First off heres the news article: Bias Keeps Internet From Global Expansion.
I have a significant problem with the premise of this article. The UN has decided that it is important globalize the internet, bringing it to all peoples of the world, including the poor and illiterate. In fact many countries have gone so far as to demand the 1st world nations of the UN to supply the internet to them (hardware, software, and expertise).
I will ignore the first part of this article because it misrepresents India and its role in the global economy for the purpose of making the article seem justified. The quote: "Getting technology into people's hands is one thing. Getting people to use it is key," said Daniel Wagner, director of the International Literacy Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, illustrates precisely the problem with the whole endeavor, a problem that has forever plagued 1st and 3rd world relations. Assuming that the internet will increase literacy is fallacy that nobody seems to want to admit to. Historically, let’s think about farming technology. We thought that providing 3rd world countries with western farming equipment, hybrids, etc would increase the quality of life for the whole population and enable progress towards higher literacy because you could justify sending children to schools instead of working them in the fields.
The result of this miscalculation? The worst famines the world has seen. See the problem that nobody saw then was when you provide the illiterate and barbaric peoples with technology what happens is you increase the class distinctions that were already present. Thus those whom are a little more ruthless will assume control of the resources, using it to make themselves richer and more powerful, while those in the slightly lower class will end up breeding more since there is "plenty in the land". Then you are where you started, except now you have a people that are heavily armed with a grudge towards the west for promising to make life better, when by their own hand, it has got worse.
I think I will have to go back and defend my use of the term barbaric. I'm using this to describe a significant problem with human rights in the world. Most will try to reject differences in the value of human life between 1st and 3rd world countries as cultural differences, and that we as 1st world countries are obligated to improve the quality of life to our standards without regard to also increasing the value of life in that country to ours as well. Barbarism in this case is used to describe the lack of a government that will protect the natural rights of its citizens.
A government like that is not born of wealth and plenty, but is based on the fundamental view people have of themselves and their fellows. I do not view myself as an elitist or racially superior to the rest of the world. But I believe that we can not make the world a better place by giving the rest of it the technology we have developed for ourselves, with our history from which we have already learned the dangers.
I'll have to make a slight aside here for the moment because the article refers to "western" languages when in fact we should really be talking about the languages of the 1st world countries because Japanese is a huge presence on the web as well, which is definitely not "western". However this also does bring up something important, the difference between languages of 1st and 3rd world countries reflects the depth of thought and understanding its people. When a language does not have a distinction between enemy and stranger, how do you explain the concept of trade?
So is the lack of certain language groups on the web a problem or a symptom? We can not solve the problem by patching the symptom, fixing the problem would in fact still leave the symptom there. If you increase the literacy rate, change the government systems, improve the quality of life, the languages that don't provide the base for the complex understand required for joining the 1st world countries will be discarded for those that do.
I appolgize for the unrevised nature of thought train, perhaps in the future I will revisit it and complete it.
I have a significant problem with the premise of this article. The UN has decided that it is important globalize the internet, bringing it to all peoples of the world, including the poor and illiterate. In fact many countries have gone so far as to demand the 1st world nations of the UN to supply the internet to them (hardware, software, and expertise).
I will ignore the first part of this article because it misrepresents India and its role in the global economy for the purpose of making the article seem justified. The quote: "Getting technology into people's hands is one thing. Getting people to use it is key," said Daniel Wagner, director of the International Literacy Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, illustrates precisely the problem with the whole endeavor, a problem that has forever plagued 1st and 3rd world relations. Assuming that the internet will increase literacy is fallacy that nobody seems to want to admit to. Historically, let’s think about farming technology. We thought that providing 3rd world countries with western farming equipment, hybrids, etc would increase the quality of life for the whole population and enable progress towards higher literacy because you could justify sending children to schools instead of working them in the fields.
The result of this miscalculation? The worst famines the world has seen. See the problem that nobody saw then was when you provide the illiterate and barbaric peoples with technology what happens is you increase the class distinctions that were already present. Thus those whom are a little more ruthless will assume control of the resources, using it to make themselves richer and more powerful, while those in the slightly lower class will end up breeding more since there is "plenty in the land". Then you are where you started, except now you have a people that are heavily armed with a grudge towards the west for promising to make life better, when by their own hand, it has got worse.
I think I will have to go back and defend my use of the term barbaric. I'm using this to describe a significant problem with human rights in the world. Most will try to reject differences in the value of human life between 1st and 3rd world countries as cultural differences, and that we as 1st world countries are obligated to improve the quality of life to our standards without regard to also increasing the value of life in that country to ours as well. Barbarism in this case is used to describe the lack of a government that will protect the natural rights of its citizens.
A government like that is not born of wealth and plenty, but is based on the fundamental view people have of themselves and their fellows. I do not view myself as an elitist or racially superior to the rest of the world. But I believe that we can not make the world a better place by giving the rest of it the technology we have developed for ourselves, with our history from which we have already learned the dangers.
I'll have to make a slight aside here for the moment because the article refers to "western" languages when in fact we should really be talking about the languages of the 1st world countries because Japanese is a huge presence on the web as well, which is definitely not "western". However this also does bring up something important, the difference between languages of 1st and 3rd world countries reflects the depth of thought and understanding its people. When a language does not have a distinction between enemy and stranger, how do you explain the concept of trade?
So is the lack of certain language groups on the web a problem or a symptom? We can not solve the problem by patching the symptom, fixing the problem would in fact still leave the symptom there. If you increase the literacy rate, change the government systems, improve the quality of life, the languages that don't provide the base for the complex understand required for joining the 1st world countries will be discarded for those that do.
I appolgize for the unrevised nature of thought train, perhaps in the future I will revisit it and complete it.
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