Cubans cheer as internet goes nationwide for a day
reuters.com
reuters.com
https://michaelannedye.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/el-paquet...
Really cool talk by two guys who flesh out internet connectivity in Cuba (one of them is a Cuban engineering major at a Cuban university), apparently citizens there may well operate the largest mesh network in the world.
It is impossible to find a dozen people for whom the word freedom means the same thing, in the same way.
I just hope they achieve freedom in their lives.
Measuring Internet Censorship in Cuba's ParkNets https://ooni.torproject.org/post/cuba-internet-censorship-20...
ParkNet: Short Documentary on Internet Censorship in Cuba https://ooni.torproject.org/post/parknet-short-documentary-c...
It's disconnected in a way that you really can't experience anywhere else in the world. Want to change your flight? Too bad. Can't do that. Want to research the next town? Pull out a book or ask somebody.
Going there is like travelling was back in the 90s. You take a bus to the next town, then walk around with your bag asking at various houses if they have any rooms available. The lady at one may direct you a block down to her friend, and it all works itself out.
Better still, go to a restaurant at night, drink a beer and watch the amazing local band playing. And talk to people because nobody is engrossed in their phone. They can't be, because there is no internet. Other places, I can't remember the last time I was able to strike up a conversation with travelers through the barrier of their phone. In Cuba, I was talking to random people every single night. Because that's all there was to do.
It really drives home how much connectivity can wreck things. And it'd be a shame if we lost the last place in the world that still works like that.
"it shouldn't change because I had a good time there" feels pretty slimy
Yes, technological progress/development will potentially bring what you consider downsides with it, which might be the crux of your point, but that's being unable to see the forest for the trees, IMHO
Keep in mind that you added that part yourself, then perhaps you'll understand my sentiment better.
Lots of places in the world are nice now, while simultaneously not being perfect. Pointing out the first bit doesn't imply actively working in opposition of the second part.
Things will open themselves up regardless, and that's fine.
But it's also true that it's really nice there today. I'd recommend going to check it out while there's still time.
There is a lot of Carribbean around to compare the place to, and frankly, it doesn't compare well to present day Cuba as far as quality of life for the average citizen.
As to your personal attack, I don't know... I don't really see anything wrong with enjoying visiting a place. Or with being nostalgic for what a place used to be. I also, for example, think it's a shame that Belltown in Seattle replaced its cool dive bars with trendy restaurants and condos. But it would be a bit silly to blame me for those dive bars having been there in the first place.
If you're worried about the visual appearance of Havana and, just pass NIMBY laws until you're satisfied they can't screw up the "neighborhood feel" too much. These are all solvable problems. Nothing here is reason to keep Cubans impoverished in exile from the world economy.
There already exists a city with rich Americans living in it, buying overpriced Cuban sandwiches from Cuban people. Using that as a handy comparison, I contend that the median Cuban in Havana currently lives a nicer life than the median Cuban in Miami.
They're going to exchange one for the other regardless of how either of us feel about it, because that's how progress always works. But my suspicion is that a few generations down the line the people concerned will regret it.
Have you considered asking them? Their answers might allow you to know their opinions, rather than presuming.
Maybe the answer is finding a way to reconnect networks and physical proximity, like having location-based chatrooms that are somehow automatically joined as you step into a room. This would let people keep control but also give everyone a chance to start conversations.
The USA reimposing embargoes on Cuba seems like the worst thing it can do to try and force liberalisation. 50 years of sanctions has proven to be a complete failure.
I must urge everyone that is against the US taking in refugees to consider that by banning refugees we are trapping people in places most of us would consider to be Hell.
Some of people's criticisms about refugees are totally valid. Unless a person is willing to integrate with their host country's society and accept their culture, you won't be welcomed in. I think that's a very reasonable bar to hold people to.
