Politics

Sen pro digitální éru

Sep 9, 2013 Peter Singer

PRINCETON – Před padesáti lety snil Martin Luther King o Americe, která jednoho dne dostojí svému slibu rovnosti pro všechny občany, černé i bílé. Dnes má sen také zakladatel Facebooku Mark Zuckerberg: chce poskytnout přístup k internetu pěti miliardám lidí, kteří ho dosud nemají.

Zuckerbergova vize může znít jako sobecká snaha získat další uživatele Facebooku. Svět však v současné době čelí stále hlubšímu technologickému rozkolu, jehož dopady na rovnost, svobodu a právo usilovat o štěstí nejsou o nic méně závažné než v případě rasového rozkolu, proti němuž kázal King.

Více než dvě miliardy lidí na celém světě žijí v digitální éře. Mají přístup k obrovské studnici informací, mohou s malými či nulovými náklady komunikovat s přáteli a příbuznými, mohou se spojovat s jinými lidmi a spolupracovat s nimi novými způsoby. Zbylých pět miliard lidí stále vězí v papírové éře, v níž vyrostla moje generace.

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Peter Singer

Writing for PS since 2001
219 Commentaries

Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, is Founder of the nonprofit organization The Life You Can Save. His books include Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason), Rethinking Life and Death, The Point of View of the Universe, co-authored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, The Most Good You Can Do, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, One World Now, Ethics in the Real World, Why Vegan?, and Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction, also with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek. In April 2021, W.W. Norton published his new edition of Apuleius’s The Golden Ass. In 2013, he was named the world's third "most influential contemporary thinker" by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute.

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Jose araujo Jan 31, 2014

Hunger and ignorance are two very effective ways of controlling the masses, son until we solve the democratic/government problems in this countries we are not going to solve any major issues.

First step would be to stop dealing with this kind of governments and stop the support for tyranic governments and penalize corruption heavily.

Until the developed world stops making money from human exploitation, this issues are not going away because ignorance and hunger are the pillars that support tyranic governments.
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Gopalakrishnan Tanjavur Ramaswami Dec 30, 2013

While the risk of universal Internet access is substantive, the consequence of not having access might be higher. While we need to support initiatives that push for greater access, we will have to put in place mechanisms that minimise the the adverse outcomes. I think we are well into rethinking our relation to Internet in the context of government and market surveillance, we seem to have left the policy questions regarding universal access to the market. There is a wide academic literature on the topic of 'digital divide' that has placed this articles concern at the centre of policy debate with little effect.It seem to me that the markets have greater stake in continuing digital disparities, than do the government, which seem to be primarily concerned about regulations and political controls.
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Kanchhedia Chamaar Sep 10, 2013

Even if all of the five billion people who do not currently have access to internet did gain access due to Zuckerberg's not entirely disinterested largesse, a large number of them would still face what might be called linguistic barriers because most of the content on the internet is in what might be called metropolitan languages. There are hundreds of languages in Papua New Guinea and India, to mention two countries with vast linguistic diversity, that do not even have a script of their own.
The ruling elite in India ruthlessly and methodically disenfranchises the vast majority of Indians by keeping them confined to what Rorty would call the prison-house of Indian vernaculars.
The poor in India would remain disenfranchised and excluded from participating in what the English media in India calls national discourse even if they had access not just to the "free" internet but also to the "subscription-only" domains on the internet including access to the entire output of all research on Indian polity, Indian economy, Indian history, Indian sociology, Indian media and Indian culture. And the reason is that all research on every topic that has to do with India as a nation is conceived and carried out in English. Going beyond English might take one to other languages associated with economic power, but not to Indian vernaculars. There are more books on Indian history in the US Library of Congress that were originally written in any one of Russian, Japanese, or Korean, than those originally written in all Indian vernacular put together. Moreover, since Western categories are used to generate the information on the internet, translating it into Indian vernaculars without using meaningless neologisms is impossible.
- Bhanu Siva Prasad D Sep 12, 2013
  
  This idea will be very useful for every one, already there many sites which contains the details and news in local languages for example Google is available is many languages that are present in India, so In my opinion language will not be a barrier but the real barrier will be the political pressures to keep people unaware of the of these things so that they can easily persuade people and convince them to vote without merit.
  For change to happen there should be a starting point hope this can become that point.
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Steve Barney Sep 9, 2013

I guess that something like a cell phone or tablet with permanent free 3G internet access and a solar photovoltaic charger would do the trick.
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