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Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.

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HOW MANY DIFFERENT WAYS DO I HATE MOBILE PHONES…....?

Honestly, I can’t count…....

But, every one of those ways in which I detest cellphones is matched by a reason that I love (even more strongly) liberty.

Now, cognitive dissonance has arrived for me—because it appears that liberty, and attendant social progress, for Africa may very well be tied to the development of mobile phone networks.

Don’t believe it?

Cell phones have transformed rural Kenya, according to the BBC. Samizdata notes that it is a revolution that people are comparing to the switch between dictatorship and democracy or the discovery of fire.

We watched a deeply impressed BBC reporter, Paul Mason, being told by a black lady (who I rather think may have been one of the authors of this report) that indeed, mobile phones are having an impact upon Africa comparable to the switch from dictatorship to democracy - she mentioned other technology as well, like fire, the wheel and the railways - and that the mobile phone industry provided a model for progress in other areas of African life, such as education and healthcare. Her message to the governments of Africa: get out of the way, at let the business people do these things, and the people pay for these things, themselves

That’s from THE BELMONT CLUB, and he links to a genuinely ASTOUNDING VIDEO where Mason interviews Kenyans ranging from a tomato farmer who avoids being robbed by his middleman because now he can check Nairobi prices on his phone, to a female Masai schoolteacher who hires herders for her cattle and bought them a phone so she can check on how they’re doing whenever she wants…...plus, they can call her should an emergency arise.

It’s not just in Kenya—wherever this technology has penetrated, economic development and social change is spreading…....

Wow. I may never HAVE a cellphone (we’ll see), but my attitude is definitely a lot less “set” when I think about them, and about their impact on humankind.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/14 at 06:00 PM

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