McCain’s ignorance of the internet scares me
Is having a technologically literate president important if we want to remain a technology leader in the world? I think it is. Many of the “founding fathers” of this nation were keenly interested in science and the advancements that applied science could afford their new nation. This interest (and competence) helped form and plot a course of direction for our nation.
The administration of George Bush has been openly hostile to science, going so far as to silence their own scientists when their findings appeared to threaten entrenched industry buddies, and to halt work in areas that might open up new medical breakthroughs when this work seemed to upset the religious right wing fringe groups. A McCain presidency strikes me as lacking in several areas, but one that is important to me as an “information worker” is his total and complete lack of savvy when it comes to the power and importance of the internet. He has had just as much time as any adult in the US to catch up with the internet, yet he has chosen to ignore it. His age is certainly not a factor here because according to Pew, three quarters of white folks over 65 use the internet. John McCain is a Luddite and proud of it, not using email or the internet without a whole lot of help from his more technologically savvy (and much younger) wife. As an average American if you choose to remain ignorant of technological advances, that’s fine with me, but ever since the Information Revolution I think it vital to our national economy and security that we have leaders that understand, will help foster competition in, and can use the power of the internet.
Inspired by this Salon article
Comment posted on 11-1-2008
I get the feeling that McCain’s luddite nature is somewhat overstated in the press. Surely the man known how to read and write email. It’s so easy to do that he’d — as a minimum — learned this simple skill the very first time the media mentioned that he lacked it. Computers are fairly easy to use these days, at least for the basic things that one needs to do. McCain might not be embedding html in his blog comments, but I’m sure he knows how to read the Washington Post and watch the Star Wars Guy on YouTube.