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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."
While obviously written from the typical Southerners-are-stupid-hicks point of view, the story has this interesting quote:
Looks like maybe those backwards southerners aren't quite as stupid as everybody thinks.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Oh, bullshit. I have lived in many areas of the country, and found one important thing - people are the same everywhere.
And, shut the hell up with the racist crap.
Damn it, now you've ruined the control group. Who told them about the internet?
Truth is, the U.S. has a lot of wide open space that's sparsely populated - mostly by farmers or ranchers. These people are usually a lot smarter than most people give them credit for. They have to be, because it's so difficult to make a living that way these days. (You have to do a lot of manual labor, do a lot of number crunching, be versed in sales and marketing, and much more.)
My experience is, many of them are already well aware of the Internet and make use of it (even if it's only via a satellite connection). What they may NOT care about that much are "city slickers" coming in, preaching how their entire way of life will die out if they don't change (EG. conform to their ideas of how to modernize everything in town).
They're already adopting a lot of tech that the outsiders probably know little to nothing about -- but it's specific to their career choice.
"So are you sayiong that a Black American citizen can just show up in some all white village in rural Mississippi, and everyone will shower him or her with gifts? Invite them into their home for a nice dinner? Ignore them?"
Hate to burst your stereotypical statement, but I've seen multiple Black (& other ethnic) folks "just show up" here in MS. They didn't get showered with gifts, but were treated very politely (yep, invited to, and attend local churches)--much better than how I've seen the same color folks treated in other "more enlightened" places. Maybe you better get your news from someone w/o an ax to grind...
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.
the Internet of Things is a security disaster, the "mobile revolution" is a farce, cloud computing is outsourcing to people you shouldn't trust, "digital disruption" is niche and completely unpredictable, and the "perpetual increase of processing power" is a lie. starting a website is not always necessary and often a burden. social media is a hellscape of volatile idiots.
people don't need to "think digitally", what they need is to think for themselves.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Black people are treated nicer in Mississippi than they are in Detroit.
You're the worst kind of fool - one who believes his own bullshit.
The Internet is a series of tubes, and the tubes are filled with cats.