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Feature: The Net- Boon or Nightmare?
The founders of the Internet understood from the beginning that the primary moral issue involving networked computers for America and the world wasn't dirty pictures but equal access.
If "The Network" was available for the betterment of all minds, wrote J.C. R. Licklider, a computer pioneer who assigned the Defense Department research that led to the Net, wrote in l968, then the "boon to humankind would be beyond measure."
But if the Net became a privilege rather than a right, and only a favored segment of the population gets a chance to use the "intelligence amplification" of networked computing, disparities in intellectual life and economic opportunities would get worse.
Licklider's worry is, and has always been, the seminal moral issue surrounding the Internet, even if our so-called responsible leaders and thinkers only seem to think about sex online.
We should be fighting to get kids onto computers. But in l999, millions of blocking programs are being sold, restricted access to the Net is a position of almost every national and local political candidate, and schools and libraries have to fight parents and politicians to offer Internet access at all. Licklider's is even more timely now than when he raised it.
The Net is no longer a strange technical phenomena, but an integrated essential of mainstream life: next year, reports the "Computer Industry Almanac," the United States alone will have 133 million Internet Users (about 42 per cent of the estimated 318 million global total).
It would seem logical, even imperative, that society's task is not to protect people from the Net and the Web, but to make sure everyone has access to it.
In our loopy, insanely inverted moralistic culture, neither journalism nor politics pays much attention to growing disparity between the Wired and the unconnected. But let Johnny gets onto the Playboy website, and government grinds to a halt.
In America, there is no tradition of rational consideration of technology. We seem only able to focus on the moral issues that don't matter or are insanely exaggerated. The ones that do matter and are significant are ignored.
This week, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that the disparity between whites and black and Hispanic Americans who own computers and use the Net is growing significantly. Among families earning $15,000 to $35,000, more than 33 per cent of whites owned computers, but only l9 per cent of blacks did.
Ownership of computers is still closely linked to income. Families with incomes over $75,000 were more than five times as likely to own a computer at home and 10 times more likely to have Net access than families who earned less than $10,000. Significantly, gaps in computer ownership and Net use narrowed between white families and blacks and Hispanics earning more than $50,000.
A child in a low-income white family is three times more likely to have Internet access as a child in a comparable black family and four times more likely than a Hispanic child. People with college degrees are more than eight times as likely to own a computer and 16 times more likely to have Net access than people with an elementary school education.
Technologists who study history have predicted that computers - like the telephone, TV, electricity and other technological advances - will inevitably become so inexpensive and ubiquitous that everyone will have one. Many PC's are already less expensive than many TV's, and almost every American household now has a television set. The tube is, in fact, a classic example of how a particular technology can grow rapidly and spread across racial, age, economic and other cultural lines.
These optimistic futurists better be right. So far, they're not. It's the wealthier, better-educated, middle-class Americans who are piling onto the Net. Tech jobs are the fastest growing employment category in the world. Net literacy is essential to economic opportunity, educational research, access to popular culture, and, increasingly, to economic opportunities from the stock market to competitive bidding for products, and global, intensely competitive retailing.
Net skills are essential at most colleges, and increasingly, most good jobs.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that hundreds of thousands of technology jobs go unfilled, and that approximately 100,000 new ones will be created each year for most of the next decade. No other sector of the economy offers that kind of long-term opportunity.
Some of this disparity seems voluntary. The Commerce Department survey suggests not only a growing gap between whites and minorities when it comes to computing, it also suggests some resistance to computing among underclass minorities who might be able to afford them.
"I really don't think the advantage of being online is being instilled in them," Trevor Farrington, a director of the Massachusetts-based African American Internetwork, a Web site aimed at blacks, told CNN.
"Online banking, investing - that's hotter than pornographic sites now but it's not being driven home among African Americans. I really don't think they understand it. They think it's too technical, but it's as easy to use as TV and it's better. Once they understand that, it should grow."
It should. But will it?
And if it doesn't, will these same minorities wake up in a decade or so to find themselves and their families at the bottom of the economic and educational heap.
What's clear is that they aren't going to get much help. The institutions of technology, government, education and journalism aren't spending much time or money making sure it the awareness Farrington talks about does grow and spread. American kids are bombarded with patronizing, boring, generally-ignored messages about drugs, drinking, violence and sex but nobody is hiring ad agencies to spur computer awareness - warnings kidor their parents might actually pay attention to and benefit from.
The so-called serious press remains fixated on issues relating to what they perceive as morality - that is, sex pursued under various self-righteous guises -- as the Monica Lewinsky nightmare made so convincingly clear.
Web searches on the subject yield only a handful of links, stories and writings on the subject of equal computing opportunity and Net access for all Americans. Try searching for sites and stories on sex, pornography and computing access for kids if you want to drown in links and lists.
Yet anybody who knows the Internet knows that kids are much more endangered in the 21st Century by restricted access to computing and the Net than they are to exposure to sexual imagery. Net illiteracy will become - already is - an enormous barrier at almost every stage of life. Computing skills are a literal passport to the hi-tech economy.
If foregoing computers or the Net is a choice, fair enough. Nobody should be forced to use computers or browse the Web. But it's a big enough choice that the people making it deserve to understand the implications -- especially for their children.
As the Commerce Report suggests, we are, for now, stuck in the looking glass, living in a country with a governing body that passes two Communications Decency Acts, but wouldn't dream of even considering an Internet Access Act.
The irony is that it would be a lot cheaper to give every kid in the U.S. his or her own computer than hire all the cops it would take to monitor Net communications for "decency". And it would do a lot more good.
Good old J.C.R. Licklider got it, even if the people running the country don't. If everybody gets to use it, The Network could end up as one of the greatest boons ever to mankind. But if the country continues to devolve into the favored and the deprived - rich computer users and poorer, less educated techno-illiterates - he and his fellow engineers and scientists understood well that they were participating instead in the making of a social nightmare.
I think this statistic is better countered by this article:
http://www.cato.org/dailys/07-17-99.html
Basically, all households, black and white, will soon be saturated by computers. The percentage of black households with computers has increased FASTER than that of white households. And no one mentions Asian households, which outstripped white households entirely.
Thanks to the introduction of the cheap-PC, and the free-PC, I don't there's anything to be concerned about, not at all.
People aren't on the net? People don't have computers? I say so what? I don't think this is as important is vaccinating children or school violence.
I think it's important to expose kids to computers in school, but it's not essential for every household to have access to one. Do all these couch potato kids need another game machine? Do parents need another thing that breaks?
Computers are still intimidating to many people. I have no statistic here, but I'd bet more lower income families are intimidated more than upper income families. Folks with more education would probably be more likely to buy a computer.
But this is just another government statistic. Is this a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Statistics can't tell you this. There's usually more damage when more fire engines respond to a call? Do we outlaw fire engines?
I just don't see how access to the net makes me any better than others. There are still those old fashioned library things, but then I'd have to get up off my ass.
Pornography is an old and battered issue. I really think that its hardly even worth talking about anymore. Clearly it is available more easily than magazines and such to people with internet access, but its much like looking at the magazine selection at the convenience store; if you're looking for a hunting magazine you're not going to run into Hustler. And on the net (unless you're looking for mp3s) you're probably not going to run into porn unless you're looking for it.
Point being: don't run a dying issue as foreground. The Communications Decency Act was a near-miss for the paranoid freaks of the world who don't understand technology and don't actually take the time to research anything: they look at numbers that are slated for them and make them look good (e.g. 40% of UseNet posts contain nude pictures, where the sampling is from alt.sex.something) I think the media has run out of ideas in this area, and the wave of hysteria has definitely crested and is falling. Im sure the same thing happened when Playboy magazine started.
Also, a decent AMD system (450 Mhz) that will provide you with plenty of functionality and internet access can run as low as $700 (prices tabulated from killerapp and pricewatch). I think the price of PCs is now becoming a dead issue as well. So what does that leave us with?
Ability? Heres a little story: I left my computer in X-windows one day and found my younger sister (13) checking her email from hotmail.com and playing XGalaga. She said "your windows looks weird" - this may be a biased opinion, but I think kids today are very computer savvy. During my job as a tech support worker for Erol's, I found (first off, very few people requested surfwatch or net-nanny with their subscription) that the majority of people that made me want to scream were 35+.
Almost all of the younger people (25-) were intuitive enough to understand what I was trying to do for them, and had much better questions (not like "what do I do with the Internet?" that many of the people who got it just to be hip asked) It seems to me that people are growing up around computers more, just like anything else. The "racial difference" as you put it, is just an unfortunate socioeconomic difference. I may get flamed for saying this, but I don't think it has been long enough since the Civil Rights Act for blacks to have been fully dispersed through society...
This is my two cents, what do you all think?
... if jonkatz knows the difference between the "L" key and the "1" key...
Actually I do have experience in what it's like to be truly poor. My family was in a tough bind for several years straight. When one of my relatives died, we got some money and my mom decided to put part of it to a new computer. It HAS changed my life. With it I was able to start accumulating skills that allowed me to escape the quagmire of poverty. The same went for the rest of my family.
Computers are a gateway to knowledge, and knowledge, when used effectively, is power. And in our society, power is money.
The basic difference between computers and TV is that TV is a passive medium, and computers are an active medium. That's why I worry about current trends in making computers more user-friendly (or in some case replacing them with passive medium type devices, like WebTV for example). You take the challenge out of it, and then you take away the opportunity. Good-bye knowledge, say hello to all the couch potatoes.
Unfortunately, our culture (American culture that is) thrives on mass media, and mass media thrives on people who don't think and just act on impulse. The World Wide Web was a reversal in that trend... suddenly a mass medium that challenged you and made you a part of a community, rather than a spoon-fed society! But the reversal has reversed again, and we're going back to dumb mass-consumerism.
This is precisely the reason why I don't have much sympathy for those who won't take on new challenges because it might be "too hard". If it's too hard for you, then step aside for someone willing to take on the challenge. You're only standing in the way.
Back to the original article that started this thread: If we want minorty and poor families to get involved with technology, making things easier and more user-friendly won't solve the problem. To them, it's just another type of TV. Why bother? Present them with the challenge of opportunity. Believe me, there will quite a few people who are currently disadvantaged economically who will answer the call.
--- Journals are boring; Go to my web page instead
There's a gap between those who use cell phones and those who don't. There's a gap ....
There are really 2 major gaps here: 1) the gap between those who want to use the internet to expand their knowledge, and those who don't care -- since nearly every public library and school now has internet connectivity available free -- and 2) the gap between those who, like Jon Katz, feel compelled to see Major Social Catastrophes Which Require Urgent Action around every corner (and feel even more compelled to go on and on about them) and those who believe that people as individuals will find a way to get what they need without the advocacy of fretting do-gooders.
Craig
I think Mr. Katz has overstated the problem. Others have pointed out that money isn't that much of an obstacle since even a modest computer can be configured to connect you to the net if you're sufficiently motivated and knowledgeable. Does everyone HAVE to be on the net? no. Does everyone HAVE to go to college? no. My advice to high school kids today is take a long hard look at the trades. Just try and get a plumber to answer the phone. Good luck! Most have more work than they can do. They make real good money, probably more that most programmers. Yeah! And they aren't cast out when they turn 50. Does your average plumber need the net today? probably not. Most people are inclined to pick up the phone book and go to the yellow pages.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
White Americans earning less than $75K/year are about twice as likely to be using the Net as black Americans in the same income bracket. Why...?
I suspect it's because the numbers don't tell the whole story. First off, there's a wide variation in people earning less than $75K a year; comparing people earning $60 to 75k a year would be more relevant. Also, while their incomes may be similar, I would bet that the average black person didn't get as much from their parents, and has more "dependents." That is, not children (although they may average more of those), but parents or other relatives who need financial assistance because they didn't earn much, didn't save much (or invest it in stocks), etc.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
How do "dependents" differ from "dependants"?
:-)
Well for one, "dependants" isn't a word (or at least not any longer, see the Etymology below.) From Merriam-Webster online:
Main Entry: dependent
Pronunciation: di-'pen-d&nt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English dependant, from Middle French, present participle of dependre
[...]
I used the quotes to differentiate from dependents in the U.S. legal sense, which mainly refers to children.
You may be thinking of "defendant," which apparently stayed closer to its Middle English roots.
P.S. PHHBBBTTT!!!
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Look it up yourself at http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary, variation 2:
/-d&nt/
Main Entry: dependent
Variant(s): also dependant
Function: noun
Date: 1523
1 archaic : DEPENDENCY
2 : one that is dependent; especially : a person who relies on another for support
Now, I'm a maroon for not checking on dependant (although "independant" is not a word), but I still wasn't wrong to use dependent as a noun originally. Note that the IRS 1040A form uses dependent, not dependant.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Use Google. Scan for oncology and neurology. Grab the correct and detailed medical terminology from those hits, and search on those. If you run across a support group page, read it carefully, it probably has links to detailed info about cause, effects, and treatment options.
The internet has massive amounts of information about any and all medical conditions, you just have to put some research work into it.
I'll second that, but I'm already involved in DOING it. I'm the Netadmin for a rural library system in Louisiana (buckle of the bible belt, dry Parish, the works) and don't have problems from parents over net content. We get the parents to select how their kids can access the Internet from four options:
1. No net access at all. Almost none do that.
2. Can only access with a parent present in the library and/or actually with the child at the computer. Also not a popular choice, but it is important to have it available.
3. Access only on workstations with X-Xtop filtering. Popular choice, especially on the younger kids.
4. Unrestricted. Quite a few parents of teens are picking it.
We worked out this policy three years ago and haven't needed to revisit it since then. The only time we hear universal 'censorship' being called for is from politicians, not parents.
We have twenty six public machines distributed around the parish and in the afternoons there is usually a waiting list. I haven't noticed this perported racial or socioeconomic divide either, at least among our patrons.
Democrat delenda est
While it is true that there remain substantial differences in net access between rich and poor, dual- and single-parent households, based on education and some regional differences, when these things are statistically separated out there is extremely little variation based on race.
The cited Commerce Department report's section on acess and race doesn't offer any help. For example (part I section C, 2), only gives overall racial numbers, and numbers for households below $35K where the differences are greatest because of correlations between race, household status and education.
What's really shameful is where the report talks about "the expanding digital divide" (I C 3 a). The report chooses a completely meaningless metric which makes it look like inequality is increasing when in fact you're just seeing an artifact of the rise in overall net penetration with no increase in white/(black or hispanic) ratio whatsoever!! Click on the link to Chart I-15 to see what I mean.
Properly understood, the difference in access between whites and all minorities is so small- or even counter to what the hype tells us- that a black panalist at the recent Unity convention (five minority journalist organizations) said, "With normalized access rates for Asians and Latinos ahead of whites, and blacks catching up fast, we may soon need a commission of minority experts to help more white people get on line!"
The policy recommendation was obviously tongue-in-cheek, differences based on income, household status and education are significant and need to be addressed. But using this report to say that race needs to be addressed separately will result in wasted effort and bad policy. There are important societal reasons why black and latino families are on average poorer, less educated and more likely single parents- many of which are based on prejudice at various levels. So let's focus on these root causes of these problems and not waste our time on symptoms.
"...the firmament sheweth his handiwork" (Ps. 19:1)
Firmament Science and Engineering
"...the firmament sheweth his handiwork" (Ps. 19:1)
Firmament Science and Engineering
Standing on the Solid St
I wrote a short article about the matter of pornography and children which some readers may be interested in. In a nutshell, the premise is that we must educate children to understand the difference between nakedness in art and the nakedness in hustler magazine.
Possibly many minorities are having to spend too much time making ends meet to have such discussions. Possibly the net content is catered to white viewers since it is authored primarily by whites. Either way, regarding pornography I believe that children are not equiped to judge what they see, and this is the problem:
read the article
-- Solaris Central - http://w
Easy to say when you're not scraping money together for groceries every week, or working a third job so that those same kids can have clothes next month when they outgrow the stuff they've got.
I strongly suspect that people who have the means to be posting on Slashdot have no idea what it means to be truly poor. Those people should reserve judgement until they've had the pleasure.
Before those technologies became so ubiquitous that even the poorest people could hope to benefit from them, however, these waves of innovation wracked the world as they came and went. Take the time to study these "Schumpeter's Waves" as reviewed by The Economist, Feburary 20, 1999, "Survey Innovation in Industry", pg 8.
First wave, 1785-1845
Water power
textiles
Iron
Second wave, 1845-1900
Steam
Rail
Steel
Third wave, 1900-1950
Electricity,
Chemicals
Internalc-combustion engine
Fourth wave, 1950-1990
Petrochemicals
Electronics
Aviation
Fifth wave, 1990 - 2020(?)
