Feature: The Net- Boon or Nightmare? 368
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.
Not valid (Score:1)
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.
So What? (Score:1)
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 (Score:1)
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?
Sometimes I wonder ... (Score:1)
Re:Money is no excuse (Score:2)
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.
Gaps (Score:1)
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
overstated his case (Score:1)
Re:Links to the report and to some interesting cha (Score:2)
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.
Re:Links to the report and to some interesting cha (Score:2)
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!!!
Re:Links to the report and to some interesting cha (Score:2)
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.
Re:Money is no excuse (Score:2)
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.
Re:Solution: More 'net access in public libraries. (Score:1)
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.
Don't believe the race hype! (URL of DoC report) (Score:4)
The cited Commerce Department report's [doc.gov] 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
Regarding pornography (Score:1)
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 [spinweb.net]
Re:Money is no excuse (Score:1)
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.
The Fifth Wave Hits (Score:3)
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.
Wow! (Score:1)
Whoops (Score:1)
Re: You Post Prices in Portions of a Penny? (Score:1)
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.
Re:TV != Computer, at least not yet (Score:1)
Solutions, (Score:1)
VT
Re:Demand for skills (Score:1)
In My Not So Humble Opinion (I Know)
I'm fairly sure of the first bit, but not about the IK
Re:Demand for skills (Score:1)
In My Not So Humble Opinion
but what's the BIK for ?
I've heard this, and don't buy it.... (Score:5)
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.
TV sets in America (Score:3)
Semantic Quible of the Day (SQOTD) (Score:1)
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.
Demand for skills (Score:1)
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.
Re:Demand for skills (Score:1)
:)
Doh! (Score:1)
*Sigh*
Racial issues (Score:3)
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>
---
TV != Computer, at least not yet (Score:3)
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.
---
Confusion of terms (Score:1)
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.
Re:Affirmative action is very questionable (Score:1)
Re:"gadget-happy, white America" ??? (Score:1)
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.
Re:Money is no excuse (Score:1)
Ditto for cars, telephones, radio, tv, ... (Score:1)
"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.
--
Re:Money is no excuse (Score:1)
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."
Re:Not valid (Score:1)
Fire! Libel, and Free Speech (Score:1)
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
Americentrism (Score:1)
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.
Missing the Point (Score:1)
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.
The Katz kount (Score:1)
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
cultural differences and education (Score:1)
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.
kids are definately more computer-saavy (Score:1)
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 :)
Wafting Yet another Airball with Jon Katz (Score:1)
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.
Re:Geeks vs. Ganstas (Score:1)
Mizpellrs f teh wirld untie
I hope evolution breeds out that sort of rigidity from the species.
Re:Wafting Yet another Airball with Jon Katz (Score:1)
I can see your life is as empty as Jon Katz's.
I like it that I can upset you so much with a simple misspelling. I will now laugh out loud everytime I make you waste another post with corrections.
In fact I will make som more of them for you to corret so taht I can watch you waste even more of your live being mentaly constrained.
Its like watching OCD victims walk theu a messy room.
Mizpelrs Ov teh whirled Untie
Re:What boiled out of the wash (Score:1)
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----
Re:Geeks vs. Ganstas (Score:1)
Decanted
(cant==short hand for can not)
Anonymous Cant Read
Re:Geeks vs. Ganstas (Score:1)
And whats your excuse Mr anonymous?
A World Wide issue ..if your not blind (Score:1)
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.
Re:The search for inequality (Score:1)
Natural Selection. (Score:1)
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
Suburbia (Score:2)
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
----
The net is inherently elitist (Score:3)
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
----
You're not serious... (Score:1)
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.
Re:mother board costs (Score:1)
Do you know what is scary about all of this? (Score:1)
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.
Re:it is culture (Score:1)
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. :
Give up the damn "Community Standards" argument. (Score:1)
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.
Re:"Community Standards" is still bullshit (Score:1)
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".
No matter what (Score:1)
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.
"gadget-happy, white America" ??? (Score:1)
> 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
Re:define "good attitude twd education and learnin (Score:1)
> 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).
$ and internet access (Score:1)
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.
Re:Links to the report and to some interesting cha (Score:1)
>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.
Sixth Wave (Score:1)
Very good question indeed. Here are my guesses for 6th wave emergent technologies:
Biotech
Nanotech
Space
Ocean
it is culture (Score:1)
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?
Re:Arrrgh! More socialism (Score:1)
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.
Re:Money is no excuse (Score:1)
Links to the report and to some interesting charts (Score:5)
Re:Money is no excuse (Score:1)
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. . . . .
Free Trade? (Score:1)
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.
Re:Sex Matters (Score:1)
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"
Sex Matters (Score:2)
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 [gnome.org] rather than some proprietary company's [microsoft.com] 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
Speaking of Not valid... (Score:1)
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 don't know nothing! (Score:1)
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.
