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Estonia: Where the Internet is a Human Right
securitas writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports on technological change in Estonia, where an enlightened post-Soviet era government believes the Internet is essential for life in the 21st century and backs that up with legislation declaring Internet access is a human right. Estonia is a country where hot, running water was a luxury a decade ago. It's now a place where farmers have broadband Internet, 80% of the people use online banking, Internet usage and broadband penetration rates are comparable to Western Europe, and the government conducts most business (meetings, votes, document reviews, etc.) virtually through a system of networked computers. Not bad for a country that only 10 years ago was a crumbling, bankrupt mess with a network infrastructure to match."
This story is interesting but I think it's a little vague; it would be much better to ask what *kind* of internet is a basic human right (i.e. democratic, decentralized, or centralized, top-down, corporate, or other models). The Estonians seem to be answering this question correctly but it's hardly something that an article like this should gloss over.
I always love downloading my ISO's from Estonia mirrors. I always seem to get my max download speed. Good for them!
I wonder whether this is true for the whole country or it only for the area of the capital.
Ask the Russians in Estonia about human rights
Yugoslavia: From hosting the Olympics, to a complete crap-hole in 10 years.
Estonia: From complete crap-hole, to "hosting" the Olympics [of website hacking] in 10 years.
Somebody cue up that Elton John song from The Lion King, will ya?
How can something that's only been developed the last few decades become a fundamental human right? Before that, humans were all witheld that right? The creation of the internet was one of the higher goals of mankind?
I sure hope not.
I don't see why this is necessary, either. I understand the Internet is becomming more and more important for a lot of people, and I'm very much in favour granting as many people as possible access to the net, but only because it is a right to have access to those things you need to survive. If those things are moved to the net, you need to make sure everyone can still access them. That doesn't mean the Net is a right, though - just the things you really need to use it for.
You don't know what those wacky Estonians will do with thier "rights" and their "freedoms" ....
They might start a decentralized peer-to-peer network and start trading files or something!
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
"declaring Internet access is a human right."
...
Oh that feels so much better
Now, who is going to pay for that right ?
Okay, this time YOU be the computer!
My journal has hot
Any country that can build Nuclear Weapons can have a good teclecom infrastructure. Just compare North and South Korea.
At who's expense? The internet is great, but it is crazy to say it is a 'human right.' Why shouldn't a car be a human right? A house? A boat? A plane?
I'm wondering, where is all the money coming from for everyone to have high-speed internet access. I know the government probably takes more taxes than in the US. But, how can a country that was almost bankrupt not too long ago afford this?
Where did you get this crap? Estonia was one of the most well-doing republics of the Soviet union. Hot water stopped to be a "luxury" around 1940's, as far as I can tell (I'm a former Soviet citizen).
Why can't Russia get their act together like this?
Only requirement for good karma: be pedantic as much and as often as possible.
Not bad for a country that only 10 years ago was a crumbling, bankrupt mess with a network infrastructure to match
Taking this into consideration, their system seems pretty natural. Estonia (unlike say the US) is starting their tech infrastructure from scratch. They don't have to deal with ancient systems kludged together with duct-tape or deeply entrenched telcos. If the US had an oppurtunity to start from square one, many of the problems we have wouldn't exist.
This is also a bit like the MS/Linux situation. MS made some bad decisions early, and has to deal with these decisions and peice together work-arounds. Linux was built from nothing, and has the obvious advantage of seeing what mistakes others have made and not repeating them.
As long as Estonia analyzes mistakes others have made and are careful not to repeat history (bad things), they may well end up with an example for all others on how to assemble a tech infrastructure.
I mean, we JUST decriminalised Homosexuality, for petes' sake! I think it'll be some time down the road before we have to tack on gratuitous 'human rights'. First we'll have to have the human right to medical treatment, the human right to privacy and the human right to fair elections first!
I think you are confusing Estonia and Lithuania. Estonia has always been one of the better organized of the Baltic republics, even in the era of the USSR, and one of the first to define and push towards a new west-facing economy thereafter.
Dramatise if you must, but get your facts right.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
It sounds pretty cool that they all have internet access, but it's not the be all and end all *prepares for down modding* I mean, what about the other basics like food, healthcare, and the like? As long as the other things aren't sufering to pay for it it's fine, but I'm not sure where they are getting the money from....
Estonia had hot water since late 1800's.
I used to live there in 70's and even then the level of life was very high , one of the highest in the former S.U.
After all, I got this friday off... in the next six month period I get two fridays off... after that, another friday... then, three fridays...
Looks like I average about *two* fridays off in a six month period! I don't think I want your plan instead, unless those are *additional* fridays.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
If estonia can do it, why can't Iraq?
;)
because america is calling the shots in iraq?
MilkMiruku
I was at Estonia last year, and I really have to disagree with article because way too rosy picture of country. Computer prices are at sky high. GNP is quite low ($10,900), country has problems with criminality, prostitution, drugs, mafia etc. Tallinn is quite safe and prosperity city, mainly because all of tourists who carry *lots* of money there. But, at countryside. Lot's of Soviet era problems. ...But I can get there cheap booze :D
http://archonon.sytes.net/
Iraq is one of the richest countries in the world so developing a high-tech infrastructure isn't difficult (Iraq is richer than practically every African, Asian, or Latin American country--excluding a few like Japan, etc). Of course, the issue will be who will want to do something like that? US-installed proxy governments won't (USA will lose control if it does)... and internal Iraqi governments won't either (hard to control people when they have access to information).
......The worst thing in my life happened when the stock market started mattering more than the economy
Let them go back to mother Russia, they're not wanted in any of the ex-USSR satellites anyway. Damn communists... they were put there to advance party ideals and water down the locals with Russian stock anyway.
Yeah it's strange, but hey who are you to judge?
m
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/815978.st
-- taking over the world, we are.
MICHAEL would DIE in a GULAG
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Just to clarify Estonia is not an 'ex-Soviet' republic. It is an independent country that was forcibly occupied by Soviets in 1940 and regained their independence in 1990. Even their language has nothing to do with Russian. It shares its roots with Swedish and Norwegian.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Per capita, Estonians are currently spending more time (67 hours/year/capita) playing first person shooters online than Canadians (57 hours/year/capita). They're almost matching South Korea (70 hours/year/capita). By the way, the US comes in with 109 hours/year/capita.
This is quite a feat for a former Soviet republic.
Full Article
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
I look at it as a form of communication, which has been established as a right.
I mean the right to free speech (in the USA) means one can own a printing press, or a radio station (regulations permitting), TV, or now, a web page.
I don't think the founding fathers had radio and tv in mind when they wrote the bill of rights, but they knew that people have the need to communicate.
Betcha their national pastime isn't...fake combat
Thought you were talking about our favorite president
That's right that Estonia was the most well-doing republic in the SU but in the endyears of the Cold War and when the SU began to fall those things like hot water were really a luxury... We had to buy things in shops for "tickets/recepis/lil paper thing", call it as You like... Some things You could get only if You had some friend or Your hand in the industry/whereever... Like sopa and sugar and stuff like that... Most thigs were exported to the center of SU(Russia)...
