[extropy-chat] How to bring down repressive regimes...

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Chris Phoenix <cphoenix at CRNano.org> wrote:
> Here's one possibility: Drop a large number of
> small, solar-powered, 
> grid-networking computer/communication devices with
> built-in cameras all 
> over the country.  Put Internet portals just outside
> the borders, and/or 
> drop a few satellite links inside.  Instant free
> press!  How long could 
> a repressive regime survive if everyone could
> document and publish 
> everything in real time?  Consider how fax machines
> changed the dynamic 
> of Tiananmen Square.  Rodney King... Vietnam War...
> heck, all the way 
> back to Gandhi in India--he knew how to use the
> press!
> 
> Anyone want to calculate how much it'd cost to build
> a million of these 
> things within five years, including R&D?  Remember
> that you'll have 
> technology 4.5 years better than today's, including
> OLEDs, inkjet 
> circuitry, and polymer solar cells.  And much of the
> R&D could probably 
> come from Open Source and assorted idealist
> hobbyists.  A good first 
> guess might be obtained by plotting a price curve
> for camera cell phones.

Didn't we discuss this exact plan a month or two
back?  I think it came to about $20 million for, say,
a country the size of North Korea.  Very little R&D
needed: the more advanced PDAs available off the
shelf today meet almost all the needs as is, and there
are solar panel chargers for them also available off
the shelf.  Long range wireless adaptors, too
(satellite, even), if one is concerned about range.
Most of the R&D would be writing software to educate
the peasants (or "uneducated subsistence farmers")
about how to use the device, starting with basic
literacy (not computer literacy, though that comes
later) and concepts like making sure the solar panels
get long periods of sunlight when the PDA runs low on
power.  (This would have to be balanced with something
to make them realize what they have and why it's worth
learning to use.)