Digital networks
SOftware
New media
Given a study of history, it is an inevitable conclusion that division of economic classes will occur as these waves come and go. Tragically, these divisions are typically along the lines that existed before. This appears to be happening again, as Mr. Katz's essay shows. Much of this may be inevitable and unstoppable, yet some may be done to stop it.
Certainly, every effort should be made for getting large volumes of computers and networks into the chools and adding to the curriculum to give the new skills early. If such an effort should be made by the government, then current class divides should not become a deciding factor in who gets how much. That would help to narrow the gap of class division.
Yet also, as many of these postings by Slashdotters have pointed out, much of the responsibility does lie in the hands of the individual. Some would say most. A happy, fair balance must be struck, if we are all to be ready to catch The Sixth Wave.
So what will be The Sixth Wave? That will be an exciting question to ponder as we carry out the remaining thirty-year or so course of this exciting revolution.
Until then, happy surfing. Don't wipe out before you catch the next wave.
Well said and insightful. Reads like a bio for Lara Croft (sp?)!
**>>BELCH
Forgot to mention that I really love the bit about never being denied a book. If I ever have a child, that rule will be applied in force! 'Til then, nieces beware...
**>>BELCH
Maybe it's time you caught up with the 18th century and started rounding off prices to the nearest penny, instead of playing games with "centicents" and expecting the rest of the world to embrace your antiquated system.
While American schools may suck, I'm glad one of their misplaced priorities was not the teaching of a numerical system in which merchants divide pennies into smaller units as a means of making their prices as confusing as humanly possible.
I shudder to think at what products you must be hawking, given your need to achieve more pricing precision than a penny.
Rogers Cadenhead (Web: http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench)
You're right, current technology is beyond the percieved norm of society but I see this as an ancient taboo which we are beginning to get over. Most of these average peaple just think they can't use it because it's technical but most consumer computers are ready to go and somewhat easy to use, once things are explained properly. The problem really is people thinking they're dumb and others preying on this with Dummys books that don't help. These true newbies shound get an original 1984 Mac, learn on it and graduate to a modern PC. Those older computers are easier. Or better yet, get someone to explain everything to them properly and they will be just fine.
So, I haven't read mention of how much of a marketing opportunity this is.. FreePCs notwithstanding, doesn't it behoove companies to spend money on educating their customers? They do it in other industries, why should the computer biz be any less interested in their customer's needs? Where are the big-biz or ISP-biz educational campaigns? Why aren't they being directed to inner-city households and schools?? not enough turnaround?? Raise the knowledge of the communities, raise thier desire to buy into your online business, raise their desire to identify with your products.. doesn't 2+2=4 anymore? Where have all the -real- capitalists gone? You nurture a market, it grows for you.
VT
US$0.02++
Ok, here's my guess:
...
..
In My Not So Humble Opinion (I Know)
I'm fairly sure of the first bit, but not about the IK
Ok, here's my guess:
In My Not So Humble Opinion
but what's the BIK for ?
"On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog".
It's a very common reference to the complete absense of "minority status" in an online world at this point.
I don't buy that minorities are 'disadvantaged' on Internet access. Economic issues aside (which is what the stats are doing), saying that a minority (and let's cut the euphimisms, we're talking about black and hispanic people) family is less likely to have a computer and/or Internet access than a "white" family is not about racism. It's about interests and cultural values. It's also about attitudes toward education and learning, which frankly is very poor in most inner city environments, and among certain cultures within America.
These numbers seem to indicate that the interest of minority persons towards computer and network technology isn't up to the level of gadget-happy, white America.
No one will prevent a black man from buying a computer. The checkout person at Best Buy doesn't care. No one will prevent a hispanic person from getting an Internet account. I've never met anyone from my ISP's over the last several years.
Should economically disadvantaged be offered online access. Sure, but based on economy, not racial lines. Schools. Yes, regardless of economic stature. Should minorities be aware of possible opportunites they may be missing out on by not being "plugged in"? Maybe. But this should be done through education and encouragement, not through civil rights legislation, as I have heard is considered.
I expect that some of the above comments will be construed as racist. Of that I am sorry, as I am not trying to offend anyone. I judge people as individuals, regardless if they are black, white, red, yellow, purple, or polkadotted. However I don't believe that EVERYTHING has to do with race and the majority putting down the minority.
However, I also suppose that in some respects, this whole issue could be just another example of the majority dictating what is important and what isn't to the minority. There are many things that many people find important that have nothing to do with technology; Family, relationships, careers, quality of life, hiking, fishing, spirituality. Maybe being less plugged in is more important in the long run for many people. And maybe they may be right.
While TV may have become a fixture in American society, it did not happen over night. Similarly, you can't expect the same of the net, which requires far greater infrastructure and more equipment to keep going than television. For a long time it was rare someone would have >1 television. TVs are less complicated to operate, as well. Any one who can press channel up/down can have an effective television experience. In the end, you can't really compare TVs to PCs on this subject, because there are inherently different. One is a two-way communications tool, the other is manipulated by "the media" to deliver what they please.
Computer skills are not a literal passport to the hi-tech community, they are a figurative passport. As in, computer skills are to the hi-tech community as a passport is to Equador.
/., should be held to a higher standard (and thus has to put up with schmucks like me) :)
It's unfortunate that even in professional circles 'literally' has come to mean 'very', and is almost always used in a metaphoric context.
Normally I don't burden people with my pet peeves, but Jon, being a professional and getting to post features on
Other than that, I agree with other posters that it seems the reduction in cost is going to put computers in more homes, eventually making them as ubiquitous as the TV, or the phone. The key is to convince everyone that they _want_ a computer, hopefully not a difficult task.
Though I think that the $10,000/yr income family mentioned has more problems than net access - like finding a place to live.
The enemies of Democracy are
There's a big difference between being computer literate and being a highly skilled engineer. Why should I feel threatened by the masses being computer literate? I'm an engineer, and a damn good one (IMNSHOBIK). I'm going to be in high demand no matter how many people know how to use FrontPage or Excel.
I'd even go so far as to say that high-paying jobs whose skill requirements read "computer literate" are exactly the kind of negative fall-out of the technology gap that Jon is talking about. Its about time mere literacy wasn't enough to land a high-paying job.
Katz may not make money in tech, but he has a better view than you think. After all, ENGLISH literacy is much more accessible than computer literacy. Everyone has access to public libraries where they can not only increase their literacy, but learn by example and tutorial how to write more effectively.
But Katz isn't worried about how he's going to lose his job to the literate masses. Why? Because he's better than most people at writting. He has a skill that distinguishes him from others, and makes him desireable. So should it be in the technology industry.
The enemies of Democracy are
And here was me thinking we had enough Americans running around the net telling us what we should be doing already.
*Sigh*
During my first two years of high school (this was 2 years ago, I just graduated), bus tokens were only given out to the "minority" students, as opposed to those living the farthest from the school. I didn't see anyone complain beyond a half-whispered "that's pretty stupid". Had the rule been the opposite, there would be 10 lawsuits for every black student in the school. By the way, I think the rule is still in effect - I just went to a different school for the second two years.
Many colleges are now offering scholarships for "minority" students only. Of course, how could I forget mentioning affirmative action.
It seems to have become acceptable to favor minorities simply because of their race, which is what the minorities were fighting against not so long ago. If race really doesn't matter (which is my opinion, BTW) then these statistics are pointless, right? So why pay attention to them?
</rant>
---
Look at VCRs. To program it, all you have to do is set the date and time when you want it to record whatever it is you want to record, and the channel it will be on. Still, most people have trouble doing this - the endless jokes are evidence.
TVs and VCRs are fairly simple to use. How do you expect an average person to use a computer? Maybe things like the iToast will solve this, but today's computers aren't for everyone.
Also, most people who have never even seen a computer, except on TV, see them as something complex and something that is beyond their ability to understand.
Another obstacle is all the articles about some naive girl meeting someone she talked to on AOL and getting raped and/or killed. "I don't want my kids on the Internet with all those psychos around."
Here is more proof. Make sure you read the users' comments.
This is why not everyone is on the Net yet. Just give it some time, though - we'll get there eventually.
---
Laissez-faire capitalism isn't about bailing out industry. I am a capitalist in that vein, but I think that government intervention on the behalf of corporations is *worse* than government intervention on behalf of the underpriveleged -- after all, whatever your political philosophy, the corporations *already have* resources to donate to their own causes, and poor families certainly don't.
I don't think that it's the responsability of the rich to support the poor, but it is certainly NOT the reseponsability of the government to support the rich. I can see both sides of the issue on whether or not it's the govt's responsability to support the poor, but it's only hypocritical republicans, not actual capitalists, who would support subsidizing corporations over subsidizing measures to decrease unemployment.
I adhere to objectivist epistomology, but I'd agree that those that call themselves "objectivists" (especially on the web) have issues with reality.
Just because social darwinism is wrong (and you're right -- it's just wrong, pretty much no discussion there) doesn't mean that those who have acquired wealth through legitimate means don't have the right to enjoy that wealth. After all, most rich people aren't hoarding their money, they're spending it, and recirculating it into the economy! Even Big Bill donates a ton of money to charity every year.
Glyph Lefkowitz - Project leader, Twisted Matrix Labs
Writer, Programmer - Not a member of the TSU
I am in very much the same situation as you, and it angers me to think about it. My family is what's considered "middle-class", and white. I am also male. I attend a small, inexpensive state-funded university in Texas (SFA) and for the first time this semester I have had to apply for financial aid. My sister graduated from high school this past spring, and she will be starting at the University of Texas in the fall. I also happen to have a two-year-old brother, and in case anyone reading this doesn't know - babies are freaking expensive. As you can imagine, with 15 years left on the mortgage, a car payment (the last car died a horrible death), two tuition payments, and a baby things are TIGHT. As it is, I work 30-50 hours a week while taking 15 hours of classes every semester so that I can afford my apartment, and have enough money to eat. I applied for financial aid hoping that things would be easier, and that I wouldn't have to break my back working so many hours while trying to complete a CS degree. HAHAHAHAHA. That's pretty much what the financial aid office said to me. I'm white and male, and therefore don't qualify for approx. 60% of the scholarships offered by the school, and the federal aid offered was a 1500$ unsubsidized loan. This means that I have another semester of 14 hour days to look forward to. I know not a single person with "minority" status that has to work as hard as I do. I do not mean to sound bigoted, because i'm not. I am thankful for what I have, but it disgusts me to think that if I were another color that I would have damn near a free ride.
The copper bosses killed you, Joe. 'I never died', said he.
Well, I can't speak for the original post, but here are my 2 cents...
It's not just minority cultures in America that have a poor attitude towards education, it's most of America. Black, white, Slashdot-green, whatever. That's why we face some of these problems. As one example, consider how people are perfectly willing to have their tax dollars spent on new sports stadiums, but not on better education for their children. Society in recent times has been putting a lot of emphasis on sports at the expense of intellectual pursuits. Sports are great, but unless you're one of the exceptional few who make it pro you aren't going to make a good living doing it; getting a good education on the other hand gives one much better prospects in life. Yet, the role models in our country are predominantly pro athletes. What kind of message does that send to our children?
That said, each culture does have its own stumbling blocks. Asian-Americans are often cited as the "model" minority. Did anyone ever stop to think why the Asians in this country tend to do much better academically than other races? It's because Asian cultures tend to emphasize the value of hard work and education, whereas many of the other groups in this country simply do not value education as highly. I remember reading a newspaper article a while back, where they mentioned that young black kids who worked hard and did well in school were taunted by their classmates, saying they were "acting white" by studying hard. Attitudes like that are a real impediment to learning. And don't think it's limited to blacks or other minorities. White kids who do good in school get this kind of crap too, the taunts may differ but the message is the same: education isn't cool.
Until America thinks education is "cool", I don't think we're going to see very much progress.
damn straight.
All new technology has early adopters. All new tech companies target the rich with time to spare. It has always been so.
"Studies" like this always annoy me, with their attitude of early adopters being to blame for not sharing. Or some such rot.
10, 20 years ago it was undoubtedly even more weighted towards the rich and powerful. Things even out. What with "free" PCs and $200 PCs now, it won't be long before PCs are as common as TVs. Then the dogoodies will whine about the next fancy hi tech toys.
--
Infuriate left and right
And if you did screw up and can't afford it, your kids should suffer? How biblical! "For I am a jealous economic system, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the seventh generation."
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
Actually, you are allowed to shout "Fire!" in a theatre. If the theatre is burning, then it's probably a very good idea.
Even when it's not actually on fire, you still can shout the words. But you must deal with the consequences. The same applies to libel.
The point is, neither of them actually prevent you from speaking out; they impose penalties for wrongful and harmful use of this ability. The central idea is that you have freedom, but with it comes responsibility.
This is different from censorship, which prevents the speech, rightful or not, from even being assessed. You can't shout "Fire" in a theatre if you've been gagged as a matter of course. Even if it's burning down around you.
Don't confuse laws that punish misuse for laws which prevent use. That way lies repression.
~Orinoco
Jeremy Lee | Orinoco
Alas, even Katz falls prey to the malaise common to US. Citizens. He quotes Licklider on The Network: "the boon to humankind would be beyond measure." but makes the assumption that "humankind"="The good 'ol US of A"
The demographics of net use in the US is irrelevant. Pretty much everyone there has available access, limited only by personal interest and choice. If you want it really bad, you can get it. There are free access orgs, programmes, charities, friends and friends of friends.
Think upon the demographics of South Africa, Mozambique, Tibet, Papua New Guinea. The argument still rages: is it better to give them sewage systems and electricity, or net access? Maybe it's the same as asking whether you give someone a fish or a fishing line. The net can be a voice to the mute, letting them say "Help us!" and letting us hear.
And even though we're drenched in technology and information, we're still poor in wisdom and culture. Poor in information about things, sometimes bad things, happenning in places out of our sight.
I say, parachute ten thousand ruggedized solar-powered palmpilots with satellite links onto Tibet. Smuggle thousands of the things into East Timor.
That really would be a boon to humankind beyond measure.
Jeremy Lee | Orinoco
We have reached the point in the evolution of the human race where its continued existence depends on our children being smarter than their parents. As simple proof, I offer the mere existence of a list of Environmental Protection Agency SuperFund sites.
Jon's word count it back up, 1343 this time.
Last article was a clear, concise 442.
Besides, democratizing access and sublimating porn are disjoint subjects. Any bum^H^H^Hfinancially challanged citizen can walk into a public library and start reading, but you won't likely find a 'Hustler' there. As the web media becomes more of a force in economics and politics, it is essential that anyone who wants to has affordable access, and Linux has a natural place in that vision, like free libraries in a democracy.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
This may sound racist, but I assure you I am not. But I do think there are CULTURAL differences that tend to lie on racial lines.
One major cultural difference I see is the emphasis different cultures place on education. Why is it that so many Asians tend to do well in school? I assure you it is NOT because we're smarter.. which we're not. It's because of the (over)emphasis on education in Asian culture.
Take a trip to any far east country some time. From richest to poorest, nearly everyone there puts tons and tons of emphasis on education. In fact, I think it goes too far, and children are far too overstressed.
Here in the US, I think it is very possible that cultural values.. specifically insufficient emphasis on education, is a contributing factor to the statistically poor educational performance of blacks and latinos. I mean, I know some very academically successful black and latino people (again, the best way to destroy a stereotype is to have someone as a friend) who for some reason had decided as children to put a great deal of effort into education. I also have some bright childhood black friends who ended up in gangs and other such crowds and stopped doing well at school.
Among poor people in the Asian population, there are far more people who fall into the former category.. people who decide that since they are poor, they'd try to do better through education. And I think this is in large part due to their parents' emphasis on education.
Notice I've never said money isn't a factor. I do definitely believe it's easier to do better in school if you're NOT poor.. since you don't have to have an afterschool job, try to support your parents instead of go to college, etc. But more Asian poor people do well academically than black and Latino poor people, and I think it's cultural, not genetic. I see no other explanation for that.
So again, it comes down in large part to parental support.
Okay, so this is a little off-topic, but I think we need computers set up so kids can pop the hood and look around. (And a multi-user system makes sure they can't mess up dad's email) I want to see more kids think "this game is boring, I want to write my own that does this and this and that!" - and then lets them do it on their own.
Okay, I'll get back on topic now :)
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Here we are , another week older and yet still another airball piece richer by Jon Katz.
