Coming Soon: The $30 Pay-Per-View Movie

[Feanor]

I dunno. Life expectancy is higher, even much of the poor have TV, internet, smartphones. Most welfare programs now consider internet service in the basket of necessities in needs calculations. Huge advantage over previous generations just in the access to information/education the internet provides.
...

The other thing is here is that it is ridiculous to imply that availability of gadgets equates with quality of life.

The 22 year old might well have a unlimited data iPhone plan, but what is that when his Wal-Mart job ensures that he afford nothing but hoodies and live in his parents' basement.

[kexodusc]

The other thing is here is that it is ridiculous to imply that availability of gadgets equates with quality of life.

The 22 year old might well have a unlimited data iPhone plan, but what is that when his Wal-Mart job ensures that he afford nothing but hoodies and live in his parents' basement.

I suppose it is a bit better than the coal-mine job that affords you nothing but overalls so you can live in your parents' basement with no availability of gadgets.

Your profiling aside, the availability of the gadgets I mentioned are pretty significant in that ability to work with such technology is probably essential for employment going forward, and the only thing ridiculous here is how fast you brush aside the advantage of being connected to the single greatest source of information our race has produced. Whether they choose to take advantage of it to educate and better themselves, or use it to tell everyone on facebook what they just ate doesn't diminish the potential. Hardly trivial. Pretty sure kids a generation ago didn't all have a library and encyclopedias on the mantle.

Sheesh.

[Feanor]

....
Your profiling aside, the availability of the gadgets I mentioned are pretty significant in that ability to work with such technology is probably essential for employment going forward, and the only thing ridiculous here is how fast you brush aside the advantage of being connected to the single greatest source of information our race has produced. Whether they choose to take advantage of it to educate and better themselves, or use it to tell everyone on facebook what they just ate doesn't diminish the potential. Hardly trivial. Pretty sure kids a generation ago didn't all have a library and encyclopedias on the mantle.

Sheesh.

Fine. Yes, information applicances are a great thing, I won't deny. In a recent Nat Geo issue I saw that the average in the poorest countries for land-line 'phones is 1/100 people; for cell phones it's 22/100 -- that's almost decent and it's got to be very liberating for those people.

However Facebook goes only so far when you work at Wal-Mart or McDonalds.