The Digital Divide

For those of you who don’t know the “Digital Divide” refers to the gap between those who benefit from digital technology and those who do not. It has recently come to my attention that there are people out there such as those at www.digitaldivide.org who make arguments about how giving everyone their own wireless internet accessible device will solve all of the world’s problems. Personally I think that the idea of trying to close this “digital divide” between developed and undeveloped countries just by giving them internet access is absolutely ridiculous. I tend to agree with www.economist.com in saying that there are larger problems at hand than giving the impoverished people of this world computers. To think that just thrusting a poor 3rd world village into the information age and expecting them to compete in the global economy without any sort of backing is absurd.

All computer related businesses offer a service of some sort, whether it is hosting websites, advertising, consulting, or selling a product. Now who in their right mind would think that someone living in the 3rd world with no education, food, fresh water, medicine, or infrastructure could do any of these things? Without any education you cannot even run a competitive business on a world wide scale, without financial backing you cannot even start a business even if you could run it, and without infrastructure even if you can run a business and have the money to start it you cannot actually do business. As far as the food and water go those are obviously top priorities and without those all other concerns are irrelevant because the dead don’t do business.

Before we even consider putting these people into the information age at the top of the pyramid that is human technological evolution lets build them a base to stand on. Start with necessities food, water and basic medical care (I’m not talking about experimental cancer treatments or the real advanced stuff, just simple things like the treating of wounds and antibiotic’s). Once the people have these things we need to stabilize the region by introducing a government dedicated to the betterment of its people and direct our funding and efforts through them.

Once these two tasks have been completed we can start by teaching these people how to farm and build irrigation channels, thus giving them a permanent supply of food and water. By building up the agrarian base of a country they can eventually feed their population if everyone is in the farming business. Once enough crops are being grown a surplus is generated and exporting can begin leading to the development of infrastructure like roads and ports. At this point other businesses start up such as mining, refining, and production of materials and products. These businesses would use the new infrastructure to do business and generate revenue. Eventually these farmers and factory workers would make enough money to pool together and give their children a basic education and every generation would then make more money and gain more skills until the factories were being run by the people of that country and they had enough wealth to invest in information technology and do business on a world wide scale.

Personally I think that building this base and guiding these people through the agrarian, industrial, and technological revolutions to a point at which they can stand on their own is a lot better than a bunch of rich 1st world people donating to a fund that sends iphones and translated manuals into a starving, disease infested, uneducated 3rd world village. The manuals would be used as toilet paper and the devices would be sold on the black market for food money faster than you could say “This may have been a bad idea”. In short from a common sense stand point it is much better to stand on a top of a tall building it took you 50 years to build than be thrown from a plane at the same height.