Whats Jon's Cause de jour?
The Net Haves And Have Nots
-----------------------------
Have you looked in the librarys around the country and seen the computers there for use by ANYONE? Have you looked at the shelters and clubs for kids where computers are now part of the standard drill? Do you even acknowledge the fact that with in 20 years of thier creation more people than EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE are using computers and the net?
Does the fact that in the few decades computers have been in place MORE poepl are using them then were able to read a century ago? That by going to a library or school, or a $500 home computer and a $9 a month net account if you are a "privalaged few", you can tap into more information that was available to most professors and high thinks 50 years ago?
Did you stop to think this was an evolving situation and that in the 20 some odd years of home computers, and the bearly 10 years of commercial net acces, we as a society en masse are light years ahead of most science fiction works of the 60's?
No, you went for the standard arguement starting flamebait. Short sighted weak tea and stale cookies Jon, and its getting obvious your not up to regular commentary of worth.
Yes folks, Mr Katz was probably strapped for text this week so he went back to Raving Rant Tract number 23 and replaced the word Money with The Internet.
What he does is another boring old tired rant on how there is disparity of users and non users, how we using the Net should be ashamed because there are those who cant.
Jon, even for you this rant was weak. I liked it better when you at least tried to but some creative umph in the verbage, but this was like you listened to some NYU student on a drunken rant in some hip village bar as they spent thier parents money on drinks for every one from the SDS.
Your main thrust is that of some vague shame I should be feeling for being where I am in my life. Well I feel no shame in it at all. I am where I am for a reason. Im a kid from the Bronx who loves computers.
NO shame from me, only pride that I am part of something that is gorwing to make the globe a place of knowing and maybe help the people of the world read stuff like yours and think "what primative mind made this noise?"
I can only vebture to guese what Jons next article will be about...maybe Slavery in the Digital Age or A Declaration of Netizens.....buzz buzzz buzzzword man making all a buzzz word can.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
What strikes again is a human who cant adapt to a simple misspelling. If you are so tightly wound you cant read thru a simple typo, then maybe you should seek reeducation.
Mizpellrs f teh wirld untie
I hope evolution breeds out that sort of rigidity from the species.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Historicaly speaking you are right on target.
There is always a portion of those that are not of a group, just as there are some who are. This duality of cause upsets the Fanaticaly Caregivers, the ones who will fight hard to save baby seals from radioactive waste in chernobyl.
There is a growing class of people with free time an resources who feel some sense of guilt for being in a place and time they think has gotten More than its "fair" share. So they seek to assuage thier guilt by "saving" those who cant save themselves.
If you step back a bit its damn amusing.
Now, rather than actualy create avenues of recourse or solid methods to help those without, more often than not these folk seek to undo gains or take back from those with too much; they seek a destruction so that a balance can be had.
This is the true test of a causes worth. Does it create or destroy, does it seek to better a thing or lessen it?
If you want to bring education and net access to those without, get them to a library, set up a leanring center where there are none. Do, rather than do not.
Your post also speaks to the age old problem of those who simply Do Not Want to learn, or read, or better themselves. The library system in this country is underused by the very people who should be using it. Why? Is it because they cannot get to them? No, there are branches all over the place. Is it because they are not let in? No, the branches are open to all.
Once again it is a problem that gets back down to the responsibility of the parent to raise each child to the best of thier abilities. If there is any crime that should be punished hardest it is the crime of bad parenting.
It all starts in the home, for better or for worse.
--all misspellings go out to my personal anonymous spell checker----
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
a cantor cant cant if the cant cant be canted.
Decanted
(cant==short hand for can not)
Anonymous Cant Read
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Yea , thats it.
And whats your excuse Mr anonymous?
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
So lets see
Australia Censoring the net feeds is an american problem?
China filtering its feeds...let me guese..america again?
Germany doing the littel censor blooper a few years back...america?
Before You start jumping around on the same old tired "america is the r00t of all evil" rant, look around. You think your country is so pure?
Yea, America is fucked up, but that is not a problem with just America.
Global babby, you just cant get around that.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Right on!
It all comes down to natural selection. Whenever there is a paradigm shift in technology (i.e. technological revolution) there are people that are unable, for whatever the circumstances, to adapt. If you cannot adapt the necessary skills, for whatever reason, that are necessary to survive, then you die (or at least have a hard time).
Any time there exists something that offers an advantage to people it will always create a disparity between people who can adapt to it and those who can't; and that disparity will widen and the lines will constantly be redrawn.
It's happened before (industrial revolution) and it will continue to happen. It's a natural process and no matter how much we want to remove the disparity, you can't save everyone.
We evolve with technology or we become extinct.
Simple rule. Self evidently true.
********************************************
Superstition is a word the ignorant use to describe their ignorance. -Sifu
I think most people /do/ want a single-family detached home instead of a massive apartment or condo complex where people are packed together like ants.
Those who rail against suburbia have some valid points, but I see more anti-suburbia negativity than I see positive advocacy of the alternative. I suspect this is because the alternative is unpalateable to many.
I think the negative things people attribute to suburbia are at least partially created by our own fears. We have somehow been trained to fear other people instead of loving them. I think if we were trained to love, suburbia would be a friendly place. But since we're trained to fear, suburbia becomes cold and sterile. Packing a lot of people in one place isn't going to fix society. Look what happened to high-rise housing for the poor - they were such horrid places to live they were abandoned or blown up.
(I will admit that I hate the kind of suburb where the laws of the subdivision don't allow you to change one brick of the house you supposedly own. But that's not a characteristic of suburbia itself - check out the Hollywood Hills and you'll see single family detached homes, each one unique).
D
----
To use the net successfully, you have to do two things: read and write. I know that we have all kinds of pretty pictures now, but if you want to communicate or find stuff, reading and writing are vital.
The most popular medium in the country is television, because it doesn't require any form of thinking. You don't need to read to understand TV; you just need to watch and listen. A bestselling book attracts less than a million readers; a popular TV series attracts 50-100 million viewers. I think this gives you an idea of the disparity between people who like to read (natural net users) and those who like to watch (people who may never master the net).
I'm not sure what, if anything can be done about this. My gut feeling is that only sharp people are going to put the effort it takes to use the net. And I don't think people who aren't sharp will ever be more than a peripheral part of net culture.
But frankly, so what? People who aren't smart enough to use the net aren't going to do well with all those new jobs anyway.
Of course I've always been a bit of an elitist, personally. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
D
----
Um... are you seriously telling me that sysadmins are going to take over the world? Even if we accept for a moment that whites will get all the tecnology and others won't I still don't see how that leads to a medieval society. There are still lots of non-computer-literate jobs out there.
And as a previous poster pointed out, technology starts out with the rich, who pay a premium and fund the initial R & D, and it spreads out as the technology matures. I can now get a telephone, a TV, a stereo, a VCR, and a microwave for a total of about $500. 40 years ago, that would've set you back thousands of dollars.
The same will happen with computers. The iMac and other similar computers are starting to show the trend, as are the "free" and sub-$500 PC's. Computer makers have hit a ceiling on the high-end market, and are now gearing up to get a piece of the 50% of the population that still is without a computer. Within 5 years, I predict that computer ownership will be up to 60 or 70 percent, and you'll be able to get a full-fledged PC from a major name for under $500. At that point it will be less a matter of money and more a matter of willpower: the people who still go without will do so because they are intimidated by the technology.
Five years after that, low-end computers will be down in the $200-$300 range, as PC-on-a-chip technologies make it possible to produce an entire motherboard for under a hundred bucks. Internet access prices for a megabit connection will be available for the same kind of money as phone access. That's within the reach of even the poorest Americans.
So even if there is a disparity now, that disparity will close in the near future. You don't see any hand-wringing about the gap between the rich and the poor in TV ownership, or VCR ownership, or microwave ownership. This is because prices are now so cheap that literally anyone can afford them. The same will be true of computers. Computer makers will continue to find cheaper methods of computer-building, and the result will be a steady increasing in access for all Americans.
Well, I meant motherboard + processor + memory + graphics card, etc. I don't think you can get this with any kind of quality for less than several hundred bucks. A low-end Pentium II or K6 by itself costs more than $50.
All of us who are responding on this forum are
part of a net elite. We are smart or lucky enough
to be on the internet and knowlegeable enough to
be using slashdot as a resource. What about the
kids (black/white/asian/indian/hispanic/etc.) that
are not lucky enough to be on the net. They can
not be here to respond to our critisims and boasts
to give us the REAL side of the story. Whether you
like it or not we know something they do not and
we have access they do not. That really hurts the
credibility of this forum. 33% of white americans
relative to 19% or so of black americans may be on
the net but those numbers are PATHETIC no matter
which category you may be in. This does not even
include a world wide study. The numbers are even
more disgusting. We may complain that more asians
are on the net but they too are an elite few in
comparison to those who live in China, India, and
other third world areas. Many people complain that
affirmative action is unfair and wish they recieve
scholarship like all blacks and hispanics do. For
those people I want you to check your school's
statistics for how many blacks and hispanics you
have in your school. You will be lucky to see 18%
of each. We should count our blessings and
think about how lucky we are to be in front of a
computer today. We should also encourage people of
all races to make sacrifices to get on the net
and gain computer skills. But sadly we are here
complaining about race A having more privileges
than race B.
You have a good point, black and hispanic cultures
may not be as accepting of technology as other cultures may be. Many African Americans try to fill in cultural holes by accepting a mixed bag of ancient African cultures and interpolating it into a general culture but that can hinder acceptance of future ideas. This could hurt the acceptance of
technology amongst African American cultures. Many
Asians have an idea of there cultural identity so
accepting future ideas may not be as much of a
problem.
Sadly in today's political climate I don't think
your point will be accepted. :
"By saying "open the floodgates" to pornography, with no ability to do blocking, you have circumvented the ability of communities and of families to make and enforce their own decisions about what constititues community and family standards."
Who cares what "communities" think about what arbitary "standard" they are going to try to enforce this week? Who cares what parents think about what obscene material they're afraid their 16 yr old will try to see this week? Why not let the children have their own damn life for once?
Why not think about the INDIVIDUAL, who is the one that is actually CHOOSING what he or she WANTS to see? Blocker software is bullshit for that reason..it means that the individual is being blocked from what he or she believes his or her standards are. If I choose to view pornography, despite what some idiotic bible belt person thinks, I am NOT affecting a 82 yr old granny down the hall who doesn't want to see it. If I am FORCING her to see it, then I should be arrested for that COERCIVE action, not because I am violating "standards". Child Porn should be illegal because it was a COERCION of the children to pose for the pictures, NOT because they are obscene.
I say that communities do NOT have the right to "enforce" their own standards, because I refuse to allow some hypocritial idiot to remove my freedom to view what I want to so he can make a big political issue out of it (See Simon Leis).
"Community Standards" is a THEOCRATIC idea, and should be discredited as such. *ALL* young people see porn, and then most of them stop searching for it or start searching for better quality, less crass versions of it. If companies are really scared that their employees are going to look at porn during working hours, then they have a MORALE problem, not a porn viewing problem.
All you're saying by "Community Standards" is that someone who holds pathological and bizzare ideas about what is natural (such as sex) can dictate me or coerce me if I happen to live in the same community.
"If you don't like the standards of the community you're in you can always change the standards or simply leave."
/."
/. could put me in jail.
Lets see.
1) Change the standards. Hmm, I'll have to deal with 10,000 maurading Christians walking around and picketing, appealing to parents who are afraid to allow their "baby" to date at age 35. Standards are simply selective enforcement, so people aren't really worried about getting caught until they get screwed by the government with an ulterier motive. So I'll get 10,000 social conservatives fwapping me on the head with shovels and voting NO and no one will bother voting YES, and I'll be the one with a "ruined reputation" and shovel marks and footprints on me. Won't work. No one wants to admit IN PUBLIC that they want to watch porno, now do they?
2) Leave. There are idiots like this EVERYWHERE, and these people want to enforce their stupid laws (and morals) on EVERYONE.
"Furthermore, if a community can't set its own standards and expect people to abide by them there can be no such thing as government, law, or
Umm, I don't think that
Government does not NEED these local obsenity standards. All they need to know is if someone is being coerced or not. But they LOVE these standards because it allows them to hold the glove of selective enforcement over you. Piss someone off in government, they will be SURE to "catch" you the next time you are having oral sex with your lover and haul you off to jail for "sodomy".
The whole IDEA of community standards is BULLSHIT. If someone near by me watches porno, I do NOT have to watch it because they did. If someone voluntarly pays someone for sex, that doesn't mean that the whole neighborhood will. The people who want community standards want to make people believe that if one person does something untasteful, that EVERYONE will do it. It is absolving individuals of their responsibilities.
This is how we are losing the bill of rights. Because of idiotic people who want these "standards".
There are some people in this world and in any society who no matter what will not jump into the opportunities available. Take for example the fact that public libraries are ubiquitous in this country, even in poor neighborhoods. Yet many blacks and Hispanics don't use them. Why is it that immigrant Asians and other groups that have come to this country with the same economic disadvantages as Hispanics and blacks, yet they have managed to succeed in much higher rates, even higher than whites? Because they value education, prosperity, and hard work.
Face the facts people. There are some people in this world who are not going to do anything no matter what, even if you beat them with a stick to do it.
When you see people buying expensive stereos and TVs, when they could easily put their money away to buy a computer to learn skills and gather useful information tells you what they value. Let people live by their values and suffer the consequences.
I just ***hope*** you're not trying to imply us poor minorities are less interested in technology as "white America" (whatever that is).
... what are you really saying here ? And what cultures are you talking about ??? I'd like to know what "minority" culture does not have a good attitude toward education and learning. Specially, when in my University, our CS grad program had over 50%-75% total minority students in it. Please be more clear !
> It's also about attitudes toward education and
> learning, which frankly is very poor in most
> inner city environments, and among certain
> cultures within America.
Humm
- sigs are for wimps.
> I'm not sure what "poor minority" you were
> including yourself in above but I know the kids
> in my neighborhood.
I'm Hispanic. Born in Panama.
> A lot of the people I live around are 1st
> generation immigrants from Central America and
> Mexico. In the world the parents grew up in
> there was no attitude towards education at all.
> It was so far out of the possible that it never
> entered their minds. The economies in many of
> these countries is pretty close to Medieval
> Feudalism.
Hey, I'm from Central America, the Medieval Feudal society !!! Education in Central and South America is *very* important no matter what social class you belong to !!!!!!
Yes, access to the best education is an issue, but I don't remember any poor parent in my country saying "I don't want my kids to have education, forget about that crap!". When you graduate from the University , you are called a "licensiado" and people respect that. I would say their attitude about education is *VERY* good. Some just don't have the means to go to school , or the time (have to work to eat).
- sigs are for wimps.
You can use any computer to access the internet. I used an 8086 with a 2400bps modem to dialup both a university server and the local freenet for several years, because my parents couldn't buy a new computer. A couple of years ago, I bought a 486 and a 33.6 modem, and got access with that. Although now I'm using a 350MHz machine with cable, this should show that my internet access had and has everything to do with incentive.
>Percent of US households using the Internet, by race/origin and income. White Americans earning
>less than $75K/year are about twice as likely to be using the Net as black Americans in the same
>income bracket. Why...?
Looking at that chart, I would bet that much of the answer is that the income distribution curve for blacks and hispanics is skewed lower than for whites, so within the $30k - $45k bracket, proportionally more whites are near $45k, and more blacks are near $30k. I wonder what those charts would look like if they broke down the income more finely. Also - the non-white population is less suburban. $30k doesn't go as far in a city, even in low-income neighborhoods, and rural poor are probably _much_ less likely to have net access, even if they have a computer.
There are probably also some cultural differences - most web content is in English, which will lower use among Hispanics, and there are aspects of black (lower-class) culture which will depress net use.
> So what will be The Sixth Wave?
Very good question indeed. Here are my guesses for 6th wave emergent technologies:
Biotech
Nanotech
Space
Ocean
If you look at the report you will see that asian minorities have the greatest percentage of net users at ALL income levels.
why is this? Asian cultures are generally VERY open to technology, thus they will adopt the newest stuff much more quickly than anyone else. I really haven't much experience in black and hispanic cultures, are they more technophobic than white and asian? Is this necesarrily a bad thing?
Q.
Socialism would be if the government paid for everyone to have access. Not a terrible idea, but not what was being talked about either. What was being talked about was some means (unspecified) of informing folk of what the implications of their choices were. I think that's an interesting combination of extremely desireable, and extremely difficult. The best idea that occurs to me is to have sports and movie stars advertise how desireable it is. And perhaps to have sports teams organize pre-game fan confabs on the net (sort of like slashdot for football fans, etc.) And neither of those involve much in the way of government support, well, no more than the rest of the net does.
