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Many Americans Still Don't Have Home Net Access
Weather Storm wrote in with a story about those who see no need for home net access. Surprisingly, it's not the cost that is a barrier to entry. Instead, most say they don't see the value of having a net connection at home. "A little under one-third of U.S. households have no Internet access and do not plan to get it, with most of the holdouts seeing little use for it in their lives, according to a new survey. Park Associates, a Dallas-based technology market research firm, said 29 percent of U.S. households, or 31 million homes, do not have Internet access and do not intend to subscribe to an Internet service over the next 12 months."
I forgot to mention one more group: bible thumpers. I've run into quite a few (mostly older) Christians who seem to think it's respectable NOT to be on the internet. Because, you know, that's where all the Bad Stuff is.
Sorry, try reading my post. I was responding to a comment about how there is NO poverty in the USA. If one cannot put 2000 calories (on average) in one's belly every day that is poverty. I've met many such people. I can introduce you to them if you think they don't exist. There are 28 million such people in the USA. If you read my post I said that it is worse in MANY places. But to say there is NO poverty in the USA is just fucking stupid and heartless. And yes asshole I have personally witnessed worse poverty in Asia. And yes asshole I do something about it. I have personally donated nearly $100,000 to Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders. My will leaves everything to those two organizations, which I hope will be at least a two or three million dollars when I am done. I am an personal investor and my personal philosophy is to live simply so that I can give that amount of money to organizations that tend to the world's poorest. So go fuck yourself.
Look, I agree with you, it is a good thing to share your abundance with your community. But we live in a society where that just isn't possible. If I build a pool, and I leave the pool open and allow all the people in my community to swim for free, it is only a matter of time before some kid drowns and I get sued. It would be nice to leave the pool open for everyone to enjoy, but it is just not possible in the real world.
Anonymous open wifi is the same issue. In the next few years, you are going to see a lot of people totally screwed for leaving their wifi open. Even if it is morally OK to leave the wifi, even if it is a totally positive thing, we live under a legal system that forces us to be paranoid of our neighbors. You will, eventually, either close your wifi or find yourself being sued or going to jail.
You don't happen to be a pedophile by chance do you? The ACLU has been making some strong inroads into protecting them.
Recently they took the defense of some convicted sexual offending pedophiles in Ohio were the courts and their probation officers required them to check in during holidays like Halloween or events were children would be out in abnormally high amounts. Of course the city went after All registered sex offenders in this way but the ACLU took the case of the pedophile on.
LOL.. If your talk about pedophiles, subscribe the the same legal organization attempting to protect them, you might be a pedophile. If you don't like the patriot act and actively fight it at the expense of letting terrorist go or letting terrorism happen, then you condone terrorism. If you have nothing to fear but fear itself, you don't need to confirm your morality or activly work to lower someone else's in order to make yours seem better.
You got any idea of what we are talking about?