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Rural Mississippi: The Land That the Internet Era Forgot (wired.com)
New submitter lesedeuezghe writes with this Wired story by W. Ralph Eubanks about the efforts of the Extension Service to broaden its scope from mostly agricultural information to bringing broadband to rural communities. "In sleepy public libraries, at Rotary breakfasts, and in town halls, he [Assistant Extension Professor Roberto Gallardo] gives PowerPoint presentations that seem calculated to fill rural audiences with healthy awe for the technological sublime. Rather than go easy, he starts with a rapid-fire primer on heady concepts like the Internet of Things, the mobile revolution, cloud computing, digital disruption, and the perpetual increase of processing power. ('It’s exponential, folks. It’s just growing and growing.') The upshot: If you don’t at least try to think digitally, the digital economy will disrupt you. It will drain your town of young people and leave your business in the dust. Then he switches gears and tries to stiffen their spines with confidence. Start a website, he’ll say. Get on social media. See if the place where you live can finally get a high-speed broadband connection—a baseline point of entry into modern economic and civic life."
Looks like maybe those backwards southerners aren't quite as stupid as everybody thinks.
I grew up in the south, and I can tell you it is a breeding ground for hate, backward ideas, and a willingness to repress those
who "are different". I'm not talking about Atlanta, I'm talking about the REAL south. If you doubt what I say is true, you are
of course free to do so, but I caution anyone who has plans to move to the deep south to look into things there before investing serious
time and money on a relocation.
Since leaving the south eastern US I have lived all over the US and there is no way i'd choose to live in the southern US again. By the way, I am not black, or gay, nor do I possess any characteristics which would make life in the south harder for me. It's just that I don't like being around the majority of people who live in the south because they tend to have values which are repulsive to me and I know that their values are not going to change. Life is simply too short to live around ignorant hateful rednecks. If you don't understand what I mean, that's fine, but if you doubt the veracity of
what I say, you could be in for a nasty surprise if you move to the south. You've been warned.