Internet Access as a Human Right

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here's an article about internet access as a human right.

I feel that human rights come in groups.  There are survival needs (food, water, health care, etc.).  There are sanity needs (freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom to marry, etc.).  And then there are the things that a society expects people to have in order to function as

Comments

[xiphias]

Are libraries an adequate way of providing this access

[ankewehner]

Last time I was at my local library (which was 2 or 3 years ago, admittedly), the only computer terminals they had were for searching their catalogue only.

[xiphias]

You're German, right?

The ONE thing that the United States does better than ANY other country in the world is libraries. Our health care sucks (although, with luck, in five years we may be where the rest of the world was thirty years ago), our food and water safety is terrible, our criminal "justice" system rivals Stalinist Russia -- but our libraries are better than any other libraries on the planet.

[siege]

At my local library, there are four or five computer stations specifically for searching the catalog, and about forty for internet access and general use, including a half-dozen or so set up for Spanish-speaking residents, next to the international book and magazine section.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Libraries are better than nothing. However, most libraries are chronically underfunded. Unless they get more funding (and space, and equipment, etc.) then it's not fair to heap a whole new universal providence on them.

>>Self-education doesn't count in our modern world, because the important thing is that you can DOCUMENT that you've taken a course, rather than that you actually have the knowledge and skills.<<

I am frankly waiting for society to tell the ivory towers to fuck the hell off with their life-destroying debt degrees. I'm in favor of education, but I think that being able to do the work is far more important than any degree. So I'm hoping that small businesses will hire people based on skills rather than paperwork, and make it possible again to get a job without having to hock your future on a gamble that maybe someone will hire you.

Re: Well...

[xiphias]

Libraries are better than nothing. However, most libraries are chronically underfunded. Unless they get more funding (and space, and equipment, etc.) then it's not fair to heap a whole new universal providence on them.It's what they WANT to be doing, though. A great deal of the work being done in librarianship is in precisely this area. Librarians see this as EXACTLY what their job is