From: jon@afs.com (Jonathan Hendry)
Subject: Re: Why freedom of information must be garenteed!!! (long)
Distribution: USA
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 16:14:07 GMT

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Anyone with a computer can access the net. 

The net is the free-est (free in terms of liberty, not money) information  
source in existence. Nobody tells me what to write or not write. 

In your scenario, if the net were brought down, the only outlets for mass  
dissemination of information would be TV, Radio, and the print media. These  
venues are REALLY controlled by the rich. Just try calling up CNN and telling  
them you want to run a commercial.

Through what other medium can a person express his views around the globe at  
such a low cost?

Taking the net away would be a drastic mistake. Also, you are wrong about your  
assumptions of who has net access. I have seen postings from people in the  
former Soviet Union and Africa. You forget that many people on the net are  
getting their feeds from colleges and universities. They may be dirt-poor with  
a free-ride scholarship.

Also, you don't take into account the most likely format of a universal  
network. It will probably be a government-owned and subsidized network like the  
one we have now, but with ethernet wiring in the home.

The problem is not control, but distribution. The only things keeping poor  
people from the net are their nation's economy and infrastructure, their (lack  
of?)education, and their lack of knowledge of the existence and benefits of the  
net. Lee Iacocca and Ross Perot isn't losing sleep worrying that poor people in  
Haiti might start posting to the Net.

You also forget that there are very rich people who would only become richer if  
everyone on earth had a computer. I think Bill Gates would sell Windows for $1  
if they could get everyone on the planet to have one. That's still five billion  
dollars, guaranteed. And if everyone had a computer, and had net access, then  
distribution and media would be essentially free.

I think the poor people in the world have more important things to worry about,  
like where their next meal is coming from, or how they are going to get their  
sick children to the doctor who is thirty miles away and there's no car. They  
won't miss the fact that they aren't getting their daily dose of  
alt.buddha.short.fat.guy.

Pulling everyone's access to the net (in a larger aspect than this net) just  
because some people can't have it is positively asinine, and would accomplish  
nothing, except the  instantaneous crumbling of the world's economies. It's  
like you're saying that Americans shouldn't drive cars because the millions of  
Chinese people have to ride bicycles. Yet, those millions of Chinese people  
ride bikes while millions of Africans walk. Should the Chinese people lose  
their bikes, too? And of course, there are millions who cannot walk...

Millons of people cannot afford to go to college. Does this mean no one should? 

Should the world be universally brought to the lowest common denominator?
Believe what you want, but I think not. I also think your whole premises is  
flawed. Some information is more valuable with wide distribution. Some is  
valuable only with limited distribution. Some is downright dangerous to have  
widely distributed.
Also, you say:
	
	"If information is free then no one will be able to horde
	 resorces and no one will go hungy"

Information is good, but it's not money.

Try this: go down to McDonalds. Walk up to the counter and order some food.  
When the woman asks for money, say
" Pi equals 3.1419"
See what happens.
I may know how to make a hamburger. I may know where to get the ingredients.
But somewhere, there is going to be a guy saying:
"That'll be $3.17. You want fries with that?"

--
Jonathan Hendry  Anderson Financial Systems
jon@afs.com  (Nextmail Welcome!) or hendryjw@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu