Speculation
Jun. 4th, 2004 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Consider: if you need expertise, and the experts are reluctant to show up in a violent area, it may become cheaper to provide telepresence than it would be to provide enough security to make them feel safe, or enough hazard pay to make them willing to take the risk.
Telepresence requires that you improve the network infrastructure in the on-site location, and that you have people on site capable of carrying out the recommendations of the telepresent experts. This means that you have an incentive to get your locals to upgrade their networks and their personal skills.
So you have all this bandwidth in use eight hours a day while the experts provide their talent... but the rest of the time, you’ve got all that network capacity going idle, and a bunch of locals who are going to be in the same “let’s explore this nifty new technology” mindset that we’ve all experienced.
It won’t be long before they discover eBay and find some ways to make a little money, and start purchasing outdated used computing hardware, far behind the times for the first world cutting edge, but perfectly adequate for dragging a society into the information age. (Though they’ll still need to get more fundamental basics like food distribution, sanitation, and electricity supply working before anything serious can happen. But it’s in the area of getting those working that these experts will be needed.) Opportunities for education suddenly grow, and for bypassing any communications barriers imposed by the current regime.
Empowering individual entrepeneurs will create more demand for a stable business climate, which will generate more opposition to the terrorists. Overall, a win for sense and stability.
I’m hoping that the people installing networking equipment in Iraq and Saudi Arabia encourage web surfing after working hours.