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.
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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.