Having an education is a privilege not a necessity.
It’s a necessity in a democracy. That’s why public schools were invented: uneducated masses are unable to participate in decision-making of their country (yes yes, I realise that in real life education is crap and nobody actually learns anything and democracy is a sham and doesn’t work on human beings, but, I certainly fear the alternatives…).
Again, privilege not a necessity. It is privilege to know that tornado is coming before they actually see it. Whether it be radio, television or the web – all are privileges. I mean the way you sound a time before the internet everything was mere chaos but the thing is people got along just fine.
[font=“comic sans ms”]Staying alive and safe is a privilege and not a right in your country? Where the heck do you live??
Severe weather warning stations were also paid for with tax money because public safety was important. No, tornado and hurricane warnings (and in my country, dike breaches) aren’t considered niceties. Most western governments would disagree with you. Evacuation notices are also considered necessary, and no way no how would anyone in my country consider it a “privilege” for only certain people. But here, they still broadcast emergencies on Radio Rijnmond, and when we had that huge toxic cloud disaster at Moerdijk the website http://www.crisis.nl/ failed entirely (you can see it’s still in a sad, sad state of fail) and hopefully this will keep radio and tv as options (more people have a TV than have internet connection even here).
I have no elaborate rose-coloured fantasies about the Good Old Days. They freakin’ sucked.
But yeah, back in the day, before internets, we had radio. It had these things called “weather reports”, and my point is they are slowly moving to only being online for more and more communities. That’s dangerous.
Public safety is one of those things the government has said everyone gets to have, so it’s one of those things we pay taxes for. How about people without internets don’t have to pay all those silly taxes anymore, if more and more communities decide all public service announcements are available on internet only? That would at least make it more fair.
Yes, only the rich and connected should be warned against severe weather, and after all, staying alive and safe is a privilege and not a right (the UN would disagree with you there about living being a privilege, but on the other hand the only thing the UN is good for is writing angry letters when dictators commit genocide and whatnot). [/font]
More importantly though surely it is the responsibility of the school or teacher to make assignments accessible not the person who developed their software unless they lied to get a sale.
Hahahahahahah… thanks, I needed a good laugh. Or do you really think teachers have control over that sort of thing? Hehe, it’s all bureaucracy, these things are set at state levels and higher. Hahahaha.
As a web based customer you need to be able to access the web. if your not able to access the web than your not a web based customer.
[font=“comic sans ms”]This here is the problem with people confusing capitalism with a form of government. We are not Customers, we are Citizens. We have rights. We demand our governments fear us. Corporations aren’t people, and the relationship between people and the internet is NOT purely commercial, no matter how hard capitalist scumbag corporations try to make us think so (they’re also trying to convince us they created the Internet. Lawlz). Don’t let them brainwash you. I’m not talking about people “needing cable tv” so they can catch the ball game. I’m talking about how society works and how it’s changing. Entertainment is, indeed, about customers and corporations, and I don’t give a flying foo about that (mostly because I can safely believe it’s all Justin Bieberish rubble).
Now I realise your response was about banking. Do you think adults living on their own can survive without being able to use a bank account (server didn’t go far enough, I’m not talking about mere “discounts as a web customer”, I’m talking about how our local branches are all closing in favour of internet banking and if you don’t have internets you get to travel to the other end of the province to talk to a human)??? You can (correctly) argue that “having a bank account isn’t a right” but you can’t seriously live without it. No, Last Man Standing doesn’t count.[/font]
[…common things people do…]All are accessible in some form without the internet.
Less and less so. Like my recent contacts with the government. Nothing is (legally) preventing (public) services from moving entirely online, and budgets are always tight aren’t they? and it’s always cheaper to move everything online, and replace your secretary with some automated chat bot, and therefore inaccessible to those not connected. That’s my point.
but…
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Re: researching medical data online: frankly, there’s a high ratio of crap to actual facts regarding medicine online. I don’t like anyone without medical training researching stuff online. It’s where you get garbage like that Yahoo Answers where someone asks “My teeth are kinda loose and hurt. What might it be?”
Instead of recommending the person go to a freakin dentist, the “top-rated” answer was “You probably have scurvy. Eat more fruits.” The internets is full of derp-tards and our piss-poor education systems are not teaching people how to do research or how to think or how to review information critically. People tend to believe everything they read. They think if it’s on Wikipedia or J-random-health-blog, it must be true. Plus it matches what someone’s sister’s roomate’s boyfriend’s aunt’s chihuahua’s symptoms were this one time. It’s where the “vaccines cause autism” rumours spread in, the cesspool of the uninformed and uneducated.
Same here. I can either rant to myself alone in a dark corner or I can rant in a discussion with smart people like oddz on my privileged internets… and yes, here, I agree it’s certainly a privilege, and one I don’t take lightly.
Psh, nobody gives a foo about accessibility. It ranks somewhere around which shade of brown is healthiest for turds of sewer rats.