still could type documents,on a manual typewrtier,
      and do spread sheets by hand.

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  13. This question doesn’t make sense since the internet requires electricity. If you opt to lose electricity, well, there’s no flying chance you’ll have the internet either.

    I would absolutely without a doubt dump the internet. After going through hurricanes and melting in the insane humidity and heat… I would give up the internet in a heartbeat so that I can stay cool, cook my foods, and watch tv.

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  15. What is Electricity without Internet or what is Internet without electricity hummmn:/ i need to pay them both 🙂

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  17. Electricity definitely, but when you ask what is more important electricity or water, it’s water definitely. The main question is what is it that you actually can’t live without?

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  18. Electricity is by far the most important of those three. It runs the AC and other household appliances as well as the computers. Without mastery of electricity, the rest (Internet, cell phones, etc.) would not exist. Even if one of the others were to be lost, eventually, it would somehow be replaced. If electricity were to be lost, all the rest would be useless until it was restored.

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  24. When there is a power cut,you notice people are desorientated.
    Live without electricity wil be impossible.
    You become too much used to High Tech.
    Before you had not got internet and you managed to talk with people, friends.You wer living in an other way.

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  25. Which one is more important – the internet or electricity?

    This should be relatively easy to figure out since the internet can’t be applicable if there wasn’t any power (ie. electricity) to run it. The digital age that we are currently in wouldn’t be possible at all if the power source to run the show wasn’t there.

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  27. There is no internet without electricity. The question sounds odd, its just like saying ” my house has no foundation”. Electricity is the begining of all development, although its dangerous that it even kill the founder that discorvered it. God bless FARADAY!

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  29. Great question, I would keep electricity Scott… Almost all innovations are good but comparing the mentioned innovations (cellphone, internet) to electricity is valid but yeah how can internet run without using electricity. Also cellphones needed to be recharged so they won’t function if there is no electricity…

    Although there are many great innovations but there is always a need to go with the basics…

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  30. If it were possible to have the internet without electricity, I’d say internet. But since it’s not, I say electricity.

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