But the internet connection is truly spreading... Only lately we got an articel sayng that we have more than 600k users...
Try going to, say, Germany or France and demanding your own schools THERE. Seeing so many Blacks and Hispanics refusing to speak [proper] English in America must have confused you into thinking a country does not have the right to defend its identity.
Internet accesses -you-!
"...broadband penetration rates are comparable to Western Europe" is another hot one. The article says that "Internet usage and broadband access are approaching West European levels." Hell, all that means is that Estonian rates are (a) lower, and (b) increasing relative to WE levels.
The article itself gives information that conveys almost nothing about usage: "Farmers are ordering broadband lines, and motorists on rural roads frequently pass blue information signs pointing them to the nearest place to access the Web." Wow, so at least 2 farmers have ordered broadband. And there are at least two signs on country highways - of course motorists frequently pass them, people drive down those roads all the time!
The EU is working on a bill of rights equivalent- and included are things like the right to free job placement services, workers' comp, etc. IMHO, this is ludicrous. The conflation of universal human rights with the universal benefits of an advanced semi-socialist society does no favor to either human rights or human welfare.
...seems to scream for an "In Soviet Russia" joke, but taste dictates otherwise.
Betcha their national pastime isn't driving around in a circle or fake combat either (Nascar and wrestling for the international reader).
On the other hand, I've never heard of NASCAR or WWF fans crushing eachother to death in stadiums.
Free speech:
Free speech and exchange of ideas are theoretically (scientific definition) important to societal, technological, and other human advancement. If you can say whatever you want but can't say it to anyone, then you don't have free speech. Free speech must be available to the public or it is without value. The internet is generally accepted as the newest and most advanced method of enacting free speech. Though it may be a bit drastic to say that internet itself is a human right, it is a very good way of allowing free speech.
This would assume that Estonians have the right to free speech, which I expect but am not certain of.
It's all very simple. Mart Laar's government decided that making the internet more available for Estonians would be one of its priorities. They said, in a very political manner, that they will support any effort that helps this. That's all they did.
Internet is widely used in Estonia, internet banking especially. Cellphones are very common. Costs are similar to the Western Europe, but at the same time people's income is several times less. Which means that people are willing to spend a lot more of their income on telecommunication than in many other countries. It's a fine mixture of questionable self-esteem and good marketing - without being on-line or having a cellphone, you might feel inferior in Estonia. How much the nation is actually benefitting from this, is unknown.
"The winners claim prizes including the wife's weight in beer."
Where can I sign up??
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Last time I checked the right of the state to defend the identity and the right to get an education the person desires were NOT mutually exclusive.
Religiously fanatic moderators.
Christianity is Americas biggest problem.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
The internet should be treated as a privilege not a right. That way abusers like spammers can have their privileges revoked.
Is this the same Estonia which recently used KGB style scare tactics in order to prevent local peace activists from holding a demonstration in front of the US embassy? I would think freedom of speech ís somewhat more important than net access...
How much different would the discussions below look if it had been German, England, Brazil, or the U.S.?
Perhaps /. has become too Estonia-centric? ;-)
Oh yeah, IMO, it is preposterous to propose Internet access as a basic right when literacy, healthcare, housing & even potable water aren't universally accepted as basic rights, regardless of the country. No slam against Estonia intended, of course.
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
Assuming they don't deny inmates human rights, this could become a large problem: When incarcerated people have a right to use the internet, they can contact their old child porn rings, cracking cells etc. People can also do all sorts of smaller internet misdemeanors without their ISP being able to cancelling their subscription.
I assume you have not read articles from The Christian Science Monitor. I would not consider myself a religious person, let alone a Christian. However, I have found this publication to be valuable in its content, mainly because they have their own writers and do not rely as significantly upon wire services.
I pulled some info from their about page for you and anyone else not interested in clicking through to read.
Consider this quote from _1908_ about the intent of the publication: Here is another quote to chew on: Try reading some of their articles. I think you will find it a valuable source of information, regardless of the connotation in their banner.
As an Estonian it's pretty interesting for me to read about "the magical technoparadise of Estonia". While it's definitely true that internet access is extremely widespread and pretty cheap (my 512kb connection costs about 17$ per month), in most other areas Estonia is still far behind Western Europe and the US. For example, the majority of people in Tallinn live in what Americans would call "the projects" - huge concrete buildings built during the Soviet era. Also, healthcare and other public services are often on the edge of chaos (often you have to wait for over 2 months for a dentist's appointment, for example). But there is one other area in which Estonia is WAY ahead of the West and that is our women - every foreigner i've met has told me that the women in Estonia are the most beautiful in the world :)
werd!
I agree. I'm very happy that Estonia is making such good progress in getting people hooked up. But the issue of the misuse of the word 'right' remains.
This is concept-destruction, using concepts in ways that contradict their meaning, and if we let people get away with it people eventually forget what a real right is. They aren't the only ones, of course, but it's still very sad to see.
A right is something that you can have without taking away someone elses, that's one of the key qualities of it. Your right to free speech doesn't stop me from talking. Your right to practise the religion of your choice, or not, doesn't stop me from having the same right. But when you're talking about goods and services, such as medical care or internet access, these aren't things that you have as long as no one interferes to take them, rather they are things that someone must work to produce. So, if you claim a 'right' to these things, what you have done is claim a 'right' to someone elses labour, a right to enslave others, essentially. There is no right, there can be no such right, it is contradictory to the core of what rights are.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I was there a few years ago and was amazed at their official turistic website, really something even 4 years ago.
People are friendly, prices ar reasonable or low, a great place. Unlike Russia, which has still a LONG way to go before it can be considered a nice place. (Was there as well recently and it was a strong and stressing experience)
In Soviet Russia the Internet surfs you! Um...
I visited Estonia about two months ago (I'm an American) and will be moving to Tallinn, the capital, in about three months. I was fortunate to meet an Estonian studying in western Maryland. She has to head back to Estonia soon to finish her degree, and I will be following her, working remotely for my current US employer.
I was very personally impressed with the internet infrastructure there. It was an encouraging sight to enter a very small town by car and see a sign that said "this area covered by public wireless internet". And if they weren't covered by wireless, one of the first informational signs you'd see as you entered a town was "Internet this way -->" (usually directing you to a library).
Of course, seeing signs is different than working and living there, but from visiting my friend's family members, it does seem that fast internet is ubiquitous and inexpensive.
So are you saying this is a good thing? If I were an Estonian, I would not be so proud to know that I was wasting even more time than the average Canadian, and am at least half as lazy as the average American.
I thought the Internet was already comparatively free. I mean you are pretty much free to do anything you want as long as you are willing to pay for it.
What about people who are willing to pay, but the cost of what they need is too high for them to afford?
In the U.S. we have the right of free speech. Exercise it by putting up a web site critical of some company, though, and more often than not they'll try to sue you (usually over some kind of nebulous trademark/copyright issue) to get rid of it. Or they can just complain to your ISP who is hosting your few MB of webspace where the site resides, and they will yank it under the guise of being in violation of their TOS.
