Re: Teach the hungry (Was: Hollywood Economics)

Mike Linksvayer (ml@gondwanaland.com)
Tue, 1 Sep 1998 18:54:10 -0400

On Tue, Sep 01, 1998 at 09:03:42AM +0200, Max M wrote:
> The biggest problem when it comes to the underdeveloped countries is not
> that their farmland is unfertile. It is that their infrastructure is poor.

Demonstrate an instance of widespread hunger due to slippery roads. I'll show you a dozen due to war and other political acts.

> What does bring wealth though is educated labor. Therefore the best thing we
> can do to help these countries is to educate them self.

Educated labor does not bring wealth for being educated. Education only increases returns. A consistent legal system is more fundamental. See Russia.

> A technological way to do this, and a good idea for an extropian bussines,
> would be to make a "hardware browser" for the internet. A touch sensitive A4
> screen that has the functionality of one of top browsers. If it then ran on
> solar power and connected to the net via sattelite it should be useable
> everywhere.
>
> Oh yeah... it should be dirt chep.
>
> <grin>Maybe drop them by airplane in the undeveloped areas. "Browser
> bombing."</grin>
>
> It would probably cost less than many other expensive foreign aid projects
> and would help the poor to help themself.

Cheap to you and perhaps relative to some other aid projects. Extremely expensive relative to the incomes of the poor. The primary beneficiary of such a project would be the producer of the gadget. Unsurprising. That's how many aid projects work.

I suppose such a device would also have a clickwrap agent to promote the transfer of dirt farmers' incomes to Disney and the spread of commercially produced culture's hegemony. 

-- 
Mike Linksvayer   http://gondwanaland.com/ml/