No Email. No WhatsApp. No Internet. This Is Now Normal Life In Kashmir. (buzzfeednews.com) 113
Normal life has ground to a halt in the disputed Himalayan region as businesses lay off workers, hospitals struggle to care for patients, and ordinary people despair. Pranav Dixit, reporting for BuzzFeed News: Since August 5, Indian authorities have kept the people of Kashmir in a digital blackout, restricting most internet access. At 205 days and counting, it's the longest-running internet shutdown in any democracy so far, seven months in March. That means no email. No WhatsApp. No maps. And no weather.
Dot com burst (Score:1, Interesting)
Too late to claim it's a dot com burst?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sorry. I can't read your post because you don't use the internet, Mr. Amishperson.
Re: (Score:1)
YP and payphones are useless fast when they shut down the landlines again.
Re: (Score:3)
I remember having to use Yellow Pages, payphones, encyclopedia, write letters on paper, play outside, and so forth. .... I would love life to go back to preinternet.
I remember all that too, and I wouldn't want to go back to the way things were. Hell no.
Yes, the internet contains and enables a lot of shit, but it's also provided a wealth knowledge and help.
Almost anything you need to know within reason can be found with a few keystrokes. We dreamed of something like this when I was young, and there is no fucking way I want to go back to the Dark Ages.
Re: (Score:3)
GIS and Shazam are literally like having a superpower.
Imagine back in the 80s, having a picture of some celebrity whose name you didn't know. What would you do with it? How would you find out who it is? Imagine photocopying the picture, stapling it all over town with your phone number and the question "Do you know who this is?"
The same couldn't even be done for music. How do you even ask what that song that's playing is? You would have to remember exactly what it was, and be able to hum it or recite so
Re: Dot com burst (Score:1)
Who has pictures of celebrities lying around much less care enough to find out who they are apart from pre teen girls and gay men?
As for recognising music - try using the wet mush between your ears, what's left of it.
Re: (Score:2)
Though now that Shazam exists, I rarely find I need it, because the thing playing the music usually has a display so I can see what it is. I needed it more back when I was listening to the radio and tuned in to a song that had already been announced by the deejay beforehand.
Or maybe I'm an old fogey with music tastes set in stone, and I'm just not enthralled by new songs like I used to be.
Re: (Score:2)
Scorn for pop culture and celebrity aside, the idea that I can image search an unfamiliar term (tool, product, food, anything) and instantly be bombarded with a semi-relevant array, a fuzzy knowledge dump, is a perk of the nouveau dystopia fashion.
It may be crude, it may have poor accuracy, but a blast of 20-30 visuals typically aggregates to something at least vaguely useful. If wikipedia is the quick-and-dirty of a topic, an image search is filthy but instantaneous. Tee hee.
Notably, fast enough to use in
Re: (Score:2)
GIS and Shazam are literally like having a superpower
And Google is about the same. In the past, the following questions might have taken weeks to find the answers to. Some you probably would have had to just guess at.
What is the most poisonous spider in South America?
How far is it in feet from Duluth to Barstow?
Approximately how many people are living in Frederick MD today? What about Pompano Beach?
How long does a marmoset live?
What was the 7th movie that Claude Rains was in?
But now all this stuff is now about a minute's worth of typing to find out.
No, I don
Re: (Score:2)
Weeks? Are you kidding? None of this would take more than a trip to a good library. And I grew up with both Great Russian Encyclopedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica in a library less than 1km away.
> What is the most poisonous spider in South America?
It's relatively easy to find a list of poisonous South American spiders in a library. I do not give a flying fuck which one is the most poisonous, just which ones are a threat.
> How far is it in feet from Duluth to Barstow?
Trivial to find. I still have
Re: (Score:2)
Weeks? Are you kidding? None of this would take more than a trip to a good library.
Not all of us have "good libraries" near us, and even the decent libraries wouldn't have a bunch of this stuff. The library also doesn't compare with the ability to ask a question of a specific group who may have a lot of knowledge in that area. (How many wheels does the LNER Class A4 448 have in front?)
