[11233] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
re: nonsense
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Galloway)
Sat Mar 26 07:34:05 1994
From: John Galloway <jrg@rahul.net>
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 03:48:05 -0800 (PST)
Reply-To: jrg@galloway.sj.ca.us
>
> None of this talk about a link to every house
> makes any sense unless we educated those who
> are wired to EFFECTIVELY use the services they
> are being offered.
[lines deleted]
> Without a clear vision of how information works in a
> community or how it is shaped by shifts and develop-
> ments in technology, this kind of talk about "link to
> every house" is nonsense. Are we to suppose that the
> accompanying systems to the "links" are completely self-
> explanatory and self-referencing? Do they come from a
> vacuum?
>
> How do you educate a community to operate "links" that
> have no roots? Can I plop a fiber optic cable in a
> government housing unit in some inner city without any
> explanation? Can I expect immigrants to be able to use
> my system without any training or access to reference
> resources (libraries)?
>
> I don't know.
>
> Maybe someone can answer this. What role does education
> play BEFORE we wire the Nation?
I would argue that it needn't play a critical one. People don't care how the
wire works, they just want to be able to use what plugs into it. We didn't
wait for the world to become literate before we built libraries. The order
that people are going to (continue to) connect to the net is relative to
their level of technical expertise, by the time that level gets down
to just being able to plug in (but not set the time of) your vcr,
the user will be able to use the wire to learn how to use the wire much
as you can go the library to learn how to read. I think it will have to be
this way since the number of users will be at its largest point and the way
you use the wire at that point may be changing quite fast and a traditional
educational system will not be able to keep up, let alone run ahead of its
electronic subject. Of course many folks will likely learn about and
subsequently use the net at school, but to not exclude those not in school,
it is going to have to be highly self teaching.
-jrg
--
internet jrg@galloway.sj.ca.us John R. Galloway, Jr 795 Beaver Creek Way
applelink D3413 CEO...receptionist San Jose, CA 95133
Galloway Research (408) 259-2490
