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Honestly, I would take out the internet requirement. All the others can significantly improve quality of life in a home, but I can't truely say the same about i

Honestly, I would take out the internet requirement. All the others can significantly improve quality of life in a home, but I can't truely say the same about internet access. I'd love to hear the counterpoints, but I just can't imagine a farmer needing internet access to live a comfortable lifestyle, as opposed to clean water and electricity, which is necessary.

GordonS 11y ago
Internet access could certainly help, for example, a farmer, as it could give access to information on better farming techniques, where to source better value fertilisers, where to get the best price for produce etc. But I certainly agree that it doesn't play any part in the definition of 'extreme poverty'.
- phil21 11y ago
  I was going to make a similar comment, but this boils down to information asymmetry. For how cheap it is to deliver reasonable Internet access to everyone, I put it up there with the same importance as most utilities. If you're building out electricity to a farmer, you can certainly add Internet infrastructure onto that for very little relative cost. Why should giant corporations buying the farmers products have access to nearly limitless amounts of information, while the farmer is relegated to maybe an industry periodical and the local cafe gossip. That worked before the 1900's, but these days information moves too quickly. So yes, I think Internet is probably not quite yet essentially a basic need to participate in the economy and society - but it's pretty damn close. And it's only going to continue to get more important as "old world" services are turned off in favor of those on-line. In my lifetime I will see the DMV close it's last in-person renewal desk. And the private world is already there in requiring online-only transactions to do certain forms of business.
deleted 11y ago
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devinhelton 11y ago
I was going beyond measuring just "extreme poverty" to measuring general economic development. In the modern world, internet is really important because you can need it to do business, order products, look up information, get reading material, get educated, etc, etc. Many developing countries never had public libraries, or homes filled with books, so the internet is way of granting access to essential information in a digital form.
ctdonath 11y ago
It's not so much about internet access, but information access (to wit: why public libraries were invented). Using his example of 500MB/month, that could easily cover a box set of the Foxfire books (extensive details on how to live off the land) one month, canonical classic literature in one's language the next, etc. Part of being "not poor" is qualitatively having the means to improve one's living condition, which very much includes means to learn how to improve.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
A farmer who strives for self-sustainability will not need Internet access for comfortable life. But a poor person living in a city - trying to escape poverty by getting closer with society, not further from it - might find it pretty useful. Such people often spend big amounts of time dealing with government institutions, trying to enroll and stay enrolled in the local welfare and jobs programmes - in some countries having Internet access can significantly speed up/streamline this process. In general, a lot of extremely poor people in urban areas suffer more from the lack of predictable time slots than lack of money. When doing multiple temporary jobs with flexible hours, adjusted at a moment's notice, you can't really plan anything ahead. You barely have enough time to do groceries, let alone pick a shop that has a given item cheaper, and forget about any service that requires an appointment. Internet access solves a lot of these issues by allowing you to do things a) at random hours, and b) without having to physicly go somewhere. Also on-line ordering usually gives you cheaper everything; hell, even groceries may be worth getting delivered if it frees up a time slot during the day that could be better spent taking care of something else, or even playing with one's kid. Then there are things like Craigslist and other benefits of instant, pretty much free long-distance communication. One could list on and on. But the main point is - in all but the few least developed countries, Internet access can give huge quality of life improvements to the poor.

GordonS 11y ago

Internet access could certainly help, for example, a farmer, as it could give access to information on better farming techniques, where to source better value fertilisers, where to get the best price for produce etc. But I certainly agree that it doesn't play any part in the definition of 'extreme poverty'.

phil21 11y ago
I was going to make a similar comment, but this boils down to information asymmetry. For how cheap it is to deliver reasonable Internet access to everyone, I put it up there with the same importance as most utilities. If you're building out electricity to a farmer, you can certainly add Internet infrastructure onto that for very little relative cost. Why should giant corporations buying the farmers products have access to nearly limitless amounts of information, while the farmer is relegated to maybe an industry periodical and the local cafe gossip. That worked before the 1900's, but these days information moves too quickly. So yes, I think Internet is probably not quite yet essentially a basic need to participate in the economy and society - but it's pretty damn close. And it's only going to continue to get more important as "old world" services are turned off in favor of those on-line. In my lifetime I will see the DMV close it's last in-person renewal desk. And the private world is already there in requiring online-only transactions to do certain forms of business.

deleted 11y ago

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devinhelton 11y ago

I was going beyond measuring just "extreme poverty" to measuring general economic development. In the modern world, internet is really important because you can need it to do business, order products, look up information, get reading material, get educated, etc, etc. Many developing countries never had public libraries, or homes filled with books, so the internet is way of granting access to essential information in a digital form.

ctdonath 11y ago

It's not so much about internet access, but information access (to wit: why public libraries were invented). Using his example of 500MB/month, that could easily cover a box set of the Foxfire books (extensive details on how to live off the land) one month, canonical classic literature in one's language the next, etc. Part of being "not poor" is qualitatively having the means to improve one's living condition, which very much includes means to learn how to improve.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

A farmer who strives for self-sustainability will not need Internet access for comfortable life. But a poor person living in a city - trying to escape poverty by getting closer with society, not further from it - might find it pretty useful. Such people often spend big amounts of time dealing with government institutions, trying to enroll and stay enrolled in the local welfare and jobs programmes - in some countries having Internet access can significantly speed up/streamline this process. In general, a lot of extremely poor people in urban areas suffer more from the lack of predictable time slots than lack of money. When doing multiple temporary jobs with flexible hours, adjusted at a moment's notice, you can't really plan anything ahead. You barely have enough time to do groceries, let alone pick a shop that has a given item cheaper, and forget about any service that requires an appointment. Internet access solves a lot of these issues by allowing you to do things a) at random hours, and b) without having to physicly go somewhere. Also on-line ordering usually gives you cheaper everything; hell, even groceries may be worth getting delivered if it frees up a time slot during the day that could be better spent taking care of something else, or even playing with one's kid. Then there are things like Craigslist and other benefits of instant, pretty much free long-distance communication. One could list on and on. But the main point is - in all but the few least developed countries, Internet access can give huge quality of life improvements to the poor.