You can, of course, solve these problems somewhat by hosting your own webserver via a provider who will sell bandwidth with absolutely no restrictions on what you do with it, and who won't renege on that policy when a megacorp starts swinging lawyers around-- but not everyone can afford that. And yes, some places have laws against companies using legal means to squelch vocal critics, but since the entire legal system is completely intimidating to the average person, you'd still need to keep a competent attorney on retainer to handle anything that cropped up.
So, sure you can have free speech on the internet-- but only if you can afford it.
I think having Internet access as a basic human right is as important as, say, having the right to free assembly or the right to write letters. Even more so, considering that their government is moving towards doing most of its business online.
I guess Iraq is screwed!
So that rules out Iraq!
As the "Security guy" for a medium-sized datacenter, I saw that Estonia is perhaps second only to Belaruse in terms of number of attacks on our network. The number of Estonian crackers is extremely high, more so than Korea/Vietnam/anywhere in Asia.
# wrote sig.txt, 23 lines, 31337 chars
Ok.
I saw a programme on DW-TV a few months ago on this subject. Why has Estonia made such progress while its neighbours are still languishing in the soviet era?
The reason of such a profound change in Estonia is because of one main reason- change of guard. Young people control the majority of Estonia's power. Be it politics, architecture, medicine..you name it. The older generation has handed over a lot of the responsibilities.
The prime minister himself is 35 years old. All the members of his cabinet are younger to him.
Leaders elsewhere in the struggling economies of Europe could learn something from Estonia.What is so special about young people? They carry no baggage. They want more economic progress and they will do whatever is needed to achieve that. Politicans/businesspeople/engineers work towards a common goal i.e economic progress. Nobody cares a damn about communist crap.
Here is a quote taken from (DW-TV).
YOUNG ESTONIAN LEADERS
One of Estonia's youngest politicians was asked this week to be the country's new prime minister. 35-year old, Juhan Parts - who was 24 when he started in politics - was chosen by the victorious Res Publica party after recent elections in the Baltic state. Described as 'boyish and brainy', Parts belongs to a tradition of young leaders in top positions within Estonia's government. The country's first prime minister after independence was Mart Laar who was 32 years old when sworn in.
Here is a related article about young people in Estonia.
"I don't know much about BeOS, but a bunch of Slashdot posters who have probably never used it also say it is sexy, so I'll parrot the opinion."
But where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? /rockapella
--
"I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo
I agree. I have been reading Christian Science Monitor for a while and I think it shows less bias than most other "mainstream" news sources. Even their editorials are surprisingly free of it.
I would suggest that people not let the name put them off.
Just some statistics from someone who lives in Estonia:
Starman Cable
64/32 = 149EEK = 11$ = 10
512/128 = 295EEK = 23$ = 20
1024/320 = 495EEK = 38$ = 33
Estonian Telephone ADSL:
256/128 = 295EEK = 23$ = 20
512/256 = 495EEK = 38$ = 33
Cable is only available in the bigger cities, ASDL is available almost whereever there is a telephone line. There is no limit on how much you can download. 11$/month for an always-on connection which is faster than a dialup is quite cheap IMO.
And whereever even the telephone lines don't go, you've got GPRS which is relatively cheap compared to other countries (from ~2.5 to ~0.7 $/ per MB!)
All of my friends have internet access. Only one of them has dialup. Even my grandmother surfs on the net! My grandfather doesn't though... Some older people fear the internet.. (i'm not touching that computer, i'll brake it!), but almost everybody (at least in the cities) has used internet/computer in their lives..
marius
RIAAs new targets since they can not spend US p2p users into bankruptcy..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Nah, that's not a problem at all, but then I AM an imperialist.
Does Estonia have a strong engineering/science tradition? Is the university system particluarly strong there?
I don't know if the Blacks' having significantly lower IQs is a hereditary thing (there are simply too few studies of this other than those showing that Blacks actually have low IQ on average). One thing to note is that Estonia benefitted from being seeped in Western culture and tradition; and on the other hand, from the unparalleled Soviet educational system in the second half of the 20th century.
What are the employement levels, per capita income, etc
From the article: ''... a country with an average per capita income of $7,000.''
Try reading the article. While not explicitly stated in all cases, you can infer some of the information that you are looking for.
Let's start a country called Boneria, where porn and go-go clubs are a basic human right.
Table-ized A.I.
It's hardly suprising that as former Soviet republic would latch on to information technology as a fundamental right. It's a simple reaction to Soviet policy, which even restricted access to photocopiers. Indeed, the revolution in network and media technology played a big role in bringing down the U.S.S.R. -- much bigger than anything Ronald Reagan did. It's only natural for the Estonians to seize on this technology as a safeguard against a return to totalitarianism.
Um, that graph indicates that the units are minutes per year per capita...
Only requirement for good karma: be pedantic as much and as often as possible.
For Estonia to declare that Internet access is a "right" without providing any philosophical justification is a very scary thought. Rights cannot be granted or revoked by government fiat. Sure, government can decide whether or not it will recognize a right and allow it to be exercised--but that's different from granting or revoking the right itself. The notion that the existence of rights themselves are subject to government whim is the notion that underlies every despotic regime since antiquity.
Even disregarding this, there can be no such thing as a right to Internet access. Internet access must be produced, it must come from somewhere, and to claim there is a "right" to it means that someone somewhere must hook up the wires and keep the service running whether he wants to or not--in other words, a "right" to Internet access implies a "right" to someone else's labor, which makes that man a slave. And slavery is a very bad thing indeed.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
Obviously the modern definition of "right" is being used. The one with the implicit "until the U.S. government disagrees". U.S. corporations are safe from the Estonians.
-- Repeat with me: "There is no right to profits".
right
This is my
As someone who comes from Estonia, let me offer a few reasons on how this change happened: :)
1) Geographic and cultural closeness to Finland. Finland is one of the most wired countries in the world, and the multitudes of cell-phone carrying Finns crossing the border to buy cheap booze left a strong impression, creating more demand for telecommunications infrastructure. Never underestimate the power of neighborly envy
2) Liberal and fast growing banking system. Banking was probably the fastest growing sector in Estonian economy in the nineties, being built from ground up and supported by the fiscal policy of the government. Estonian banks invested heavily in technology and as a result I could do more in an Estonian online bank (like sending money to anyone in the country in a matter of seconds, free of charge) in 1995 than I can do today in a US online bank.
3) Prioritizing computer and Internet education in schools. This was a fortunate brainchild of some younger politicians, and as a result computers are a natural thing in younger people's lives now. See this link or the Tiger Leap site for more information.
When men used to be men
I used to write software for wireless (cellular, GSM, CDMA, PCS, etc) network engineers. We sold our software to a company in Estonia that was building out a GSM system.
A little over 7 years ago, I had to go over there for 10 days to do a little customer support for our software. My trip was only supposed to take 3 days, but Fed Ex didn't exactly have next day service there, at least not then.
I was amazed by how far Estonia had come, technologically, in such a short time, and they have continued, obviously, since. They already had pretty excellent wireless phone service and pretty comprehensive coverage.
What I learned while I was there was that the Estonian language is very similar to Finnish, and because of this and other reasons, the Estonians had a very close relationship with Finland. It was through this relationship that they were actually able to grow faster than Lithuania or Latvia (its neighboring Baltic states).