Re:Money is no excuse (Score:1)
So, what other criteria should we employ when deciding whether people should have kids, eh, SpinyNorman?
Re:Money is no excuse (Score:1)
-bonkydog
Race baiting (Score:1)
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?
Re:Money is no excuse (Score:1)
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.
Re:Money is no excuse (Score:1)
-Imperator
Re:kids are definately more computer-saavy (Score:1)
Or, teach them properly when they're old enough to not put toys into their mouths. :)
-Imperator
Why affirmative action doesn't help (Score:1)
-Imperator
education levels, eletism (Score:1)
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?
Re:education levels, elitism (Score:1)
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.
Re:education levels, elitism (Score:1)
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.
Re:education levels, eletism (whee) (Score:1)
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
Re:education levels, eletism (whee) (Score:1)
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.
Re:Money is no excuse (Score:4)
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.
Re:TV sets in America (Score:2)
(500 + 15 * 12 = 680). But TV has become a cultural status mark. Whereas a computer has less significance culturally among innercity/urban minorities. We didn't arrive at the TV having such significance by giving low income families them, it just eventually happend itself. But I do believe that the TV tends to better represent, and has more to offer minorities (I mean more to offer and in a perceptial way, not as in a educational advancement way). Generally there is very little on the net that would be of interest to a innercity minority youth, whereas there is much on TV for such a group. If we can find a way to provide such things, it could have an effect. How about the government agencies that help out such channels as PBS, maby if we can convince them of the possitive effect the net can have, they might donate money so that someone can provide educational/entertainment sites directed at innercity youth?
Re:TV sets in America (Score:2)
Money is no excuse (Score:2)
Re:Sex Matters (Score:2)
This old saw is very appropriate, but not in the way usually intended by people who trot it out. It originated in a case ( Schenck vs United States [krusch.com]) which exemplifies the governmental habit of invoking phony hob-goblins as an excuse to infringe upon civil liberties.
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.
You seriously undermine your case by lumping together "families" and "communities". Families have certain natural prerogatives in raising children to the point where they are capable of independent judgment. Communities have no such prerogatives -- I am an unreconstructed unmutual when it comes to Hillary's Village.
/.
Sex is Over-Rated (Score:2)
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 [within.com] out there, which is blocking sites that have nothing to do with explicit sex or violence or intolerance (let's see
Which brings us back to ... (Score:2)
... 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
Only where they can get away with it! (Score:2)
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.
*ROTFL* indeed! (Score:2)
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.
Re:Suburbia (Score:2)
Fair enough. But I've got a whole list of reasons why I'm railing, personally
And just for the record, I do put my money where my mouth is on this topic. I have an upstairs-of-a-house apartment in the city I live in, maybe two miles from downtown, and I rode public transit for the first year I lived here -- still do, when it's going where I need to. (I just started the first job that makes riding the bus vastly more trouble than it is worth -- ie dealing with the bus will quadruple my commute time.)
There are very nice parts of the city that I live in (Rochester, NY, if you're curious), but as soon as we cross the border that says "city of Rochester", some of the paranoid idiots I deal with start looking around nervously as if some psycho is going to randomly jump out and mug them. My mother started begging me to move after there was a murder two blocks away from me.
Guess what, Mom? People get murdered in small towns, too! In your nice small town, my grandmother was mugged on the way home from church, of all things.
Also, in my experience, in a city intelligence at least has a fighting chance of being accepted. Perhaps it's just because there are more people around and consequently more who will share obscure interests.
And dammit, I'd rather wander a downtown street with unique places to shop than a strip mall with a Wal-Mart and a (insert name of local grocery store monopoly here) and a McDonald's.
As I've explained to several people long before it became trendy: Malls cause the crack problem.
See, a mall opens (and of course it needs to be driven to or else it costs extra to get there via whatever public transportation might be left). People who can afford it all flock to the mall. The downtown stores (even branches of chain stores like Rite-aid) end up left in the dust in favor of the mall version. Downtown stores either move to the mall or go out of business. Downtown starts looking run-down and only the people who really can't afford to go elsewhere shop downtown. Storekeepers can't make their rent. Things get foreclosed on and bought up by people with lots of money, who may or may not be drug lords and who may or may not have mafia ties.
Soon, only the desperate and those seeking to do less-than-legit business will come downtown at all -- everyone else goes out to the mall and the Wal-Mart.
It sucks. This is pretty much exactly what happened to Utica, NY (the city I grew up closest to), and it is to some extent happening in Rochester.
And there IS a solution -- chase the bad guys out, convince the paranoid that downtown isn't full of bad guys, encourage businesses to move in there, and let the buildings be used for the purposes they're meant for. The sprawl around here is ridiculous -- even the closer suburbs are full of deserted storefronts as people go to expand into the next big market. It's ugly.
If Katz actually made money in technology... (Score:2)
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.