P.S.: If you worry too much about socialism, you should definitely avoid the net, as it is a government supported and regulated institution that has LOTS of tax breaks.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
Excuse me, but if you are a single mom (for whatever reason) without skills working at Target or K-mart and making $8.00 per hour, you can ill afford to spend $17 per month on something as frivolous as internet access.
And besides, what low income parent-to-be thinks "Hey, I can't afford internet access--I better not have any kids!"
And of course, the Microsoft deal requires a CREDIT CARD, something that the middle class can take for granted. . . . .
Blacks and other minorities were making good money at these jobs, and who did they vote for but Bill Clinton, a leading advocate and implemtor of free trade policies.
America espouses "free trade" only when it suits. Recent protectionism for US lamb producers means it will be more difficult for you Yanks to get quality lamb from countries like Australia.
I agree that taking care of your own future is the only way. However, the notion that Internet access or lack thereof will fundamentally change the world is an illusion that only the Katz's of this world and others trapped in the '60s would choose to beat up. None of the various "technological revolutions" of this century (or any other) have done much to bridge the gap between haves and have nots, and there's no reason the net should be any different.
The poor and the third world will have internet access, like they have TV, phones, motorcycles and cars, just as soon as some clever (probably Yank) bastards find a way to make money out of it.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Well, I lumped family and community together because I didn't want to take the time to make the two cases separately.
As you say, the family right to screen is part of the natural perogative of the parent in attempting to raise children to the point that they have a healthy and independant judgement. You seem to think I'm arguing that local communities have the same right in loco parentis. This is not what I meant, and if I seemed to say that, I apologize for the confusion.
It seems to me that the right of a community to set community standards is simply part of community self-determination. In a free and democratic society, this should be liberating, not oppressive. As I noted, the right to set a community standard regarding obscenity is a right that has been held by the Supreme Court to not be in violation of free speech rights (if you know of a Court case that contradicts this, please let me know). It is this right that Katz's essay disparages.
Now most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities. -- G. K. Chesterton, "What's Wrong With The World"
Now that I've gotten your attention with the subject line ... :^)
The issue of access and class/race stratification is an important one, and I'm glad that Jon Katz chose to highlight it for /. However, while he makes a good start at outlining the issues, he then muddies the water by using equitable internet access as a springboard for some unrelated rants about pornography on the internet and blocking software.
Here are some issues where Katz is clearly missing the point or just doesn't get it:
Sex on the Internet is a legitimate issue . Please remember that the First-Amendment, free speech rights are not absolutes. You can't shout "fire!" in a crowded theater, you can't slander or libel without being liable, and you can't distribute obscene materials. Obscenity laws have, in general, been upheld by Supreme Court review (IIRC, particular obscenity laws have been struck down for various reasons, but the concept itself has been upheld as Constitutional). The test is normally "community standards" and "redeeming social value."
The only difficulty that the internet brings to this situation is that the definition of obscenity (and enforcement of obscenity statutes) varies from place to place. When dealing with distribution of physical media, this isn't that much of a problem. You simply end up with results such as Playboy being sold in city A while not being available on shelves in city B. But with the internet, by making something available on the web (or via FTP download), you've managed to "publish" simultaneously in cities A and B (and even countries X, Y, and Z). Which leads directly to the next point ...
Blocker software is about empowerment, not censorship . People like to talk about how "decentralizing" the internet is, but in reality it centralizes in some very key ways. By saying "open the floodgates" to pornography, with no ability to do blocking, you have circumvented the ability of communities and of families to make and enforce their own decisions about what constititues community and family standards. That doesn't look like empowerment to me. If the only possible standard I can apply is the lowest common denominator of the entire world, and everyone needs to apply that standard everywhere, it looks pretty centralized to me.
There are other problems with Katz's essay, such as the relative importance of internet access among problems facing teenagers today, and the lack of mention of how free software can make a difference in providing internet access (such as Mexico's decision to use GNOME rather than some proprietary company's software for their schools, so that they could actually afford to get computers into the classroom. But I don't have time for that today, hopefully someone else will pick up the slack.
Modern broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else. -- G. K. Chesterton
Interesting that you take this "Basically, all households, black and white, will soon be saturated by computers." away from the Cato article, because while it makes that assertion, it really does nothing to substantiate it.
The cato article states "Families that do not have computers now are going to have them in a few years. " but the evidence it gives does not support this conclusion.
Rather, it gives evidnce to support the idea that *many* Families that do not have computers now will have them in a few years. They try to show that the gap will close, but the truth is, they only show that there will be fewer people on the Have-not side of the gap than some doomsayers indicate.
You say "The government did not have to give away telephones and service or TV sets to have this staples of modern life become ubiquitous.
What you appearantly don't know is that the government has intervened in a variety of ways to make telephones as ubiquitous as possible, including forcing phone companies to operate unprofitable offices in exchange for the right to operate at all.
I know less about television, but I wouldn't be suprised if various steps were taken to trade transmission to remote areas for permission to operate, and possibly, for some protection from competition.
If you can't prioritize your spending to afford $17/mo on your kids, then you shouldn't be having kids in the first place.
So, what other criteria should we employ when deciding whether people should have kids, eh, SpinyNorman?
Interlibrary loan. Oh, wait, wednesday? Forget it. My advice is to go to the library, find something there's a lot of books about and change your report's subject to that.
-bonkydog
Quid rides? Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur. -Horace, Satirae
I wonder how the chart on Internet usage by race and income can be particularly meaningful. Without adjusting for other variables such as education, geographic location, family status etc, this breakdown is not useful in determining a causal relationship. Beware collinearity: two variables may seem statistically related, but do not have a causal relationship. Collinearity can come from, to take one example, the proportion of the race having one-parent families: we know from elsewhere in the report that this is a strong determinant.
Mentioning the statistical disparity between blacks and whites here seems to be deliberate race-baiting. Considering that the "Other non Hispanic" group tops all other races in all categories, why beat up on the whites?
I submit that free access to information is quickly becoming a necessary component of our rights. As citizens of a democracy (actually a republic, but why quibble), we make decisions (via our votes) that determine the course of our government. As individuals, we live in a society which is rapidly increasing in complexity - you need access to information to be able to deal with it. Of what possible benefit would it be to have a section of our population making it's decisions without access to the relevant information? Some would say "They want information, let them work for it!". I truly don't know what to say to such people.
On a related note, the posts here give me the feeling that we're being overrun by Libertarians who believe that a person's worth is measured by their bank account, and if they're poor, well, then there must be something wrong with them..... they aren't really people like you and I. And a fine little slippery slope that attitude is.
wants to be the first monkey to touch the monolith
Good point. You can watch TV without being literate. Heck, you can watch it in a foreign language and still get the gist of it. But if you can't read, you can't get anywhere on a computer, unless your idea of fun is playing those educational games for 3-year olds.
-Imperator
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Great, you've increased the number of people who can get into college. That really is a good thing, IMHO. But these people are already in the running for college admission. These aren't the illiterate masses, the vulgus profanum watching football games and lottery advertisements. These are the people who are forming the lower class, and these are the people who are being failed by the educational system. Yes, there are cultural issues. But these aren't excuses for a genuine lack of opportunity.
-Imperator
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
is anyone actually surprised about statistics relating computer ownership percentages to levels of education?
honestly here, those who've received college educations are more likely to won a computer, be connected to the net, etc.
despite the often worth attempts of mac, aol, and now m$ to bring computers/net to the (m)asses,
(no offense to aol or mac users, some of which are very knowledgable, but you know the stereotypes, which _are_ based on fact),
is still takes some level of logic, analytical thinking, or at least an iq over 3 to use a computer effectively.
these are also the types who are more likely to attend college, and do well.
aside from that even,
i'm GLAD the net is more occupied by those with a little more than average ticking up top.
my greatest attractions to the net and web are the exchange of ideas, the ability to discuss with others of similar intellect, and the chance to learn.
if every uneducated, useless member of society had a web page, an email, and a desire to forward every chain letter, and download every useless page on the web, the web would be simple hell.
many of the backbones and major hubs are straining as it is, the big-name servers are saturated anyway. i like this being an elite society. not the social status it grants some, but the real knowledge involved.
the web is nice and pretty, but the real power behind it, the unices and linux, are fine just in the hands of those that know what they're doing.
spread the web to the world?
why bother?
-Tannin Kal
yes, i admit, i made a typo.
you're not immune either: "more educated that anglos."
and i'm still curious as to why every racial group you mentioned gets capitalized except anglos? "Asian" is not a proper noun.
what am i going to do about this?
nothing.
i don't have a problem with uneven spreads.
i think getting computers into schools will help balance out what is seen as an unfair skew, but only if done properly. does anyone seriously think it would be the deep inner-city schools to get the computers first? nope. so the imbalance would be amplified.
might get attacked for this one,
but who's to say that,
given the societal and environmental influences prior to this "mixing bowl," as it were, every man, woman, and child, of every race, gender, and creed, are equal anyway?
give everyone an iq test at the age of 8 or 9,
before too many external pressures have warped them, and i think some trends would be very obvious,
many of which could NOT be explained by the first 8-9 years of life, and would thus require another explanation.
would be fun results to see.
-Tannin Kal
yes, i admit, i made a typo.
you're not immune either: "more educated that anglos."
and i'm still curious as to why every racial group you mentioned gets capitalized except anglos? "Asian" is not a proper noun.
what am i going to do about this?
nothing.
i don't have a problem with uneven spreads.
i think getting computers into schools will help balance out what is seen as an unfair skew, but only if done properly. does anyone seriously think it would be the deep inner-city schools to get the computers first? nope. so the imbalance would be amplified.
might get attacked for this one,
but who's to say that,
given the societal and environmental influences prior to this "mixing bowl," as it were, every man, woman, and child, of every race, gender, and creed, are equal anyway?
give everyone an iq test at the age of 8 or 9,
before too many external pressures have warped them, and i think some trends would be very obvious,
many of which could NOT be explained by the first 8-9 years of life, and would thus require another explanation.
would be fascinating to see those results.
-Tannin Kal
it is a government's responsibility to take care of it's citizens.
i firmly believe this.
i think that should be the goal towards which the government aspires in all things.
i do NOT believe it is the government's responsibility to take care or illegal aliens within the country,
or the citizens of other countries.
if a valid global government were to be established ,
it would need to assure a minimum quality of life for ALL it's people.
i don't see that happening,
except that the US is attempting to do just that,
and in my opinion is way out of line.
so, no, i don't think we should help the underprivelaged children in other countries,
just not for the reason you assumed.
if a private organization wishes to,
well,
they can spend their money any way they see fit.
-tk
-Tannin Kal
if they come in to our country legally,
and through the front door,
sure, why not.
they'd be citizens,
and i already said that was important.
if they won't do that,
they have no business here.
-Tannin Kal
My mother (who was a primary school teacher when she was younger) told me once that the reason that schools in America were so awful was because of the increased econimic liberties of women. Teachers, if they took their degrees and went into the workforce, would make many times more money. When the only jobs women could commonly get were secratarial work, nursing, and teaching, we go many talented and intelligent women in teaching. However, the pay is awful, my mother had to leave teaching and go into bookeeping/administrative duties, so that we could live in NYC (where my dad worked and where my sister and i went to school)
I'd presonally love to be a high school teacher, but the salary is so riduclous. Raise the salary to nearly the same level as college proffessors and you will get better teachers -- i think.
maybe, I'm entirely off base, but that's my base...
------- Oh damn.... the Sigfile escaped... -Great OM
I hate to see Internet access drug right along with telephone and broadcast as needing to be subsidized by the government for everyone to benefit. Surely, with the advent of WebTVs, those $199 boxes from Microworkz, and even Free PCs you can get on the Internet somehow. The telephone system is crappy and rapidly approaching useless because of the complacency that government subsidies have brought on.
This also shouldn't be a racial issue. I will not be responsible if a black person chooses not to get on the Internet. This country (United States, and others I imagine) is about free choice, and we should not be attempting to show someone "the light" or magic of getting on the Internet. As we do, the message will sound more and more forced and not unlike religious zealots which will turn more people away then it will entice to join.
So what you might have said, had sarcasm not been your bent, is:
-begin translation-
Bless those black folks for being lazy and broke! And bless them for not trying to determine age-appropriate content for their children.
I don't want South Park on any channel! George Carlin's "Seven Words" should not be playing on every radio station. That would be FREEDOM. If those "immoral" people like it, they can turn on the TV and spend the rest of their lives outside their homes.
Well-Known Cow
-end translation-
I hope that's not what you meant. Sarcasm isn't saying the opposite of what you mean, it is saying things you don't mean at all to make a point.
Oh, and I guarantee you that a pretty large percentage of those poor people you are referring to work a damn sight harder on a daily basis than 99.999% of the people who read this list (including me). And how many of them do you think get to do something they enjoy?
Also keep in mind that when we talk about the poor, we are referring to people who are actually trying. The people you might be thinking about are the indigent, who have no place in a capitalistic society.
Absolutely!!! I mean come off it North America! For crying out loud you ignore your kids, expect TV to raise them, don't instill any values in them, and you don't force your school boards to teach the essentials of literacy, history and mathematics and now you complain of the disparity! Get real! Quit smoking. Quit drinking. Spend some time with your kids. Get your priorities straight. And when the kid can't read, do simple long divisionin or write a legible sentence in long hand in the first place, regardless of colour, a computer isn't going to help until they can. Technology is wonderful but you have to have the mental tools to know how to use it in the first place. And why, can someone tell me, is the internet required for research today? Are there no libraries anymore? No newspapers? What gives? Or am I a Luddite?
If what I said is nonsense,
I'm making a point with it.
If what I said makes perfect sense,
you obviously missed the point.
I think you fail to realize that a lot of the poor are working more than 20 hours a week to pay for necessities. Yeah, a 16 year old can probably scrap together money for a computer but when the choice is between the computer and food/rent/clothes I think the choice is pretty obvious.
Despite what you may believe where you are and how much you earn is primarily a function of who your parents are. People born in a middle class family tend to grow up and become middle class, likewise people born in lower class families tend to remain in lower classes.
Racism is dead. The only thing keeping it alive is government programs to keep people aware of Race.
That really isn't the case at all. If it were, then people don't be asked to pay for their food at Denny's before they get it, people wouldn't be dragged on a chain attached to a truck because of their skin color, and people wouldn't be the targets of drivebys because they were black.
We should all be given an equal CHANCE.
And that's exactly what affirmative action programs tried to do. Whether they succeeded or achieved it is a subject of debate however. However, it is hard to argue that minorities and minority women in particular earn significantly less than white men or women in equivalent positions.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
till, we have an amazing capacity for upwards mobility in this country. If you apply yourself you can succeed.
Although that's the image that many people have of US society, that's really not the case. A lot of books have documented how US society is pretty stratified with significant barriers to movement between classes. Otherwise why do so many lower class people remain in the same class for their entire lives? Please don't tell me that they're so lazy that they want to live without basic utilities. Some of them work 10+ hours a day for 6 days a week but get paid very little. I wouldn't conisder that lazy at all.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
However if the government interferes with other foreign governments to the extent that people are forced to become refugees, I do think the government has a responsibility to take care of these refugees.
The US government has done this in several countries(Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina, etc.). So in large part, I think the government is responsible for the immigrants from these countries that were affected by government actions.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
Why is a 16 year old working instead of going to school?
I believe after you're 16, you don't need to go to school anymore and some families need the additional income that the teen brings in.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
Anyone who mentions the whole race thing in
connection to the Internet should really
think hard about what they're doing.
It's not like there's a login screen asking
for your *race* when you connect to the
'Net.
It's all about income and the ability to own
a computer. If more blacks and hispanics
are "not on the net", than it's because more
blacks and hispanics have less disposable
income than others. That's it. Don't you
dare try to tell me this is related to
disrimination or anything. It's just an
interesting social demographic...
Just thinking...
--- witty signature
Somebody's already mentioned the truism that here on the net, nobody knows you're a dog. So as far as the NET is concerned, we have two major groups, the Wired and the Un-Wired.
. .
Amongst the Wired, it's pretty much, IMNSHO, a meritocracy. Write good code, design good websites, whatever: if you're good, you get noticed, if you don't, you're in the discard bin. As it should be: life is to short for sucky code or sites that suck.
