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Lately, all I have to do is open YouTube and I can scan the titles of the videos on my feed, and start to develop an idea of what people think is going on in the world right now. I especially pay attention to the titles that specifically mention AI or end-of-times themes. Conveniently, that is what fills up probably at least 50% of my feed.

“Real Dreams From Artificial Minds”

“The Last Normal Year”

“You Can’t Own a Computer Anymore”

“AI Could be a Tool for Total Global Control”

“Why Are Governments Telling People to Prepare?”

“How to Download All of Wikipedia”

“AI Could Reverse Engineer Anything”

“AI is Now Discovering Things Humans Can’t”

…and so on and so forth. I’ve been seeing many of these same themes appearing on my feed for weeks and weeks now. Several weeks ago, I began seeing the first videos that were telling us to “download the internet” because it’s about to shut down.

So I did take that advice to heart. I discovered websites offering free download of a multitude of different survival guides, and I have a folder on my hard drive now stuffed (is that even possible) with them.

Then I took the idea a step further and sought out other free resources I could download. Such as public domain movies from the black-and-white (grayscale, really) era of film. I found some genuine treasures in that collection which I saved for offline viewing.

My all-time favorite of that era is “Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor”—the 1936 color special in which Sindbad sings the classic, “Who’s the most remarkable extraordinary fellow?”

Which brings me back to something I wrote in an earlier chapter that I had heard in a video somewhere. “Nowadays you must be extraordinary in order to live a regular life.”

Another line I remember from a video I saw, “Write it down. Now get in front of a camera and say it out loud.”

Now, I didn’t download the internet in the same way that the video said we should. I took the lazy/easy route without the need to download, install, and figure out how to use any new software. For instance, the video mentioned something I believe is called Kiwix, which I’m sure I do not understand what it’s supposed to do other than allow you to literally download the entire Wikipedia website all at once. I just didn’t really see the need for that. I already have the ability to find a webpage (not site) with useful information, and save it as a PDF file complete.

I think the other one it offered the ability to download as the entire website was the medical wiki site. Which, yes, in survival situations, could potentially come in extremely useful, if you require one of the solutions actually listed on that site. But all I could find were situations like cancer, and unpronounceable diagnosis that I couldn’t even wrap my brain around.

I do absolutely agree with preparing for offline computing. Download your movies, music, and games. Give yourself the ability to use these items completely offline. Get yourself an external storage device which can be unplugged and carried in a bag or a pocket. I have several options for external, removable, portable storage devices which I use daily.

I recently purchased a laptop computer (another preparedness trick) because once it is fully charged, I can use it for several hours not even plugged into the wall. I know, I know, welcome to the world of portable computing! But I immediately noticed how sluggish it was acting and how it would freeze up simply trying to open the media player. So I went into the apps menu and began clicking that good old “uninstall” button. The main drag on my RAM was Microsoft Office. It was also the main item using all of my drive space. After uninstalling all of the unnecessary bloat, I restarted and every app suddenly worked perfectly every time and opened immediately with no delay.

Then I checked my RAM size and my drive space. Folks, can you believe they actually got me to purchase a computer with 4 Gigs of RAM and 103 Gigs of drive space? Is such a thing even possible? looks in mirror The state of my hair says, “Yes!”

I remember a time, long long long ago, when personal home computers had just begun to make their way into over half of American homes. And the news announced that there would be a 1 GB hard drive available! And I literally shouted at the TV, “That’s ridiculous, there’s no way that anybody could ever fill up that much hard drive space!”

And now here I am, 30 long years later, complaining that I only have FOUR TIMES that amount just in RAM alone. But after watching, yes, more YouTube videos, I have learned that most people probably would like to have somewhere around 64 GB of RAM. I mean. That’s nearly the whole amount of my drive space I have. But, I am not anywhere near being a gamer. The only game I have played in the recent past was groans Adventure Capitalist. There, I said it.

I’m more into music (but only the ones I create using AI!), movies (but only public domain!), photos (usually the ones I take myself), and of course reading material. All of this I have the ability to use offline. I’m not pretending I would know what to do in a survival situation, but at least I can tell myself that when I’m bored I can still watch Superman cartoons.