Subject: RE: Sobering Stats to Contemplate

From: John Schinnerer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 08:40:27 -0700

Aloha,

-----Original Message-----
From: Toby Hemenway [mailto:[email-masked]]

>I was idly leafing through a copy of Forbes yesterday, and read that
>"over 300 million computers are in use today." That means, given a
>population of 5-6 billion, that not 1, but 5 or 6 of our villagers would
>own a computer. 

I think this quote is most relevant (I always heard it attributed as an old,
old journalists' saying, myself):

>Mark Twain (via Disraeli): "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned
>lies, and statistics."

Where I work, there are several hundred computers that are "in use," but not
by any one person and not owned by them either - there are certainly far
more computers than employees at our location.  I suspect the majority of
computers in the computerized world (a very very small part of the world)
are not owned by nor accessible to any individual "villager."  

So it all comes down to lies, damned lies, statistics *and* semantics.  

A number of years ago a small-scale dryland taro farmer I was briefly
working for asked me if a home computer would be useful for his farming
work.  I came up with all sorts of uses for one...but were I answering that
question now, I'd say "I doubt it, except for keeping your books if they're
complicated enough to warrant it."  What he had that was most valuable was
his living, embodied knowledge of his soil, plants, weather and so on - a
computer would only get in his way in that realm.

John Schinnerer

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From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 12:42:26 -0400 (EDT)

> computer would only get in his way in that realm.

And other than what he taught you and others by word of mouth (did you
write it all down or tape record it?) that body of knowledge will pass on
with him when he dies. Had he a computer and an ISP he could have shared/
recorded/syntheszed that knowledgebase with the rest of the world. Quite a
difference. His asking if he needed a computer probably indicated that
he has the capability of learning to use one.