As for the Un-Wired, they don't play in our world, yet they can, whenever they get off their loathsome, spotty behinds, and decide, that they, too, should be amongst the Wired. So why is this an issue in the first place ?? Perhaps because, in meatspace, all too many people feel they deserve cash, accolades, recognition, etc. .
WHETHER THEY HAVE EARNED IT OR NOT.
And perhaps they feel threatened by our burgeoning cyber-meritocracy. And so, perhaps, they want to stop it, by bringing it down to the lowest common denominator, by getting everone online, whether they want to or not. .
Not saying that this absolutely IS the case, but I'd argue it over a few beers. . .
"We should all be given an equal CHANCE."
You are correct! - about that one thing. What you fail to mention in your response is that there IS a disparity when it comes to OPPORTUNITIES that different socio-economic classes have. I do not want to use race as a classifier - although - many times lower economic class and minority run in the same sentence.
MORE OVER
The point of the article was to raise the existence of this growing disparity - and social Darwinism as you state would actually come to haunt you in the end. The reason for this is simple. If you are one of the diminishing numbers of people, who are amongst the "elite class" you are obviously outnumbered. No genius there - but - what type of world do you think would exist if the people who will eventually work for or with you, cannot complete the simplest of tasks.
I do not know about you - but I am all for raising the intelligence level of this country. Intelligence or at least familiarity with technology is becoming increasingly important as the nation becomes more reliant on present technologies.
For you to say "I do not understand you" is praise beyond my worth and an insult you do not deserve. - K. Gibran
And I just discombobulated an AC!!
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Could someone please explain why people have a grudge against Mr. Katz? Is the style of writing too logical? I find that I would give my eyeteeth if I could paint a picture of something logical enough that people all over the world would actually read it (several thousand). What he has to say are points that most people don't really care about. If I ever actually get an ip to my machine there will be some pretty cool things pretty soon howver I have inferior communications hardware and do not have the easy access to cash to remedy this. Basically most people take for granted things that they have without taking a look at the other half. I am reminded of a book called "How the Other Half Lives" published at about early 1900's where the conditions of the people were displayed in graphic deteail so that people could understand it is nice to see a person address such a topic. What I would just wish is that communication rates could be the same for anything like my 2400bps AT compatable modem so that I could connect instead of having to have to deal with people complaining about their OC3 not having enough bandwidth. Some people wouldn't have enouth even if they owned their own telephone company.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Well where I come from the libraries mainly suck. For example I am searching for something on Brain Cancer and I found 2 count them 2 books in the library both of which are totally useless discussing about pediatric tumors and some tear jerker stories of little children getting these things: very little of substance. This report is due Wednesday and I have little to go on. Although the pickings are slim and I have little to go on the internet has helped some.
If anyone can assist me with some useful links from the web (or other sources) that I can get (fairly detailed) info about barin cancer and tumors in the brain I would be most grateful.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Shall I call you Mr. Coward? ok
Well your point is basically true the same is true about a state of "anarchy" in that a leader will eventually emerge on some level and order will be restored. Sure you want to be in that better group I do too. What is definately unethical and to some extent immoral is how we think of people. It almost makes me weep to think that some people want a permanent underclass of people to knock around on a daily basis. But remember it can and WILL catch up with anyone who does.
Consider the French Revolution and related topics. People got revenge en mass on the upper class since they were so disadvantaged. The person who sells you shoes or scrubs the public toilet may at one point in time make the decisions about wheather you get a job later in life or not, etc. Basically it's just the golden rule.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
I actually know intuitively about this. I would come from a background that one could label poor. And even the relative inexpensive nature of technology can be a problem.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Try a search engine... and try doing you own homework too..
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Whenever people decide we need more taxes, or fewer freedoms, they like to justify it by crying about "the children" and the minorities. That's all this is. We need a new tax to run free internet connections to rural and innercity houses. The whole thing about throwing race in there was to distract the issue. If people want to buy a t.v. instead of a computer, that's their choice. But I can't even buy my self a new machine, I don't want to buy someone else one (particularly not if he makes as much money as I do). This whole 'cry for the children and minorities while I try to liberate you of a bit more of your pay-check or freedoms' thing is growing old. If this sentiment keeps up, just wait till we get new Gore Tax's that are actually voted and passed by congress.
The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I hate hype. Pundits, marketeers, and congressfolks, however, have the disturbing ability of extruding bushels and barrels of hype from mere teaspoons of data. Here is a wonderful example. Given a few bits of real information ("you can look up stuff online" and "white middle-class kids are more likely to use the net"), a pundit can create a screaming tirade against the injustice of the system, calling for the immediate execution of the King.
Sometimes I think that there should be a 30 day waiting period on posts by pundits, to force them to think over what they're about to say (heh--myself included).
I just want to offer a few questions to ponder.
Is the Internet helpful in the education of children? How helpful is it in teaching children how to read? How many people do you know who learned arithmetic on a website? Is there any information that exists solely on the web that will teach children how to think critically?
Of course, since a significant number of children who pass through American schools never learn these skills, perhaps the Internet is just as good as traditional schooling.
In my heretical opinion, there is no call for including computers in elementary education. It is far better to teach children how to learn and how to think logically than to teach them how to point and click.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
I say that communities do NOT have the right to "enforce" their own standards, because I refuse to allow some hypocritial idiot to remove my freedom to view what I want to so he can make a big political issue out of it (See Simon Leis).
/.
If you don't like the standards of the community you're in you can always change the standards or simply leave. Furthermore, if a community can't set its own standards and expect people to abide by them there can be no such thing as government, law, or
As for politicians making an issue out of non-issues... well, it takes two to make an issue : the person who speaks and the person who reacts. And I'd place the greater blame on the person who reacts without learning the facts.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
from Katz (quoting a commerce department study):
Ownership of computers is still closely linked to income. Families with incomes over $75,000 were more than five times as likely to own a computer at home and 10 times more likely to have Net access than families who earned less than $10,000.
Well Duh!!!
Humm... Let's compare other things between family's who make greater than 75K vs less than 10K.
Which group owns more cars?
Which group owns more houses?
Which group owns more model trains?
Which group owns more beer?
My point is, 10K is well below poverty. They don't own stuff. It makes no point comparing them to the top 10% of the country.
Quack
Hitler said that Japanise were equvilant to arians, that's how he justified his aligance to the Japanese in WWII
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
. We post pricesin centicents, as in ".79c",
get a life
in the entirety of mine, I've never seen that.
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Unfortunately, our culture (American culture that is) thrives on mass media, and mass media thrives on people who don't think and just act on impulse. The World Wide Web was a reversal in that trend... suddenly a mass medium that challenged you and made you a part of a community, rather than a spoon-fed society! But the reversal has reversed again, and we're going back to dumb mass-consumerism.
/. posters, etc who know the *net* (not the web) as an interactive medium, but now, most of those big companys, AOL in particular, are just trying to get people who watch TV into eyeballs for there service.
well, really it never changed. There are some of us,
some people don't want to be nothing but eyeballs, but many people don't mind (or so it seems)
fortunetly for us, the "old" net will never go away.....
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Um....
minoritys are already literate, I'm sure you relized that
now we need to get them computer literate.
literacy may be great, but it won't get you a good education, and nither will computers
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
If you barely make 10,000 a year or are on welfare then DON'T HAVE KIDS damnit... It's not that damn hard
damn, your stupid. you can't get on welfare if you don't *already* have kids.
I don't know why people feel that they should form opinions when there obviosly stupid... of cource, they are probably to stupid to figure that out on there own.....
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
true laiz-fair capitalism has *never* worked
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Ever heard of genetics? Stupid, lazy parents have stupid lazy kids. Explains quite a lot doesn't it?
Your first paragraph is *amazingly stupid* the amount of education a person has has been proven to effect there IQ as much as 70%
there's no evidence that 'laziness' is a genetic trait, and if you looked at real statistics, you would see that most poor people, (and yes, this includes minorities) are *not* lazy, they often work jobs that you or I would never consider, and don't get paid shit. There not lazy, they are just *uneducated.
Of course, in your second, paragraph, you seem to imply that creationism has some merit, invalidating your ideas for about 95% of educated people
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
most people *already* have phone access, and a second line usualy only costs about $12/mo, not 60.
as far as electricty, $45 a month??? how the hell did you get *that* figure. a kwatt hour is like $0.12 or somthing. it dosnt' cost much to run one computer
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
$80 TV tuner cards....
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Blacks and other minorities were making good money at these jobs, and who did they vote for but Bill Clinton, a leading advocate and implementer of free trade policies.
when I first read this, I was a little confused. You seem to be saying that all non whites are poor non-skilled laborers.
then I realized that you're actually a moron, and then it all made sense.
anyway, no ones bitching, the job market in America is *far* better then it was in 1992. (I don't belive that anyone as obviously stupid as Bill Clinton could have had anything to do with this, however). No one is bitching. it appears that you are just making stuff up at this point.
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
my god, you are a pathetic person
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
um, you can buy a good super7 mother board for about $56, and a slot one for $80.....
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
you're so lucky, asian chicks are **so** hot...
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
well, in order to play doom, you are going to at least know *somthign* about computers.
this isnt' the case anymore, however. as computers get increasingly easy to use, people lose the requirements of computer literacy to operate them.
you can just put in a quakeII CD and be off, without learning anything about the computer, and that's to bad
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
It's bad enough that I'm paying for cable TV for 3 welfare families every paycheck,
what the hell are you talking about? more money goes to the NSA and CIA then goes to welfare. only 7% of the fediral budget goes to welfare. and welfare does not pay very much money ether.
anyway its better to have a sigler mother home to take care of her kids then to have them grow up themselfs into thugs.
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
hrm... I think you're missing the subtle diffrences between porn, and pr0n.
porn is clearly labled as such, and usualy has a "are you over 18" link or somthing, so you never see it.
pr0n on the other hand is everywhere, its as bad as spam, some pr0n sites even index with words like "autos" and "SUVs" in attempts to get as much linkage as posible. if you look for words like "pictures" or "girls" or "teens"... you get pr0n. it really sucks. I personaly think serach engens should drop any pages that contain the text "hot cum sluts".
I don't want to legislate morality, but all the pr0n out there is getting *really* irritating, especaly if your looking for "real" porn...
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
VCRs are so fucking easy to program. It's quite pathetic that most people can't. it dosn't have anything to do with what humans in general are capable of, its just the computer, electroics phobia that about 1/2 of babie boomers seem to have.
anyone could program a VCR if the took the time to read the manual, the fact is, theres almost no real need to do it. most people arn't that patheic that they "need" to watch whats on TV when they can't be there.
my mom is the worst computer user ever, but she checks her email on the univercity's UNIX server every day.
Kids synaptic pathways arn't sealed off yet, they can learn just about anything
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
40% of our 18-year-olds are functionally illiterate, which means that 5th-grade reading is too hard for them.
and yet the literacy rate is 99% in the US. I'd say we have more problems with math...
I don't buy that number, and I never will, two years ago it was only 20%, by the way... I'd love to see the actual study where that was discoverd
also, just so you know, most newspapers are writen at 4th grade level, to give you an idea of where '5th grade level' is
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
the Japanese are internet freaks man, you don't see most of the stuff, beacuse its mostly in the *.jp domains, and there web pages don't even show up right in most american versions of browsers
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
its not the government's fault.
The US government has a near monopoly on education in this contry. if it provides a shity education, then it *is* its fault.
just like its microsofts fault when the computer crashes when its running the OS that came with it
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I am thoroughly dissapointed at how naive and ignorant most of the posts have been here. Katz is not saying that The Man is stopping minorites from getting on the net. He is saying that something is preventing them and nobody can quite figure it out. Race is pretty much a non-issue for using the net, so why the disparity in the numbers? The answer lies deep within the cultures involved here and has common threads with every other racial issue in recent times. A white person has the same number of hours in the day as a black person, so what is the black person doing with the hour or two the white person is spending on the net? Making an assumption would be nothing short of racist, so research must be done.
And for those of you that think these complex rebate offers are an economic emancipation, you are sorely mistaken. First of all, they will do a credit check, and most poor people have poor credit. Rebuilding an old 486 and finding old hardware and whatnot is not an option, because the people that can do that already have computers. These people work (often several jobs) and have families to raise and do not have time to mess around with computers so they can trade stocks the don't own and read the same news they get in the paper.
Though there is no easy solution here, keeping computers in the schools is the single best strategy at this point. The net has only been a reality at the cultural level for a few years, which is not enough time for it to be adopted. Luckily this is also not enough time for it to have developed strong negative trends. As most slashdot readers know, once you get the hang of computers they are alot easier than they seem (and don't think this is because you have some innate gift, they are actually pretty simple at the consumer level). If a child grows up with computers and learns to use them to improve his life and the life of those around him, he will prioritize it when he gets to the point in life where he has to make a decision. This is probably why white families have more computers, because white schools have had more computers for years, which leads to more computers at home. I think have have all been blinded by the bright flash or growth that has been burning and we must simply strive to make reasonable and sensible decisions about the next 25 years.
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
Again, read the top line of my orginal post. If lower class people could walk around with fistfuls of $50 bills, you dont think they would? Try raising a family on $10/hr (thats 8 $50's a week pretax). People do it, and they do it by not wasting thier money on computers and instead buying food and heat. They also do it by growing up, maybe you should try it.
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
There are some variations by race or cultural groups. Last year I heard a lecture by Jorge Reina Schement of Penn State that discussed differences in usage of computers among whites, hispanics, and blacks. He said that his research showed that hispanics, blacks, and whites have different reasons for getting a computer (for example, as a tool for work vs. for the kids), he also noted that groups spend their dollars differently. For example, blacks were much more likely to spend their money on premium cable than on computers. (Probably, because cable keeps your kids inside at home)
While I agree that Income is Totally the Biggest factor, it doesn't explain everything. Moreover, I agree that these are generalizations, but they may held in an aggregate analysis.
(Is it me or is slashdot getting faster?)
> People that I know who live in "depressed" areas (Appalachia in the top 20 poorest US counties) LIKE where they are at because you DON'T need all the crap that the rich folks need to get along.
Poor people are poor because they like it???? Have you ever been poor????? I guess your idea of poor is not being able to afford the latest P-III 550 duel processor, or whatever your latest fad is, never mind I'm sure mommy and daddy'll get you one for christmas.
>And another thing, Jon, A right on some else's part is not a right if it produces an obligation on my part. It is then just a wish.
So the right to (say) free education, is just a wish because it oblige's you to pay taxes to pay for it, or the right to life is only wish because it places an obligation on everyone else not to kill you. Interesting point of view. I'm glad I dont live in your world.
>Socialism doesn't work!
If capitalism produces people like you then give me socialism anyday.
Anyone know the lyrics to the "Red Flag"?
Bil
Where you stand depends on where you sit...
I'm not sure what "poor minority" you were including yourself in above but I know the kids in my neighborhood.
A lot of the people I live around are 1st generation immigrants from Central America and Mexico. In the world the parents grew up in there was no attitude towards education at all. It was so far out of the possible that it never entered their minds. The economies in many of these countries is pretty close to Medieval Feudalism.
They take great risks and expenses to move to L.A and work their butts off to keep a roof over their heads and fed. They *all* want a better life for their kids. They want a good education for their kids, but its not easy. Many have no education at all. Most have no education beyond ~3rd grade. The kids learn english and go to school The parents can often encourage them, but can't help with the homework. Dad is out of the house working (maybe a couple of jobs). Mom is there, but very often she is the one with no education at all and zero english (and has also been raised to be what we would consider pathologically shy).
Plugging in a computer is going to add what exectly? They are in many ways jumping directly from the 14th century to the 20th. There's a lot of "bootstrapping" that goes on. Spanish language TV, bad as it seems to us, is darn educational. It's exposure to things that may be totally new - in a not threatening way. In a larger family the oldest child is the first to learn english well and teaches the younger ones. Even of he/she is considered a D student by the school by 4th grade he/she can help the 1st grade kid with homework. The 1st grader typically will achive much better grades. Fast forward a few years (or to now in the case of those starting the process 10 years ago) and computers and the net become possible and useful things. Too early in the process and the computer becomes a doorstop that may be used to play Doom - maybe not even that. The above is in may ways an "ideal" situation. Throw in a few monky wrenches (Dad gets sent to Mexico by the Feds and looses his job before he can get back, etc) and it gets even more difficult.
The computer is just a tool. It's a great tool, but not the answer to all problems. Same with the net. In some cases it's a power tool and we are wondering why people without electricity don't find it useful....
garyr
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
And if you did screw up and can't afford it, your kids should suffer? How biblical! "For I am a jealous economic system, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the seventh generation."
