I TYPED this on my phone and sent it by email and will enthusiastically Google to see if it gets published and I did this because I know how to use the technology but many don’t and now they won’t have the opportunity to learn.
The younger people are digital natives, able to do everything online but unable to get off their devices. Older people like me might have learnt at some time although I never had the opportunity to touch a computer until I went to university. That “Tandy TRS-80 Model I” wouldn’t be of much use now!
It is unfair if people are prevented from now learning how to use them but United States President Donald Trump had ended the Digital Equity Act, calling it “racist” and “illegal”. It would be racist and illegal to deny people any form of education based upon their race.
There may be a racial factor here because there are still inequalities in the opportunities that different people in the US have for so many reasons but that is what should be remedied and this Act was one small contribution.
I see no reason why educating people is illegal. This seems to bear some resemblance to the days when slaves were rarely taught to read and write, with it even being illegal in some states.
Maybe I shouldn’t read the papers or online newspapers as it upsets me to see people being denied basic rights by President Trump.
***
Go home now, you learned visitors
The welcome at Ellis Island, New York, has for over 100 years stated, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
But now someone has used a black Sharpie marker to add “unless they want to go to Harvard.”
Australia has over 100 students there at the moment, and despite Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggesting Harvard was “fostering violence, anti-Semitism, and co-ordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”, I doubt this involves Australia students, nor the other overseas visitors. The Australian students will be studying hard, as they tell their parents, or having a few beers, the more likely reality.
Doesn’t the US Constitution have a First Amendment that protects “freedom of speech” even if Harvard was speaking inappropriately – which they aren’t – or has it been crossed out with that big black Sharpie marker?
Harvard University has a great reputation built over almost 400 years; Trump University didn’t last a decade.
Come to Australia, we have a number of great universities and you will be welcomed.
***
It’s still hot air
Bitcoin has again passed $US100,000 but is it worth a single cent?
As I sit reading about the value of Bitcoin, I see favorable predictions for its future but I still can’t use it to pay for the coffee I am slowly drinking.
The article does contains warning about the volatility of cryptocurrency in general but doesn’t place too much emphasis on it being just a piece of fiction, a computer’s algorithm pulling in so many hopeful followers.
Like most retired baby boomers I have some money available to invest but am more likely to put that into the stock market, another often volatile investment, but one based on companies that make or lose real currencies. I also pay for proper financial advice and Bitcoin has never been suggested.
It might be the grumpiness of old age but I am not going near crypto currencies out of common sense and fear, and only laugh at the idea of paying for a meme including those from President Trump.
It’s like a balloon; it doesn’t matter whether it’s a big or small balloon, apart from appearances, as it’s still just full of hot air.
***
Ban the bans, solve the problem
The US Congress has passed a new law, the “Take It Down Act” with bipartisan support. This law makes it illegal to post “revenge porn” of any form. Nobody can deny the intention of the law but is it too late to work online?
There are two issues to solve hereL: 1) how to stop, find and remove images; and 2) the difficulty of effectively banning anything.
Stopping, or restricting access to, porn is a very difficult task, given the number of reports of young people seeing images that they shouldn’t at their age. There are pay sites and then the swamp that social media feeds, and as soon as one is blocked a dozen others appear. Parental or school restrictions will usually be bypassed without seconds by the digital natives that most young people are.
History is replete with attempts to impose bans and their failure. The banning of alcohol and drugs generally failed.
The banning of slavery has been moderately but not completely successful.
Even the banning of reading and education in general, usually for women only, are difficult to enforce except in the horrors of fiction with “The Handmaid’s Tale”.
Despite these difficulties it is imperative to try to solve these problems, so this is one step in the right direction./PN
