Re: phones and human welfare
--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: awhile back, a pen-pal from Bolvia forwarded a message from Chile. There, the home of the first neo-liberal revolution (in 1973) -- the cult of the cell phone had gone so far that some drivers had whittled fake ones out of wood so that they could look as if they were talking on the phone while driving. (They needed the cars, but couldn't afford the phones.) In the US, cell phones are taking over. But text-messaging came after a delay of a few years, compared to Europe. --- I just got out of the (spectacularly non-collapsed) Moscow metro, and the walls of the wagons are virtually coated with ads for cell phone service providers, dating services you access via your mobile phone, numbers you call to set the melody that goes off when it rings (including the Soviet Anthem and the Song of the Young Pioneers). It seems like maybe half of the Russian pop songs out there either allude to cell phones or the Internet, sometimes mixing it up with Soviet imagery (as when, e.g., punk-ska band Leningrad updates the classic Soviet pop song My Address Is the Soviet Union with My address is www.leningradspb.ru). Speaking of which, something which I find very interesting as a foreigner is the mixture of the old and the new in pop culture. For instance, MTV Russia plays a mix of about 30% foreign and 70% Russian-language music videos, but they have a special program whoch is 100% Russian. The logo is the MTV trademark placed inside the leaves of grain that contained the hammer and sickle in the Soviet seal, over a moving background of cosmonauts and Red Stars. MTV Russia also shows old Soviet cartoons. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: phones and human welfare
--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: it seems to me that cell phones are at best a mixed blessing. (I have one, but I hate it: it rings when I'm driving, so I either have to pull over to talk or drive in a risky way. This morning it interrupted a good song by Townes Van Zandt.) They are only really necessary if the land-line system is broken for some reason. If you see phones as part of some sort of human development index, it would be as cell phones _plus_ access to land-lines or something like that. --- Russia practically has a full-fledged cult of the mobile phone. About half the population has one (as opposed to about 5% in 1998). It's a social symbol that says you're part of the middle class, even if you really aren't. People practically organize their lives around those things. There are dating services run through mobile phones in Russia (maybe this is true in the US nowadays too -- I haven't been back there in years). __ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo
Re: phones and human welfare
Chris D writes: Russia practically has a full-fledged cult of the mobile phone. About half the population has one (as opposed to about 5% in 1998). It's a social symbol that says you're part of the middle class, even if you really aren't. People practically organize their lives around those things. ... awhile back, a pen-pal from Bolvia forwarded a message from Chile. There, the home of the first neo-liberal revolution (in 1973) -- the cult of the cell phone had gone so far that some drivers had whittled fake ones out of wood so that they could look as if they were talking on the phone while driving. (They needed the cars, but couldn't afford the phones.) In the US, cell phones are taking over. But text-messaging came after a delay of a few years, compared to Europe. Speaking of which, I remember reading a science fiction short story a long time ago (early 1960s?) in which everyone had a portable phone (on their wrists, like Dick Tracy) and spent all day talking on the phone rather than actually getting anything done. jim devine
phones and human welfare
[was: RE: [PEN-L] Cuba: siempre con combate] Ulhas writes: 75% Singaporeans, 50% Malaysians 33% of Thais have cell phones. How many cell phones Cuba has? it seems to me that cell phones are at best a mixed blessing. (I have one, but I hate it: it rings when I'm driving, so I either have to pull over to talk or drive in a risky way. This morning it interrupted a good song by Townes Van Zandt.) They are only really necessary if the land-line system is broken for some reason. If you see phones as part of some sort of human development index, it would be as cell phones _plus_ access to land-lines or something like that. In any event, there's no way one could reduce human welfare to either cell phones or all phones. jim devine
Re: phones and human welfare
The point I think Ulhas is driving at is the really interesting thing in those HDI statistics; Cuba has managed to achieve first world life expectancy and literacy on a GDP of just over $5k per head. I think that the next lowet on the list is close to $8k. That's the really interesting thing to me, and probably the one that would appeal to socialists of the spartan back-to-nature tendency; it is apparently possible to live about as many quality-adjusted life years as an average British person without having the whole ghastly apparatus. dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Devine, James Sent: 23 July 2004 00:45 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: phones and human welfare [was: RE: [PEN-L] Cuba: siempre con combate] Ulhas writes: 75% Singaporeans, 50% Malaysians 33% of Thais have cell phones. How many cell phones Cuba has? it seems to me that cell phones are at best a mixed blessing. (I have one, but I hate it: it rings when I'm driving, so I either have to pull over to talk or drive in a risky way. This morning it interrupted a good song by Townes Van Zandt.) They are only really necessary if the land-line system is broken for some reason. If you see phones as part of some sort of human development index, it would be as cell phones _plus_ access to land-lines or something like that. In any event, there's no way one could reduce human welfare to either cell phones or all phones. jim devine
Re: phones and human welfare
Devine, James wrote: In any event, there's no way one could reduce human welfare to either cell phones or all phones. 300 million Indians watch CTVs today, but I know there is no way one could reduce human welfare to CTVs. Ulhas Yahoo! India Careers: Over 65,000 jobs online Go to: http://yahoo.naukri.com/
