Open minded?

As is my wont upon finding a new blog to read, I've been working my way through the Treppenwitz archives over the last week or so. Tonight, I ran across a post that made me think (well, many of his posts do, but they don't necessarily jar loose an interesting thought in *my* head). Briefly, he was mentioning that his 'reading list' of other blogs/etc. on his links sidebar was much more diversified than his normal reading/interactions, lending him a much more balanced view of things... being surrounded by people just like you can be an intellectually dull experience, neh?

While his arguments are entirely correct, I found myself bothered by a nagging thought. (Before I go off on my tangent, this really is no reflection on treppenwitz, but rather on technological society as a whole. He just made me think about it. ;) ) Sure, the internet (and reading diverse blogs/etc. with it) provide for a much broader exposure to people and ideas... but is it really that broad? According to an unverified link I just googled, only about 800 million people have access to the internet, and roughly 2/3 of those speak European languages (the remainder use Mandarin or Japanese, mostly). The exact numbers don't really matter much, as I think you can all see where this is headed.

The internet has allowed me to interact extensively with people around the world. But being honest with myself, the list of countries of most of the people I interact with can be narrowed to the US, Canada, Europe, Anglo countries (NZ/Australia/etc.), and Israel. That's not really such a big spread, neh? I'll admit that Western countries tend to have a decent bit of diversity in them (a wide range of political/religious/ethnic/racial/etc. backgrounds), but this is still a depressingly limited subpopulation of the world. Thus, even for 'broad spectrum' people such as the aforementioned treppenwitz, our circle of knowledge and experience is sharply circumscribed.

What are the consequences of this? Some people would suggest it's a temporary blip in the internet phenomenon, as it becomes increasingly easy for anyone in the world to get online, but I am skeptical. Much of the world hasn't even seen a computer, let alone know how to navigate one (or know enough of one of the 'global' languages to find the internet useful or interesting). I think this is yet another example of the world's increasing segregation into technological 'haves' and 'have-nots'. We've seen some of this even in the US - children growing up in extreme poverty (by US standards, at least) are not obtaining the neccesary computer skills to get jobs of any substance, deeping the economic divide. (I should mention that the problem has been noted and people are trying to address it in Western countries, with mixed funding and results, but the problem exists.) Have you tried talking to anyone who hasn't grown up with IMing, email, and readingly accessible information? I use the internet for everything - keeping in touch with friends and family, planning events/travel/outings, directions, news, entertainment, education, employment... everything. (Let's ignore the generations in technological societies that precede my own generation - the principle is the same, just we'd have to talk about cars and phones and television instead. The internet is just a really good model.)

How much more can this problem be seen on the global scale? Billions of people are steadily falling behind the pace of industrialization. Many people have suggested that the third world will experience a 'quantum leap' of technology sometime soon, bring them into direct competition with more established industrial markets (e.g. the development of cell networks in countries that never had landlines), but I wonder if this will really happen.

Despite all of the recriminations and politicking involved in the media today, the 'developed' world really hangs together, and is in direct opposition to the 'undeveloped' countries. Europe, N. America, and a handful of Asian countries stand together on a number of important economic issues (G8 summits, anyone?), while they argue amongst themselves about matters that do not fundamentally change the balance of power in the world. We'd like to say we're post-colonial and that 'cultural imperialism' is just a way of bringing those underpriveleged regions into the global community, but is that really true?

Thus, the developed, technologically sophisticated, and overwhelmingly dominant world (typifying all of the internet's denizens) is talking to itself, and agreeing on most points. Sure there are bleeding liberals complaining about the third world (er... I guess I'm one of them?), while there are crazy conservatives trying to conquer/kill/subjugate them, but they are all fundamentally technologically sophisticated viewpoints (I'd hesitate to say 'Western'). If you could actually talk to a Bushman or a farmer in Bangladesh, what would they say? What would their take be on the world? I'd suspect it would have startling similarities to our own views, but would also reveal great conceptual divides.

How can this divide be bridged? I honestly don't know. The obvious solution is to spread the internet to the remotest corners of the world, and let globalization take place. Yet I am rather skeptical that this is going to occur in any reasonable period, given the complete lack of decent infrastructure investment in undeveloped countries. The internet has reached everywhere, but in many places it is used only by a priveleged technological caste that has little relationship to the rest of the country - really just postcolonial extensions of economic power.

Will the majority of the world continue to be ignored and relegated to a communication backwater? This could have disturbing ramifications for the future...

(A note: I'm not making any claims about the relative merits of cultures and ideas. Maybe I'll completely disagree with that Bangladeshi farmer's viewpoint. But without his input, he and his kind are completely excluded from the discourse of a global community that is increasingly making far-reaching decisions as a group.)