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Bali Plans To Switch Off Internet Services For 24 Hours For New Year 'Quiet Reflection' (theguardian.com)
Internet service providers in Bali will be switching off mobile services this weekend for 24 hours to mark the Indonesian island's annual day of silence. "Nyepi, or New Year according to the ancient Balinese calendar, is a sacred day of reflection on the Hindu-majority island," reports The Guardian. "Even the international airport shuts down." From the report: This year authorities have called on telecommunications companies to unplug -- a request Bali says firms have promised to honor. "It was agreed that internet on mobile phones will be cut. All operators have agreed," Nyoman Sujaya, from the Bali communications ministry, told tirto.id. The plan, based on an appeal put forward by Balinese civil and religious groups, was announced following a meeting at the ministry in Jakarta. This is the first time internet services will be shut down in Bali for Nyepi, after the same request was denied last year. However, wifi connection will still be available at hotels and for strategic services such as security, aviation, hospitals and disaster agencies. Phone and SMS services will be operational, but the Indonesian Internet Service Provider Association is reviewing whether wifi at private residences will be temporarily cut.
"How the fuck do I get out of Bali?", the bored citizen wondered quietly to himself.
...we should all don our costumes and pretend they've returned to The Planet of the Apes.
are they going to send people to tell residents to unplug their routers?
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
So what happens when someone who is using VoIP telephone service attempts to contact emergency medical, fire, or police services? Your SOL that day I guess? This is the problem with trying to legislate morality.
You are what is wrong with america.
See virtue signal. demand everyone else do it too.
The blackout of 2003 was good for people socializing. This will be too.
I was surprised at first but then i read the article. I thought it was going to be expensive until a saw that it won't effect folks who are living in hotels and such. So with that said, it's not that important to me. I'm not being crass, just thoughtful.
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
This is probably a good idea for many places.
People are getting too dependent and addicted and need to step back and reflect.
If we cannot switch off our digital addiction for several days than we have a problem.
like say, a terror attack, no one will know until the day after, because there wouldn't be internet access to report it.
So, you belive the “news” you read on Facebook then?
This is what would happen if we had an internet kill switch in the US.
Except substitute "quiet reflection" with "pray to Jesus in the way my particular denomination does".
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Note how they point out that emergency services personnel, security, hospitals, etc will still have internet? It's only the plebes, lets hope it's not the beginning.
Why don't they just cut all electricity, plumbing, and all other services so people are sure to reflect on the simple joy of life?
There. Plain and simple. While Nyepi:
Observed from 6 a.m. until 6 a.m. the next morning, Nyepi is a day reserved for self-reflection, and as such, anything that might interfere with that purpose is restricted. The main restrictions are no lighting fires (and lights must be kept low); no working; no entertainment or pleasure; no traveling; and, for some, no talking or eating at all. The effect of these prohibitions is that Bali's usually bustling streets and roads are empty, there is little or no noise from TVs and radios, and few signs of activity are seen even inside homes.
sounds good (we could have more of that, people tend to be noisy & stir things up wherever they go), the line following above quote already spoils it:
The only people to be seen outdoors are the Pecalang, traditional security men who patrol the streets to ensure the prohibitions are being followed.
To avoid confusion: I have no problem with religion in general. At all. But too much trouble in this world starts when [population group A] wants to enforce their world views on [population group B]. Above example seems pretty harmless, but the principle still holds. For that reason I hate it whenever this happens. Practical reasons: fine. When an issue must be decided one way or the other, and a super-majority picks the 'least evil' option with minimized harm to others: okay. But forcing some measure upon others for NO GOOD REASON other than tradition / culture / religion / state repression or whatever: not okay.
While looking harmless enough in this case, it includes denying a basic utility service to (also according to WP) around 16.5% of non-Hindus in Bali. Or in the order of ~800k people. Who may or may not choose to participate in the event. But in case not, see their freedom to fill in their day as desired, trampled upon by the majority.
If you want peace & quiet, go some place where there is peace & quiet, and do nothing to disturb that. If you want that as a group, find a place big enough for that group. If you want that for the rest of your live, go live in a place with no / few people around. Otherwise: stop messing with OTHER PEOPLE's lives. They are not your life, and thus (unless your rights are inflicted upon) not your business to mess with.
I'm sure the government asked a business to shut down service and everybody there was just like "Hey, that's a great idea".
Seriously, does anyone else find this disturbing as hell? If you want to shut off your internet for a day go right ahead. Unplug your router. But having the government force the issue is frightening. Especially with the religious overtones. It doesn't help that I've been reading stories of Hindi nationalists out of India, but to be fair I've got no idea if that sort of nationalism exists in Indonesia.
