Egypt: Mubarak Refuses to Step Down, Protests, Looting Continues

Lemme guess, 10 years ago when there were barely any internet cafes. Totally why one of the first things the government did was try to wipe Egypt off the internet, which just resulted in even larger protests.

For someone who's lived in Egypt you seem to be pretty oblivious to how widespread and popular internet cafes are in cities in middle income countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, ect.

*edit*
lmao in fact, facebook is the second most popular site in Egypt following google egypt
http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/EG
(annnnnnd, wait for the inevitable I'm not going to believe that because alexa is part of the facebook-cia conspiracy network)

 

One thing that might actually come out of this if Mubarak is forced out is there's a decent chance the Gaza blockade at least on the Egyptian side will finally be lifted. Finally Gaza can have some sort of semblance of a functioning economy.

 

Well duh if you aren't just the smart little boy pulling ideas and comments out of your ass. So if 40% are earning 2 dollars a day then middle income must be around 6 bucks ? Gee whiz, If 6 dollars is middle income, then an hour of Internet access must be 5 cents.

Google is Google.. Nuff said.
And as far as alexa is concerned I thought that site and it's bullshit rating system was put out of its misery in 2002? I can not believe that there is still those that swear by it. Well what can you expect when more than a 1/4 of all self-professed webmaster in the United States learned their trade while in prison.

Fucksakes, it's 2011. When the fuck is the average webmaster going to grow up and go to business school? So that they can figure out how to provide real audience demographics on sites instead of this "number of hits" shit. Saying how many people visit a site is about as useful as counting cars on an exit ramp and trying to figure if the people in the cars are likely to buy red or white wine.

So let me ask you these questions,
Egypt with all those pyramids, mummies, etc would attract alot of tourists. Don't ya think? So how many of those people visiting Facebook in Egypt are american tourist sending pictures of their hotel room toilets to their friends.

And of the actual Egyptians, how many were militants and how many were just adolescents or horny men that are just surfing Facebook hoping to con some american girl into a non-censored webcam show?

 

I would ask where you pulled your figures from and how you made your extrapolations.

Furthermore quibbling about Alexa is missing the point.
"Second most popular site" is not going to be dramatically changed by adjusting the numbers a bit to attempt to count hits or visitors.

Business school to run a website, really now? Running a typical website is trivial and I don't see what a business education has to do with it.

If you seriously think that the number of tourists how come on short visits can possibly overwhelm even a miserable fraction of ~75+ million permanently resident population I have to wonder what on Earth you're thinking.

Your last sentence doesn't do you any favours, and simply makes you look like an imbecile, if I'm honest.
The world does not revolve around the USA... Yay for stereotypes.


As for Gaza, whilst I suspect that a new political body in Egypt/popular opinion may well eventually wish to open borders the border there, I doubt that Israel and the USA will have any of it.

 

But since you asked, in fact few of them are tourists. Guess what, whether you like facebook or not, most other people all round the world are on it

*edit*
For saying other people are buying into American stereotypes, you're the one who seems to think Egypt is a some bottom of the barrel third world country where no one has computer access despite the fact about 30% of Egypt routinely uses the web.

 

well, egypt kind of is a bottom of the barrel third world country. i've talked to people who have visited cairo and they just said that it was extremely poverty stricken.

 

No it's not, they're looking at it through western standards. Large cities always have huge areas of poverty, Camden, Comptom, Harlem, Washinton Heights, I can find you plenty of American places that look like third world countries compared to other western nations that have better social welfare systems.

Egypt is at the bottom half of middle income countries, this is why it's poor by relative standards, but also has internet cafes and coffee shops everywhere.

This is downtown Cairo:



http://www.cord.edu/faculty/andersod/080505Cairo.jpg

This is the main road in Bissau, capital of Guinea-Bissau, leading from the airport to parliament
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Bissau_main_road_to_airport.jpg

This is Serekunda, largest city in The Gambia
http://cache.virtualtourist.com/977575-A_STREET_IN_SEREKUNDA-Serekunda.jpg

This Ouagadougou, capita of Burkino Faso


These are third world countries.

Egypt's standard of living is pretty damn low by western standards, and on the lower end of Arab standards, but it's still better than nearly all of sub-sarharn Africa, Yemen, Indonesia, Mongolia, Tajistan, Pakistan, Turmenistan, Krygystan,(lots of stans) Armenia, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Burma, and a bunch of other places.

 

For those interested, Foreign Policy has a good article on essentially the Arab youth army of the unemployed that is among the main drives of all the unrest
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/27/the_arab_world_s_youth_army

 

Fuck off and quote me once where I said "Egypt is a bottom of the barrel 3rd world country."