What's wrong with this? If your mother took thalidomide, you turn out deformed. If your parents are poor you don't get to go to DisneyWorld every summer. If your parents are famous you have to put up with having a public life and being the target of every two-bit terrorist group around. That's called life.
Net access is not a right. It is something which should be earned and payed for, just like food, clothing, transportation, luxuries and everything else in life. A right is something which doesn't cost the rest of the world: free speech, fair trial, arms bearing, lack of torture. Those are rights. Net access is a privilege.
Of what possible benefit would it be to have a section of our population making it's decisions without access to the relevant information?
I hate to break it to you, but they're not going to use that information anyway. The vast majority of the population of any country are sheep who will blindly follow any leader who catches their interest. I don't trust anyone to make decisions who has not been born, bred, raised, trained and educated to do so. That's why I support a hereditary aristocracy. Not that it'll ever happen. I just think that it'd work better and more cleanly.
The Libertarian viewpoint is that in a properly formed society, the only ones who are poorly-off are those who have done it to themselves. Why feel sorry for the lazy? I recognise that in the current situation this is not so. Still, we have an amazing capacity for upwards mobility in this country. If you apply yourself you can succeed. But how many do so? Very few; most are content to coast along in life, getting away with as little actual work as possible.
I myself plead guilty to that particular vice. I'm just lucky in that so little is demanded of me that I can exceed expectations. Sad, eh?
And don't get me started about so-called 'corporate welfare,' farm subsidies, Social Security, Medicare, health insurance or any of the rest. It's all harmful to the functioning of a proper free market, which is the only system capable of successful practice.
And then you have the various pseudo-monopolies like the utilities, Microsoft, the airlines (did you know that most flights are paid for purely by cargo; passengers are 100% profit) &c. The free market in this country has been given hardly any chance. And then the socialists try to claim that the free market doesn't work. Of course it doesn't when their programs are tacked onto it.
Not that free markets work for everything. There is such a thing as a market failure. This is (obviously) the proper domain of gov't.
To get back to the topic at hand: Net access is not a right any more than owning a printing press is a right. If what you say is worth hearing, you will find a way to be heard somehow, if you apply yourself. Even the poorest people can make their voices heard.
That said, I think that terminals in libraries are a good idea, for some of the same reasons that libraries themselves are a good idea. That something is not a right does not mean we cannot grant it freely. I have little against public net access. I have a lot against any scheme that tries to buy a computer for every household. Who decides what model? What OS? Which apps? It's incredibly prone to corruption.
I worked a minimum wage 32.5 hour/week work-study job in the summer when I was at college, and was able to live off of it -- barely. I had no car at the time, and was renting a room the size of a large closet for $100/month plus utilities from some friends of mine. It's not an experience I would care to repeat.
The summer after my freshman year I worked 40 hours a week at minimum wage. I too had no car. Yet I managed to live very well, sharing a $600/month plus utilities house with 2 others in the middle of a Texan summer. I received no money from my parents, no help of any sort from anyone at all, and yet I managed to do pretty well. You wouldn't be able to support a family on that sort of money, but it kept me alive, happy, well-fed and out of the rain. I even saved enough money to pay for my books the next two semesters and keep my bar stocked. It is doable, if a bit tight.
I would never say that blue-collar workers are lazy. I would say that all men are lazy. Everyone wants something for nothing, a free lunch. I know I do, that everyone I know does, that the entire history of the world points in that direction. Everyone wants to maximise return while minimising expenditures. Among other things, that's called budgeting.
Hmmm... They've had those before. France, England, China, Japan. They have all now ditched them. I'm assuming of course that you have yourself in mind for this aristocracy. Sounds like you have little or no real life experience, ( that .edu in your addy is a dead giveaway )
Actually, those were more monarchies. I am thinking of a decentralised hereditary government. Something along the lines of Rome, only decentralised. Not that it'd nec. work, but it'd be better than this ridiculous republic we have. The only way a man can be trusted to run a government is if he has been trained for it from birth. The idea that any Joe Schmoe (or, more accurately, lawyer) can suddenly aquire the wisdom of Solomon upon being sworn in is utter folly.
Aristocracies in place in countries like Brunei, Saudi Arabia, etc. are rife with corruption, nepotism and human rights abuses.
I submit that this is due more to cultural reasons. Read up on Saxon history for an example of mostly fair, mostly decent kings. No system is perfect. Monarchy is to susceptible to malevolent kings; democracy to susceptible to stagnation under complacent citizens. Oligarchy is a happy medium. An aristocracy, properly structured, can be a quite functional oligarchy.
I cannot say if capitalism requires that there be poor people. I know that the free market does not. Naturally, there are those who are not as well of. This, in a perfect market, would be because they or some ancestor were foolish/lazy/gullible/dissolute or for some other reason never did well. It happens. I will never be rich. But, with the proper amount of work, I may arrange it so that my children will be comfortable and that, assuming that my kids are intelligent, my grandchildren will be wealthy.
True, the rights came at a cost. But the now cost us nothing. It costs me naught at all to let my neighbor speak freely. It hurts me not one bit if I refuse to torture him. It doesn't interfere in the slightest with my life if I allow him to bear arms.
That is what I mean by rights. They may cost money to win, but the rights themselves ar free. Food, for example, is not a right; it must be earned. If I give you food, I no longer have that piece of bread, or fish, or filet mignon or whatever.
This actually ties back to computers. One can argue that software is a right precisely because it costs nothing for me to give it to you. This is one of the FSF's points, I believe.
Apathy is the mind-killer. I've got relatives that glaze over when I talk about something I saw on the Internet or email. I try to set up everyone I know that has a PC but no access with NetZero (www.netzero.net), but you can't make them use it. Most are just afraid they will break the damn thing.
Here's a suggestion. Donate your old PC to your local school district. Even a 386 can run command line Linux. And I just read about a GUI suite of tools by a company called New Deal for 286 on up that runs on DOS and it's slick New Deal Inc. Check it out and make that old PC new again for a friend. It's only $50 and Linux is FREE. Beyond this we can't help the helpless and those that don't want to learn.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
Microsoft's offer was a free PC in exchange for 3yrs MSN signup at $17/mo, and others have similar deals. If you can't prioritize your spending to afford $17/mo on your kids, then you shouldn't be having kids in the first place.
I believe it's already been explained why it's different, but just for kicks:
TV is a passive medium, a PC is not.
TV is content-regulated to the extreme, the Net is not.
TV['s content] is owned by advertising, the Net['s content] is owned by a mass of individuals.
These are big differences. HUGE differences. MONUMENTAL differences.
You refer to class conflict. That's Marx.
And no one has a "solution" since there isn't a perfect one as long as human systems aren't perfect.
whatever
There are probably also some cultural differences - most web content is in English, which will lower use among Hispanics
What on earth are you talking about??? The the net is not solely an American/British phenomenon, as your ethnocentric statement seems to assert. If you speak Spanish you can get plenty of Spanish language content from Spain, Mexico and Central and South America. Also, you discount the fact that many American Hispanics speak English.
No, the main reason American Hispanics don't use the net is MONEY!!! Not because we can't afford to buy computers but because we can't afford to send our kids to elite private schools (many with a with one-to-one computer-kid ratio) so we have to send them to crappy public schools (with a 1:50 or 1:100 computer-kid ratio). That is if they even have computers at all.
Economic racism is a bitch...
A man who wants nothing is invincible
We must make government legally color-blind so that it will stop using racial bias to continually expand government. Without government promoting division between the races, these divisions will eventually disappear.
And I suppose you believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny too? The government does not make the divisions up, it just categorizes and counts them and uses them to make equitable policies. Have you ever read the Constitution? It is called equal protection under the law.
If you are color blind, then you are ignoring the fact that I have color, i.e., you turn me into a white person. If you ignore the fact that I speak Spanish also then you treat me like I speak English only, i.e., like an average white person. In essence you completely ignore WHO and WHAT I am and turn me into what YOU want me to be. Like the guy in Repo Man sez: "Bullshit on that!"
If you want proof look at the political parties and their respective conventions. The Republicans believe in color-blindness and if you were to go to one of their conventions you would see the 1950's all over again -- old, straight, rich white men with a few token Blacks and Hispanics.
The Democrats, on the other hand, believe in, nay, celebrate diversity so if you were to go to one of their conventions you would see a slice of 1990's America. So not only will you see substantial Black and Hispanic representation, you will see women, the young, gays, and even some poor people.
I don't know about you but the America I live in is not composed only of old, straight, rich white men, but you wouldn't know it by reading the opinions of some of the fools who post to slashdot!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
I also happen to have a two-year-old brother, and in case anyone reading this doesn't know - babies are freaking expensive.
Like someone said on another thread, if you can't afford to have a baby, don't! Oh wait, that only applies to Black and Hispanic women on welfare. Never mind...
I know not a single person with "minority" status that has to work as hard as I do.
So the hundreds of Chicanos I personally know that are busboys, dishwashers, gardeners, housekeepers, etc. don't work as hard as you do? Just how many minorities do you know? I have to run a household on part-time wages and can't even afford a car. I work pretty damn hard myself yet I also manage to afford to go to school. Some advice:
1) If you want to get financial aid, make less money [less than 20K/yr] for this year and you will get it next year. Contrary to your opinion, financial aid is need based, not race based. Minorities get more financial aid because they are usually poor and they NEED it, not because of affirmative action.
2) Budget. Sell your car and use the bus. Get a roommate. Quit drinking and smoking weed. Don't spend money on high-tech toys you can't afford. That is how I can afford to go to school.
3) Instead of whining like a luser, get off your ass and join the military. I spent two years in the Army as an infantryman and got $24K in G.I. Bill benefits. The sweet part is that as a Texas veteran, if I cannot qualify for financial aid the state will pay for my tuition/fees through the Hazelwood Act. For the rest of my life!
There are ways to get money for school but it requires sacrifice, something that you seemingly know nothing about...
I do not mean to sound bigoted, because i'm not.
You have not given us any evidence to the contrary. If it quacks like a duck it probably IS a duck!!!
I am thankful for what I have, but it disgusts me to think that if I were another color that I would have damn near a free ride.
FREE RIDE? What the hell are you talking about? I currently owe at least 17K in student loans. Loans that I have to pay back. Nothing in life is free. Unless your name is George Bush...
Let me tell you, just wait until you get out of college and things will change for you. You will get first shot at the best jobs, and will get paid more and will get to join the exclusive country clubs. Being white is a "get out of jail" card you will be able to play the rest of your life.
Quack, quack, quack...
A man who wants nothing is invincible
I don't deny that Whites are on the net much more
than minorities. But Americans from minority/lower-income groups are increasingly joining ranks.
A couple months ago, I was in a computer superstore located in a fairly wealthy suburb. The place was *packed* with african-american families. The checkout lines were crowded, and most of them were buying the same thing: one of those "free" PCs you get after signing up for 2-3 years of net access.
Now, out of 10 inner-city kids who gets a new computer, a certain amount will use it just for games, another for mostly homework. But maybe 1 out of 10, or maybe 1 out of 20, will really get into the technology. I expect a new generation of minority programmers, coming from lower-class neighborhoods. And look who is doing it: corporatations. It doesn't take a government handout; Micro$oft realizes that giving free computers seeds future customers. Everyone wins.
I don't know about a "grudge" against Katz, and I don't speak for everyone, but this is why I have problems with his writing:
/. posts, including mine :) ) and a reasonably well-thought-out opinion can find an audience on the Net. If you feel strongly about something, write it up. Send it to /., post it to your own website and submit the link to search engines, etc. That's what the Net definitely does do: make free speech a reality for everyone.
Essentially, he is a technological "me-tooer". That is, while I'm all for non-technical people getting involved in geekspace -- everyone started out somewhere -- I am not for such individuals choosing to remain non-technical, and just morphing their "wow! lookee! tech!" attitude into a self-righteous, "This is the way it should be because this is the way I want it to be" philosophy.
As for having your opinions read by other people: Anybody with some communication skills (and that doesn't necessarily mean good grammar, as evidenced by many
I strongly support Katz' right to vocalize his opinions, and I appreciate the fact that many of the features he posts generate discussion, because that's what democracy should be all about. I just don't usually agree with him -- and that's also what democracy is about.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
For every person who tells me "socialism doesn't work" I find at least one Dutch or Canadian person (just for two examples) who has pretty damn good evidence that it does, in the right dosage. While I disagree with the AC's post to which bil's is a reply, I don't think bil's response has the right tone to make the point that needs to be made.
Notice that "socialism" isn't the view that every industry is under direct central control. Kids, centralized, socially-based planning built your roads, probably educated you, and even if it didn't do so directly, it made it possible for the people who did do so to pay for it out of their own pockets by providing a society and infrastructure that makes the amassing of wealth by an individual possible.
Notice that, even according to recent mythologies, a centralized, government-appointed (granted, not elected) board has been implicated in the continued financial success of the US (Big Al Greenspan and the Fed), and on some of those occasions the commitment of public funds was necessary.
So here's the deal: I'll lay off the comparisons to Scrooge for people who think that free markets and their attendant inequalities are, in the right context and dosage, a Good Thing if those who don't think unfettered socialism is the be-all and end-all lay off comparisons to totalitarian regimes for those who advocate a governmental role in some industry or other.
Hint: that's because neither caricature is true.
And hey, let's be careful out there.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
Hmm... "Among families earning $15,000 to $35,000, more than 33 per cent of whites owned computers, but only l9 per cent of blacks did." Does this tell you something about digital discrimination (HA! Yeah, right) or does this tell you about money management? And did anyone even think about the fact that the government hates the internet? I'll give you two reasons why: 1) The government cannot control people's movement on the internet and, thus, cannot tax it, and 2) the government cannot regulate the flow of rational thought like they can the liberal media and, therefore, cannot better their position relatively unchallenged. Face it, government studies just don't cut the mustard when it is about something they desire to regulate. Period. Anybody else's synapses firing out there? Loopus Maximus
of course it would have been interesting to see how his opinion changed once he won the war :)
I didn't learn computer literacy till I was...gee...13...I didn't get onto the net until I was...18. I'm 21 now. I sincerely doubt that I would be disadvantaged as a child if I didn't have net access (I do agree we shouldn't be so overmoralistic towards it tho)
If a kid can't read, no job period. All the net training in the world would not make a difference if a child cannot read.
Yes, I know that "obscenity" is not legally protected under the First Amendment. Who doesn't?
However, bear in mind the things that obscenity laws have been invoked to stop: information on birth control, AIDS awareness sites, gay teen support groups, images of classical artwork, even pictures of breastfeeding mothers! Oops, was there a baby in that bathwater?
Furthermore, is a kid honestly going to be traumatized-for-life by a couple of nasty pictures? I've never understood that "logic", which is what Katz seems to be complaining about the most, anyhow. I saw old copies of Playboy and Hustler in the fire station bathrooms on a Girl Scout field trip (of all things!), and I don't think it damaged me.
And if all blocking software had a design similar to SafeSurf or RSACi, which allow for customized description of content and varied blocking levels, I'd say go for it. But when we've got crap like CyberSitter out there, which is blocking sites that have nothing to do with explicit sex or violence or intolerance (let's see
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
... the Hellmouth. Remember?
It's Not Cool to Be Smart.
Even among the "gifted and talented" it's still not considered cool to really have an interest in something intellectual. To an extent, this goes away by college (depending on what college you're at), but even then you can still run into it in more subtle forms.
And how many times have those of you who have gone as far in school as you care to for the forseeable future heard, or said, "I'm not in school anymore; why should I stretch my brain?"
"Educational" and "fun" are still supposed to be oxymorons in this country, and in pseudo-attempts to combat that, people say and do the damndest things
*sigh* It's funny, but it's horribly depressing at the same time. And until the culture as a whole gets some respect for education, we're not going to see much improvement. The lifestyle that the underclass wants to move up to tends to be brainless middle-class ignorant suburbia anyhow. (Yes, I'm bitter -- look at my
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
What you have to understand is that with all of the "Red scares" in this country, the mass media became very allergic to ANY talk about class at all. The lessons of McCarthy sunk in a bit too well in some cases.
Race made a handy metaphor for class, and it's been used and abused in this fashion. And you better believe it pissed me off when a black student whose family makes more money than mine (and I don't exactly come from poverty) is getting scholarships that she doesn't need, while my parents scrimped and saved and rearranged priorities such that I didn't need to be on financial aid.
