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Posting this from Addis. I have internet. The Ethiopians I know all have smartphones and internet. Viber is similarly popular to text messaging. I am very confu

Posting this from Addis. I have internet. The Ethiopians I know all have smartphones and internet. Viber is similarly popular to text messaging. I am very confused about this article. Lots of things are restrictive here but the article is super overblown. Maybe only 3.7% with wired internet? I'd believe that, everyone uses mobile here.

avocad 11y ago
Same experience here, also from AA. Most of the countryside has also good 3G. Some websites are unreachable though. I am not inclined to comment on the political situation.
selectodude 11y ago
I find Vice is super interesting until they do a story on the place you're from and you realize they have zero idea what they're talking about and the entire article is nonsense. I've stopped reading anything they put out.
- differentView 11y ago
  This is the same reason I stopped reading The Economist. Great witty writing, until they write about my country and get lots of things wrong. I have to assume it's the same with their articles about industries and places I am not familiar with.
  - nickysielicki 11y ago
    My browser history over the past few months is riddled with 20-minute bursts of trying to find the wikipedia page for a certain cognitive fallacy that is related to what you and your parent comment are talking about. The gist of it is that we tend to trust the authority of the media, up until a point where the the media incorrectly or disingenuously reports on something that we are an expert on. This theory disagrees with what you and your parent comment are saying and instead contends that as soon as they switch to another story, we continue to trust their authority on other topics without any kind of diminished reputation. I feel like I'm going crazy, but I am almost certain this page exists and my google-fu is continually failing me.
    - hga 11y ago
      How about this: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gel...
      - nickysielicki 11y ago
        Yes! That's it! Thank you! I'm amazed that this is actually not an established theory, as I believed it to be. It explains why this doesn't have a wikipedia article, because it's really just the musing of some guy. http://english.stackexchange.com/posts/244277/revisions http://english.stackexchange.com/posts/244277/revisions
        hga 11y ago
        I think it's pretty well established, for example, Heinlein writes about the same concept in his 1980 Expanded Universe (and it might have been from the text in an earlier version), saying the news magazine Time, I think it was, had never gotten it right in the situations he had eye-witnessed. Thing is, it's just not going to be acknowledged by large groups of people; for example Wikipedians won't like it because it totally undercuts what what they base verifiability on.
  - sevenfive_ 11y ago
    What's your country if you don't mind me asking?
jbattle 11y ago
News in general about Ethiopia is confusing from a distance. When I visited people seemed happy with the government and you could see concrete (literally) signs of progress everywhere. Lots of new roads, the new railroad, tons of new schools, the new light rail in Addis, etc. When you read Ethiopian news sites the diaspora is clearly extremely unhappy with the government. Maybe it's just a case where the country has clear winners & losers and your experience of the place has a lot to do with which side you fall on.
- tiwarivivek 11y ago
  if you research enough / know enough / meet enough ethiopians to really form an opinion, you will know that the article is a lot more close to the truth!
tiwarivivek 11y ago
if you research enough / know enough / meet enough ethiopians to really form an opinion, you will know that the article is a lot more close to the truth!
addis_account 11y ago
I've lived in Addis for the past 10+ years. The article is spot on. You say everyone here (i.e. Addis) has internet access. Well, Addis' population is ~3.4 million-- just about 3.7% of the country. And if you moved outside the capital, you'd quickly realize how rare internet access is. I read the article in its entirety, there are some mistakes here and there (the language is "Amharic" not "Aramic") but for the most part I found it accurate. Most certainly not "super overblown".

avocad 11y ago

Same experience here, also from AA. Most of the countryside has also good 3G. Some websites are unreachable though. I am not inclined to comment on the political situation.

selectodude 11y ago

I find Vice is super interesting until they do a story on the place you're from and you realize they have zero idea what they're talking about and the entire article is nonsense. I've stopped reading anything they put out.

differentView 11y ago
This is the same reason I stopped reading The Economist. Great witty writing, until they write about my country and get lots of things wrong. I have to assume it's the same with their articles about industries and places I am not familiar with.
- nickysielicki 11y ago
  My browser history over the past few months is riddled with 20-minute bursts of trying to find the wikipedia page for a certain cognitive fallacy that is related to what you and your parent comment are talking about. The gist of it is that we tend to trust the authority of the media, up until a point where the the media incorrectly or disingenuously reports on something that we are an expert on. This theory disagrees with what you and your parent comment are saying and instead contends that as soon as they switch to another story, we continue to trust their authority on other topics without any kind of diminished reputation. I feel like I'm going crazy, but I am almost certain this page exists and my google-fu is continually failing me.
  - hga 11y ago
    How about this: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gel...
    - nickysielicki 11y ago
      Yes! That's it! Thank you! I'm amazed that this is actually not an established theory, as I believed it to be. It explains why this doesn't have a wikipedia article, because it's really just the musing of some guy. http://english.stackexchange.com/posts/244277/revisions http://english.stackexchange.com/posts/244277/revisions
      - hga 11y ago
        I think it's pretty well established, for example, Heinlein writes about the same concept in his 1980 Expanded Universe (and it might have been from the text in an earlier version), saying the news magazine Time, I think it was, had never gotten it right in the situations he had eye-witnessed. Thing is, it's just not going to be acknowledged by large groups of people; for example Wikipedians won't like it because it totally undercuts what what they base verifiability on.
- sevenfive_ 11y ago
  What's your country if you don't mind me asking?

jbattle 11y ago

News in general about Ethiopia is confusing from a distance. When I visited people seemed happy with the government and you could see concrete (literally) signs of progress everywhere. Lots of new roads, the new railroad, tons of new schools, the new light rail in Addis, etc. When you read Ethiopian news sites the diaspora is clearly extremely unhappy with the government. Maybe it's just a case where the country has clear winners & losers and your experience of the place has a lot to do with which side you fall on.

tiwarivivek 11y ago
if you research enough / know enough / meet enough ethiopians to really form an opinion, you will know that the article is a lot more close to the truth!

tiwarivivek 11y ago

if you research enough / know enough / meet enough ethiopians to really form an opinion, you will know that the article is a lot more close to the truth!

addis_account 11y ago

I've lived in Addis for the past 10+ years. The article is spot on. You say everyone here (i.e. Addis) has internet access. Well, Addis' population is ~3.4 million-- just about 3.7% of the country. And if you moved outside the capital, you'd quickly realize how rare internet access is. I read the article in its entirety, there are some mistakes here and there (the language is "Amharic" not "Aramic") but for the most part I found it accurate. Most certainly not "super overblown".