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Sorry messed up the numbers a bit there. Might be closer to ~700k non-Hindus in Bali...
There is an offline paradise
Happy New Day of silence )
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
They could have been Jewish.
Have gnu, will travel.
A week without online shopping would probably save tens of thousands of small businesses for a year. Especially if that week was the one after Thanksgiving.
Why is it extremely important for people not directly affected to immediately know when there has been a terror attack?
Yes, in the days before the Internet, no one was able to find out what was happening in the world. People in the United States didn't know there had been a second World War until 1971, and they only found out through word of mouth.
I remember the early 1980s when the results of the Super Bowl had to be spread by town criers.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Bali actually had a few terror attacks 15 - 20 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
From my Oz city alone [Perth] there are 3-4 flights just today to Bali, full of Ozzies looking to party and get hammered in Bali. [It is only a 4 hour flight].
They will not be happy when they find out they cannot update Facebook, Instagram etc etc with pictures of them drinking bucket-size cocktails and in general being dickheads.
What if your family or friends were directly affected by the attack?
If i went away somewhere i'd still want to remain informed of important events occurring elsewhere.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The main difference would be that you worry without anything you can do a day later.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
>> So what happens when someone who is using VoIP telephone service attempts to contact emergency medical, fire, or police services?
It happens the same than when someone has a hard disk failure : he learns the importance of backups.
It happens that this person then realizes that VOIP is not a bullet proof service that should be relied on for emergency, and next time this person and a few around will be better prepared.
aaaaaaa
They need to switch them on again on IPv6 only! No other country will ever have such opportunity of a flag day.
There's plenty you can do depending on the situation...
If a bomb explodes in a location where your friends and family are, you can find out if they were affected or not.
If someone is critically injured or sick you may get a last chance to speak to them before they die.
Being arbitrarily disconnected from the world for no real reason is a bad thing.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Neither action would keep the person alive. I fail to see the benefit.
My dad is old. And it's likely that at some point in the near future he will die. I sure hope it's still some decades out, but statistics is not on my side. I honestly don't know whether I would want to talk with him and KNOW it's going to be the last time. What do you say to someone you know will die? Instead, I try to make every time we talk pleasant enough that I could rest easily if in retrospect I had to realize that this was the last thing I said to my old dad.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That is exactly what democracy is - "rule of the majority".
If you want to avoid it, you should probably move to a non-democratic country, at the risk of succumbing to a tyranny of a much smaller group.
Is to go forcing it on others, is it not?
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
I thought Centurylink was just crappy DSL. Nope. Turns out they are tranquility Buddhist and just want me to have some quiet reflection time. How thoughtful of them.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
... That way I can finally catch up on my Fidonet Echoes.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
No, foreign country attempts to enforce observance of religious ritual on entire population.
I respect their right to choose not to use the internet for 24 hours for religious reasons. But forcing it on the irreligious is a bit shitty to say the least.
There are still parts of northern Scotland, especially out on the islands, where you can't get a drink on a Sunday as all pubs are closed on The Day Of Rest
Almost all Western demcracies have similarly Christian laws imposed on the secular populace. United States is only one of the more egregious examples, being founded on secularism and never having a divine king in its history; most European countries were at least actually founded on Christian values.
If you have ever lived in Germany, you would be very familiar with this problem as there is a day when you are explicitly not allowed to dance in public because of some Bismark era Christian-based legislation. People kind of know about this and some do think that it's a little weird. What people do not think is weird is that they are not allowed to work on Sundays, which is every single bit a religious law as the dancing one. Neither is getting repealed any time soon though, as the seems to be this general belief among the populace that repealing the latter would somehow lead to worker exploitation and repealing the former would reduce the number of days off in any given year. It's very inconvenient.
You can't separate religion and culture.
I have a problem with elected representatives that are full shit.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
like say, a terror attack, no one will know until the day after
And? If there is a terror attack I either won't care if I hear about it in the news later that night, or I would want it to come through so frigging urgently that the internet is well and truly the wrong avenue for distributing that information.
How are people supposed to quietly reflect without cat memes? They contain more wisdom than some entire religions.
Balinese takes its religion very seriously, and it is under serious threat in the modern world. The quiet time is just part of that, they put a lot of effort into festivals.
They are also under cultrual attack from large numbers of Javanese immigrants, and this is a way to assert their Balinese culture.
After, Nyepi they then have a wild party, with the Ogoh-Ogoh -- have a look at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Bali is still a magic place, despite the thousands of yobbo Australian tourists. Let's hope it remains that way.
Making it a 'day of quiet reflection' instead of '2 minutes of hate' doesn't make it any less dystopic.