In fact, Estonia is a mere hop from Finland. As I recall, the flight (in a Soviet-era pond hopper, which scared the s@#t out of me) took about 20 minutes from Helsinki. There's also a ferry that moves between the two, and from what I was told, a lot of people went back and forth for business.
My only other recollections of Estonia is that it was freezing cold (I was there in October, and it's roughly as far north as Alaska, in case you're an American and want a reference) and the women were gorgeous. But unfortunately, at least as far as the people I dealt with, I found them to be about as cold as the country.
What good is the right to free speech if nobody is allowed to listen to you?
This should also be considered in the context of a post-stalinist political sensitivity. Stalin considered typewriters to be weapons of revolution -- he knew that, if the people got together and realized that others had the same idea, the recognition of agreement could cause the people to refuse to act like sheep.
In North American we're spoiled. Access to basic telecommunications is so easy and ubiquituos that we consider it to be a right. The fact that we haven't had to fight for it (yet) doesn't make it any less important.
Consider this: When the Chinese censors tried to cut off access to google, we thought that something was wrong. They weren't cutting access to the net... just one of it's search engines. Similarly, many people were upset when the government effectively shut off Mitnic from access to computers (effectively including The Internet). Many of us are living like the internet is a basic right, but we just haven't declared it so.
How would you feel if, in the midst of 9/11 or some political crisis, the government managed to shut off access to the internet "to prevent panic"? I've been on the inside of political news stories, and I do not trust the news media to report political events in a completely unbiased manner. For me the question is more one of whether or not the bias is in my direction.
The right to free speech requires the right to be heard. The interned allows people to be heard by whomever wants to listen to us. In my world, the right to the Internet is a corrolary of the right to free speech. The Estonian government has simply codified this concept.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I can see it now: "I don't just support human rights, I helped invent them!!"
Well, if wasting time is an indicator of free time and free time is relative to how successful you are then yes...I think it's an excellent indicator. Don't we all wish we were so lucky to be able to sit around and do nothing all day?
Homestar Runner as a human right!
Slashdot as a human right!
goatse links as a human right!
Actually, scrub that last one.
If you're happy and you know it read my blog
Nice to meet my northern neighbours here at slashdot.
I am from Latvia. I have seen many such articles about my contry. We're behind Estonia in some areas, but not too far. I know what it's like to live in Latvia. And I know it's like to live in Estonia or Lithuania. No big difference. Therefore, all articles like this one are bullshit.
Where such articles come from? Some of our politicians want our countries to join European Union in the near future. This is why they try to present Estonia or Latvia as progressive countries with fast-growing economy and so on.
We're in doubt whether or not EU will be useful for us. EU will bring cheap workers from Asia to Latvia and Estonia. Even cheaper than we are. And no profits. At least seven years.
True. My first girl was from Estonia :) She was nice.
But thank you to everyone else who did answer my question.
Shows that a small, smart country can change and be progressive on a scale a big hulking country can't - the inertia of size.
Break up the U.S.
Is education a fundamental right for a civilized society? Yes.
The internet will prove, I believe, a more valuable tool for education than any of the public institutions that exist today. And, unlike those institutions, the information will not cost so much that a fraction of a percent of mankind can afford it.
How then, given that information has been methodically restricted and censored in the so-called frontrunner countries (exhibit one: the patriot act) is it illogical to give the internet the undeniable status of a fundamental right?
Everyone seems to forget these:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
The original authors of the Constitution did not want to include a enumeration of the rights of the people, because they feared that the government would use any enumeration to show that unlisted rights were not guaranteed.
In other words, the constitution is supposed to protect rights that the citizens already have, not grant rights to them as the Democrats would have you believe.
Looking back aren't new rights given in light of their overwhelming need in an ever-changing world?
The point is that rights aren't given by anyone, with the philosophical exception of God. They are merely recognized. Modern governments recognize that people have the right to freely express their opinion, to worship as they choose, to assemble, and so on, because those are intrinsic to being human.
The poster's point is that by adding "and you have a right to running water, and a right to a 40-hour work week, and a right to Internet access, and a right to a refrigerator, and a right to 99-cent cheeseburgers with your Super Club card", governments cheapen the idea that these are fundamental human attributes and reduce them to the level of merely benefits bestowed by the government.
The American model recognizes certain God-given rights in the first ten amendments to the Constitution not to create them, but to acknowledge them so that they cannot be infringed. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments acknowledge that the list is not all-inclusive of the entire spectrum of human rights - it merely enumerates some that are so important that they are worth mentioning on their own. For good or ill, of course, the judiciary has identified more rights over the years which are not specifically enumerated, like "privacy". But the theory is that "privacy" is still not considered a government-given right, because there can't be any such thing - it is intrinsic, and simply doesn't happen to be mentioned explicitly in the Constitution.
ASA
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
In Former Soviet Russia, the internet has the right to use you!!
Apologies all
Now I know where I'm moving when internet access gets regulated / taxed / banned where I live. Broadband access as a right and gorgeous women, what more do we need ? :)
the general level of prices and wages is fairly low, for instance compared to Finland. Some high tech companies here are moving their production to Estonia just for this reason (not unlike what USA companies do in India). In this respect these broadband prices are nothing spectacular. For instance, I'm paying 49 per month for a roughly 1024/320 cable connection, no extra limitations.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I would suggest you have a dim or at least cynical view of the internet, and are overlooking its promise. It's perfectly reasonable, even at this point in time, to equate internet access with access to books, libraries and other forms of learning and education.
Most of who have taken advantage of that access know that the concept of universal education is a very modern one and that had to be championed by enlightened citizens who spent much of their time fighting the ruling elite who considered it an anathema. In fact the idea was considered revolutionary in its time, not unlike giving the great unwashed masses the right to vote. Today, of course, all of us take such ideas for granted, for ourselves and for our kids.
I'll submit that the sooner we open our minds and see that the promise of the internet extends beyond the concerns of commerce and is viewed as part of our social fabric, we'll be better off. And bold moves by small countries across the world will seem almost quaint in retrospect.
so it's not controlled by "commercial and political monopolists" but by a religious monopolist... whoopdedoo
Many here seem to say "Internet-access can't be a human right!". Why is internet-access not a valid human-right, while according to many americans, the right to carry guns is?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Why can't the USA get their act together like this?
;-)
The US government it currently holding people (ciizens and non-citizens) incommunicado in unstated locations. Access to lawyers, family members, etc. is denied. The government has stated that they intend to hold these people until they confess to what the government wants them to confess to.
One thing that is a techological possibility now that could go a long way to putting a stop to such atrocities: A general declaration that communication with the rest of the world is everyone's inalienable right.
Imagine the effect if the US government had to supply each of those captives with access to a blog, and access by the rest of the world were guaranteed.
Imagine the effect on lots of governments if "communication" were generally declared a universal human right under all circumstances.
Of course, in some cases, the rest of the world might well conclude that they deserved imprisonment, and would simply ignore them. But then, a right to communicate shouldn't mean that anyone else is required to listen.
(Maybe I should post this as an AC so there's less chance that I'll end up an "enemy combatant"?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Any more then reading a newspaper is a right.
