Everything You Need to Know About The Internet

The Internet is a vast electronic network that connects billions of computing devices across Earth, allowing humans to share information, argue about that information, share pictures of their meals, and argue about those pictures.

Originally conceived by Earth’s military-industrial complex as a way to maintain communications during catastrophic events, the Internet has instead become primarily used for looking at videos of small furry animals doing amusing things, and for ensuring that no human opinion—no matter how ill-informed—goes unexpressed.

The Internet operates on a surprisingly simple principle: information is broken into tiny packets and sent bouncing around the planet through cables, satellites, and what humans optimistically call “the cloud” (which is not, disappointingly, an actual cloud, but rather large warehouses full of humming machines). What makes this remarkable is not the technology itself, but rather that it works at all, given that it was essentially built by letting millions of humans add bits onto it without any coherent plan whatsoever.

Humans spend an average of six to seven hours per day connected to the Internet, during which time they:

• Insist they are “doing research”
• Become inexplicably furious about the opinions of people they’ve never met
• Purchase items they don’t need
• Watch videos of other humans watching videos
• Attempt to convince strangers that their political views are correct (success rate: 0.000001%)

The Internet has been described as “humanity’s greatest achievement” and “humanity’s worst mistake,” often by the same person within the same hour.

A word of warning to off-world visitors: Do not attempt to “read the entire Internet.” Several species have tried this and subsequently required extensive psychological rehabilitation.