[mjuhl24]

I wanted this article to be interesting, but it's quite flawed actually. The comparisons are weak, at best. You can't ignore how much more ubiquity there is in the world today. The Middle Ages were a time of discovery, in many ways. There was no global culture like there is today. This is due, in part to the fact that the globe is much more accessible, in terms of physical travel and information distribution (thanks, internet). This article is a great attempt to make the facts fit the assertion, but that doesn't make the assertion true.

[Retric]

There is still no global culture today. Also there are so many more poeple today that the number of people who don't do _ (ex: "speak English", "have access to the internet", "know how to read") has dramatically increased.

[mjuhl24]

Culture was probably not the word I wanted. There is a global "community", or "connectedness" that did not exist in the 12th Century. While there may be many people who don't participate in this community, they are still affected by it (directly or indirectly) and the world operates in an extremely different way because of it. In the 12th Century, information traveled one way (by foot), and the printing press wasn't even invented and wouldn't be for several hundred years. Now we can share information instantly across the globe, and if I really wanted to, I could hand deliver a letter to someone half-way around the world tomorrow.

[Retric]

There are probably people 1/2 way around the world you could hand deliver a letter within 24 hours, but I suspect there are more people you can't hand a message to within 24 hours now than there where alive in the 12th century. At the extreme, a random Peasant in North Korea and someone staying at mcmurdo station in Antarctica are both fairly inaccessible in those time scales, but so is most of China, and India.

PS: Granted, extend it to a week and the numbers shift, but at the edges the world is really not all that connected. Getting within 1000 miles of someone may be easy, but that's not contact.

[chipsy]

Yes and no. The world is a lot more populated, but also increasingly urban, which by its nature(more communication and transportation services in town) means a larger proportion of people are easy to access.

As well, the proliferation of cell phones into rural areas is a inestimable breakthrough in communication. We've only started to see the impact of this.