The abiity to speak freely is a right. The internet, newpapers, magazines, etc... are just metods in which to exersize the right to speak freely.
Now, gevenment program to ensure the the people have the ability to speak freely through various methods is another matter.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
... right up there with Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Property.
... "the right to fuck" ... have all long since be added to with your Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Puberty^H^H^H^H^H^HProperty.
Probably in that order, in fact.
Real, essential human rights, like "the right to shit", "the right to eat", "the right to drink", "the right to breathe", and lets not forget
I see no, particular reason - other than flaming users of the term 'whore' - why any group of people, sufficiently organized enough to call themselves a country, shouldn't be commended for actually *adding* to a human right which, fundamentally, is 100% human.
Geeze. D'uh?!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
enough taste to not do a "In Soviet russia" joke, but not enough taste to go without mentioning them.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and ask:
"So, you couldn't think of a funny "In Soviet Russa" joke, eh?"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Of course not, the violence is provided by the sport, so the fans need not make their own :)
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
The 2nd Amendment (right to carry arms) was originally demanded by the Southern States, who were scared to death of slave rebellions. The 2nd Amendment grants the states the right to have their own paramilitaries to quash local rebellions instead of having to depend on the priorities of the federal troops.
Marko
An Estonian high school teacher earns about 5000eek/month, while IT workers get about 10,000eek/month and managers about 15,000eek/month. Your milage might vary.
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
The tax system in Estonia is extremely good and simple. They effectively scrapped all taxes and introduced flat income tax of 26%, VAT, land tax, and a few other taxes.
Recently they abolished corporate income tax. That means that a company does not pay taxes on its income, only the share holders pay tax on the dividends. This makes Estonia an ideal country to do business with.
Also, unlike any other country I know of that have zero corporate income tax, Estonia has entered into a lot of very favourable tax agreements with other countries. In the post-soviet era, they negotiated some really nice agreements - partly because other northern european countries wanted to stimulate trade with/investement in these new countries.
Its nearest cousin is Finnish. Finns and Estonians can understand each other, more or less, the same way e.g. spaniards can understand portuguese or swedes can understand norse.
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
just 10 years ago america was a fine country, not attacking any other states with vague accusments of being "terrorists".
and not only that, they didnt have a drunken bastard for president.
think, just 10 years ago.. whoa.
and you have a right to running water, and a right to a 40-hour work week, and a right to Internet access, and a right to a refrigerator, and a right to 99-cent cheeseburgers with your Super Club card", governments cheapen
I like this point, and I would like to add a bit to it. The difference with "the right to free speach" and "the right to Internet" is in what obligations these give to other people.
In the former case, there is no obligation to other people, but in the latter, all of a sudden someone has the obligation to provide Internet. So, if you are smart/ hardworking/ lucky it is your obligation to provide the Internet for me who is less so.
Of course, this can be handled through an organized government, but the point still holds. By adding a laundry lists of nice things to have and calling the "rights", you are very much infringing on more basic rights, because you are forcing some people to provide certain things for others.
Tor
Not bad for a country that only 10 years ago was a crumbling, bankrupt mess with a network infrastructure to match."
So even thought things might look bad now in the 3rd world that is the USA, with countless homeless people, even more people living the poverty line, California and 5 other states recently bankrupt (failing to meet budget requirements) with a huge national deficit, a shaky international reputation and lack of human rights. Not to mention things are getting worse day by day. Perhaps The sates could use Estonia as a model to help pull them self out of their current slump.
No one in the USSR saw it coming either, a lot of them were laughing at how bad the USA had it, and how lucky they were to be living in the greatest nation on earth.
Guess things are just the same as always, the USA is 15 years or so behind Russia.
The internet is a right for people in the US. I recently came across the journal of a homeless person. The journal is online of course. So in the US at least, anyone really can access it, provided they walk a little.
1000 years ago giving everyone the right to life liberty and pursuit of happiness would have been impossible in medevil Europe. The Roman Empire had been dead for not even 500 years, the continent was divided into militaristic factions, food was scarce, learning was stopped, and starvation was the norm. It was only during the prosperity and emergence of middle class during the renaissance that human rights discussions even really began. Today's "basic human rights" are rights that seemed luxurious to 16th century bourgouise, and most rights are really just the notion that promises made by leaders to the people are promises that should be kept.
Technological progress always yields greater human rights. It may seem foolish now, but why not have internet access as a fundamental right. 100 years ago, giving women the right to vote was silly too.
This is my sig.
Disclaimer: I am not Estonian. However, I have previously worked for an Estonian company and been to Estonia and Latvia quite often and I still have many good friends there. I also speak decent Estonian, fluent Finnish and bits of Latvian and Lithuanian.
Language
Estonian is not an Indo-European language; it has very little in common with e.g. English, German, French, etc. Instead, it is a Fenno-Ugric language that is very close to Finnish and a distant cousin to Hungarian.
Meanwhile, Latvian and Lithuanian are very much Indo-Europeans and the oldest living languages of the tree. They feature words that come from as far as India's Sanscript and also have words in common with every branch of the Indo-european family. As such, they share a lot with Slavic (Russian, Polish, Czech, etc.) and Germanic (Dutch, Scandinavian) languages. While my knowledge of Latvian is extremely limitted, I find bits of German, Swedish, Russian and even French in both the vocabulary and grammar. Yet, some of the words sounds like nothing else in the other languages and would probably date back to Proto-European languages or Sanscript.
History
The Baltics have been under the domination of just about every major European power throughout history: Russia, Danemark, Sweden, Germany, Poland. As such, people's roots, particularly in Estonia, are quite diverse. As a former collegue was commenting: "What does it mean to be Estonian? Our ancestors are either Polish, Danish, Finnish, Swedish or God knows what. Few of us have actually got Fenno-Ugric blood all the way back; the only thing we have in common, is that we all speak Estonian."
The two most important phases of foreign dominations were the Hanseatic League and the Soviet Union. The first was Germany's answer to Sweden's conquest of Finland, Carelia, Ingria and Northern Russia in an attempt to control trade routes around the Baltic rim, while the later was the result of sham elections held during the Soviet force invasion near the end of the World War II.
The Soviet era forever altered the ethnic background of Estonia and especially Latvia, resulting in a large influx of Russians (plus some Ukrainians and Bielorussians) from poor rural areas being relocated there as labour force and military personel. Nowadays, Estonia's population counts about 30% of Russian-speaking former Soviet expats, while Latvia has over 40% of them. Lithuania was spared from this forced colonization, having maintained an 80% purely Lithuanian ethnic composition.
Technology in the Baltics
During the Soviet era, the three Baltic states became USSR's key engineering center. Estonia got a top-notch Cybernetics Institute that produced some of USSR's most top-secret military electronics, in the Tallinn suburb of Mustamae, while Latvia produced the railway equipement and home appliances for a large part of USSR. (I am unfortunately not familiar with what role Lithuania played - can someone fill in these blanks?)
During the Glasnost introduced by Gorbachev in the 80s, that engineering know-how started being applied to non-military needs, which produced, among other things, audiophile and video equipment such as those made by the company Estonia. Having personally heard their pristine sound, I can say that they compare extremely well to those pricey Scandinavian audiophile speakers and amplifiers. Latvia also had a similar brand, whose name I forgot, whose success was less noticable.
