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."

Comments

Re:Not the typical hitpiece

[PopeRatzo]

Looks like maybe those backwards southerners aren't quite as stupid as everybody thinks.

Then why would they live in Mississippi?

Re:Obvious answer is obvious

[PopeRatzo]

Because they're too smart to live in whatever urban shithole you reside in, drone. Now get back on the hamster wheel and shut the fuck up.

Yeah, he mad.