# What if the Internet had existed in the 1960s? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 4, 2007, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-internet-had-existed-in-the-1960s/398716 "2007-04-04T15:39:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-internet-had-existed-in-the-1960s/398716/1 "2007-04-04T15:39:23Z")
A cyberpunk-steampunk fusion idea: Suppose computer technology had advanced much more rapidly than it did IRL, and by 1960 Internet-linked PCs had been as common in industrialized countries as they are now. How would that have affected the turbulent social and political events of the decade? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-internet-had-existed-in-the-1960s/398716/2 "2007-04-04T16:30:54Z")
Just want to point out that many of the things we now have and associate with the internet were available back then, but in different form. We had instant communication via TV and telephone. For individuals and small organizations we had slightly slower things – Facsimile transmission (which in some forms date back to the days of the telegraph, and which AT&T did a lot of work to try to popularize in the 1960s), mass mailings, and the like. A book I bought circa 1987 – “High Weirdness By Mail” – describes things you could get by mail from people who had odd ideas, art, and the like that they were trying to get the word out on. Within a few years most of them (or people with the same agenda) were on the Internet. One book from a decade back on the telegraph was even entitled “The Victorian Internet”. The advantage of the internet, of course, is a vast increase in speed and ease of access and use. You’ll easily look at a site that’s only a few keystrokes away – writing a query letter and sending it to The Breatharians and waiting a few weeks for a respknse will probably not be thought worth the effort. Plus, the internet is anonymous. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-internet-had-existed-in-the-1960s/398716/3 "2007-04-04T17:13:29Z")
There would have been **even more** Kennedy conspiracy theory carp. :shudder: ---
**Author:** ![Whiteknight](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whiteknight/32/4962_2.png) [@Whiteknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whiteknight)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-internet-had-existed-in-the-1960s/398716/4 "2007-04-04T17:20:01Z")
Wow, the sexual revolution combined with MySpace, Facebook, and AIM? Sheer insanity! ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-internet-had-existed-in-the-1960s/398716/5 "2007-04-04T17:25:36Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] Just want to point out that many of the things we now have and associate with the internet were available back then, but in different form. We had instant communication via TV and telephone. [/QUOTE] I remember being in London in 1961 when [Yuri Gagarin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin) returned from the first space flight. We actually had live TV from Moscow in London of his parade, but the TV link had been set up specially for the occasion. So, back in the early 1960s, TV was not instant world-wide communication, and international phone calls were very expensive, and only to be used on very special occasions. There was he technology for instant communication, but it was not as pervasive as it is today. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-internet-had-existed-in-the-1960s/398716/6 "2007-04-04T18:16:12Z")
If the internet had existed back then, social activist groups would have spent far more time posting on message boards and blogs, and correspondingly less time in real-world protests and activism. Hence they would probably have been less effective. ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-internet-had-existed-in-the-1960s/398716/7 "2007-04-05T11:57:40Z")
If the Internet had existed then, by definition cheap and powerful computers would have been around. Those had a major effect on the economy, the chat stuff is trivial compared with what happened when you could replace 15 people with one seriously impaired computer. The cheap PC is the equivalent of the impact of the tractor on farm labourers - the chat side pales into insignificanse beside it. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-internet-had-existed-in-the-1960s/398716/8 "2007-04-05T12:16:26Z")
There would probably be a lot more international legislation and policing in regards to the internet due to the Cold War and the potential for spying and propoganda. ---
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-internet-had-existed-in-the-1960s/398716/9 "2007-04-05T12:36:55Z")
Certainly, if the internet had existed in the 1960’s, I know one thing for sure… Godwin’s Law would have been invented some 20 years earlier than it was. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-internet-had-existed-in-the-1960s/398716/10 "2007-04-05T12:41:53Z")
YouTube would have prevented Richard Nixon from ever being elected. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-internet-had-existed-in-the-1960s/398716/11 "2007-04-05T13:44:09Z")
[QUOTE=Fear Itself] YouTube would have prevented Richard Nixon from ever being elected. [/QUOTE] Except that the blogs would nail JFK for every single affair. ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-internet-had-existed-in-the-1960s/398716/12 "2007-04-06T09:39:38Z")
[QUOTE=FriarTed] Except that the blogs would nail JFK for every single affair. [/QUOTE] Yes - and Johnson 🙂