Friday, March 6, 2009

The idea that this movie most reinforced to me was that fact that fair distribution of information technology is not a panacea for the divides we see in society. This movie followed the stories of multiple teenagers in a time period right before the tech bubble burst. In this time period, there was a lot of opportunity for people that had even basic tech knowledge to make a good living (50k+ per year) in graphic and webpage design. 
The system in which internet startups were often purchased by larger internet startups at a usually inflated price created a window where intelligent, hardworking, creative people could make a good living in tech jobs. We saw this at the end of the movie when Kep ended up with the job for the internet company. However, it seems the fact that he was hardworking, ambitious, and extremely eager to learn new things were more valuable assets in him getting the job that just his tech education alone. The girl going to Brown also seemed to have not only intelligence, but wealthy parents going for her.
While a tech education is a valuable thing have access to, it is not a concrete indicator of success in future life. Even a video that is pro-tech education could only produce a one- half success rate. Kep and the girl who went to Brown were the only two real success stories. Travis and Louisa still had to work low-tech jobs even with the education in technology they received. The point of all this, I think, is that tech-education is a great thing for high school kids to have access to, however, calling this the solution to the racial divide in this country is perhaps a little too optimistic of thinking.

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