That's because Americans don't want to talk about class, and those who try get "You godless Commie!" screamed at them for their troubles. The exception is academia, but this does WHAT exactly to fix the problem? Nothing, really. It mostly becomes a concern to those who have access to higher education in the first place.
And there is something wrong with not asking the have-nots precisely what it is that they would like to have. Admittedly, you and I aren't likely to like some of the answers (as I've posted elsewhere, most of them seem to want white-bread suburbia to start with). But it would make a good starting point.
It's sort of like what happened to the feminist movement in the 1960s -- Betty Freidan made a huge tactical error that had all sorts of race and class bias tucked away into it: Women can't possibly be fulfilled by the "domestic arts," so hire a cleaning lady and live out your life the way you were meant to. Um
I'd like to stay that other social movements (including those that try to advance education) have learned from this mistake, but I'm not so sure.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
And again, I find it ironic that I see someone griping about the very existance of the minimum wage on
Here's a clue: Someone who works minimum wage jobs for 40 hours/week makes just over $10K in a year. Perhaps this person holds two min wage jobs (since most such jobs are reluctant to give overtime), both for 30 hours a week (so the employer can say the employee is "part-time"), thereby making about $15K in a year.
I worked a minimum wage 32.5 hour/week work-study job in the summer when I was at college, and was able to live off of it -- barely. I had no car at the time, and was renting a room the size of a large closet for $100/month plus utilities from some friends of mine. It's not an experience I would care to repeat.
I also just love the assumption that blue-collar workers are lazy. Here I am slacking off a bit on the job as an entry-level tech. writer. And over at Toys R Us, there's my boyfriend working on a remodel project, carrying heavy things around for 7.5 hours/day and getting paid $3.25 less an hour for it. I freely admit that I'm the lazy one here, but the default assumption is exactly the opposite.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
People who are good in their jobs don't need to worry about more competition, so why should you? With some 100,000 jobs being created each year there's ample room for new people in the IT sector.
Besides, the more computer literate people there are, the more need there is for computer related jobs. This is not a zero sum game.
As other posters said, I think a Library is a perfect place for poor people or ANYONE for that matter to use the Internet. The ones that say Library's don't have enough information as the Internet? Well a lot of Library's are getting Internet connections. In my little town of 85,000 people our Library has connections to other Library's in the state, even to other colleges. They got some weird name for it, but any how, say you're looking for a certain magazine or book and the library you're at doesn't have it, but the one 300 miles away has it, they'll ship it to the library local to you. It takes about a day or two for it to happen but you get it. PLUS you get the additive bonus of having Internet access as well.
:)
Some Library's don't have Internet connections yet, I know this, but do you expect this to happen over night? I'm sure if we look ahead 5 years from now Internet connections in Libraries will be quite common. I believe it'll be as common as books are too.
So honestly I really don't see an issue here at all. If you're someone who doesn't know anything about computers, why not take a class at a local Technical College? They offer them here pretty cheap, like $100.00 a semester plus about $50.00 in books. If that costs too much for the person then they can apply for finical aid.
This whole issue to me is bogus, since if you really WANT to use the Internet you can do it. It's just a matter of whether you want to or not. Perhaps these people feel like there's no point in them buying a computer and using the Internet? Perhaps these people just don't want to use the Internet. Perhaps these people have better things to do. Perhaps these low-income families are too busy working and raising their kids to use the Internet. Either way you look at it, it isn't because they're stupid and surely isn't because of racism.
According to that article 133 million Americans will have Internet access soon. Just a few years ago it was something like 20 million or 30 million or so? So say we have 133 million people using the Internet, that means about half the United States population will still be Internet less in their home. Maybe the reason why they don't have Internet access is because half the US population doesn't have it either? Everyone's still catching up with this whole thing. I think it's a bit absurd to start throwing racism or because they're poor or anything out right now. Just think 10 years ago hardly anyone used the Internet. Now 10 years later half of the people in the United States have Internet access. Pretty good for a 10-year surge don't you think?
So really I don't see a problem here, wait see how things go, and honestly I really don't give a fling flip if someone isn't using the Internet. It's really up to them and there is nothing holding them back from using it, whether you're poor, black, white, green, pink, purple, gray, yellow, Klingon, Romulan, or all those other aliens you see on TV but never really see.
- lakdjfalkdj - cuz all the good nicks were taken:)
Remember that "gods and clods" theory presented on South Park? Well, this is gods and clods in action. But what Katz misses is that there isn't anything to hold people back from computing. There are tons of ways for ANYONE in this country to get online, as long as they WANT TO. We all know about the poor "insert nonwhite race here" kid who busted ass to get into a good college on scholarships and do something great with his/her life. And the net works the same way, nothing will hold you back if you really look.
America has always been a country where anyone willing to find a way can do anything he or she wants to. And there are plenty of ways for the poor, or minorities to get onto the net. But for some reason there is a disparity between the motivated poor/minority/etc and whites. Imagine that. Kinda like that whole disparity in college attendance.
I don't know why folks, and I can't say I like it, but to me it just seems like this is the way America is always going to work out. The net just makes the split more obvious because it is so new and growing so fast, being the center of so much attention. But overall it is the same old thing. There will be those with great jobs living wonderful lives enhanced by the net, and those who get paid to say "you want fries with that?" And if the split happens to be along a "racial line" (who defines race anyway? think about it. Race can NOT EVER be signifigantly defined due to human differences, which makes this whole argument invalid. There are NO RACES. PERIOD.), well, then so be it.
For some reason or another the US seems to always confound racial inequality with class inequality. The fact of the matter is, Blacks are generally worse off in this country because Blacks are generally poorer because of this country's history and because in this country if you are born into poverty chances are you will die in poverty. If you do not believe this last point, just take a trip to an urban poor area and figure out how these kids are going to survive without basic utilities.
Btw, if you are planning on dying ever, you better have money. I worked at the county home for six-months for one of my pre-medicine classes, hospice is death with dignity, for those who cannot afford it, you die bed sore ridden, malnourished, and overseen by a staff without adequate education. But then again, you probably don't know any of those people.
I find it very interesting that proponents laize-faire capitalism are all for subsidizing, helping out, and bailing out US industry, but go into conniption fits when a suggestion is made that we should try to bring the bottom third of the country out of the third world. State protection for the rich, tough love for everyone else.
But wait. The reason you have had so many opportunities and such an easy life is because of your obvious genetic superiority, "they" are all just plain lasy and stupid. In order to make this trite accusation one must first have no working knowledge of modern Darwinian evolution or genetics. Will the man touting social Darwinism please pick up a book on biology! Then again, who am I to ruin your self-promoting psychological justification.
If the objectivists would only come down to reality, they would realize that capitalism is an extreme, like communism, that can never really exist off of paper in a pure form. The market must have safe guards to protect us from unwanted effects and privatization should only be used in situations suited to market competition.
I'm not entirely convinced computers are all that important.
They are for me, but that's my own choice of career and obsession.
Yes, there are some basic computer skills that just about every job and college require. And you can pick those up in a few hours at the library. The complicated stuff is specific to the company or school.
And my kids get good use out of my machine, looking things up and writing papers. But the web research they do is slow and the results are unreliable. Writing papers with a pencil is still not only viable but a good idea much of the time.
I'm starting to consider the idea that being unwebbed might, like being off TV, be an advantage. Yeah, I'm a hypocrite, being unwebbed is an advantage that I'm suggesting for others, not me. The web is my job and my personal problem.
I'm not saying I'm right, here. I'm asking a question that I think we've missed. I'm willing to entertain the idea, and I'm willing to be convinced, that every kid should be wired in. But I'm not taking it as given.
Fear my wrath, please, fear my wrath?
Homer
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I don't think that's accurate at all. You pretty much have to be able to read to get along in society at all--just think, if you can't read, how in the hell are you going to be able to make sense of TV Guide or the Prevue Channel? That's incentive enough to get folks reading.
The true problem is that people don't read. TV/video games offer far more in the way of instant gratification than sitting down with Moby-Dick or even Salem's Lot. If there were some way to get people thinking that reading was exciting and instantly gratifying, literacy rates would skyrocket. (Yeah, right.)
If a kid can't read, no job period. All the net training in the world would not make a difference if a child cannot read.
Last time I checked, an awful lot of the info on the WWW was still in good 'ol text format. And don't forget E-mail, either. It's quite possible that the Net/WWW would get people interested in reading--how could you use IRC/message boards/ whatever without being able to read? (This'd also give kids practice in decoding 31337 t3xt and stuff, but I digress...)
The Net is a tool, yes--probably the most widespread and complex tool humans have built yet. Asking large groups of people to use it responsibly and well without training is like expecting a chimp to pilot a 747. I think we'll get there eventually, but there will always be pr0n, 31337 kiddiez, and virtual illiterates using it--just as there are plenty of horrible drivers polluting the interstates. C'est la vie.
Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe.
Which limits a kid to learning about topics on which he has access to books on. And, while I'll agree that the 'net doesn't have *everything*, it definitely has more information on a broader range of topics than the average family's home library (or school library or even city library). Sure, kids could read a newspaper for current events...Or they could read it on cnn.com, then read related articles from the archives (much, MUCH easier than storing years of back issues of the newspaper) and then hit their search engine of choice for further information if that doesn't satify them. With the 'net, you can always find something more on a topic, if you dig for it. Books are valuable, but the 'net allows kids to do further research on something they read about.
Have your child use aol to talk with his/her friends about what they are going to do later on that night isn't exactly of much educational value
Possibly true, but it certainly has more educational value than talking to his/her friends on the phone would. If a child is going to talk to friends (and he *is*), then AOL at least lets them practice their reading and writing while they do it. The telephone has no such benefits, unless they're talking in a second language or something.
Search engines aren't of any real help,a nd you could find the information you need much more quickly searching at a library (or asking the librarian :).
Riiiight. And all libraries have every book and publication you want. I worked at the local library for a while in high school. It was a decent library, for a town with a population of less than 10k, but it still had a pretty sparse collection. Once the interlibrary loan program started, it was much easier to get a book, but you still had to know what you were looking for, and a librarian isn't much help when you're looking for materials he/she has never had contact with. Sure, you can search for books by keyword, but Google (or any other search engine) is a much more precise instrument for searching that is a card catalog (even an automated one). The librarians often asked me for help when the library had no local materials on a subject a kid was researching, and I was able to get online and find *something* for them. Even if it wasn't a comprehensive source of information on the topic, it was at least a source of information. Also, interlibrary loan doesn't work too well when you have a report due this Friday and the books aren't guaranteed to come in before that.
I personally think the internet is just another form of entertainment (like t.v. and radio).
Well, in that case I'm sorry for you. Maybe I should hook you up with some of the kids I know so that they can teach you how to use it for educational purposes.
It all comes down to the old phrase, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a day etc... Some people just do not value the importance of the internet. This is not a new idea. Industrialization of society was scoffed at by the learned artisians, persons during the Dark ages were activitly discouraged from learning by those in charge. This happens whenever a wholesale shift in the fabric of society happens. As cruel and heartless as it sounds, we can make access available to everyone, but we cannot make them use it. The old horse and water cliché.
On the subject of the corrpution of children, every form of mass media has been blamed when it was new. You don't think that the baby boom generation (those in power now) invented the phrase, Vast Wasteland, and Nattering Nabobs of Negativism, do you? No, that was invented by the radio generation. Before that, corruption came in the form of smutty books, talkin' pi'tures and so on right back to cave drawings, no doubt.
"You just can't go around drawing bison on the walls! Think of the children!"
I can just see it now. Another massive federal program to give a computer to people who most likely don't want one. I've got news, the train is leaving, either be on it, or stand on the platform.
Do you folks know that there are organizations trying to help people get access, get literate, get wired, fix up old computers, and so on?
My organization, Oregon Public Networking, helps people in rural Oregon get wired. We train them. We fix up old computers. Sometimes we help teach them to read and write, too. Sometimes we help them find social services, on or off the net.
There's probably a community network, or community technology center near you. If not, I can help you start one.
Now, I'm not talking to the free market libertarian crew, here. I'm talking to the people who believe in equity of opportunity, and that people want to help themselves but don't know how.
Even as staunch a capitalist as Carnegie knew that when he funded public libraries and turned them into a given of the American landscape -- in the past hundred years. Horace Mann did that when he started free public education, less than 200 years ago in this country.
Where would y'all have been without libraries and schools? Well, public networking, and access to computers is the next thing like that. It's our generation's gift.
So check out the material at Oregon Public Networking, especially the part with real stories of how people help themselves with net access, and check out my inet99 paper on public policy and the digital divide.
And if you'd like to help me, I could use some help putting together a slash-based community at digitaldivide.org, as a more friendly space to discuss how to help the people who *aren't* making money on this gig.
The net is empowering. If you want to keep it to yourself, that's your option, but I think it's selfish and fearful. There are a lot of us who believe that everyone should have the opportunity to make the most of their life, and we should all be helping each other live better.
Peace,
Shava Nerad
shava@efn.org
Um, newsflash? The 'net hasn't been government supported or regulated (and whose government do you mean, anyway? it's an international entity) for quite some time, early nineties or so. NSI/ICANN are not government-affiliated (contractors, max). NSF funding for the 'net stopped years 'n years ago.
Oh, and the gubmint paying for everyone to have access is a *terrible* idea. Not only is it a stupid use of funds that are, like all funds, extracted under what's basically threat of deadly force (men with guns will come and take your shit if you don't pay taxes -- try it sometime), but it opens the floodgates wide, way wide, for government information stranglehold.
China, for example, tightly regulates I-net access and content -- it's not universal access, but it's single-point. If you have 'net at all in China, it's through the official Chinese gubmint or you're in deep kaka (dunno what the dilly-o with things in the HK is -- anyone got some info on that? HK-net vs. China-net, and freedom thereof, that is).
Before the Cox report, I would have argued that our gubmint is pretty different from China's. Now, of course, the differences seem to be, ah, not so deep.
Minority access to the 'net is a self-correcting problem, or it would be left to itself. Nonwhites have about the same random distribution of intellect as whitefolk; they'll catch on to what the pretty flashing lights coming from the mysterious boxes are all about, I promise.
gomi
Could you concisely and unemotionally explain to me how taxing cable and tv sets to pay for books and libraries will increase black literacy? I'm afraid I don't see the connection.
Now, school vouchers, so people could send their children to good schools, instead of into the killing floor/sewer system/jail of current public education, that might help a bit.
gomi
I am really getting tired of hearing from people that (for the most part) have had the choice to have a computer and/or the internet available to them from the get-go talk about how "obviously" the people that don't have those things don't want them. That isn't true. Those people can't get them as easily as you did, or they would have them.
As someone pointed out earlier, it is quite silly to read a bunch of technologically-minded people talking about others who aren't. I agree that the internet and home computing are still in their infancy, but that doesn't mean we should "let nature take its course" like it has before, with TV, electricity, and running water. In fact, it took heavy government intervention to get TV's to be everywhere. In the first part, they gave away airwaves to the Big Three networks, and on the second part, local governments got community antenna's and called it 'cable TV'.
Now, I believe that anything we (the technologically savvy) can do to help others to realize the power available to them through the use of the internet and/or home computing is warranted and even mandatory, should we want to call ourselves Good People (TM). To that end, free local computer labs with good (T1 or better) connections to the internet should be provided, with better technology in the schools, and this should be done in the urban areas first because they are, statistically, more in need than suburbs, and have higher population densities than rural areas.
Also, a good media campaign (a la Drug Council ads) targetted at those who are least likely to spontaneously start using computers needs to take place. The main reason people that I know who don't use computers/internet don't use them is that they can't percieve the use of them. This is most likely the case for our less connected countrymen, as well.
Although I've proposed some solutions here, the main purpose of this post is to impress upon the readers here that it is a great fallacy to believe that others have had the same opportunities, background, motivations, etc. as you. In fact, most people (prepare to be shocked) have had lives entirely different from yours. As such, in order to appreciate the things you take for granted as being 'good,' they must sometimes have it explained to them why, in fact, it is good. If you grew up in downtown Chicago or Detroit (or any other decaying urban area), and had to walk through gang-controlled playgrounds to get to school every day, and had to eat government food, sleep on soiled, beat-up mattresses, and wear ratty, third-generation clothes, do you believe, seriously, that you would have had the 'motivation' to pull yourself to where you are now? If you do, you are either the single most motivated person in the world, or a self-important idiot.
It is completely unfair to ask two runners of otherwise equal ability to compete when one has to start from one mile back, carrying 150 pounds of dead weight, and hop on one foot to finish, but for some reason the other racer always favors this situation. Strangely enough, he never goes back to help his fellow, though he would want that help were their situations reversed.