Stop making excuses and admit that information is far, far more available more easily today than ever before in history.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I remember having to use Yellow Pages, payphones, encyclopedia, write letters on paper, play outside, and so forth. Our society has done this to itself depending on the internet. I would love life to go back to preinternet.
Too late to claim it's a dot com burst?
Says a person commenting on... the internet.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
"No weather". Like you have to look out through the window. But stupid people still need an Internet weather service to tell what is out. Yesterday, Internet said no snow. Today it is snowing.
A long, LONG time ago when I replaced the radio in my '69 VW Beetle with a digital one, I noticed that there was no way to set AM/PM on the clock. My little brother pointed out that if I'm in my car and can't tell whether it's daytime or nighttime, I have bigger problems than the time. Sometimes people are just occasionally stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
It's winter here. It's dark at 6am and 6pm. Where's your little brother to tell me whether it's day or night?
Re: (Score:2)
It's night if it's dark.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but, do you start preparing for the day or for dinner?
Yes.
Re: (Score:2)
I've gotten home from work early, passed out still in my uniform, then woken up at 6pm in a panic thinking I slept all night and my alarm didn't go off. Actually made it back out the door, still in my uniform, and was halfway back to work before I realized it was PM, not AM.
I do not miss those days.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: So stupid (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So if I'm going across country and need the weather at my destination 1000 miles or more away two days from now, my local station is going to conveniently cover that for me...right?
I guess you could use the internet to listen to the local station at your destination...but this about doing it without the internet.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's mostly app developers who have the delusion that we need to know what the weather is like outside *right now*. But most of us do find information about what's coming pretty useful.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, being able to check the current temperature is useful too. I dress differently for my morning jogs depending on how chilly it is, which isn't always obvious from looking out the window.
Re: So stupid (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Weather can change rapidly. Up to date information is worth having. The news forecast is fine most of the time, but if tomorrow's snow gets moved by four hours while I'm sleeping and I leave before the morning news, suddenly I'm caught driving in a snow storm.
As to the post you replied to, who wants to sit around watching the news for that? Might as well have just gotten dressed, went outside, then came back in and changed clothes. It'd still be more convenient than timing your morning around the TV.
Re: So stupid (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
All the time growing up, I could tell the temperature by looking out the window. If there was snow, it was cold. If there wasn't it wasn't.
Seriously, I could easily tell the temperature by looking out my widow, because I had a thermometer there to look at!
Ahem.
Re: (Score:2)
How many hours into the future could your view from the window and your thermometer forecast?
Not helpful in Canada (Score:2)
If there was snow, it was cold.
That does not work in Canada. We get snow when it's warm (relatively speaking) as well.
Re: (Score:2)
So you don't work in a data center or cube farm where you can't see window. Or high enough your building is in clouds. To that's nice. But you are bring an ignorant fucknut if you think everyone lives in your tiny world
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it's delusional to have a desire to know the temp right now.
Re: (Score:2)
it's not, but its almost effortless to find out without the internet.
Re: (Score:2)
I used to work in a building that was inside of an old aircraft hanger. No windows, and the hanger windows were all painted over. It was a 5 to 10 minute walk from my desk to outside. Even now, it can look sunny and warm outside but a cold wind means it's actually below freezing.
Both are useful, and it's easier to display current data on the front screen. You can try and cram the weekly forecast on one screen, but it's just going to be some icons with no indication of what time weather events in the day
Re: (Score:3)
Ya, but ... (Score:3)
No Email. No WhatsApp. No Internet. This Is Now Normal Life In Kashmir.
At least they have really nice sweaters.
Re: (Score:2)
Why the fighting? (Score:2)
Why do China and India keep fighting over Kashmir? Are they sitting on gold mines or rare earth minerals?
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like it's mostly just a pissing contest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Most border disputes are, actually. Take any disputed land, territory or border and it's just a dick waving contest. From the middle east, to Taiwan and China, to US and Canada and many others.