How Estonia became an Internet and PKI Mecca
While the Baltics had been a somewhat cozy travel destination famous for its white sandy beaches and spas (before and during the Soviet era), its infrastructure started falling appart during the Glasnost. As such, once the 3 countries regained their independance in the early 90s, rebuilding them was among the top priorities.
The phone network dated from the early part of the century and hardly reached rural areas. It was of course all analog. Scandinavian telephone compan
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
This has a rather striking resembelance to the beginning plot of 'Splinter Cell' -- an ex-Soviet republic, 10 years from no running water to a great information backbone... If we don't stop this now, soon the government of Estonia will cause the Estonian Information Crisis! ;)
The American model recognizes certain God-given rights in the first ten amendments to the Constitution not to create them, but to acknowledge them so that they cannot be infringed.
Is that so? Right to fair trial, etc? How come the US government doesnt seem to extend these rights to non citizens?
So even thought things might look bad now in the 3rd world that is the USA, with countless homeless people,
The People's Republic of San Francisco gives ~$400/mo cash to their homeless, and their city government is perplexed as to why they have so many of them when they're spending so much money.
even more people living the poverty line, California and 5 other states recently bankrupt (failing to meet budget requirements) with a huge national deficit,
California reelected a crooked socialist governor. Really, really dumb move. Davis is almost certain to be recalled even though the state deserves to be stuck with him for his full term.
a shaky international reputation and lack of human rights.
Actually, I think we now have a pretty solid reputation as a nation you do NOT want to fsck with. This counts as an improvement over the years immediately prior to 2001. As for human rights, the fact that you can post such drivel with impunity speaks volumes.
Not to mention things are getting worse day by day. Perhaps The sates could use Estonia as a model to help pull them self out of their current slump.
No one in the USSR saw it coming either, a lot of them were laughing at how bad the USA had it, and how lucky they were to be living in the greatest nation on earth.
Guess things are just the same as always, the USA is 15 years or so behind Russia.
Some people will believe anything. It helped that the Soviet dictatorship rather severely limited access to foreign travel, had total legal control over the media, and "disappeared" people who disobeyed. 'Twas kinda hard to get an opposing viewport. OTOH, you could read Pravda over here. I remember seeing it at my local library (People's Republic of Ann Arbor, the main midwest base for the now Former Soviet Useful Idiots) when I was little.
As for why the Estonian and Russian economies are zipping along today, one major reason is that they've both passed flat income taxes. In Russia it's a 13% flat tax, not sure about Estonia. That wipes out most of the compliance overhead, it dramatically raises participation (not worth the risk to duck a 13% tax that's easy to audit), and it stops the economic distortion that occurs when people do otherwise stupid things to minimize their tax hit (like take out the biggest mortgage they possibly can to max out the interest deduction, thus fueling all those McMansionvilles). We really, really need to pass a Flat Tax here, it'd wipe out half the K Street lobbyists and accompanying corruption since there'd be no more tax loopholes to lobby for, but the socialists (er, Democrats) will scream bloody murder that The Rich(tm) wouldn't be paying their "fair share" (defined as "as much as we can get away with looting to buy the votes of the sheeple"), so there y'go. Word is that China is considering copying the Russian flat tax.
Estonia did not crumbling 10 years ago, but it is
crumbling now thanks to current stupid government.
Hot water was available as much as in Europe in Estonia.
BTW it is not as advanced as Moscow
in terms of internet and technology but it is
trying to be as good as "other people".
In any case it is an illegal entity, as all postsoviet "states",
and sometime in the future the order and
proper government will be restored in USSR
A free society gives everyone the freedom to equal opportunities. Every individual has the right to earn Internet access.
Socialism, on the other hand, tries to make everyone equal. Money will be taken out of your paycheck to pay for every individual's Internet access.
Here's a relevant link to Google.
First off, I'd like to say that I think what Estonia is doing is for the most part a good thing. However, I think they're treading on somewhat dangerous ground with their use of the term "human right" (although the article was a little vague, so I may be wrong about how they're viewing it). Rights are things that no one should be denied. Free speech is a right. Freedom of religion is a right. Freedom to not be searched by the police without a warrant is a right. Freedom to not be denied access to the internet by the government is a right. Where the use of the term "right" gets a bit dangerous, though, is when you say that someone has a right that requires action on the part of someone else to fulfill. People don't have a right to free internet access provided by the government, because limited resources may make that impossible, or at least put that at odds with other so-called rights. It's the same way that people have a free speech right, but no right to free airtime on NBC.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
I don't understand all this crap about: 'No, it can't be a right' or 'governments are cheapening what it means to recognise a right'.
To me, the situation is simple. The democratically-elected representatives of the Estonian have seen fit to recognise as a fundamental right access to the Internet. So what? Let them recognise whatever rights they want. TO object to a foreign government recognising a right which wouldn't fit into your own country's concept of fundamental human rights is a bit presumptuous, especially when guaranteed access to a further source of de-centralised information is an objectively good thing.
International human rights concepts should be limited to providing a baseline that all human beings are entitled to rely on. If some governments want to go further, so be it.
Baltic's states, including Estonia was never
"USSR's key engineering center"; it was quite
peripheral and unimportant technologically.
So don't even try: you can please yourself
with this lie, but not the people who
actually was soviet citizens
... to pay back those loans.
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
Ok then. Then does this give them the right to spam? For example, this idiot - cient@info.com - spammed me today. Guess what's going to happen to HIS/HER email box now I've posted it on /. ? :-) muhahahahhha REVENGE! Spam the spammers!
All these post-Soviet countries are prospering??
...), most of which are totalitarian dictatorships and very far away from prospering.
Belarus perhaps or Moldavia? Certainly not. Also the Ukraine is worse off economically than Russia.
Or did you think of the republics in Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgystan,
The only post-Soviet countries that can perhaps be said to prosper are the three small Baltic republics. It is hardly an accident that it's just the countries that are closest (culturally) to Western Europe. So, there's not really a contrast to the "Western World", they have just joined it with quite some success. They are not that different, there is also economic hardship in the Baltic states, especially in Latvia and Lithuania, although things are improving.
True, but then they're not failing to protect the right to speech, they're failing to prevent murder. If 90% of the populace decides that people start killing people who tailgate on the freeway, the government has a responsibility to stop the killing, even though tailgating is unlawful. Its the vigilantism that's the problem.
There's a big difference between the obligation to enforce laws, and the obligation to provide a service. Suppose you require the service to be provided, but don't enforce it, that requirement's no good. If you have the right to internet access you have to fund both enforcement of access to the system, and you have to fund the system itself. For free speech you only have to fund enforcement of free speech rules. Let the people do the speaking for themselves.
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
So let's write a new set of human rights:
... no idea what else do I need ...
1. right to an internet connection
2. right to a hot babe (dude optionally)
3.
"I've heard there is a lot of Ass in Estonia."
From the mouth of a San Francisco Taxi driver to Estonians.
