A Cyberspace Independence Refutation

[Bill Frantz]

At  2:56 PM 2/18/96 -0500, Duncan Frissell wrote:
>At 06:13 AM 2/16/96 -0500, lmccarth at cs.umass.edu wrote:
>>I'd be interested to see the documentation of the number of peasants in 
>>the U.S. (or elsewhere) who have done anything like this. Documentation of
>>the number of peasants who could manage the technical details would also
>>be interesting.
>
>Actually, it only takes a million or so out of the world population to make
>restrictions impossible.  That will certainly be achievable. ...

My wife attended the World Women's Conference in Hai Rou, China (as staff
supporting their Apple computers).  She reports that the "killer
application" demonstrated there was email.  Women in extreemly poor
countries of the world were interested in communicating with each other
about solving local problems (e.g. Clean water supplies).

The demand is there.  These people are not stupid.  They can learn.  I
expect to see the village email computer build on "obsolete" donated
machines start to become a force in the next century, the same way the
village TV and cassette player have played a role in the last decade.

Regards - Bill