system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What runs the internet? Is it just a collection of servers? Is there any single place, that if destroyed, would destroy the internet?

I hope i don`t get put on a list for asking this...
gpt
The Internet itself was designed to be completely distributed. It's mostly just a collection of servers, with routers that all figure out the routes to the different servers on their own.

The only largely centralized piece of this is the Domain Name System- the thing that turns URLs into IP addresses. If you took out all 13 clusters that make up the root of that system, you'd pretty well cripple people's ability to use the Internet, although there's enough redundancy in the system that we'd probably be able to recreate it pretty quickly. 

The biggest risk is probably someone cutting all of the trans-oceanic cables which would splinter the Internet into an American Internet and a European-Asian-African Internet.