As others have said, the Internet as a right(as in birth->accessability) entail quite a bit of expense.(e.g. computer or similarly capable device, power, telephone, cable, dsl, or other connection) For basic speech, all you need is what you come with.
Now, free speech as it occurs online, the free exchange of information, those, like many nifty things, ought to be protected, but there's a difference between protecting them and declaring them rights.(see all the junk necessary that must be provided to prevent appearing to "obstruct those rights").
*honk*
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
...that people in baltic states didn't drink as much as russians :)
--Coder
you don't suppose it could just be people bouncing from hacked boxes in *.ee?
you cant compare the right for internet and the right for water. water is in no way a right that you would need somewhat philosophically or spiritually or such. you will die without water, but you will die *happy*. on the other hand, internet is really quite important, concidering the free speech and stuff like that. you will not die without internet, but the denial to access the net would captivate your chances to express your free speech. i remind you, there is a good chance of getting your ass kicked should you just wander to the streets and start yelling stuff.
Contestant : I'll take European countries for 200.
Alex : "A crumbling, bankrupt mess with a network infrastructure to match."
Contestant : What is the UK? Um, tropical fish for 100, please.
I'm living slightly to south from Estonia. I do not agree with some ideas in some postings - specifically, about Estonia leading the ex-USSR and/or Baltics (Lithuania/Latvia/Estonia) regions.
Cultural differences aside (Estonians are Ugro-Finnic, others are Balts, none of them Slavs), the three countries are similar in size, economic conditions, they share same recent history (post WWI independence, pre-WWII Soviet occupation, 1991 restoration independence, economy recovery and upcoming EU membership.
Looking at economics, GDP growth in Estonia in 2002 (5.8%) was the slowest among its Baltics neighbors (Latvia 6.1%, Lithuania 6.7%) for second year in a row, while GDP-per-capita (9240 in "purchasing power standards", roughly equal to euros) was similar to Latvia's (7750) and Lithuania's (8960), even Belarus or Iran, yet a far cry from European Union average (23210).
This despite the fact that Estonia does lead Baltic states in internet usage. By June 2002, 66% Estonian companies and 19% people had internet conections at home (in Latvia 36% and 3%, in Lithuania 49% and 4%).
Don't make bold statements before checking facts.
Wrong! My co-worker was io designer for 5-th generation mainframe, that Gorbatshev announced to the world in 1987, Institute of Cybernetics also had Elbrus mainframe for example (it was more powerful than Cray in this time), I have worked with person who designed LCD displays for MIG jetfighters in 1980, etc., etc.(I'm estonian)
Sorry, but acess to knowledge is a human right. Withholding it is oppression. For the poor, having to purchase something is often tatntamount to denying it. They often have no choice but to choose food, clothing, or shelter insread.
The latvian brand was called Radiotehnika...
About the time Estonia became a "republic".
Estonia was a very prosperous *independent* country until Stalin invaded in 1939 as part of the Non-Aggression pact with Hitler.
However, it has nothing to do with hot water shortage.
The problems with hot water begun in early 90s, when USSR imposed sancitons to Estonia shortly after its declaration of independence, barring it from energy supplies. By that time, there was *plenty* of water, power lines, railroads, highways and other relatively modern infrastructure, while your comment implies that Esti had no hot water until the very fall of the Iron Curtain.
While USSR was sufficiently lagging in some aspects of technology from the Western world, it definitely mastered the craft of warming water and delivering it to households.
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
What's the point in having a government supposedly by the people, for the people if you can't use it to harness economies of scale? The British commonwealths have been relatively socialist for decades now without taking it to the extreme the Soviets did.
Help us build a better map!
Eastern Europe under communism wasn't like living in some "black and white" (cf colour tv) nightmare.
Yes, that's the one I was thinking about. Aitäh! :)
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
Finland also has an immigration law (which is actually called Aliens' Act) that practically guarantees that none of the refugees will ever find work and none of the legal immigrants will ever stand a fair chance of settling down and acquiring citizenship.
Meanwhile, even though Estonia has very strict immigration laws, including draconian immigration quotas, it remains a country that is fairly open-minded, where individual freedom is ages ahead of Finland and where people are as easy-going as a perfect blonde on Pärnu beach.
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
> How come the US government doesnt seem to extend these rights to non citizens?
You, sir, are trying to mess with my mind! Stop it!
N/T
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
a few years ago, i was working for a publishing company that served the financial services industry, providing corporate fundamental data for emerging markets. one country we covered was estonia.
when doing research (in 1998) i was amazed at just how much better a site the tallinn stock exchange had compared even to the NYSE, AMEX, etc. kinda feeling a bit nostalgic, i just hopped over there and it's still a nice site: clean, simple design, etc. you can see it here: http://www.hex.ee/index.php?id=2&lang=en
interesting that tallinn integrated with the riga and helsinki bourses. and merging with OM is mighty interesting: the exchange consolidation game is still going strong, i see.
ed
Its Sanskrit
Gutboy Barrelhouse wrote:
Their Internet use is high for their per capita income, and the law they passed is certainly forward-looking. But securitas's summary is flat-out wrong.
If you want to cherry-pick you're welcome to, but the summary is a fair reflection of the article. By your own admissions above, the summary can't be "flat-out wrong".
Last year only 1/3 of the population used the Internet, so clearly 80% of the people aren't using online banking. What the article said is that "Estonians do 80 percent of their banking on the internet." This could mean that a tiny fraction who do a ton of transactions (medium-size business, for example) are doing it online.
It depends on how you select the sample. It could just as easily mean that a large number of people are doing a few transactions each. Does every member of the population have a bank account? Doubtful. But of the adult population who do have bank accounts, is it reasonable to infer that 80% use online banking? Why not? It could just as easily be that the same 1/3 who access the Internet, are the ones doing online banking. The article isn't specific enough about the data for us to know who is using what. That part of the summary could have been worded better, but the gist of it is the same: unusually high use of online banking.
"...broadband penetration rates are comparable to Western Europe" is another hot one. The article says that "Internet usage and broadband access are approaching West European levels." Hell, all that means is that Estonian rates are (a) lower, and (b) increasing relative to WE levels.
"Comparable" does not mean equal, which is what you seem to be implying. Comparable means just that: you can reasonably compare the statistics, even though one sum is less than the other. "Approaching" and "comparable" are similar in meaning. One indicates a direction of growth as well as quantity, and the other indicates a quantity alone. So you can add that Estonian rates are (c) comparable to WE levels.
The article itself gives information that conveys almost nothing about usage: "Farmers are ordering broadband lines, and motorists on rural roads frequently pass blue information signs pointing them to the nearest place to access the Web." Wow, so at least 2 farmers have ordered broadband. And there are at least two signs on country highways - of course motorists frequently pass them, people drive down those roads all the time!
I don't know where you live, but rural areas in the West tend not to have broadband availability because the population densities are too low to make it cost-effective. The fact that farmers in rural Estonia have broadband says something about the infrastructure, even taking into account Estonia's relatively small size. Someone else mentioned that there are free public Internet terminals and kiosks around Estonia, and the signs on the highways are an indication of how much a part of Estonian life the Internet has become.
