email on Thu, 27 Nov 2003 08:10:05 +0100 (CET)


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Re: <nettime> People offline [2x]


> Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 06:06:23 -0500
> From: Keith Hart <HART_KEITH@compuserve.com>
> Subject: <nettime> People offline
> 
> Steve,
> 
> Good luck with your research. Your post reminded me that I am trying to
> put together an article for a Brazilian journal on "the anthropology of
> the internet".
> 
> What interests me is less the digital divide between people with and
> without access to the internet, but how what we do offline influences
> what we do on it.


Actually, one of my websites makes obvious the implications to the world 
community of gaining internet access. That site is 
http://InternetBrides.Info, one of many, many websites dealing with  brides 
for to men who can afford them.

It's one thing to get a photo of ones'self and snail mail it to Cherry 
Blossoms with a letter. Internet access changes things around: She can 
receive a reply from a USA gentleman and reply to it. In many countries, 
mail delivery is unreliable. 

Now, more people immigrate to New York City from the Dominican Republic 
than from any other country. Saturate Burkina Faso with internet access 
(computers, lines, and digital cameras to take the ladies' pictures) and 
the standard of living in Burkina Faso will double. (The official language 
in Burkina Faso, a country I pick arbitrarily, partly to be exotic, is 
French. Burkina Faso women who can write a letter in French can try to find 
husbands in New York, among the West African immigrant community, and also 
in Canada)  The ladies marry and emigrate, then start sending money home 
from their hotel housekeeping gigs, etc. to support their family members 
back home. 

There are also implications for the gene pool. Internet brides help shuffle 
the deck. 

Two of my websites, -- http://periodicos.ws and http://UnionizeWalMart.ws 
reflect the universal availability of Samoanic ccTLD names. Translated into 
English, the .ws is the country-code top level domain for Samoa, formerly 
Western Samoa. You don't have to live in Samoa to register a .ws domain 
name. Samoa reaps revenue from a contract by which they license out their 
ccTLD, and they use the revenue to expand internet access in Samoa.

Now, if other ccTLD managers apply this same strategy, licensing out their 
ccTLD's if necessary or making their domain names available universally, by 
direct registration, and using the funds to expand internet access within 
their respective territories, more lucky ladies will be able to register as 
internet brides and then emigrate to USA and other, developed countries. 

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