(The US and Canada are disputing one itty bitty tiny island - which is why it's home to a rather useless manned lighthouse operated by Canada, and a US Marine base that's unoccupied most of the year except for a few days when they ship a
Re: (Score:3)
Why do China and India keep fighting over Kashmir? Are they sitting on gold mines or rare earth minerals?
It's not China that they are fighting, it is Pakistan mainly. They both claim the territory.
Re: (Score:2)
China claims part of Kashmir that the other countries claim too, but nobody seems interested in fighting China over the portion they control and China makes no claim to the portions they don't control.
Re: (Score:3)
Why do China and India keep fighting over Kashmir?
Pakistan and India fight over Kashmir.
Kashmir is predominantly Muslim, but they have little cultural affinity with Pakistan.
Polls (which are illegal) have indicated that Kashmiris would like to be independent of both India and Pakistan, which is why neither India nor Pakistan is willing to give them a vote on the matter.
It is unlikely that Kashmiris will ever accept Indian rule, especially as India is abandoning secularism and becoming more sectarian and repressive.
Re: (Score:2)
China's in there too; they claim and occupy some of northern Kashmir which India has never ceded to them. Pakistan's definitely the main rival, though.
Re: (Score:1)
There is also a huge part of Kashmir that would like to be part of Pakistan, since they are a Muslim theocracy and their faith tells them that all Muslims should unite and rule the world, violently where necessary.
Everyone wants the region to keep the other at bay. India won't cede control to Pakistan or China since it would allow a staging ground for invasion from them (the Himalaya's being the primary barrier right now); Pakistan has the same fears if India controlled the region; China just wants to contr
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
There is also a huge part of Kashmir that would like to be part of Pakistan
Do you have a citation for this?
Most Kashmiris want full independence, not a merger with Pakistan.
since they are a Muslim theocracy
Neither Kashmir nor Pakistan are theocracies.
Re: Why the fighting? (Score:2)
Pakistan is not a theocracy ? In name, mostly yes. But in practice ? You must be kidding.
E.g. https://www.dawn.com/news/1535... [dawn.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Pakistan is not a theocracy ?
No, Pakistan is not a theocracy.
In a theocracy, the government is run by priests or imans in the name of their religion. Iran is a theocracy. Vatican City is a theocracy.
E.g. https://www.dawn.com/news/1535... [dawn.com]
Just having a lot of influential religous bigots does not make a country a theocracy.
Re: Why the fighting? (Score:2)
If the imams are influential enough, they do end up running the country. So by your own definition, yes having sufficiently influential imams is indistinguishable from a country being a theocracy.
Re: (Score:2)
Also the part in the summary about "in any democracy" doesn't apply. India is denying democracy to Kashmir and an amazing display of repression. India right now is making a big show that democracy is only for the right sorts of people. While the riots this week may seem new, there's a history of the police and authorities being visibly passive during similar riots in the past, as if they're in agreement with the sectarian bigots without actively saying so out loud.
Wait what?! (Score:1)
hospitals struggle to care for patients
Because there's no internet? What - are they googling for the answers like IT people?!
Even presuming it's something "rational" like their diagnostic or monitoring electronics demand to "phone home" - That's still ludicrous because those things should be at the top of the list for not being IoTs!
Re: (Score:3)
Well, presumably they need medical and billing records, not to mention payroll. Also, radiologists don't use actual x-ray films anymore -- images are digitally transferred to their offices. And there's tracking tests that are sent out, which is pretty much everything other than the most routine stuff.
So, yeah. The Internet is pretty important to a modern hospital.
Re: (Score:1)
That's LOCAL net and the radiologists can still go to the hospital to view the records/results.
In a disaster the internet is going to be one of the first things that goes and if the hospitals are THIS dependent on it - to the point that they can't do healthcare without it, while they still have plenty of power and water - That's a problem.
