[OT] life in different places; "to work or not to work?"

[Michael Shigorin]

On Mon, Mar 27, 2006 at 09:04:09PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > I'm only afraid that computer is instrument here, it doesn't
> > change an intention but can rather empower it proportionally.
> > A lot of tools were claimed to change people's intentions
> > but never did.
> A computer is just a tool, like all tools, and the only thing
> that ever caused someone to change their mind is knowledge and
> communication. Let's not forget that the true value of the
> Internet and the computers that power it is increased
> communication

Yes; and people mentioned above that the infrastructure is rather
weak or absent.

I'm looking at outbound traffic counter here on ftp.linux.kiev.ua
(which seems to run over 1.7TB for March) and wonder what's
happening short of FC5 that the usual numbers have doubled.

Seems like IP infrastructure gets built throughout Ukraine (where
we have significantly better connectivity than with the rest of
the world; I mean ftp's IX and "world" shapers).

OTOH communication means people; I've read with quite some
interest the USENET archives when there were no "common people"
there, or kind of.  Don't know whether will it all scale...
What do we want from communication?  How much can we help and
not get buried under a bandwagon of unread mail?

> Just like folks elsewhere

Thanks.

> > Some came to frustration following their way through science
> > -- seeing how it doesn't help to live one's life.  I've seen
> > highly educated people in monasteries whose parents would
> > wounder aloud why break the carrier but who were happier --
> > and I believe better -- there.
> And I've seen highly educated people who didn't give up too.

Hm, I didn't mean "gave up".  But it depends on what purpose
one's seeing in science, personally.  I've used it to understand
how the world is working.

> I think people who fall off the deep end in life are going to
> do it no matter what. A smart unstable person in an educated
> society will go to university, get overwhelmed and lose his
> marbles. A smart unstable person in an uneducated society will
> go to primary school, get overwhelmed and lose his marbles. In
> either case he loses his marbles, and it's the person himself
> that's unstable

Thanks, you've largely complemented what I've been thinking of
aloud here. :-)

Then learning what's that "unstable" and getting rid of it before
it gets rid of one's marbles might be more important than formal
education.

> > Don't think all science of the world is worth a single
> > life...  Don't think it's going anywhere.
> That doesn't make much sense - science is discovery of
> knowledge about how the universe works, I don't see how it
> directly makes quality of life go up or down.

Keywords: life -- poverty -- education -- science.
I mean this thread, of course.

> And people have been looking at the world, figuring stuff
> out and using it for as long as there have been people.

Yup.

-- 
 ---- WBR, Michael Shigorin <mike at altlinux.ru>
  ------ Linux.Kiev http://www.linux.kiev.ua/