Google's Schmidt: I squeezed Norks to lift web blockade Google chairman Eric Schmidt ended his controversial visit to North Korea by declaring he urged the secretive state to embrace the "free and open internet". Schmidt - no doubt keen to cram ever more online ads into every corner of the globe - argued that the Great Firewall of North Korea, which curbs citizens' web access, …
Perhaps you would not feel as FREE without it. But to be a bit serious, the more people who meet people in North Korea the better. Personally I would send them Donal Duck and Micky Mouse, if you understand what I mean. There are very good reasons to help them out of the very closed society they live in.
>"They have to make it possible for people to use the internet..."Schmidt said
Well, I suspect many of the Nork population would say that their government should make it possible for people to eat, before they worry about access to the interwebs. And as they don't seem to have worried about starving millions, I suspect they won't take much notice of dodgy rich foreign-type person.
(Am I the only person who wonders why chubby little supreme leader can't seem to find a decent barber to give him a less terrible haircut? Were they all executed for saying the wrong thing?)
"could eventually hurt North Korea's economy"
Classic. I was under the impression that thie economy was irreparably harmed already, what with most of the population starving in poverty and their natural resources having been stripped.
For some reason I am put in mind of Judge Death, from 2000AD:
"You cannot kill what doesssss not live"
"Google chairman Eric Schmidt [...] urged the secretive state to embrace the 'free and open internet'. Schmidt [...} - argued that the Great Firewall of North Korea, which curbs citizens' web access, could prove deeply damaging for the country. The search supremo said: 'As the world becomes increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their physical world, their economic growth and so forth.'"
1) Schmidt can't be as stupid as his remarks portray him. But, I suppose, hypocritical sanctimoniousness can do that to anyone.
2) North Korea's current owners are not as stupid as Schmidt thinks they are. So maybe Schmidt really is as stupid as his remarks make him out to be.
While we all know that man does not live by bread alone, Schmidt seems to think that some men do not live by bread at all.
I guess they're not ready to open source state affairs yet.
No, but it suggests that people making a lot of money and not paying much tax on it to the state seem somehow able to convince themselves that that can take over the role of the electorate. If Schmidt wants to play politics he should become a politician instead of buying them, that way he also gets to carry the responsibility that comes with it.
And the tax bill.
The cynical sighing that I'm doing is because I can't get the image out of my head of Schmidt in a meeting room with an attentive crowd of North Korean officials, giving them a powerpoint demo of the effectiveness of using internet to increase their efficiency in spying on the North Korean population.
Up till when you can get your domestic fusion power plant like you get your fridge and electronics are got by the gallon and painted onto everything and the internet is a global full spectrum wireless hum with everything everywhere boosting the signal, well then we will look pretty silly with all our our utility poles (firewood?) and enormous piles of hazardous waste.
"Up till when you can get your domestic fusion power plant like you get your fridge and electronics are got by the gallon and painted onto everything and the internet is a global full spectrum wireless hum with everything everywhere boosting the signal, well then we will look pretty silly with all our our utility poles (firewood?) and enormous piles of hazardous waste."
What language is that? It kinda looks like English but it's not. That might be the most incoherent post that I have ever seen on this site.
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