MARIE ANTOINTERNETTE
Half of the world in the coming decade ?
I would enjoy hoping that over 3 billion people would, in the next eleven years, have access to commodities like a powerful processor. That would mean that more than 3 billion souls would finally have regular access to such basic things as food, water, shelter, good health facilities, stable government, peaceful surroundings and some level of employement security induced by regular and controlled increase in productivity. I think that would be great, because it would also mean that the other 3 billion people left would be well on their way to finally accessing the same things.
As it stands today, you can count 3 billion people as the population of Europe, North America, India, China and Japan (give or take a few hundred million). It seems to me that these are the countries targeted by this wishful thinking. North America, Japan and Europe are pretty well on their way already, leaving China and India to catch up in the next decade. Well, it won't happen.
It will probably take most of this century just to get running water to all these people, not to mention electricity and Internet access. And, given that an overwhelming majority of the population of these countries is occupied by agricultural tasks, I hardly think that these people will need (never mind be able to afford) a PC to help them sow grain and feed chickens. That is good enough for our highly-industrialized production facilities, not for areas where the highest tech available is the shovel and the hoe (and maybe a phone at the local village square). This is nonsense in the most basic sense of the word.
Source:
The INQ!
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