I haven't seen anyone seriously calling for an outright ban of all refugees, so that seems like a bit of a strawman. Having some kind of limit seems reasonable, and other countries can help to balance things out. I'm not sufficiently educated on the subject to comment on the factors which might've influenced us to reduce our cap. Maybe the number of refugees we accept should be different, I genuinely don't know. But ultimately, not everyone has to come to the US. Why aren't you criticizing all these other countries that barely take in refugees? The US is still accepting a very large number of refugees relative to the rest of the world.
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
What are the valid criticisms? I don't know of any.
>Unless a person is willing to integrate with their host country's society and accept their culture, you won't be welcomed in. I think that's a very reasonable bar to hold people to.
This argument is not convincing to me at all.
I've lived in California, New York, and Florida and if your requirement for refugees is to learn the culture of all these different places I would say it's impossible.
How does people coming to the United States, speaking a different language, eating different food, and holding different beliefs affect your life in any way?
>I haven't seen anyone seriously calling for an outright ban of all refugees, so that seems like a bit of a strawman.
I think this is dishonest. Many people are calling for an outright ban on refugees.
>Why aren't you criticizing all these other countries that barely take in refugees?
Because I'm not a citizen of other countries and I actually believe refugees and immigrants in general are good for this country.
Eventually it becomes South Miami where there are parts where workers don't speak English. Kind of sucks when you try to order from a butcher shop and have to point at the meat and then the grinder.
>>I haven't seen anyone seriously calling for an outright ban of all refugees, so that seems like a bit of a strawman.
>I think this is dishonest. Many people are calling for an outright ban on refugees.
Yea it's impossible to really argue this. Some do yes. Many just want increased vetting.
Language is all I really care about. I don't understand how you can mesh with a society at all if you can't even speak to them. Eat and do whatever the hell you want, at the very least know English though.
Yeah, that would be kinda annoying.
Leaving innocent people to die in a totalitarian hellhole ought to demand a slightly higher bar than "kinda annoying."
Where do you draw the line? There's only 300 million people in the U.S. A quick search reveals that 780 million people don't have access to clean water. What do you do?
And we can't save them all, anyways. If everyone living in a totalitarian regime showed up in the US they would vastly outnumber the current Americans.
Obviously nations have the right to do that. I don't think anyone has said otherwise. Saying "your right to not be tortured and killed by a tyrannical government is less important than my right to prompt convenience at the grocery store" is still a dick move.
I never said that. See my reply to ApolloFortyNine.
> You seem eager to give away other people’s country.
It's my country too, thanks.
Just want to point out, again, that right now you are specifically arguing that convenience at the butcher's is more important than human life. Are you really making your point effectively and convincingly?
Your number only includes resettled refugees, i.e. it doesn’t include asylum seekers who came to the country by their own means. That number would look completely different.
While it’s great that the USA still accepts tens of thousands of resettled refugees, the number per capita is low: only 102 per 1 million residents. There would be room for much more. These resettled people are all thoroughly vetted, and they’ve waited for years in camps in the worst areas of the world. Canada takes in seven times more.
Neighboring countries in conflict regions tend to be most heavily affected by migration as conflict is a primary cause.
Some numbers (also available in the link above) to give perspective:
Country or territory of asylum Refugees per 1 million USD (GDP) Refugees to 1,000 inhabitants
Lebanon 19.48 169.16
Turkey 3.35 36.04
Germany 0.19 8.3
Denmark 0.11 5.89
Canada 0.06 2.68
United States 0.01 0.84This sounds like the case for, not the case against. Yes, we have this proud tradition and it's yet another thing that makes the US exceptional.
From 'The New Colossus' (1883):
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Salvadoran refugees are nothing if not "tempest-tost." And it's likely that the gang warfare over running their country is due in no small part to our countless interventions into central American politics.
Compared to every country in Latin America where US allies had control from the mid-20th century onward, the Cuban people have done very well. They have cheap housing, a cheap and effective healthcare system, cheap transportation, cheap and effective education, etc. Most importantly, they haven’t been subjected to decades of widespread terror by fascist autocrats or bloody civil war, the way many Latin American countries were. In a counterfactual world where Batista was left in charge 60 years ago, it’s hard to imagine the Cuban people would be doing as well as they are.
