[8852] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: NTIA Universal Access Hearing
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dave Hughes)
Tue Dec 7 18:48:06 1993
From: dave@oldcolo.com (Dave Hughes)
To: JSAUNDERS@batch1.zis.ziff.com (John Saunders, 252-5245)
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 16:43:11 -0700 (MST)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com (compriv)
In-Reply-To: <01H67H2WHOWIAYJYUN@arnor.zis.ziff.com> from "John Saunders, 252-5245" at Dec 7, 93 06:07:25 pm
>
> I'm curious. What does fiber optic have to do with ascii?
>
> Further, could you expand on your implication that there's a
> cultural problem with ASCII with respect to Hispanics? Certainly,
> one needs a character set which includes accents and tilde, but does
> one need to go as far as graphics to properly communicate with Hispanics?
>
> If so, this can't be the only group with that problem.
>
>
> John Saunders
>
You just saw the light, John, whether you know it or not. (While
you were composing that I was on the phone to an Hispanic woman
in New Mexico who is going to the hearing and make *exactly* that
point). Not only graphics, but sound, from voice to music. I'll
tell you right off that you are NOT going to 'communicate' two
way with Hispanic Grandmother in Cuba, New Mexico from a pc
keyboard, even if it does have the supplementary character set!
Yes here in Colorado Springs, where we have SNUG, the Senior
Network Users Group, with the mean age in the 70s and the Sysop
of their BBS at 81, white man's ascii text is EXACTLY thier
medium of choice.
But interesting that you see it as a 'problem' when they see it
as what they want to be. It has to do with the reason I also
here quarrelled with Ross that, when he implied that we are
headed toward 'one political world - countries), I see a
tremendous world, and US movement toward roots - of ethnicity,
cultures, races, regions, not the 'homoginization' that the
pell mell, unthinking spread of technologies, protocols,
'modes' of communications that the dominant culture is now
promising to be. I could give you scores of specific examples,
but I will limit it.
For the most part Indians who reflect their heritage do not
communicate in white-mans-ascii-text. They communicate, among
other ways, by ceremony, by colorful costume and symbol, and
by story telling. So Indians from 5 reservations in Montana
took to a workshop I held like ducks to water when we showed
them how to, using low-end NAPLPS creation tools, create
their sacred symbols, their images, and tell stories in
narrative form, working from the reservation, and using
a modem oto put it on a BBS. Which was a result of the
reaction we observed when, one day at an 'English as a
Second Language' conference, one of our group demonstrated
dialing up - in ascii only - a conferecning system. They
were mildly interested, half the group being both teachers
and Indians. But when I dialed into the same system, and
up came on the screen a Kiowa Bear Shield Symbol, half
the people in the room stood up. That was *their* culture
coming over the phone through a modem! And the point they
*really* were exited about, was that THEY could do this,
and their kids could do this and SEND them across the
world. Not sit passively and watch the rest of the world,
not their world, come in by TV - cable or no.
Ditto, but in other ways (and I'll bet you including sound
will be necessary) for the Hispanics of Southern Colorado
and New Mexico.
It may seem just a simplistic 'oh give em another character
set' for other cultures, but I think it goes much deeper
than that. And since, for the first time in history, such
advanced 'tools of the mind and the tongue
can be within the reach of any indvidual, group, or
community anywhere, the question is, will the NII be
sophisticated enough to fit itself to people as they
are and would like to be, or are people going to be
forced to fit the technology and infrastructure as it
exists in the dominant culture?
Fiber? Nomads wouldn't care for it. They might, wireless.
