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Is the lack of Internet truly that bad? India, while woefully poor in many places, is perhaps the most spiritually rich nation I have ever known. For all the s

Is the lack of Internet truly that bad? India, while woefully poor in many places, is perhaps the most spiritually rich nation I have ever known. For all the stresses of life and distortions of industrialization, let alone internetification, they have far more inner resolve than most of us in the pill-popping West. To say that they have nothing if they reject an inch-wide glimpse of the Internet, provided by a company which is the face of corporate survellience, no less, smacks of the arrogant notion that more is always better. The Buddha found satisfaction by rejecting the material life, after all.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
What do pills have to do with this? The Internet is a global communications network. It allows you to connect with anyone anywhere on the planet and nearby space. Without access youbare severely limited in what you can learn and do.
tdaltonc 11y ago
Ya, who needs to know the price of rice or fertilizer? Certainly not Indian farmers; they can eat inner peace. And who needs to learn algebra? Certainly not rural children; they already know the meaning of life. Free Basics isn't the answer, but going from no-internet to just-a-tiny-bit-of-internet can have a big impact on someones life.
- crdb 11y ago
  > Certainly not rural children Funnily enough, having worked for a while on projects in rural Maharashtra, the children are the path to information for those villages - they're the ones who can read and write and know the prices and share information upwards to the adults. (the conclusion being, back then, that one should market to children...)
tim333 11y ago
It may be spiritual but it's also pretty fucked up in many ways not unrelated to the spirituality like bride burning, killing people who marry into the wrong cast, leading the world in modern slavery (14 million in the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_slavery) and in malutrition (nearly double that of Sub Saharan Africa, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition_in_India). I think banning those people from a free if a bit crappy internet service because the well off are offended by the idea of it being provided by Facebook is dubious.
- shrikrishna 11y ago
  Get one thing straight. Free Basics is not about "bringing up" the poor. And among the "well off" are those who were poor once and have used knowledge from the internet to be wise enough to realize what is going on. Free Basics, if allowed to remain, will become a gatekeeper to the internet and will essentially become a barrier to entry to other services
  - iofj 11y ago
    Minus: might become a barrier to entry to other services Plus: provides "some" internet for a billion people ... including wikipedia and various info apps. Includes photo sharing, chat, ... Which of these is more important ? That's the big question being discussed here. And of course the people discussing how this might stand in the way of their future profits feel absolutely no need to provide an alternative ...
    - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
      Give them access to the full internet. Anything less is disengenuous. They're going to end up using Facebook anyway, unless someone ends up making the Indian VK. Can't let the possibility of innovation conflict with profit forecasts...
      - iofj 11y ago
        I don't understand why all or nothing is a reasonable demand. If that's your demand, then pay up or otherwise convince the telcos like fb has. What's wrong with that? I do understand why telcos won't give all internet for free. In fact I'm amazed fb got them to allow any chat app at all, given that it'll kill SMS. What I'm asking is why is potentially raising entry costs in the Indian market worth, morally speaking, denying internet to millions of people?
    - thecrazyone 11y ago
      >Plus: provides "some" internet for a billion people ... including wikipedia and various info apps. Includes photo sharing, chat, ... Chat, fb, etc is free for now, because Facebook "allows" it to be free. Once everyone is on free basics, they can do a U-turn and say only Facebook messenger, Facebook website, Facebook * is free. What are you going to do then? What prevents them from doing this? Letting FB or any company be a gatekeeper to net is wrong on so many levels. There are so many devious things they can do and we as people or other companies will be totally helpless.

jsprogrammer 11y ago

What do pills have to do with this? The Internet is a global communications network. It allows you to connect with anyone anywhere on the planet and nearby space. Without access youbare severely limited in what you can learn and do.

tdaltonc 11y ago

Ya, who needs to know the price of rice or fertilizer? Certainly not Indian farmers; they can eat inner peace. And who needs to learn algebra? Certainly not rural children; they already know the meaning of life. Free Basics isn't the answer, but going from no-internet to just-a-tiny-bit-of-internet can have a big impact on someones life.

crdb 11y ago
> Certainly not rural children Funnily enough, having worked for a while on projects in rural Maharashtra, the children are the path to information for those villages - they're the ones who can read and write and know the prices and share information upwards to the adults. (the conclusion being, back then, that one should market to children...)

tim333 11y ago

It may be spiritual but it's also pretty fucked up in many ways not unrelated to the spirituality like bride burning, killing people who marry into the wrong cast, leading the world in modern slavery (14 million in the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_slavery) and in malutrition (nearly double that of Sub Saharan Africa, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition_in_India). I think banning those people from a free if a bit crappy internet service because the well off are offended by the idea of it being provided by Facebook is dubious.

shrikrishna 11y ago
Get one thing straight. Free Basics is not about "bringing up" the poor. And among the "well off" are those who were poor once and have used knowledge from the internet to be wise enough to realize what is going on. Free Basics, if allowed to remain, will become a gatekeeper to the internet and will essentially become a barrier to entry to other services
- iofj 11y ago
  Minus: might become a barrier to entry to other services Plus: provides "some" internet for a billion people ... including wikipedia and various info apps. Includes photo sharing, chat, ... Which of these is more important ? That's the big question being discussed here. And of course the people discussing how this might stand in the way of their future profits feel absolutely no need to provide an alternative ...
  - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
    Give them access to the full internet. Anything less is disengenuous. They're going to end up using Facebook anyway, unless someone ends up making the Indian VK. Can't let the possibility of innovation conflict with profit forecasts...
    - iofj 11y ago
      I don't understand why all or nothing is a reasonable demand. If that's your demand, then pay up or otherwise convince the telcos like fb has. What's wrong with that? I do understand why telcos won't give all internet for free. In fact I'm amazed fb got them to allow any chat app at all, given that it'll kill SMS. What I'm asking is why is potentially raising entry costs in the Indian market worth, morally speaking, denying internet to millions of people?
  - thecrazyone 11y ago
    >Plus: provides "some" internet for a billion people ... including wikipedia and various info apps. Includes photo sharing, chat, ... Chat, fb, etc is free for now, because Facebook "allows" it to be free. Once everyone is on free basics, they can do a U-turn and say only Facebook messenger, Facebook website, Facebook * is free. What are you going to do then? What prevents them from doing this? Letting FB or any company be a gatekeeper to net is wrong on so many levels. There are so many devious things they can do and we as people or other companies will be totally helpless.