If US foreign policy in the immediate aftermath of the Cuban Revolution had not been so overtly hostile, and if US policymakers for decades afterward had not been so paranoid and short-sighted, it is quite possible that the Cuban political system would have turned out significantly differently. US attempted invasion, attempted assassinations, crippling embargoes, constant threats, etc. forced the Cuban government into a very defensive posture (both internally and externally), just for self preservation.
I’m not a big fan of the political leadership of Cuba, or the lack of political rights there, but objectively it is a pretty okay place to live (being poor in Cuba is probably better than being poor in the USA). The GP’s characterization as “hell” is likely colored by decades of US (and Cuban-American) propaganda bordering on outright lies.
It was a dictatorship until 1986 and the first elected leader to actually serve a full term without getting overthrown in a coup was Rene Preval (2006-11). Their most recent elections were a mess as well.
At best they're starting to become a democracy.
My Great Great Grandfather left czarist Russia around 1904 (today it is part of Belarus). He was dodging conscription into the Russo-Japanese war. He saved up and was then able to pay for my Great Grandfather to come over at age 13. My Great Grandfather barely missed out on the Bolshevik Revolution. A few years after that Hitler wiped the whole Shetl off the map.
I've been in the states long enough that when someone asks my ancestry "American" is the most reasonable answer. Yet you won't see me succumbing to the vulgar fashion of the nativist nationalists with their anti-refugee, anti-immigrant rhetoric. Unless you're native American, you're a boat person. If I can still see it despite several generations between me and the boat, then others must be purposefully obtuse.
As someone that arguably stands to gain from the redefining of American identity in terms of ancestry, I just got to say these blood and soil people are un-American.
Sometimes it feels like Man will never learn.
Oh, and if you pay almost any amount on a monthly basis towards a medical bill, then that can keep it out of collections too.
Nor I. That might actually be an improvement. What we have instead is people dying because they couldn't afford lifesaving treatment in the first place, and banks taking other people's houses for no reason at all.
I'm curious about this line of thinking. Do you think your specific consciousness was being held in reserve somewhere, and it would have been placed into a mortal body regardless of when you were due to come into being? Plus if your grandfather had stayed in Cuba, who's to say your parents would have still met, started a relationship, and conceived a child?
The way I see it, I only exist because of the exact series of events leading up to that one moment where I was conceived. I exist because of a combination of a specific sperm and a specific egg. All sorts of factors contributed to all of us getting extremely lucky, even up to the final hours, minutes, and seconds before fertilization. We won, and we denied a countless number of other potential minds the privilege of existence.
There's no way to prove it of course, but I feel like a different sperm being responsible for fertilization would have meant I would have never existed at all. My parents would have had a different child with a different consciousness. Even if a specific consciousness is tied to the egg itself, that gives a window based on the menstrual cycle.
No I don't.
I'm afraid that the internet is not as free as it used to be as it reinforces and "locks" you on a culture of individual consumerism over communal well-being.
I can only hope that the internet won't erase from memory what the Cuban revolution was all about.
Maybe the way you choose to use it has changed?
For me, I have more access to free information, than I ever have.
Im trying to not let this fall into a snarky "use Facebook less" reply but it's pretty hard not to when you're making claims like "the internet is not as free as it used to be."
The fact the mainstream signed on and wanted centralised services over many decentralized and democratized services isn't a suprise nor is it an indicator the internet is less free. Simply that it's got some new citizens and they happen to want to do things a different way than you would like.
Don't get me wrong Google, Amazon, Facebook etc having such dominance is frightening and worrying for their own respective and distinct reasons but let's not lazily frame it as the internet being less free.
But back to TCP. Governments have certainly improved their ability to monitor, restrict, and even manipulate that traffic flow. Is the Internet more free? I'm not sure.
Maybe for you - not so for most [1].
But I get your point. There is indeed much more amazing content out there now than there was 15 years ago. If you can squint your eyes just right and focus in between the billboards..
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_survei...