In a message dated 4/28/00 5:10:12 PM Central Daylight Time,
sasha1@netcom.com writes:
> Do you know of any lists of important social (also economic, medical, etc.)
> problems that are yet unresolved, but could possibly be resolved with some
> yet-non-existent technology?
Many of the things that people consider to be serious unresolved social and
economic problems COULD be solved with existing technology (used in the
broadest sense), but are hard problems because of deep-seated social inertia.
I count hunger, population control and ignorance as three of the largest of
these. There is no technical reason today for any human being to be hungry,
or to have more children than they can raise properly, or to be ignorant.
> If you were asked to name such problems, what would you say
> are the most important?
I would say that the root problem of these serious soluble issues is
ignorance. Getting more and higher quality information into the skulls of
the world's poor would do more to solve all the other problems than any
other. I've written about my "Brain Seeds" idea here recently, so I won't
repeat it. I think it's a worthwhile, tractable technical project that the
"data rich" could undertake to help all of the world's poor.
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
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