Re: (Score:3)
We're talking about Kashmir here, which has 2.5 doctors per 10,000 residents compared to 5 per 10,000 for India, or 26 per 10,000 in the US. Hospitals are not exactly richly stocked with doctors, much less specialists.
Re: Wait what?! (Score:2)
You are an idiot. Internet is just one part of the story.
Hospitals are empty, because roads are blocked : https://indianexpress.com/arti... [indianexpress.com]
Timely phone calls save lives : https://indianexpress.com/arti... [indianexpress.com]
Not a democracy (Score:2)
"it's the longest-running internet shutdown in any democracy..."
I don't think it is a democracy anymore if people are being deprived of freedoms without their own input. The entire region is being seen as some sort of bounty for the larger country, and those in charge don't seem to care what people actually think.
Re: (Score:2)
an oppressive region can still have its leader decided by representative democracy.
Re: (Score:2)
Majority Rule [fairvote.org] by Piet Hein from Grooks I
Re:Not a democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it is a democracy anymore if people are being deprived of freedoms without their own input.
Democracy and freedom are orthogonal. People often vote for repression, especially of minorities.
Most Indians support the repression in Kashmir and PM Modi is popular.
Re: (Score:2)
So these Kashmirians, if they survive, will learn to accumulate guns and nuclear weapons in order to prevent a repeat of the current state of affairs. And if they do not survive, then not much of import will have been lost. People come and people go. That has been the way of things for millenia.
Re: (Score:2)
Kashmiris are not being killed, so "survival" isn't an issue.
They have no ability to arm themselves except by smuggling across the border from Pakistan. The border is locked down by the 600,000 Indian soldiers in Kashmir.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Or guns. Lots of Guns. And nuclear weapons. And the will to use them to bring peace to your enemies.
For the weather (Score:1)
You can still look out of the window, can't you?
Re: (Score:2)
No, not everyone can. Work in a data center or Warehouse or be in tall building in clouds, no you can't. Nor is temperature apparent. I'm looking out window to another skyscraper ten meters away, what weather is on ground I'm not sure. If snow or rain doesn't come from due west I won't see it , and normally it's winds/precipitation from SW
Re: For the weather (Score:2)
You don't live in the Kashmir, do you?
Re: (Score:2)
Democracy (Score:2)
Did the people vote to have their internet shut off? Did a majority of people agree to have security forces enforce curfews?
If the definition of democracy is so broad that it includes this, then it is meaningless. At best Kashmir is a suspended democracy under martial law, at worse it ceased to be a democracy and on the cusp of revolution.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Ah, of course my mistake. It's just like the US. We have democracy in the US even though we suppress democracy in other parts of the world.
Sounds Idyllic. (Score:2)
The Middle Ages are over (Score:2)
People need to wake up and stop killing each other over beliefs in myths and fairy tales. You want to be a part of normal society? Stop stabbing people just because they are wearing different color pajamas.
Not when you have the exact same mentality. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The belief that no one should be killed because of their beliefs is not a bigoted stance. Many would say that a religion that values the sanctity of life is morally superior to one that condones violence; it might be hard to prove this rigorously in a philosophical debate of course. Remember though that these religions that are often accused of being violent against non-believers very often have a very peaceful faction within them that is appalled by the violent impulses of other factions.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
No Email. No WhatsApp. (Score:2)
If it were only those two items, I'd expect a huge jump in productivity. "No Internet" is rather a problem, though.
OTOH (Score:2)
...now in Kashmir children are playing outside, books and music are being written again, and married couples are talking to EACH OTHER, instead of posting cat pictures on facebook or wanking to pr0n
So maybe it's not all bad?
Oh Dear! (Score:3)
No maps? No weather?
Must be nice to have no weather cuz it is -40 and snowing like a bitch here. What is it like with "no weather"? Is it hot? cold? snowing? raining? sunny? I guess it must be none of the above since those are all "weather". Hmmm. I wonder what it would be like to have no weather? Sounds like an interesting state of affairs!
