Fandango has posed an interesting question today and I thought I would have a shot at answering it.

If you were forced to chose, would you rather live without the internet or live without air conditioning and heating? Why?

This is a tricky one for me. I rely on the internet for many things as I live in an isolated community with no services except for a local shop that sells bread, milk and a few other necessities and isn’t open every day. I order my groceries online, I bank online, when I was living here alone most of my communication with the outside world was via the internet. It even powers our landline phone and as TV reception is very bad here streaming is how I watch TV.

However, I initially thought that I would choose air-conditioning and heating over the internet because that is a matter of health and comfort. When we lived in Adelaide we didn’t have air-conditioning and the summers there were dreadful. Instead of buying an air conditioner we moved to Tasmania where we’re blessed with a temperate climate. It does sometimes get hot and humid in the house during summer but not the way it used to in South Australia. It gets pretty cold in winter too. We usually have the heater on in the evenings and occasionally even during the day if it’s really miserable. On the whole though Sisters Beach is not as cold as Geeveston or Oatlands were. It’s certainly not as cold as winter in parts of Europe or North America. We’re unlikely to freeze to death if we had no heating. We’d just be very uncomfortable.

So surprisingly I think I’d be willing to live without heating and air conditioning in order to still have the many benefits of the internet. Of course I may feel differently when it’s 40 degrees Celsius and I am sweating like a pig.

On second thoughts, don’t make me choose. I can’t.