William Hughes
ristoril AT iname DOT com
You aspire to be a spell-bot. Why not just write one and free yourself to go outside for some fresh air? Or are you just trying to foster tolerance?
-- thinkyhead software and media
Excuse me, but "free market"? What free market?After corporations have spent so much time and money lobbying governments for laws giving them advantages I think its a little late to talk about a free market.
The US subsidizes corporations regularly. Overseas ads for tobacco companies, artificially low gas prices, farm surplus controls, etc. Its a shame our founding fathers didn't think to separate business and the state. If these are allowed though, I'm inclined to think careful, well planned, minimalist, interference for social purposes is also fair play.
Personally, I'm not any kind of ist, socialist, capitalist, whateverist. I avoid istism because it leads to considering ideas in terms of faith and dogma rather than objective, pragmatic, and challengeable criteria. The problem with the "socialist" experiments in this country isn't their interference with a "free" market, they're implementation issues. Political baggage, inefficiency, and the inability to scrap them and try again when they don't work is closer.
So does subsidizing internet access for kids who don't have it make sense? How do you handle parents who think the internet is evil? Would built-in filtering be required (or constitutional)? What kind of computers would they be, Windows? Linux? Internet Appliances? How much more money would be required for training and administration? There are lots of reasons why this might not work well. Isn't it more useful to discuss those than to simply FUD it by calling it socialism? Getting our kids, all our kids, up to speed on the Internet and computer usage has wide implications for our global competitiveness. No matter whether you're a socialist or capitalist it might make sense to at least consider it.
A few hundred years ago in many cases minorities (natives) were forced to speak English and were beaten if they used their native language. They wanted to assimilate the natives into their culture "for their own good".
My question is: is there any difference between advertising blitzes trying to coerce minorities into getting computers for their own good and forcing them to speak another language for their own good? Isn't it racist to say that what these "minorities" are doing on their free time isn't worthy, and that they should be spending time online instead?
I love computers. It's a hobby, it's my major, and it's my job. I definitley have benefits to having a computer at home. However, should some kid who really loves to say, build model airplanes give up his free time to a computer when all he really wants to do is build airplanes in real life? It would have little or no benefit for him compared to his current hobby.
I got sucked into the computer world, and if not for computers I would still probably want to be a marine biologist. I would have never wasted so many hours online that I have, instead reading books or actually getting outside.
Sure, computers are nice for research reports and typing up essays, so by all means have all schools allow access to computers for their students, but it is not necessary to have them in every household.
I'm forced to very much agree with this position.
Since when has anyone gone out of their way to stop any minority from gaining internet access? It's not MY fault if someone chooses not to buy a computer or learn how to use it. If the minority family is making an equal amount of money then why don't they purchase a computer? It seems as if they don't wish to own one. If they don't WANT to own a computer are we supposed to force them to? Why? Should my tax dollars be used to further their education or entertainment? It's bad enough that I'm paying for cable TV for 3 welfare families every paycheck, do I now have to pay for their 'net access too? And if so is it ok to just give them 33.6 or 56k modems or do I have to pay for Cable modems? T1s? Why don't we just let everyone work and pay for their own stuff. If some PRIVATE sector group wants to donate computers to poor people that's fine. As long as I'm not forced to pay for it.
I really do have a problem with the way the US government wants the people who work their asses off for their money to pay for everyone else to have stuff.
Kintanon plans on not filing income tax as his income is legally a Wage and Wages aren't taxable under the US tax laws.
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I'm in total agreement. I don't see why so many people see Elitism as a BAD thing. Why shouldn't we skim the intellectuals off of the top of society and flush the garbage? Do we really want a bunch of hopelessly stupid or unmotivated people, regardless of race, to be propogating on our planet? I swear to you that if you are 16+ you can find a job. It might be 20 hours a week at McDonalds, but that will buy you a workable computer after a month or two.
*Subject change*
I realize that at one time Racism was a large problem, my Grandfather probably seriously oppressed some black kids grandfather. Does that mean I owe that kid something? No! Does society owe him something? NO! Does my grandfather owe him something? NO!! Racism is dead. The only thing keeping it alive is government programs to keep people aware of Race. Why do we think about race at all? It doesn't mean anything. But, people are NOT equal. I'm not equal to everyone who posts here, no individual is equal to any other individual. We should all be given an equal CHANCE. If I want to educate myself more than the kid down the road then I'm going to do better than he does. If he happens to be hispanic then why would that make a difference? Are we supposed to give preference to stupid minorities while still letting stupid white people get shafted? Social darwinism says let the stupid people DIE!
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I'm 19 years old, I have no credit. If I walk into bestbuy or compusa with a big handful of 50 dollar bills why are they going to check my credit? It's not that hard to amass a little cash.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
It's possible to say it's Dad's fault because he chose a career that means working for a city. (Let's say he works at the local water treatment plant.) That means Dad's pay depends on taxes (What! Our taxes being used on city employees?? They should be volunteering their time making sure we have clean water to drink.) The tax base has been low for several years, so Dad hasn't gotten a raise for years. Could Dad quit? Well sure, and lose his entire retirement and pension, such that it is.
Mom works as an ed. assistant for disabled children. Boy was she at fault for this one! Those disabled kids are throwaways and we shouldn't be spending money to educate them, says the local school board. So Mom's pay is terrible too.
The kicker? Both Mom and Dad are college educated. (Who says poor people are stupid? Or not educated?)
When Mom and Dad started out in this town, it was a good place to live, with good schools. By the time Mom and Dad had kids of school age, things had changed. They can't afford to leave because real estate is low where they live, and high in the towns with "good schools." Dad would lose his retirement and they'd have to start all over. Of course, it's all their fault for having kids in their thirties. Now they're in their forties and can't afford to start over in a town with "good schools."
The point of this is, you can't just fault the parents. These scenario is a true story of some people I know. These people made good choics with their lives, but they are still poor. How much blame is theirs, and how much is due to external factors beyond their control? IMHO, *local* governments could do more to improve local schools. It's just not a priority; the Mayor wants that cherrywood desk, and those city managers want the big bucks to play golf every Friday afternoon.
The locals whine about wanting good schools, but when it's school bond voting time, no one wants to pay for it. I'm sure these parents are glad it's all their fault that they can't get their kids to good schools.
But does a black family, in the same income, find it as easy. This isn't a payout of the U.S., my own country (Australia) does not do very well on this score at all.
The fact remains that ajust by reading the postings here I can tell a black person attending university would be assumed to be receiving some form of assistance, and that a lot, (I'm not saing all) people would assume that this is wrong.
I don't think many people whould argue if I said you were more likely to go to Uni if your parents also went to uni. While you can say that now, a black person would not be stopped from going to uni, was that true a generation ago?
So there are a lot of these so called "minority groups" whos parents didn't study? and because of this overt discrimination a generation ago, people are disadvantaged now, even though the overt discrimination is no longer there.
This is just a theory, but in my country a black person in much less likely to finish university then a white person. This would indicate that these is something discouraging them from continuing.
I think that this assistance should be given out to the most disadvantaged. Who in your society fits into this category?
Democracy isn't about no one telling you what to do. It's about everyone telling you what to do.
Lickleider's fine sentiments are fine, but the net was built to build better bombs.
Actually not so much to make the bombs but to allow them to be deployed after a pre-emptive strike.
Loads of people are not using the internet as much as white americans: Japanese, Europeans, Mexicans. Maybe its because most of the content is aimed at white americans at the moment.
It's not a racist thing, it's a cultural thing. Perhaps minority americans have better things to do than surf the web.
The problem with this 'solution' is that if it forces a cutback in the purchase and maintanence of book collections at the library, it is likely to be harmful rather than helpful. It's a serious mistake to try to force internet into the libraries. This puts the two mediums at odds with one another, and in the long run will lead to a decrease in literacy. The flash and dazzle can not replace plain old solid bookshelves.
I don't buy the myth that we live in a 'paperless society' and that 'all information is available on the net.' There are huge areas of human culture that aren't and probably never will be on the 'net. The online and real-world bookstores would not be booming in sales if that were the case.
There is a conflict that occurs anytime a media shift occurs. Books have been with us, and accumulated for centuries now. It is a rich repository of information. Just as not all music was converted from LP to CD when vinyl records were 'replaced' by CDs, much information published in books will never be converted to a digital medium. We can't afford to throw away centuries of culture because it doesn't conveniently fit into a digital medium.
This whole "issue" seems to be a case of trying to apply the old Racism template to a new venue. The problem I have with this is that there are other limits and barriers to universal net access. Some people, some of them even wealthy people, have no interest whatsoever in sitting on a chair pecking at colored buttons.
There is also a geographical issue. My parents have retired up to Grand Marais, Minnesota. There is only one internet provider in town there, and any of the 'national' services are a long distance call. A friend who lives in Brainerd has the same problem. There isn't a means of reasonable access for many people for reasons such as this.
Also, online discussions like this are inherently slanted, in that the people who have no interest in playing on the internet don't have a voice. I don't buy the notion that they are all luddites or technology haters. Maybe they'd rather be out in the power boat or flying a plane. Maybe they're in the darkroom developing their latest roll of nature photographs. Maybe they're getting more done on their embedded programming project or the home control system they are building because they don't have a bunch of distractions on their computer like a web brower and net connection. We'll never know, of course, because we only talk to ourselves.
I don't believe the charts for percentage of US households by race/origin are not a very useful indicator...
What is the distribution within the income brackets? Those salary ranges are pretty wide and if most minorities fall towards the lower end and most whites fall towards the upper end (which I believe to be the case) you have your answer.
How many people are in these households? If the minorities average a greater number of kids than the average white household then that's also a big factor.
I'm not sure if this is a large enough factor to skew the stats but how many of these people have home offices or are in a position which requires them to own a PC?
I don't doubt that whites are more likely to own a PC than blacks or hispanics in equivalent situations, but I don't think the stats tell the whole story.
And not promoting non "opensourced" books here, he might have the bright conclusion that hey. We don't want every American in this country to be computer literate. In fact, It guarantees high salaries for the people that actually read slashdot.
Katz might not have been clued enough to come to this conclusion because well, he writes books for a living. Katz doesn't exactly have to worry about what he will be doing for work in twenty years.
I on the other hand have the concern that this boom market of jobs may be sated in the next ten years by the outsourcing of most IT labor from countries such as India and Pakistan. My future job might just not be economically viable one day for an employer faced with the opportunity of cheap technical labor from developing nations.
Katz doesn't consider these things, though. Who would expect him to? It's easy for an Author with his head in the clouds to preach equal opportunity for all, but the fact of the matter is if everything was "equal" the way he wants the world to be, the only people that would make money would be stock holders of large public corporations, and of course, the authors that would continue to write books about them.
This country is about initiative. It's not about total exposure. Anyone who lives in America today has the ability to use a personal computer if they choose to do so. I could safely even go a step further and say that ownership of a personal computer is financially plausable for any tax paying citizen in this day and age. Katz's opinion is nothing more then scare tactics that sell his next book, except it's just not the sixties anymore.
I dare Katz to cancel his publishing contract and put his book out for free online. Then donate all profits to the charity of his choice. Given the amount of socialist utopian bullshit he preches, this should be the kind of action that should be expected of him.
And thanks to the person here who posted additional links. I take the Digital Divide very seriously, experiencing it first hand as a columnist and an individual. I suggest the nay-sayers here walk in a mile in my shoes.
RA
There is a key fallacy in what Kratz is pushing:
That things should be equal.
No, I'll break the political correctness and say things had damn well better stay unequal. There has to be someone sweeping the floor. If thats a black or hispanic fine. If thats a white person thats fine too. I never care as long as its swept.
Computers require literacy to function. That rules nice segment of the country right off the top. In fact that rules out a sizable portion of the world. If you can't get someone to the point of reading and writing, complaining that they don't have a computer isn't going to help.
Computers can be had for litteraly free these days if you agree to view advertising. It can't get much cheaper than that. What would people like to do? Pay people to have a computer to make the stats look nice? What does that solve? Not a thing. You haven't addressed the basic problem and that is the people's own choices.
The stats themselves indicate that incomes being equal blacks and hispanics aren't spending their money on computers like the whites. If they're screwing themselves, its apparently their own choice. CompUsa doesn't care if you are purple or green, as long as your money is good they'll sell you anything you like. Someone would have to have their heads in the dirt deeper than any politician not to have heard of the internet and all the "glories" of it (in quotes since its only as good as you use it for, more on that soap box in a minute). So people are making a choice that the 'experts' don't agree with. Deal with it. Thats life. Trying to 'solve' it is another way of saying you're going to force your views down someones throats. They tried that during the Crusades. I would have hoped the world had progressed further in its attitudes, but apparently not yet.
The internet is basicly a tool. You can make it whatever you like. If you're into pictures of 11 year old girls getting fisted then you can see it. If you're into reading the latest on quantum mechanics you can get that too. However neither use is avaliable if you don't know how to do the basic research and neither is useful at all unless you know how to apply your knowledge. As such handing it to the poor is almost useless. They are poor for a reason. Typically because they aren't that well educated. I'll say two things: First I'm damn glad there are some poorly educated people in the world. Otherwise I wouldn't have someone to clean up the trash and like. I could do it myself but why bother when I can have someone else do it. Second a computer in of itself can't teach a thing. You have to have the desire, ability and resources to spend time using it to leverage actual information that can teach you. The computer and internet is a card catalog system. It can show you where the books are but it sure can't read them for you and dump the info into your head.
In summary my opinion is obviously don't dork with the system. Those who will advance using the computer and internet will do so, those who won't, won't. There will always be haves and have-nots. Fact of life is there is limited resources and that means if one person is a have the guy next door may very well not be. Since stores aren't discriminating about selling computers to people then its not a society issue but a personal issue within those making their own decisions. I say deep six the report and let the world turn without micromanaging.
It will anyways.
The Commerce Department, like all governments, is concerned with justifying the need for increased government programs. This is generally done by fragmenting the population into groups and then creating programs that are alleged to benefit small groups while distributing the cost to other larger groups. The actual primary beneficiaries of these programs, where most of the money goes, are the government employees paid to administer them.
Because of the political sensitivity which means that racial issues are non-debatable, race is often used as a criterion by which to group the population on the assumption that it is an independent variable, when in fact it should not be so assumed.
An obvious question based on the report is whether or not the disparity between urban and rural households accounts for much of the "racial" differential. Since, according to the report, rural households are less likely to be connected, does this explain the racial disparity when the differences in population are taken into account?
Looking to race as an explanatory variable should occur only when all others have been eliminated. But government does not behave this way because it knows that apparent racial bias doesn't get rationally debated and so the "need" is accepted on emotional grounds.
We must make government legally color-blind so that it will stop using racial bias to continually expand government. Without government promoting division between the races, these divisions will eventually disappear.
How many of you, before hopping on your favorite ideological high horse, took the time to figure out what it would cost to actually SOLVE this problem? If spendthrift Big Government hands each of the 100 million households in the US $300 for a basic Net-ready computer, that will cost (whip out those calculator tools, you thought-enhanced Net cognoscenti!) just 30 billion dollars. Limit it to households below the median income ($35,000) -- a whole $15 billion: less than 1% (calculators again!) of the $1.8 trillion Federal budget, or the cost of 9 B1 bombers. Only capitalism could make today's Net world possible. That doesn't mean there is no place for government action to hurry this offspring of ARPA and NSF further down the learning curve. The payback would be massive. Examples: - Pass out a few more $billion in grants to put curriculum material for every level of education online. Many schools will benefit, far more than if the same amount had been spent on conventional aid. - If most Americans fill out their tax forms and suchlike online, that alone will repay the Government for this program over and over each year. - Housebound elderly and physically handicapped people can bank, shop, interact with medical resources etc., lessening their dependence on scarce aides in a time of cutbacks. - Poor people without cars or access to malls can buy at suburban prices, handle their finances safely, get information, and organize politically. (BTW contrary to the racist nonsense in many of these postings, experiments that provided ghetto families with adequate support and computer equipment found they assimilated the Net beautifully; see Nardi and O'Day, _Information Ecologies_, MIT Press 1999, Ch 12.) Bright people will find Net resources as useful in their own escape from poverty as brick-and-mortar libraries and schools were to their parents' generation.
It seems to me that internet-censorship is a specific american issue. Nearly no one cares in Europe. If a 13 year old boy wants to see bare breast let him go. It hasn't harmed mosst of us so it will neither harm him.