Try to see the other side of things instead of being so quick to criticize. The article is about a forward-looking society in transformation that in some ways has surpassed societies in the West despite 50 years of Soviet occupation.
No one has a basic right to another's work. Apparently this foundation of Communism is still alive and well in Estonia. Such a policy is an enslavement of those who provide a particular service. The article is vague, but no doubt the industry is regulated, and paid for by taxes at least in part by taxes that unfairly tax the rich. This type of thinking is even invading the US, where Maine now is starting to try and regulate prescription drug prices, essentially saying to Pfiser etc., I have a right to your work at a price of my choosing. This type of thinking is an infringement on a basic right of a producer, to choose the price of a product. No consumer has the right to dictate the price of a product to a producer, and the result of such policies are shown by the failure of the USSR.
Vote for Pedro
I knew the phrase sounded familiar, but I didn't know the source. Thank you. Though I'd have to disagree with Hobbes, since the strong central authority is still run by people with the same tendencies as the rest of us. Giving that much strength to a central authority simply lets you know ahead of time who is going to abuse you: the central authority.
My support of freedom of religion does not diminish the ethical argument. It is precisely because of the ethical argument that I support freedom of religion. My beliefs were freely chosen, and while I obligated to share them, I cannot force them on anyone. Others must choose them, or not, in perfect freedom. Though I believe in standards deriving from a specific Source, I cannot compel you to agree with my beliefs. However, under a government formed on this foundation, even those who deny the foundation still gain its benefits!
There are utilitarian benefits to my belief system, even if you happen to disagree with those beliefs. It supports a just, moral, and ethical system of government that regards the lives of people as having innate, inherent value. Other rights are derived logically from this special significance of mankind.
Yet this foundation is eternal, and cannot be changed at whim, when people become selfish and greedy for what others have. It protects human rights at all times, not only when it "seems like a good idea to most of us". This provides order. Sensible people then have a reasonable expectation that tomorrow will be like today - something "good" cannot become "bad" and something "bad" cannot become "good" - and can plan their lives in the freedom of confidence instead of the chains of fear.
All belief systems are not created equal. Not all faiths would provide such a framework in which "competing" faiths could co-exist. The fact that Christianity does speaks volumes, in my opinion.
Constitutionally Correct
Russian language is not supposed to be an official state language, as it has already been a tool of russification. Estonian language is the official state language of Estonia, as is the case in Latvia and Lietuva (Lithuania), with their own national/native languages, respectively.
The stringency of these laws is possibly a logical backlash at russification, which we have had to endure for half a century.
Everyone is not required to pass tests on national language, nor is it IMO forced on other people to speak it (like do or die). There are non-Estonians who don't even bother to learn the language, even if they had an ideal age to do it.
The 'overnight' argument may seem quite rash, but it is the requirement in some jobs to speak Estonian at least in a minimally satisfactory manner, to ensure that the person can interact with other Estonians, some of whom only speak his/her native language.
Some jobs and positions do require the full ability to speak Estonian, and some require that a person be an Estonian citizen (members of parliament and the government, for example).
As it is, if you were to go to live and work in Sweden, the laws of that country would require you to speak Danish. If it's not exactly the laws, then interaction with local officials requires that you speak the language, as it is the official language there.
I suggest you see the film "Interdevochka" ("Intergirl"), where in one scene the main character is told by an official in Sweden that if she wants to get a decent job, she has to go through local high education and fluently speak Swedish.
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These supposed WWII veterans who "fought Nazis" also deported thousands of people from Baltic countries to Siberia, just because they were better well off. Many of the deported died en route, many perished in harsh conditions and many never came back.
Germany has a shameful Nazi past. The Baltic states just don't have this much a shameful past, although some groups of like-minded people like sticking it to the country.
Either way we were caught in a crossfire between the Soviets and Nazis, as during Nazi rule the conscription took the young to that side and during Soviet rule the conscription took the young to their side; in both cases forcefully and both occupied the three countries.
And not 1600 years ago ;))))
During Soviet times, we didn't have serious food shortages in Estonia. At least we didn't have this "no stuff in shops" until the end of 1990's came. But the deficit situation was there regarding some products, as many people bought stuff in advance, believing that in the future there would be less products available (which at some point was true).
Some trivia stuff...
"Norma" produced and still manufactures and supplies seat belts for both Russian and Western cars, the main customers being Saab Automobile AB, Opel Poland, Renault V.I., Van Hool (or Van Tool??), Inka and a few others that were not listed.
The "Kalev" confectionery produced and produces great sweets and chocolates and is famous for inventing the sweet and mild kama chocolate, which became very famous (especially during the cocoa crisis :).
During Brezhnev's rule, when at some point sweets were a deficite in most of the USSR, "Kalev"'s sweets had to be smuggled to all or some of the highest officials in Moscow.
We also produced listening apparatus for the hearing-impaired people and we still do.
"Soviet-own" CD-players were manufactured in Estonia under the like-named trademark. AFAIK, the company manufacturing these dissolved :/. The manufacture/sale of these players began near the end of 1990's, so the product was quite short-lived.
The decision to let the Soviet army in was not made by the people, but by head politicians in these countries (Although the countries were all relatively prosperous, there was not enough democracy there). Because the SU was already picking on them, they decided to let the armies in and decided to let them create their bases in favor of evading later reprisals, had there been any resistance.
The local Soviet/communist ppl then with the armies there enforced their way and basically occupied the countries (via means of clever orchestrations), leaving local rulers in limbo. The elections were all orchestrated, hence these elections took place at same times. All this happened almost simultaneously in the Baltic countries.
The performed elections did take place (at least in Estonia, but no doubt in Latvia and Lietuva, too), but they were inconsistent and rigged in many ways, intimidation was used, for example; as the outcome of these referenda was already predetermined.
And *it was and remained to be occupation,* without quotation marks.
We might have gotten the technology by ourselves, too and the countries were not agrarian junk yards. We might have gotten even better technology than what we had to live with for 50 years.
When Estonia announced its independence in 1918 and through the 1920 Tartu Peace treaty with the SU it got some areas behind the Narva river and the whole of the Petseri county, then mostly the Russian people there were discovered to be mostly illiterate -- once passports had to be issued and census data collected.
Thing is, that because Estonian women are IMO highly emancipated and are very well educated in my view, then the number of splits in relationships and marriage divorces is also very high.
You should consider yourself lucky to get a long-term relationship with her.
I've always thought that he was straight. But he is not as cute now as he had been before, although he is physically fit.
Dave Benton was denied citizenship possibly because he didn't speak the language, but Western EU ppl are more eager to learn languages though...
There is a gay guy, who won a Eurovision contest for impaired people and then later became very scandalous with relevations like which pervert he had had sex with. The local gay community had to do a hard job persuading him not to make any more revelations.
The Americans already were on the moon, which the popular myth suggests, with plenty of good material to back the claim up.
I wonder why none's been on the moon since when they last were there... So much time has passed between now and then that people are beginning to think that it never happened, because none's doing it right now and there is no U.S. programme to go to the moon again.
Or is it now a space race to reach Mars?
And btw, Yuri Gagarin was the first man to return safely and in a relatively healthy condition from having been in outer space.