Having lived there,
Large portions of egyptians work for the government, military, etc. And guess what? Facebook is blocked from them. But I'm not going to dispute webmaster self-justification bullshit. Because they're just a fucking group of marginally literate retards trying to make money (or in this case facts) from nothing.


So lets just kill this entire "the Internet organized the Egyptian revolution" theory.

I'm on here and several forums trying to get the average american to take action against the atrocities committed by the United States government. And you know what? I have yet to see a single brick thrown.

Perhaps it's my tactics? (Because I know that argument is coming)
Well lets see..

1) When I first started I got a lot of nice people saying nice things and about 70% of them agreed with me. 8 months later and no bricks.

2) So I tried to stimulate controversy with photos and various other shock tactics. But after 6 months I'm still waiting for brick.

3) Now I'm just angry and I'll just treat the dumb ass like a dumb ass. And guess what? No bricks.

I think my next attempt will be to register a facebook account. I'll post a photo of some hot blonde 22-year old girl in my profile. Then say that I'm an all american girl that loves the United States more than life itself but that brick throwing revolutionary men seeking to restore America to her former greatness make me wet and horny. Then I'll throw in a comment or two about bareback anal sex and killing all homosexuals for good measure.

I think that's the method that's going to cause an Internet based change in america. So should I buy that football helmet now? Or should I just practice dodging to avoid all those bricks?

You know what?
I'll tell you why shutting off the Internet and phone service made the situation worst in Egypt. Because all the fat lazy dumb asses that were content to just blog about the revolution had lost their Internet access. So out of boredom, they finally left their homes. Kind of like Homer Simpson going crazy when there was no TV and no beer.

 

@Love-Laughter

Arguing that because you failed to organise revolution in the US using the internet, the internet in Egypt must not have been a factor in initial distribution of information in theirs is tenuous to say the least.

Not sure that registering as a lunatic bimbo on facebook will much aid the US revolution, seeing as the majority of its inhabitants are comfortable enough and heavily reliant on the status quo.
In Egypt this was/is significantly less so. The nature and duration of the last government, including the recent economic difficulties, are not taken lightly.

I'm not sure either what you're hoping to achieve with all the bile over webmasters. Handwaving about it doesn't change the figures.


I'm mildly curious as to how long ago you lived there and what generation you relate with, but you are by no means compelled to answer, of course.

Edit: Skip's put it better than I have.

 

Mukarak dismisses hated interior minister, does nothing to appease protesters.

Opposition is calling for a march of a million tomorrow.

Police are also back in the streets for the first time since Friday, though they seem to only be doing standard policing jobs, directing traffic, protecting stores from looters, ect, and not interfering with the protests.

 

Food prices have been rising all over the world, it's not an effect of globalization. Sure if a country planted nothing but wheat there'd be tons of cheap bread for everyone, and anything else would be non available or expensive as hell. The 90's and early 00's when compared to the the last century were extremely cheap.

The past two years have been a combination of huge rising demand(that you can blame on globalization, but people having more options from greater economic wealth is not a bad thing), but severe weather in many countries has lead to terrible harvests around the world from Russia and India way over yonder to Australia and Canada.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11177214

*edit*
This combined with having happened during a huge recession makes for bad times. Even in the US and other western nations food prices for basic things like milk and eggs have gone up 20-30% in the past year, but we have the financial means to absorb the new burden without much notice, vs people in the poorer parts of the Arab world.

 

so because you posted some pictures of some buildings then that means that cairo isn't poor?

egypt is a country run by elites who are living well beyond their means while the vast majority of the population lives in poverty. it's confusing, because from the outside it doesn't look like they are doing that badly, when in reality this is just a picture projected by the elite.

 

Egypt is poor, it is not a third world country, that is the point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentage_of_population_living_in_poverty
18% of Egyptians live on less than $2 a day.

56% in the Gambia
60% in Indonesia
40% in Kenya
76% in Laos
83% in Nigeria
60% in Pakistan
50% in Tajikistan
45% in Yemen
40% in the Ivory Coast
the list goes on.

Those are third world nations by global standards. You know why those pretty pictures make a point? Because they're actually pretty. Egypt might be poor, but it's still has a functional level of wealth. Cairo and other large Egyptian cities have widespread internet access, cell phone coverage, basic road infrastructure, constant electricity, public transportation systems, universities, functional public schools, libraries, plumbing, a functional police and fire department, ect.

 

sadly the youth population in the usa is reaching the same stage.. Lack of jobs. Millions of college students not working with brand spanking new degrees... its all good though. There is always football.. And parents seem to really spoil their kids in this country..