Comparing Current to Estonia 2010

Grand Slam
IN my point of view, Estonia is moving towards the "Grand Slam" scenario (the best realisation of both geographical location (transit) and innovative and educational potential.). I´m saying that despite the fact, that current economical situation in our country isn´t worth praising. But From the four scenarios described, I can see only this one truly having examples from different fields to support it. We haven´t really adopted anything Finnish like in our ways of dealing with the economy or society (social equality, higher taxation, stronger well-fare system), so I would argue with the South-Finland scenario. Also little angry country isn´t quite our way (no extensive militarism in here) and we can´t talk about Ferryman situation, while Ust-Luga port is being built behind Narva in Russia.

The main factors supporting Grand Slam choices right now are the E-Government system (when you think about it, one has to be proud of e-voting, e-health etc. systems that work/start to work here), the goal to built EU IT-Agency to Estonia (http://www.e24.ee/?id=176891) etc. We also have not abandoned our capabilies as a transit country - ports in Paldiski, Tallinn and Sillamäe are constantly expanding and with the cooperation from Estonian Railway the search for alternative transit-partners (China) is constantly ongoing.

Sure things are not perfect. But Estonian people really never want to be happy with everything. It is true, that too much self-admiration is despicable, but one needs to occasionally slow down and "smell the roses".

Importance of caring in reaching ubicomp in Estonia
It is important to stress out that ideologies are not limited to real life. One can have a conservative government, a conservative budget and why not - a conservative web-policies. So the question, whether or not the importance of caring in the internet (more precisely when reaching the information-based(-dependent) society) is important, comes down to one question: what do the majority of citizens (netizens) feel on the subject. Does helping the ones in need surpass the personal liberty of not caring of anyone but yourself? I, as a convinced socialist, do feel, that we cannot talk about a country-wide ubicomp, when not taking to account the differences between netizens. One cannot think that ubicomp can be reached simply by stating it as a goal. People need to be connected - Finland has made the right to access internet a human right, meaning if not able by himself, it is the governments duty to provide web access to the citizen. Caring although should not stop at that point. We then have to speak about training, hardware-providing, protection of fraud and internet-crime etc..

When a country reaches ubicomp, it simply addresses the fact, that their society now lies more on the web, when discussed about it´s functions and roles. So we cannot exclude caring as necessary factor from that system, because there has always been aid to the lesser ones. The tendency should continue, even when the system is binary.