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私はクリントン大統領は、弾劾裁判の前日にイラクを爆撃して以来嫌いですが、 この人がここで言ってる事についてはずっとそう思ってました。インターネッ トは、先進国・発展途上国間の情報隔差（情報は、現代社会においては何より も重要なリソース）を埋める可能性がある。

これと比べて、日本ではマスコミ・政府・個人とも、インターネットが広がり 過ぎると使える人と使えない人の情報隔差がついて良くありませんねえ、とか いう保守的な意見ばかり。

私が思うに、日本には、技術革新を愛する心が無い。それが無いから、金にな る、と明らかに分かるもの以外の新しいアイデアは常に潰される。ちょっと前 にひろと 武藤結花さん と、日本の基礎研究が良く ないのは何故か、という話をしてて、彼等は基礎研究に金が回ってないから、 と言ってたけど、主要な理由はそれじゃないと思うんだよね。アイデアが、新 しいというだけの理由で潰される。潰されるから、研究者 / 開発者は新しい 物を求めなくなる。必ず成功する事 - どこか外国で既に行われた事ばかりを する事になる。それはもう基礎研究とは言わないよね。

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Clinton-Internet.html

June 3, 2000

Clinton: Internet Can Fight Poverty

Filed at 11:40 a.m. EDT

By The Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) -- President Clinton floated some ideas Saturday for how the Internet could be used to improve lives and fight poverty in the developing world, from downloading school books in poor villages to marketing native crafts in cyberspace.

``We should recognize what an enormous potential the Internet has for bridging economic, educational and social divides,'' Clinton said at the closing of a Berlin conference on retooling government for today's global information society.

Clinton noted that Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien told the other leaders about how his government had connected remote Eskimo villages to the Internet.

``That has enormous health implications, enormous educational implications and, my guess is, enormous economic implications,'' Clinton said.

If schools in poor or remote spots had Internet-access, they'd also have the same access to knowledge as the rich world, he said.

``If you have a printer and a computer in a poor village, you don't have to be able to afford textbooks anymore,'' he said. ``It's a far more efficient way for government to spread universal information.''

Clinton also suggested ``a systematic effort to use e-commerce'' to market native arts and crafts from Latin America and Africa, which he said would ``increase the income of poor people in villages dramatically.''

He also described something he saw on his recent trip to India. A new mother was able to get quality up-to-date information on how to care for her baby by going into her village's health office and calling up a Web page.

``We're going to keep more babies alive because of the Internet,'' he said.

``Those of us in the wealthier countries should be providing the money and the technical support for countries to do more of this,'' he said, ``because it will move more people more quickly out of poverty I think than anything that's ever been out there, if you do it right.''