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Rural Mississippi: The Land That the Internet Era Forgot (wired.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the fixing-things-at-home dept.

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."

4 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Not the typical hitpiece by CajunArson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While obviously written from the typical Southerners-are-stupid-hicks point of view, the story has this interesting quote:

    Elderly townspeople, black and white alike, were uneasy about the security and privacy implications of entering the Internet age.

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

    --
    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
  2. Re:hehe by Brett+Buck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Ruined! by BenBoy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Damn it, now you've ruined the control group. Who told them about the internet?

  4. Re:hehe by kenai_alpenglow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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...