And what happened to the maps? I have a map of Kashmir right here in front of me. Seems unchanged. Same paper. Same usual folding pattern that have been used for maps for as long as I can remember. Hmmm. What happened to their maps? Did Beezlebub suddenly burst them all into flames? I wonder ...
Re: (Score:2)
What is it like with "no weather"?
"No weather" means no access to 12-hour and 3-day forecasts.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it would be very nice at all... I suppose we need a definition of weather. To hit all the cases of sun, rain, snow, sleet, fog, clouds, wind, hot, cold, temperate, and so on, let's define it as "any sort of environmental
I thought Kashmir wasn't part of India (Score:2)
Not sure why India gets the blame when politicians in the region declare itself autonomous, while China, Pakistan and India claiming it as theirs but Kashmir being politically torn between self-governance and being part of Pakistan
I'm sure that China can give them unfiltered internet access, as could Pakistan if they wanted to be part of those countries. Or they could have a satellite.
It's called Divde and Conquer (Score:2)
Pakistan was split off from India by the British and the British did so not cleaning to make this territory a dispute. The Brtis did the same for a region between India and China. The same was done between Iraq and Kuwait. This is a western strategy of divide-and-conquer: by dividing a former unified country, they can ensure to control both new countries because the two divided countries will be fighting each other forever.
Re: (Score:2)
By no means the worst or the bloodiest part of partition, although it seems the longest lasting part.
Keep it real (Score:2)
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand wouldn't it great to not waste so much time on the biggest porn network ever created by mankind, by God I do waste far too much time looking up BS or playing online games. On the other hand I like being able to order food from my phone, pay my bills, transfer money instantly and check useful details like weather and bus and train timetables in realtime.
The worst side of the internet is social media and news media. The media uses the internet to feed us with
Re: (Score:2)
"On the one hand wouldn't it great to not waste so much time on the biggest porn network ever created by mankind,"
I'd much rather people be jerking off than making more babies. We're overpopulated already.
This seems really counter-productive (Score:2)
If I had previously been a moderate Muslim in Kashmir with a good paying tech job, and I was suddenly thrown out of work by India, I'd have nothing to do. I can see this radicalizing a lot of people.
No weather (Score:2)
And no weather.
Wow, they even shut down the weather? Talk about government overreach! (Though as a meteorologist, I'd be fascinated to know how they did it.)
So much for world's biggest democracy (Score:2)
It turns out that democratic regimes can shit on human rights too.
So... (Score:2)
How do i move to Kashmir?
How Kashniri Hindus were chased out by Islamists (Score:2)
Lets not forget why India is currently reclaiming Kashmir. The original inhabitants of the state (Kashmiri Hindu Pandits were chased out by Pakistan sponsored radical Islamists) in the 1990s.
"The mischief of the summer of 1989 started with Islamists serving the following notice including warnings from mosque loudspeakers: ‘We order you to leave Kashmir immediately, otherwise your children will be harmed- we are not scaring you but this land is only for Muslims, and is the land of Allah. Sikhs and Hi
In other news: Kashmir GDP rises by 400% ... (Score:2)
... as overall productivity skyrockets.
Salaryman Krishnaramanawana Shamalananashamashiri says: "It's awesome. I've finished up four projects this morning and will get to leave work to spend time with my family at 5 this afternoon. Again."
Kashmirs regional gouvernment considers deleting all mailservers before they go online again and send overall productivity into a nosedive.
Re: Anyone doing "whataboutery" is a Hindu bigot (Score:2)
Gandhi is rolling in his grave.
Re: (Score:2)
Many of the Hindus I know in the US look on in horror at what Modi is doing (or more accurately, his passive acceptance at what his allies and followers are doing). I have not heard one Indian in the US express support for Modi.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There's this marvelous technology, originally from China, it's called paper, you can print anything on it, maps, documents, QR codes you name it! The only downside is that you must provide your own light source.
Fire works well on paper.