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Who Is Getting Left Behind In the Internet Revolution? (sciencemag.org)
Reader sciencehabit writes: The internet is often hailed as a liberating technology. No matter who you are or what kind of country you live in, your voice can be amplified online and heard around the world. But that assumes that people can get on the internet in the first place. Research has shown that poverty and remoteness can prevent people from getting online, but a new study out today also shows that just belonging to a politically marginalized group can translate to poorer access. The study, published online today in Science, provides the first global map of the people being left behind by the internet revolution. Mapping the internet is hard. Although it is true that every computer with a connection has a real-world location, no one actually knows where they all are. Rather than being organized top-down, the world's computers are connected to each other by a bushy, redundant network of servers. Each country builds and maintains its own infrastructure for connecting citizens to the wider internet. The decision to expand and maintain the infrastructure in one region and not another is up to those in power. And therein lies the problem: Ethnic and religious minorities who are excluded from their country's political process may also be systematically excluded from the global internet.
Who Is Getting Left Behind In the Internet Revolution?
The lucky ones }:-)
(runs & hides)
Lets start with the easy one. Remoteness is lumped in to Poverty. Hmm, I wonder why that is? It's the reason we tend to distrust media today in general. This is a open way to inflate the numbers and make people look worse than they are. Look, if you are Poor in the US you have access to much more than if you are at the bottom of middle class. That's not to say you have a higher chance of using them, but tax payers have put in all these programs.
Next, we go a bit more complex and say "Yes, history shows that knowledge is power and the powerful tend to try and keep knowledge from people." There is a lot done regularly to try and change that, but I don't see too many people taking action. The last was a teenager who killed themselves facing 120 years in jail. That aside, we still are not "that" bad. Books used to be extremely expensive and printed in languages which cost money to learn for the majority of history. Around the time of the Reformation however, that changed. Knowledge has become more and more available if people seek it out, but that last part is a chronic failure of humans. People can not be forced to learn, and learning is rather difficult and time consuming. People want to win the lottery and will scheme for numbers instead of learning simple algebra problems, even though they are guaranteed a payout with education yet slim odds of winning a lottery.
Are there people who make it intentionally hard for people to learn? I'm pretty sure some of the reports I read about 3rd world countries are true so "yeah". We won't do any more about them than we do about our allies in the Middle East killing women for getting raped or being the wrong Religion or having the wrong sexual preference. The conversation should be framed in very specific terms, but it won't be because that's not the agenda.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Why would I need to "poverty adjust" my internet bill?
To see how much it would cost me if I were poor? I've been poor, didn't really tickle my jigglies much. Worked hard, saved harder, educated myself harder still. Now my kid has no idea what growing up poor is like, so I make her work hard and study hard like an asian parent, an A- is unacceptable.
If you live in the US, poverty is not unavoidable. It is usually a consequence of your own actions. Yes, I know there are exceptions, but I'm pretty sure you can find a way to make more than $11,800 per year.
I know this because I started out poor. I moved to Houston with all of my possessions in an old Pontiac Sunbird. I found roommates to help with rent. I worked hard, and didn't buy things I couldn't afford.
Nowadays, I have more money than I need, but I still live by the same principles of working hard, not over-spending, and setting money aside for a rainy day. In 30 years as an adult, I have yet to buy a brand new car or an $800 cell phone. But I'm very blessed.
Now, my sons are starting down the same path. They don't make much money yet, but they are learning life's lessons, that things don't get handed to you, you have to work for them. My 21-year-old son moved out of our house this year after finding "real" work, even though he doesn't have a college education. He makes enough to pay his own rent, and all his own living expenses. He isn't looking for a HUD voucher or any other kind of handout.
By the way, there is free Internet in every public library. And you can find perfectly capable Android smartphones for $100 or less. You can use those to look for your first real job, so you can afford your own internet, and a brand-name smartphone, if that's what you want.
You would want to poverty adjust a bill to consider the impact it would have on someone with lesser means. Below a certain amount of income, it is very difficult to get by, and even harder to rise. I am not saying it doesn't happen, but the American Dream is too often just a dream, and the reality is that we live in a country where poverty is a crime. We live in a country where it is illegal to be homeless, or dollar-less. It is illegal to sleep in your car.
BTW, here in Silicon Valley, often I see a certain middle age man walk by and take food out of the trash to eat it. Even though, I don't have much, I've tried to offer to buy him a bagel or something, but he refuses.
When I was young, we went hungry at times, but I did not starve.
I have a friend who used to eat from McDonalds's dumpster when he was hungry.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
"If you live in the US, poverty is not unavoidable. It is usually a consequence of your own actions."
Ah, yes, the American dream. You already said it yourself: "But I'm very blessed.". Not all people are.
Saying that everybody can get out of the trap is non-sense. It may be very invigorating for you to think so, but in the end you're turning it around.
That you made it doesn't mean that everybody else can. Do you really think the *because they want to be*, because they are lazy, because they are quitters?
Just for fun, draw up a list of all the things that could have stopped you achieving what you did. You might find life is even better than you expected. You'll hopefully also see that your life cannot be lived by everybody else.